Harry's £9M gift for JD
Monday, July 27, 2009 at 11:37PM No Income tax, no VAT
A lovely nine million pound transfer fee
Lilywhite, and never red
Peter Crouch has a funny head
We have ourselves a signing. He might not be a sexy one, but he’s accomplished in the Premiership and a team player. The type who can hold up the ball, ridiculous that such an ability is lacking from our current lot. Welcome to White Hart Lane, Mr Peter Crouch. Miss Clancy too. He aint a pretty picture (she is) but at least he has product and industry. This is not a Berbatovesque type of swaggering signing that we love down at the Lane. We are sacrificing quality of the ilk we usually expect (Modric anyone?) for someone with a very specialist purpose. The purpose to serve little Defoe who can now place aside his grievances with those pesky Essex Keystone cops and start salivating at the prospect of having the perfect foil standing tall alongside him once more.
£9M the fee. Which isn’t shabby at all. Well it is, I guess, considering we sold him for 60K many moons ago. No sell on value, how times have changed hey Daniel? Granted he won’t score as many as Bent (still Sunderland bound hopefully), but there is no irony to be lost as we all know he’ll create more and cause more havoc for opposing defenders than the apologetic Darren would ever dream of doing. A team who wishes to accommodate Bent will get the best out of him. And good luck to him wherever he ends up at. Crouch is far more of a fit for Spurs. That's compared to Bent. I guess the market is a little dry at the minute.
As for our spanking new forward, I’m making the assumption that ‘arry’s masterplan is to feed Defoe and have him as the main man (30 goals please) in front of goal. It has to be. Add 15+ from Crouch and we have plenty of goals – although it’s not quite the enterprising free-scoring flair play of the Berba/Keano partnership, is it? Bit more of that Lilywhite swagger that was.
Sigh.
Would I prefer a sexy younger player with the potential to have Man Utd looking down at us in a season or two ready for the plucking? Let’s face it, Crouchie joined us ahead of Sunderland and Fulham so it appears we are doing things a little bit differently this summer. Unlike, say, when we signed Darren Bent when he was completely unnecessary to the improvement of our squad, we’ve gone and signed a decent player (never to be world class) who will do a job for us – but nothing overly exceptional enough to take us to the next level. Arguably, signing a potentially world class player has never been a successful ploy to make it to that next level anyhow, so I guess it’s time to swallow a little pride and cross your fingers and hope Aaron doesn't ping too many balls to the head of Crouch.
I’d still have preferred us to bring sexy back. There must be someone out there, young and handsome with a little shirt-tucked-out-of-shorts flair that can hold the ball up and knock a few in? No? I guess I was right about it being a dry market.
Faith in the Redknapp masterplan I guess.
So, the brand new era currently stands as: Defoe, Crouch, Keane and Pav. The latter two are the ones that will have to prove themselves, as it’s blatantly obvious who Harry is going to opt for come the Liverpool game. Keane - as discussed - needs to wake up. Pav has to put an end to all the his tired/he's not 100%/he can't talk English excuses and start playing with intent and composure and confidence.
There is still time for more movers and shakers. I’m still hoping for Negredo personally. As for KJH - he's a little bit too Defoe-esque, is he not? Had we signed him, who would he have replaced? Keane? But anyway, enough with the speculation.
At least this weary transfer window has given us something to talk about.
Happy?
Reader Comments (20)
AC Milan have dropped their interest in signing Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11863_5421004,00.html
The dream is still ON.
If Spurs sold Bent for 15mm and were able to buy Crouch for 9mm, we need to tip or hat to Mr. Levy.
Great bit of business this. Shrewd. Not the ideal signing like you say, but he will fit into Harry's tactics. As long as we don't start kicking the ball high and long down field.
Crouch falling over, Defoe offside, can't wait
I'm quite sure the £16.5m that Bent cost us included add-on's that brought the fee to that total. I'm thinking it was £12m with incentives. The same can be said with David Bentley, who I would like to see stay and show his worth. You just don't become crap overnight and I'm sure we'll see a vastly improved player this upcoming season.
