Dry them and move onwards

What a ridiculous waste of an afternoon that was. Worst performance of the season? Spineless? A consequence of fragmented selection? Poisoned by lasagne?

Yeah sure, injuries aside, I still fancied us pre-match. Around about the 37 second mark I conceded that today would be shambolic and that conceded my confidence was cursed. To which it was.

Players looked lethargic and dis-interested. When Frazier Campbell is made to look like quality you know there has to be something surreal going on. In this case, the Spurs players appeared to drift away into next weekend and their FA Cup semi-final date. Knees trembling, for all to see.

Even a second half improvement (just about noticeable) wasn't enough, neither were the heroics of Gomes who saved two penalties, although he was probably guilty for that 36 second opener as he could have done better. Maybe that's a tad harsh. It smelt a goal the moment they got a corner. A preview of the pattern of the game that would play out over the 90 minutes. Us, willing Sunderland on, to have a pop at any given moment they chose.

Talking of pens, the ref was abysmal. One of the three he gave (the 3rd) was a no brainer - the first two were weak weak decisions. Although he sort of made amends for disallowing a 3rd Sunderland goal, which didn't matter because when Sunderland did score their third it was almost worthy of applauding, such was its genius. It's horrible horrible genius. A volley that will no doubt when goal of the month. Ref was also reluctant to dish out yellow cards. Although Wilson came out of the game without one. Small mercies.

Crouch cameo the only worthwhile moment to give us a glimmer of hope. Gomes proving that even though Bent believes he has banished the Sandra sound-bite by notching a brace and celebrating with much venom, he's still an idiot with a stupid beard (honestly, I have nothing more at the moment). His face after his second pen miss, a picture. The only picture I'll be choosing to remember cometh tomorrow. Defoe might have done better with a one-on-one, Gordon to the rescue, who then saved another goal-bound effort moments later. Bentley header in the first half, easily saved. Not sure there was anything else, offensively, for us.

There's probably plenty to analyse and discuss, and I had notes from the game and was planning on singling out one or two players who struggled and the detrimental impact the missing players had on the team - something I sort of refused to dwell on too much as a potential excuse pre-match.

Stuff like our inability to retain possession, control the ball, play with any type of shape, show any sustained intent and courage. Bassong missing Dawson. BAE lacking confidence. Palacios messy. Bale lacking composure with his passing. All-round clusterfuck to be fair.

Credit to Sunderland. Talk about making it an easy afternoon for them. If they had a better forward up front, it could have been humiliating (haha, yeah, still bitter). Jones air-kick testament to how stupid we and his owners were back when a £20M label was being tagged on his shirt. But they still won and Bent has taken his revenge, no doubt he'll be gutted he won't be able to Tweet about it.

So yeah, no deep thinking post-match tactical breakdown. The players never switched on. They hardly looked bothered. So if this was a pre-Wembley type of 'ooh let me try not to get injured' performance, then shame on all. Or perhaps I should just admit I was wrong and having so many players out has damaged us. Pompey might even fancy us now (j/k).

I just don't want to believe that we under-performed because the FA Cup was made a collective priority subconsciously by all who took the field. So I'll have to hug the excuse that the lack of Dawson, Corluka and Huddlestone and the forced re-shuffle has made us momentarily poop our pants.

Pushed, bullied, kicked and out-played. At least its done and out of our system. 5 wins on the trot halted and today makes it just 8 defeats all season in the Prem. Not bad. But we are no longer in the driving seat for 4th. Don't fret. I'm not knee-jerking. I've been saying it for a while, we'll still finish 4th. Just have to do things the hard way now.

Maybe conceding that goal so early was a catalyst, but to suggest had it not been scored we might have performed better is a bit like hoping that having gone 1-0 down we'd get back into the game. It won't happen unless you make it happen.

Tragic we failed to turn up for this. I'd rather we play beautifully and with effort and desire, and if we lose at least we can say we gave it some. Rather than just lube up and bend over.

What's that? City, 4 up at Burnley after 20 minutes? 5 up at half-time? Our goal-difference nervously looking over its shoulder? Although it's now City looking over their shoulder at us.

