Bale has long been in an ego-driven squad (anathema to Pochettino) . Can he revert back to the mindset of 2009-12 to help the Spurs cause ?? "Can't we have a more balanced squad and Bale on Loan?" Dunno. If Levy thinks the bottom line works out, then yes.
Sissoko has replaced Dembele. He doesn’t have the technique but his pace and power has taken over that Dembele type role. What Spurs need is someone with creativity and that’s what Tielemans has in abundance, he’s also shown he can do it in the Prem too AND he’d cost less than Ndombele, which would allow us to focus money elsewhere, either on another CM to beef up the numbers (Grealish/ Fernandes) or elsewhere in the squad. As I’ve said, Ndombele looks great and if he joins I’d be delighted but I just think right now, with Sissoko playing the way he is, I’d rather sign someone with different strengths rather than someone who’s just a little bit better than Sissoko. Because even with Ndombele, we’d still ideally need a creative playmaker in the middle.
The way I look at it, shelling out £35m for Bale and Sessegnon would be ideal - we get proven (if injury-plagued) quality in the squad and the potential boosts that would involve, while also taking the focus off of Sessegnon to deliver thus allowing him to settle into the side without the pressure of delivering immediately - and if he spends a season shadowing Bale, that could improve his game So of course Bale breaks his leg two games in, Sessegnon gets thrown in the deep end, and we have a repeat of the Kaboul/Janssen situations all over again...
More selective in certain periods, yes, IE when we’re playing three games in seven days of course he’s got to rotate better but as with most of others sides, there will still be a primary midfield pairing who’ll play the majority of games providing they’re fit.
That makes a lot of sense but the problem Spurs have is that we’ve got more than just three midfielders. With Ndombele, Tousart and Aouar, they’re all playing huge amounts of games between them throughout a season because whoever doesn’t start is likely to come off the bench. I still also think that we’d need someone more creative to go along with Ndombele, someone to take a Modric like role hence why I’d like Tielemans/ Grealish and why I was so desperate for Frenkie to join (**** Barca). So if we potentially had Ndombele, Tielemans/ Grealish, Sissoko, Dier and Winks (excluding Wanyama as I expect him to leave) and all remained relatively fit (I know, wishful thinking there) fitting all that into two spots would be tough. Due to current pecking order I’d expect at least one of Dier or Winks to become unhappy midway through a season. *UNLESS* Poch decides to save money on replacing Toby should he go and drops Dier back into CB.
Not sure what N'Dombele has done to deserve all this hype. He plays in a shockingly bad league. I would see spending circa £70m on a product of the french league as an absolute last resort. Seri was similarly hyped and he failed to deliver.
Bale on a loan would be something I’d be very interested in. Shelling out £80m on a soon to be 30 year old with a poor injury record would make zero sense from our (or anyone’s) perspective. But a £10m loan with a portion of his wages covered? Seems a no-brainer to me.
Huh? Say what? You are saying similar things to me, yet disagreeing. How can Sissoko take the place of Dembele without his technique? Sissoko has covered for the absence of Dembele, but can't replace him because he doesn't consistently do all of the things that Dembele did. We are therefore still missing a CM with pace, power, and technique plus the ability to pass, on top of the other areas you mention. That's like me saying that Winks has replaced Modric, because he is short and can pass, when Modric did more than that for us. No? Or that Trippier has replaced Kyle Walker, even though he doesn't defend as well. I love Sissoko's contribution to the club, and his improvement has been stellar, I'm glad we got him when we did and I'm grateful, but I'm not drunk on his success. If Sissoko were to go the way of Wanyama due to age and fatigue, what then? Where would the future of our CM lie? Winks? Get Tielemans? Yes! Get Ndombele? Yes! BOTH! Why either or? Ndombele would be first on my list if I were Pochettino, having seen what having such technique and guile in one CM player in a pivot does for the team. You're talking as if you are controlling the money and you're sure we don't have enough. Us not buying anybody for two seasons, on top of selling players, and having new stadium income, is at least the equivalent of selling a Bale. How could we not have money? I beg, let us start giving Pochettino the targets that best represent how he wants the team to set up for the next five years, and stop this 'make do' mentality. At least I hope that is what Poch means when he says we must start acting like a big club, and that we need new furniture for the new home.
I hope he does. I'm still not sold on Dier as a DM. Not good enough on the ball or mobile enough to truly be effective in that position. And is also still prone to red mist and lapses in concentration. If anything I'd like to see him and Foyth swap roles. The latter is young and very inexperienced but looks so comfortable on the ball and carries it out from the back with confidence. Dave was surely the long-term Toby replacement. We now need to focus on bringing in a young, preferably left-footed CB to replace Jan.
