Andrei Arshavin was in London

Zenit give him the all clear to begin talks with an unamed Premiership club. Andrei and his agent (Dennis Lachter) have both refused to name the club in question.

Arsenal can't afford him, right? So it has to be Chelsea or us. And the only chance of it being us is if the club are bluffing about not having any money available for the January window.

Can we really afford to spend £20M on a forward when we need a DM and CB?

Groundhog day.

Let's hope Chelsea bid £30M.

Oh, hold up. I forgot about Manchester City. Done and dusted. Zenit will 'ave him for £40M+.

Transfer Goss

Diarra to Madrid. Again. This time its the Pompey one, who we all think we wanted (needed) for our little team. Him joining us was once upon a time a done deal, in PretendLand. I guess all of Comolli's scouting on the player has allowed Ramos to point out the player to his directors and say 'I want', in clear elegant Spanish. Great work Damien. Although I'm still waiting for an explanation on how a player who was a done deal for City is now a Madrid player. Anyone from the press care to confirm your sources (?), you pesky idiotic liars.

Have I mentioned the Keane story? I can't be bothered to check, so I'll repeat. We've only received £6M for him thus far thanks mainly to instalment payments. Lawro claims Liverpool want rid of him (Gerrard told him after last weeks Hull game) so the logic here is that the remaining money owed by Liverpool is wiped clean and we just pay back what they paid us, minus £1M for our troubles. Embarrassing for Keane and Liverpool. Can you see it happening? Nope? Thought as much.

Squeaking our way upwards

Not been blogging much this week thanks to mainly travel and smoking crack.

So, this is the week that was (in no particular order):

We won away. 1-0 against NEC. Wasn’t vintage stuff but we played pretty well against a not so strong Dutch team, allowing us to bring on a couple of youngsters (welcome to Obika & Mason) for their debuts late on. O’Hara from a header in the 14th was enough to take us to the brink of qualification. 7 wins in 9 now for Redknapp’s Tottenham.

Are we taking the UEFA Cup seriously? At the moment, we can't. We don't have Pav or Corluka available and the Prem is still the priority. Risking it all for European glory when we are still not really out of the mire would be fools gold. Saftey by Feb, then we can try and win a Cup.

Every player under the sun is being linked to us. Which is no different to most lead-ups to the transfer window. I’m sure the old and trusted formula (Spurs + New Manager x tabloid gossip = Agent Profit) will always win through and having wheeler-dealer ‘arry at the Lane means that there’s deals to be done.

So step forward Adriano, Elano, Cavenaghi, Tymoshchuk, Downing, Podolski, Balotelli……it’s an endless list. And it’s not even December yet.

Tony Parks is our new goalkeeping coach. I think. Actually is this official now? (I’m so on the ball this week).

Hutton is out injured, again, and from the looks of it he'll be out for several months. Thought he looked like a cracking player (going forward at the very least) when he first joined up with us. Looked a mess since returning from his first lay-off, so hoping he returns to a team in winning form next time round and has some of that upbeat confidence about him. His error against Arsenal that resulted in a goal sums up his season. He's been a bit off colour.

In other news a female steward who looks after Block 35 has accused a Spurs fan of making a racist remark. Apparently she lip-read him from distance. 30 yards away. This incident occurred in the midst of the usual ‘Please sit down’ instructions barked by Levy’s foot soldiers. The bloke made no such racist comment, so my message to the steward is best to stop attempting to show off your abilities of reading lips from distance. You’re obviously fucking shit at it. Accusing people of racism is a big deal and just because you are employed by the club doesn’t automatically mean you are right especially when you’ve made a mistake.

I’m sure there’s more for me to talk about.

Simon Clifford (known for his forward-thinking Brazilian Soccer Schools in the UK) wrote possible one of the stupid, bitter and ridiculous articles I’ve read by anyone, for Setanta Sports. But then again, writing a column for Setanta isn’t exactly going to result in masterful and insightful literature. The emphasis on his piece was that even Mickey Mouse could have success at Spurs with the players at his disposal and that Ramos failure was to do with language and the lack of communication meaning that players failed to react positively to training and tactical ideas. He manages to also get a dig in at Kevin Bond, stating he relegated Bournemouth but fails to mention their point’s deduction. And then turns his attention back to Harry saying he wasn’t really that responsible for bringing through the young players at West Ham. Which might be true to an extent (Tony Carr was the Hammers academy director at the time) but the very mention of it is obviously there to serve its purpose at ‘aving a go at ‘arry.

