THFC 8 Questions and Answers

Hello folks.

Welcome once again to the #1 THFC blog on the Internet, Tottenham Hotspur Blog News (THBN) on this fine Monday morning.

Well, after looking at some of the out of date "fresh" ITK that was anything but, from the Spurs ITK pedlars and the pedlars of Tottenham news yesterday, I'm going to answer some of the questions you have been asking me.

A quick reminder there are links below to recent articles you may have missed, smacked wrist for any of you who have.

Yes there is nothing wrong with a bit of discipline, look at what has happened to society with this noisy woke generation mob rule mentality because of a lack of it.

The result of a vote is apparently only acceptable if it agrees with their opinion and if it doesn't then try and create anarchy.

Now we have calls for Apartheid Day or as it is promoted, Black Pound Day. The height of racism to combat racism!

Anyway, let's stick to football and Spurs.

Take a look at the articles below this one and dip in for a read.

You'll have to wait with bated breath for The 3 Frenchmen until tomorrow, today it is THFC 8 Questions and Answers day, written for you and not for the search engines, as this paragraph would be first, or for clickbait as the mainstream media so frequently do.

Grab your cuppa or your beer and settle down for an undisturbed read.

Ok let's answer your 8 THFC questions and if you have any more to put, just send them or Tweet them to @CliveTHBN.

The Real Madrid to Inter Milan deal is basically finalised, a fee has been agreed and terms with the player have been agreed.

He moves as soon as the window opens, but, he is out of our price range anyway. 

THFC don't have £36.38m (€40m - AUS$65.43m - US$44.89m) to drop on a right-back, plus wages, plus £4.55m (€5m - AUS$8.18m - US$5.61m) add-ons. 

We have too many positions to fill, that would simply take money away from other areas where we need to strengthen. 

There are other options at right-back for us. 

It has taken Jurgen Klopp 5 years to get where he is and Mourinho hasn't even had a summer yet. 

If we spent everything or a large chunk of it on one player then we would have to have lesser alternatives in other areas, which defeats the object. 

While it would be nice to sign him, we have not been in for him. 

It isn't in our best interests within the budget we have this summer to strengthen the squad as a whole.

Question: Do you think that there is a chance Daniel Levy will invest heavily this summer?

After COVID-19 the money isn't there to invest heavily, simple as that, so the answer is no.

With no supporters in the stadium, there is limited revenue coming into the club from fans, commercial revenue, matchday sponsorship, merchandising, hospitality, music concerts, boxing matches etc so the expected income to pay for team upgrades has been wiped out by this pandemic.

Spurs expect to have around £200m (€219.78m - AUS$359.54m - US$246.m) less income this financial year. 

It will be swaps, people who are free agents or those with one year left on their deals. 

Then we will have to raise money through player sales with the usual suspects up for sale, Danny Rose, Kyle Walker-Peters, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Juan Foyth, Luke Amos, not as the press keep trying to tell us Érik Lamela.

Lamela gets mentioned every time simply because that is who the journalists would get rid of and, in their infinite wisdom, they think the club must obviously think the same as them. 

It doesn't though. 

Journalists are not football experts, merely professional writers writing about their hobby. 

I have said it before, I firmly believe, if a journalist is to write about a sport they should be sent on a coaching course to understand it to a greater extent.

Coaching skills are transferable, so even if they had a coaching qualification in another sport they would have more idea what they were talking about and mis-educating the general fan about. 

Mentality is a clear issue, they are generally clueless about it and that is from personal discussion with them 

I keep repeating, when I see this the hacks putting Lamela up for sale, that José Mourinho likes the 28-year-old (29 next March) Argentinian. 

Mourinho likes his attitude, likes his commitment. 

Perhaps Mourinho is the man to get the best out of him. 

Tomorrows Tottenham Hotspur Blog News (THBN) article will give you something to think about on that, it's educational (that's a clue). 

There will be money to buy, but not a lot, so that has to be spent wisely, in the positions of real need, where a free agent or player towards the end of his contract is available and therefore below his full market value, plus any funds raised by selling fringe players.

It is important, therefore, to get as much as one can for the players sold and not, as some fans shout, to sell cheaply just to get rid of them. 

That is rather cutting your nose to spite your face as you then have less funds to buy, which leads to the very same supporters complaining again!  

Question: Why haven't we seen much of Ryan Sessegnon, is he still injured?

Mourinho doesn't feel Ryan Sessegnon is ready for regular Premier League football as a left-back at the level he wants him to be. 

How far away he is I couldn't say, but I'd expect another half a season at least, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to play.

When we saw Sessegnon last season, he couldn't hold onto the ball. 

He was mincemeat in one to one challenges, he couldn't shield the ball with his body and didn't look as if he knew how to. 

Sessegnon has to grow a bit and bulk up, he needs greater upper body strength, but Spurs rate him very highly and see him as a future star. 

The lad has only just turned 20 so understandably, his game and his body need developing but he has a good coach to learn the defensive side of the game.

We will see him play a bigger part next season.

Until now, he has been confined basically to attacking roles where a lesser physique presents less of a difficulty. 

However, Ben Davies is the only left-back, although Japhet Tanganga has filled in there, so unless we bring in a left-back cheaply and as a temporary measure, there will be rotation opportunities. 

Question: Any news on Eric Dier's contract extension?

Negotiations with Eric Dier, or his agents, are progressing very well. 

Dier is happy at Spurs and has received assurances that he will be deployed as a centre-back going forward. 

He grew up as a centre-back in Portugal and played both there and in defensive midfield for Sporting senior team. 

While coming through the youth system in Portugal, a youngster has to learn to play in every position.  

They are played in different positions in youth games, so you might have a centre-back playing centre-forward. 

