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Paul Mitchell - Head of Recruitment and Analysis

January will be an interesting point for Mitchell, looking at Kane backup/option
Especially based on the following comments from Poch

Mauricio Pochettino insists Tottenham Hotspur can attract star names in the January transfer window – not just promising youngsters

Read more: http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Tottenham-attract-star-names-insists-Mauricio/story-28217871-detail/story.html#ixzz3sKiVOyyz

“We only have a few places left. It is impossible to bring 20 or 30 players in,” Pochettino said.
“But today Tottenham is a very attractive club, not only for youngsters but all players.
“The way we respect the players, the way we try to play – for the big players and the young players it is a fantastic club.
"Tottenham today is one of the most attractive clubs in the world for all players, not just young players. We are starting to be attractive.
“Tottenham are a name at home and in Europe and now we need to be clever to improve.”
 
January will be an interesting point for Mitchell, looking at Kane backup/option
Especially based on the following comments from Poch

Mauricio Pochettino insists Tottenham Hotspur can attract star names in the January transfer window – not just promising youngsters

Read more: http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Tottenham-attract-star-names-insists-Mauricio/story-28217871-detail/story.html#ixzz3sKiVOyyz

“We only have a few places left. It is impossible to bring 20 or 30 players in,” Pochettino said.
“But today Tottenham is a very attractive club, not only for youngsters but all players.
“The way we respect the players, the way we try to play – for the big players and the young players it is a fantastic club.
"Tottenham today is one of the most attractive clubs in the world for all players, not just young players. We are starting to be attractive.
“Tottenham are a name at home and in Europe and now we need to be clever to improve.”
From that it sounds very much as though he wants to bring a couple of players in which is encouraging.

We desperately need to bring in proper cover/a challenger for Harry Kane but other than that I think the squad is fine, so we'd be looking to try to make swaps that offer genuine improvements.

I guess that means Townsend, Carroll and Fazio out. Would we need to replace Townsend or could we just assume Pritchard can cover that role in the squad? Same for Carroll - would we replace or just give Winks more games? Personally I think that Winks would better develop playing regularly for a good footballing lower league club such as Coventry. If letting Fazio go then could we cope with just Wimmer? We have Dier as well of course, but I wouldn't want to see us have to weaken our centre midfield by dropping him back. Would a deal for Vlaar be sensible? I worry that he would want a 3.5 or 4.5 year contract that doesn't really suit us. As long as we get somebody in who can cover Kane in January, that's all that matters. Anything else we do should just be opportunistic (i.e. Dembele from Fulham or players we like across Europe going into the last 6 months of their deals).
 
And Son said Baldini was after him for 2 years.

I'd be interested in seeing some quotes on that. I remember Son saying that we had enquired about him before but I do not remember him name checking Baldini or putting our interest being as strong as you are implying.
 
I'd be interested in seeing some quotes on that. I remember Son saying that we had enquired about him before but I do not remember him name checking Baldini or putting our interest being as strong as you are implying.

I can't find a written transcript of it, but I remember listening to it.

He said he spoke to Baldini a lot during summer 2013, but ultimately van der Vaart (maybe still tinkled at AVB) convinced him to stay in Germany to develop his game more.
 
From that it sounds very much as though he wants to bring a couple of players in which is encouraging.

We desperately need to bring in proper cover/a challenger for Harry Kane but other than that I think the squad is fine, so we'd be looking to try to make swaps that offer genuine improvements.

I guess that means Townsend, Carroll and Fazio out. Would we need to replace Townsend or could we just assume Pritchard can cover that role in the squad? Same for Carroll - would we replace or just give Winks more games? Personally I think that Winks would better develop playing regularly for a good footballing lower league club such as Coventry. If letting Fazio go then could we cope with just Wimmer? We have Dier as well of course, but I wouldn't want to see us have to weaken our centre midfield by dropping him back. Would a deal for Vlaar be sensible? I worry that he would want a 3.5 or 4.5 year contract that doesn't really suit us. As long as we get somebody in who can cover Kane in January, that's all that matters. Anything else we do should just be opportunistic (i.e. Dembele from Fulham or players we like across Europe going into the last 6 months of their deals).

We're still bloated with midfielders. Take out Townsend and Carroll and we've still got:

CMs - Dier, Alli, Mason, Bentaleb + Winks (4.5 for 2 spots)
AMs - Lamela, Eriksen, Son, Dembele, Pritchard, Njie, Chadli + Onomah (7.5 for 3 spots)


I think we would need to replace Fazio though, unless either Veljkovic or 2CV are going to be promoted
 
MK Dons manager Karl Robinson has revealed Dele Alli was closely monitored by Tottenham Hotspur for three and a half years before they finally secured his services last February in a £5m ($7.5m) deal. Other Premier League outfits were understood to be following the new England international's development, but Robinson says Spurs won the race for Alli by "making him believe they were the right club for him".

Mauricio Pochettino let the 19-year-old stay at MK Dons until the end of last season, helping them secure promotion to the Championship with 16 goals and nine assists in 39 appearances. Alli then moved to White Hart Line as a back-up for Ryan Mason and Nabil Bentaleb in the middle of the field following the departures of Etienne Capoue, Benjamin Stambouli and Paulinho.

"When he chose to move to Spurs, he was totally dedicated to that decision. Spurs made him believe they were the right club for him. They had been following him for three-and-a-half years. I spoke to David Pleat [former Spurs boss who still scouts informally for the club] many times about him. I have had a few conversations with Dele since the move but he is not my player any more."