Clifford is a great youth coach. But he is obviously hurting over the clashes he had with Redknapp over training concepts whilst at Southampton. For all of Clifford’s apparent genius – it appears he prefers to write twisted words rather than offer his services to a Premier League team and work side by side with a top class manager. Simon is manager of ‘15th in the UniBond First Division North’ Garforth Town.

And just for the record, we’ve had plenty of Mickey Mouse managers over the years and they all failed miserably.

Challenge Spurs™ preview up next.

Owen

Allegedly spotted leaving the Spurs training ground around quarter to ten this morning.

Wind-up? Or carefully placed dis-information? If this story appears on Sky Sports News today, then Owen was at the Lodge this morning - no question about it.

You ain't seen me...........right?

If having Ledley wasn't frustrating enough?

Waiting for that day

5 days left. I’m going to try and round things up with little humour and satire (saving it all for the clusterfuck of a letter I’ll be writing post-Chelsea defeat/transfer window closure).

Berbatov, an outcast if you believe what you hear, is still struggling to engineer his move to Utd via his good hearted agent. Levy can either hold out for £30M (or whatever his estimation is) or find himself with egg on face by selling him to Utd for whatever Utd offer. Dimitar, unfortunately, is no Gareth Barry. Levy is no Cool Hand Luke. After all that’s been said, if he gives in to Fergie and sells him even for a million less that his ‘value’ then what exactly was the point? Can we handle the publicity of retaining Berbatov? In principle don’t see why not if we don’t get an acceptable bid. We got one for Keane, which is why he was sold. That and 6 years loyalty. But keeping the Bulgarian will be more trouble than its worth based on his sulking and hissy fits. Which means ‘egg on face’ is the most likely of outcomes, which is why Fergie is so smug. Levy has been played.

Monaco this Friday is where, you would hope, Spurs/Utd/Zenit finally conclude their bit of business. The Arshavin deal is apparently back on again (was it ever off?) which would help ease matters substantially if he joins round about the same time that Pavlyuchenko receives his visa. No official word from Spurs, but Pav has told everyone he’s Spurs bound. Not a bad player, taking into account his record from the past few seasons – but not as accomplished as Berbatov was prior to his move to us from Germany. Huntelaar has been linked, though his agent has denied the tabloid stories. Not fussed with this, as recent Dutch signings to the Prem (Kezman, Kuyt) haven’t exactly been rock’n’rolla. Same applies with the Radamel Falcao link (Colombian who plays for River Plate).

Veloso (DM) and Corluka (CB, RB) have also been linked again this week. Whether stories are being rehashed due to desperation or their clubs are now itching to let them go with the deadline looming is anyone guess. City are being linked with Zabaleta, whose agent has said that the player won’t be competing with Corluka for the RB position. Whether that means they are both set to play in different positions for City or that Corluka will be sold is a ITK’s wet dream.

Pavlyuchenko.
Arshavin.
Veloso.
Corluka.

If those four were signed, then the ‘SPURS FOR 4TH SPOT’ delusion will back on course. Regardless of the 3 played, 3 defeats, 0 points standing order cometh the 1st September.

Lee YP has departed. Couple of other reserve players (including Pekhart) have gone out on loan. Several others, I’m sure will be picked up (loan or otherwise) before next Monday.

Going back to Berbatov again, story of the week has focused on him now being an outcast at the Lodge. Whether Woody did have a word with Berbatov or not is debatable. The Bulgarians strops and sulks are petulant but to call him disruptive is quite ironic considering he was our best player when he came on as a sub against Boro. Ramos and Woodgate have publicly disagreed with each other over the disruptiveness (Ramos saying it’s affected the dressing room, Woodgate saying we can’t use that to blame for our results). So to then read that allegedly Woody had a go at him in the ‘dressing room’ and since then the player has been isolated seems a tad hypocritical. Funny old game.

