Transfer Rumours transfer thread fact and fiction

I’ve often said I think he needs/ needed to bulk up if he were to succeed in England. Probably find he’ll do brilliantly in Spain. Think he’ll definitely be sold in the summer unless something crazy happens in the remaining games.

As for Tanganga I think he’s a top prospect tbh mate, pretty sure I said a year or so ago on Spurf’s thread that I thought he was a better prospect than Eyoma who was getting minutes under Poch, he was a real powerhouse at youth level and I think he’s shown that he can be that at senior level too. Not saying he’s the next Ledley but I think he’ll go far and he’s currently got a manager who knows a thing or two about defence to work with.

 

I think Jan’s said a few times that he’s not keen on going straight into coaching anyway, or even sure that he wants to do that at all. He’s got other interests outside football, seems to be big into cycling for a start. He seems a very smart guy and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him make a success of whatever he does after his swansong at Ajax.

Speaking of Ajax I actually reckon that would have been the route for Foyth. The raw talent is clearly there and it’s easy to forget how young he was when he came to Europe. He started appearing for us just as we began to lose the magic, a club where he would have probably got more game time and been managed by a group of people with more experience in dealing with young players directly from outside Europe might have been a better environment for him. We’ll never know, ultimately. I think his future lies at RB rather than CB, that’s for sure.

 

it’s like in my life...God decided that Ajax was the only club that was truly able to develop players....the rest are just football clubs by name

We don’t spend, we don’t develop...what the **** do we do? That middle of the road existence.

All we do is pick up homesick talent

 

As for Tanguy...in that little practice game highlights I saw him trudging along like he did all last season. Didn’t look like he had lost lots of weight...maybe a bit.
No dynamism coming from him...granted it’s a practice match...but he lacks dynamism for the position he is in...needs to up his game or he can go at the end of the season. If he can’t sort his head and weight out in these 3 months he’s had off..it’s never happening.

 

At the risk of sounding like a broken record...oh ****, too late

...having an actual DM would do a hell of a lot more for our back line than anything else, because the complete lack of protection they have means the defence are pressed into action considerably more than they should be and that's when the mistakes creep in - something that didn't happen in 2016-17 when the Wanyama/Dembele pivot was sitting on teams, so the defence were there to mop up what did get past the midfield while for the last eighteen months the defence has been having to work twice as hard as the midfield couldn't break up a Liz Taylor marriage

At the risk of reopening some long-buried psychological scars, look back at the period between 2012-14. In the 2012-13 season people were waxing lyrical about Verts as he looked so composed when he was called into action, and a lot of this came from the Sandro/Dembele pivot in front of the back line - but a year later, in the 2013-14 season, he looked half the player he was due to a lack of a DM due to a combination of Sandro and Capoue having injuries at the exact same time coupled with Dim Sherwood thinking that DMs are an unnecessary frivolity, which by complete coincidence meant the defence were doing twice as much work as they should have been and Hugo reportedly gave an ultimatum to Levy saying that either Sherwood left or he would

And that's been the issue for the past eighteen months: Wanyama falling to bits and Dier finding new ways to miss chunks of the season due to injury or illness has meant we haven't had a DM in the starting lineup and we've been cobbling a central midfield out of various combinations of Winks, Sissoko, Ndombele and Lo Celso which requires at least one of them (usually Winks, although often enough Sissoko) had to play as an ersatz DM, and it has to be asked why the hell a DM wasn't on the list of priorities last summer - and, no, in case anyone wants to blame Levy for this, it really has to be said that while I can recall various strikers, attacking midfielders, centre midfielders, wingers, centre backs and full backs being linked with us, I genuinely can't remember us being linked with a DM until Denis Zakaria and Florian Grillitsch were linked with us in mid-September...which is a bit late considering the transfer window shut a month earlier

 

They do a good job, that’s for sure. And I think they’ve signed a number of players directly from Argentinian, Brazilian and Colombian clubs in the last few years. Ajax aren’t the be all and end all by any means though but it might have been an easier environment for him to develop. We’ll never know.

