Summer 2017 transfer window or, waiting for Godot

[mouse]

are our 'back ups. good enough?

lloris
vorm

alderweireld dier vertonghen
carter-vickers no cover wimmer

walker ----------------------------------- rose
trippier ---------------------------------- davies

wanyama ----- dembele
onomah ------ winks

eriksen ------------------ dele
lamela ------------------ son

kane
janssen​

This isn't really fair though is it, because this suggest we have "2 players for each fixed position", where as in reality (as Sammy says above) we have a number of extremely flexible players who can cover a number of positions and in different formations.

In fact I think our flexibility served us very well last year. Yes, squad depth can always be improved but we dealt with a number of key players being out for prolonged periods last year and it was a testament to our versatility that we still finished so strongly.

Winks will continue to get minutes and impress giving us options in the middle, Kane hopefully stays fit for a whole season. Alli still learning his trade and improving. Lamela will (cliche alert) be like a new signing.

If we can start the season with our key players in form (primarily Eriksen, who started very slowly last season) then we are already looking strong.

City, Utd, Chelsea will all throw their weight about...we know that, but there are absolutely no guarantees.The scum are are sinking ship and will probably start next year weaker than last. Liverlol don't seem to be addressing any of their issues and are just hoarding attacking players.

Give me a "strong & stable" (blurghhhh) squad with another season playing together under their belt any day.

TBH I'm already consigned to a bit of a drop off the over the next few seasons because of the stadium disruptions, so expectations have been lowered anyway.

Still, i'm sure of one thing - and that is that i will go into every game maintaining that strong sense of pride that has been slowly building over the last three seasons. Knowing that we are a team without fear anymore and that we demand respect from our opposition in all aspects of our game.

Nobody fucks with us anymore.

COYS!

 

[Bagelboy]

You call yourself a Spurs fan and don't think some signings aren't made over the coaches head? Just like N'jie, GKN, Fazio, Stambouli all Poch signings. If Sissoko was a Pochettino choice don't you think he'd have been given more opportunity? He was a last minute statement signing.

I don't think we should all think Pochettino hasn't any flaws. You can't just throw the dud ones at Levy and the good ones are all Pochettino signings.
I am quite certain that Stambouli was a Pochettino signing, as were Osvaldo and gaston Ramirez. Expensive buys for saints.
He didn't use Son in the league until the 5th match the year he joined.
Then started him 11 times inthe 25+ games left after he came back from injury.
Most were critical of Son this season. The general consensus was he was a bottler, couldn't hold onto the ball and was shit. If he would have bombed then probably would have also been a non Pochettino signing.
GKN was a weird signing. I doubt we would have shown that much determination to sign him, and loan them Njie, if Pochettino didn't want him.
One thing is for sure, Janssen is a Pochettino signing.

 

[Bagelboy]

I've also got Sessegnon and Lemar on the list.

Incase you weren't 100% sure. It wasn't serious.

So why even bother saying...."he's not Ours"
like you purposely left him out becuase he was on loan.


Why not just say......"oh yeah, we may be buying him too, like Lemar and Sessegnon. I forgot about him"
If it wasn't serious.

 

[r-u-s-x]

That's about 80m spent when that money could have been spent on 2 (or maybe 3) real quality players that could impact our first X1 and really push us on.

For that type of player our limitations have always come down to wages rather than fee's. Not only for that player but for others wanting parity.

This is what I have been arguing with Man City supporters who are saying Levy would be desperate to sell Walker. We value him at £40m+ but he is on £70K, if we bought a £40M RB we would have to pay him a lot more in wages so I think we would happily forgo the fee and keep a superior player on relative peanuts.

 

[Airfixx]

He's an experienced, proven PL player

Sissoko was EPL experienced. It's not like RB is tearing up the EPL.

I'm entirely intrigued as to what ANYONE that's pro-RB what they OBSERVE about the player that makes them think he's worth us spending circa £40m on...

Amongst a depth/bench of Lamela, Son, Winks, Onomah, Edwards... What attributes does RB have that would push him to the top of the queue and be a success here?

is in the top ten for assists (with five PL players plus Eriksen in front of him way beyond our capabilities to sign) and would slip in the starting eleven quite easily in a squad that will need to be rotated next season. Plus he is available.

