So I thought I'd rate the arrivals and departures at the club on a deal-by-deal basis. Key: A* being great business - F being we got done like a kipper. Most fees are according to reports in the press that I've seen. Departures: Saha & Nelson - Released - C- - Actually think we could/ should have kept both for another year, Saha especially, very good option to have on the bench and Nelson by no means put in a bad display. Corluka - £5m - D - Thought Charlie was a good solid defender and if the fee we got was only £5m having paid out £8m to get him, think we got a little shafted there. Niko - £5.5m - B+ - Always a great squad player to have but he was never really going to be a first teamer with the players we had. We supposedly paid Pompey £2m to get him, so we made great business there. Pienaar - £4m - A - A player who undoubted quality yet couldn't produce it for Spurs. Found him annoying in the end with his constant "side ward play" - never looked to attack much. Again, got back double what we paid. Alnwick - Unknown (released?) - B - Needed to go. Had no future. Bassong - £4.5m/ £5m - C - Was unfortunate not to play, a good defender, just a case of there were better players in his position. Didn't get enough game time so getting £4.5m/£5m isn't bad, £3m loss. David Button - Unknown - D- - A keeper that was highly thought of at the Lane, impressed on loan, would liked to have kept him as a future back up to the number 1. Luka Modric - £33m rising to £38m - B - Best midfielder (arguably best player along with Ledley, Bale & Berbatov) I've seen in my 22 years of supporting Spurs, unbelievable talent, yet his behaviour in the past two Summer windows was appauling. We knew we were gonna lose him -especially without CL football - and I'm glad he's gone abroad to arguably the best team (certainly the biggest) in the world. Think we could have got a bit more but receiving £30m+ on a player is always good business (unless you've paid more than that obviously ). Rafa - £10m/£11m - F - Brilliant player, loved scoring against Ars*nal, one of our top scorers, linked play brilliantly at times, wasn't desperate to leave and yet we only made a £2m profit. A huge loss. But best of luck, he's back at a place he loves. Dos Santos - £4m - C+ - Decent amount for a player who featured about 10 times for the first team in 4 years. No doubt he had huge potential but his loss hasn't effected us as we never really got to see what he could actually do on a regular basis. Arrivals Sig - £8m - B - Beat off competition to land a young, goal scoring midfielder with a good set piece. Hasn't fully shone yet but I'm hoping he's just finding his feet. Verts - £8m - A- - Erevidisie player of the year, captain of Ajax, £8m is decent money for a player who we needed to replace Ledley with. Not the most rugged of defenders, though very silky with with ball, can also play LB so will keep Benny on his toes. Given time to learn alongside Gallas/ Dawson/ Kaboul, he'll become an extremely good CB in my opinion. Ade - £5m!!! - A* - A top, top striker on his day, can score and provide, at £5m we're absolutely laughing. Mousa Dembele - £15m - A* - An amazing talent, less than half the price of Modric but by no means half the player, obviously I don't expect him to reach the exact level of Modric but I think we have a real gem of a player here. Hugo Lloris - £9m+ - A - One of the world's best goal keepers, France captain, the man who'll replace Friedel and worthy of the challenge too, Friedel has been a master signing but we all know he won't be around in the long run. Very surprised we've manager to get Lloris in all honesty. Dempsey - £6m - A - Like Ade, an absolute bargain. One of the best and most consistent midfielders in the Prem, great versatility and an eye for goal, a complete attacking midfielder in my opinon. Happy to have him on board. Overall Window Activity - C+/ B-. Could really have done with Moutinho and perhaps another striker while also getting rid of deadwood like Jenas & Bentley but the people we have added to the ranks are all of top, top quality and aslong as AVB see's sense (or we can replace him - I'm sorry but never been a fan and he's not done himself any favours with his selections, tactics and treatment of Dawson & Huddlestone) we can really push on from last season with a squad that, despite losing 3 of its best players in Ledley, Luka and Rafa, is potentially stronger and capable of great things. Will be good to see your views, don't need to long it out with the reasonings like I have, the grades will be interesting enough
