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The General Transfer Rumours and Speculation Thread

Gutter Boy said:
We don't. We sign more Allis, Diers, Wimmers and Njies to emerge through.

I read the other day that the top 3 only have 4 players combined in their starting 11 who weren't at the club last season (Kante, Alli, Alder and Cech). Stability and organic growth are triumphing over the disruption of parachuting in expensive big names
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Erm..Alderweireld isn't in the 'Alli, Dier, Wimmer and Njie' list you put out (and of that list, N'jie's been invisible this season as a result of his injury). He *is* in the second list of starting players bought this summer by the top 3. And he *will* be ranked amongst the best transfers of the season when it concludes. Given that he was erring towards approaching the 'too old to buy' line you arbitrarily set in a post earlier as well, don't you think you're being a bit too dogmatic about this?

I'm glad the club doesn't subscribe wholeheartedly to this strategy, which would constitute short-sighted backwards movement after what I saw as a *very* promising step towards giving the manager what he wants in the window, whether that's cheaper value buys (Alli, for example) or expensive purchases (Alderweireld at 12.5 million quid, Son at 22 million quid, the attempt made for Berahino at 22-25 million quid). We shouldn't shackle ourselves on purchases by prevaricating on how old a player is or how expensive he is: ideally, if the manager wants him (and this is a manager that has made fans of most of us, Levy included), then give him what he wants. Make it up via sales later if net spend becomes an issue (after all, it isn't as if Poch is *oblivious* to our current constraints - he talks about it nearly as much as Levy does) in consultation with the manager and the rest of the 'committee'.

I'd like to think that we pick the strategy that suits us, as opposed to trying to make the ideal type (be it endless spending on big names or pennywise purchases of exclusively young and cheap products) fit our needs. More often than not, that will lead to a *mixed* approach..which, as long as it suits the manager's wants, is fine by me.
 
Also, there was an interesting post on TFC which pointed out that this summer will likely be our best chance of seeing the club spend big money on a well-known, established player. Iirc, the logic was that a) we will likely finish in an automatic CL position, which will mean guaranteed funds (as opposed to the more uncertain finances the last time we qualified for the CL) to plan with, b) the new PL TV deal will give us more money to spend, c) a big name might help us secure a more lucrative sponsorship deal, and d) this summer is now or never in terms of grabbing a bigger slice of the market share in the Far East and worldwide more generally until the new stadium comes up, what with United possibly missing out (and certainly at least two of United, Arsenal, City and Liverpool missing out...surely?) and our position in terms of marketability never being more open to being exploited.

I'm not saying that means we'll definitely see a horde of superstars incoming, of course, but I somehow doubt that this summer will be *exclusively* a Davies+Vorm+Stambouli+Fazio affair.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Erm..Alderweireld isn't in the 'Alli, Dier, Wimmer and Njie' list you put out (and of that list, N'jie's been invisible this season as a result of his injury). He *is* in the second list of starting players bought this summer by the top 3. And he *will* be ranked amongst the best transfers of the season when it concludes. Given that he was erring towards approaching the 'too old to buy' line you arbitrarily set in a post earlier as well, don't you think you're being a bit too dogmatic about this?

I'm glad the club doesn't subscribe wholeheartedly to this strategy, which would constitute short-sighted backwards movement after what I saw as a *very* promising step towards giving the manager what he wants in the window, whether that's cheaper value buys (Alli, for example) or expensive purchases (Alderweireld at 12.5 million quid, Son at 22 million quid, the attempt made for Berahino at 22-25 million quid). We shouldn't shackle ourselves on purchases by prevaricating on how old a player is or how expensive he is: ideally, if the manager wants him (and this is a manager that has made fans of most of us, Levy included), then give him what he wants. Make it up via sales later if net spend becomes an issue (after all, it isn't as if Poch is *oblivious* to our current constraints - he talks about it nearly as much as Levy does) in consultation with the manager and the rest of the 'committee'.

