Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

Still Carabao as far as I know!

Went to see the Inter match today; it was probably the worst friendly this pre-season in terms of excitement, the Moura goal right at the start was great but that was the highlight, apart from brief glimpses here and there. Lost on penalties in the end, but I don't read much into the results pre-season, good or bad.

Mixed news on the fitness front: Dele Alli picked up a hamstring injury in training and will miss the first two or three weeks of the season. Poch said in his press conference that the staff are starting to get a little bit worried about how many niggly hamstring injuries he's had this early in his career; hopefully it doesn't end up hampering him. Foyth injury also confirmed to be bad and he'll be out at least several weeks. Aurier and Dier were backing in training this week though.

I wonder if we'll be in for any transfer action before 5PM on Thursday. I forget which paper it was, but they were saying that we've "pretty much agreed everything" for the transfers of Ryan Sessegnon from Fulham and Giovani Lo Celso from Betis. Stiil, seen that said about a ton of players over the years, I need a player pictured holding the shirt on the Spurs web site to get excited!

[fallenangle]

Any transfers will have to be done very quickly as it is getting very close to the deadline.

I think we'll see Ryan Sessegnon at Spurs but who else? I'm not holding my breath.

Dumping Kieran Trippier, even if it bought in some money, is looking like more and more of a mistake to me. With Foyth out (better in the centre anyway) and Aurier still injured there is even talk of Sissoko being drafted into that position and moulded into an attacking wing back.................................hmmmmm.

[EJG1980]

The BBC (and just about everywhere else) are reporting that we've agreed a fee for both Lo Celso and Sessegnon and should complete the transfers today, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

Apparently the sticking point with Lo Celso was that Real Betis wanted a higher fee because they have to pay a percentage to PSG as part of a sell on clause. So to mitigate that we're taking him on loan for one year, with an obligation (not option) to buy him next summer, paying part of the fee as a loan fee and the rest as a full transfer next summer. The part of the fee that's for the loan, Betis don't have to pay any of that to PSG, so they save a chunk of cash. Quite sneaky, and I'm guessing it might happen a lot more in the future for players with big sell on clauses.

The fee for Sessegnon is £25 million plus Josh Onomah going to Fulham. I didn't see it specified but I assume that Onomah is going to Fulham permanently, not just on loan.

It'll be disappointing now if we don't wrap at least those two deals up today.

Yesterday we were supposedly in talks with Barca about a loan move for Phillipe Couthino, but, we've since ended our interest. I never thought that was going to happen as Poch has said before he doesn't like loans as you block the progress of players who are with you for the long term for someone who will be gone after one season. And indeed the only loan in all of Poch's time here was for a third choice goalkeeper.

One to file under "Surely we wont', but if we do, bloody hell!" is a possible transfer for Paulo Dybala from Juve. Just about everywhere was reporting that we'd agreed a fee with Juve, and now I've seen a few places reporting that we've agreed personal terms with the player, but the snag (according to the Independent) is that his "image rights" are owned by a Malta based company that want a big fee to release them.

I don't really know how image rights work, but if we can sort it all out it would be a big statement of a signing. I'm not getting too excited though, it has the feel of a "we tried really hard but in the end it was too complicated," sort of deal.

Edit: though now David Ornstein of the BBC is reporting that "Tottenham are close to reaching an agreement to sign Juventus and Argentina forward Paulo Dybala. It is not done but Spurs and Juve are hopeful of completing a deal before the 5pm deadline," so the b******s are definitely trying to get us excited

Edit 2: BBC now saying the deal is off as Juve no longer want to sell. BUT, Calcio Mercato then said they've heard the deal is back on (make up yer minds!), and Gazetta Dello Sport are now saying that Juve are willing to do a one year loan with an option to buy, which would mean the image rights problems wouldn't need to be sorted until next summer.

I think I'll just try and ignore it all until after 5PM... yeah, right!

