tajjuk

5th August.

Not really I'd happily sees us pay £25 million for Sigurdsson, quality player, goal scoring midfielders don't grow on trees. Swansea were poor last year but he still managed 11 in 32 games for them from midfield. £25 million I think is last years like £18 million.

I'm not sure on Striker, really Long and Austin are both capable of playing as a long striker and Jay Rod is your third option. That's 3 potential players for one spot, though our wide man with pace buy could then be used as second striker if needed, much like Mane could.

Agree all the pool fans I know only ever talked about how crap their defense was not about their attacking play. If anything their defence does not look much better and nor does their centre-mids, with talk of Leivia being sold as well who is one of their better DMs, and Allen going that would only really leave them with Henderson, Can and Milner as centre mids. Whereas they have Mane, Ings, Benteke, Countinho, Firminho, Strurridge, Lallana, Origi, Markovic, they still have Balotelli and now have Wijnaldum as attacking options. Also that's around £225 million worth of attackers, most of whom they have signed in the last 3 years I think, with arguably the cheapest ones in there in Sturridge, Coutinho and Origi being the most successful (With Mane and Wijnaldum being new).

I think considering the extra games and the fact Bertrand has dabbled with being in a back 3 would mean Target is needed here. Fullbacks do a lot of work, and I think in Puel's formation at Nice they were entirely the width so having two decent options both sides to rotate is a good option. Still think we need 1. A big physical DM. 2. A goal scoring, creative, set piece taking taking Attacking mid/No.10. 3. A Pacey wide player. 4. A back up GK The first 3 should all be improving the first team squad.

The article suggest he's due further surgery in September, although it's 'minor'. Minor surgery seemed to set Jay Rod back quite awhile

Kind of ridiculous half a page has to go to showing how much a nonsense statement - is, but there you go. Not heard of Haller, but only 22, 1 in 2 goal record (albeit in Holland) and decent scoring record for the French U21 team all for around £6-7 million would be a pretty low risk deal and give us a decent back up option. With regards to Boufal, if he's having Surgery in September and will be injured until then, even without complications it's very unlikely he'd be fit until about mid-October with no pre-season and then he's likely off to the ACON in January. Paying £25 million for a player that we may have for less than half the season and is currently injured seems a big risk to me. No doubt he's a talented player though, so if the fee is lower could be worth a gamble.

Still hoping on Ziyech, sound to me exactly what we need, someone who can create from the middle, score the odd screamer and crucially take set pieces because if we don't have JWP on the pitch you wonder about the quality of our free kicks and corners.

When I say he's a downgrade, I mean he's a downgrade as the out and out physical DM, he seems more technical, a more complete box to box player, so really the only other sitting physical DM we have who can do the role Wanyama did is Romeu and he's decent but not Wanyama quality, hence downgrade. If anything Hojberg is a Morgan replacement and would be vying with Clasie/JWP/Davis for a spot I think. If we are playing a 3 then one is holding defensive mid (only have Romeu), one is a box to box (Clasie/Hojberg/JWP/Davis), one is a No.10 to play off the striker which currently we have no one, but at a stretch or away to tough teams we might play a Davis or JWP in this role. Redmond gives a wide right option, but we lack anyone else to play there and ideally you'd want two players for each position (Long doesn't work out wide and Jay Rod wouldn't work out wide right) plus this was where Mane played a lot, so a replacement there would make sense and you'd hope that he'd be better than Redmond so closer to replacing Mane. So in reality we still need another wide right attacking player, we still need another physical DM and we need that No.10 creative type ( Plus we need a back up keeper and apparently another right back. That's still 5 for me, if they are really serious about progressing and improving the team Dream world - someone Gonalons or William Carvalho for the physical DM, Ziyech for the No.10, AOC or Bouffal for the wide player.

Somewhat true, though you could argue most of our £11-12 million players usually improve the squad. If they improve the squad then it;s fine, but as pointed out Spurs have done this before, they spend like that after Bale went and most of those buys had little impact. They bought that Son for a fair whack (£22 million IIRC) and he's done little, same with N'Jie though he was cheaper. Son, Soldado, Lamela, Paulinho, all cost like £18-25 million, all not been very successful, whereas Del Ali, Eric Dier, trippier, Wimmer were all round the £4-5 million bracket (as was Bale)and have been much better, plus the likes Alderweld, Vertonghen, Chadli, Eriksson all in the sort of £10-12 million range. Seems to me Spurs do better with the signings of our level rather than the high profile ones, when they start paying the £20 million plus fees they don't seem to do that well.

