It's a mad mad mad mad world...

Can someone find a moment to help me define what exactly constitutes a ‘flop’? Because Gio do Santos appears to be the very personification of one according the media who, almost every other week, like to tell us that he isn’t wanted by Spurs and that he is set to be shifted out (PSG the current tabloid choice of the week).

This is the same Gio that Harry Redknapp couldn’t wait to have back from injury. Oh yes, the wee lad has been out for a while and hasn’t been able to play. Did you not know that? Regardless of his injury how dare he fail to impress chilling on the treatment table listening to his ipod. What a waste of money hey?

Honestly, get a grip.

I know it’s the Jan transfer window and it’s the time of year when journalists, sports writers and editors all over the country lobotomise each other with pencils as they conduct a symphony of monkeys on typewriters who churn out transfer story after transfer story to the theme tune of Saint and Greavise. What? You thought Jenas to Madrid wrote itself?

We all know that the stories we read whilst munching on our coco-pops are an amalgamation of half-truths, guess-work, the bleeding obvious and agent whispers. Add to the mix Harry Redknapp and his batphone and the press are practically drowning in gossip column exclusives.

Gio is a talent. He’s young and proven at all international levels he’s appeared at for Mexico. Not the finished article by a longshot. He obviously isn’t as naturally gifted or talented as Bojan or Messi – but then you’ll be hard pressed to find players of the same age who are. He left Barcelona simply because of the likes of Messi. There’s no way in for him. Joining Spurs and finding himself playing for a team with no direction, structure or confidence isn’t the ideal way to kick-start your life in the Premiership. Getting injured and being out for a lengthy period sort of puts the dampers on any type of progression.

So unless Redknapp is telling fibs (that’s unpossible) why on earth would we want to get rid of a player that hasn’t had a chance to shine? A creative player, one that tore it up in the U17 World Cup back in 2005 and again in the U20 World Cup in ’07. A player we could do with as an option once we sign some 'proper' up-for-a-relegation-battle fighters to give us the required backbone to help protect him as he dinks down the wing.

Gio isn’t the only player ‘on his way’ according to our esteemed journo friends and their monkey companions. Bentley is also on the list. It’s fair to say he has been a titanic disappointment. Here’s a player that is basically very decent on his day. He isn’t great, but he’s very good and would grace practically all Prem clubs (apart from the top 4 who do possesses ‘great’ quality). However, our David, is too distracted by the fact that he thinks he’s great. Highlights and Beckham comparisons aside, when he isn’t star-jumping David is trying way too hard rather than simply playing for the team and doing the simple things. We’ve seen this before. We saw it with Gomes. Confidence is drained and you can’t even muster up school-boy basics. But selling him so soon after signing him is a pointless exercise (although if there is one club that is masterful at being pointless it's us). If Spurs manage to claw back some form, Bentley will most likely begin to shine.

He’s still actually the wrong type of player for Spurs. A bit superfluous at times, even when ‘on form’. Not the backbone made of steel type of team player Spurs have been crying out for 20 years. But then when have we ever gone out and signed the right type of player?

Another one who is set to leave WHL is our dear beloved Jermaine Jenas. The perpetually potentially 'great' box-2-box player. An enigma. Undroppable for so many seasons at Spurs, doesn’t do much unless it’s against the likes of Derby or a depleted Arsenal side. Yet on occasions is somehow inexplicable ‘missed’ from the team when he doesn’t play. You know what I mean? You’ve heard Spurs fans say it:

“I hate to say it, but we missed Jenas today”

You can’t explain why, but you find yourself believing it and when he does play, you’re smashing the keyboard as you punch your frustrations posting on a Spurs message board calling him 'useless'. What does Jenas do exactly? It's not an easy question to answer.

JJ has been linked with (as mentioned earlier) Madrid and also Everton and Wigan and probably one or two other clubs, with his value measured between £3.5M to £8M. If Palacios arrives at the Lane (and he plays as a DM) then is it really Jenas under threat or Zokora? Or will Harry play Palacios and Zokora together? And what of Appiah? Is he the backup plan in case we fail to bring in a bog-standard £15M (or so) signing? Palacios and Modric in centre-mid will do me just fine.