It’s not good regardless, and the fact both are talking about him rather than ‘Spurs’ is pretty much evidence of how Berbatov is not a good person to have anywhere near the club at the moment. Shame he can’t be a professional about it and play his heart out while both Spurs and Utd attempt to come to some sort of agreement. I refer you back to the Barry reference.

And it's goodbye from me

Next couple of weeks will be interesting to say the least. Not sure when the Prem are set to comment on the Spurs dossier about Utd's shenanigans, but should be fun seeing them dismiss Levy's evidence as heresay. Barcelona are sniffing around Berbatov if you believe the rumours. I'd be happy to take a £5M hit by selling him to the Catalans rather than Utd. No news on Keane. He's still out in Spain with the first team squad. Although a wonderful quote from a fan out there in the sun, who asked Robbie if he was going anywhere, to which our Orish magican replied 'the changing room'. Berbatov is also still out in Spain looking his usual moody self. I'm waiting for him to light a cigar mid-training and blow smoke in Ramos face.

TT has joined Sunderland. Sad to see him go although not overly disappointed. Good squad player but injured far too easily and not good enough to command a first team place. Chimbonda is hopefully next to go (if he hasn't already). No news on Steed or Kaboul at the time of writing.

We could still do with another defender and DM but all the fans and media are concerned about is the possible replacements for the departing Keane and Berbatov.

Arshavin is the one being touted. I still think he won't come to us, if only because he has aspirations to play for a club (other than his current one) which is in the Champs League and a little bit more famous. He obviously fancies himself a bit more due to recent performances so Barca would be a bigger fish than the lickle Spurs trout.

As for the rest of the targets, take your pick from any number of Spanish based players. And Bentley still isn't a done deal (we apparently offered £9M for him - which is probably a decent valuation). Rover's want double that.

I'm off now for 2 weeks, sunning it up abroad. So no internet access for me. I'll have to rely on the red top tabloids each morning to keep me apprised of what's going on. Oh the joy of being free of the shackles of message boards.

See you all on the other side.

~S

Won't someone please think of the children...?

The latest news:

TT, Steed and Chimbonda have all returned to the UK so they can 'complete' moves away from the Lane.

Robbie Keane transfer fee has been agreed. Personal terms and medical to follow.

Berbatov to Utd is happening, but at a slower pace.

Spurs are in talks to bring in two MAJOR signings from the same country but different clubs.

Spooky shits in a box and mails it to Levy.

A hellmouth of 'ITK' exclusives

How queer. I mention something about 'In the Know' information and someone provides us all with a summary of the past couple of months. You'll like this. Possibly one or two snippets of info that have been missed, but generally what you are about to read are all the supposed 'connected' people who have inside knowledge to share. This was posted on the Spurs Community forum by Stoof (good man) and covers ITK since the month of April. The info has been gathered from various forums, including GG.net, FTL and the SC.

APRIL

We start on 8th April - which makes is some sort of pre-window record I believe, with noodles saying we want Carrick with some money and are willing to part with the "crown jewels".

dragon1 then piped up a week later saying that Berbs wanted out "100%" - not giving us any choice but to ask for £40 million.

Contact made with Capel according to MadridSpur on 16th April. The plot thickens.

S.LondonSpurs on FTL says Berbatov is 80% a Spurs player next year, midfield to be built around him and Keano too. Apparent problem with Jol?

willdayid on this very site has a friend whose cousin is John Bostock the Crystal Palace wunderkidd. On his way to t'Lane. That takes us to 17th April and some Dan Ashcroft (of SC) news: a promising Leeds youngster, an attacking midfielder been watched numerous times by DC.

A trek over to Spurs Odyssey on April 20th saw Marcspurs with a link to Paul Kemsley running his mouth about, of all people, the buck-toothed one, A.K.A. Ronaldinho. Wants to come to the Premiership, and to London.

noodles still convinced on the 22nd April that Berba is off to either Barcelona or Real Madrid and then BEN thinks that Santa isn't just for Christmas, and Santa Cruz could be Berbatov's successor.

Luka Modric signs and then dragon1 says this shows our ambition to the sulky one. We've hit 26th April now.

Archibald from Spurs Odyssey then pipes up, saying that Modric is one of a big four for us. Capel and Diaz/Jarque are goers together with one of Kameni, Samahanovic (?) and Amelia.

