John Stones is younger than Berahino. It's also not the 1st time he did something like this. Some players play for money. At 31, his current contract is probably his last big contract. It's logical for him to get the full amount of payout if we really wanted him to leave. And with fans hating him, why would he want to make the sacrifice?
City and Chelsea massively improved, Liverpool as well and United did everything they possibly could. I hold Spurs to that standard because I understood that is where our ambition is. From the past transfer window, it doesn't look like we have that at all. Dier is no way in hell good enough at CDM and he is a kid which just further pushes the problem of too much inexperience. We are assuming a hell of a lot about Son and N'Jie without seeing them play once in the premier league. To me not signing a CDM was the single biggest flaw of the whole window and it could have been solved MONTHS ago. This seems like the whole Moutinho situation all over again and we will live to regret this window. I don't get all the talk about a rebuilding year, last year was that for us. This year is time to show results because we will lose the few world class players if we don't start getting top 4.
we have no idea what was happening behind scenes, his hate for the manager can't just be because he refused to sell him...
I agree about Dier. He might be able to provide more cover for the defense than Mason and Bentaleb, but there's still no speed from the CMs. You need players who can release the ball quickly and accurately to maintain the tempo, and I don't see that from anyone. Vertonghen could play DM, and he was originally a midfielder, but I wouldn't want to break up that pairing at the back.
It looks like Spurs may be in an “Arsenal/Emirates” pattern. The new stadium is impeding the short term aspirations of the club. Unfortunately while Arsenal had to settle for just finishing in the top 4 every year, Spurs’ stagnation will probably see 5th/6th place as the target with 5-10th place finishes the norm, at least for a few seasons after the new stadium is complete.
Poch and Levy talk about the window. http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/window-wrap-summer-2015-020915/
Yeah very defensive by Levy, dropped the ball on these final transfers. Also as pointed out by the supporters trust, having a shiny new stadium is meaningless if the team is not competitive enough to attract people to fill it every week, especially with the prices the club want to charge. Don't buy for a second that moving in there will suddenly lead to big increase in transfer spending/wages, just a sale by Enic.
I don’t follow Arsenal enough to know how accurate my outsiders view is, but it seemed like they stopped spending money when they started their stadium and didn’t start spending again until two seasons ago with Özil. Coincidentally, prior to Özil’s arrival, Arsenal hadn’t won a trophy since the 2004 season the year they broke ground on the Emirates. Probably overly simplistic, especially as a large part of my knowledge of Arsenal comes from laughing at Piers Morgan’s Twitter histrionics.
It appears we will see a combination of Dier / Bentaleb / Milos V. in the DM position for this season. Hope two of them turn out to be revelations in that position but not very likely considering their experience in that role. .
it's very difficult distinguish between arsenal's available money and wenger's willingness to spend it. the club stated for years that the money was there, but wenger never spent. and there's a fairly close correlation between the gooners' unrest and his opening of the purse strings. there was a genuine 'wenger out' movement in the year or two leading up to their FA cup win in '14. lots of their's feel that it was this pressure after 8 or 9 years without silverware - with some genuinely vociferous calls for his job - that finally forced his hand. his defenders, though, have asserted that they were simply in a holding pattern while they paid down some initial aspect of their stadium financing, and once that was covered, it freed his hand, which led to ozil, sanchez, etc. as to whether they stopped spending once the build started, it's tough to say ... because they hadn't really 'spent' beforehand. whatever one thinks of wenger, he has to be credited for having put together that late 90s/early 00s squad pretty inexpensively. and of course, that was all a part of the 'Wenger out/Arsene knows' debate ... everyone has scouts everywhere now and nobody can steal in and get talent on the cheap like he did in the late 90s, so lots of theirs felt he needed to stop being 'the economist' (his academic field) and spend to compete. so it's really tough to tell where/how the stadium's costs come in to their spending on players - and even more difficult for it to shed light on our situation.
The best point is about how Levy negotiates with other teams. He seems to think that he will get away with what he wants. I understand that he wants to make sure Spurs are profitable, but if Harry...I'd best not say it. Because of the known way in which Levy deals, and the massive amount of TV money coming in, clubs and turn Spurs away if they feel low balled, or disrespected. Both seem to have been the case this transfer window. btw - Son for 30 Euros is not an inexpensive transfer.
