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Spurs monitoring Diawara but he's not playing at Napoli


Tottenham Transfer Talk

Amadou-Diawara

The summer we will see changes to the Spurs squad as Mauricio Pochettino tries to improve it further. Central and defensive midfield have been an issue this season with Eric Dier, Victor Wanyama and Mousa Dembélé all being injured at the same time.

Wanyama and Dembélé may move on leaving more chances for Oliver Skipp but also a need for at least one replacement. A player we have been following is 21-year-old (22 in July) Napoli midfielder Amadou Diawara.

He is reportedly unhappy as he is now getting even less game time under new manager Carlo Ancelotti than he was under Maurizio Sarri before he left for Chelsea. He has played just 483 minutes equivalent to 9.22 full games.


The director of RMC Sport, Niccolò Ceccarini, writes that Carlo Ancelloti wants to keep Diawara and that a sale would only happen if a Super offer came in, which won't happen from an Italian side as they don't have the money.

Fiorentina are interested in taking him on loan, Wolves are interested with reports suggesting £31.33 million (€35m) which is a little premature considering it's suggested he won't even be allowed to leave on loan until 20th January at the earliest.

The promising defensive midfielder is an excellent tackler and has a good short passing game. He closes spaces, intercepts the ball and has the physicality to play the role. However, he can hold the ball when moving forward too.

He has an ability to beat a press and possess an excellent long passing game in addition to a short one. he excelled in Serie A when he first arrived at Bologna but a slump in form saw him struggle for game time at Napoli. First, he was second fiddle to Jorginho, then he hasn't been given the trust of his head coaches.

Diawara fits our profile of a good footballer young enough to improve with the physicality to handle the Premier League. There is a quality footballer in there waiting to be developed.

He has Italian citizenship but turned down Italy to represent his homeland (as all players should) Guinea. That does mean that any club will lose him to the African Cup of Nations in January every two years.


5 comments

  1. As a plus, the AfCoN is actually now to played in the summer from 2019 onwards, so no more losing players in Jan/Feb. As you said, a potentially very good player in there somewhere.
  2. Do we really want to be signing a player that hasn't impressed 2 other top managers. Is that really improving our first 11 choice !
    Keep signing squad players and at some point we will have 11 squad players as first choice.
    Moura signed last January but has he improved the starting 11, he's improve the squad but not the first 11. So in reality it's 2 1/2 seasons or more since we improved the starting 11 and that's based on Sissoko's current form !
    It's time we showed a little more ambition as this brave young side have come as far as they can go without at least 2 additional first team players in my friends. A right back and a defensive midfielder are must aand the perpetual rouse that we can't possible get a back up striker because we have Harry Kane. !
  3. I would suggest that the first team have improved over the last few years. I can't think of one that hasn't - even if some go down again for a while. Overall the improvement is noticeable.

    I think that's one of the main points Steve. We get in prospects that are not the finished article but have potential to grow and learn within our system. We also use academy players heavily and, frankly, well.

    We have suffered this season with the unavailability of many players for various reasons, principle of which is injury, but in spite of that we're still doing better than we've done for many years.

    If we're scientific about our assessments we ignore what we expect to see and simply focus on what's actually there. In front of us. That is increasing progress year on year. Progress that is so strong that it isn't even clouded by a season of very difficult circumstances that surely would have derailed us in many other seasons.

    Assessments are too often made with…
  4. I didn't say we hadn't improved as a team Ade, that we most certainly have as a unit and who wouldn't expect the same squad to improve over 2 or 3 seasons. If they hadn't then the coaching staff aren't doing their job but we most definitely haven't brought in any better players to improve the first 11. Either by bring players on or through the ranks. Winks has gone backwards due to injury and Dembelle and Wanyama along with Rose have suffered from long term injures. Add the loss of Walker and the starting 11, even though they have improved as a side are not as strong as they were player for player.
    So I think my point of the first 11 hasn't been improved is valid.
    I like us bring through youngster and developing untapped talent but in my opinion this is as far as we are going to get without bring in a higher Calabar transfers.
    Poch has said almost the same today. I know we are never going to be signing the same targets as City , Man U and Liverpool but if…
  5. I don't think I can agree the improvements are not an improvement overall Steve. To achieve what we have in spite of all the troubles we've faced this season is quite extraordinary in my view.

    That said, I was surprised to read about Poch's comments recently. It sounds so unlike him. Nevertheless, I've learned to trust his intelligence and his instincts so I accept that we should be looking for upgrades now. That is not to say that we will stop looking as we have before, for players who principally have the required attitude and mentality. It just means that the players we're looking for are even more rare, and finding them available is an increasingly difficult task - especially without throwing bundles of money at them and that approach we already know is doomed to failure. Anyone who moves for that motive is almost guaranteed to have problems with attitude and motivation.

    I'm very happy with how things are going at the moment, if I'm honest. I belie…