January Transfer Window Round-up

By @SibsTHFC

So another transfer window has gone by without ‘the special signing’ that Hazza has so often mentioned. Part of being a Spurs fan is the anticipation and expectancy of greatness, which in the last few years has only set us up for a fall. We were spoilt with signing of Rafa Van der Vaart, and it it has lulled many of us in to staying up past midnight in the hope that sports journalists have missed something and completely out of the blue we will have signed Kaka, Messi or Ronaldinho.

The reality is that we should all know the score by now. The last few windows have seen Daniel Levy be shrewd with his money, clearly feeling the effects signing David Bentley, GDS and Not-So-Super Pav. However, even the most pessimistic amongst us wouldn’t have predicted we would be walking away from January with Louis Saha and Ryan Nelsen needing squad numbers. Two signings that would have seriously challenged even bookmakers to come up with some odds.

As usual we were linked with a handful of players. A quick trawl through the transfer window thread shows that we were linked with Cahill, Samba, Tompkins, Kaka, Tevez, Pato, Damiao, Drogba, Remy, Hazard, Sow, Zaha, Moses, Hoilett, Ganso, Dembele, Sagbo, Rhodes, Mandzukic, Ba, Krasic, Beckham, Vertonghen, Klasnic, Krul, Butland, Niang, Carroll, Nilmar, Zarate, Kovacic, Forrest, Allen, Long and of course Huntelaar.

At the end of the window we walked away with Saha, Nelsen and we signed Falque on a permanent deal and then immediately loaned him out to Southampton.

ITK was a little lacking compared to the bile that was produced this summer, but there was enough to get stuck in to and actually work out who seems to have decent contacts at the club. However, first one to ignore.

The Journalist – Apparently an Aston Villa supporter, if he is a Journalist he is either a) not a sports journalist or b) a shit sports journalist. I don’t recall any of his ITK making the back pages. Personally I think he is a WUM who should be ignored. Perhaps the clue is that he supports Villa.

He seemed certain all last window that we would be putting in a bid for Farfan and claimed that we would be following it up this window

farfan; his contract is up in summer. he has been wanting a move since last summer

He also stoked the flames of the Pato rumours. Amongst his howlers was Kaka going back to Brazil on loan for the rest of the season and Pienaar going to Villa to replace Jenas. He did suggest that Everton and Villa wanted Pienaar and that Damiao was to stay in Brazil until after the world cup – the latter of which only time will tell.

All the info points to The Journalist being a very discreet WUM who knows that some people will be suckered in and starting spreading his crap on twitter. Thankfully most just ignored him. Is he ITK? Is he f**k.

As usual POTL, Phantom of the Lane popped up. Previously heralded by many as the best Spurs ITK, though many know just think he is a twat after his cryptic bollocks last few transfer windows. This continued this year with talk of Sunflowers – which have still not be explained, and probably never will.

Of POTL crimes this window he seemed to suggest that Dos Santos’ move was done and dusted.

Never quite worked out for the lad here, nice guy though and trained hard. Being back in the sun will do him good.

However, he was relatively quiet this window. One he got correct was the loan of Andros Townsend to Leeds, which he announced a day or two before it was officially announced on the official website and before any press mentioned it.

This would imply some sort of inside knowledge, but probably not from a source that high up in the chain.

Of course there was one story that we all roundly laughed at and abused – Falque going on loan to Southampton. The story originally appeared in the Daily Mail. We all decided it was very poor journalism; how could we loan a player who was on loan to us? As it turned out we purchased Falque a couple of days later and immediately loaned him out to Southampton. It makes me a little sick to say it, but well done Daily Mail for sticking two fingers up at us when we all said it was laughable.

There was one stand out ITK of the summer – Jjetset.

He was this windows most regular ITK poster and whilst much of his talk seemed to be a bit speculative early on, he surprised everyone just as the game against Wigan was kicking off when he posted

Ok here it is people.
Krasnic was off as he didnt want a loan. After i posted about Lazio it suddenly was back on again but unfortunately didnt happen.
Pienaar will now stay.
Saha (from leftfield) loan in also Ryan Nelson loan.
Bassong gone to Wolves on loan.
Pav has been sold
Corluka loaned.

This was more than three hours before the transfer window shut, and about two hours before Redknapp gave the press a briefing that was virtually the same as written above. He also knew that Harry was off to see Remy at Marseille – which Harry did, very publicly.

Jjetset also had a lot to say on Leandro Damiao, basically suggesting that a deal was not finalised, but that we were going to go back in hard to get the guy in the summer. I would have said that this was purely speculative, but given that he was the first person to say we were going to sign Ryan Nelsen, and Bassong to Wolves, I would pay attention to what Jjetset has to say. He clearly has a good source at the club who has some knowledge of transfer dealings – be it someone in an admin office, or someone high up in the scouting team or board.

Krasic? In his interview, Harry said that we wanted Krasic on loan and we had agreed a deal with Juventus, but that the player turned us down. The suggestion seems to have been that we wanted him on loan, but Juventus wanted a permanent deal. We then agreed this, but we couldn’t agree a deal with the player in time. Roger Morgan (ITK) said that he wanted £70k p/w, but we were only prepared to offer £50k p/w, which seems reasonable and plausible.

So it looks like we didn’t want to take a chance at first on buying a player, and then on buying him, but paying him the same as our top earners. It will be interesting to see if we return to him in the summer, given that some work has already been done. It seems Sky Sports was the first to say we were in for Krasic, though this is after his Agent came out and said we were.

The Summer

With only two short terms signings the summer may just be the transfer window where we spend the cast the Levy has being lying on for a few years now. With the stadium looking like it will get the go ahead I wouldn’t expect us to be able to shell out £30M on a single player, but with (hopefully) some Champions League money and Pav’s wages now off the wage bill, there should be some to spend.

There was ITK about an announcement in February. This could be the permanent signing of Adebayor, or Leandro Damiao on a Pre-Contract, however, it is more than likely the announcement a day or two ago about the agreement over redevelopment of the area around WHL to aid the new stadium development.

The new stadium could actually be a major aide in signing player – a shiny new stadium in newly developed area. Added to the new training facilities it could help attract new players, but not as much as an increased £120k p/w salary cap. Sadly I can’t see this cap coming in for another couple of seasons, so I can only really see us signing players for three positions in the summer – striker/forward, winger and a Goalkeeper. Gomes will be on a free transfer, unless there is the option to extend by a further year. Tim Kruhl has been mentioned and I think would be a good choice. Striker is a must – we need a 25 goal a season striker. We’ve needed one since Berbatov and Keane left the first time round. And finally a winger. Whilst VdV and Modric are make shift options if Lennon and Bale are injured, I’m sure a natural winger who can play on either side is a must for the summer. Don’t be surprised if we sign Hoillet to do this.