[fallenangle]

Just have to be patient I guess but why weren't these deals done and dusted weeks ago? It is always taken down to the line and the only reason for that seems to be to wring just that 'little' more money out of the deal. Will any of these players actually return in turnstile and other receipts what they cost the club until they are actually sold on themselves?

Eriksen going seems like a certainty if not now then before the end of the season.

[EJG1980]

I can only guess that the deals that take a long time are the ones where the clubs are some way apart on nearly every detail (fee, instalments, sell on clauses, etc), and each one takes its own "mini-negotiation" to sort out. Some deals do get wrapped up really quickly, Ndombele was signed over a month ago right at the start of pre-season training, despite the fact that he was our record signing, so you can only guess that our bid and their valuation were pretty close right from the off.

I did have a look back once over the past ten years or so, and it was something like half our transfers get done in the first couple of weeks of the window, and the other half in the last couple of weeks. I think most clubs are the same, there are plenty of clubs who have announced the signing of players today or in the past week that they've been linked with all summer long.

We have now officially announced the signings of Giovanni Lo Celso and Ryan Sessegnon, should be good additions to the team. As speculated, Lo Celso has been done as a year long loan with the option to make it permanent next summer.

Still an outside chance of another sneaky signing as clubs can submit a "deal sheet" to the Premier League before 5PM for deals that are on the verge of completion but not quite done, and they get until 7PM to send in the full paperwork. The PL tweeted that they have received six such deal sheets. Outside shot that one of them is for Spurs, but if we end up with just Ndombele, Sessegnon and Lo Celso I'll be happy with our additions.

[fallenangle]

On paper looks like some good buys - lets just hope they deliver.

[EJG1980]

Yeah, no matter how good a player is, you're always in the lap of the gods as to whether they'll work out or not. Hopefully the new players won't have any trouble settling in; both Ndombele and Lo Celso have a number of fellow countrymen that they'll know from international duty to help them with the settling in process and adjusting to new surroundings. Not to much adjusting for Sessegnon, just moving a few miles across town.

I don't expect fireworks from them straight away (it often takes players a little time to adjust to what Poch wants) but I'm pretty confident they'll all be really good players for us.

The club announced that Lucas Moura has signed a new five year deal today, which is very good news. Well deserved for his performances from last season, hopefully he can go up another level this season and be even better. With Son suspended for a couple of games and Dele injured for a few weeks, it seems likely he and Lamela will get a chance to impress in the opening few games. They've probably been our best two players in pre-season, hopefully they can carry that form into competitive matches.

[fallenangle]

Lucas Moura has been one of Spurs best purchases in years. The moment he came in he clearly wanted to play and impress. I liked that right from the start and he's now delivering on what his previous record at PSG suggsted he could do.

Good news about the extended contract but if he keeps on improving the wealthier UK/EU clubs are going to start sniffing around just like they've been doing with Eriksen.

Saturday Edit:-

Just watch MotD. Left it a bit late (understatement) but coming from behind to win comfortably, even with a new promoted, untested team like AV is not to be dismissed. Should boost Spurs' confidence.

Have to agree with Alan Sheerer about HK, Lucas and Lamela often playing too close to one another and nobody claiming the acres of free space on the right wing in particular. Trippier was being missed - that IS where he would have been. Walker Peters is not an equivalent replacement although he might grow into that role given time.

[EJG1980]

After the match Poch also said that our attacking positions weren't good in the first half, but that the blame should go to him because it was part of a plan that didn't work and the players were (trying) to do what he'd told them to do. Sorted it out in the second half though and it was a much better performance and while still not our best the win was fully deserved.

Individuals got better too. Ndombele started slowly but grew into the game more and more as it went on, culminating in his lovely goal. Sanchez had looked a little shaky at the back in the first half dealing with the Villa attackers, but in the second half the rare Villa move forward was usually cut out by him with good positioning, anticipation and decision making. And while not Lamela's best game in terms of quality, it was his constant desire to harass the opposition and winning the ball back from Grealish that lead to the winning goal.