I don’t 100% agree with you on us not spending or developing but I do think we’ve sorely lacked direction in our dealings the last few years - we’ve lacked a real defensive midfielder since Wanyama’s injuries took hold, the succession plan at CB is hardly sorted, we have probably one competent fullback in the entire squad, and we’ve never really sorted the backup for Kane. Loads of attacking midfielders and wingers though!

 

You know we are supposed to be one of the Top 6? I’d say we are the poorest of the top 6. All the others have bagged silverware, we haven’t.

We’ve had 2 barren windows at the same time we have had our best team in decades...absolutely we lack direction. It’s not OK to go 2/3 seasons without replacing a position with an adequate backup that is necessary for a club to carry on their progression.

I guess I’m at a stage where I’m not willing to give the hierarchy anymore chances...many have forgotten but I haven’t...we were supposed to be at a different stage now after the 5 year cycle...I’m almost offended at how so many were almost guaranteeing us success...but now it’s more excuses and reasons and what ifs...I’m done with the owners.

 

I was one of those that was certain we’d win something under Poch, for sure, and it’s galling that we failed at key times both on and off the pitch. Off the pitch, we’ll probably never know if it was Poch’s requests for reinforcements falling on Levy’s deaf ears as he was unable or unwilling to spend, or Poch genuinely insisting he was happy with the squad. It’s probably somewhere inbetween the two extremes, in reality.

Back to transfers, I’m hoping that the behind the scenes changes we’ve made/are making will being that direction back to our recruitment, though this summer will obviously be a difficult window for many clubs. We’ll have to see how it pans out after the season ends. I’m not hugely confident we’ll get it right tbh but I’ll reserve judgement until it happens or doesn’t, as the case may be.

 

I think Jose will no doubt have in mind the types of players he wants and if we get Campos in it should help him get those players, even if he has to appreciate option A may now be unobtainable and so option B/ C will still be seen as a success to sign.

For me on a personal scale, if we do something like:
Meunier - free and/ or Aarons - £20m?
Fraser - free
Hojbjerg - cash and KWP
Godin/ Savic/ Dias/ Koulibaly (latter two being option A’s so unlikely)
A striker

Then I’d regard that as a pretty successful window for the club and the outlay shouldn’t be that much either, especially if we’re able to shift some players in the process.

 

The succession plan at CB was, in theory, sorted in 2017: Sanchez goes straight into the team, while Foyth was one to grow into the team a year or two down the line

The issue is that it hasn't quite worked out that way

A large part of it surely has to do with the expectation that Toby would be leaving at some point, and we were all expecting a bid to come from somewhere with his contract situation becoming a saga, yet it never did - which meant that we had three starting CBs (Toby, Sanchez, Verts) vying for two starting places, which in turn had the knock-on effect that Foyth was supposed to be the long-term replacement for Verts but he too was affected last season by all three being there

In terms of Foyth, it's readily apparent based on how his time has been with us. In his first season we handled him introduction pretty well, giving him starts in all cup matches to get him up to speed while in the CL match with APOEL he was partnered with Sanchez so communication wouldn't be an issue. The problem is that, last season, he needed to build on that but instead he missed a large chunk of the early season with a thigh strain so didn't get on the pitch until late October, and while he did get a run of league starts between November-December it's hard not to think he was playing so we could rest other players for the CL matches at the time which he wasn't part of the squad for, and what really stood out is for the Season Killer Cup match against Arsenal at this time we lined up with Davies as a CB instead of him

Similar can be said for this season: he missed the first half dozen games with an ankle injury, so not only was he playing catchup with fitness for the second season in a row but because our form was flatlining by the time he was fit he had little chance of playing as Poch was trying to will the first team into something approaching form so the only chances he had were a start against Red Star, while under Steptonho he only started in the dead rubber against Bayern and the Norwich game where we appear to have lined up in tribute to that bloody FA Cup match with Stevenage in 2012 where scholars are still trying to understand what the hell the plan for that game even was

 

I broadly agree with this, though I don’t see us needing or getting Fraser unless Moura and/or Lamela leave, and I’m not sure we’ll move either on this summer. Fraser is a nice to have not a need to have compared to the other positions we are surely looking to address.

