25 Man Squad

[Spursidol]

First of two 25 man squads to be announced, first the CL squad Tottenham - UCL - Squad

GK - Lloris, Vorm, Gazanigga

CB's - Vertonghen, Alderweireld, Sanchez, Dier

FB;s - Rose, Trippier, Aurier, Davies

CM's - Winks, Wanyama, Sissoko, Dembele

AM's - Son, Lamela, Mours, Dele, Eriksen,

Striker - Kane, Llorente

Missing out - Janssen (injured), N'Koudou, Foyth

Maybe no real surprise, but shame Foyth has no chance of minutes in group stages of CL, although with the group we have there was probably no chance of him starting a match anyway.

 

[Spursidol]

CL squad reflects the fact that whilst we can register 17 overseas trained players )although we have 20, so 3 miss out) we only have 3 club trained players (Kane, Rose, Winks) and 2 other players trained by clubs affiliated with FA (Dele, Trippier), so in total 5 'homegrown players' . 3 short of the requirement and we can only name a 22 man squad (3 short as are 3 short of the homegrown requirement).

Of course u21 players (providing they have been with Spurs long enough can be registered on List B - that will include Walker-Peters (but not Foyth), Amos et al

 

[Spursidol]

2018/19 Premier League squads confirmed
* = Homegrown player

Alderweireld, Toby Albertine
Alli, Bamidele Jermaine*
Aurier, Serge
Davies, Benjamin Thomas*
Dembele, Mousa
Dier, Eric Jeremy Edgar
Eriksen, Christian
Gazzaniga, Paulo Dino
Heung-min, Son
Kane, Harry*
Lamela, Erik
Llorente Torres, Fernando Javier
Lloris, Hugo
Nkoudou Mbida, Georges-Kevin
Ogilvie, Connor Stuart*
Rodrigues Moura da Silva, Lucas
Rose, Daniel Lee*
Sanchez Mina, Davinson
Sissoko, Moussa
Trippier, Kieran John*
Vertonghen, Jan
Vorm, Michel
Wanyama, Victor
Winks, Harry*

- N'koudou included
- Foyth can play as he qualifies as an U21 under PL rules
- Davies qualifies as HG under PL rules
- Ogilvie included even though he is on loan as he is HG and aged 22
Only 24 players (including Ogilvie) named due to shortage of homegrown players (but u21's can of course play)

The injured Janssen misses out as we have too many overseas trained players (under Pl definitions and rules)

 

[Blanchflower]

22/25 place filled

Poor squad management, we could have equally useless English trained players as Vorm, Gazziniga, Llorente, Janssen, N'Koudou.

 

[Spursidol]

22/25 place filled

Poor squad management, we could have equally useless English trained players as Vorm, Gazziniga, Llorente, Janssen, N'Koudou.

Agreed poor squad management - and completely predictable from 18 months or 2 years ago.

I actually think that Vorm has been a decent back up keeper. Gazanigga as 3rd choice GK has only played once, so its clearly not very clever to use a 'valuable' Overseas Trained player place which are in short supply on a 3rd choice GK.

We let Button go some 5 years ago who has subsequently played some 200 games in the Championship and signed in the summer as PL Brighton's back up keeper aged 29 - a decent option still. And there are other decent options in Championship as a 3rd choice gk plus we have several coming through the academy who look decent but at age 18/19 might be a year or two away from being a genuine 3rd choice alternative.

N'Koudou is nothing special, and yet we allowed a good winger aged 19 run down his contract to go abroad (Keanan Bennetts) and other academy products who are good not get any game time who will leave for that reason - same is happening at a number of PL clubs who are buying players rather than developing them and the young players are leaving PL clubs to get game time abroad. There will come a bit of a wake up call when one of the young players who went abroad (the PL club often getting less than £1m in compensation) is bought by a PL club for £50m. Trust me it will happen - its just a question of when.

Really not sure why we bought N'Koudou, Llorente or Janssen as none of them appear to fit into Poch's desired system - so better not to have bought than buy badly. And Poch is as guilty as anyone for allowing a number of players to be bought that he doesn't want to play : he can always say no to extra players who he doesn't need, its not just Levy

 

[Spursidol]

There's also the question as to why buy Aurier for £25m or so when you have Walker-Peters ready to go - 2 MoTM in 2 PL starts but only about 6 appearances last season.

Aurier can be very good , but he is error prone (is throw ins were a bizarre example) and will take Poch a lot of coaching to get him to be a reliable 7/10 player. Same coaching time or perhaps more than KWP needs to get to same level (KWP is less error prone but less experienced than Aurier).

So same question - why buy and fill a scarce 'Overseas trained' squad place when you have a ready made HG alternative available ?

 

[TimothéeAtouba]

We have such a thin CM squad. Other than Sissoko, all the other players have issues...

I read in the papers that we are being linked with Ajax's de Jong, I really hope we get a couple at least.

 

[Spursidol]

Perhaps worth a summary of our incoming transfers over the last few Transfer Windows :

Jan 2018
Lucas Moura £25m

Summer 2017
Fernando Llorente £15m
Serge Aurier £23m
Juan Foyth £8m
Paulo Gazanigga £1m
Davinson Sanchez £38m

Summer 2016
Moussa Sissoko £30m
George-Kevin N'Koudou £11m
Vincent Janssen £17m
Vincent Wanyama £11m

Summer 2015
Heung Min Son £22m
Clinton N'Jie £10m
Toby Alderweireld £11m
Kieran Trippier £4m
Kevin Wimmer £4m

January 2015
Dele Ali £5m

Categorising those into 'successes' and 'failures' is inherently subjective, but here's my take :

- Those in blue are those that are undoubted successes (7 players out of 16.)

- There are those that have performed to some degree but we might have expected more from (Aurier, Sissoko, Foyth - limited opportunities, Gazanigga - limited opportunities), (4 out of 16 players)

- Players who have not performed as well as expectations at time of signings (Llorente, Janssen, N'Koudou) 3 players out of 16

- Other players (Wimmer, N'Jie) 2 players out of 16

So pretty much a 50% success rate in recent years.

I think we need to be more sure before we buy others that we are buying players who can make a difference and will 'gel' with other members of the squad (eg N'Koudou always wearing headphones rather than listening to Poch or other squad players) - remembering we need to sell a few to be able to bring in any other than Home Grown players. anyway.

Not unique to Spurs, but a reminder that buying players is inherently risky that Spurs will make mistakes.

 

[Spursidol]

Bumped for the fans that want to buy more players as a reaction to a poor display v Liverpool

The problem is we already have a bloated squad

We need to sell some of the overseas trained players we have in the squad as we cannot register or play some of the players we have in the squad.

Also need to question why we bought some of the players

- a 3rd choice goalkeeper who occupiers one of the 'overseas trained players' places in the squad which are in short supply.
- Aurier who requires considerable coaching to become a reliable RB when we had KWP ready to go who as home grown doesn't take up an 'overseas trained' place
- etc (most in the posts above)

We need better squad management and coaching not more players.