The match also contained a very very rare event, that of me winning a bet! I only place a couple of bets or so a year and I hadn't won one for at least five or six years until yesterday, but at half time I put a fiver on Spurs winning 3-1 which earned me £50. The most nerve wracking moment was during injury time when I was willing them just to pass the ball around and wear down the clock rather than going for a fourth

[EJG1980]

Bloody hell

The definition of a smash and grab point, two shots on target, two goals. Obviously Man City were clearly the much better team on the day, but we dug in and defended pretty well for decent chunks of the game (especially in the second half when we looked a bit more solid), and thankfully luck was on our side when we did get breached.

Quite amazing though that so soon after that CL quarter final, we have the exact same circumstances again. As in that match though, the decision was the correct one; the rules now say you cannot score a goal with a handball involved whether intentional or not, and the ball did hit the Man City player on the arm.

An unexpected point, especially with how the match went, but a very welcome one.

Edit: though I agree with Gary Neville's post match comments where he said that while City could have no complaints about the disallowed goal, they will feel aggrieved that VAR didn't even review Lamela's first half challenge in the box where he had two arms wrapped around a City player.

Edit 2: although, according to MOTD, the VAR did look at the incident and decided no penalty. I think Neville must have been referring to them not asking the ref to take a look at it on the pitch-side monitor. Either way, I was still a bit surprised it didn't end up being a penalty.

Edit hat-trick: I just discovered that Alasdair Gold has started doing post-match videos after each Spurs game this season. I watched his video for yesterday's match and it's pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvE5Nr92yxVwNIz6UUgMMIA/videos

[fallenangle]

I was expecting a draw, at best, but hoping for a win. Losing by one goal would not have been a terrible result based on the MotD highlights but VAR, rightly, saved Spurs. In the long run that one point could be very valuable as most other teams are going to drop three points against MC.

Lamela: looked like a penalty to me but VAR has spoken and it was not.

VAR decisions will almost certainly even themselves out over the season; we got away with it yesterday, next game we might not.

[EJG1980]

Poor display from us today, can’t complain about the result at all. We simply did not create enough chances, I think it took us 32 minutes to even work their keeper.

We should have equalised with the Moura chance near the end that he somehow put over, but that’s one great chance in 90 minutes, which isn’t good enough. Passing was far too slow and predictable.

Our form and performances, barring Champions League heroics, haven’t been all that great since the start of this year. Hopefully it’s something we can put right sooner rather than later. The next match would be a good place to start

[fallenangle]

Was listening the match yesterday on the BBC and then saw the highlights on MotD. Didn't sound good and didn't look good. Our front players couldn't break down their typically 5:4:1 defensive formation. Newcastle always looked dangerous on the counter attack and that is indeed how they scored. Sucker punch.

Still I think we should have had at least one penalty and that Moura miss was diabolical. So we could have been talking about a 2:1 win instead of 3 points lost. Maybe it will be a wake up call.

Spurs almost always in recent years seem to start the season looking average then work themselves up to speed. But by then the front runners have usually got away and they have to play catch up for the rest of the season.

[Mayhem]

Our front players couldn't break down their typically 5:4:1 defensive formation.

Although I will say, from the highlights, Newcastle's full backs were doing a full up and down the line job and supporting the attacks to put crosses in, which is where the goal came from. At that moment, they were often running a back three instead.

[fallenangle]

When they attacked yes that's exactly they did. Its the way to turn that, typical, 5:4:1 into a good counter-attacking formation; wing backs go forward and it becomes a 3:4:3 or 3:3:5. Its what Spurs are usually good at too but having dumped Trippier and Aurier, who has never been up to speed and looking like he'll be off-loaded in January if not earlier, we are thin of options in that department. Particularly so with Foyth still injured and KW Peters now apparently injured too.