The new Archibald and Crooks


A few stories have thankfully been put to bed, stories that were never real stories or where was only ever an outside chance of a signing, not that you'd believe that from reading the media and other websites.

The world and his wife knew Zlatan Ibrahimović was going to Manchester United to be reunited with Jose Mourinho, Tottenham were never in the hunt to sign him, we can't afford his wages. Pay him an astronomical sum and every player would be knocking on the door for a wage increase.

We have the silly stories about Spurs offering Harry Kane £100,000-a-week to fend off Manchester United, there is no fending off to do. Kane has made it perfectly clear Spurs is where he wants to be, the press seems to have forgotten that or conveniently ignored it so they can peddle rubbish.

Then there is Marc Bartra, we tried, Pochettino phoned, but we simply don't have enough to offer. Toby Alderweireld was standing in the way, the guy wants to play, not sit on another bench. We haven't missed out on him because we never really had a chance. Missing out sound like we could have done something about it, we couldn't.

Our striker search and Pochettino's throwaway comment last season may well mean we are slightly changing our system next season. A throwback to the days of two goalscorers, of medal winning Archibald and Crooks.

Are we going to have Harry Kane and another playing as a pair? We have seen Kane play the number 10 role, will he be there next season, will he be the striker with a new number 10?

If so, would that not push Dele Alli wide left and Eriksen over to the right. You can't drop Dier and Dembele so do you drop Lamela or do you have a striker sitting on the bench who wants to play all the big games but is second fiddle to Kane? If we bought Batshuayi, do you see him sitting on the bench, playing the weaker Premier League games or games after a Champions League game?

Pochettino knows what he wants, at the moment we don't. Pre-season might give us some answers, just as it did with Eric Dier last summer.