No spot for Tufan right now

TRANSFER TALK

Clubs have to constantly watch players for every position, even if they already have enough for any particular position. You never know when a long-term injury may occur and you never know when a player will want to leave.

If he wants to leave bad enough then sometimes you have to let them go or you may get the half-hearted performances that Saido Berahino put in at WBA or that Victor Wanyama put in at Southampton last season.

The press of course, see us scouting a player and think we must be buying them, If we bought every player we scouted we would have hundreds of players every season. We are well stocked now in the defensive midfield department with Eric Dier, Victor Wanyama, and Nabil Bentaleb all competing for one place.

That doesn't stop us following other young defensive midfield talent. Ozan Tufan is a 21-year-old (22 in March) Turk playing for Fenerbahce in the Turkish Super Lig. His primary position is holding midfielder but he can also play as both right back and also a right winger.

He is being followed by Manchester United, Manchester City, Everton, Arsenal, Liverpool, Sunderland, Borussia Dortmund, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid in addition to ourselves and no doubt quite a few others. Fenerbahce manager Vitor Pereira is reported by Turkish Football News as not wanting to sell his young talent, understandably.

Tufan can play in the Mousa Dembele role as well, where perhaps we are a bit light with Dembele, Ryan Mason, and Tom Carroll. The latter named has never really shown much, a decent passer, but then most players can pass a ball, he simply gives it away too much in our own half. Carroll is slow developing, but he does help the home grown quota and is cheap on wages.

You have to have some players like this in a squad, just not too many and with players coming through you have to improve. A promising talent, Tufan is probably not what we need right now with Alex Pritchard, Harry Winks, Josh Onomah and Marcus Edwards among others wanting match day places and minutes on the field.

When you add into that Clinton Njie, Cameron Carter-Vickers you start to appreciate that around all these youngsters you need players who have shown they can perform at Premier League level, players like Nacer Chadli, who may not be Ronaldo, but can do a job and score vital goals. You can't simply get rid of all fringe players and fill their spaces with unproven talent.

There has to be a balancing act, few seem to realise that if you believe what you read in forums. The truth is the silent majority do appreciate it, but we hear the vocal, not the majority.

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