Summertime High Jinxs
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 at 2:26PM In an ideal world you'd be Barcalona. Enriched with a beautiful (the passing not the diving) footballing philosophy from academy to first team. We (over in N17) don't quite have the foundations in place to implement such a template. It's hardly a task you can set into place over night. The right manager (and perhaps dare I say a sporting director?) has to be at the forefront re-structuring from top to bottom the development of youth players and an evident style of play meaning when the club does go out and sign someone, it's not a scatter-gun approach or one tailored specifically for opportunistic signings and wheeler dealer bargains. Only a certain ilk of player would fit in. Everybody involved at the club clearly understanding how the game should be played and the aforementioned youth players, promoted successfully into the first team, completely and unequivocally Tottenham at heart.
In short, it's fantasy football at this moment in time.
For a clubs traditions to be the main driving force behind such an ethos, it will only happen when it's meant to. If we've had anything of an ethos at Spurs, it's always been to attack and play attractive sweeping football. We've gone about doing so in the past by just signing flair players and 'players of the moment', sometimes without any pragmatic approach on how they would all fit together.
Throw enough paint at the canvas and you just might end up with a masterpiece <- it doesn't quite work.
Our academy always appears to produce players of promise, but we're still waiting for something to blossom.
We've got stability, but there's no point in discussing a Tottenham blueprint just yet. What does need to be discussed is the opening of the transfer window and the work that is about to transpire with hopefully players arriving and leaving. For the moment, it's the short term that requires attention in order for there to be more thought provoking frameworks in the long term.
Someone recently mentioned to me that he believed the vast majority of clubs favour a scatter gun approach when looking to sign someone. They fancy one player, they bid, it's rejected, they move on. The ones that single out a target or two and simply work towards them are always more successful. You would be, if you're focused on one person in particular or a specific type of player that only a handful of targets fit into.
You can categorise most forwards (for example) by way of style so you're left with deciding on age, experience and availability/price after working out if you're after a Drogba or a Defoe. You draw up a list with your preferred choices and work through it, unless you sign the one first on the list.
It will always look chaotic from the sidelines. Why? Well mainly because we are impatient, excited and also heavily reliant on whispers and news coverage. You don't really know what is going on until it actually happens (or when Harry turns up in front of a Sky Sports News camera to update us).
In 2006 we did not bolster our squad during the January window. We should have consolidated. We paid the price. These past two windows we apparently endeavoured to sign a forward and failed. I don't quite believe most of the supposed bids for La Liga stars actually happened. Perhaps Forlan and Rossi were subjected to our interest.
What was disconcerting was the manner in which we bid for Charlie Adam during the final hour or so. Opportunistic and desperate...also so illogical, Spock would have died of an aneurysm had he been subjected to the madness.
Just because someone becomes available last minute, doesn't mean we have an obligation to bid, and yet that's how it appears to have played out.
"Adam is available, would you like me to bid?"
"Sure. Got 45 minutes left but if we can order a pizza in that time we can surely sign a player"
"You certain you want him? Where would he play?"
"Let's worry about that after we've paid £10M"
It's pretty clear we need to have decisive plan of action and a list of targets along with a heavily strained fax machine sending out 'come and get'em' pleas for the likes of Bentley and the rest of the fringe players.
We simply can not afford to dither and leave it all until that final week.
I'm not going to apologise for stating the bleeding obvious. It's just that the bleeding obvious has taken a leave of absence recently. So let's hope he doesn't spend the summer by a pool topping up his tan.
'Seasons End' articles:
The Progression of Harry Redknapp's Tottenham
Reader Comments (23)
Would be nice to get our transfer business sorted before pre-season and not 2 weeks after the season has begun, but hey, this is Tottenham!
Sorry but I am not looking forward to silly season, I have 100% trust in Levy if he needs to spend the dosh, just don't trust Harry at all, he is going to change our young, exciting squad full of potential intothis old boys club full of quick fixs and back handers!
Freidal, Neville???????
You know its got the point where i don't go to other sites or read other peoples blogs, you know why, you Spooks, you are without a doubt what writing is all about, especially when it comes to our beloved team.
Another great read, do me favour just dont stop. Cheers.