Okay, we really do have to do it the hard way now.

COYFS.

Match preview quickie

We all know how important today is. A win keeps us on the road to fourth and applies the pressure on the chasing pack. Yes, I know. We are depleted and from the looks of it without Dawson, Palacios and Huddlestone today...along with the usual suspects including the not far off from returning Lennon. I did have a dream last night that Woodgate announced his retirement, but hopefully the negatives will remain buried deep inside my subconscious.

Even with so many players out, some key, the spirit at Spurs is such that I'm quietly confident. April is meant to be the hellmouth month with the big 3 games not that far off, but I actually prefer us going into this month as underdogs, backs to the wall, fighting and kicking for our lives. We get to find out if we are good enough. Although the arguments about consolidating our squad depth in January (the fact we didn't) will no doubt resurface if we fail because the inconsistency of the balance of the side.

Tbh, I'm glad we face Arsenal, Chelsea and Utd. Massive games for every side. And if our lot are not motivated for these opponents, then playing CL football isn't even something that should be flirted with. But then, we've already had our hands down the panties of the Top 4, so I know - and you know - we are game on.

But Sunderland are up first, and we need to remain focused on the here and now.

What's that? Kaboul? In at the back alongside Bassong? Then again, Sunderland are jam-packed with players that were deemed not good enough for us (other than Steed who had his moments in Lilywhite). Bent is obviously going to do his bestest to stick two fingers up at us and Harry. Especially after his pen miss at the Lane. No doubt it will be frantic. Fingers crossed we stamp some of that swaggering quality on the game. Injuries? So what. There is still plenty there for us to claim the points.

COYS and all that jazz.

We. Made. A. Mistake.

It's time to come clean. All of us. We need to stand under the shower of truth and allow the cleansing water to wash away the filthy lies and delusions from our bodies. The stench has become unbearable. We have walked the streets alone far too long, pretending and fooling ourselves that the empire of dust we worship has the foundations to aid us in reaching the heavens. Our faith, corrupted. Our hopes evaporated. The dust, blown away by the wind.

All this time, we whispered words that had no meaning. And now, these words, no longer twisted, stare back at us, taunting, as clear as the sun in the sky on a summers day. And there is nowhere to run to escape the chants.

We. Were. Wrong.
We. Made. A. Mistake.
He's. Better. Than. Sandra.

We should never have sold him.

Saturday 3rd April. The Stadium of Light. 3pm Kick-off. Sunderland v Tottenham Hotspur.

A team of Spurs rejects, led by another reject. Darren Bent. 21 goals. Goal machine. Defoe? Take away the five he scored against Wigan and he's lagging embarrassingly behind. Bent a reject? I think not. A man on a mission. Focused. Able to adapt to his surroundings and make it work in his favour. Who else can cunningly use a beach-ball to trick an opposition keeper? Defoe is nothing more than a loyal friend of the offside flag.

We took £10M+ for Bent and gave him away to Sunderland. Just because he shared his soul via Twitter. That's like paying a hit man tuppence to shoot you in the face twice (he might miss the first time round). Twelve yards requires a sniper rifle. Point blank, and he'll find his target.

Another nail in the Champions League coffin. Hammered into place by the hands of Daniel Levy, guided by the screams of Harry Redknapp.

There used to be a football club here.

That was the week that was

So, according to Harry we need a goal-scoring midfielder like Lampard. No shit. That's why we tried our utmost to sign one in the last transfer window and ended up with Kaboul.

/tumbleweed

Pav is once more mouthing off. Although it's tiresome, it's equally so to hear Redknapp bang on about the player as though he was an integral part of the squad and yet hardly ever gets a chance, forever warming the bench. Okay, so it's doubtful he's even half the player we wished he would be based on what we've seen, but considering we've seen very little its impossible to truly gauge if he could possibly fit into the side. Perhaps he should turn up to training on a pogo-stick. If he did he'll be a shoe-in to partner JD.