Then you have the forwards. Defoe (can he actually hold up the ball or beat the offside trap?), Pav (he's not been the country for long) and Bent (on his way to Villa?). A mish-mash of styles, none of them suited to play with each other. Otherwise, why would we be courting the ever-smiling Craig 'who took a dump in my corn flakes?' Bellamy?

Then there’s the story that has somehow fallen under the media's radar concerning Arshavin. Arsenal haven’t actually made a bid (which explains Latcher’s insistent moaning) and Spurs and Zenit have long agreed a deal, the basis being that if nobody matches it then he signs for Spurs. Yep, that’s right. Transfer fee as well as personal terms all agreed and sorted. It was all agreed and sorted back at the last deadline, till around 11:40pm when Zenit started playing silly buggers again and the deal failed to complete by midnight. But the agreement stayed in place. If nobody bids the exact same amount of more, then Zenit have to process the deal cometh the deadline. And when is the deadline? 16th January. Today. Must be true cause I read it in an internet fourm, LOLZ.

If you’re going to ask me to hold onto my hat, don’t bother. I’ll probably be eating it later on. If those pesky monkeys haven’t got a hold of it before me.

Palacios again

Palacios. What is it with every player being priced up around the £15M mark? I guess they see us mugs coming from a mile away. It's Spurs. They don't pay a penny less for a player. What is utterly insane is that we are probably going to fork out the cash for this one.

That's a player who cost Wigan £1M (actually, probably about 750,000k to be exact). But for the sake of argument, let's round it off to £1M, because it makes it easy to then say Wigan want 14 times as much money as they parted with 12 months ago.

How does that even make sense?

Over at Eastlands, incredibly, it looks like Kaka might actually join City. Regardless of whether its because his dad is going to earn a cool 35 million euros (allegedly) from the transfer (baby Jesus would approve) how exactly is it right for a player like Kaka to turn his back on AC Milan and sign for Manchester City? Football is imploding. There are some things that should never happen in football, and this is one of them.

RIP. Thoughts and prayers for the beautiful game.

Here's £10M and hold on, got another £5M in my back pocket

We've failed in a £10M bid for Wigan's Palacios. But from the sounds of it they are willing to part with the player if we bid a little more. Dave Whelan has told Spurs what they want. Probably £15M. Not sure he's worth anything more than £8M let alone £10M or £15M, but Spurs don't tend to pay true value for players anyhow.

I'm also far too distracted by Sky Sports News and their 'Inter will consider selling Adriano to Spurs if Jenas goes the other way' story.

Beautiful.

Who knows?

Ben. The man in the tree at Spurs Lodge has passed on this information to one of the inane Spurs forums that worship 'inside information'.

APPIAH IS PLAYING IN A TRAINING GROUND MATCH RIGHT NOW... AND LOOKS TERRIBLE, BOTTLE JOB APARENTLY, REALLY SH*T - BEN IS UNSURE WHO THE OPOSITION IS

PALACIOS - VERY GOOD CHANCE WILL HAPPEN

ADRIANO - 50-50 DEAL IN THE BALANCE,

NO WAY WE ARE LETTING BALE GO AND WE TOLD INTER THAT

So Appiah looks terrible, but the use of the (misspelt) word 'apparently' would suggest Ben isn't witnessing the training ground game, so surely this is dismissive as need-to-know info?

As for the rest, nothing that can't be guessed by reading the tabloids and hoping. Sad to say this really, but the likes of The Sun and Daily Mail are pissing all over the Tottenham ITK's currently. Just no creativity at all. Much like the Spurs midfield.

ZING.

Who's brave enough to wear Lilywhite?

Not that many it would appear.

Roman Bednár has been linked. He's the one scoring the goals for WBA. Tidy player for a club like WBA. But I get the raziaks when I start to considering these type of signings as the answer to our problems. Not that I didn't get the raziaks when we signed Bent and placed all our eggs on Pav's head (which explains his lack of movement).

Elsewhere, Real Madrid have appeared to lost interested in signing Jenas. Possibly admitting defeat when they discovered Wigan are interested (Madrid will have to do with Ronaldo so tough luck). From the Spurs perspective, its us who want a Wigan player (Palacios) and want to swap JJ and cash for him. Everton also linked in a £3.5M for our midfield Jenuis. Which is laughable. Hot air is worth much more than that, thanks to the mugs who would pay out twice us much. Sorry, what's that? Oh yeah. He plays for Spurs already.