The MK Dons manager believes Alli still room for improvement, adding that despite his versatility his best form would come as the number eight.

"He needs the time and space to grow, mature and become a top player. I believe his best position will be as an 'eight' [the more attacking of the two central midfielders in the 4-2-3-1 system] but he is a throwback to the type of midfielder who can attack and defend," he said.

"His goal for England against France was typical of him. He won a tackle and then, later in the move, scored from outside the penalty area. In fact, he scored nearly an identical goal on his full debut for MK Dons [in an FA Cup tie against Cambridge City in November 2012]."

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/tottenham-...half-years-before-signing-him-mk-dons-1530618
 
Pleaty!!!!!!

Good evening everybody
pleat.jpg
 
Must say I expected more from this window when Mitchell was recruited...

Not exactly rocket science to target Toby, Trippier, McCarthy, Berahino, Austin etc...

It might not be rocket science...

But the signings we made this summer have been just about perfect. Toby has slotted right in, as has Alli. Son looks just right for what we were missing in our front 4 and has started well despite his injury. Clinton and Wimmer still only peripheral, but that's pretty much expected. Trippier looks a good cover/competition for Walker though he's settled in a bit slowly, a bit like Davies last season.

We were tracking most of them long before he arrived though.

The one that really says black box is N'Jie.

What do we think Mitchell's role is?

If it's only to decide who we track and track them sure. We were tracking most of these players before he arrived.

If his role is to provide information about the players we're considering going for and our existing squad to help the committee to make the best possible decisions, and be a part of that decision making process himself it's a completely different story.

Remember Liverpool were also tracking Alli, and he's even a Liverpool fan. If Mitchell had signed for Liverpool instead of us last winter where would Alli have ended up? I think there's a very realistic chance it wouldn't have been us. Despite both clubs tracking him for some time.

Everyone is tracking everyone now [citation needed]. But our decisions on who to actually sign has been really solid. We cannot know Mitchell's role in that. But with Baldini departing it seems likely to me that Mitchell's role this summer was probably more than peripheral.
 
Mitchell is a data analyist. He uses big data to predict career trajectories. His art is that his calculations show trajectories that are higher than others predict

This complements 'sheepskin coat' scouts like Pleat
 
Mitchell is a data analyist. He uses big data to predict career trajectories. His art is that his calculations show trajectories that are higher than others predict

This complements 'sheepskin coat' scouts like Pleat

Based on what was written about Mitchell before we signed him and when we signed him that seems like a very limited description of what his role was at Southampton at least.

-First of all I don't think it's fair to say that he uses "big data" as a blanket statement. Yes he analyses data, but to describe what he analyses as big data doesn't seem right to me. From what I've read a lot of what analysts like him does his based on rather specific data of varying sample size.

-He doesn't only use his data to predict career trajectories. Remember how it was said that his "black box" was used as a teaching tool to communicate opponent's strengths and weaknesses to the Southampton players. This has little and nothing to do with career trajectories. Similarly claims have been made that he's being used to identify strengths and weaknesses of the current squad and the youngsters close to the first team with players that we could potentially target in the transfer market. Career trajectories is part of that, but only one part.
 
The Poch quotes about attracting players reflects a new reality at Spurs. We have young talent that Poch can develop. But it is harder for us to attract one or two choice players - the Hazards, Willians etc. that we will try to sign to complement the bedrock of talent at the club. We managed to get Son, but in the past, a CL club would cherry pick the best players. I think we have cash, but need to excite players more than say Chavski, which at this immediate moment we do.

In the future we might be able to sign one or two elite players a season,and develop the rest, include developing signings like Njie and Wimmer.
 
The Poch quotes about attracting players reflects a new reality at Spurs. We have young talent that Poch can develop. But it is harder for us to attract one or two choice players - the Hazards, Willians etc. that we will try to sign to complement the bedrock of talent at the club. We managed to get Son, but in the past, a CL club would cherry pick the best players. I think we have cash, but need to excite players more than say Chavski, which at this immediate moment we do.

In the future we might be able to sign one or two elite players a season,and develop the rest, include developing signings like Njie and Wimmer.

Why do you say we have the cash? We have a zero net spend for the last 6 years and a £450m stadium being built.

If anything we have less funds than ever, as we have less disposable assets in our squad (Townsend, Carroll and Fazio will probably only raise £20m combined)
 
Why do you say we have the cash? We have a zero net spend for the last 6 years and a £450m stadium being built.

If anything we have less funds than ever, as we have less disposable assets in our squad (Townsend, Carroll and Fazio will probably only raise £20m combined)
But if that £20m gets us a players almost a good as Kane or two young hungry players like Dembele for example with change to spare then it's the right thing
 
Why do you say we have the cash? We have a zero net spend for the last 6 years and a £450m stadium being built.

If anything we have less funds than ever, as we have less disposable assets in our squad (Townsend, Carroll and Fazio will probably only raise £20m combined)

That's the point, IF the right players become available, we have the cash. We're not in the business of wasting money, but for quality, we have money. Imo. How much were we prepared to pay for Berehino?
 
That's the point, IF the right players become available, we have the cash. We're not in the business of wasting money, but for quality, we have money. Imo. How much were we prepared to pay for Berehino?

It's not about how much cash you have anyway (we probably have very little), but how much your bank will loan you/what kind of annual downpayments you can afford within FFP.
 
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