The Daily ITK Discussion Thread - The Ask a Silly Question Edition 27th August 2013

[Gedson100]

Is anyone else surprised at the limited ITK on BAE - seems to have been out of favour when not fit last season and has not appeared in pre-season. Yet he's still at Spurs.

Not a lot of ITK on incoming LB's either, other than a suggestion that Coentra might come from Real.

Defoe?
Lennon?
Ade?
Benny?

Pretty quiet all round. Any/all could go particularly seemingly Benny but yet we're hearing very little.

 

[Parkie]

Well, 6 minutes since the mention of how well salt mixes with chocolate, yet not a single mention of A&C or spunking over a Dairy Milk (

There was mention of salty chocolate...

 

[Mr Pink]

I'm concerned that as soon as Bale goes, it will allow Madrid to sell to arsenal. Let's hope they want to keep their squad together and adding Bale won't change that!? Enjoying seeing them struggling in the transfer window and us having a pretty successful one.

I'm hoping they get Di Maria and Cabaye! They still havn't addressed their problems with those signings.

What they need is a decent keeper, a commanding CB...a proper midfield presence/enforcer - and a top quality forward. Basically the spine of their team needs addressing.

 

[EnfieldYiddo]

My personal opinion, but we still need 4-5 more signings if we truly want to round out our squad and challenge for bigger and better things than 4th. I'm not saying each of these players need to be worth in excess of 15m in order to have the desired effect.

The sad part is I don't necessarily think that's reasonable with it already being Wednesday now and we haven't signed anyone. Granted, we appear to have Chiriches "all but done" (famous last words). That's one of my big 3-4 signings that include a CB, LB, AM, winger and a striker. Hopefully Erik Lamela will get sorted before the weekend because as the days go by for whatever reason (there's really no reason except for my racing mind) it feels like we get further from having a deal done.

Personally, I think Bale is gone and it's just a matter of all of these dominoes falling into place. So, hopefully we have some ideas lined up and we've been making phone calls to have deals in place but just waiting our confirmation. I think that's incredibly likely with Levy and I don't think he would just add Chiriches and Lamela when it appears he was willing to add those 2 plus Willian.

For me, the best case scenario (keeping in mind players we've been linked with somewhat, not necessarily my pick of random players) would be Chiriches, Coentrao, Lamela, Damiao and Eriksen. That's realistically about a 67-70m outlay (Coentrao counting as about 3m with the Modric money factored in). Is that reasonable? No, probably not. But if it were to happen we're title challengers.

I tend to agree with a lot of what you've said Snarf.

If Bale does finally go I'd hope we have an option to purchase Coentrao. I like Rose's determination but he isn't good enough defensively.

Worrying Ade isn't gone yet, we really need a quality back up striker.

I'm also a sceptic as to whether we'll spend this elusive £30 million we had for Willian. I by no means want a panic buy but surely we can identify a quality no. 10 within a week and purchase them.

I'm afraid to say I'll be left disappointed if our remaining business was as followed:

IN: Chiriches, Lamela
OUT: Bale

 

[Drexl]

The Lazio player, not Chicarito!

Oh, thanks

Isn't the Lazio guy really old?

Chicarito would score for fun for us

 

[Spurs 1961]

That fucking moron, Balague, seems to be under the impression that Spurs give a damn about moving goalposts etc. Newsflash for these arrogant bastards is that some clubs will not be pushed around by anybody, let alone a tosspot organisation drowning in its own debt. After winding Bale up all summer, pay the price or crawl back under the rock you came from and the same goes for that slimy prick, Balague, as well. Honestly, bloody Spanish, who do they think they are ? We should invade. Two reasons now. Their absurd arrogance in this Bale fiasco and Gibraltar.

Balague with a number of others would have no job without RM and Barca and all the promotional stories they print for them. Nice work if you can get it

 

[Snarfalicious]

That's the same 5 players I think we need /might go for. Seems a bit far fetched that we will get them at this stage though, really cant see it.

Edit: Lamela and Vlad in by Thursday. Then between Fri and Mon to sign another 3, possible I suppose lol.

Well, when you look at Vlad and Chiriches they make probably the strongest sense out of the bunch. Vlad appears done and Lamela could be done any hour now (at least, we have to hope that's the case).

Eriksen comes with a Levy-factor about him. He might be available for under 10m in the end. Levy will be all over that shit I have to think, unless he wants to go for a bigger name a la how we went for Willian.

Coentrao's money is relatively moot because of the Modric money apparently functioning as a makeweight of sorts. Even if it's an agreed 15m, we'd only end up paying 3m or so in the end.

As for Damiao, I just think it's so quiet for him that Levy is thinking to himself he might be able to get him for around 15m at this point.

 

[Blackcanary]

Oh, thanks

Isn't the Lazio guy really old?

Chicarito would score for fun for us

He's 28 (which is my age, so IS NOT REALLY OLD, DAMMIT! *Grinds teeth*), so you are right, he's getting on - tremendous player though and would meet our creativity needs.

