Given the turmoil at Tottenham Hotspur over the summer, few expected us to open up the 2021/22 campaign with such a flourish as we left Pep Guardiola crying into his Grecian 2000 (or is it Grealish £100million?) with a thoroughly well deserved victory on Sunday.
In the absence of Harry ‘will he, won’t he’ Kane, players stepped up and performed admirably against the reigning title holders and the ever reliable Son Hueng-Min secured us the win ten minutes into the second half.
It was a confidence booster and as we go into Thursday’s laughable Europa Conference League clash with Pacos de Ferreira, few will be expecting any difficulties as long as we again perform how we did on Sunday.
We might even have Kane back as he’s been named in the squad by manager Nuno Espirito Santo.
Two wins from two would set us up nicely for Nuno’s first return to Molineux at the weekend and it would certainly raise spirits with ongoing transfer sagas.
On HK leaving: it’s like going through a separation and divorce. Relieved it’s over after the nasty discomfort of the ending, but wishing no harm. hope his life after spurs is okay, but I’ve no desire to see him win any prizes. if he does, it’s not of great interest to me at this point. It was nice and he gave us a few thrills. now we need to find different company for the holidays. sorry, but you’re not one of ours. that’s gone, long gone.
DL: get on with it. make a firm commitment to sell at anything over 150 sterling. cash up front. by three new star level players and save a bit of the cash for another two next year. bye harry. you’ll show up in our thoughts once in a while when reminiscing.
prediction: HK will start to break down within three years. citeh need to give him more time off than he’s used to getting. his best years have come and gone.
best to see him go. quickly while the window’s still open and a deal or two line up.
TK – chances are, Kane would start to break down within 3 years even if he stayed. Hostroy of injuries + wrong side of 30 = trouble for most footballers.
That doesn’t mean he can’t be an essential cog for the next 3 years, and gradually become a useful bit part player after that.
I’d question whether the Kane transfer will go through now even if City do come up with the money, which still seems doubtful. There just isn’t time to reinvest the money before the transfer window runs out. With Grealish City just paid the £100m. With Kane, a much more valuable player, they are trying to do a deal on the cheap. Which would suggest they don’t really value Kane that much.
jod….I think it’s always been more about his value to Spurs rather than City or another prospective buyer.
BelgianSpur – Its a good question. I’d say that Son is easily top of the list and Soldado bottom. Son is more than a success, he is a world class player who has given us years of service and the £22m we paid for him is a ridiculously low fee for what we got. Soldado by comparison was a failure from start to finish and never produced anything at Spurs. There’s a few points we need to remember. First is we are talking about moving targets. When Son first arrived he struggled. Then he got better and better every year. So he’s worth more now than earlier in his Spurs career. Sometimes its down to luck, how much better a buy would Lamela have been if he hadn’t had so many injuries ? I’d argue the £25m we paid for Moura was good value. He’s had his highs and lows but he’s always been a fighter and is currently in great form. We paid £27m for Lo Celsco, I like him but to me he’s not played enough yet to judge. Sissoko at £30m was probably not such good value, however he gave good service and is no Soldado. In the case of Sanchez and Bergwijn, to me they are both capable of more than they have so far delivered. Its the moving target again, in 12 months time they could have gone to the next level or proved disappointments. You could say the same about N’Dombele, however while I’m convinced Sanchez and Bergwijn want to improve I am not sure N’Dombele really cares. He has the talent to be a world class player but could easily end up as our most expensive mistake.
jod – instead of looking at what the player is worth at any one point in time (the “moving target” you mentioned), I choose to look at it differently. I just look at the body of work in a Spurs shirt as a whole so far.
I look at Sissoko’s contributions as a whole and for what he has given us in a Spurs shirt so far, I feel a player who would have cost half as much could have given us the same or better. And that same logic applies to Aurier and unfortunately quite a few others on the list.
