Transfer thread for 2016-17 season

The worst part with PSG is that they actually have a very good academy set up yet are rarely affording their young players the chance to shine. Rabiot is the only one who's been given a proper chance but they lost Kingsley Coman who could quite possibly become one of the best players in world football, playing for PSG, Juve, Bayern and France seniors all before he turns 20 is incredible, Alphonse Areola is a great young keeper, Jean-Kevin Agustin has an impressive striking record at youth level but has had few chances what with Zlatan and Cavani around and there's likely others I've not heard of.

 

A couple of quotes from Poch in regards to Batshuayi and Umtiti

"We are looking for a striker this summer, that's clear...Michy's a young player who has a lot of talent. He is on the list of many clubs. We have quite a few people who have given us information about him. He has good potential. We'll see.

"We have other players in our sights too."

"Umtiti is one of the players that our recruitment department is following...He has interesting potential."

Hervin Ongenda is another one, as he looked like a genuine star waiting to happen a few years ago - but he's barely played for PSG since making his first team debut in early 2013.

Best get this on our Twitter ASAMFP

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Watching Coman against Atletico. The boy is quite a prospect.

 

I saw us linked with Saul Niguez a few days ago. I don't think we could afford him after tonight's goal.

 

Yeah absolutely, he's even said he has aspirations to become the best player in the world and it'll be hard to laugh at such a claim while he impresses like he has at such a young age. What is it with France at the moment? Pogba's maturing in to what I'd probably say is the best CM in world football right now and Coman looks to be following suit in terms of the attacking midfielder side of things, then you have Ousmane Dembele of Rennes catching about every top European team's eye after a great first season at Rennes.

 

Perhaps an unexpected side-effect of Monaco and PSG is that so many clubs cannot compete in the
transfer/wage cost arms race that they are being forced into finding and nurturing young talent instead.

Of course, if you do that and get asset-stripped every season then you are stuck into the vicious
circle until you achieve something that means these kids are not turned. Something Spurs know.

 

Another bunch of headlines
* Dembele II is apparently going to chose Dortmund over us. That's funny, a couple of weeks ago he was choosing Chelsea over us...
* Barca are willing to let perennial transfer rumour Marc Bartra leave for £9.25m this summer - and the two summers before it
* We apparently have zero interest in Laurent Depoitre anymore, as he's being linked to Middlesbrough, Kvetch Brom and...Villa?

 

Only Levy and the board can f**k it up from here on. Never have I had such conviction that the right man (and backroom staff) are at our club to take us forward. Tight wad better see sense and give Poch the contract, backing and finances he needs now. We have a massive opportunity to go to the next level and beyond. It's now or never.

Over to you Daniel. Think very VERY carefully about your next move but don't take too f**king long about it!

 

I suspect Pochettino is waiting to see how Levy backs him in the summer transfer market.
Getting the players he wants (within reason) and business done quickly (as Pochettino
allegedly wants) , and perhaps an extended contract will be signed.

 

Cue half a dozen hacks drawing a parallel between Poch's contract talks and his comments regarding Umtiti and Batshuayi...

 

"Cue half a dozen hacks drawing a parallel between Poch's contract EXTENSION talks and his comments regarding Umtiti and Batshuayii"

<fixed>

 

I still see Schurrle as having a future as a striker. He's certainly better there than Son and Chaldi imo and I assume he's better there than N'Jie although I've admittedly never seen him play there. We have a difficult situation to deal with in the summer. We need more backup options, particularly with the added CL football but we can't do a Chelsea and pay players like Falcao, Remy and Pato £100k a week just to sit on the bench and play a few minutes here and there. Bayern's second choice striker is Muller but Muller also gets plenty of games playing out wide, that's the kind of ideal scenario we need, 2 top strikers and both getting regular games. Schurrle could fit that kind of job for us. I wouldn't want to see any of our current squad to leave but I think we need to let one of Chadli and Son go. Pritchard's barely played 20 minutes of football this season and will surely be available more often next season and with Onomah also coming through I think we need to start regarding them as equivalent to a new signing, players that we need to make room in the squad for.

As for Topal. Never seen him play but I think if the last few years have taught us anything is that it's not about good value, it's about getting players that actually fit into our system. There was nothing wrong with Stambouli, he's a good player and we got him cheap yet it was still a complete waste of time bringing him in. I'd rather see Winks get more gametime than bring in some squad filler that doesn't fit into what we do on the pitch.

 

I thought that guy was Dembele III? **** this is confusing. Ban all Dembeles except ours!

 

I agree with you here Yv. However, I don't think we'll be selling Son this summer, despite him being a let down so far. The club are going to want to see something from him, and he needs a pre season and one more year before we can judge him, really. Its like lamela all over again. - hefty price tag, injured for a while and not seen anything worthy of the money. He'll definitely be here next season.

Personally I don't see how Chadli suits our system and I don't think he would have been the sort of player Poch would have signed. For me, he's only here still because he's the best of an average bunch of squad players, and we've kept him because we couldn't afford to make any more wholesale changes last summer. - too much disruption otherwise.
We've found out this season that he can't play in Kane's role, and to be honest, he's not direct or fast enough when playing in the wide role either. With N'jie not having had a look in all season and being ready for next, I wouldn't be surprised to see Chadli shipped out to raise funds for a CL upgrade. As you've said, Schurrle for example, could play that role, and potentially give us great value for money as an alternative in Kane's role too.

