Old news in a new format I suppose, but today sees the Evening Standard reporting that the talented, yet unwanted, quartet of Harry Winks, Giovani Lo Celso, Tanguy N’dombele, and Sergio Reguilon have been told to stay away from first-team training by Antonio Conte. According to the report, they have “been told the head coach can only work with a certain number of players.”
It’s been pretty clear for a while that the quartet do not have a future at the club – the writing has been on the wall for N’dombele and Lo Celso since they went out on loan last season (in all likelihood, even before this), whilst Winks and Reguilon just don’t fit into Conte’s plans. The group’s exclusion from the South Korea trip was unofficial confirmation that there is no way back for them in Conte’s plans, and now it’s a case of waiting until reasonable offers come in for them.
This has proven to be difficult to say the least – the clubs that have been interested in Lo Celso ostensibly prefer another loan with options to buy, whilst we prefer obligations if we cannot sell him permanently. Nobody is expressing serious interest in N’dombele, whilst a similar situation is occurring with Winks and Reguilon, whose potential suitors again are preferring loans with less risky options rather than obligations to buy, which, of course, is about as useful for us tackling a bowl of soup with a pair of chopsticks! The wait to offload the foursome continues…
It may seem harsh but Conte has been givien the freedom to shape his squad as he sees fit. All 4 were on the periphery last year. While it may take some “pride swallowing” to admit errors were made in our previous recruitment efforts, I think it’s the right thing to do to move on from those players, even if we have to take a loss. Let’s hope valuable lessons will have een learned, but the recent reshaping of the recruitment team seems to imply as much.
I read an article about these 4 this morning, saying there was actually plenty of interest in these players currently, but that they were so far unwilling to take the offers on the table.
Is it a question of merely waiting to see if more prestigious clubs come knocking, or a way to squeeze higher wages out of talks? Either way, if those players have any hope of going to the World Cup, rotting in Spurs’ academy probably isn’t the best way to make a case for selection. Let’s hope these situations play out favourably in the near future.
Apparently, the 4 unwanted are making it difficult to leave Spurs by refusing offers.
Also, Levy will never sell cheaply.
So what happens if we can’t get rid of this lot whose value has plummeted?
Been some more movement today there wentworth apparently, I’ll put up an article shortly…I think we’ll end up loaning Lo Celso because his suitors don’t have the finance for a permanent deal, same with N’dombele as no-one will pay 200k a week for his wages (and rightly so), and possibly the same with Reguilon…think clubs are just waiting until the deadline approaches where they’ll catch us becoming increasingly desperate to cash in. I wonder if we’ll see a Dele Alli-type deal with Winks? No-one wants to go near his asking price and with two years left on his contract a similar transfer to the one we agreed with Everton is a possibility.