Having started the New Year in the perfect fashion, Tottenham Hotspur had the chance to take a step closer to Wembley Stadium this week, with the EFL Cup semi-final clash against Brentford.
Welcoming the Championship side to White Hart Lane for the game, this could be the proverbial banana skin tie, as they cannot be underestimated and they are a good footballing side to boot. Having missed out on the Play-Off route last year, they sit in fourth place in the second tier table and have only lost three league games in 2020/21.
Given manager Jose Mourinho will make changes again for this one, the only real question on the lips of fans is which Spurs side will turn up?
If we are complacent, we could be in trouble. Play how we know we can and we should blow them away, but given how our standards have slipped at points this year, few would begrudge fans being a little nervous about this one.
Apart from a handful of loans in and out, there have been no transfer deals as yet across the entire PL. And I doubt there will be many at all over this 4 week TW.
With Spurs, where is the revenue to be making any significant deals right now? Unless we sell someone for a handsome fee. Dele for example.
There’s always still Joshua King I suppose. Then we can have two CF’s that don’t see the field of play very often. That would continue to be so unless Harry was to get injured, I presume…
Criticism of Moura is like so much criticism on this site. We are playing twice a week, every week. We need everyone we have. Yet when a player is “not good enough” there’s no explanation of who is going to replace him, just that he should be got rid of. Which would just leave us a player light and make it that much harder for the rest of the squad. Destructive not constructive criticism.
jod – it is more opening a debate as to whether it makes sense to have 3 senior players on relatively high wages, all playing the same role within our squad (I posted a reply to an earlier post from Stan Rosenthal, essentially saying as much).
Accepting that our budget is a finite amount, and that we have other holes to fill elsewhere, does it make sense to stockpile players in one position and having far less depth in others?
If a player’s only quality is “having a pulse” because we need everyone we have, that’s a very short term outlook on squad management. Especially with young players (such as Jack Clarke for example), whose paths to the first team are blocked despite having potentially something different to offer to the squad.
Re last nights play
Lloris did come for one or two crosses which I saw as good progress. But what I have noticed lately is that he is now retaining the ball much longer, when at times he could give it short, it was as if he actually waited for their players to come on our defenders, then play the hopeless, long ball when the short pass was on for some time. We are almost at the opposite of the Poch “play it short” at all times now now it’s almost play it long at all times, where we should actually vary our play out.
Re Lloris I note he’s in the conversation for a transfer to PSG owing to his excellent relationship with Poch.
Must agree with BS re the Moura, Bergs, Lamella, debate.
For me of the 3 Lamella of the 3 needs to go first.
Simply because of his age and injury list over the years, he’s spent more time on the physio table than on the pitch. Much as I love his play and commitment it’s however not enough.
Would love to see Sabitzer at the club.
Re RB I still think Doherty has more to offer. Tho if he doesn’t we’ll easily get our 15 mil back.
Great to get to a domestic final, been a long while. Pity its far away in April, it is what it is.
BelgianSpur – In fact if you are talking about particular positions, wide men who play both sides, central defenders, you need four players as you will need to play two and rest two. If we have a finite amount to spend the first question is how much will the replacement cost ? kind of difficult to answer if you haven’t thought it through that far and you are just thinking of a man with no name. With a youngster the question is whether he ready to play in the premier league, which has to be the manager’s judgement. If the answer is not yet (which I suspect is the case with Clarke) then throwing him in too early will simply damage him, a loan would make more sense. Hence we are seeing Skipp playing at Norwich to develop his game. The irony of your “short term” comment is if you have a young player coming through you think will eventually make the grade then a short term solution to bridge the gap is exactly what you want. I appreciate it’s a lot to consider and if you just say “he’s not good enough” it saves actually having to engage the brain.
Man C at Wembley
jod – I find it ironic that you would question my ability to engage my brain, when in fact your post is full of contradictions.
You say that the jury is still out on Clarke, because he’s too young and unproven.
Yet when you talk about our need for 4 centre backs, we only have 3 senior ones in the squad (Dier, Sanchez, Toby), the 4th option being either Rodon or Tanganga, both of which are no more proven in the PL than Clarke is.
So assuming we follow your logic that for young players (such as Rodon and Tanganga), a loan is best (and that in itself is debatable, as loaning young players doesn’t always pan out – unless you consider Cameron Carter-Vickers a star in the making), that would leave us with only 3 senior, proven CB’s. And still an abundance of attacking midfielders.
So either you are willing to consider young players legitimate solutions, in which case your point about replacement costs is useless, or you are not willing to consider young players an option, in which case our squad is not balanced.
