The Daily ITK Discussion Thread - 29th January

[Hoopspur]

A bola saying we're after a Braga striker AVB has worked with previously, any Portuguese speakers around?

http://www.abola.pt/nnh/ver.aspx?id=379273

I posted on about page 4

http://sportwitness.ning.com/forum/...-the-race-for-his-former-portuguese-striker-t

 

[Misfit]

I'm not sure it's the scouting network that's pony to be honest. I think it's more likely a case of it's not backed by the transfer committee if the findings it produces are not what the committee wants it to.

Good point actually. Might as well get rid of the committee then. Let's just appoint Sherwood as DoF or the tea lady. Might finally produce some direction at least. It's like having a group of us meet up down the pub every couple of weeks to decide which players we sign. Ends up messy and directionless.

Ignore everything I said then. Something needs changing though. Financially it works but c'mon, we're discussing Gary Hooper suddenly these last few days. If that's the direction the committee wants to go in then the committee needs shooting. Or they have no real direction and plan of action about what we need at striker and pounce on anyone they can. Fan-fucking-tastic work guys.

 

[Hitch]

If the chap on the latest Spurs Show is to be believed one of the Directors at Fulham told him he thought Berbatov was going to sign for Spurs but they ran out of time so Fulham slipped in.

Would fit in with various deadline day itk. Even JJ mentioned our interest.

 

[joethfc]

I posted on about page 4

http://sportwitness.ning.com/forum/...-the-race-for-his-former-portuguese-striker-t

I'm generally wary of Portuguese strikers but the headlines write themselves.

 

[arunspurs]

Surely something wrong here. August 30 2073 is a Wednesday

 

[Sum Monsterism]

Erm, I hate to break this to you...

I dunno what you mean...

 

[JUSTINSIGNAL]

Also if all else fails Darren Bent could always come back. When played he does score goals!

No disrespect but fuck off.

 

[talkshowhost86]

€11m for De Jong. Sorry, Steve. Disagree with you on this. It's painfully obvious our scouting network is pony. More for it's lack of direction than anything else. We're linked with obvious candidates, which we simply can't afford, or last minute buys. LDJ and RVW et al have been known about for 3 yrs or so in the smaller leagues. Obviously the big guns don't worry themselves with those kinds of players often, waiting for them develope further. We should be signing these kinds of players though. Like Modric but at striker. Able to grow into formidable players but also good enough to contribute to the team in the meantime.

Anyways, this isn't the scouting thread and I've said my bit.

Negredo and Hooper are OK signings. Graham as a last-minute fall back. Not the actions of a club with a plan though. I understand having a financial plan and sticking to it but let's try and marry that up with a cohesive direction in terms of the players we need. Enough of this shit or bust approach. There's no need for it either.

I think this is spot on. Whilst I massively disagree with the fantasists on this site who think we should be bidding 30m for every striker who they once saw on youtube, there has to be a middle ground between that and only buying cheap last minute options.

We're not living in a world now where the 'up and coming' players are cheap (Modric being a good example), but they are cheaper than the players we are often unrealistically linked with and if it all works out they'll have a big sell on value in any case.

It's obviously not simple, and it's obviously fraught with a certain degree of risk but a club of our stature should have the scouting capabilities to get the decision might more times than not.

We did it with Sandro, Benni, Modric, Vertonghen etc so we know it can be done. I'd just like to see it happen a lot more often.

I think this window though we're not going to see that sort of transfer.

 

[tony0379]

Bayern in for Damiao!

 

[joelstinton14]

I'm sorry but Cisse and Jelavic are not good enough for spurs. If you think Pav had a poor touch then these guys make him look like a cross between Berbatov and Zidane compared to them.

Whos is good enough for us? We can't sign the big players. Every transfer window shows that. If we do its when they are in the twilight of there careers. Top strikers are hard to come by. Sometimes i think we have to risk a signing, and try and develop the player. Players like drogba were 10 times the player when they first joined.

I have to agree with ohwhenthespurs that actually our scouting system is good - bale, sandro, vertonghen, walker, modric etc have been fantastic for us. We brought and sold modric, berbatov and carrick for double our money or more, and if we ever sold bale, sandro et al it would be the same with them. We just need to be a bit more leniant with our dealings.

 

[StanSpur]

Very good shout

I'd agree, Gomis for £1-2m wouldn't be bad for a 1 in 3 striker

 

[alpha]

I don't buy the idea of a stop-gap for LD now, unless of course its a loan. Why? Well why buy a player now for circa 5m and then LD in the summer for say 15m, (TBF is prob' the cheapest Inter will sell him for), when you can save all the time, hassle, agent fees of two players, wages and just buy LD now for 20m. If we're are serious in buying him its either now or never.