IMO, We need a happy medium this summer where we sign a few youngish but experienced CL ready players who'll provide us more options where we currently struggle, and cover for injuries. But we also need to allow a few more youngsters to gain experience like onomah has had this season.

 

I've read that there's a bit of a power struggle going on at Milan, with Silvio Berlusconi stubbornly looking to cling to power even though there's two Far Eastern multinationals looking to buy the club (Alibaba Group from China, the spectacularly named Hutchison Whampoa Limited from Hong Kong) - and naturally this had led to the rumours of us bringing in Keisuke Honda being dusted off.

There's an issue with this, though: not only would signing Honda subject us to Alan Shearer calling him "Keysook" all season when the proper pronunciation is "Kay-skay" but Honda simply doesn't fit in with Poch's philosophy - he turns 30 in June and he's been struggling for match fitness for a large chunk of this season, and those two things make him the antithesis of a Poch signing.

For the sake of seeing if something else I made up finds its way onto the BBC Sport gossip section (which is exactly what happened when the Fail reported we were after Alen Dzagoev a couple of weeks after I blatantly made up a transfer rumour on here...) if there was any Milan player that would fit into Poch's philosophy it would be Andrea Bertolacci: he's 25 so would fit into Poch's philosophy, his style of play can cover both Dembele and Dier in central midfield, while his passing ability would replace the (presumed) departures of Bentaleb and Carroll this summer.

 

Whampoa (or Won Boh in Cantonese) is a district in Kowloon where part of the
company was formed. Lee Ka Sing (the owner) is a very big fish indeed.
Silvio better watch out.

 

Dumb clickbait headline I read this week: Spurs' will have to increase wages due to Champions League football

Errm...really? Is bumping up everyone's wages by ten grand a condition to enter the Champions League? Ho comes that little nugget of information hasn't been revealed to the public? And does this rule apply for just once, or do teams have to increase their wages every Champions League season - meaning that Olympiacos players are on Chelsea-level wages?

What makes this headline even more nonsensical is that it ignores something remarkably obvious: since this time last year, here's some of the figures Spurs have got off their wage bill
Adebayor - £100k p/w
Holtby - £67k p/w
Soldado - 60k p/w
Lennon - £55k p/w
Paulinho - £55k p/w
Capoue - £50k p/w
Townsend - £38.5k p/w
Kaboul - £35k p/w
Stambouli - £30k p/w
Naughton - £27.5k p/w
Chiriches - £25k p/w
Friedel - £25k p/w

In total, getting those players off our wage bill has saved the club over half a million quid per week in wages. Obviously some of that saving has been invested elsewhere with the arrivals of Alderweireld, Alli, Wimmer, Son, N'Jie and Trippier, plus improved contracts for Kane, Alli, Dier, Dembele and Onomah plus the deals we've offered Eriksen, Lamela and Vertonghen in the last couple of months, but even a conservative estimate says we have £250k per week sloshing around our wage budget. Or to put it in more simple terms, getting Adebayor off our wage bill alone means we can bump up five players' weekly wage by £20k each without having to balance the budget elsewhere.

 

Tottenham captain Hugo Lloris, 29, is set to commit himself to the club for the next five years. (Sunday Mirror)

Saw this on the BBC gossip page once Mauricio signs looks like the players will too

 

Oh Great Spirit, we thank you for the day that United decided they had to have Van Gaal and Levy was prevented from making another disastrous appointment. From that one decision has sprung a whole new future. He can now demand £25m a year for stadium naming rights as we have half the England team. The good half. Nike are on board with a great kit deal.

Players like Hugo, Vertonghen and Eriksen who had seen enough of Tim and AVB are now committed to the cause. Our manager has committed himself to the club for another 5 years and stated what he wants to do beyond that. That would take him beyond Keith Burkinshaw in terms of length of stay and behind only Bill in the modern era.

One of the many huge benefits of Mauricio's staying is that Levy trusts him completely and is letting him get on with it and concentrating on business and the stadium. Paul Mitchell, John McDermott and Mauricio Pochettino present a joined-up view of the club's present and future. No more Baldini or Commolli working against the coaching staff's transfer wants. I trust that, whoever we buy and sell, it will improve the team.

His influence has transformed our club and from the way he speaks, he has found his.

 

Is that the article in the ES quoting Arry junior ?? The bitters do so love to sell our players, don't they.

He missed the obvious facts : Spurs have not lost key players in the past decade solely due to them being wage sluts.
Said players have also got silverware (PL, CL etc) into the bargain too. And just to spoil the Narrative (TM) :

- Spurs have not lost key players the summer before a CL campaign season
- some of those players have been retained for 1-2 additional seasons WITHOUT CL (Bale, Modric)


Back on planet Earth ... Levy will once again have to address the likely increase in wage bill.
It ramped up significantly for the 2010-11 season, and he has done wonders to effectively plateau
the wage bill from that season til now. No doubt he will have to work hard to keep the next ramp low.