And that is even before we mention the fallacy of your “replacement cost” argument. You are assuming that any player we buy will automatically cost more than the player we’ve sold. Why should it have to be that way? If your idol Levy is good at anything, it’s selling high and buying low.
It may be too much for you to process, but either way, you don’t make any sense.
I suspect that will be the last post from you, because usually when you are proven wrong, you just go quiet. See you on the next thread!
So its MC in the final then…
Brought some great memories of that Final 40 years ago v them, remember Ricky and that goal, yippee!
I could not go to the First leg of that final as one of my Daughters was born on that day in May/1981, how inconsiderate of her lol!
But did get to the replay though, and to see that! goal…There’s only one Ricky Villa.
So for my memories of 40 years ago, as always….Come On You Spurs.
I would have preferred United in the final, as I think it would have been the easier game, but we’re in the final regardless and we’ll just have to be at our best on the day. If we are, we can beat anyone.
Great signing for the club which will particularly please Geofspurs, Aussie Alanna Kennedy has signed a permanent deal with the club following her loan deal.
Pompey Yid – great memories from 1981. I went to both games – I remember queing up outside White Hart Lane on the Sunday morning for replay tickets – how times have changed. The replay was my first great memory as a Spurs fan.
Belgian Spur – great post at 9.22AM today.
DH…yes great memories, queing up for replay tickets, lol! luckily not me, as a couple of family members did it for me haha, and yes times have changed, for the worse in my mind, well that’s another story. COYS
Does it make sense to “freshen” the team regularly anyway.
I’m not saying so much now in this window, but a few players out and some fresh faces in sometimes boosts team performance.
I would suggest that the arrival of Hoj and to a degree Doh did this for Spurs in particular Aurier (for a while).
I would argue that the lack of this actually helped in the demise of Poch.
Perhaps the likes of Dele and Lamella are just a bit too comfortable ar Spurs and it may be best for all parties if they moved on.
Just two names in the pot for debate.
ND, how’s it going mate in yourself and over there, lol! snowbound yet.
I believe it does make sense to freshen up the team/squad on a regular basis because getting to comfortable or even stale becomes a certainty. COYS
Lucas is fast and runs at defenders . mf opposition players, Bergwjn similar this pulls defenders about and makes space for HK10 Sonny to do their assist passes and goal scoring. So they are useful squad players, and lucas can score goals, like a hatrick in our CL semi final.. or have some posters forgotten?
B108 …. Have to agree with you. I consider both Lucas and Bergwyn to be excellent squad players.
TQ …. Yep, it was a good signing. Not sure why Morgan joined for such a short time …. it seems fairly pointless but I guess it raised the clubs profile in the Women’s game. I’m looking forward to Kennedy meeting Kerr! They know each other game very well.
Hi PY
All OK over here, weather coldish no snow I live on the east coast here, so stormy at times but rearley get snow. Lock down is a bit of a shitter and Boris “dirty joe’d us” re brexit so we’re half in half out but can get fek all from the main land as a lot of places have stopped delivering. Long story m8.
Hope you and yours are staying safe.
Would like to see a new face at the club perhaps CDM or creative Mid field.
Delighted we in the final and back to winning ways plus a bit more positive with our play.
ND, that’s good to hear about yourself and kin, we are doing fine considering the circumstances we are all living in, mind the missus is still waiting for her ribs to mend after what happened during the HA times.
Am in agreement that maybe a couple of new faces are required at our club, who and whom I have no bloody idea lol! COYS
Lucas needs to up his game, hence why he will never be a starter, yes u can argue he tries and runs around, but for an attacker his stats are poor. They are better squad players out there.
123 …. Name them! OOps, sorry, mate, I turned into jod for a moment. : – )
😉 Geof
Block 108 – Nobody has forgotten about the semi-final, but every player has his day in the sun. The issue is that those days are few and far between with Lucas.
How long are you willing to let him live on his reputation of one big game? Name another game where Lucas was a force.
I feel Lucas is at his best when he’s the main man (which was the case against Ajax, given the absences that day). That’s not going to happen very often at Spurs as long as Kane is here, so Lucas is always going to have to make do with being a second fiddle. Now that we have even more competition for places, I just don’t see how THFC is going to afford him the conditions he needs to thrive.
And for a reported 100k+ per week, I think we should be able to expect more from a player than just being fast and running at defenders. Especially when we have, as you just said, a very similar player in Bergwijn who is 6 years younger and on lower wages who can do that just fine for the team.