Too old to buy at 25?
TRANSFER TALK
Spurs are said to be watching 25-year-old (26 next January) Bournemouth striker Joshua King. Immediately his age tells me that he would be a player well down the list.
Our system takes time to adjust to because there is so much coaching involved of where you have to be on the pitch at any given time. Players don't just go out and do what they feel like. More work is done off the ball than on it and pressing is an art form, it isn't simply a question of running towards someone with the ball, you have to attack them at a certain angle so they play the ball where you want them to play it.
The idea is to have them play it so the receiver is immediately under pressure and in a worse position than the previous player who had it. That takes intelligence, it means knowing exactly what your teammates are going to do, how they are going to do it and what your role in it is.
If you are going to buy a young player then you want to have plenty of years left in him so you get value for your purchase or you can sell them on at a profit. A 22-year-old player or someone like Dele Alli or Harry Kane has far more years left than a 25-year-old who hasn't learnt the system yet.
After half a season he would be 26 and then you only have 3 seasons left before you have to think about moving him on for someone else. These things have to be taken into account when buying players, it's why we are looking for 21 and 22-year-old players, once they have learnt a system they have 6, 7, 8 season before they hit the 30 mark.
The Norwegian international, he has 7 goals in 28 appearances, who Bournemouth got on a free transfer from Blackburn Rovers in the summer of 2015, has 15 goals in 34 games, 12 since the turn of the year. Last season he scored just 6 in 31 Premier League games. We would have to be very sure of his progress to make an offer after one golden spell, but as I say, his age, for our project, makes me thing a watching brief is all we will have.
He has scored against Crystal Palace, Watford, Swansea City, Watford, Everton (2), West Ham United, Manchester United, West Ham United (3), Liverpool, Chelsea, Middlesbrough, and Sunderland. He has scored in 12 of the 34 Premier League games that he has played.
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