The idea is to give them a greater understanding of each position and therefore what the opponent is likely to do. 

A centre-back who has had to think like a striker in real match situations, is more likely to know what a striker he is facing is thinking and thus going to do.

Dier expressed his wish to play centre-back last season and Mourinho would not be playing him there now if he didn't know that a contract was going to be signed. 

It's the same situation as Japhet Tanganga, Mourinho knew in January when he played him that Tanganga would be signing a new contract. 

Covid-19 has delayed things, but both will be signing new deals.

Question: Is there any truth to the stories about Kim Min-jae?

The short answer is yes. 

The  South Korean is wanted around Europe and everyone seems convinced that he will be a big success in Europe, he has all the qualities needed. 

We are just one of many clubs making him offers so while there is interest, a deal is far from certain,. 

He is a compatriot of Son Heung-min who can tell him all about life at Spurs and moving to a club that already has a South Korean would help him settle better in a new country.

For now, we have to see how negotiations go with his present club, Chinese Super League club Beijing Guoan, go and hope his desire to move to a major league is strong.

Some players like to be the big fish in a little pond, where others want to push themselves to see how far they can go. 

Question: Any truth to the stories about Robin Koch?

Yes, Spurs have him on a list of over 20 centre-backs they are monitoring. 

The club speaks informally to their agents regularly to ask if they are interested in joining Spurs, what wages they would want, what price the owning club would require to sell him. 

Agents know who is available and calculate themselves what a player is worth, sometimes clubs who don't want to sell place a higher fee on a player to deter buyers. 

Every club discusses things with an agent and only when they have a consensus will they approach the players club. 

That may sound like illegal tapping up but it is the way the football industry works at every club. 

Spurs have got to juggle these potential financial packages for various players. 

Take this hypothetical scenario, say wSpurs want 5 players. 

We will have a set amount we can spend in transfer fees and a set wage bill. 

Fees are usually paid in instalments, so we have to calculate what our future expenditure already is on players like Giovani Lo Celso and Tanguy Ndombélé. 

Thus we could be planning expenditure across the next 5-7 years to determine what our expenditure this window will be.

We have to know our income, which is a best guess looking forward, our expenditure, then we can calculate a wage budget and a transfer budget. 

Covid-19 has changed the income profile so now we really are in guess land. 

Will the Government allow fans in, does business have the income for expensive sponsorship deals?

We are in uncertain times. 

If transfer fees and wages drop, as they should but clubs don't seem willing to accept, then bargain will be there to be snapped up. 

We have more than 20 centre-backs we are following, so we talk to agents and get an idea of the financial package for all of them. 

Now times that by 5 positions and we have 100 financial packages to contemplate. 

We have to now fit 5 of those into our budget. 

It's a jigsaw puzzle. 

That might mean a better player in one position and a lesser choice in another position. 

We have to perm out what suits our financial budgets and then start negotiations. 

Now, if a player turns out to be too expensive, then we either have to put their signing on hold and look elsewhere, or we have to recalculate what we can afford for the other 4 remaining positions and reduce expenditure there. 

Each transfer isn't isolated. 

We can't just throw money at every purchase, besides, the main criteria for a player now is Champions League football. 

If a club can't offer UCL football, then they are below all those that can, despite any financial muscle. 

A player will rarely sign for a non-Champions League club until they have exhausted the possibilities of signing for one.

We saw that when we were in the Europa League, players would agree to sign for us if a Champions League team didn't come in for them, which usually they did, thus we ended up buying late in the window. 

We are temporarily, we hope, in that position again.

Question: Will Tanguy Ndombélé stay at Tottenham?

 

Tanguy Ndombélé has an attitude problem.

Étienne Capoue had the same attitude problem when coming from French football. 

Both thought that they would simply walk into the team as an automatic choice. 

When they find they have to fight for a place they don't like it.  

You all saw Ndombélé ambling around against Wolves in that video and in fact in every game he has played. 

He has a lazy demeanour on the field. 

That means he can't be trusted. 

Capoue never got his attitude right until he left for a smaller club, then later admitted he had the wrong attitude at Spurs and his problem at the club were all his own fault. 

Ndombélé is in that same position. 

Will he change his mental attitude? 

I have grave doubts and so he may well be sold. 

Barcelona have made an offer and we continue to talk to them about an outright deal, player part-exchange possibilities and swaps. 

PSG have made an offer and again, if a package of players can help us by selling him then that is a possibility, Bayern Munich the same. 

Spurs Have 2 Offers on The Table For Tanguy Ndombélé 

Clubs are not flush with money to buy outright, they are all looking at initial loans deals with mandatory purchase options. 

That doesn't mean he will be sold, just that we are exploring all avenues. 

Personally I think he will go.

Question: Why can't Joe Lewis simply give Spurs money to buy players?

Well, because it is against Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules. 

UEFA wants to stop Sugar Daddy owners, they want a level playing field for all clubs. 

They want all clubs to be self-sustaining, in other words, the club has to be run as a business with the income it generates paying for the football. 

The more successful the business, the more can be spent on the playing side.

Sir Alex Ferguson said on a BBC program about him that you have to first have a successful business off the field before you can a successful club on it. 

Under FFP, clubs have to generate all revenue themselves and have to service any debt themselves. 

An owner can only put money in for infrastructure, but that has to be paid back in some form. 

So the short answer is, Joe Lewis isn't allowed to just pump money in, Spurs would be banned from European competition if he did.

There is something in the FFP called the break-even assessment, which forces clubs playing in either UEFA competition, Champions League or Europa League, to spend only what they earn. 

That has been postponed for 2020 but will be included jointly when looking at 2021 figures. 

In other words the club will have to show it is financing all deals and not an owner, a year later than normal.

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