Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

Yup, it was a very good match, and I think the tournament as a whole has had more good matches than bad so far, hopefully it continues!

I thought Rodon had a really good game, I continue to be impressed with him whenever he plays. If there was one thing I was disappointed with in Ryan Mason's short stint in charge, it's that he dropped Rodon from the team after he'd started to get a few consecutive starts under his belt at the end of Mourhino's reign. It'll be interesting to see if the new manager (whoever that ends up being) sees him as a first eleven player.

BTW, I did make a Euro 2020 thread when the tournament started. You can find it here https://bordersdown.net/threads/129488-Euro-2020 Mainly me talking to myself apart from the Eriksen incident, but maybe it'll pick up

[fallenangle]

I checked for a a Euro 2020 thread before my first post about CE but didn't see it so posted here instead. Must have missed it.

I'll post any more specifically Euro 2020 stuff there in the future.

I think Ben Davies was also overlooked last season, particularly once Sergio Reguilón was fit to play again. But that's the problem, although quite a nice one to have, that we have international quality in depth on the left side of the defence so somebody worthy of a place is always going to miss out.

Right side...............................not so much. With Aurier going that side is a significant weakness. It makes that Trippier sale decision look even worse than it was because he clearly has developed his defensive abilities, even if for some reason, as seen in the England team, he seems to have migrated to the left wing too.

[EJG1980]

We've finally got a new manager! The club have announced the signing of Nuno Espirito Santo:

https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/2021/june/nuno-espirito-santo-appointed-new-head-coach/

Wouldn't have been my first choice, but I can definitely see a lot of positives to his appointment, most of which were mentioned in the article on the Spurs web site. Last season was a bit iffy (but there were extenuating circumstances like the sale of Jota, the horrible injury to Jiminez, etc) but promotion, two 7th place finishes, and a European quarter-final show that he did a very good job at Wolves. He also had a good record in matches against the "big" teams, which hopefully he can continue with us.

I think the main reservation is the style of football, especially after Levy's comments about going back to our "attacking DNA". However, I have a read a few articles, which mention that he played a much more attacking 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 when he was at Valencia, so he may not be wedded to the counter-attacking style he favoured with Wolves.

Also I think there's probably a bit of recency bias as the most recent season for Wolves wasn't a good one and they weren't fun to watch, but I don't remember hearing too much about them being dull in those first two seasons after promotion. And they definitely didn't bore their way to the win when they beat us 3-1 at Wembley and then 3-2 at WHL in their first two seasons up.

Anyway, in the end, what he has or hasn't done before doesn't really matter, all that counts now is what he does with Spurs. I don't expect any miracles with him having us playing like peak Poch overnight, I just want to see up moving forwards and feeling like the club is going in a positive direction again after the past two frustrating seasons. Hopefully he's the man to do that.

Good luck Nuno, and welcome to the Spurs madhouse

And, now that we finally have a new manager in place, we can forget about all the managerial rumours and start concentrating on transfer rumours instead! Alongside the new manager we also have a new director of football (or as the club weirdly call him "Managing Director - Football" in Fabio Paratici. Spent ten years in that role for Juventus, so a ton of experience sorting transfers at the top level, let's hope he can help bring in some quality players and shift some of the dead wood for us. If nothing else it should be an interesting month and a half until the start of the new season!

[EJG1980]

A couple of interview videos posted by Spurs on Youtube with Nuno and Fabio Paratici:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVy27pbvM00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYNWy2DKzgg

[fallenangle]

A serious amount of **** in both those interviews; a load of verbiage you always get about what they want to do, how its going to happen and why the new manager is the best thing since sliced bread and just what Spurs were looking for rather than, arguably, the best of the rest of those who were available.

As with Jose M's appointment only time will tell.

My reaction then to that was eeek! In fact I think I expressed my disquiet here when his name was first mentioned in connection with Spurs months before he was appointed. Nuno ES provokes no such strong feelings either way so I'm very open to giving him a chance.

But so much depends on who Spurs bring in for next season and who they're going to lose.

There are some players I've seen in Euro 2020 I wouldn't mind seeing at Spurs - not least Raheem Stirling whose name has been thrown into the mix as a possible sweetener for any deal with MC concerning HK.

On that theme of cherry picking the best Euro 2020 players for Spurs to consider purchasing I rather liked the look of Switzerland's Breel Embolo (Borussia Monchengladbach) who is apparent out of favour with his club. Possible bargain?

[EJG1980]

I seem to remember that we were linked quite a bit with Breel Embolo back when he was a youngster playing in the Swiss league, during the first couple of Poch seasons iirc. Not an out and out goalscorer, but I think he'd be good in a Crouch / Hesky style role alongside another striker.