Lawro is predicating us to lose away on Sunday. Looking at the state of their pitch I wouldn't be surprised, considering we struggle to score on grass that's green Christ only knows how we plan to play on the savaged mud marshes of Wigan. We tonked them 9-1 and since that day we've managed to lose our mojo which has seen us hiccup our way to where we are now. Still within touching distance. So perhaps rather than attempting to turn it on like Brazil 1970, we should simply be forced to dig deep and win. Otherwise we sink in the mud taking any hope of 4th down with us. Maybe Harry can mix it up a little with some long balls.

/tumbleweed coming through again

Still on the subject of Lawro and his opinions, he's apparently been telling everyone that Theo Walcott has to go to the World Cup. What the same player who's always injured and hardly does anything other than working on looking and acting like a glossed over arrogant twat so people can lay claim that he's possibly the next Henry? That Theo? Yeah, okay Lawro. Let's take someone to the World Cup based on potential. Jenas, if you're reading this, pack your suitcase.  If he (Theo) played for anyone other than Arsenal, he'd be out on loan to a Championship club right about now. Pace with no direction, and no end product. But he looks good with facial hair, so it's not all bad.

Carlton Cole to Spurs. Yep. When you thought it was safe to browse through the seedy underbelly of the internet (Spurs message boards) the ITK's are saying this is done and dusted for August. Rivaldo  also scheduled to finally complete his medical and sign for Spurs this summer.

Talking of West Ham, can I just say congratulations to Terry Dixon who has been called up to the Eire U21 squad. Two years out with a serious injury at a critical stage of his development, Spurs were amazingly patient, working to get him back to fitness - but then advised by specialists that he would have to retire. If any Irons are reading this, please get in touch. Would like to know how well he's doing in reserve team football. Considering Dixon was told he would never play professional football after his continued injury problems, I'm chuffed for the lad who seems to have unlimited determination and fight in him. Of course, he probably won't be half the player he was on course to becoming, but the kid is earning a living from kicking a ball, so that deserves a massive round of applause.

Seriously though. Carlton Cole?

Devastated to hear this week that Darren Bent has quit Twitter to concentrate on aiding Sunderland out of their slump. No, seriously, heart-broken. He's scored 16 goals this season so not sure how logging onto the internet and typing one sentence messages can quite possibly distract him from what happens out on the training pitch and during games. Obviously it doesn't because he's been scoring plenty. Perhaps the gap left in the world wide web can be filled by Peter Crouch. Would love to read his tweets about waking up next to Abbey Clancy.  Every morning. Does she wear panties in bed? PJs? Or perhaps just Chanel No5? I think these are important and vital questions. Questions that require answers (with accompanying photos for definitive clarity).

Final word saved for the enemy. Excellent back-pass, expertly touched with toe. Instinctive pick-up by the keeper. Superb release of the ball to the opposition and additional groan towards the linesman. Quick free-kick taken. Inspired blocking of the defender by the ref. Clever goal scored. Perfectly legal. Magical spasm on the touchline. David Lynch scripted excuse from the manager. Made me laugh out loud. With all the depression relating to our current dip in form, it's nice of them to provide everyone with a bit of comedy. Good work fellas. Keep it up.

@DBTheTruth The beachball would have scored

Irony and football. It's majestic at times, more so when your team is the one blessed with it's touch.

Darren Bent

Most were concerned and playfully joked about how he would return to haunt us. You could see it happening. Bent, sways past King to thrash the ball past a despairing Gomes as he sprints towards the Sunderland fans, Blackberry in hand, tweeting 'Sandra would never have scored that one'. Except football sometimes doesn't go according to the obvious script. It prefers instead to take care of the ones that are meant to be the bad guys. Us. Almost like poetry, Gomes saved a flaky penalty from Darren. I'm still undecided about the first penalty appeal in the first half, but the one that was given in the second was the type that no blame could be pinned on the ref for giving it. He doesn't have the luxury of action-replays. Bent allowed gravity to pull him down before Gomes went for the ball. It was a con. And such is life. That not only did Benty do a naughty thing but that he then proceeded to shag it all up. That's why we sold you indeed.