The Spooky apreciation society
Well, there you have it. From the horses mouth. Gareth Bale is staying at the Lane. Check it out on:
http://www.talksport.co.uk/magazine/interviews/2011-06-01/video-tottenhams-gareth-bale-his-future-and-who-can-do-more-kick-ups-between-him-and-luka-modric?
So fuck off Journo's! Luka Modic is on a six year contract, longer than Bales' and yet the media are insisting that Modric wants to leave. What these so called Journalists are doing is misinterpreting what Modric said in croatian and reporting that he said he wants to leave. Fucking Journo's probably can't even speak a second language let alone croatian!
There's little doubt that a definitive list of targets needs to be drawn up within the next week or so, and that Levy starts making approaches straight away, rather than wait until 11.15pm on the last day of the transfer window.
The problem we have is that he will be trying to sell the dead wood at overinflated prices. The effect that has is somewhat catastrophic (okay maybe I'm overdoing it) because Levy won't spend now until he has recouped.
Fortunately it looks like sales may be taking place soon as, according to TalkSport, we are due to respond to Napoli in the next 3/4 days regarding their £7 million offer for Palacios.
As for the Charlie Adam bid - can you imagine if that had gone through?!?! We'd never have seen what Sandro can do!
I don't think we will be seeing Phil Neville in a Lilywhite shirt either. He's always been in the North-East and what reason would he really have for moving down south?
I meant North-west obviously.....
Sorry Spooky I will have to call it "Wintertime Hi Jinxs".
But seriously, I have this awful feeling the rumour mill will be even more baseless and unfounded than ever before. There's already 3000 articles about Modders leaving and about 3000 saying he'll stay. Who really knows? Not many.
For me though re our strikers: Pav should stay, Crouch & Defoe out. Both been great servants, but the use by date has arrived.
In? This Leandro apparently is a mate of Sandro..big, strong and quick. And apparently he knows how to find the net...maybe roll the dice if the price is right.
Another? hmm...wouldn't gave a clue.
I think a lot of the time we do business at an early stage if fees are agreed. Problem is always when you are trying to convince a club to sell when they don't want to, they no the longer they hold out the more they will get.
We got VDV as a late signing, Robbie Keane but who else? Luka was got before the Euro's, Bale and Bent I seem to remember as early signings.
Seems to be a media myth that people like to believe in - we leave things till the last minute. Last window was pretty obvious Suarez and Carroll were targets, only thing that happened was Roman going a bit mental. The chelsea one not ours. Should we have bid 35m for Carroll on the 1st January?? I don't think so.
And Liverpool paid a higher fee for Suarez than Spurs were prepared to and discussed terms with them.
Probably after being banned for 8games people at Spurs were a bit unsure about his temperament or something.
Have faith, they know what they need to do.
Silly season is so named because most of the stuff that is written is nonsense. All journalists do is to try and wind up supporters to get interest, so I suggest we ignore most of the current rumours etc. I agree there needs to be a well thought out transfer policy which clearly is absent at present. We seem to chase targets on whims e.g. the last minute attempt to sign Adams, and sign players who are adequate but really do not add anything above and beyond the current squad e.g Pienar, or we do not give our youth an extended chance. And God forbid some of the rumours that floated around last year were true e.g. Cole and Beckham.
Clearly everyone agreed our strikers were poor this year, but I am not sure we have identified a real reason. What are the chances of 3 strikers all having bad years? If this was a problem I was analysing I would be more inclined to examine the system i.e. tactics or team cohesion, rather than shoot all three strikers.
In the current search for a striker I hope the club is also looking at what is around in the country not just abroad. From what I have seen both West Bom and Peterborough have exciting strikers who know the culture of English football and might be worth looking at.
There's little doubt that it was the change to the system that resulted in our strikers mis-firing.
In 09/10 we played a straight 4-4-2 and our strikers tended to score for fun. In fact, the team as a whole managed it.
We changed to 4-5-1 using strikers not suited to that format and we paid a price for it.
The last minute signing of VDV was a blessing in terms of the quality of player he is, but it royally screwed the balance of the team every time he played.
