Our Squad 2015/16

[Spursidol]

Updated for N'Jie and Son Heung Min arrival

Thought we needed a thread to look at the squad we’ve got whilst the transfer threads are looking at the players we might sign.

This thread is all about recognising the strength of the core squad for 2015/16, assuming we sell our ‘deadwood’, its not about speculating which players are transfering in, although fair enough to comment where we are weak or need re-inforcing.

Currently the transfers out most Sc’ers are hoping/expecting to see by the end of the transfer window are Kaboul, Chirches, Capoue, Stambouli, Lennon, Holtby, Paulhino, Soldado, Adebayor and possibly Dembele (due to injuries) – 10 in total, of which Paulhino and Hotby (Edit - Capoue 6/7/15), Kaboul 16/7/15, Stambouli 21/7/15, Chirches 30/7/15, Soldado 14/8/15, Lennon 1/9/15 so 8 of the 10 out so far have already left. (Edit - Several ITK's have said we are not selling Dembele) so 8 out of 9 - with Adebayor the lonely remaining player we wanted out by end of TW !

Despite that long list of possible departures, that still leaves a healthy ‘core’ squad to build round, including new signings Trippier, Wimmer (Edit) Alderweireld, N'Jie and Son Heung Min :

GK (2) - Lloris, Vorm,
FB (6) - Walker (A), Rose (C), Davies (A), Yedlin, Tripper (A)
CB (4) - Vertonghen, Fazio, Dier (u21),, Wimmer (Edit) and Alderweireld
CM (4) - Mason (C), Bentaleb (u21), Carroll ( C), Alli (u21) (Edit - add Dembele) per ITK's
AM (5) - Lamela, Townsend (C), Chadli, Eriksen, Pritchard ( C), (Edit and N'Jie, Son Heung Min as WF/striker)
FWD (1) - Kane ( C)

Total – 22 players (Edit - 25 Players)

Club trained (Rose, Mason, Carroll, Townsend, Pritchard, Kane) = 6
Other AssociatedTrained (Walker, Davies, Trippier, ) = 3
Overseas Trained (Lloris, Vorm, Yedlin, Vertonghen, Fazio, Dier, Wimmer, Lamela, Chadli, Eriksen, = 10 (Edit - Total 14 including Dembele) (Edit) and Alderweireld and N'Jie, Son Heung Min
Under 21’s (Bentaleb, Alli) = 2

Additionally we have numerous players coming through the ranks of whom I’d suggest that Veljkovic (CB/CM) is fully capable of playing first team football, with the likes of Walker-Peters (RB/LB), Ball (CB), Carter-Vickers (CB), Winks (Mid), Onomah (CM/AM), Oduwa (AM), Ward (CM, Utility - Edit : Loan to Rotherham) and a few others are all capable of making some appearances, mainly off the bench in less challenging EL/domestic cups or even some PL matches.

So one could argue that the ‘core’ squad above is already stronger than the squad Poch used last season from November onwards.

And if we don’t sell or loan out all the suggested 10 (edit 9 excluding Dembele) outgoings, they will be available to supplement that squad if Poch chooses too..

All of which repeats what we probably all recognise which is that this TW is about selling the players we don’t want and adding good players to improve the squad – other than at striker we have the players to provide depth.

But the strength of the core squad we’ve already got shouldn’t be ignored – and the expected signings of a CM and a striker should produce a very interesting young squad which can be the basis to build from in future years.

 

[Spursidol]

For the first time for a good few years, it looks like the squad will have about 50% UK trained players, and conversely only about 50% overseas trained players.

A mark of how much better UK coaching (certainly at youth level) is today, than it used to be

 

[Spursidol]

The Outs with guestimated wages PW

Paulhino £60k - Sale confirmed
Holtby £70k - Sale confirmed
Kaboul £ 50k - Sale confirmed 16 July
Chirches £30k - Sale confirmed 30 July
Capoue £40k - Sale confirmed 6 July
Adebayor £110k
Soldado £70k - Sale confirmed 14 August
Stambouli £30k - Sale confirmed 21 July
Lennon £50k Sale confirmed 1 September
Dembele £50k (Edit - ITK says we are keeping him)

Total £560k so maybe £26m+ pa, even £30m pa in wages

Worth getting them off the books !

 

[McFlash]

I'm not sure that I want Stambouli to leave tbh. If we clear out the older of our mids, which seems to be the plan, I quite like the idea of keeping him in the squad.
From what I've seen of him, he's quite a tenacious and tidy player. Maybe not a world beater but handy to have nonetheless.
I'd like to see him given more of a chance at least.

 

[Spursidol]

I'm not sure that I want Stambouli to leave tbh. If we clear out the older of our mids, which seems to be the plan, I quite like the idea of keeping him in the squad.
From what I've seen of him, he's quite a tenacious and tidy player. Maybe not a world beater but handy to have nonetheless.
I'd like to see him given more of a chance at least.