Sunderland

I thought were superb. And if there was any evidence that Tottenham's transfer policy is at times an embarrassment, look no further then Steed Malbranque. Class act that gives it 100%. I still can not fathom why we sold him. Andy Reid, who I can live without, was also impressive (lovely shot that had the woodwork saving us). Without sounding condescending, I don't think Sunderland can improve much more. They're a tidy outfit who will do well enough. What the game illustrated was that we can't afford to grind out results all the time - which is something we've done for a number of games since beating Hull 5-1 away. More on that in a second. First, Steve Bruce. Shut up with your complaining. All this 'Gomes would not have saved the penalty if he had been red-carded' ranting is just plain silly had Bent not forgotten to put on his anti-gravity boots. Fact is, penalty aside, they failed to get one past our enigma between the sticks. We on the other hand, as poor as we were, did. Twice.

4-3-3

Scrap it Harry. It simple doesn't work. And with Wilson Palacios still struggling with form, we can't keep on restricting ourselves in this manner because you persist in playing Robbie Keane. Four in midfield, two upfront. Let's get the basic foundation right for the 90 minutes ahead of us and changed it if we happen to be chasing a goal late on. We got over-run on Saturday. The change to a more traditional 442 and a late surge of confident play, saved us IMO.

Robbie Keane

Rumour going around is that he earned himself a cool £1M for Spurs not getting relegated (allegedly). If true, it's not his fault the club offered him the contract they did. If not, then it's further proof that people continue to be critical of him since his return by always bringing up his contract at every given moment. He's got a clause has Robbie. He can't be dropped if fit. You have to wonder whether we are missing something in his performance if he is selected based on form. In the past, I've stood up for him. He does get important goals and he does do a lot of work for the team that us common folk might not appreciate. But I'm hard pressed for examples at the moment.

Grinding our results

Someone over at a Spurs message board discussed how we are 'grinding out results' and that we are reliant on a flash of brilliance of a slice of good luck and that this is not the basis of a Top 4 challenge. I can't disagree in that we lack options when Modric and Lennon do not start and that Harry makes curious decisions at times with formation. There's no doubting that our bench is not as strong as we would have the likes of Keane make us believe. And if we continue to grind out the points our luck will eventually run out of steam. But then Modric is almost back. And this will galvanise the players and the fans. What Harry has to do is make sure we have not just cover (was Niko not meant for that?) but also the courage to play the best team for the occasion, even if it means sacrificing the unsacrificable. What's the point of Bentley exactly? Don't answer that.

Special Mentions

Special mentions to Hudd, Woody and Jenas - who along with Gomes all looked decent and held us together when it mattered. Tommy's goal was a corker, layed off wonderfully well by the returning Defoe who was a little on the quiet side - although Gordon would beg to differ. Corluka remains his sleep self. And General Wilson is more army cadet at the moment. Which is a massive concern considering the season is due to get tasty in the coming months when the top 4 or 5 start to pull away from the chasing pack. Harry needs to turn on the man-management charm and fix this problem. Quickly.

Ledley King

Not been offered a contract yet. You wonder if there's a reason behind that. I think that it's easy to start banging on about the decline of the great man because he has been rusty in the last few games he's played, but let's remember - top players who do not have dodgy knees lose form now and again. King is obviously suffering at the moment. Might be his knee is finally bringing him down, or he's just not on top of his game - not so much because of the injury but simply just because. For some of our fans to start doubting him is just the type of typical knee-jerking that grates me (sorry about the pun there, purely coincidently).

Still, we do need to start thinking about a long term plan. King, Woodgate...we need to know who will come in as replacements. If King's form continues to go south then perhaps it's time for me to re-evaluate my opinion on the subject. A changing back four can't be helping matters with regards to consistency.

Gomes

Won us all three points. Outstanding. Just outstanding. I love him. He can cock up once every 5 games if it means he plays like that for the rest (although I'd prefer if he didn't cock up at all).

The Media

Stoke survive an onslaught and nick all three points and are called magnificent. I don't expect us to be tagged with such superlatives, but let's look at the facts. We played poorly. We scored twice. We won. If that type of thing happens once it's luck - but if it happens more often then its a sign of a decent team. It's when it happens all the time that we can start to scratch our heads.

