Spurs Summer Transfer Window Day 51
Good morning to you wonderful folk, today to start Spurs Summer Transfer Window Day 51, I'll follow on from yesterday and the two comments from readers I posted, one answering the other.
The question was basically if I could write about transfer failures and why they were failures referencing mentality.
As a brief answer here I'll say I remember writing a piece criticising the club (which appeared to receive a club employee comment) over Érik Lamela.
It was during or at the end of his first season where he didn't want to be here and wanted to return to Italy.
I questioned his mentality as back then he was hiding on the wing and not putting himself in any goal scoring positions.
I suggested the club could have done more to help him settle. There is a big Argentinian community and I felt someone should have been assigned to him to introduce him and get a little piece of home to help him feel happier about being in a strange country and a strange culture.
It was one of those tiny details I felt the club overlooked that make the difference.
My view is that it took Lamela longer to settle than it needed and that when you are making millions pound signings, no stone should be left unturned to help, often away from football.
I felt it would have helped his mental condition and we would have seen the positive Lamela earlier than we did.
To my eye we are doing more for players welfare than we ever have.
Mine is the Sir Clive Woodward approach, you look at every tiny detail, even where you buy your coffee and see what improvements, however minor, you can make.
If I recall correctly, that was a part of The Mental Series, a series which consisted of about 10 separate articles.
The Kaisen approach.
Those tiny improvements all add up to a larger and significant gain.
I remember another post I wrote about the position of the feet affecting a players performance and suggested improvements.
I'll repeat what I said way back when, make 5 improvements a month to every player and you have 125 improvements per month, which in a 10 month season is 1,250 a season.
That is significant.
We are up grading the squad but it won't all be done in one window, it needs steady improvement throughout but we have made significant progress this summer.
Let's move onto fans views.
A subject I have covered many times and how true this is, more interested in having their own view justified than actually supporting the club.
Now we are seeing what I have been advocating is the plan all along and well, if I say it they will rail against it, they can't stand me being spot on again.
We have seen that with the dishonesty of the comment I let you all see, which was subsequently backed up by further dishonesty from the individual... as expected quite frankly.
"The stadium will be a game changer," Daniel Levy's very words. There is no way Antonio Conte would be at Tottenham if everything, including investment and the vision, was not discussed before he signed.
Conte has been sold on the vision, the chance to create something at Spurs which would mark him out as one of the best managers of all time and on the investment being available to achieve it.
There are few, if any chances like this in football, a club financing it's own growth as opposed to sugar daddy financial doping through dodgy sponsorship deals with mates.
That sets a manager apart.
Daniel levy and ENIC are simply following their long term plan, there has been no change in approach to that as investment was always the plan from stadium generated income.
It's why the stadium was built, I think an awful lot of people, and a chunk of those will be Levy haters, haven't grasped that yet but that's how an entrepreneur achieves success.
ENIC will not sell Tottenham Hotspur Football Club until we are winning trophies regularly, as then we will be at a far higher price than now.
All a sale now does is hand the potential for huge gains to someone else, usually an investment form these days.
A new owner doesn't necessarily mean huge investment into the playing staff. It might bring poor management, although fortunately Spurs have been set up brilliantly by Daniel Levy and ENIC to be self sufficient and still be an elite level club.
How very true this is, it is a natural trait to be negative unfortunately, it is harder to be positive, to seek out the positive and to find the positive in situations.
That's why most people work for someone else as building a six figure income yourself is too much effort for the majority of society.
Why then do Spurs followers do it, given it is so unhelpful and damaging to the club and how it is written about and perceived, which affects investment by corporate sponsors and thus money into the team?
hy fight against what you claim to be wanting to achieve?
It's either ill informed and that isn't the case and many have tried to tell them but they don't want to listen or a lack of understanding of how success was being built at Tottenham.
I don't want to save up my pocket money, I want my sweets now!
Exactly, I don't think a group of people realise, or want to realise, the significance of this and how the club will not be at the mercy of a sugar daddy's whim.
I still maintain Spurs do not rest on their laurels. There is the Asian market to continue expansion into, as we have seen from the South Korea tour there are huge opportunities for Tottenham with a powerful brand.
A touring Tottenham Hotspur Exhibition XI with club ambassadors like Ledley King and Jermain Defoe making appearances as coaches or at social events etc only promotes the brand further and brings greater commercial opportunities.