So essentially, you're that keen on Barkley merely because of his assist stat?

If you can't see what he would add to the team and the fact that he can improve then again i repeat name me a player that's available that could offer more to this squad.

Am I seduced by his assist stat? Nope not really....

Other than that the rest of your comments are pretty superficial and I'm intrigued how you can (or anyone from their armchair) expect to genuinely know what players are "available"? Aside from an obvious bunch that are either blatantly outside of our price-range or evidently 100% committed to their current employer, it's always down to tempting a player to 'greener pastures', 'selling' them the proverbial project, preferable terms etc.

You won't know until you try basically and all this "available" shit, in this context, just reeks of trying to buy into whoever we're linked with, just cos they link suggests they are available to us and thus close to be being signed.

Just one.

Bearing in mind I already said I'd rather sign no-one (if given the choice between £40m for RB vs keeping the money in the pot), that question is dead in the water.

Regardless, I know it's vogue for some to say "well if you can't name someone, you have no right to critique our recruitment efforts", but truly, that's bollocks...

If one expects our scouting team to be no more comprehensively informed than me (compared to someone professionally employed to watch and evaluate players across the entire globe) then it's maybe not so surprising that peeps get so enthused by 'route 1' thinking like signing Ross 'still has it all to prove' Barkley or Wilfred 'Patchy Bambi' Zaha for big money.

Circa £40m (+ tidy wage deal) for an EPL player who still isn't a sure thing to us....?

I'd deem that a high risk ransfer... The kind that Sissoko should have taught us a valuable lesson about.... And the kind that is entirely contrary to our published transfer policy.

 

[mouse]

Disagree that Wanyama was. Think Poch had it in his mind to make Wanyama a starter being that he rated him so highly.

N'kodou, N'jie, Sissoko, Janssen, Wimmer, and Trippier were our latest squad player signings with 1 being a success and 1 being decent. That's about 80m spent when that money could have been spent on 2 (or maybe 3) real quality players that could impact our first X1 and really push us on.

I feel 1 real quality signing and another really good signing is the way to go this time.

Cant be arsed to go through this all over again so just going to say:

Wages.

 

[Airfixx]

So you have listed a load of players that are not available, you should have added Messi, and Ronaldo. Secondly how can you suggest that ALL of them would be better paid at Spurs, thats total bollocks.

So where is this golden child that you talk about that would have Barkley polishing their boots for a living?

Just suppose the entire forum concedes that they don't know of a suitable target, does that miraculously boost RB's ability or mean that a better option doesn't exist?

Sidenote/reminder to many: Dier, Dele, Eriksen, Son, Hugo, Vert... No PL experience prior to siging for Spurs.... Dele, Dier, Vert & CE collectively cost less than the supposed RB price-tag.

 

[TommyD123]

Sessegnon Ginter and Robben

 

[Airfixx]

Barkley is my pick as he is experienced in PL and as we know too well some of these flash overseas Harry's cannot cut it in the hardest league in the world.

Yet RB has struggled to consistently cut it at Everton.

 

[Bill Madrid]

Wages.

(N'kodou + N'jie + Sissoko + Janssen + Wimmer + Stamboul + Fazio) + (N'kodou's, N'jie's, Sissoko's, Janssen's, Stambouli's, Fazio's and Wimmer's wages) > (quality player x 2) + (quality player's wages x 2)

#doingthemath

 

[Airfixx]

I don't think we should all think Pochettino hasn't any flaws. You can't just throw the dud ones at Levy and the good ones are all Pochettino signings.
I am quite certain that Stambouli was a Pochettino signing, as were Osvaldo and gaston Ramirez. Expensive buys for saints.

Stambouli was a blatant last min cheapo alternative to Schneiderlin (a la Fazio/Musachio)... Harsh to pin that one on Poch when we were just too slow to show any serious interest (by which time Liverpool had already met S'otons 'outgoing' quota).

Osvaldo defo... He'd played under Poch before at Espanyol, no?