I'd say that sitting in 4th spot after 12 games on 22 points is pretty damn good considering. Harry has had us on the up since he joined. We've stuttered a few games recently but rather than just cave in and free-fall, we've dug in again. I guess I'm happy for everyone to continue to down play our chances and write us off. Now if only our players would stop talking us up off the pitch and start doing their talking on it - we might climb out of the small ditch we've found ourselves in and start running up that hill again.

The Games Ahead

We need to find that intent and purpose about our game again. We have to thanks to the fixture list. Wigan at home should not be a game taken for granted. Three points is imperative there but more so is a good performance. Because we then go into games against Villa (A), Man Utd (A) (CC) and Everton (A). Then we're back at home again entertaining Wolves and then Man City. Blackburn and Fulham away is then followed by West Ham at home. Some tricky games in there. We need to reclaim that early season buzz and see ourselves through to the new year still hanging around in the upper regions of the table.

Hate to place all the responsibility on the little shoulders of Modric, but it looks like he remains the key for us to reclaim that rampant balance we lost when he broke his bone.

Keep on grinding out the results when necessary, but I prefer to have a firm grip on our own destiny by being the ones asking all the questions.

The truth will out at the Lane

Today we welcome back Darren Bent. And it's been nothing but Darren Bent we've had to listen to in the past few days. In fact all the attention has been on the return of the much-maligned-when-he-was-at-Spurs player, that I reckon I've missed Robbie Keane's latest warcry, lost somewhere between Twittering and how welcome Sunderland fans made Benty when he signed for them. Andy Reid has also been informing us about how he has nothing to prove to Spurs. It's been relatively quite in comparison to the last weekends build up. And I don't mind it a bit. Jenas might have muttered a few words about something and Harry still insists his wife would have scored the chance Darren missed, but other than that, this game seems to have sneaked up on me. It's going to be a mess if we lose to a group of ex-Lilywhites. Terrible time for Bent at Spurs according to the man himself. Let's make today an absolute nightmare for him.

Today, the talking has to take place on the pitch. I'm not going to go all ridiculous on you and tag this game as 'The Biggest Game In Our History' but in relative terms, it's going to be a tad depressing today if we lost all three points. Three successive defeats will pretty much equate to a massive loss of confidence and Harry needing to brush up on his man-management skills to bring us out of the lull and his first lickel potential crisis problem (with no Ramos to place the blame on).

In the next few weeks, we expect to see the return of Modric and the possibility of an almost practically fully fit squad. The Stoke defeat was just one of those things. The Arsenal defeat was a completely wasted North London derby. Sunderland are also in lower regions of the pretenders category, looking up at 4th spot and scratching their chin, pondering the possibility of challenging for that spot whilst Liverpool continue to lose themselves in their mini-crisis. City are stuttering subtly. Villa too. This game will go along way in showing us whether we do genuinely have the heart and mental strength to dig deep and pull ourselves back up again to something reminiscent of a month or so ago. We'll forget about the tactical limpness we've displayed against the 'Top 4' (other than the scousers) and just make sure we beat the clubs that consider themselves our 'equals' with regards to that push up to 5th/4th.

Lennon might be back today which means no more hoof and hope. Mainly because he'll be able to cross for Defoe - also back and hopefully eager and hungry to make up for his sillyness and suspension. He owes us something. So do our non-existent (last week) midfield. Palacios has not been refined in performance in recent games. He has to be on top of his game today because I doubt Sunderland are going to sit back. They will come at us. And that bloke we sold them (I'll let you guess which one I mean) will no doubt want to show everyone his weight in gold. He's already stated he plans to celebrate if he notches one. He has no qualms about doing so. He's moved on. And we need to be moving on up.

You know that blood and thunder that was missing against Arsenal? Just a slice of that will do us today. It's not just Wilson who has to bring it either. Whomever is standing by his side in the middle also has a responsibility. Three successive defeats will not look good. It will in no way spell the end of any ambitious challenge we have, because mathematically there's an age to go. But it may well hurt the players, and just prove that the fragility in the team (club) is still very much festering away. I'm not going to give up just yet. And neither should our players.

