Interesting piece from Alasdair Gold’s Q&A today (one of the few journo’s who isn’t a complete prick): “Mourinho has got Parrott doing special extra training sessions at Hotspur Way to work on his development.” So sounds like he’s getting treatment akin to Ndombele with regards to perhaps an individual regime in order to get him ready.
I remember a similar comment from either him or HITC (or, likely, HITC via him) a few weeks ago I may have made a snarky comment about it somewhere...
Whilst I totally agree that Grealish should be in the England squad, I think we can safely suggest that Winks will be selected, Southgate is clearly a fan and so far he has always played well when picked, but international football is often played at his pace with more space and less intensity, though strangely is best games for us this season have been when the opposite is true!
Bundesliga Rando Watch Bild are linking us with Hoffenheim midfielder Florian Grillitsch, who was previously linked with us last summer, and his €25m release clause is still in place Given he looked like a cost-effective Dembele replacement at the time, there's one of two ways you can look at him being linked with us again: the more conservative way is that he's seen as a replacement for the soon-to-be 31 years-old Moussa Sissoko...but if you want clicks, say it;s because we're sacking off Ndombele and replacing him with the cheaper Bundesliga option Ligue 1 Rando Watch Because strikers are currently on the club's agenda (unless they're playing for our academy teams in which case they certainly aren't) we're also being linked with Amiens striker Sehrou Guirassy, who sounds uncannily like every other Ligue 1 striker we've been linked with latesly: powerful, good in the air, and of West African extraction so has probably been called "the new Drogba" somewhere online at some point However, rather than the target men we usually get linked with, he does seem to play more as a poacher - although the obvious takeaway with him being linked is that, while he would be an understudy for Harry Kane, he'd also be an obstacle for Troy Parrott Turk Watch The rumours about our interest in Trabzonspor keeper Ugurcan Cakir don't seem to be going away, with yet another batch of reports of us sending scouts to watch them filtered through at the weekend - although the obvious issue (other than us never signing any of the dozens of Turkish players we're linked to every season...) is Trabzonspor's chairman is now slapping a £25m price tag on him, and given we have Hugo in place that means we'd be paying a hefty sum for the bloke who might be replacing him a year or two down the line, let alone the ongoing issue of having approximately 73 youth keepers at the club and surely one of Whiteman, Austin, De Bie, Oluwayemi, Kurylowicz or Solberg might actually graduate to the first team at some point...right?
This might actually have something about it... https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2020/02/...am-target-hires-new-agent-he-brokered-aurier/ Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg now has Pini Zahavi as his agent. His contract at Southampton expires in 2021, so he'll have a year left come this summer. He's the right age and we were strongly linked with him in January and Zahavi and Levy seem to be getting on very well of late. Soooo........................ ...................he's Liverpool bound....obviously.
Another player who sounds uncannily like a long-term replacement for Sissoko (or, if you're after the clicks, definite proof that we're binning off Ndombele this summer) Just a thought: shouldn't we be looking for a long-term replacement for Verts, as Inter seem to be whispering in his ear a bunch lately?
OK player but nothing that makes me think "yeah, he'll really improve us". Probably would've taken him in January as we were struggling with form and fitness in the area but I don't see him being ideal for a summer signing now. If we're to raid Southampton for a midfielder I'd rather it be Ward-Prowse, if just for the set piece delivery, plus he's HG. Feels like Pool have already sucked up the Southampton players good who can go onto great things though.
I’ve said before that I like him and I think he’d add to us - good player at a good age, if we can cap it off by getting a good price then I think it could be a canny buy at DM to free up budget for other problem areas of the squad. Gotta say I’m not so sold on JWP, his set pieces are great but we always find a way to take that out of players and I’m not sure there’s a huge amount more about his game that we don’t already have.
Given the amount of shopping that we have to do this summer, a 'discounted' player with strong PL experience, who is said to be interested in coming here, can't be sniffed at. There was a lot of scepticism about Big Vic when we signed him but he was great until he got broken. I think that this guy might do a good job for us too. If it means that we've stitched up an early deal and have money left for full backs, it sounds pretty good to me. . Plus, he's a captain. We could do with some of that.
No doubts that we need a centre half (maybe two?). The problem is that we also need 2 full backs, a keeper, a striker and a combative midfielder, just to get back to a proper squad depth, without even thinking of upgrading. That should be north of £150m and possibly a lot more. We've got lots to move on too. I think that Jan's gone. I don't want us to become like Arsenal in the late Wenger years, keeping Koscielny, Mertesacker, Rosicky, etc. Beyond their time. We need to be bold and get this done
What's obvious is that this summer our squad needs two approaches: the scalpel and the broadsword The scalpel is the easy one, as that's trimming the squad of players who aren't up to standard which would free up squad places and some funds, i.e. Rose, Wanyama, Aurier, Vertonghen, Vorm, Carter-Vickers, Georgiou - and the only remotely controversial name on that list would be Aurier, although that's mainly because a section of our support think "improvement" is the same thing as "playing some games" Broadsword is the difficult one, however, not just because there's a bunch of names it can be guaranteed will piss off the fanbase if they're sold, but also you need balance as you can't dispose of every name on the list so have to make sure you move on the right names while getting their replacements i.e. Sissoko, Lucas, Dier, Alderweireld, Lamela, Foyth - for example, if we sold both Dier and Sissoko but only brought in one of Grillitsch/Hojberg/Kessie/Soumare our midfield would look even more porous than it has at times this season
I’d take the risk til the end of the season. If he can be fit for just 4-5 games I’d consider that a plus. We need a goal scorer to get a proper shape back rather than utilising players out of position.
works for me too...get us through to the end of the season. injuries aside..the guy is a superb player. We can dump him in the Summer
We can't sign Sturridge. There's a Premier League rule that only allows out of contract players to sign if they were eligible in the last window.
Okay, but apart from being banned until the end of the season due to betting irregularities and the Premier League rule that's in place saying we can't sign him... Still, in some good news, Ben Foster has rubbished reports that we're looking to sign him this summer. Good. Imagine how long goalkeeper training sessions would last with his timewasting? Hugo wouldn't get home until 2am