I must admit to being in 2 minds on Stambouli. I was expecting to see a lot more of him last season, especially after Capoue disappeared from the squad. Yet Poch didn't rotate Mason and Bentaleb at all, even when it became apparent that they were tiring from playing every weekend and almost every mid week match.

When Stambouli played he looked ok, but never seemed to be at the level I was expecting (although to be fair he never had a run in the team) with rumours of him struggling for fitness, perhaps because of the lack of a good pre-season ? But I'd have thought he would have caught up with fitness before Christmas, let alone by the end. On Monday they come back for pre-season training, so if its fitness I'd expect Poch to be keeping a very close eye on how Stambouli performs (and I'd almost expect him to have told Stambouli to keep his fitness up over the summer holiday) - there is at least first team pre-season match in mid July behind closed doors where I'm sure Poch will be looking at 'fringe' players like Stambouli to see if he wants to keep them or not.

IMO with a core squad of Mason,, Bentaleb, Carroll, Alli and other younger CM's we need an experienced CM who can help all of them develop yet also be a first team starter. If we cannot find one, then rather than buy someone at the last moment, I'd certainly keep Stambouli, and quite possibly Dembele to fill that role as although both Mason and Bentaleb have now got a season under their belt, I do think we need other experienced players in that group...

 

[Strikeb4ck]

I don't get everyone that wants Stambouli gone...he's done pretty well for us? Remember the game at the Lane when Stambouli man marked Rooney and took him out of the game? Rooney had one chance in the entire 90 minutes and was in good form at the time.

Also don't think Dembele will be sold, and I'd be surprised if both Ade and Soldado left.

 

[yiddo23]

Lloris/vorm

Trippier/yedlin/walker will be injured forever
Fazio/dier
Vert/wimmer
Rose/davies

New cm/stambouli/milos
Bentaleb/mason/alli

Lamela/townsend/yedlin?
Eriksen/pritchard/dembele
Chadli/new

Kane/new/....yedlin?

 

[DanielCHillier]

Lloris/vorm

Trippier/yedlin/walker will be injured forever
Fazio/dier
Vert/wimmer
Rose/davies

New cm/stambouli/milos
Bentaleb/mason/alli

Lamela/townsend/yedlin?
Eriksen/pritchard/dembele
Chadli/new

Kane/new/....yedlin?

I think we should definitely try Yedlin on the RW in some Europa League group matches, when he came on for the US in that position he completely changed the completion of the game.

 

[McFlash]

Didn't Stambo also play rb back for a game, maybe due to subs etc? I seem to remember him showing some versatility and doing quite a good job but it might well have all just been a dream.
You can never have too many options for right back, I find!

 

[McFlash]

I think we should definitely try Yedlin on the RW in some Europa League group matches, when he came on for the US in that position he completely changed the completion of the game.

Yep, I'm excited about this lad too. His pace gives me a bit of a lob-on and if he shows willingness to learn... He could turn into a handy weapon to have in the armoury.

 

[St José Dominguez]

I want a squad of 22 with 3 or 4 youth players making up the numbers. Two for each position.

GK - Lloris, Vorm

RB - Tripper, Walker
CB - Dier, Fazio
CB - Vertonghen, Wimmer
LB - Rose, Davies

CM - Bentaleb, Mason
CM - New CM, Dembele

LWF - New WF, Chadli (Also 3rd choice ST)
CAM - Eriksen, Pritchard
RWF - Lamela, Townsend

ST - Kane, New striker

Youth: Veljkovic, Alli (never kicked a ball in championship let alone PL and optimistic to assume ready to be back up CM), Winks, Onomah.

Dunno who starts out of Chadli or Lamela just know Chadli, Eriksen and Lamela as a trio doesn't work for me.

On top of who has already gone that would mean Chiriches, Kaboul, Yedlin (loan), Stambouli, Carroll, Lennon, Adebayor and Soldado all leaving.

Just to arrive at that squad it's a hell of a lot of work and I'm still not 100% with it.

 

[McFlash]

I forgot about Townsend! I wouldn't be sad to see him go though.
I just find him infuriating and too one dimensional, almost something of the Jenas about him in a sense. Doesn't quite deliver the talent that he has on a regular enough basis and we have several other options for the wide positions that now offer more IMO.

 

[Spursidol]

Not a current thread on Ryan Mason, so thought this is a good place for Owen Hargreaves comments on him.

;;Hargreaves, meanwhile, has been impressed by another late-blooming, homegrown midfielder in Ryan Mason, who rose from relative obscurity to see off the challenge for a first-team place at Tottenham Hotspur from several established internationals.