He didn't use Son in the league until the 5th match the year he joined.
Then started him 11 times inthe 25+ games left after he came back from injury.
Most were critical of Son this season. The general consensus was he was a bottler, couldn't hold onto the ball and was shit. If he would have bombed then probably would have also been a non Pochettino signing.
GKN was a weird signing. I doubt we would have shown that much determination to sign him, and loan them Njie, if Pochettino didn't want him.

All those guys seem like 'commitee signings' to me... Punts at better depth, with decent resale prospects... All the while we were desperate for a 2nd #9... (Concerns me that some windows we get caught up with these kind of peripheral deals and neglect our most pressing needs.... Something that reeks of board - not manager - to me.)

One thing is for sure, Janssen is a Pochettino signing.

Hmmmm.... Even then I think there's a hint of Levy/'Dutch market has been good to us' about it.

Bearing in mind when brought in, he was initially head coach for the first 2 seasons, i think the only 1 that is a blatant Poch pick is Wanyama....

This summer intrigues me tbh... Let's see who's finger prints are all over the window this time around...

Pretty sure if you said to Poch at the begining of last summer "you can have a £30m AM on upper tier wages", we wouldn't have ended up with Le Lump.

 

[Tomo]

Stambouli was a blatant last min cheapo alternative to Schneiderlin (a la Fazio/Musachio)... Harsh to pin that one on Poch when we were just too slow to show any serious interest (by which time Liverpool had already met S'otons 'outgoing' quota).

Osvaldo defo... He'd played under Poch before at Espanyol, no?


All those guys seem like 'commitee signings' to me... Punts at better depth, with decent resale prospects... All the while we were desperate for a 2nd #9... (Concerns me that some windows we get caught up with these kind of peripheral deals and neglect our most pressing needs.... Something that reeks of board not manager to me.)



Hmmmm.... Even then I think there's a hint of Levy/'Dutch market has been good to us' about it.

Bearing in mind when brought in, he was initially head coach for the first 2 seasons, i think the only 1 that is a blatant Poch pick is Wanyama....

This summer intrigues me tbh... Let's see who's finger prints are all over the window this time around...

Pretty sure if you said to Poch at the begining of last summer "you can have a £30m AM on upper tier wages", we wouldn't have ended up with Le Lump.

Absolutely, Stanbouli, Sissoko etc all looked like last minute cover a hole in the squad deals. If the manager gives a list of players he wants and we can't get them and we have a position that needs to be filled last second then we will always get second rate risky alternatives.

Sissoko is not a good signing but at the time he was probably seen as someone who could in his own wa do a job in an area where we might be light.

Thing is Poch is never going to get the money to spend £40-50 million and offer 200K wages to a player so we will always have a degree of risk in our transfer strategy.

 

[Airfixx]

Absolutely, Stanbouli, Sissoko etc all looked like last minute cover a hole in the squad deals. If the manager gives a list of players he wants and we can't get them and we have a position that needs to be filled last second then we will always get second rate risky alternatives.

Sissoko is not a good signing but at the time he was probably seen as someone who could in his own wa do a job in an area where we might be light.

Thing is Poch is never going to get the money to spend £40-50 million and offer 200K wages to a player so we will always have a degree of risk in our transfer strategy.

Don't disagree... But we need to continue to be smarter than the average bear...

Signing Barkley & Zaha is Liverpool mode.... Like I said above, high risk, route 1 thinking.

 

[Tomo]

Don't disagree... But we need to continue to be smarter than the average bear...

Signing Barkley & Zaha is Liverpool mode.... Like I said above, high risk, route 1 thinking.

I wouldn't be against them at the right price, Zaha has become a very good player.

That being said Lemar and Sessegnon would probably be smarter signings, particularly long term.

 

[Airfixx]

I wouldn't be against them at the right price, Zaha has become a very good player.

The right price isn't on the horizon any time soon sadly.... Even more-so in the case of Zaha if he's signed that rumoured new deal at Palace.

 

[Totti]

So why even bother saying...."he's not Ours"
like you purposely left him out becuase he was on loan.


Why not just say......"oh yeah, we may be buying him too, like Lemar and Sessegnon. I forgot about him"
If it wasn't serious.