Levy has rejected a £8M bid for Bent. This the same Darren Bent who had a storming pre-season, did nothing for ages, re-discovered his form and played for England, then lost it again and now looks dis-interested. Can't play upfront with Pav (and vice-versa) and probably won't play all that well with Defoe (who struggles to play well with any player in white, apart from Mido. Is he available?).

If that’s not enough, how about Adriano for Bale? Thank you to The Sun for posh people, the Daily Mail for that particular transfer nugget.

His name was Prince

And off he goes. Kevin Prince Boateng has joined Dortmund on loan till the end of the season. That's one of the players Harry in-directly slated the other day as not being good enough. I guess all the Comolli signed 'youngsters' are going to be farmed out now. So one hopes new arrivals are imminent, otherwise we are left with even less depth in an already unbalanced squad.

Gomes (someone bid £7M for him - but it's been rejected) looks like staying, which is actually a relief. He's fought back well from his early season disasters.

Downing is dead in the water. Not literally, that would be homicide. Gibson is unmoveable on the subject that no Boro players will be leaving the Riverside. Which is fine. If it was up to me, nobody from Middlesbrough would be allowed to leave the town. Ever. I'd have a wall built around the place.

Transfer Latest

Ghana international Stephen Appiah is apparently set to sign for us.

28 years old.
Defensive midfielder.

Can he tackle? Yes.
Can he dribble? Yes.
Can he pass the ball forwards? Yes.
Can he shoot? Yes.
Will he cost us £8M in transfer fees? No.

The lad is out of contract (although there's a legal ding-dong going on with his former club Fenerbache) but this won't apparently stop him from training with us, with a view to moving to the Lane till the end of the season. What we might save in transfer fees may well be spent on his wages (I'm going to laugh if the rumours of him wanting 70k per week are true. Then cry).

Obviously, the main problem with this happening is that Appiah is a bit of an injury prone players. We love a bit of that at Spurs. Hence the initial 'until the end of season' contract. Does beg the question: Are there no other potential targets who wont cost a bomb in wages and are not prone to dodgy knees?

Elsewhere, Chimbonda has been linked with a 'shock return' to Tottenham. I guess he's bottled out of walking all the way to Lyon and plans to jump on a Virgin train back to the capital.

Like fuck. Do one Pascal.

The Downing Saga is back. And the third instalment will round off the trilogy splendidly. It's always a good laugh to read between the lines when it comes to chairman and managers making 'over my dead body' statements about players. Spurs are not quite doing a 'Man Utd' by unsettling players. Sure, Harry did talk about Defoe and Downing publicly. So maybe that was a little naughty, but Spurs have almost immediately put their money where their mouth is and make a couple of bids. Both rejected. Although according to news sources, the difference between Spurs and Pompey's estimation for the players is £1.5M. With Downing, he's gone the whole hog and handed in a transfer request.

Gibson's war cry about 'knuckling down and focusing on the job' is pretty much the Alamo for him and Southgate. It's not like he's going to come out and say 'Yes, we are willing to sell the player. We want XXX amount for him'. He'll attempt to drag this out till the final day of the transfer if need be to avoid it from happening, and if it does happen it will be because he's managed to bleed us dry in the process. And why not? He's looking after his club.

I'm more curious about the forthcoming 'undisclosed fee' for Defoe to help Levy avoid embarrassment.

With Downing, the transfer request will no doubt once more influence fan opinion and as noted, Gibson will do his utmost to make the whole process fairly tricky for us. One thing to note here, is that all the talk is coming out of Boro at the minute. They were the ones who told the media that no players are for sale. And they revealed the bid from us was 'derisory', and reiterated again there will be no sale. Go back a few weeks and Southgate was almost inviting bids. All part of the flirting game clubs play.

So. Potentially we might get ourselves a left-winger, a striker and a DM.

Shocking stuff.

The nightmare after Christmas

Latest ITK info:

My friend knows someone within the West Ham medical team and has been told he is signing for us for approx £8m.