 

[theShiznit]

Really? Guy could potentially destroy any dressing room he enters, no where near worth the money being quoted for him IMO.

His firework habit's getting that bad is it?

 

[felmani26]

It's amazing how panicky some of you get!

Just because we haven't signed a striker just yet, it doesn't mean any old forward will do like Danny Graham.

 

[ohwhenthespurs]

Good point actually. Might as well get rid of the committee then. Let's just appoint Sherwood as DoF or the tea lady. Might finally produce some direction at least. It's like having a group of us meet up down the pub every couple of weeks to decide which players we sign. Ends up messy and directionless.

Ignore everything I said then. Something needs changing though. Financially it works but c'mon, we're discussing Gary Hooper suddenly these last few days. If that's the direction the committee wants to go in then the committee needs shooting. Or they have no real direction and plan of action about what we need at striker and pounce on anyone they can. Fan-fucking-tastic work guys.

I totally agree with you mate.
I don't like this committee and I don't like the chairman picking the players.

I understand we need to cut our cloth accordingly, and we don't have the resources of the other clubs competing for the top four.
However, I get the distinct impression the job was sold to AVB under an entirely different set of circumstances. I really don't get the point in telling your manager one thing and then doing something totally different when you start low-balling teams, targeting players from the Z list and unbalancing the squad by stockpiling players in certain positions if they're available at good prices, and loaning out useful squad players and thus unbalancing the squad in other positions, simply to make a small buck here and there, and then leaving other positions woefully undermanned.

The bargain bucket shit that Redknapp brought in last January can't be blamed on him in the context we're now seeing, and several managers in a row appear to have been sold one vision by Daniel Levy then had their hands tied firmly behind their backs when the window came round and told to be accountable for the mess they're left with. The PR operation soon goes to work, to make it clear that the money was there, the manager didn't fancy X, Y or Z player, or we launched an ambitious bid to sign such and such, but it faltered for whatever reason. Hmm..

It's nowhere near as bad as it has been in some previous windows this Jan, but the problems are there for all to see. What's the point in this approach if you have to replace the coach every two years, with the accompanying cost of doing that, and then assemble the core of a new squad in line with the new guy's ideas, only to then start the process again? Save a few quid in the short term by buying a cheaper player that the manager doesn't want, but end up with seven or eight players that your new boss doesn't want, being paid 50,000 a week each and chewing up the wage budget means ultimately that initial saving is wiped out.

I don't know. I've got a lot of admiration for what Daniel Levy's done for Spurs and the change we've seen since I started going in the mid 90s, but I'm not sure this approach is really working anymore.

 

[Danners9]

i would say Ba. maybe.

A 27yr old Senegal international, playing in Germany for many years doesn't count. Football people would be aware of him, he almost moved to Stuttgart in 2009.

I was talking about players like Kolo Toure or Anelka that come obscure clubs or the youth ranks of someone to become a star at their club, not someone who is already in a top league somewhere else but you haven't seen on TV yet.

 

[talkshowhost86]

It's amazing how panicky some of you get!

Just because we haven't signed a striker just yet, it doesn't mean any old forward will do like Danny Graham.

I think the point is that Danny Graham would be better than nothing.

I don't think any of us would argue that he'd be a main choice for us, but if at 7pm on Thursday we still haven't signed a striker then I'd rather bring him in than have nobody.

I think.

 

[SteveH]

Good point actually. Might as well get rid of the committee then. Let's just appoint Sherwood as DoF or the tea lady. Might finally produce some direction at least. It's like having a group of us meet up down the pub every couple of weeks to decide which players we sign. Ends up messy and directionless.

Ignore everything I said then. Something needs changing though. Financially it works but c'mon, we're discussing Gary Hooper suddenly these last few days. If that's the direction the committee wants to go in then the committee needs shooting. Or they have no real direction and plan of action about what we need at striker and pounce on anyone they can. Fan-fucking-tastic work guys.

Nothing to do with committees or even the tea lady - Defoe's injury is behind this talk about Hooper et al. If he was fit we would not bebe in the dodo.

 

[KaribYid]

The ITK train is choo-choo-chooing this morning

Didn't mean to dislike this. Changed

 

[Hitch]

Rather than resorting to someone like Danny Graham surely we might as well just recall Harry Kane? It'll just mean extra wages that we'll be struggling to get off the bill in the next window otherwise.

Not sure about Hooper. He's got the knack, so might be worth a punt as a final alternative (at a small price). Negredo is the only realistic name that I am convinced will make the difference though.