Because I don't think we'll waste our time in signing him.

Was that not obvious by the fact I left him out of my thoughts on squad depth?

Sorry if you couldn't comprehend.

 

[Airfixx]

Salah 39m price-tag reportedly Euros not £s.....

 

[tbonepremier]

Disagree that Wanyama was. Think Poch had it in his mind to make Wanyama a starter being that he rated him so highly.

N'kodou, N'jie, Sissoko, Janssen, Wimmer, and Trippier were our latest squad player signings with 1 being a success and 1 being decent. That's about 80m spent when that money could have been spent on 2 (or maybe 3) real quality players that could impact our first X1 and really push us on.

I feel 1 real quality signing and another really good signing is the way to go this time.

Please stop writing X1. It hurts my brain. Either XI or 11.

Thank you.

 

[Juicy Sushi]

Right...



So he establishes a meaningless measure of "where they receive the ball", goes on to explain that Siggy plays like an attacking midfielder, and Barkley like a DLP, but then says "fuck it, they're the same, let's do this"


He then plucks out a passmap which clearly shows Siggy as playing like an attacking midfielder down the left flank, and Barkley as a deeper-lying midfielder, claims to "predict" the difficulty of passes, then even admits as much himself:



No shit.

He then talks about the horseshit models of "Expected Passes" and "Expected Assists" (yes, because that has nothing to do with the player they're passing to )

Then, makes this statement:



No way! Who would have thought a midfielder for Woolwich, City or Chelsea would have much more chance of getting an assist than one playing for Swansea or Everton ...

...



....World Cup, European Cup, Europa League and multiple Serie A winning Llorente?

He then claims


...because Siggy has scored more free kick from taking more free kicks. no way!

Then we have:



Could that be because they don't play in the same fucking position!



So you've wasted everyones time writing the article. Cheers. I look forward to his piece on "Can Pickford replace Lukaku"?



So, after discovering that the article did nothing but explain that they have fuck all in common on a football pitch, you say:



When it was actually a shit comparison of Gylfi versus Barkely, and I can only assume you "really, really, really don't want us to sign Ross Barkley" because he plays in a different position to Siggy?



He doesn't have a judgement - he pointlessly makes comparisons before admitting that they are incompatible.
Why, if you read the article, do you need me to take the time to reiterate that? What exactly did you glean from it?

I can't take any analysis like "Expected Assists" into account, because it bears no attention towards the most important factor in an assist - some other fucker scoring it. Put Messi in a pub team and he'd never get an assist if Fat Graham up front has the shooting skill of a 6 year old.

So, you don't like expected passing models because they ignore the recipient of the pass. Sorry, but that's kind of the point. The whole idea of a passing model is to look at who is good at passing the ball from less-dangerous areas of the pitch to more-dangerous ones. That is a skill which some people are better at that others, and measuring it is pretty damn useful. Focusing on who receives the ball would defeat the purpose, as it isn't about the recipient, it's about the pass. Your hypothetical Messi playing with pub players is exactly who someone looking at passing quality is trying to find.

Your failure to get Paul's sarcasm over model skepticism is understandable, but I don't really think it matters to the point. He wrote about these two players because there's a lot of gossip that said Barkley was leaving and Sigurdsson was maybe his replacement. So, he wrote about a) that they don't really play the same position, b) pass the ball to different locations, c) Shouldn't be treated as an attempt to replace like-for-like.

I posted it because it illustrates reasons why I'm not a Barkley fan. He's not a very dangerous creative passer (which I think we need). You didn't get any of that. Oh well. Best put me on ignore then, I don't plan on changing.

 

[Juicy Sushi]

So you have listed a load of players that are not available, you should have added Messi, and Ronaldo. Secondly how can you suggest that ALL of them would be better paid at Spurs, thats total bollocks.

So where is this golden child that you talk about that would have Barkley polishing their boots for a living?

All of the players I mentioned I think are emphatically better than Barkley. And, with the exception of possibly the Red Bull players, they all would be better paid at Spurs. We don't pay badly, just not stupidly high like our competitors. But compared to the likes of Freiburg or Sampdoria, we definitely pay significantly higher wages to our players.