Yeah it is an exceptionally simplistic take on my part, but Arsenal and the Emirates are the only contemporary example to look at in the Premier League that even sort of mirror what Tottenham are embarking on so it’s worth seeing what happened there. Spurs just seem to be in a holding pattern apparently having given up on their Champions League aspirations.
I don't remember the specific timing, but I do remember reading somewhere something about Arsenal understanding that they would not be in a questionable financial position after the first serious round of loan paybacks (or something like that) and that Wegner needed to dive into the serious transfer market since the Henry/Pires/Vieira group. What I also got out of that, and have determined, is that the Arsenal board looks at winning with cause profit rather than the Spurs/Levy way that says profit will come and so will winning. The difference is that Arsenal look at things with more ambition than Spurs and are not afraid to go into temporary debt (purchases as opposed to building a stadium) knowing that they will become profitable. Levy is not that ambitious/risky. While that was good when he first came on board, it is now time to change or go. I chose the latter as he seems to be a reactionary which is not a winning mentality when it comes to top end leadership.
Marseille president Vincent Labrune has confirmed that Tottenham Hotspur pulled the plug on a deal for Erik Lamela at the last minute because the English club failed to sign Saido Berahino
Ins Son Heung-Min (Bayer Leverkusen, £18 million); Clinton Njie (Lyon, £12m); Toby Alderweireld (Atletico Madrid, £11.5m); Kevin Wimmer (Cologne, £4.3m); Kieran Trippier (Burnley, £3.5m). Outs Paulinho (Guanzhou Evergrande, £9.8 million); Roberto Soldado (Villarreal (£7m); Benjamin Stambouli (Paris Saint Germain, £6m); Etienne Capoue (Watford, £5.7m); Lewis Holtby (Hamburg, £5m); Vlad Chiriches (Napoli, £4.5m); Aaron Lennon (Everton, £4.5m); Younes Kaboul (£3m); DeAndre Yedlin (Sunderland, loan); Brad Friedel (out of contract). according to this, net spend of £3.8m I imagine the wage bill must have gone down despite being unable to offload Ade. Lennon, and Kaboul in particular I imagine were among the higher paids and were not going to see any match time
yeah, for sure. the area, unfortunately, where I draw parallels is how theirs were all excited about how the increased ticket supply would -via adam smith's 'invisible hand'- logically bring prices down. that most assuredly did not happen. now, if we're honest, we probably won't have as much demand for 60k every week as they did upon opening theirs; so it's possible that we might see prices come down to meet demand - but i'm not counting on it. I understand the economic logic completely. (at least some) ticket prices should come down. but i'm guessing they won't.
i still think Lamela could turn it around but perhaps we just aren't playing him right or with the right players? I dunno, the kid has shown brilliance at brief times...
lots - and I mean lots - of arsenal fans have spent the last 5+ bemoaning the exact opposite. most of theirs are convinced that their board doesn't give a rip about winning anything, so long as wenger keeps the champions league money coming in. Levy may squeeze every penny out of every revenue stream we have; but, to all appearances, virtually all of it goes right back into the club. to say that Levy is not that risky may be fair (and in my opinion would be good), but to say that he's not ambitious .... ? I don't know that he's ambitious for the right things, per se; but he's one driven man. i'm with you on the 'reactionary' bit, though. that said(TM), my only lament regarding Levy is that he's simply not a football man. THFC just don't seem to get the football bit right. it worked best for us when he threw up his hands in desperation, sacked the DoF, brought in a relegation-survival specialist and kept his damn nose out of the footy part. ... but then, of course, he decided he could improve upon it.
interesting article http://www.espnfc.us/blog/tactics-a...-dominance-is-down-to-wages-but-can-be-broken
Article by Lyall Thomas, a Sky Sports 1 journo who was on the Hotspur America podcast that Sendorange posted in "News." Seems to have some inside knowledge and discusses the new philosophy at Spurs. I've highlighted a few key points: This is what I thought AND hoped was happening this summer. If the author's info is correct, then I'm very happy with the course set. As I believe and have argued (as have others), last year was Poch assessing the club, this year is the first rebuild and next year will likely be another step in building the club. Like Thomas says, it doesn't mean it's a sure-fire strategy that will vault us into permanent residence in the top four, but it's a sound strategy, especially in light of the recruitment and scouting staff Levy has put in place. For the first time in my time as a Spurs fan (admittedly, a short time span given that I began following during the window before our two points from eight games), I'm really, truly excited about our future [insert comment that it will all go Spursy at some point].