I've really liked Leonardo Spinazzola during this tournament, think he's been fantastic for Italy at left back, though it's a position we're well stocked in at the moment. Also really like Manuel Locatelli too, I think he's going to be an excellent midfielder for years to come, quite annoyed that Arsenal have been linked with him in the past few days

Emil Forsberg from Sweden was excellent, and he's been a decent player in for RB Leipzig over the years. Could have seen him as a possible Eriksen replacement if we'd gone for him a couple of years ago, but he's going to be 30 later this year so that ship has probably sailed.

Supposedly we're interested in young French centerback Jules Kounde, but I think he might end up being a bit too expensive for us.

Edit: a new name linked with us this morning, young Danish player Mikkel Damsgaard who is currently at Sampdoria. Similarish to Grealish in the way he plays, he's had a good Euro 2020 so far. Could see us shipping out someone like Lamela and replacing them with this guy.

Might be an easy assumption to make, but as our new DOF has come from Juventus, you'd expect him to have very good contacts and links with the Italian market, so it could be somewhere we'll be shopping a lot this summer. To emphasise the point we've also been linked with a Japanese centre-back from Bologna, Takehiro Tomiyasu, for the past few days.

[EJG1980]

A little bit of pre-season news, we've got some friendlies lined up for July that are going to be shown for free on the Spurs web site:

Leyton Orient (a), Saturday 17 July, KO 15:00
Colchester United (a), Wednesday 21 July, KO 19:45
MK Dons (a), Wednesday 28 July, KO 19:45

No further info yet but I assume there will be a link on the www.tottenhamhotspur.com home page on the day of the matches.

A new transfer rumour too has us being linked with Miralem Pjanic from Barcelona, a signing that I would be very happy about. Excellent deep lying playmaker that would add some real creativity and passing range to our midfield.

He was also signed for Juventus by our new DOF Paratici when he was there, so them already knowing each other might help us get a deal done. It'd be a loan or possibly even free transfer as Barca are deep in financial **** and need to massively slash their wage bill.

[fallenangle]

I'll keep a look out for those friendlies, be interesting to see the Spurs line up and how they play under the new manager even against lower ranking opposition.

[EJG1980]

The link for the friendlies is spurstv.tottenhamhotspur.com. You need to sign up for a free account with the Spurs website if you haven't got one already, and they advise registering early as they expect the web site to be a bit busy / slow nearer the time of the match.

We've got a couple of friendlies coming up against Chelsea and Arsenal after the three lower league opponents. I might give those a miss as they're teams we play twice every year already, and it's £8 per match (even if half of it does go to charity) to watch them on the Spurs website.

[EJG1980]

First pre-season friendly, all our international players missing, a load of other first team players not in the squad, and it's basically just a glorified fitness exercise, so nothing should be read into it. But I'll have a go anyway

Nile John and Dane Scarlett looked clearly the best of the youngsters. John ran at the opposition with confidence and showed some good skill to fashion his two earlier chances. Scarlett took his goal really well, timed his run just right and a lovely finish on his weaker foot.

Lucas and Winks the most impressive of the established players. Nice to see Winks passing forwards, great ball for the first Nile John chance and involved in the goal too. Excellent first time through ball from Lucas to set up the Scarlett goal.

It was basically a different match once we subbed the entire team on the hour mark, pretty much an under-23 team from that point on. Sloppy goal to give away for the equaliser but there was one lovely passing move that could have lead to a goal for Jack Clarke if he'd taken his shot half a second quicker.

There was no Doherty, Reguilon, Lamela, Sessegnon, Aurier, Tanganga, Ndombele or Skipp in today's squad, so I wouldn't be surprised if they all get a run out in our next friendly on Wednesday evening (fitness permitting, I think Skipp and Tanganga are only a week or two back from injury).

[fallenangle]

I could not watch it due to other commitments but from the other reports I read it sounded like I didn't miss much. Some very scathing comments about the Spurs performance around the web but as you say not exactly a first choice selection for most of the game so you can't read too much into it.

Still 1-1 against LO is not a good result under any circumstances particularly when you hope that some of those players sidelined or not used by JM would be trying to impress the new manager.

[EJG1980]

Nahhh, honestly wouldn't have bothered me even if we'd lost the match. A few days after the start of pre-season, about five first team squad members on the pitch, a 100% youth team playing for the final third of the match... I read very little into friendly results even with a full strength team on the pitch, let alone the players who played against Orient.

