January Transfer Talk Dele, Winks future
It has been nice to recharge the batteries as it were.
Managers are well aware of the importance of money and the affect it has on transfer spend, even if some of our undeserving fanbase don't.
No surprise that Troy Parrot and Dele Alli are seen together with a gangster, mentally they obviously see that macho bullshit as being big, ego and image.
The frogs are fine, the birds are plentiful, the seafront is lovely to just sit there and watch the world go by, hunt for enemy ships see pictures in the clouds in the sky.
I now understand what art is all about.
A picture is not what is painted, it is what you can see or perceive you can see that isn't actually there.
We can see the same thing when looking at players, their body language, the energy they have for a game and thus their mentality that is on display with every movement and every word.
More of that later.
I have been asked for my views on Dele Alli, Harry Winks and the upcoming transfer window so here they are.
His positional game had become weak or lazy as he was pushed to improve his passing game. England even used him further forward in a passing role.
Under Brendon Rodgers, Liverpool took a season to learn a new system and then finished 2nd in a season where they should have won the league.
People seem to forget that.
They fail to understand players are playing while trying a new system, learning from their mistakes, getting used to it, learning to trust it.
Players have to buy into a new manager, buy into a new system.
We are seeing the results of that now with Tottenham sitting top of the league.
I'm on record as saying, before the season, that we will win a trophy this season, possibly two and finish in the Top 4 to gain entry to the Champions League.
That was also my pre-lockdown view at a time when we were not performing.
The podcast children thought I was nuts, no, just an experienced and qualified coach.
Harry Winks is a Tottenham boy, he wants to play for Tottenham and is having to improve his game to get game time.
Mourinho refers big units as his defensive shield.
Winks is not competing with Giovani Lo Celso or Tanguy Ndombélé, they play a more attacking role.
You will often see them pressing defenders with Harry Kane, indeed the heat map for the Arsenal game showed Lo Celso with an average position in advance of Kane.
Winks is competing with Pierre-Emile Højbjerg and Mousa Sissoko, who incidentally, has won Mourinho over with his responsibility and work rate.
Physically Winks can't match Sissoko, that's obvious and he is having to improve the defensive side of his game too.
Time will tell how that fares.
I find it comical when I see reports of harry Winks, or any player, going to see Daniel Levy. he doesn't pick the team, it's Mourinho you need to be seeing.
Unless you are going to ask what are the chances of me getting a transfer, there is little point meeting with Levy, playing you isn't his department and with the club top of the league, you haven't got much of an argument.
Incidentally, Levy's decision to bring in Mourinho while he was available seems to be paying off and you hear Mourinho refer to the economic benefits of playing Champions League football.
I speak a lot about mentality (which no doubt goes over many heads if you'll forgive the pun) because it is the key to everything. I have explained before how the sub-conscious controls us, not the conscious brain.
A prime example of this is Dele Alli.
Tanguy Ndombélé had to change his attitude from one of I don't want to be at Spurs, I don't want to play, I want a transfer.
He failed to secure a transfer (nobody would pay enough to give us our money back) and thus had to decide to knuckle down and to give it his best.
Mentally he had to make an attitude change.
Your best is only achieved when you want to produce it, when you are happy and when you buy into what your manager wants the team and you, to do.
It is not down to the manager to change things to suit you, it is for you to change to suit what is required of you.
Dele Alli was caught annoyed on camera saying this was defend and hoof the ball upfield football.
Clearly he didn't like it, clearly he didn't want to play it.
As you know, that negative mental attitude prevents you from producing your best when you try to impalement a tactic, a system, a skill.
Subconsciously, as well as consciously, you don't want to be doing what you are doing.
It is no different than you doing a job you don't like or don't want to do.
You do not do it to the best of your ability, you simply do enough, you do the minimum to get away with it.
That, effectively, has been Dele.
Mourinho said on camera that he is a lazy trainer.
He is lazy because of his attitude to how Spurs are playing.
However much effort you try to put in, your subconscious is always holding you back, is always pumping negativity into your conscious.
You can see in the games Dele plays that he doesn't want to close players down.
His body language and languid approach shows mentally, he doesn't want to be doing it, that it's a waste of time, that the ball will be gone before he gets there, so what is the point of getting there.
That mentality will always hold him back, until he changes it, sees the benefits for the team and not himself.
Dele has shown he is a player who wants the ball and now he is not enjoying his football he doesn't want to do the side of the game without it, which means he is not being picked, as he can't be trusted.
Will he start to see what is happening at the club and decides he wants to win or will he be selfish and decide he is more interested in fun?
That is the key to him at the moment.
He will not perform near his best until he wants to for the team and I don't think that will happen.
It would require him to start liking to play defensive and hoof it up the field football.
He doesn't like it, so he can't play it.
If he sees the benefits, he might admit to himself that he was wrong and buy into it, thus giving him the opportunity at least, to play it well, but he now has a lot of catching up to do.
The rest have been learning how to play it effectively with enthusiasm, Dele hasn't.
He is now playing catch up, or will be if he decides he wants to play.
So where does that leave him in January?
Well, clubs do not make players available in January, thus there is a small market and therefore less players to replace him with.
It is a panic buying window if your season isn't going well.
Clubs generally keep hold of players, even if they are not playing because they are cover against injury who already know the club system.
Thus I do not see Dele leaving in January, however much he would like to.
I am afraid he has shot himself in the foot as far as his England European Championship next summer hopes are concerned.
His ego has got in the way of his football, he, I would suggest, is more concerned with his image than the actual results of his football.
He wants to feel the acclaim for a piece of skill, whether it leads to anything or not. Showboating, a show pony, that's where acclaim has taken him, not, unfortunately, to become a better player.
Compare that to Harry Kane, continually working to improve his game, that is a proper winning mentality.
His mentality and Dele's are worlds apart.
Through thick and thin, Harry looks for opportunity to improve, dele looks to improve when it suits him and at the moment, it doesn't.
That is the mentality of someone who tries to win, not that of a winning mentality.
Raheem Sterling had the same problem until Pep Guardiola cured him of it, Jessie Lingard has it and he can't get a game now, Dele has it, Troy Parrot has had it.
I do not think Dele will be available in the winter window but he will be in the summer unless he himself changes.
We have Danny Rose and Gedson Fernandes collecting wages and not playing football so that limits bringing players in in January because of wages.
We will look at players obviously, but it would have to be a very good deal to sign one, we can not fit the players we have in the squad, let alone any more.
A quiet January is ahead.
COYS
1 comment