spurs4europe
misses the snow!
- Oct 11, 2004
- 1,105
- 201
By Martin Smith
There were few smiles on the faces of the Tottenham players as they trooped through Eindhoven airport yesterday morning before catching their chartered flight back to Stansted. An early exit from the Uefa Cup was one thing, the fact that it may have been the last time many of them fly together quite another.
Juande Ramos will have spent the flight contemplating the fact that the Uefa Cup will not sit on his mantelpiece for a third year; he will also have studied the grim faces around him and considered who will be with him next season.
Only last week Ramos was saying that the present squad had three months to show their strengths if they hoped to stay. Since then they have been characteristically erratic: losing at home to PSV Eindhoven, thrashing West Ham, and showing considerable fortitude in fighting back against the Dutch champions. Ramos, though, demands greater consistency,
The comings and goings at Tottenham in the summer could be unprecedented: Ramos is likely to dismantle the side who won the Carling Cup, but for whom the season effectively ended with Wednesday's departure from Europe, albeit after a penalty shoot-out.
Chief among those going out of the door could be Dimitar Berbatov. Another season in the Uefa Cup is unlikely to appeal to a player who, at 27, will want the opportunity to play in the Champions League.
Another overture from long-time admirer Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United might break his resistance. Besides, he has outgrown some distinctly ordinary team-mates at Spurs, and needs to perform with players more attuned to his quick thought processes.
Paul Robinson will almost certainly leave, given Tottenham's reported links with other goalkeepers, most notably Carlos Kameni at Espanyol, and the fact that Ramos was prepared to drop Robinson for 10 games after Christmas in favour of Radek Cerny. Robinson will not want to languish on the bench at a time when he is attempting to reclaim his England place.
Spurs will also try and recoup as much as possible of the £16?million overspend on Darren Bent, who has not only failed to recapture his Ipswich and Charlton form, but has looked nowhere near capable of disrupting the Keane-Berbatov partnership up front. Pascal Chimbonda will already have seen the writing on the wall with the arrival of Alan Hutton in his favoured right-back position.
Hutton, along with Robbie Keane, Jonathan Woodgate, Jermaine Jenas and Ledley King, will form the basis of Ramos' squad for next season.
The pressure, though, is on Damien Comolli, Tottenham's director of football, to identify potential transfer targets who will meet Ramos' approval. Most of players mentioned on the rumour grapevine are based in his home country of Spain, and include defenders Daniel Jarque (Espanyol) and Cata Diaz (Getafe), midfielder Esteban Granero (Real Madrid) and striker Diego Milito (Real Zaragoza).
There is still a degree of confidence within the dressing room, according to Ledley King yesterday. "For us to win something [the Carling Cup] means the season will still go down as a positive year for us," he said. "Now we have the taste of winning, we believe we can go on and do more. We've learnt and we'll come back next year a stronger and better team."
Although any recruitment cannot begin until the summer transfer window opens, the ground work for the 2008-09 campaign is already taking shape. "The target for us now is that we keep improving," Gus Poyet, Ramos' assistant, said, "and that means we have to win as many games as possible between now and the end of the season. We're going to start building for next season starting at Manchester City on Sunday."
i'm not a fan of the article and don't think it's too well written. however, it seems to be one of a number of articles talking about a squad overhaul during the summer so i thought i'd put it up
There were few smiles on the faces of the Tottenham players as they trooped through Eindhoven airport yesterday morning before catching their chartered flight back to Stansted. An early exit from the Uefa Cup was one thing, the fact that it may have been the last time many of them fly together quite another.
Juande Ramos will have spent the flight contemplating the fact that the Uefa Cup will not sit on his mantelpiece for a third year; he will also have studied the grim faces around him and considered who will be with him next season.
Only last week Ramos was saying that the present squad had three months to show their strengths if they hoped to stay. Since then they have been characteristically erratic: losing at home to PSV Eindhoven, thrashing West Ham, and showing considerable fortitude in fighting back against the Dutch champions. Ramos, though, demands greater consistency,
The comings and goings at Tottenham in the summer could be unprecedented: Ramos is likely to dismantle the side who won the Carling Cup, but for whom the season effectively ended with Wednesday's departure from Europe, albeit after a penalty shoot-out.
Chief among those going out of the door could be Dimitar Berbatov. Another season in the Uefa Cup is unlikely to appeal to a player who, at 27, will want the opportunity to play in the Champions League.
Another overture from long-time admirer Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United might break his resistance. Besides, he has outgrown some distinctly ordinary team-mates at Spurs, and needs to perform with players more attuned to his quick thought processes.
Paul Robinson will almost certainly leave, given Tottenham's reported links with other goalkeepers, most notably Carlos Kameni at Espanyol, and the fact that Ramos was prepared to drop Robinson for 10 games after Christmas in favour of Radek Cerny. Robinson will not want to languish on the bench at a time when he is attempting to reclaim his England place.
Spurs will also try and recoup as much as possible of the £16?million overspend on Darren Bent, who has not only failed to recapture his Ipswich and Charlton form, but has looked nowhere near capable of disrupting the Keane-Berbatov partnership up front. Pascal Chimbonda will already have seen the writing on the wall with the arrival of Alan Hutton in his favoured right-back position.
Hutton, along with Robbie Keane, Jonathan Woodgate, Jermaine Jenas and Ledley King, will form the basis of Ramos' squad for next season.
The pressure, though, is on Damien Comolli, Tottenham's director of football, to identify potential transfer targets who will meet Ramos' approval. Most of players mentioned on the rumour grapevine are based in his home country of Spain, and include defenders Daniel Jarque (Espanyol) and Cata Diaz (Getafe), midfielder Esteban Granero (Real Madrid) and striker Diego Milito (Real Zaragoza).
There is still a degree of confidence within the dressing room, according to Ledley King yesterday. "For us to win something [the Carling Cup] means the season will still go down as a positive year for us," he said. "Now we have the taste of winning, we believe we can go on and do more. We've learnt and we'll come back next year a stronger and better team."
Although any recruitment cannot begin until the summer transfer window opens, the ground work for the 2008-09 campaign is already taking shape. "The target for us now is that we keep improving," Gus Poyet, Ramos' assistant, said, "and that means we have to win as many games as possible between now and the end of the season. We're going to start building for next season starting at Manchester City on Sunday."
i'm not a fan of the article and don't think it's too well written. however, it seems to be one of a number of articles talking about a squad overhaul during the summer so i thought i'd put it up