I think its a pretty credible source but what often happens is that the deal is 100% lined up agreed and then either club pulls the plug (the selling club because they receive a better offer or the buying club because they have a better deal in place elsewhere) hence why some ITK turns out not to be true.

Not sure if this is as well as or instead of Defoe.

RIP Tottenham Hotspur.

Jenas to Madrid

Who's it gonna be?

Thanks to Wriggly over at Glory Glory.co.uk. I've pinched this rather convenient list from one of the threads over there. A round-up of current transfer targets.

Arshavin - According to a few sources and the fact that Lachter has already met up with Harry in London, this deal is far from being dead.

Upson - Interest is there

Downing - If rumours are to be believed, we have met Boro's £15m valuation

Defoe - We wont be buying, and Harry has said Portsmouth have received a huge bid for him already which is more than what we can afford.

Bellamy - One bid rejected, were going back for another go.

Capel - His name has been thrown in if we cant get Downing

Pedersen - Same as Capel

Bullard - £4m is the price going around, Harry has said we wont be buying, but I'm not so sure.

Hunt - Boy is this a weird one, according to Setanta were interested.

Foster - Setanta and other sources say were in for him and one wacky rumour is that we have already offered him £20k a week

Cavenaghi - Just speculation and rumours at the moment

Can you spot the defensive midfielder? Can you?

Might want to add Bobby Zamora to that list too, if Harrys post-match comments are an indication of his transfer targets.

It's Christmas!

And it wouldn't be Christmas without a little ITK gossip, would it?

This is an extract from an interview in the Russian media with the right honourable Mr Lachter (Arshavins Agent/spokesman). Translated by Miles at GG.

Having learned of all the troubles going on at Tottenham, do you as before regret that Zenit didn't let Arshavin go to London in the summer?

I never regret anything. It is good that the transfer broke off. I know about the current situation at Tottenham a little better than the fans do. There is no good news waiting around the corner for Spurs. I spoke last week with Redknapp and, to put it mildly, is not at all happy. He is having a serious confrontation with the chairman, Levy - recently they have only been communicating with each other through the press. He said that Spurs had spent a fortune on inexperienced players. What is more, on players that were not at all those whom the fired Ramos wanted but those whom the now former sporting director, Damien Comolli wanted. With those such as Pavlyuchenko, Ramos was simply faced with this fact: he wanted Arshavin but they bought him a different Russian.

Ooh who to believe? Do we believe the football agent, who by his very nature knows nothing more than lies and mis-information? Or do we hold out for January and wait and see if Harry has to dig through the bargain basement to pick up a 'proper player' or two. Which still wouldn't prove a thing about this alleged falling out.

Get your money on a Redknapp resignation. Worth a punt, just in case. Yeah, like fuck. Harry is simply using the media to help Levy compound the blame on the departed Comolli. It's all just a way of accepting mistakes have been made. But who's gonna complain or start pointing fingers again when good old Harry is being upfront and honest about things? It's like we have one of our own in the managers position, echoing how we feel about the team and its performance.

Falling out, my arse. If Levy is stupid enough to appoint someone and then fall out with him over transfer targets just after scrapping the DoF system, then sure, it will validate everything I've said about the incompetent Levy and I'll begin in earnest to organise a 50,000 man march to the White Hart Lane in protest, where much fist shaking will vigorously take place.

Spurs will sign the players we need - the exact type of players Harry wants - come this Jan window. And being held to ransom by Zenit for a player who will possibly make little impact from the off in a team that requires instant impact, should be the least of anyone's concern.

Arse Shaving hurts

Latest news is an echo of what we know already. He was in London (for Pav's birthday as well as speaking to an unnamed Prem club) and has now flown out to the Dominican Republic for his hols.

I think it's time to close this one off and look forward to signing an unknown continental/African player or one from the Championship (less of the Raziak ilk) instead.

I've even dismissed the possibility of re-signing Defoe as I keep forgetting that Man City will simply bid whatever over-estimation Pompey (or whoever else) price tag their players with.

Liverpool want rid of Keane? Sell him to City for £25M.
Pompey are broke? Sell Defoe and Johnson to City a cool £20M each.
Owen? Walk to City and get paid 200k per week for just scoring goals in the month leading up to January.
Zokora, best DM in the country, sell him to City for £30M.

Endless possibilities.