You may be right. Who knows? Lots of players failed to deliver in that Fulham team though. No? Seems like we are always the team waiting for someone else to bite though, then when they prove themselves, it's too late for us. Brooks. Tielemans. The list is far longer. Pep seems to see him as worthy. Not that he is incapable of a mistake. For me, he has a similar style to Dembele. That's all. What do I know? I think Poch would work wonders.
I can see that possibility too, with Dier focussing on his CB role, and Foyth taking the utility player hat for a season or two to broaden his experience. Bringing in another young CB would leave us with Jan, Dave, Dier, new CB and Foyth. The only thing that worries me is that we need Dier and/or Dave to begin to step up as a leader of the back line, with Toby gone and Jan coming to the end of his time with us and not getting any younger, we need a voice to emerge back there to replace them, particularly as Lloris isn’t the most vocal IMO.
Ndombele Watch Le10 Sport have reported that The Sheikh Mansour Team submitted a bid, but Lyon told them va te faire foutre - which may or may not be related to what I said about Lyon wanting to secure CL football first, which a win at the weekend against relegation-threatened Caen would do On the subject of how he plays, here's a supercut of his performance in Lyon's 3-0 win over Marseilles at the weekend, where not only does he pull off the sort of passes Dembele or Sissoko never try, but if you skip to 1:29 you'll see the sort of assist that Dele Alli would think was taking the piss I get what Citizen Kane is saying about the quality of Ligue 1, but that doesn't mean that all players in that league are big fish in a small pond - after all, the likes of Eriksen, Vertonghen and Sanchez came to us directly from the Eredivisie and they've all done well
This season I believe that Spurs have only played 5 games less than the max possible for a top 6 PL team. 60 odd games there.
I don’t understand the fixation with thinking we need to replace Dembele with a carbon copy. Dembele was primarily in the side to be the guy to transition defence to attack and that’s exactly what Sissoko has done this season, they just have different skill sets in doing so. Dembele relied on his ballerina type movement to glide past players, Sissoko just bulldozes through them but both had the same effect. This is why I think the priority needs to be on a player with different attributes. Someone who can create from deep and grab a goal or two, hence why Tielemans is the one I’d rather bring in above all. If we have enough for Tielemans AND Ndombele then amazing, but considering we have RB to worry about as well as likely replacements for Toby and Eriksen, not forgetting improvements to the squad, I just think we have be realistic as to how much we can spend on one particular position. I’d rather say spend circa £70m on Tielemans and Grealish/ Fernandes than around £110m on Tielemans and Ndombele because that allows us to spend big on other areas.
In other Lyon news... Le Parisien have reported that we're considering a move for Nabil Fekir should Christian Eriksen leave Have they been reading this forum too?
My fixation is not having a carbon copy, I seek an improvement. Dembele did more than just glide passed players and bulldoze them at times, he helped us control games and retain possession like no other since Modric. I'd like someone who has the potential to be better than Dembele was for us. Especially in the final third with assists and goals. Sissoko isn't it. He never was, especially at the age we got him. That is my point. As good as he is for us. He is a squad player, now an extremely good one. He's not going to grow into the CM controller with more attributes, and play for us at the top level for the next five years plus. Ndombele potentially ticks all of those boxes. Wanyama is also likely to leave, meaning we will have sold two 'first choice' midfielders, and bought none. It is rebuild time. Poch knows it, as does Levy.
Ndombele isn’t a huge enough improvement than Sissoko right now. For £70m it doesn’t seem like the best of ideas. We haven’t controlled the midfield because we don’t have that creative player to do so. Hence why I’m not a fan of Winks because I don’t think he has the necessary attributes to play for a top four club. His style is too safe for what we need. If we were to put someone like Tielemans alongside Sissoko, that can potentially match any CM pairing we’ve had over the years. The form of Sissoko this season has arguably been as good as anything Dembele has done. His turnaround from headless chicken to key CM has been crazy. It’s why many felt he’d be a worthy Spurs POTY contender. He’s definitely no longer a backup, he’s one of the first names on the team sheet and so for me it’s about signing someone to play alongside him right now rather than instead of him. Maybe in the summer of 2020 we’ll have to look at a potential replacement but right now, I don’t have any immediate concerns with Sissoko going into next season as first choice and so I’d rather focus on the problems we currently have which is finding a good enough player to play alongside him, not instead of him.
Graun claim that Bale is on about £14m per year and we’d have to cover half his wages AS WELL AS paying a £10m loa fee. So that’s the best part of £20m for a year of Bale...edging towards a no from me, Geoff