Some more Odysseying from o.kristensen: Comolli was in Norway (Drammen to be exact) regarding a player called Per Ciljan Skjelbred. Yeah. Dam right. Hard-working CM, but then again you all knew that. Rabbi Crackers - Berbatov going 100%. Only overseas bids considered.

Eto'o and his agent at the Lane - that's Lane where we play, not Lodge where we sign - Paul said the first bit on 28th April - he's a Spurs Odysseyite. yiddobrett from this site said Keane could leave because of a lot of substituting - he doesn't believe it though. And quite frankly nor do I!

nicdic, Rumour Ranger extraordinaire, then got some News Of The World information that Berbatov has not gone yet, good chance that he could stay; that Eto'o is definitely a possibility and that Villa is definitely leaving ol' Valencia. Galahad, a distant Goat relative , said that there's a strong push for Clemente ... some cryptics that gave guesses of Fabiano and David Villa.

Still in April and MadridSpur says that we've made contact with Villa, some Eto'o interest and Ronaldinho's off to Italy. Scout says "berbs gone" and we're very close to a massive massive signing ... this was in April.

Somebody on COYS was talking about Levy being busy and French people and players with "oo" in their name. I'm thinking Samassi Abou. Leics_Spur on FTL thinks Spurs could be making a run on McGeady - they were the noises coming out of Parkhead on 29th April.

MadridSpur said Joaquin was "being hawked around" ... we've been offered his services. Villa: "discussions are advanced". To round off April TraderSpur on COYS was told by the same agent who gave him Kameni information in January that the deal has been done for 6.8 million yoyos.

MAY

donw001 on SC thinks that unless Ledley grows new legs, he's done. Smiling and nodding about Berbatov going ... and also about Barcelona and Eto'o.

It's obvious that Kaboul is going, at least it was to Archibald on 2nd day of May, Pompey have offered us a cut-price £5m but he wants to re-aller a la France. Taarabt transfer request, Disco Stu likes Transfer Music. Bordeux after NoPass after this revelation.

noodles said on the same day that we're working hard on swapping Berbatov for Eto'ooooo. Archibald on 5th May said we're off to Portugal for a DM and Manchester United are interested in this unnamed player too.

We're well after Cuellar and Capel. Innit, said Mr BEN on the 6th of this month. More FTL antics, this time from Alex who said that we're after the Nigerian forward: Ike Uche from Getafe.

arnie123 said that Berbatov has been sold to AC Milan and Disconosebleed from SC said that Huddlestone is available for transfer, as well as birthdays, weddings and bamitzvahs. Offered to a Prem club - this was from 7th May.

Johnnydx85 said, one day later, that Berbatov is 100% off, Comolli will be sacked soon as Mr Levy doesn't like him and whilst not liking him, he's in Portugal buying a midfielder. Johnny assumed it was Veloso and told us to enjoy the rest of our days. Nice.

JurgenTheGerman gave us an even more entertaining twist to the Berbatov saga in that Shaun Wright-Phillips and Nicolas 'The Sulk' Anelka could be involved in a deal.

GGSpur on COYS said that Comolli had been to South America four times in the last few weeks, so he's got some serious air miles going on. Dan Ashcroft gave us an essay of ITK, Berbatov being biddily accepted. They are coming from Milan, Fiorentina and Athletico. None over £20m. Fiorentina included Frey. Berbatov is not unhappy to stay, it's the pressure from his nation to follow in other's footsteps. Kameni is not on our shortlist, and we've never wanted Diarra. Jarque wants to move to us. Veloso meeting on the cards and some sort of provisional agreement on the cards, perhaps heads of terms supposes Stoof. Disco Taarabt has not requested a move. Names scouting/scouted: Howson, Obertan, Fornaroli, Hugh, Pugh, Barney, McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble. No Grub. Exits for Lee, Chimbonda, Stalteri ( ) Gardner and Rocha in the biggest exodus of defenders ever. All incomings will be big money signings. Yay.

Archibald on this very day said that we're after Joe Hart by offering Robbo and some cash. Kameni and Handonyourcockvic (Handacovic - seems he can't make up his mind on the spelling ) are on the radar as are Amelia and Stekelenberg. JurgenTheGerman also persisted with SWP and Anelka story.