Let's avoid a Bent Twitter gloating session cometh this late evening.

Today is the day for redemption.

The story of Darren Bent and a balloon

More off-topic madness.

Well done that balloon. Rumours are, Levy is set to bid £15M for it because it floats around the box better than Robbie Keane. If the above youtube is removed due to copyright, laugh at Phil Thompson here.

I thank you.

I'm here all day.

Darren Bartholomew Bent

Loved it when he scored the opener against Man Utd and wheeled away in celebration tapping his badge, which was blatantly wired up to an iPhone allowing him to Morse code a Tweet about his sassy clinical finish. The man is on fire.

No first touch. Can't drop deep. Has to have a big lump foil as a partner up front. Always scores against the 'big teams'. And if he's the main striker - he won't stop scoring full stop. Textbook confidence player? One-dimensional? Yes. But the stats do not lie. Play him and play him to his strengths.

Average footballer, great goal scorer. All he needs is a team that breaks at speed, counters and plays the ball in front of him into space to run into. Substance over style. Be done with all this Harry Redknapp possession football!

We should have built our team around him.

Discuss.

Transfer shenanigans

Sabastien Bassong to Spurs. Medical passed. Only a matter of time. £8M for a relegated defender. Look away now if stats scare you. Newcastle were better off without him in the side as they lost more and conceded more when he played. Add to it his record at Metz before signing for the Toon (22 games, Metz lost 14, drew 7and won 1 – two of those draws were achieve whilst Bassong went off injured due to injury). But we all know stats are misleading. Look at Darren Bent, great scoring ratio, but you won’t find a player more maligned. Bassong stood out in a very poor team, that mostly failed to match his determination. But at the same time, an inanimate carbon rod would have looked good playing for Newcastle last season.

We need a centre-back desperately. Woody is going to be out for a fair bit of time and Daws won’t be available for several weeks. However Bassong will miss the opening game of the season due to a red card offence from last term, so let’s pray King is fit for the big kick-off. Not sure where he fits in once everyone is fit and able to play. He must have been given some assurances over selection, so will be interesting to see what we do with Dawson once he’s available. May well be the case that Woody is out long term and with King’s troubles, there will be plenty of games available for the three of them to get along just fine.

Still, £8M? Wondering how good a prospect Beevers is at Sheffield Wednesday – who wouldn’t cost too much in comparison. Bassong may well prove to be a great signing for us. The stats I quoted above (and the ones SSN are displaying every half and hour) can be ignored. We all know that if you are a decent player surrounded by utter shit, you’re bound to suffer a little, mainly because your team-mates are not on the same level and can't offer support, so you end up having to do more than you should be doing.

£15M Rod bid rejected

We’ve had some defenders here at Spurs go through the same type of thing. King survived it. Gardner didn’t. Still, as discussed several times on this blog and currently cited in one or two message board threads – why does our scouting system not pick up players that would cost a fraction of the £8M? There must be plenty of undiscovered talents out there. We seem to do well picking up academy players and youth players – but when we want to fill a gap in the first team squad, we always go for the obvious.

Still, welcome to the Lane Sabastien. Good luck lad.

-

Darren’s a Sunderland player now and he looks rather happy, and as expect he fired a very subtle dig at Spurs (I’ve seen his interview and he isn’t resentful in an obvious way and good luck to him). His dig concerned what goes on behind closed doors:

'There is a lot of politics at Tottenham, but that's Tottenham as a club’

Basically, Bent never believed he would start the next game even if he scored in the previous one. My guess? Probably has to do with Robbie ‘undroppable’ Keane. Rumours of the Irish windmill having a little clause in his contract. I'm sure this myth will be dis-spelled cometh the new season. Unless that's the reason Robbie isn't too happy at the moment. I'll stop now before I drown myself in ITK whispers.