HBIC: you’re right, we thought we’d sorted it, but we evidently haven’t. Three years have passed and Dave isn’t an established starter and Foyth is still a prospect. So we need to reset again - I think it’s more likely we’ll pick up an experienced head for a year or two to help polish Dave, than it is for us to move for a top young CB such as those DH mentioned, we just won’t have the money this year.

 

I think Fraser is probably seen as a no-lose signing by the club.

Joins on a free and does well by establishing himself in a crowded position - happy days.

Joins on a free and struggles to make an impact due to crowded position - sell for a profit.

 

Going back to Foyth for a moment, what's aggravating about him being on the fringes of the team is that when he gets a run of games he can put in performances like this one from last season

It's hardly unique, either: against Dortmund last season he had Sancho in his pocket for 90 minutes, as he's got a useful combination of skill and ****ehousery - but it's undermined by missing the early parts of two consecutive seasons through injury that has a knock-on effect of him getting minutes

 

There’s definitely a player in there and you’re right, he’s had hard luck with injuries. I’d have liked to have seen him given a proper run at RB for us, I just don’t know if José fancies him tbh

 

You know it’s inevitable or “Spursy” as we like to say, that in 3 or so years time Foyth will probably be joining someone like Barca or Madrid for £50m having impressed at his next club after Spurs.

FWIW I don’t blame either manager for Foyth not making it here, sometimes the right player is at the wrong club and I think this is the case with him (plus as has been mentioned - luck certainly plays a part too).

 

Anyone else think our friendly against Norwich scheduled for this Friday was Jose’s idea in order to get a closer look at Aarons (and possibly Cantwell/ Lewis/ Godfrey) or am I being too wishful with my thinking?

 

The ever reliable and completely accurate, Daily Star, are suggesting we’ll be making our opening offer to Southampton for Hojbjerg. Jose wants him and he wants us, so they say. Aww, cute.

Also saw somewhere on Twitter that Jose - like Poch - is a fan of QPR’s Eberechi Eze and wants him at Spurs. Can’t remember who was credited as the source though on that one.

 

Actual DM Watch
Le10 Sport report that we're showing an interest in relieving Wolves of Ruben Neves - and what makes this stand out that little bit more is how Le10 Sport are also linking Wolves with a move for Idrissa Gueye, who would be a like-for-like replacement if Neves were to depart

Milik Watch
Napoli's sporting director Cristiano Giuntoli has said that it's likely that Arkadiusz Milik will be sold this summer, with contract talks grinding to a halt

Right Back Watch
FootballDotLondon report that we've remembered that Ajax are there and are showing an interest in Sergino Dest, although it's one of those articles where the word "maybe" is doing a lot of legwork

Lower League Rando Watch
The Daily Wail has taken a moment from creating that the statue of a Tory MP was chucked in the River Avon to link us with Southend's 18-year old striker Charlie Kelman, who has featured for the USA of America U20s, which is probably this summer's Kion Etete-style signing

 

Neves isn’t really a DM though is he? I thought he played further forwards for Wolves with Mourinho being less mobile and basically spraying the ball around, and Dendoncker doing most of the running. Now if we could get Gueye...that would be a signing.

 

I would love Neves. I've been saying it since Wolves were in the Championship with him. I think he is a DM, according to Transfermarkt anyhow.

Look how he compares to Hojbjerg.

He's like a Huddlestone who can tackle.

I agree that Gueye would be a signing. Any of these three would improve us in my opinion. Gueye is 30 years old though, so I'm not sure I see that one flying past Levy. Neves is the youngest of the three and seemingly better on the ball than Hojbjerg, but Hojbjerg could be the leader we've been lacking.