Now go take a cold shower you dirty dirty whore.

Still waiting...

Right. I’m back. So all three of you who read this forum can now sit back and enjoy the ramblings of an inane frustrated fan who has yet again sold out by parting with nearly £700 for yet another year of heart-attacks, positioned just behind the goal in the South Lower.

Where do I begin?

Latest whorage taking places has all manners of different streams of in the know info all suggesting that Bentley (wants to move down south) and Diarra (this story just won't go away) are both Spurs bound. If this happens, along with Modric and possibly another defender – I can comfortably bet £10 on Spurs finishing 5th again.

The real test begins now for Ramos. Last year, after the Milk Cup final win, everyone switched off. The league was nothing more than a circus. Spurs still have tumours that need removing. But with the right players (and thus right mentality) we won’t be guilty of embarrassing collapses that usually begin in the midfield.

Lennon might be off. No major stories concerning the other dead men walking (Chimbonda, Robinson etc). But it’s early days yet. Apart from midfield and defender(s), we can do with another forward or two.

Bent might be off (if we can mug someone the same way Charlton mugged us off) and Berbatov could well decide to join the first Champs League team who make a bid for him. The 1% chance of him staying based on the type of players we sign is nothing more than a dream. If he stayed it would be because and only because we would finish 4th – and that won’t happen. Not unless one of the current Big Four hiccup badly.

In for a busy week

Dos Santos set to sign, along with possibly two other players. If those two other players equate to a keeper and a DM, then I'll be quite happy. Once Berbatov decides where he wants to be, we can then make a further signing.

What's keeping me skipping at the moment is the rumour that Comolli may leave the club.

Happy days.....maybe.

SSN continues to mug its self off

SSN are now reporting there has been no Arsenal bid and that Keith Lamb has said only 2 clubs have made an offer for the player. Sky now looking to 'sweep this under the carpet' faster than they can say 'egg on face'.

They first take a slice of news from their 'rival' station (Setanta News) that Arsenal have bid for Woodgate. Yellow ticker follows and then we are treated to the usual trash they churn out when they claim to have an exclusive.

All based on unconfirmed reports, we get to listen to emails sent in by fans and bookie odds (making Arsenal the odds on favs to sign the player). Then the yellow ticker disappears and not too soon after we are told there has been no 3rd club and that Boro have confirmed this and that now, Woodgate is odds on to sign for Spurs.

All damning evidence of the previous exclusive gone and not to be mentioned again.

It's cheap tv at its very best. Like an interactive copy of The Sun.

Are they 'aving a larf?

Earlier this evening we had the yellow ticker telling us that the Tiago deal is off. Then the ticker disappeared, and we were told its back on and should be completed this weekend. But nothing compares to the latest 'Sky Sports Understands'.

Yes. Read it for yourself:

Sky Sports News understands that Tottenham want to sign Barcelona defender Carlos Puyol.

Juande Ramos is thought to be keen to strengthen his defence as he continues to reshape his White Hart Lane squad.

It is claimed that Tottenham representatives are in Spain to discuss a move with the Barcelona captain.

Ramos has also been linked with an approach for Middlesbrough defender Jonathan Woodgate as he attempts to find an experienced centre-back to bring to North London.

Puyol has made 58 appearances for Spain and played in the 2002 and 2006 World Cup finals.

Yes. The Barcelona captain who has been at the club since the age of twelve. Plays Champions League football and is on about £100,000 a month. Someone appears to be sharing their crack pipe in the SSN HQ. Although modern day journalism 'breaking news stories' are dependent on what they can copy and paste from a football message board, this one just about takes the biscuit. Yes, it appeared on the yellow ticker and the auto-cue dolly bird and man-robot informed us of another exclusive. And yes, its now disappeared. Along with the little creditability this 'news' channel appears to have left.

Nothing reported in Sport, Depotivo Mundo or Catalan TV. For the record, the player isn't even in Barcelona as they are away to Bilbao this weekend. And if Spurs wont pay Fred the money he wants then....well, you work it out.

Only other explanation? Smokescreen. Or Levy is attempting to flush out the rats.