 

[xtrac]

1) I am my best audience

2) removed everybody last week

3) I really didn't do it

4) but I am scared of his avatar. Effing Stephen king

 

[Gedson100]

IN: Chiriches, Lamela
OUT: Bale

^I don't think you're far wrong there and i'd not be too disillusioned.
Personally, I really want Chadli and Townsend to get a lot of game time so don't want us signing anyone on top of Lamela in the wide forward positions. Strikers still look dodgy; maybe one in, one out. Rose is fine for me, with Verts/Naughton covering. We're not Chelsea or Man City & i'd rather not sideline good players & stockpile too many players.

I can understand why people would want 4/5/6 more but I think we have enough and a good blend. Maybe get Eriksen in too, just for a bit of creativity.

Trouble is, sign Eriksen and Holtby might get marginalised, sign Hulk (or whoever) and when will Townsend ever play? What of Chadli if we get Lamela and Hulk in? It's easy to be seduced by names, but some of the players we already have are excellent and have great scope for improvement & given time to settle will be massive assets.

But they have to play.

Any further problems can be remedied in January.
We are a good side and can compete against anyone til then.

 

[jedimonkey]

Is anyone else surprised at the limited ITK on BAE - seems to have been out of favour when not fit last season and has not appeared in pre-season. Yet he's still at Spurs.

Not a lot of ITK on incoming LB's either, other than a suggestion that Coentra might come from Real.

Problems passing a medical is the latest with Benny I think. Was mentioned a few times in the last week or so.

 

[Scottish Spur]

Dimarzio reporting Bale done for £75m and no players. Not sure I believe that.

 

[thinktank]

Dimarzio reporting Bale done for £75m and no players. Not sure I believe that.

HA HA!

 

[Harley]

Gone absolutely too quiet so does that mean problems? Willian springs to mind. No positive noises from anybody since Sunday all gone quiet. Not like Chriches with substantial quotes from his club and agent.st posted on Lamela thread as I am concerned:

 

[GetSpurredOn]

I do believe that number of signings is possible.
It is believed Chiriches is all but done (don't like that word, but there have been some strong quotes).
Lamela is underway too apparently.
This leaves us a LB, Coentrao has been worked on to some extent. Still sure with the Modric/Bale transfer fees, Coentrao could be sorted easily.
AM/LF, Eriksen is the name being bandied around, and ITK suggests, I believe the quote was, "ours to turn down"... So not beyond the realms of possibility. Inside last year of contract, young but experienced, has Levy deal written all over it.
CF, only really likely to happen if any of our current lot are sold. But there was talk some time back that Damaio was no longer out primary target, but that we would potentially go back later in the window. Not like we haven't already done some groundwork there either is it.

None of these transfers are starting from the beginning, all have had the groundwork done already.

I don't buy into the Hulk talk, but never say never. If he was, then loan with option to buy would be by best bet.

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

Dimarzio reporting Bale done for £75m and no players. Not sure I believe that.

If that's Twitter, get the vaseline out. Here's a link to the help forum, where you'll shortly be posting a thread about how you losing your access is 'harsh'

http://www.spurscommunity.co.uk/index.php?forums/help-forum.12/

 

[bomberH]

I haven't been in direct contact as senior people are very tied up, not the sort of thing one pushes if you know what i mean...!

Ok we'll let you off. Though next time you really should consider standing in the corner of the meeting room with a lampshade on your head, slowly updating SC every time there's a toilet break.

 

[Snarfalicious]

I'd take the most ambiguous ITK ever right now if it gave us something to chew on.

 

[venablesphil]

Gone absolutely too quiet so does that mean problems? Willian springs to mind. No positive noises from anybody since Sunday all gone quiet. Not like Chriches with substantial quotes from his club and agent.st posted on Lamela thread as I am concerned:

Maybe we are so pissed off about the Willian debacle we are trying to keep quiet about what we are doing?

Personally I think the transfer window starts tomorrow night after all the CL teams are finally decided. I imagine a lot of players/agents are waiting to see who is in the CL - Arsenal for example I Bet they have two lists, one for if they made it to CL and one for if they didn't. So some players are probably playing the waiting game to see if a CL team might come in for them, I personally think that there will be an insane amount of movement in the last week of the window and we probably hold the key to it. As soon as either Bale goes or MAn Utd sell Rooney the dominoes will start to fall.

 

[moomin]

Trouble is, sign Eriksen and Holtby might get marginalised, sign Hulk (or whoever) and when will Townsend ever play?

These are not bad problems to have. These are blessings over the course of a long season. I'd much rather have a ridiculously deep squad like Chelsea than one like Arsenal's where injuries are already leaving their side struggling in the 2nd week of the season.

Also if we signed hulk who gives a shit about whether Townsend gets playing time? Hulk is an amazing player and is insanely underrated by our fans/the people on this forum for some reason. We should be thrilled at the prospect of signing him, not worried about how his signing would affect friggin Andros Townsend's playing time.