Kaboul

yanno said:

but we've had to pay top dollar in fees & clauses for other young talent: notably Taarabt, Parrett, and (pre-Comolli) Leigh Mills. Just as we paid top dollar for Kaboul & Zokora, so you're correct that does up the ante in terms of wanting them to be nearer the finished article.

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ChRiStOpHe said:

I don't agree with that. Taarabt aledgedly cost just over £2m, Parrett was up to £2m, and Leigh Mills was around £1m. That's not top dollar. Was Aaron Lennon top dollar at £1m? If any of them fulful their talent, they'll be hailed as bargains. If you don't they're still relatively cheap buys in the grand sceme of things. Kaboul - now there's a top dollar youngster at around £8m. Same with Pato (Milan) and Robinho (Madrid). You can see the difference.

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yanno said:

Parrett and Mills were 15 years old when we signed them. They were still at school. And neither Taarabt, Parrett nor Mills had played a nanosecond of first team competitive football.

Alexandre Pato had played 26 times for Internacional, and was regarded as Brazil's best player in the FIFA U20 World Cup. Every club in the world was after him. Robinho, like Diego (who we nearly signed for around £7 million), had played 98 games for Santos before his transfer to Real Madrid.

I'm all in favour of signing top youngsters, but seven-figure fees for schoolboys are pretty extraordinary.

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ChRiStOpHe said:

Alright, let's compare Dean Parrett (signed aged 15, for what could raise to £2m if he goes on to play for England etc etc) with Cesc Fabrigas (signed aged 16, for £2.3m straight away, plus Giovanni van Bronckhorst on the cheap to make sure no legal action was taken). You see? Although you can claim Cesc for example was signed for peanuts, it was less than we paid for the 'top dollar' Parrett. Neither had played for their clubs before the transfer. Both similar ages.

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paxtonyiddo said:

Lets just make sure were behind him at the lane over the next couple of games boys

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SpurSince57 said:

Kaboul was, apparently, signed in preference to Curtis Davies (who would have cost about the same), who is currently being kept on Villa's bench by none other than Zat Knight.

A shame our scouts didn't look at Samba while they were checking out Prince Bong, really.

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yanno said:

Did the Arse really have to pay £2.3 million plus van Bronckorst for Fabregas? I'm not doubting you. It's simply that I thought they'd "enticed" him away from Barca's youth academy with the promise of early first-team football and a big salary. Just as ManU did with Pique.

A/c to wikipedia, Wenger did steal Anelka for just £500k.

Parrett seems to be the player of his England age-group, and if he fulfils that promise and becomes anything like as good as Fabregas, then obviously that will be a fantastic deal for the club.

However, many highly rated 15-year-olds fail to make the grade. Our very own Owen Price, "the new Beckham", was very unlucky with injuries and didn't make it. Leigh Mills was "the new John Terry" at 15, but has not made great progress in our academy.

One thing that has changed with Spurs is that our academy is now stuffed full of England age-group internationals, whereas we used to have 2 or 3 each year. If one or two of those kids make it at EPL level, the Academy will be regarded as hugely successful.

With Anelka, apparently the French national academy had four great strikers: Anelka, Henry, Saha, and Trezeguet. Of whom, at 16, Saha was regarded as the best. My main point was that a decade ago, Wenger was able to lure Le Sulk away from PSG for £500k, and the price of top young talent now seems to be much higher.

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southlondonyiddo said:

I have not seen a young King or Rsol in him

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SpurSince57 said:

Kaboul was, apparently, signed in preference to Curtis Davies (who would have cost about the same), who is currently being kept on Villa's bench by none other than Zat Knight.

A shame our scouts didn't look at Samba while they were checking out Prince Bong, really.

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joey55 said:

You planning on sitting just behind the subs bench then?

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ChRiStOpHe said:

They did blag him on the cheap. They were forced to pay £2.3m (out of interest, would that be €3m?). Barca threatened legal action, and to stop this, they agreed to sell Gio to Barca on the cheap (£2.5m if I remember correctly, having signed him for £8.5m). Still, a cracking deal from Arsenal's point of view.

In response to the fact Arsenal got Anelka for £500,000 (in 1997), I'd say that figure was pretty much the same deal we got for Taarabt at £2m (in 2007). When Arsenal signed Anelka, transfer fee's were much lower. The record fee for a British player was Alan Shearer at £15m, with 2nd placed Stan Collymore (£8.5m) a fair way behind. In this day and age there's even more money in the game, and with sugar daddy's forcing fee's up, transfers such as Ferdinand (£29m) and Shevchenko (£34m) seems the norm.

What I definitely agree with is your comment on potential not always turning out to be what is expected. Freddy Adu, when he was 14, was hailed as the future of football. He's currently at Benfica, which isn't bad, but I'm sure he'll never fulfil the promise he showed back then. I just hope that Parrett becomes the player we hope he can be, because if he is, both Spurs and England really will have a gem.



When Ledley first came into the first team, did you really see him becoming the player he did? I certainly didn't, and I like to think I have a good idea of younger players. From the little I saw of both Gardner and King when they first broke into the team, Big Tone impressed me more.