"For a young player who was on loan at Swindon Town last year to come and be a feature of a Tottenham midfield, be one of their best players and go on to make an England appearance as well," said Hargreaves. "He's added goals, power and assists to the team and he has a bright future not only for Tottenham but England as well.

"For a young player to outplay three 'A' internationals in Dembele, Capoue and Paulinho he deserves a ton of credit."

http://m.premierleague.com/en-gb/ne...e-season-review-2014-15-jordan-henderson.html

 

[Spursidol]

I forgot about Townsend! I wouldn't be sad to see him go though.
I just find him infuriating and too one dimensional, almost something of the Jenas about him in a sense. Doesn't quite deliver the talent that he has on a regular enough basis and we have several other options for the wide positions that now offer more IMO.

At the moment OP shows 5 AM's for the 3 positions, so arguably one AM short. If we take JJ's ITK (below) we have Dembele as well (but he's injury prone so only available part of the time), and he's better centrally rather than RW

JJetset said: ↑ We wont shift Dembele unless we get an astronomically amazing offer come in for him. Which wont happen.

If Yedlin can play RW in PL, then that's another option, but I think we need to see if he can at PL level and by the sounds of things he'll be with US team, for much of or all pre-season, so not sure if we can count on him.

We may also sign a striker/wide forward, but all the ones we've been linked with so far have played on the left even when right footed, so we may not gain a right sided forward that way.

Amongst the youth, the only player who could play as a right winger and is almost ready for the first team is Nathan Oduwa, but he usually plays on the left, and I doubt if Poch would want to play him weeks in week out, I suspect its going to be just a few appearances.

So with an existing long list of players who rarely played to sell this TW, I think Poch will want to keep Townsend as there is no easy alternative to upgrading the RW. Poch might also be thinking that Lamela needs to get into his potential world class player mode rather than the inconsistent player we've seen to date before deciding if we need to buy a player who will upgrade the right wing area, and if so whether he wants to sell Lamela, Townsend or both. But I don't think that will happen this TW, just too many other things to do.

 

[HotspurFC1950]

Good OP.

Re Yedlin. Hope he goes well but it's not all about pace. Teams can defend that. I haven't seen any wide Spurs player coached as to how to get past defenders Walker included. I find the obvious lack of coaching very surprising.

 

[Blake Griffin]

eriksen is an issue imo, he can't play 10. on both sides of the ball he's become a weak link and although the popular opinion on here was to blame mason(and bentaleb to a lesser extent) for our defensive frailties, it's eriksen's job to shield them when we don't have the ball, something dembele has shown to be far superior at.

 

[Spursidol]

eriksen is an issue imo, he can't play 10. on both sides of the ball he's become a weak link and although the popular opinion on here was to blame mason(and bentaleb to a lesser extent) for our defensive frailties, it's eriksen's job to shield them when we don't have the ball, something dembele has shown to be far superior at.

Think last season he was simply played too much and what you are describing was more of his second half of the season.

I'm hoping that Pritchard plays as Eriksen's alternate this coming season and that Eriksen has sufficient rest so as to play better - and I wouldn't rule out Pritchard looking as good or even better than Eriksen. But its all to do for Pritchard

 

[TheGreenLily]

I forgot about Townsend! I wouldn't be sad to see him go though.
I just find him infuriating and too one dimensional, almost something of the Jenas about him in a sense. Doesn't quite deliver the talent that he has on a regular enough basis and we have several other options for the wide positions that now offer more IMO.

I think many of us would be elated.

 

[TheGreenLily]

I want a squad of 22 with 3 or 4 youth players making up the numbers. Two for each position.

GK - Lloris, Vorm

RB - Tripper, Walker
CB - Dier, Fazio
CB - Vertonghen, Wimmer
LB - Rose, Davies

CM - Bentaleb, Mason
CM - New CM, Dembele

LWF - New WF, Chadli (Also 3rd choice ST)
CAM - Eriksen, Pritchard
RWF - Lamela, Townsend

ST - Kane, New striker

Youth: Veljkovic, Alli (never kicked a ball in championship let alone PL and optimistic to assume ready to be back up CM), Winks, Onomah.

Dunno who starts out of Chadli or Lamela just know Chadli, Eriksen and Lamela as a trio doesn't work for me.

On top of who has already gone that would mean Chiriches, Kaboul, Yedlin (loan), Stambouli, Carroll, Lennon, Adebayor and Soldado all leaving.

Just to arrive at that squad it's a hell of a lot of work and I'm still not 100% with it.

This my whole concern about our... the CM area is stupidly weak...

Infact, I call it shit and in it's current form, do not expect us to push on much from last season.

 

[Blake Griffin]

paulinho gone. holtby gone. capoue and stambouli going. well done levy, now just don't undo that good work by blowing it all on more average blockers.