i think we are slightly weaker. We had Ade last year so i'm ignoring him. We lost 3 world class players in King, Modric and Rafa. We brought in 1 WC player in Lloris but in a completely different position. I'm very excited by Dembele as i love watching him play. He isn't world class, yet, though. Vertonghen, again, could prove to be WC but at the moment isn't. I'm not sure the squad depth is much better. We lost a lot of players that Harry simply didn't use (eg, Krancjar) albeit we did adequately replace those. So, in short: Squad depth - similar to last year, hopefully better utilised First XI - slightly weaker than last year. The question for me is whether a better utilised squad will compensate for a slightly weaker first XI. Allowances have to be made for the change of manager/system though. I don't expect us to acrue as many points as last year. [Edit] Grades Departures: Saha - Release - D (Should have kept) Nelson - Released - A - (Not needed) Corluka - £5m - B+ - (Wanted out. Topped up the coffers) Niko - £5.5m - B+ - (Ditt) Pienaar - £4m - C - (never worked for us but worth more than £4m to Everton. They got a good deal there) Alnwick - Unknown (released?) - A - (who cares?) Bassong - £4.5m/ £5m - B - (looked error prone for us. Has talent, but happy to take the loss) David Button - Unknown - A - (never gonna play. Any money is good) Luka Modric - £33m rising to £38m - C - (good money, but was our cog) Rafa - £10m/£11m - F - (sadface) Dos Santos - £4m - B - (never made it) Arrivals Sig - £8m - B- (great prospect and first teamer this year) Verts - £8m - A- (first choice, or should be) Ade - £5m!!! - A* (bargain of the century) Mousa Dembele - £15m - A (proven prem quality, still a hefty fee for us) Hugo Lloris - £9m+ - B+ (looks a top keeper, but knocked down because i feel other areas should have been a priority) Dempsey - £6m - B (good player, will be a regular. Seemed like a last minute buy after something else fell through. 29, so not young and i still think Rafa is the better player)
Good points there Spurm. I think Dempsey will do a good job of replacing Rafa, may not be as technically gifted but he has an eye for goal like him. I suppose you're right, we are slightly weaker first team wise, any team that loses Modric and King will be affected but I wouldn't say we're weaker to the point of where I'd expect us to finish lower than last season (though the manager isn't helping us at the moment). Squad depth I think we're stronger, reason being is we've replaced players like Niko and Pienaar (who in my opinon, didn't try hard enough and therefore weren't as effective as what they could have been) with young exciting players like Townsend and Carroll who are desperate to impress. Caulks, Naughts + new signings have added to the competition for places. Interesting about the LLoris one there though, actually agree that the momeny could have been invested elsewhere but I also feel at that money, we couldn't turn the chance to sign someone like him down. Easily worth £15m-£20m in my opinion.
I still think 4th is achievable, but it will be with less points. Arsenal look weaker, but Wenger will get them going again. Newcastle look about the same but i think they overachieved last season. Everton will be there or thereabouts. They've started ok which is typically their downfall. I think there will be a sizeable gap from 3rd to 4th this year and 4th-6th (maybe 7th) will be very close. I wouldn't be surprised to miss out on CL qualification by 3 points and finish 7th tbh because i see a lot of teams taking a lot of points off the CL contenders throughout the season.
We are not weaker this season cause we have lost Ledley. Last season he wasn't anywhere near his best and so having Vertongen over King is an improvement. The Ledley of 5 years ago, now that is a different matter.
I'd mark us down for the transfers that we didn't make. The 6 that we brought in are all positive, intelligent signings, in my opinion, but we failed to do some business which needed to be done. We didn't sign anyone suitable as back-up and competition for Adebayor and we failed to move on Bentley or Jenas, who don't seem to have a place in the side.
He looked dodgy in a couple of the later games last season (especially norwich but there was another couple too) which was clearly down to him not being fit, even by his standards. Lets not forget that King played practically every game in the run of 10 wins and a draw which is the period that totally set up our entire season.
really happy with all the signings we made. Think you've pretty much hit the nail on the head there SOS. would tend to agree on the sales, too. Except for VDV. We did the right thing selling him. But the sale of him and Modric combined, left us a little worse off in terms of remaining quality, IMO. but, We've signed a world class keeper. we've also signed 2 other players that could become world class. A set piece specialist and proven prem attacking midfielder and a versatile player in Dempsey... who just plays... well... anywhere really. - and more importantly, will score goals. o and ade, who's done a good job already. can't make my mind up about the first team and squad at the moment. we've signed players in many different positions which'll we needed to make the squad stronger overall. but at the same time, we've sold a hell of a lot of players (most needed to be) and left ourselves with a lot of youth. whilst I agree with this and want the youth to succeed, it's a lot to put on young shoulders. But then I suppose they need to be thrown in at the deep end really. anyway.. onwards and upwards, and we'll sort out anything we need/don't want in January!
4th is definitely achievable with the squad we have. My concerns is with the manager as I've already stated. Hopefully he wins me over by playing "The Spurs Way" of attractive attacking football - in which I'm sure the wins will come.