I'd like to think that we pick the strategy that suits us, as opposed to trying to make the ideal type (be it endless spending on big names or pennywise purchases of exclusively young and cheap products) fit our needs. More often than not, that will lead to a *mixed* approach..which, as long as it suits the manager's wants, is fine by me.
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We don't need to improve our starting 11 this summer though. Just an exciting young player or two to gradually emerge over the following 12-24 months.

Unless we ditch Eriksen for a more natural LWF, now Alli has taken his ACM?
 
Cochise said:
Transfer categories.

Dembele competition: Tielemens, Dahoud, Kovacic
Dier backup: Wanyama, Wallace
Kane backup: Wilson, Haller, Dembele, Calleri, Batshuayi
Lamela competition: El Ghazi, Dembele, Cueva, Malli
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Son is kind of Lamela's competition already and i think Pritchard will be drafted in to be AM competition also - that will give us Lamela/Son Alli/Pritchard Eriksen/Chadli for the 3 positions behind Kane - potentially i can see Chadli being sold if the club have identified a player in that position, im sure there wont be any shortage of suitors in the PL which means we could get close to 20m for him (imo) a good opportunity to upgrade and turn a profit at the same time - add that to the 15m we got for Townsend, so potentially 35m to strengthen with - and it opens up some good opportunities to improve LWF and CF without breaking the bank...Berahino and Dembele could be got for less then that and would probably leave us a reasonable amount to put towards CM.

re CM - i can't imagine all of Mason/Bentaleb/Carroll leaving in the same window - if i had to guess id say Carroll and Bentaleb are the most likely to make way but could see any combination leaving or one or none - i do think we will bring in a player to provide competition for Dier, but i don't see us bring in 2 CMs whilst we have reasonable options from the youth ranks already in the squad - i think we will persevere with them, and rightly so.

CB is the only other position i think we'll be in the market for - and i think we may be in for an older more established player who would be happy to take on a 4th choice role, possibly someone with CL experience - anyone fit that bill that could handle a Poch training ground environment?
 
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billyiddo said:
Son is kind of Lamela's competition already and i think Pritchard will be drafted in to be AM competition also - that will give us Lamela/Son Alli/Pritchard Eriksen/Chadli for the 3 positions behind Kane - potentially i can see Chadli being sold if the club have identified a player in that position, im sure there wont be any shortage of suitors in the PL which means we could get close to 20m for him (imo) a good opportunity to upgrade and turn a profit at the same time - add that to the 15m we got for Townsend, so potentially 35m to strengthen with - and it opens up some good opportunities to improve LWF and CF without breaking the bank...Berahino and Dembele could be got for less then that and would probably leave us a reasonable amount to put towards CM.

re CM - i can't imagine all of Mason/Bentaleb/Carroll leaving in the same window - if i had to guess id say Carroll and Bentaleb are the most likely to make way but could see any combination leaving or one or none - i do think we will bring in a player to provide competition for Dier, but i don't see us bring in 2 CMs whilst we have reasonable options from the youth ranks already in the squad - i think we will persevere with them, and rightly so.

CB is the only other position i think we'll be in the market for - and i think we may be in for an older more established player who would be happy to take on a 4th choice role, possibly someone with CL experience - anyone fit that bill that could handle a Poch training ground environment?
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I pretty much agree.

In central midfield I could see one of Mason, Carroll or Bentaleb leaving with one coming in as cover for Dier.

We have Winks and Ball coming through here too. If they are going to have a future with us then they will start needing to get opportunities soon.
 
Gutter Boy said:
We don't need to improve our starting 11 this summer though. Just an exciting young player or two to gradually emerge over the following 12-24 months.

Unless we ditch Eriksen for a more natural LWF, now Alli has taken his ACM?
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If you don't improve your starting 11 then you risk going backwards as other teams will all improve their starting 11s. The best way to strengthen the squad is to strengthen the starting line-up so that a current first team regular instead becomes a bench player.

