Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[VR46]

Hope he does well for you, five year contract, what are the odds on Levy seeing that one to the end

[bwi]

I told the daughters boyfriend November 2015 if he doesn't mess up the start of next season.
I always thought it strange how he still didnt speak english in press conferences. But then we havent got that many english players anymore.

[fallenangle]

We'll just have to see how he goes. But it is good to have someone confirmed and in place without too much fuss.

The issue now is about the players he'll get rid of and those he'll want to or be forced to bring in.

From the sound of it Sandro isn't happy and I think that would be a big loss if he can't be persuaded to stay.

[EJG1980]

Sandro should be okay as it seemed to be a personal problem between him and Sherwood rather than him being unhappy with the club.

I don't want us to do a lot of business this summer; if we only signed a quality left back and centre back I'd be fine with that (assuming no big names are sold that would need to be replaced). I'd personally like to see if Pochettino can get the best out of Soldado but if we get a new striker in I wouldn't complain. I'd just really like to see him succeed!

Get the best out of the existing squad (especially integrating a hopefully injury free Lamela), bring the youngsters like Kane and Bentaleb further along, no big disruptive changes needed imho.

[fallenangle]

Apparently there are rumours (as there always are during the transfer period) that MP is already considering bringing in Adam Lallana his captain at Southampton.

[EJG1980]

Apparently there are rumours (as there always are during the transfer period) that MP is already considering bringing in Adam Lallana his captain at Southampton.

I feel sorry for the Southampton fans, not only do they lose their manager but now they're going to have to put up with a whole summer of stories linking us to their best players too.

I certainly wouldn't complain if we did sign him though! I'd really like Luke Shaw as I feel that left back is an area we need to strengthen, but previous rumours have quoted north of ?25 million for him and I can't see us spending that on a teenage left back.

[VR46]

I think a couple of their best players would be leaving this summer even if Pochettino had stayed, and he must have known that too.

Be interesting to see where Lallana (and Shaw) end up, will show what sort of belive they have in MP too.

[fallenangle]

There were rumours about Luke Shaw as a transfer target to almost every major Premiership and a few EU teams too even before the season ended and at just the sort of cost EJG1980 mentioned.

Unless he has a particularly good relationship with MP I doubt very much he'd end up at Spurs even if they could afford to buy in that sort of price point. I mean if you had the chance to go to club with a place in the Champions League and challenging for the Premiership title next season who would seriously consider Spurs instead?

[EJG1980]

Yup. It's highly unlikely we're going to win a straight fight for a player against such teams. What happened with Willian last summer, when he ditched us for Chelsea even after completing a medical with us, being a perfect example.

I guess our best chance is if a player thinks he might have a better shot at establishing himself as a first team regular at Spurs and is wary of stalling his career by being stuck on the bench at a bigger club.

Alas, many players wouldn't give a toss about that either, as soon as they see that big club X is willing to pay them double what Spurs will.

[EJG1980]

MoPo gives his first interview as Spurs boss:

http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/mauricio-on-spurs-tv-110614/

Glad that Steffen Freund is staying on the coaching staff, I'd have missed singing his song if he'd left He was doing a really good job with the German under 16s and 17s before he joined us so I hope he has some kind of role helping the youngsters progress though to the first team.

[EJG1980]

Hugo Lloris has signed a new five year contract. Top notch news, I'm a massive fan of Hugo and after an excellent World Cup I thought we'd have to put up with a lot of transfer rumours this summer. This should put paid to those for a little while.

http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/new-deal-for-hugo-100714/

[fallenangle]

That is good news. He's a bit eccentric in his decision making sometimes but I don't think we'd ever find anyone else of his quality before the start of the season.

But even a great goalkeeper needs a decent defence and what with those already gone (Dawson) and the rumours of other players who maybe going and no news of the top quality replacements so desperately needed I'm getting a little worried.

[VR46]

Yes, as a non-Spurs fan, if you could conceede 15 or so goals less each season would make a hell of a difference each term. Not that LFC can say much after last season, we're both leaking far too many goals.

[EJG1980]

Although technically, If we'd lost only 1-0 each time to Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea (away) last season instead of instead of 6-0, 5-0, 5-1, 4-0 and 4-0 we could have let in 19 less goals, had the second best defence in the league, and still finished in the exact same position

When organised properly even our current defenders can be a reasonably solid unit. We kept 14 clean sheets in the league last season (our joint best ever in the PL era) and were looking pretty solid at the back under AVB until the wheels came off against Man City (7 clean sheets in the 11 league games before that thrashing).

Sherwood came in and got us scoring a lot more goals but I don't think he worried about drilling the defence too much and we started leaking them at the back more often (especially as he often played without a holding midfielder to cover the back four).

All Pochettino has to do is get back that early season defensive solidity but not sacrifice the attacking flair to achieve it. Piece of cake!

I'm not worried about lack of signings yet. The window has only been open for ten days. If Pochettino thinks he can get better form from players already at the club, I'm happy to back his judgement. I said before I'd rather have a summer without a ton of ins and outs. However I do think we'll end up with a new left back (Danny Rose has no competition / cover in that spot) and a new centre back, especially if Dawson does go to Hull.

[VR46]

Good article/dreaming/rubbish, will let Spurs fans decide!

http://www.london24.com/sport/football/clubs/tottenham/is_this_pochettino_s_dream_tottenham_xi_next_season_includes_six_new_signings_1_3679081#cxrecs_s