As for Huntelaar, I'd love to see in a Spurs shirt, but as stated above someone else has to leave. I have a sneaking suspicion it might be Keane. There is no way Keane will tolerate playing second fiddle in the striker role and his body language and overall demeanor has been too great since his return from his Liverpool experience. Just sayin' and I could be completely wrong.
if you guys signed huntelaar i'm pretty sure crouch and defoe would split time on the pine with kjh being the mainstay. you could play 2 different games with either combo. this is a good blog by the way.
He's big, he's white, his feet stick out the night, ...Peter Crouch, ....Peter Crouch
at!
wheres the sun-tan?
actually i prefer crouch to huntelaar and am reasonably okay with the deal. we know what we get. no flash signing for sure, but i´d rather go what is proven than risking yet another gamble that most likely brings us nowhere.
still i´d like negredo to see coming; the very little that i have seen and heard sounds promising. i´m fine though with crouch, defoe, keane and pav. another CM, maybe another CB since we´re currently short of these and keeping hold of johnny two saints as a cover for modric and the new season can roll on as far as i am concerned.
This is all very well but can he play at centre half ??
Well the dreams that we all had post Pleat are over. This is not a 'break into the top four' signing it is lets try for 6/7th place. I suppose that realism has to hit sometime especially after the last two seasons. One question remains, how long will the Premier League hold its interest if clubs like ours start the season with that as our realistic aim? I, for one,are thining that perhaps it is time to go over the O's or the Daggers,cheap prices, crap football but at least a chance of doing something, however humble. Had to laugh at Wembley on Friday (before the match started) after reading post after post about how crap the new kit was, to see all the mugs wearing it! Exploitation anyone or blind faith?
If I am not mistaken Crouch scored 16 goals for p'mouth last season. So with better service from the likes of Modric and Lennon, I am sure he can be a 20+ striker. And hopefully with JD banging em in as well, we shall be alright.
Now the question remains, which CB are we after. Has 'arry mentioned any names in the press yet?
He's said it won't be Matthew Upson, which is a shame in my opinion.
Upson is the one CB we want, (well apart from a fit Jagielka who everton won't sell anyway) so it will be Dunne, who will be cut price, and for the two seasons prior to 'the big money' was their player of the season. Not bad, but not great, which is the reality check kicking in once again. Nuts!
defoe scored a lot of goals in the pl for portsmouth at the start of last season, thro dec, 8 in fact. crouch assisted in only one. crouch got five, defoe assisted in one. they were not such a great combination and as for getting all excited that crouch could get twenty, two season ago we had three separate players who all got over twenty. big step back. my problem is that i just do not like to watch crouch play.
just started a blog... learning the ropes from the big boys.
i posted about the crouch decision and i think it will be a good one. he does consistently cause discomfort to opposing teams and this is what we need. this could provide our midfielders opportunities at goal; jj, modric, hudd, o'hara all have the ability to kick an on target ball!
if anyone is interested, my blog is ibleedhotspur.wordpress.com
COYS!!!!!!!!
Signing Crouch doesn't really blow my skirt up. He's alright, he'll bring the best out of Defoe etc, but he's Premiership standard and not much more. Modders and Palacios, and Berba and Carrick back in the day, were that little bit better, the sort of players who got us sniffing at the top four.
Intrigued to see what song we'll settle on for him.
Anyone noticed that everton seem to have done well recently, without alleged superstars, (albeit Arteta, for me, is one of the most under-rated player in the prem) and the Greek national team managed to win the euros recently without so called 'star players'.
Sometimes I get sucked into the obsession, sometimes I have to remember to reign it back in. We all want 'the next...' but maybe crouch is more a piece of the jigsaw' than a the 'world class' we all crave. Maybe not as well!
That's a decent price considering Crouch is an England international (always over inflated transfer fees with that lot) with a decent and consistent goal scoring record. It's also possible to envisage what role he's going to play in the team as opposed to Bent who, despite banging (well, shinning) in a respectable goal return last season, was pretty much a superfluous signing when we already had Defoe, Keane and Berb. Better value than that useless lump Kenwyn Jones too.
Continuing the theme of unspectacular but proven Premiership quality signings how about Martin Petrov? He might not be pretty but he's left footed and was more than decent before he got injured. Cheap as well.