I notice that is a few times now that you have talked about us ditching Eriksen. In response to this I would firstly say that of all our midfield players Eriksen is perhaps the hardest to improve upon. Secondly Pochettino doesn't play with standard wing forwards - he seems to prefer playing his three attacking midfielders quite narrow and using the fullbacks to provide all of the width.

Is Eriksen your new Dembele? (as I remember the period between about 18 and 6 months ago whjere you were constantly harping on about us getting rid of Dembele).
 
Said it before but we need to strengthen our CM, I do not think either Mason or Bentaleb are going to put enough pressure on the likes of Eriksen, Lamela and the others. We need to bring one/two players into the equation and ones that will make those in the team improve their game to stay in it.

We of course need another striker but I would be happy to see us go back in for Dembele ( Fulham).
 
Finney Is Back said:
If you don't improve your starting 11 then you risk going backwards as other teams will all improve their starting 11s. The best way to strengthen the squad is to strengthen the starting line-up so that a current first team regular instead becomes a bench player.

I notice that is a few times now that you have talked about us ditching Eriksen. In response to this I would firstly say that of all our midfield players Eriksen is perhaps the hardest to improve upon. Secondly Pochettino doesn't play with standard wing forwards - he seems to prefer playing his three attacking midfielders quite narrow and using the fullbacks to provide all of the width.

Is Eriksen your new Dembele? (as I remember the period between about 18 and 6 months ago whjere you were constantly harping on about us getting rid of Dembele).
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i agree with the sentiment, but i don't think we'll look to be buying players to oust our current first XI more so provide stern competition - looking back at our previous windows under the current management id use Davies/Trippier/Son/Dier/Wimmer/Alli as examples of the level of player we'll be looking to sign
 
Finney Is Back said:
If you don't improve your starting 11 then you risk going backwards as other teams will all improve their starting 11s. The best way to strengthen the squad is to strengthen the starting line-up so that a current first team regular instead becomes a bench player.

I notice that is a few times now that you have talked about us ditching Eriksen. In response to this I would firstly say that of all our midfield players Eriksen is perhaps the hardest to improve upon. Secondly Pochettino doesn't play with standard wing forwards - he seems to prefer playing his three attacking midfielders quite narrow and using the fullbacks to provide all of the width.

Is Eriksen your new Dembele? (as I remember the period between about 18 and 6 months ago whjere you were constantly harping on about us getting rid of Dembele).
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The 'buy all the players' clubs (City, United, Chelsea) have been going backwards massively, whilst the same team as last season +1 clubs (us, Leciester and Arsenal) have been succeeding.

The league in general is declining in quality, as Spain, Germany and Italy push ahead and China is picking up all the mercenaries. By standing still (or growing organically), we'll keep pushing ahead of the doped clubs who can't forge cohesive units.

I'm not massively down on Eriksen, but IMO he's the weakest link in our starting 11 if we were going to upgrade one position. He's not really kept pace with the development of the others. I think it might be Son who takes his spot next season though.
 
billyiddo said:
Son is kind of Lamela's competition already and i think Pritchard will be drafted in to be AM competition also

re CM - i can't imagine all of Mason/Bentaleb/Carroll leaving in the same window - if i had to guess id say Carroll and Bentaleb are the most likely to make way but could see any combination leaving or one or none - i do think we will bring in a player to provide competition for Dier, but i don't see us bring in 2 CMs whilst we have reasonable options from the youth ranks already in the squad - i think we will persevere with them, and rightly so.

CB is the only other position i think we'll be in the market for - and i think we may be in for an older more established player who would be happy to take on a 4th choice role, possibly someone with CL experience - anyone fit that bill that could handle a Poch training ground environment?
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I'm just sorting our linked targets into categories, not really speculating too much on who Poch will be bringing in.

On that subject though, I think that Son is more likely going to play second fiddle/alternate with Alli. I think the fact that he has been alternating with Lamela is more to do with our lack of cover there. I too can also see Chadli being moved on and Pritchard being given a chance, but aside from that, we have consitently been linked with attacking midfielders which makes me believe that we are looking for someone to truly challenge Lamela there.