Basically this, anyone can see the squad is not as strong as it was last year, it's down on pure numbers and it's down on quality having lost 3 key players. We also have more games and more strain expected this year. There is also the fact we are sitting on like £40 million of transfer sales, for that not to be used to re-invest back into the team is a bit of kick in the face to the fans IMO. Being transfer neutral is one thing, but selling key players and then sitting on the money does not fit with the stated ambitions. let's hope as someone above alluded to, that this is just a ploy to keep our activity more under the radar. You'd also kind of hope that with the biggest TV deal ever and added income from the Europa League we might actually spend more than the sales money.

Then we are significantly weaker than last year, especially in attack. We've downgraded our DM (Romeu for Wanyama or Hojberg for Wanyama), we've downgraded our wide player A LOT (Redmond for Wanyama), we have a big risk over our attack and lack a target man option losing Pelle AND we still lack that no.10. You can't expect two lesser players to replace 6, including two of our clear best players, and do better, especially as everyone else will be strengthening and we have the burden of extra games. Huge gamble, we should at the very least be trying to get back to the quality of squad we had last year and Redmond and Hojberg just don't do that.

Maybe not plodders but to me they look like they are doing a Liverpool, buying £15-20 million players that don't really improve the squad and in positions they already have good players for. Honestly can't see their first 11 changing much from last season, suppose with more numbers they might burn out a bit less than they did, but is that Spurs squad any better than it was last season? Not IMO.

The real answer is we can't and won't be able to for a long time. Even Leicester who won the league and will be in Champions League next year can't stop the pull. Basically I think world football will have to wake up and start really enforcing things like spending caps, salary caps etc. It's clear the financial fair play laws aren't going to do much, they are just going to stop another Chelsea/Man City situation. Man Ut's turnover was like £450 million, ours was like £125 million, they will spend £100 million on Pogba and absorb most of that cost. If anything FFP is just going to return/keep the likes of Utd, Real Madrid, Barca to the top because they have the highest revenue so they can spend the most of wages and transfers without breaking FFP. If greater competition is wanted then salary caps and spending caps have to be enforced, the rules on HG players, domestic player in your squads have to be stricter, things like this. We can only really do what the club has been doing: - try to find cheap talent, both at youth level and for the first team, even play on the development aspect (2 years you might go to Man Utd or whatever) - sign players to long contracts to maximise their position if clubs come looking for them, - offer your players the best contracts you can, some will stay (Bertrand, VVD, Forster) - squeeze every percent you can from sports science, coaching, the academy so we can get the maximum potential from our players and youth products - try to maximise our commercial revenue, use the premier league's strengths to find new fans in other countries, get them buying shirts etc. - try to create a team that's sum is greater than it's individual parts (hence why we recruit looking at personality, attitude etc.) - try to improve on the pitch, the higher we finish, the more often we get in europe, win cups etc. the more players will stay. - Maximise your potential revenue round the stadium and on match days, so develop corporate facilities, try to develop the area around the stadium The club is doing pretty much all of this but it takes time and the effects will trickle through slowly, but the more money, the more profile the club has, the better it does in the league, in europe, the higher wages we can offer and the more players will want to stay. Plus the club has potential for growth, we are pretty much the only Premier league club south of the M4 and London, with Portsmouths demise our potential catchment area is huge both for recruiting new fans and for recruiting young players. But for new fans to come to St Mary's we have to win things and get better. Do that any maybe 5-10 years down the line we might have waiting lists for seasons tickets and might be looking at expanding the stadium.

Hojbjerg is not a Wanyama replacement and Redmond is no Mane replacement. Plus we've been lacking a goal scoring/No.10 midfielder for ages, essentially a replacement for what Ramirez should have been. Thing is if you say Austin replaces Pelle, then Mane and Wanyama still need replacing + you need 1-2 on top of that to improve the squad. Those comments from Reed were when we had last years squad, last years Squad had Wanyama, Mane, Reed, Pelle, Juanmi and Stek. That's 6 out and so fair we've had two in. That's a gap of 4 players on last year, you can say 3 if Austin is Pelle's replacement, so to get to the strength of last years squad we need another 3 players, maybe 4 to say the squad is improved. Currently you could say we haven't replaced Wanyama, we haven't replaced Mane and really the only area we have potentially improved is Hojbjerg as he's the sort of complete, box to box centre mid we haven't had since Morgan left. So I'd expect a wide attacking player, a No.10, a physical defensive mid and a back up keeper. It also seems clear that one if not both of our right fullbacks are not rated by Puel, so that may be another addition. If they are really serious about improving, pushing on then to compensate for 5/6 out we should be getting 7/8 in.