Departures: Saha & Nelson - Released - C- - tend to agree - both would have provided good squad cover. Corluka - £5m - B - Charlie was a good solid defender but too slow and his attitude stank towards the end. Wouldn't make 1st team and wouldn't have been happy as reserve. Niko - £5.5m - B+ - Agree - but with proviso that he was one of Harry's 'ignored' so was always struggling for consistent game time Pienaar - £4m - C - Diagree - good player who never really had a chance to prove his worth - either through injury or team selection. He was on a hiding to nothing, yet behaved impeccably. Alnwick - Unknown (released?) - A - can't disagree with that. Bassong - £4.5m/ £5m - B - Went from good prospect to....... Good prospect. Simply never developed as hoped and always looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights - or 'Bambi on Ice' as someone once described him. David Button - Unknown - D- - Don't know enough about the lad to comment. Luka Modric - £33m rising to £38m - B - Had to go - just the late window transfer possibly exacerbated other problems. Rafa - £10m/£11m - C - Great player for us but injury prone and seldom completed 90mins. He clearly was happy to go to Hamburg for family reasons and I wish him well. We made a profit. Good business. Dos Santos - £4m - C - we will never know.......... Arrivals Sig - £8m - B - Great acquisition Verts - £8m - A - Great acquisition Ade - £5m!!! - A - With Citeh paying half his wages, we ARE laughing. Mousa Dembele - £15m - A* - top, top signing. Well pleased we got him and think he will be a real star. Hugo Lloris - £9m+ - A - Agree entirely. And with Brad still performing so well, he will have the time to integrate into the PL. Dempsey - £6m - A - Another top signing. Great business!! Strong, versatile and bulgar goal scorer. Will fit well into our system I think. Overall Window Activity - A- Personally think we have done great business in this window. Yes, an extra fwd and/or creative MF would have been the icing in the cake, but with our current 'buying power' I think we have punched above our weight.
I was pleased we got rid of Nelsen. We signed about 4 seasons too late and I'm not sure why we'd have wanted to keep him. I think we should've got another winger, attacking mid or striker because at the moment we've only got Lennon and Dempsey who can play on the right wing, Sigurdsson and Dempsey who can play behind the striker and Ade, Defoe and Dempsey who can play up top. If Dempsey gets injured we're thread bare in 3 positions. Moutinho, Damiao or Willian could have helped that but I feel there were less ambitious targets out there who could do a good job for us like Dempsey. Overall it was a really good window with Modric sorted and more of the deadwood shifted.
I cant see us getting 4th at all. Arsenal are back to being defensively sound which is how you build a team imo. Goals will come to them with Arteta, Diaby, Walcott, Cazorla etc. I can't say the same for us atm. Bale and Lennon have no idea how to play inside, and our defense will never be watertight without top quality, time and exp. (king - Woody). Reasonably content with the signings (especially Lloris, Dembele and Ade) but not enough upfront, poor tactis by AVB and not only keeping Defoe, but playing him uptop on his own is piss poor. He should have gone a long time ago as there are many many better (or at least more effective) strikers out there for pretty much every other Prem team that we could use in the single striker pos.
Disagree. He was instrumental in the great run we had alongside Kaboul at the moment. Yes nearing the latter part he looked f*cked but we still managed to see the true Ledley for a good run of games. That quality can never be replaced.
Cheers Roo I know the pressure on the young is quite intense but I think they're capable of handling it. Carroll and Townsend especially, are two gems, with more game time, we'll see them improve massively.
Agreed Relayer, the creative CM was badly needed, hopefully Mousa can fill it to an extent but we've certainly punched above our weight with signings when you compare how financially stronger other teams in the league are.
Another out and out winger would have been nice. Lennon and Bale at times get a little cosy not having much competition. Great point on the less ambitious bit, there are plenty of players out there we could/ should have pursued instead of trying (and failing) for high profile buys.
I really want to see tom carroll sooner this season, rather than later. I think he's the sort of lad who won't buckle under any pressure. I'm still yet to be convinced by Townsend. and Rose for that matter. - hopefully Townsend will prove me wrong this season, and Rose will do so on his loan spell
We'll never get a better CB pairing than King and Woody but I think we can come close with Verts and Kaboul. Defoe is useful as a squad player in my opinion but to lead the line - as you say - is p*ss poor.
Townsend still hasn't won me over. I've only seen him in the odd Europa or cup game but i've not seen anything that suggests he's a better left winger than Rose. I'd love to be proven wrong though. Unless Bale is injured he won't get much prem time. Carroll on the other hand looked a nice, tidy and composed player in the same games despite looking like a 10yr old.
Interesting about Townsend. I think he looks awesome. Against Utd reserves the other night it was blatant he was far beyond a "reserve" player. Actually think, after Dembele and Bale, he's the most skillful player we have with the ball at his feet. Rose will never be a first teamer here, an OK back up to Benny though I think.