-

Talkng of which, a lovely piece of ITK information for you, this concerning Pascal Chimbonda (from rocknroll11 over at GG.co.uk):

Just wanted to put to bed all the random theories that are going round as to why we resigned Chimbo and what a pointless signing it is...

Sunderland never ever paid a penny for Chimbo, they were scheduled to pay after the first season. 6 months in he's obviously unhappy, missing the team bus, pissing off Keane etc... and 6 months in Harry's here thinking we lack a bit of steel and have a very small squad. Levy suggested we could get back Chimbo for nothing... so we went to Sunderland and said if you give him back we'll cancel the outstanding payment you own...

and that's what happened.

Lack of a bit of steel? Really? Still, it’s almost believable, although if true – I’m not sure anyone would have made any money out of the ‘transfer’ back to Spurs which is hard to believe considering the people involved.

-

And finally, the dream is over. Klass-Jan Huntelaar is off to AC Milan. Negredo is being linked with a move to Roma. Then again, so is Pav. And it’s all gone quiet on Sissoko. Perhaps having aided Madrid in creating interest for Huntelaar, they’re let us talk to a couple of their players.

Madhamadou Diarra anyone? Gosh, I’m dreaming again.

For the record, he’s not on Madrid’s transfer list. Neither is Gago (who some of you don't rate) but he's a far more likely target if we do plan to look that way.

We could still do with a midfielder. Don't think we're quite finished yet.

Levy holds out for the pot at the end of the rainbow

From the Tottenham website:

LATEST NEWS

Bent transfer - Stock Exchange Announcement

The following statement has been released to the Stock Exchange:

5 August 2009
Tottenham Hotspur plc

Player Transfer

Tottenham Hotspur plc announces that agreement has been reached for the transfer of the player registration of Darren Bent to Sunderland AFC for a total consideration of up to £16.5 million.

Daniel Levy, this time there will be no melted bagels thrown at your car windows. Neither will there be effigies burning outside on your front lawn at 3am in the morning with your guard dog peacefully asleep by my feet with a tranquiliser dart in its arse. No sir. For this one-off occasion, I am placing aside all the politics we disagree on and would simply like to say...well done for holding out and getting what you wanted rather than giving them something they want for far less. I guess Sunderland’s demands for £20M for Kenwyne Jones has come back to playfully slap them in the face. Not a penny less is quite obviously a winning strategy.

They got their man. We get our money back. Well sort of. Close enough anyway. Have to laugh how Sky Sports News are reporting it as £10M (is this what Sunderland are telling the world?) Since when do those extra clauses (consisting of further payments based on performance and appearances) get left out of the transfer fee when made public? If Bent manages to trigger those clauses, it's more money our way.

I didn’t expect us to get £10M+ to be perfectly honest. He's not worth that much.

And here’s the magic.

We don’t tend to ever look this deep into a transfer; we simply take what a player is sold or bought for. Thanks to Intrepid over at GG for the explanation, something unlikely to be discussed or understood out in the stands:

The Charlton deal was a total of £16.5 million with £1 million as add-ons. The profit of £5.5 million will be shown in the audited accounts if we receive the full consideration of £16.5 million from Sunderland as Bent’s value to the club’s accounts was £11 million when we sold him - £16.5 million divided by 6 (length of contract) multiplied by years he spent with us (2) - that figure taken from original total fee of £16.5 million.

This deal highlights again how football player trading is a complete nonsense – we have paid Charlton £16.5 million and if Sunderland pay us £16.5 million then in monetary terms (actual money in the bank)we have broken even but in accounting terms we have made a “profit” of £5.5 million. That “profit” attracts taxation so we get taxed on money we have not really received.

In accounting terms every asset has to have a value to be accounted for – player’s values are accounted for by amortising their costs to the club (transfer fees and/or signing on fees) over the length of their original contract.

e.g. Bent signed a 6 year contract for a total consideration of £16.5 million (£15.5 million plus £1 million add-ons) – the way the accounts work is that when hejoined he was worth £16.5 million and for each year he is with us his value drops by £2.75 million p.a. - £16.5 million divided by 6 (the number of years of his contract). He has been with us for 2 years so his “value” to the accounts is £16.5 million minus £5.5 million (2 years @ £2.75 million) therefore as of today his “value” to the club was £11 million and anything we get from a transfer fee over and above £11 million is accounted for as a profit.