As i sent you recently spooky, most clubs just lack a longterm philosophy and vision. I know this as a fan but also know this because i work for a sports marketing company. We are faced with a total lack of strategy day in , day out and the few clubs that have clear ideas and a longterm vision on how they want their brand (excuse my french) exposed and their fans pleased are almost always very succesfull (in relation to their respective financial means)
Those are the clubs that also tend to have a good youth policy and a long term approach. Good finances and marketing does not always mean a good sportive management (spurs being the example) but the way clubs are structured and the professionalism of their employees shows you what kind of vibe goes through the organisation.
You need a good academy and coaches that protect and follow the strategy of the club , you need patience and a cool head and above all the bollocks to put the youth players in the team. That also strenghtens the link with your local society and strongly reduces the risk of having another Postiga in the team.
OT, always worth another viewing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJgAGalKoBI&feature=channel_video_title
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tZ6AleCouk&feature=fvwrel
Anyone know if he's got one for this season?
David - you think Mackail-Smith could hack top flight football with us?
I like the way he plays, but I think he's more suited to the teams currently showing interest in him (Everton, QPR, Wigan). Better for him to adapt to the Premiership with a smaller club than go straight to a big club and fail.
For me it's keep Defoe & Pav, let Crouch and Keane go.
Bring in someone exciting from abroad and maybe someone with proven experience in the PL as well.
Or why not take a risk and put some trust in young Harry Kane? Look what we've seen from Danny Rose recently.....
I think we did most of our best transfer business when Comolli was on board. Remember he signed both Modric & Bale within the transfer deadline and with weeks to spare. Thing is that Harry works best when he is charge of picking the players who will fit in with the team's personality and i agree with that. Levy loves a bargain and is famous for his tough negotiating style. The way i understand it works at Spurs now is Harry identifies the players he is after and lets the chairman sit down and do the deal. We are now in the market for top shelf players! The days of signing Steed Malbranque & Didier Zakora are thankfully over. Any signing we make in the next transfer window will be a significant investment and will no doubt break our current transfer record. I'm sure Harry will add a few free signings plus an old, experienced head or two but i really expect a blockbuster signing that shouts "SPURS ARE NOT F'ING ABOUT" this summer. Bring it ON!
We could buy both Leadro and Gameiro for the same money we would pay for Falcao.
If Spurs could buy also one of Parker/Diara, a reliable keeper and a quick and dominant CB (the style of Piqué) and would be able to offload 8-10 deadwood players, the club would be a serious title candidate next season.
Actually we are five proper players away of challenging seriously the title.
Walkerboy you might be correct about Mcail-Smith. I have only seen him in the playoff and I enjoyed his pace and bustle. The West Brom guy Odemwingie also looks good. In fact both look better than the three we played this year. I agree with you that young Kane deseves a run--not just a couple of games. I would keep Crouch only as a tactical option not as a starter, and maybe keep Defoe---he has talent and I suspect next season he will shine. If we let him go it will be like Bent--score a hatful elsewhere. I am afraid Pav is too patchy and I would let him go if we can sign another.
Drogba,Doyle,Zamora, keep Pav.
All Premiership ready
and a definite step up from our current assortment, but then what wouldn't be.
Not as exciting as young explosive Brazilians perhaps but might just do the job.
we are just 2 great strikers away from setting the premier league alight.....
That's what I'm talking about...
Was wondering where I could get some Chanel handbags, this blog has everything.
Deleted the spam, so you're post looks quite random and gay now.
:)
After I posted it, that thought did occur to me! Oh well.......guess I need to look elsewhere for the Jimmy Choo's as well.
I need to stop typing before I do my reputation any more damage................
There might also be some High Court High Jinx, hope that doesn't distract Levy too much.
The painful truth is that the football media have nothing to write about now that the season is over yet they still need to sell papers, they're more desperate for inches than a crack whore. Therefore when journos have no scandal or juicy gossip to blazen over their back pages they just make shit up... hence the Modric stories!
None of the core are leaving, simple as. I just hope that we have a definitive list of targeted players that:
a) have the right ability, desire, character and winning mentality
b) their respective clubs are willing to sell
c) are happy with our wage structure
and d) welcome the challenge and want to come and play for Spurs
If all of those boxes aren't ticked early doors then there's no point in persuing them... it's the summer to prove our intent!
COYMFS...