On the CM front, I agree with you about who could be sold as we have no one to really replace Dembele. Carroll and Mason offer something different, whilst Bentaleb looks like he's on his way out. Looking down the youth setup, I don't think we have anyone there who could stepup into that role, so the links to Tielemens and Dahoud seem sound. On the DM front, it sounds like Ball has had a good time in Scotland, him acting as backup to Dier might be a little premature just yet.

An adequate DM backup might negate the need for a fourth choice CB, as Dier can still fill in if we lose two of our three CB's. CCV is a talented young CB so we could see him getting time next year in the FA and League cups.
 
parklane1 said:
Said it before but we need to strengthen our CM, I do not think either Mason or Bentaleb are going to put enough pressure on the likes of Eriksen, Lamela and the others. We need to bring one/two players into the equation and ones that will make those in the team improve their game to stay in it.

We of course need another striker but I would be happy to see us go back in for Dembele ( Fulham).
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This and a striker
 
I can't quite believe that anyone would think that Eriksen is the weak link in our starting XI?!!! My mind boggles.

Firstly, there are no weak links in our team. I think we will improve by improving our squad depth and buying players that will provide different options to us. I can't think of many footballers that we could realistically get that are tangibly and effectively superior to Eriksen. Ozil was how much again? Is he that much better than Eriksen to warrant the difference in price?

Secondly, Eriksen is one of the undroppables. In addition, to my mind, he is one of the few players that we have that Poch has not dropped at all this season!

Unless we are truly going to get a world superstar, I would not change our starting XI in the slightest. I would simply buy better squad options, so a striker, a backup keeper (if there is one available that is better than Vorm) and perhaps a midfielder. @parklane I haven't yet decided in my mind that Mason or Bentaleb cannot step up, but I realise that is mostly because I always err on the side of caution with getting rid of players, particularly if they have come through our own youth system. I also do think that these two have shown enough promise to deliver good performances. But I respect your view and can understand it based on what has happened this season.
 
@Cochise

re

On the CM front, I agree with you about who could be sold as we have no one to really replace Dembele. Carroll and Mason offer something different, whilst Bentaleb looks like he's on his way out. Looking down the youth setup, I don't think we have anyone there who could stepup into that role, so the links to Tielemens and Dahoud seem sound. On the DM front, it sounds like Ball has had a good time in Scotland, him acting as backup to Dier might be a little premature just yet.
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when i refereed to persevering with the youth products i meant Mason/Carroll/Bentaleb - (rather than the CMs currently in our academy) i think as M/C/B are youth products we will likely give them more time to stake their place for a long term position in our squad - as such i can only see us bringing in competition for Dier as either one of those three can play alongside Dier but not in place of. Dembele is a great player and whilst none of the three can do what he does, they all bring something different which can be of benefit - but it needs to be alongside a Dier type player
 
Gutter Boy said:
We don't need to improve our starting 11 this summer though. Just an exciting young player or two to gradually emerge over the following 12-24 months.

Unless we ditch Eriksen for a more natural LWF, now Alli has taken his ACM?
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Depends on the quality of 'back-up' we buy, wouldn't you agree? If we went out and bought a 20-25m pound player as a backup for Kane and/or Dier, they'd expect to gain a considerable number of starts by dint of their profile and fee, which would simultaneously improve our side in terms of overall quality and possibly change the starting eleven more rapidly than signing a young player or two that emerges over 12-24 months would. It's down to how immediately competitive we want to be, and how badly we want the ancillary effects that I've laid out above.

Also, we could sign a starter as well - I doubt people would stick on scruples if a world-class player was available and wanted to come for a reasonable price. Vanishingly rare (and there's a reason we don't get VDV-esque players every season), but hey, if Modric/Bale want to come back and work hard to fit into Poch's system, as a hypothetical example, would you turn them down because they wouldn't be a Wimmer/N'jie/Alli type signing?
 
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