There is always the possibility for players like NDombele, Sanchez, Bergwijn or Lo Celso to come good, which might change the assessment over time. But if you were to look at it right now, it’s not looking great.
Lamela fit is a “what if” – the reality is that he was constantly injured and a mistake. What if Soldado had scored goals? He didn’t.
But rather than dive deeply into each individual circumstance and try to look for mitigating factors, I think from a macro perspective the conclusion is obvious. I think we can all agree that this list doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. These are our top 10 most expensive transfers ever, and the list begs more questions than it answers, if we’re all perfectly honest. On that evience, I believe our recruitment efforts do need looking at.
And if we are talking about spending the Harry Kane money, it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. when really only one player on that list is a world class, undoubted success.
TQ2Spurs – Not sure I understand what you are saying.
jod….. say Kane’s goals and assists is the difference between us making CL qualification or not each season, that could amount to £30m of income each season over the 3 years remaining on his contract and therefore could cost us £90m in lost income without him. Add in the loss of prize money (and possibly gate receipts from cup games) from the PL and other tournaments from finishing lower/going out in early rounds, plus commercial stuff like shirt sales, it all adds up to him being of significant value to the club.
I think if City meet the asking price, he’ll 100% go, no matter how late.
As long as City weren’t meeting a fair valuation, Kane might have been disgruntled but there was a rational reason not to accept the deal, which even Kane could understand. If City do meet the valuation and Levy still won’t budge, Kane will go on strike. I just don’t see how that serves THFC’s interests.
The irony of the situation is that many Spurs fans are slating City for messing around and not putting up the money, when in reality City are merely doing what Daniel Levy does all the time, in any negotiation – haggling. And most of the time, Spurs fans laud him for it.
It can’t go both ways: either we think this is a perfectly acceptable tactic in negotiations, and we just have to recognise that City are merely doing their best to get the best possible deal for them, which is fair enough, or we slate City for using such tactics but we should stop getting excited when other clubs “get Levy’d”.
Paratici has supposedly been lining up deals all over Europe and hopefully he just has to pull the trigger now. I’d find it hugely disappointing if the club wasn’t at least planning for worst case scenario. I can understand how the club would prefer that KAne stays, but I would expect them to have contingency plans in place nonetheless. Otherwise it’s just negligence.
BS I disagree to a degree.
If we are to believe the media(its, all we have to go on), Spurs have been lining up players to replace Kane, the Martinez deal was all but done, then Chelsea scuppered that one, we have had a couple of players turn us down because we aren’t playing in Europe.
There has been the Euros the Cupa America and Olympics to contend with, and given we have to sell to buy and no one is lining up to purchase our players.
But I still feel we could be faster in our transactions to get em over the line
ND …. You are dead right. The media is pretty much all there is to go on. And how reliable is that? Yet most posters on VS are continually repeating media outlets and going on and on about him going, staying, being undecided, etc, etc. And now, it seems, some posters are starting to get angry at him and wanting him gone. Here’s a really stupid idea …. why not wait until something concrete actually eventuates before assessing the situation. It’s Kane’s career, not ours.
Niall – I think all of those players were there to be had if we’d met the valuation sooner and/or decided sooner.
When it comes to Martinez, the club were supposedly interested in signing him to play alongside Kane, not to replace him.
Either that’s a lie and we were never going to buy a player of that calibre if Kane stayed. Alternatively, if that is the case and we had gone as far as having a fee accepted, there really is no excuse to let the negotation drag on, thereby allowing circumstances to change with the Lukaku deal.
We reportedly had a deal agreed for Martinez well before Chelsea had gotten involved for Lukaku, yet they completed their deal far quicker than we did, despite having a later start. Any failure to sign Martinez is down to us.
I personally think Pau Torres’ stance is posturing, and a way to get us to offer better wages. If the lack of CL football was impossible to overcome, why did Romero join us? He was going to play the CL with Atalanta.