Couple that with live streaming and the repeated suggestions I recently made to improve Spurs TV or subscription based SpursPlay even further would allow us to develop coaching programmes in the area nd through marketing keep our name in the peoples consciousness.
Create a successful formula in Asia and expand it to America. A Spurs Exhibition XI playing against all the MLS sides would be an attraction for them and American fans as well as the benefits to Tottenham.
I though I'd give you the imbecilic view for balance. Poor Richard doesn't understand the club didn't have the money 15 years ago.
He seems unaware that ENIC's money is not Tottenham's money.
Tottenham's money is what Tottenham generates, it's why the club had to be built, why the stadium had to be built to finance the club sustainably into the future.
Sugar Daddy finance is not sustainable, people die, events happen. Richard feels the club should be a prostitute to anyone with money for his benefit.
He isn't a supporter, he is a follower with conditions, unaware that money doesn't grow on trees.
What he is effectively saying is he's a lazy individual, who doesn't want to work to achieve anything, that he wants everything to be handed to him on a plate.
Not the sort of employee you'd want to employ in a successful organisation as he'd drag it down, the sort of individual you weed out at the interview stage, if they get that far.
Yes, he is from my block list, they don't change, misery is their badge of honour.
Those last three sum it all up.
Right let's dig into a little transfer news during a quiet time when there are things happening behind the scenes but is still a quiet time.
Our transfer business revolves around what we can do in Europe and therefore requires some logical thinking to understand our position and where we can go.
The three positions at the centre of everything are right wing-back, centre-back and attacking midfield, although possibly able to play wide too.
First let me show you the squad situation in the UEFA Champions League, the Premier League squad isn't an issue, we have non-homegrown spots available domestically.
The graphic above gives a quick overview of the Spurs UCL Squad as it stands at the moment.
We have NO places available for anyone who has not been trained under the banner of the English Football Association.
Players who do not have a UCL squad place and whose sale therefore makes no difference to the situation:
- Sergio Reguilón
- Giovanni Lo Celso
- Tanguy Ndombele
- Pape Matar Sarr
- Bryan Gil
Ben Davies, Matt Doherty and Joe Rodon are all English Football Association trained players thus count s non-homegrown to use Premier League terms.
Ben Davies has won over our fanbase who have nothing but abuse and complain about him, when in fact he has been a solid professional and thus valuable member of the squad.
He has signed a new contract and isn't going anywhere.
That leaves Joe Rodon and Matt Doherty, both homegrown for the Premier League but not for European football.
Now Joe Rodon is joining Rennes in France, initially on loan so this will free up one non-English Football Association trained place.
Yet we want to buy an attacking midfielder and a centre-back.
Spurs are pushing hard for 23-year-old (24 next July) Nicolò Zaniolo from Roma, who we play today in Israel.
The fee isn't an issue, just finding an acceptable pay structure for both sides. Paratici is looking at an initial loan with an option to buy or deals much in the vein of Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur.
We have been looking at homegrown attacking midfielders such as James Maddison but Leicester are desperate to cling onto him and have sold Kasper Schmeichel and are willing to sell Youri Tielemens to hang on to Maddison.
Pretty obvious to those who are denying it that Leicester are in financial difficulty without securing European football next season and thus not the income to cover the wage bill.
This is the issue with investing in players 10 years ago, without guaranteed Champions League football we couldn't afford the wage bill for the type of players the anti-Levy followers wanted.
Let's assume we can reach a deal for Zaniolo, that fills up the remaining UEFA Champions League squad place, created by Rodon leaving.
That means we can't buy a centre-back unless they are English Football Association trained, which isn't our ideal option.
Therefore to free up another Spurs UCL squad place, we have to sell one of the non-English Football Association trained players and the obvious one is right wing-back Matt Doherty.
The other option is to sell Emerson Royal, hence Spurs suggesting they will sell either if a decent deal comes forward.
Naturally with Doherty being homegrown for the Premier League there are plenty of clubs who have been interested in him.
You can see why the newspaper reports are suggesting Spurs are focusing on offloading some players, especially with the last two weeks of a summer transfer window being the busiest period in the whole window every year.
Napoli have emerged as a possible destination for Giovanni Lo Celso as a replacement for Piotr Zieliński, who West Ham United have made a €35m offer for.
The Italian side and Fabio Paratici have already held exploratory talks so Napoli know what sort of financial package we are looking for.
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