Had another friendly against Colchester on Wednesday, a 3-0 win this time. Son and Skipp came back into the team, but it was the same setup as Orient with all eleven on the pitch being youth players from 60 minutes onwards. Son, Lucas and Skipp all looked good and Bergwijn (who had an iffy match against Orient) looked much better in this one. Once again Nile John and Dane Scarlett impressed from the youngsters.

Some fantastic news this morning with the announcement that Son has signed a new long term contract:

Embedded Tweet

The second most important player at the club behind Kane, so for him to commit his future to the club is excellent.

Speaking of Harry, there was a big front page story from The Sun this morning claiming that Levy has changed his mind about selling Kane and he'll go to Man City for £160 million. Weirdly though, the story was written by their showbiz editor rather than a sports reporter, and no other papers or online news outlets have jumped on it yet and backed it up with their own stories.

Even David Ornstein from the BBC has said that both Spurs AND Man City are surprised by the story, with him and others also saying that Spurs stance hasn't changed and they reiterate that he's not for sale this summer. Haven't seen any other journalists at all chiming in and agreeing with the story, so it all feels a bit "hmmmmm" to me.

It feels more like a cack handed leak from his agent (who's his older brother) to attempt to pressure Spurs, but it may backfire. There's now an expectation in the public domain that the fee has to be £160 million minimum, no way I can see Levy accepting less with this out there. I still personally think that even a club with a money cheat code like Man City won't pay a fee like £160 million for Kane, and I wouldn't be surprised if he goes nowhere this summer.

I guess it's an annoying summer of 'wait and see' for us!

Edit: Man City (yesterday via the Manchester Evening News) have fully denied the story too, saying that they have not agreed any kind of deal with Kane, have not made any bid for Kane, and would never pay £160 million for one player.

[EJG1980]

Ohh, first signing of the summer, goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini from Atalanta:

https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/2021/july/gollini-loan-agreed/

A one year loan with an option to buy for €15 million, however the option becomes and obligation if he makes 20 appearances for us.

With Hugo's contract running out at the end of the season, this looks like a good deal for bedding in his successor: if he fails to settle / looks awful in training it's only a loan, if he does really well but he doesn't quite make the 20 appearances we just activate the option to buy him, and if he does make 20 appearances then we obviously trust him so don't mind the option becoming an obligation.

Hopefully the settling in shouldn't be a problem as he played for Man Utd and Aston Villa when he was younger. He's done really well the past few seasons with Atalanta, helped them massively overachieve with top four finishes and Champions League football. I watch Serie A and have seen Atalanta quite a bit and he's always looked a very good shot stopper. He also gets a lot of practice as they're a really attacking side that aren't Fort Knox at the back!

A good signing in my opinion, if all goes well Hugo imparts some wisdom on him and then next year he takes over the number one spot when Hugo (likely) leaves at the end of his contract.

[EJG1980]

Didn't have to wait long for the second signing, winger Bryan Gil from Sevilla:

https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/2021/july/bryan-gil-joins-lamela-to-sevilla/

€25 million in cash plus Erik Lamela joining Sevilla as part of the deal.

Potentially a very exciting signing, described as a real 'bums off seats' player. Still only 20 years old but has already made his full international debut for Spain and Spanish fans and journalists are Sevilla are nuts to let him go. I guess though, like a lot of clubs, the impact of the pandemic could mean they need the cash.

I haven't watch La Liga for a while so haven't seen him play live, but I've looked at a YouTube highlights video and the 'bums off seats' description looks to be very apt. Looks like he has a ton of skill, loves to take on defenders and beat them, and looks to have a decent eye for a pass, just the kind of player that Spurs fans will love.

He's still only a kid so we can't expect the world from him instantly, but he looks to be a player with a very high ceiling. Excited to see what he can do in a Spurs shirt.

Gotta mention the departure of Erik Lamela, as I will be very sad to see him go. Never gave less than 100% on the pitch, genuinely looked like he would run himself into the ground for the team (and often did), I wish every player had his level of passion and commitment. It's a massive shame that he was so blighted by injuries because he had great skill and a fantastic eye for a pass / though ball; I would love to have seen what his Spurs career would have turned out like if he'd been injury free. A player I sincerely wish all the very best to at his next club.

Edit: here's the video I watched of him the other day, gives a good idea of the kind of player he is.

[fallenangle]

Yeah, I saw EL had gone and agree he always put in the effort and that rabona goal against Arsenal and the previous one he did in the Europa League showed the quality he had. But.......................he never quite delivered as a midfield play maker and never produced the numbers of goals he perhaps should have done.

Injury issues were likely a big part of that so getting in a new younger player with the potential to develop into the sort of player Spurs need in the midfield was not unexpected.

If Dele Ali doesn't produce something approaching his best form this year under the new manager I can see him being offloaded before the end of he season likewise.