Money speaks and I’m sure Torres would happily join us if the wages on offer were too good to turn down. In saying that, there is always going to be a financial reality that our club is faced with, we don’t have the resources to pay huge wages, and it’s a point well taken. But we also know that if the MO is always to look for bargains first and foremost, we’re going to lose a lot of time and open the door for others.
And the same logic largely applies when it comes to selling players. If we are holding out for unrealistic fees, it’s no surprise these deals drag on. I’m not saying that’s the case (I don’t know) and there may genuinely be very little interest for players like Aurier, who can be had on a free next summer. But in that case, we also shouldn’t be banking on those funds to dictate what we can and can’t do in this summer window.
We can all look for excuses, recognise that getting transfers done is hard and that they involve lots of moving parts. But we again go back to the point that plenty of clubs around us make it look far easier than Spurs.
BelgianSpur – I understand what you are saying about Sissoko, but we are getting into the men with no names territory again. On this site there is always some mysterious player who would be much, much better and cheaper than the players we have, but funnily he never has a name. I have no problem with someone saying that there was a better, cheaper alternative than a signing as long as I know who he is. The problem with looking at a player at a fixed point in time is it really tells you nothing. If we had looked at Son at the end of season 1 we might have classed him a failure, that now looks ridiculous. I suppose its only at the end of a players time in a Spurs shirt that you can draw a line and give a definitive verdict. I don’t see how you can compare Soldado and Lamela. Lamela had no control over his injuries, Soldado simply couldn’t handle the premier league, he wasn’t good enough. Soldado was a very bad signing, we’ll never know how good Lamela really was.
jod …. In fairness to Soldado it should be acknowledged that we bought him as a legitimate number 9, but we never played in a formation that suited an out-and-out striker. That wasn’t his fault and I’m not sure, given the way we were playing, why we bought him in the first place. There have been other strikers we brought in who have also not been suited to our style of play.
TQ2Spurs – I understand what you are saying now. You might even be underestimating the value of the Champions League depending on how far we get. Of course it all depends on Kane’s performance level but he’s always been a model professional and he won’t do his future transfer prospects any good if he sulks.
Jod….you are right about underestimating the CL income, Jim White/Simon Jordan just estimated CL participation to be worth £40-50m now.
Tonights line-up?
Golinni
Doherty Romero Carter-Vickers Sessegnon? (probably Davies)
Sissoko Lo Celso Winks
Clarke Scarlett Bryan
Geoff,
I do suppose in reality you are right, as, PY and I have often said, it is the media merry go round, re Kane there is so much speculation at present and I suppose posters including both of us can’t help commenting on it, but yet again it is true what you are saying.
BS there are two sides to what you’re saying, the supporter in me agrees that we should get the deals over the line.
But on a more pragmatic side I look at the trouble Barcelona are now in by over spending on transfers and player wages, I would argue that they are in the doldrums now for several years and are currently involved in a fire sale to get their finances in control.
In short what is the best route to take in the transfer market. 🙄
HT….I don’t think Sissoko has been training with the squad, seems he could be on his way out. Reports suggest we are looking at Aouar again so maybe a swap deal in the offing with Sissoko returning to France?
Seems Milenkovic has signed a one year extension at Fiorentina so that’s another linked name that won’t be coming unless we pay a lot more for him.
Hi TQ… In that case, I’ll stick John in his place… And also, maybe Sess can play in the front 3 anyway. And not Clarke?
Hi HT, yes I thought John might get a shout in the middle.
If kane is sold, Will son be playing up top, and we don’t buy a striker and another winger attacker. Levy holds the aces, time for sissoko and winks to follow aurier out. Couple more additionsneeded
Viewing the game will be a pain tonight, BT showed a slot in their schedule earlier in the week for a Conference league game tonight but it has gone now and I see the game is on Premier Sports. Will have to make do with a dodgy stream I suppose. 🙁