Transfer Rumours transfer thread fact and fiction

Football is a moving feast, over the years you always lose players and we have lost some great ones. Even going back to Berbatov days 2008 which is not that long ago Spurs were like a sitting duck when it came to clubs like Man U. By the time we get to 2012 and 2013, we lose Modric and Bale, who were both from the team that followed and improved on the Berbatov time. Once again we came back and produced the Pochettino period which in many ways outshone those seemingly unreplaceable players. This is the real story that Levy has presided over. Despite the up's and downs, and we have just had two seasons of downs, we have in this 12 years steadily improved and strengthened as a club. Now it's not quite as easy for Manchester to raid London for players without at least suffering a seriously damaged wallet. We all expect to lose Kane either this season or next but once again I expect that over the next couple of seasons Spurs will rebuild and I will not be in the least surprised if we come out stronger, even without Kane. This season is difficult to predict, again it's going to be transitory but the return of fans to the stadiums is going to be a big influence on the game and could mean some surprise results everywhere in the PL.

 

Sorry, but your dates are off, as here's the dates of the key arrivals and Coutinho's departure

Mane, 28th June 2016
Alexander Arnold, 25th October 2016 (aka his first team debut)
Salah, 1st July 2017
Robertson, 21st July 2017
van Dijk, 1st January 2018
Coutinho leaves, 8th January 2018
Fabinho, 1st July 2018
Alisson, 19th July 2018

The fact is that Norbert's system was in place six months ahead of Coutinho leaving, which is entirely why he was free money as their system had no need for Coutinho because their system at the time was based on attacking fullbacks, Firmino playing in Salah or Mane, and a mid block from Fabinho, Henderson and Wijnaldum holding down the fort so there was no need to replace Coutinho as he was a vestigial part of the team which Barca rather kindly offered to remove for them, with them pre-spending a chunk of that fee on van Dijk and the tapping-up tax that came with it

In comparison, even in these early days our system clearly requires somebody through the middle to stick the ball in the net based on the combinations we've been using in pre-season, because several of our goals have come either from crosses or playing it into the wide channel to be squared into the box, and both of those either require a CF or a midfield runner to be in those positions to finish the move, something which Saltypool don't require because they're expecting Salah or Mane to remain clinical (and, based on last season, there's a chance that combined with Wijnaldum leaving without replacement could backfire)

 

think of how successful we will be when we get the linesmen on the payroll as well .

 

I'm not going to quibble over exact dates as my perspective is that Klopp needed his first season to get to grips with the PL and then spent the subsequent 2-3 years implementing his plan. My gut feeling is selling Coutinho was always a part of that plan and he was very close to doing so in the summer of 17/18 but didn't yet have the confidence that new arrivals Robertson, TAA and Salah could be trusted to take his plan forward. By January of that season, he'd seen enough evidence that his new look attack would be fine, and sold Coutinho to shore up his defence. In the space of 18 months he'd assembled a CL and PL winning side, all because he had a vision and stuck to it, even if that meant risking fans' wrath to get there.

You refer to 'these early days' but that sure as hell isn't how Kane is looking at things. I wouldn't be surprised if after the debacle of last season he is looking at himself and thinking 'yes, I love the club but bloody hell...I AM the system!'. Because that is essentially what we became last season. So totally and indeed dangerously reliant on him not just to score but suddenly also to create goals, we have amplified his importance to the club to the point that selling him isn't just unconscionable, it is almost impossible

By contrast, if we'd sold him instead of Walker to City at the end of 16/17, just hypothetically, and used the money to bring in a competent if unspectacular replacement while strengthening the squad depth with the change, I think we'd have been absolutely fine in the 17/18 season in all honesty, simply because we had a system that worked and whose whole was far greater than the sum of its parts.

 

This is the thing about The Sheikh Mansour Team in particular: they clearly look to weaken the teams around them and, by complete coincidence, strengthen themselves in the process

First it was Man Utd when they nabbed Tevez
Then kept raiding Arsenal, picking up Adebayor, Toure, Clichy and Nasri in short order
Then they took aim at Liverpool by grabbing Sterling
Then they decided to start putting their foot on Everton's head, helping themselves to Rodwell and Stones
Then they started going after us, first with Walker and they're trying it again with Kane
And because they were bored, they also decided to pinch Mahrez off Leicester

And yet there's one team in and around where they want to be they never, ever try to disrupt with some carefully-plotted squad surgery with bottomless cash as their scalpel: Chelsea

Now why would they not want to try and pick apart another team backed by near infinite money?