Ottamendi was alright in most games, just didn't quite cut it in the crunch games and probably tried to get the ball on the front foot too much. Bellerin is good, but not sure he gets tested that much defensively and a lot of his games is just around raw pace. But goes to show Cedric was pretty consistent, he was a our second highest rated player and I doubt we'll find a better right back without spending a lot. I just think the way Puel plays he likes the fullbacks to provide a lot of width and attacking intent so with the extra games maybe he feels we need two quality full backs for the whole season and maybe one that is more offensive than Cedric. On the stats - Cedric Bellerin Tackles per game 3 1.6 Interceptions pg 2.3 1.9 Fouls pg 0.8 0.5 Clearances pg 2.8 2.4 Blocks pg 0.5 0.2 Defensively Cedric was way more active, Bellerin better offensively 1 goal, 5 assists, 1.8 dribbles per game and a 85.7% pass success rate, whereas Cedric only had 2 assists, dribbled less and his pass success rate was down at 73%, the only offensive area he beats Bellerin is key pass per game. Bellerin is a better attacking full back, Cedric seems the better defensive one. (which he also showed at Euros). Maybe we are after a more offensive full back to have those two options.

Sad for Football generally though, especially after such a remarkable success. When the Premier League Champions can't stop a player moving to a team that finished 10th you know there is too much money about.

The 5 year contracts clearly matter because it puts the club in the driving seat with regards to sales, they obviously don't want to avoid another Clyne/Wanyama situation where the fee gets fairly low because of them only have a year left. All our new signings and new contracts have been 5 or 6 years, I would reckon to specifically avoid that situation happening again, so either the player wants to move but will have 2/3 years left at least so gets a higher fee or we've had him for 4 years. On a side note, Cedric Soares was rated as the 23rd best player in the league last year based on whoscored.com's average rating. The only defenders who got a higher rating than him were Van Dijk, Fuchs, Koscielny and Otamendi (plus at a stretch Antonio, though he only played 7 games at right back who they put into their best team at right back). Bellerin was voted PFA best right back.

LOL what? That is one optimistic transfer. Shame for Leicester, you'd think that squad would at least want a crack at defending the title and playing Champions League football together. Kante is only 25 easily enough time for him to get his big money move in a year or two.

Do we have any links with this guy? Can't really understand why anyone hasn't picked him up considering his record, low fee and he's only 23. Sounds exactly like what we need, someone who can score some goals out of nothing, create and take set pieces.

Van Dijk is only 25, he has a 5 year contract, has already shown hes much better than Stones has been and will get better as well. He's pretty much the complete centre-back. If it takes £50 million to take Stones from Everton (who wants to move as well) then we should be expecting even more, a better player with a longer contract, doesn't want to move, then it should be silly money. Stones is massively over rated anyway, but this is a league where Man City paid over £30 million for Mangala, £35 million for Otamendi, Man Utd have just paid £30 million for Bailly, who just one year ago cost £4.8 million and is unproven in the Premiership. Koulibally is about to move for over £50 million apparently. Players are going for silly money and players with premiership experience are going for even sillier money. Why would we accept less than silly money for one of the best defenders in the league last year who has just signed a 5 year contract, in the current market?

He might go this summer but I seriously doubt it will be to Everton, more likely a year maybe two and then to a big champions league club. But yeh if they sell Stones for £50 million then I'd expect £70 million for VVD.

Cant see him wanting to go to Everton, we all know Koeman was lightly pushed towards their way and VVD is way better than that middling club, personally I think he's destined for a Madrid or Barcelona.

The Liverpool fans I know are pretty pragmatic, they recognise that most of the players they have bought from us have been overpriced and not been that successful. They also realise Liverpools place in the world, rich enough to throw money at clubs like us for players but not rich enough to stop those same players going to City or Chelsea or Barca. One thing they said is they can't understand how Liverpool can fleece clubs like city to pay £50 million for Sterling or Torres but then show none of that shrewdness in their own signings. they go get £50 million for Torres then throw it away with signings like Andy Carroll or Lovren or Markovic That is probably where the bitterness from fans towards us comes from, we drive a hard bargain for our sales and then use that money wisely.

Jay Rod is huge question mark and there is some doubt surrounding Austin as well but certainly no as much as Jay Rod, still expecting them to replace what we have lost in terms of Mane and Pelle is a big gamble IMO. As for the rest, Long is poor out wide, he doesn't have the technique to run at people or the creativity delivery. Jay Rod can play that position but again we have no idea if he will ever hit the same heights. Tadic is out most creative player but he's never been much a goalscorer and he's very rarely ever played in the middle. Davis is reliable and solid but he has 42 goals in near 500 club games, he's hardly a creative spark or a goalscoring mid. A goal scoring/creating midfielder from the centre has been a clear hole we've had for ages someone who can add goals from midfield, run past the forward and create something when we aren't playing that well, like a Coutinho or Payet, this is even more important now we've lost the flair and pace of Mane. We need a player who can knock one in from 25 yards or produce a bit of magic to unlock a team that has parked the bus so we win/draw more of the those games where we've played poorly against the likes of Sunderland, West Ham, Stoke etc. in recent years especially at home. It's clear that the club want that sort of player looking at the players we've been linked with and the fact the likes of Ramirez and Juanmi were bought to play that sort of role.