The Daily ITK Discussion Thread 1st January 2019

[luptic]

Instead of invest £70m in the first place, what about investing in the right scouting network to enable us to sign these players before their fees grow?
When was the time we actually signed a young not known player (except Dele) who turned out to be very good?
There are players out there if your scouting network is working well.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

We can't begrudge that either as we would want a lot more i imagine. We need a top CM. If this is who we regard as the ideal candidate and the money is there then we need to bite the bullet and do it. But nothing is ever as simple as that.

Indeed. How much would we ask for Winks?

 

[Joeyboey]

We should be exploring deals the way Liverpool did, and now Chelsea have done. Lock up the deals now, loan back for the rest of the season, but ensure that we have the players we need at the start of the summer instead of waiting until the end of the Window.

Chelsea just over-paid for Pulisic, and are presumably spending Hazard money, but its one less deal they will have to worry about in the summer.

Other ITK suggests that’s the plan but we’re doing our shopping in the Championship (Lads from Hull and Norwich for example).

 

[razzmaster]

Indeed. How much would we ask for Winks?

40

 

[longtimespur]

Instead of invest £70m in the first place, what about investing in the right scouting network to enable us to sign these players before their fees grow?
When was the time we actually signed a young not known player (except Dele) who turned out to be very good?
There are players out there if your scouting network is working well.

I'm not disagreeing, as we don't manage to find these youngsters very often, but that hardly stands re the players like VVD, Pulisic and Emerson which is whom we appear to be trying to buy in the likes of N'Dombele.

 

[dtxspurs]

Typical posturing from Aulas (Lyon chairman) IMO. He’s a bit of a fantasist. I still remember his antics when we were trying to buy Lloris.

That said, we won’t get Ndombele.

As you said this seems to be the way Aulas operates. The deal for Fekir that fell through was what 46 mil last summer? He was their captain and best player at the time. I can't imagine Ndombele will realistically leave for almost double that.

 

[jay2040]

We should be exploring deals the way Liverpool did, and now Chelsea have done. Lock up the deals now, loan back for the rest of the season, but ensure that we have the players we need at the start of the summer instead of waiting until the end of the Window.

Chelsea just over-paid for Pulisic, and are presumably spending Hazard money, but its one less deal they will have to worry about in the summer.

Agree with most yet premature to say it is over priced deal for Pulisic.

 

[S17PUR]

Instead of invest £70m in the first place, what about investing in the right scouting network to enable us to sign these players before their fees grow?
When was the time we actually signed a young not known player (except Dele) who turned out to be very good?
There are players out there if your scouting network is working well.

Football is now so widely accessible at all levels through the media that unearthing a gem is not anywhere near as easy (or cheap) as it used to be, even a few years ago. The nearest equivalent to Dele was probably Ryan Sessegnon last summer or perhaps even earlier - we looked at him and decided he was too expensive if I remember rightly from the ITK. He's not exactly killed it this season, so maybe his price hasn't gone up too much, but I'm sure it hasn't gone down. Sancho is I guess the anomaly, but didn't we try and fail to bring him in too?

We were also strongly linked to N'Dombele, De Ligt and De Jong last year when they presumably would have been available for less. We used to take a risk on these types of player at £10-15m but these signings now cost £25-40m and aside from Sanchez, we've not really got involved at these prices. If we're not going to pay £70m+ for players then we need to start taking these calculated risks if we want to stand a chance of progressing.

 

[C0YS]

Instead of invest £70m in the first place, what about investing in the right scouting network to enable us to sign these players before their fees grow?
When was the time we actually signed a young not known player (except Dele) who turned out to be very good?
There are players out there if your scouting network is working well.

Trippier, Foyth, Dier and Gazzinga all instantly spring to mind as players who have contributed to the club who did not exactly have the highest rating when we signed them. Thing is at this level it is hard to find 'unknown' talents in the market, namely because it's much more likely that players are known about before than in the past. Similarly, we are now too good to gamble so effectively. Ultimately Janssen, Nkoudou and Nijie were all flops. In Southampton they may of thrived and developed, in the top 6 it's much harder.

I think the ITK which suggests that Poch is after only few targets he believes could push the club forward is the right way to go. We need to push on and our youth team is good enough to fill the gaps, not take needless risks.

 

[Primativ]

We are absolutely now at the time where we need to go all in for our transfer targets and look to sign players who elevate us as a team.