However, the above numbers may need a little adjusting because according to Charlton’s AGM, due to their financial struggles, an agreement was made for the money to be paid up earlier and Spurs got a discount (so to speak) for agreeing to do so. Meaning the final fee that was paid to them was in the region of £12.5M.

Daniel, my knickers are in the post.

XxX

P.S. Daniel, if Bent scores 25 goals and they pip us to Europe by a point and we lose out on millions as a consequence then you will be held unequivocally accountable.

Spurs transfer news 'updates'

So basically Leeds United have accepted a bid from Aston Villa for the highly-rated Fabian Delph and have placed on record (via their website) their appreciation for the honourable manner in which the Midlands club have conducted themselves in courting both club and player. Pesky Leeds have resisted approaches from 'other' clubs (the other being us and City no doubt). Would love to know what Ken Bates quantifies as 'honourable' so next time we go in for a Leeds youngster we don't get rejected. We've put quite a bit of wedge their way in recent years. Maybe we've taken things for granted this time and go burnt for it. Probably offered them a cheeky fish tank for the player. But don't fret lads. Bostock is better than Delph.

-

Patrick Vieira has been dropped from France squad. The message from coach Raymond Domenech is simply: Sort out your future. Please do Patrick and head straight for the swamp. Still praying he signs for them lot so I can laugh my arse off. Bad news is that Moussa Sissoko has been drafted in as his replacement. No doubt his value will have risen off the back of this and possibly altered one or two other clubs to take a look at the talented youngster. Can we outsource the negotiations and get Comolli on the case? I still reckon Harry and Wenger are playing mind-games (or maybe one of them is) and are trying to out-fox each other into forcing the other one to sign Old Man Pat. Harry forcing Wenger to protect Vieira's scum legacy, Wenger trying to increase the players profile by suggesting he can still do a job in the Prem and make us believe he's worthy of a punt. It's the most stupid transfer 'saga' of the summer.

-

Chelsea have come out and publicly stated they are not selling Joe Cole to anyone. More or less confirms genuine interest from us if they're rejecting any potential advancements on the player by stating on their website it's a no-go. Can put this one to bed I reckon. Doubt they would undermine Ancelotti if he's saying the player is staying (which I think he's said in interviews). So for now, Modric remains on the left. Gio by the way (who some of you would like to see given another chance) probably won't get one because (allegedly) the lad has a time-keeping issue and hardly ever turns up for training when he's meant to. ITK that.

-

The Darren Bent to Sunderland transfer is now close to completion. It's been close for the past 15 hours or so. Thought I'd let you know because there's not a lot of coverage at the moment on this story about just how close he is to signing. Longest medical ever. It's being prolonged longer than a tantric night in with Sting.

-

Klaas Jan-Huntelaar is apparently available on the cheap. £11M-£12M the price being touted. Bad news is AC Milan are apparently back in for him. It was a while back that Levy was apparently talking to Madrid and it seems like a lifetime ago when we were linked to RVN and others, but in that time you'd think there was some form of communication relating to the proflic Dutch star. We must have been interested in one of their players at the very least (I don't quite buy Harry's persistent 'if he's available we're interested comments' relating to Klaas as it's quite obvious the kid is available and has been all summer long). So you'd think we've inquired about the player or possibly even spoken to his representatives, and maybe failed to agree a monthly wage. Unless this is another epically long negotiation where Levy is biding his time. Let's hope there's a moneyshot at the end of it rather than limp embarrassment.

Bent (finally) to Sunderland

Via Newcastle airport. So say the Sunderland fans in this here message board.

Done and dusted then? I hope he has a permission slip from Daniel. The ticket is apparently off Twitter (those pesky micro-bloggers).

Thanks to Sunderland Spur for the pics. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing them, as I'm sure in the next 30 minutes every blog and site will be displaying the above treats.

There's a third picture of him looking rather happy, clicky here.