I don't see Ledley or Rsol in him, but I do see a young Rio Ferdinand, and he turned out alright didn't he? :think:

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joey55 said:

Kaboul continues a very worrying trend in Comolli signings. I haven't been as anti Comolli as many, but if you look at the majorty of his signings the are very Spurkingesque. What I mean by this is that they all have obvious physical attributes and most are skillful and technically sound. But, they all seem to be seriously lacking in the other 50% of what makes a good player - ie mental attributes. No matter how physically impressive or how much technical ability a players has, it is all worthless without being able to read a game, postion themselves and make the rigth decisions etc. Obviously these things can improve with age, but they must be there to some degree to start with, but Comolli seems immune to realising this. We spent £8 million on Zokora, who is a great athelete, but in no way is he a Premiership standard midfielder. He had arguably his best performance this season in the second half yesterday playing at CB! The guy simply doesn't have the awareness, vision or decision making to be an effective DM. BAE has all the attributes you'd want in a LB, but there is something seriously lacking in that guys head. Half the time it looks as if he doesn't care. Ghaly was arguably one of our most naturally gifited players we had. He was strong and technically execellent, but if there was a wrong decision to be made, you could be sure Ghaly would make it. Chimbonda is another that has everything you'd want in a player in his positon, but when it comes to make the right choice deffensively, that guy as a natural instinct to make the wrong decision. And now we've got Kaboul. Like Zokora, I'd seen Kaboul and warned about him on the forum before we signed him. I can understand exactly what Comolli see's in him. The guy has so much natural ability and in other circumstnaces may well have been a good option to bring in and slowly develop (at a lower price £4 million). But even as an arm chair fan, watching the French league I could tell the guy wasn't mentally there yet. He is young and there is every chance this could change, but if you look at Comolli's other signings, it wouldn't be a suprise if it didn't.

So far he's spent £25 million+ on the players I've mentioned and none of them seem mentally good enough to play at the level we need. You can't doubt their physical attributes, but do you really need to employ a Director of Football to spot these. Even Spursking can spot a fast, strong, technically sound player, but the real skill is in identifying the less tangible assests a player has to offer and that is what a highly paid proffessional should be able to do. It wouldn't be so bad if they were youngsters we were paying a couple of million for, but we are often paying top whack.

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ChRiStOpHe said:

What I definitely agree with is your comment on potential not always turning out to be what is expected. Freddy Adu, when he was 14, was hailed as the future of football. He's currently at Benfica, which isn't bad, but I'm sure he'll never fulfil the promise he showed back then. I just hope that Parrett becomes the player we hope he can be, because if he is, both Spurs and England really will have a gem.

When Ledley first came into the first team, did you really see him becoming the player he did? I certainly didn't, and I like to think I have a good idea of younger players. From the little I saw of both Gardner and King when they first broke into the team, Big Tone impressed me more.

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joey55 said:

Kaboul continues a very worrying trend in Comolli signings. I haven't been as anti Comolli as many, but if you look at the majorty of his signings the are very Spurkingesque. What I mean by this is that they all have obvious physical attributes and most are skillful and technically sound. But, they all seem to be seriously lacking in the other 50% of what makes a good player - ie mental attributes. No matter how physically impressive or how much technical ability a players has, it is all worthless without being able to read a game, postion themselves and make the rigth decisions etc. Obviously these things can improve with age, but they must be there to some degree to start with, but Comolli seems immune to realising this. We spent £8 million on Zokora, who is a great athelete, but in no way is he a Premiership standard midfielder. He had arguably his best performance this season in the second half yesterday playing at CB! The guy simply doesn't have the awareness, vision or decision making to be an effective DM. BAE has all the attributes you'd want in a LB, but there is something seriously lacking in that guys head. Half the time it looks as if he doesn't care. Ghaly was arguably one of our most naturally gifited players we had. He was strong and technically execellent, but if there was a wrong decision to be made, you could be sure Ghaly would make it. Chimbonda is another that has everything you'd want in a player in his positon, but when it comes to make the right choice deffensively, that guy as a natural instinct to make the wrong decision. And now we've got Kaboul. Like Zokora, I'd seen Kaboul and warned about him on the forum before we signed him. I can understand exactly what Comolli see's in him. The guy has so much natural ability and in other circumstnaces may well have been a good option to bring in and slowly develop (at a lower price £4 million). But even as an arm chair fan, watching the French league I could tell the guy wasn't mentally there yet. He is young and there is every chance this could change, but if you look at Comolli's other signings, it wouldn't be a suprise if it didn't.

So far he's spent £25 million+ on the players I've mentioned and none of them seem mentally good enough to play at the level we need. You can't doubt their physical attributes, but do you really need to employ a Director of Football to spot these. Even Spursking can spot a fast, strong, technically sound player, but the real skill is in identifying the less tangible assests a player has to offer and that is what a highly paid proffessional should be able to do. It wouldn't be so bad if they were youngsters we were paying a couple of million for, but we are often paying top whack.

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