If we are absolutely convinced that N’Dombele is who we want in CM, do the deal. Lyon are a selling club anyway.

We can’t keep trying to go against the market by signing players who aren’t good enough for low fees.

Our transfer record is 40 million or so for Sanchez which is laughable really in 2019 for a title challenging EPL club.

 

[Mate]

Agree with most yet premature to say it is over priced deal for Pulisic.

He certainly has the potential to be worth triple that amount in the future. Besides I imagine he would be a great revenue generator for American fans, much like Son is with us.

 

[PhezTHFC]

He certainly has the potential to be worth triple that amount in the future. Besides I imagine he would be a great revenue generator for American fans, much like Son is with us.

don't do that in here!!

N'dombele pulled Man City apart in both legs and ran the midfield. Very powerful and very good passing. Better than sissoko and a vast improvement on all our CMs. If we have the opportunity and the funds it needs to be done end of.

 

[Joely]

We won't pay anywhere near what Lyon want for Ndombele and it sounds like City now have an interest in him so will probably end up there in the summer. Need to look at more realistic options

 

[Danfunkel]

I agree. sadly.

We have to spend this type of money now. We're on the cusp of something glorious, we can't let it Gerrard now.

 

[U.S. Spurs Fan]

Find it interesting that JJ tweeted the NDombele # as a comparison to the "club record transfer fee" instead of just saying "over 80 mill". If Spurs are using the "club record transfer fee" as a guide to future transfers, there is no way we are getting an impact player that can get into the lineup we have. 40 mill today most likely doesn't get a player that starts for us - more likely a rotation guy that would help but not push to the next level. Pulisic would be an example - he would contribute if he came here but I don't know that he would walk into the starting eleven.

That is all pretty disheartening. The market has changed drastically and seems like Spurs (Poch) want the best players they can get but don't want to pay what they will have to pay to get them (Levy). I wonder if it would be any different if the stadium wasn't built? My guess is no and we would still be having the same discussions.

How does Dortmund do it? That continues to be the best comparison IMO to where Spurs are in the pecking order. If they can't or refuse to pay the fees demanded by clubs for the top prospects, then they have to get those before they become top prospects.

I guess it goes back to what JJ said in his one post about enjoying this team and group and not worrying about the future. This has been a blast of a group to follow for the past three seasons or so and they still have so much upside going forward. It's hard not to think about the future and the group breaking apart eventually, but if JJ says it, then that's probably what we should (try to) do.

 

[Joely]

I agree. sadly.

We have to spend this type of money now. We're on the cusp of something glorious, we can't let it Gerrard now.

We won't spend the money required for the Ndombele's of this world under ENIC imo as I'm firmly of the belief that they have one eye strongly on selling the club and and their philosophy from now on in will be we spend whatever we generate from sales.

I don't think they are interested in having any great net spend or pushing for titles etc at this stage as I think they are preparing to cash out soon and main focus is getting the stadium completed and push through a sale in say a year or so once the stadium is up and running.

 

[rajmak]

We won't spend the money required for the Ndombele's of this world under ENIC imo as I'm firmly of the belief that they have one eye strongly on selling the club and and their philosophy from now on in will be we spend whatever we generate from sales.

I don't think they are interested in having any great net spend or pushing for titles etc at this stage as I think they are preparing to cash out soon and main focus is getting the stadium completed and push through a sale in say a year or so once the stadium is up and running.

Spending what we generate from sales has pretty much been their policy from the outset - our net spending in comparison to other clubs esp the top ones prove it. The problem we have is they are going to want in between £1bn to £2bn for Spurs so is there a buyer out there who would pay that and then provide funds to improve the squad?

 

[ikky]

So does this mean we’ve enquired about him?

 

[PhezTHFC]

So does this mean we’ve enquired about him?

i would imagjne we wouldnt know his price otherwise. But if you take this view it also could mean we may try to do business in january after all but am not holding my breath

 

[shelfmonkey]

We won't pay anywhere near what Lyon want for Ndombele and it sounds like City now have an interest in him so will probably end up there in the summer. Need to look at more realistic options

What are those options? If we don't start to stump up we'll always be 2,3 or 4 steps behind!! Levy has to decide now where he wants the club to go!! My hunch is that he's happy to just rake in the dosh as long as we qualify for the CL!