 

When I said early days I was talking about how we were set up in our pre season games because a lot of our moves are based on there coming through the middle to finish them, and that needs a CF to do that (although in preseason we've usually had Son or Dele occupy that space)

The biggest problem with the ubermensch's system is Kane effectively had to become the system on his own after the West Scam game, because for the eighteen months before that Aurier playing in the free role down the right was a large part of the system (even though there were already signs this was suicide in the 2019-20 season, for example the visit to Old Trafford where Winks was overrun in the middle all game as Sissoko was playing RB due to Aurier habitually being caught in possession higher up the pitch) but after that game the ubermensch started to get fixated on our right flank hence we regularly saw one or sometimes two players covering that flank when Aurier went forward which played a large part in our right flank turning into the Bermuda Triangle where the ball went in but was never seen again as neither Aurier nor Lucas had anyone to receive the ball - which is also why Mason almost immediately flipped our system to short, quick passes through midfield, so instead Lo Celso or Hojbjerg were bringing players into the game down the right instead of being bystanders watching the game unfold down the right but never being involved with it

And that's the thing: we've had various managers undone by their tinkering with their own system and it backfiring
-Redknapp nerfing Bale by making him a RW with a dozen games left instead of sticking with what worked until the CL was safe, plus his mystifying formation against Stevenage which ultimate saw Dawson miss the rest of the season with a shoulder injury picked up in the replay
-Villas Boas caving to pressure to make the team more attacking, only to get battered by The Sheikh Mansour Team and Liverpool and him getting sacked PDQ
-Poch completely changing the formation in order to protect Ndombele, which ended up seeing the FBs exposed and pinned back while our play through the middle was often easily snuffed out

 

And an important question this raises is what happens when he inevitably gets injured? It's madness to be so reliant on one player. Incidentally, I wonder how Harry feels, that despite Man City losing Aguero, they've prioritised Grealish over Kane?

 

please be true

 

Probably just the Times rumour from the other day. Could be something to it, though.

 

Pretty sure that account is a wannabe ITK that just makes solid educated guesses that gets people believing they actually have inside info.

There’s been rumours floating about recently that Sissoko has offers in the Middle East so this is probably where the account is making the claim from.

With a bit of luck it happens though, if not Al Hilal then another in the division.

 

Mail are saying we're interested in Adama Traore.

Lightning quick but massively inconsistent and not as effective as he should be. Not sure he's what we need right now.

 

Spurs squad players of a certain age, pondering an autumn/winter
of toytown EL games, vs going into "pension mode" and not
having to go to China to do so ...

 

Romero Watch
Sky Italia and/or Calcio Mercato (since the latter seems to run the former's gossip feed) say that Romero returns to training tomorrow and he wants to meet with Gian Piero Gasperini to tell him to not stand in his way as he wants to join us

So for those keeping tabs
* Met the set fee ✔️
* Agreed personal terms ✔️
* Player wants to join ✔️

Anyone else suddenly got the urge to see how Tomiyasu does at the Olympics?

 

You would have to think he's still young enough to build that consistency into his game.
And Nuno should know better than most if that is possible and hopefully how to achieve it.
Thought he might be an incomer earlier in the summer: wouldn't be the worst purchase, although definitely not a priority.

 

We've reached the point where people are creating fake Lo Celso profiles and tweeting how they can't wait for the club to announce Romero...

 

He’s 25 so for me should be in or near his best years (similar to what I’ve said about Dele). Just not sure he’s worth paying presumably about £35m-£40m for with such little productivity to his name. We’ve already got a speed demon (albeit not as quick) in Bergwijn who’s in need of major improvement, not sure bringing another in would be the best choice, unless we convert him to a RB/ RWB which I think he’s played a couple times for Wolves. Could be the closest thing we get to a Walker replacement in that respect.

 

It might depend on whether there is substance to the Bergwijn-Ajax rumours.

If there is, it'd be a like for like replacement but a slight upgrade as I feel Traore inspires more fear in defences than Bergwijn does.

 

Sounds like 2 + 2 = Signing someone from Nuno's previous club to me

On the plus side, it does make a refreshing change from the annual stories linking us with Zaha...

 

All speed with very little end product. No thanks.

 

Isn't one way of getting a bargain to identify a player who isn't making the most of his skills and coach him to become better?