SandroClegane
Well-Known Member
- Jun 27, 2012
- 3,717
- 13,842
Exactly. Who's the last player we sold after one season? Stambouli? And that was only because we made a profit.
Player Watch - Tanguy Ndombele
- Thread starter dtxspurs
- Start date
danielneeds
Kick-Ass
- May 5, 2004
- 24,182
- 48,812
Sadly even if we can get a DM i still think Jose will play Winks or Sissoko ahead of him because he can trust them.
Montalbano
Well-Known Member
- Jan 29, 2018
- 3,928
- 18,703
With the club competing on 4 fronts next season, Tanguy will 100% get his chances.
I wish I could winner this 8 or 10 times- for obvious reasons.
WiganSpur
Well-Known Member
- Aug 31, 2012
- 16,038
- 32,766
I don't think he'd continue with Sissoko and Winks but I do think a DM, Lo Celso, Ndombele midfield three is a pipe dream. I think he would drop one of Winks or Sissoko to make way for Hojbjerg for example. As long as that's Sissoko, then I guess it's still a major improvement - I could live with a Winks Hojbjerg CM2.
LeParisien
Wrong about everything
- Mar 5, 2018
- 3,212
- 8,170
Dw - « things move fast in football » etc. Nobody who is willing to share outside of official channels has consistently good info. Sharing in good faith etc is irrelevant
joey55
Well-Known Member
- May 20, 2005
- 9,694
- 3,200
A big concern I have with NDombele, is that his transfer is badly tinged with what I dub "the GKN factor."
When we signed GKN, though I'd never seen him play, I was extremely confident that he wouldn't make the grade with us. Logic dictated that he was going to be a flop and I was surprised that Levy, a man with a 1st Class honours degree from Cambridge, didn't over rule our scouts and sanctioned the deal.
Other than Brazil, France exports more footballers than any other country in the world. Ligue 1 is by far the most scouted league in Europe. It is therefore a reasonable bet that Marseilles and Lyon (why bother with PSG?) are going to be the most scouted teams in Europe. It's also a very likely, that along with the Dutch, the French U21 team will be the most scouted European international team. I don't have any definitive proof of that, but I think it's fair to say no one would bet against it and that it's very likely to be true and if not, certain to be be very close to true.
So, GKN was a French U21 international, playing for Marseilles and therefore would have been scouted numerous times, by every top level club in Europe. Though not well known to the football viewing public, it's fair to say GKN would have been one of the most watched players in Europe. Yet somehow, he was available to us for £5 million. Surely when our scouts, or player buying committee, approached Levy, alarm bells should have started ringing. Martial, Dembele and Conman wouldn't have been available for such a low fee with seemingly no competition for his signature. Obviously a business owner needs to have faith in his employees and let them do their job. But at the same time Levy would surely have been wondering why Marseilles, having worked with daily, had decided to let him go for such a low fee? Why weren't the scouts of Madrid, Man Utd, Dortmund etc etc telling their clubs to buy and forcing the price up, as we see with French U21 internationals all the time? It's just the way markets work. The market signals, were telling Levy not to buy him. Levy is almost certainly an Austrian School economist and he committed the cardinal sin of ignoring what the market was telling him in favour of human interference (Keynesian madness!) The season before we ended up with N'jie. How often do you get top quality wingers from Lyon on the cheap? GKN had way more red flags than N'jie.
So back to NDombele. We can all see he's got brilliance in him. We've all seem his games against City and various other full match highlights videos, where he just looks top class. Yet somehow, PSG, Barca, Mardid, City etc didn't blow us out of the water when the bidding started. It's not like a Lloris situation, when there are only so many spots for GK's in European football, due to only 1 starts, they rarely come on as subs and they are rarely rotated. A club of our stature will always be able to attract quality in the GK position, as the number 1 spot at big clubs rarely becomes available. But CM is different. Every top club can have 4 or 5 top quality CM's in their ranks. When a seemingly special talent becomes available, having played in a league known for producing elite league talent, whether they are desperate for a CM or not, there should be no shortage of takers.
So basically, this all leads me to believe, that NDembele's troubles adapting haven't come as the slightest shock to the European giants, who you'd have thought we have been hugely attracted to a talent like him. I suspect they all decided to pass due to the fitness and attitude issues that have been discussed in his time with us. When you look at him on YT, it's almost too good to be true that we'd get a pretty much free run at him and tie the deal up reasonably early in the transfer window. It's not like he was playing in Holland or Eastern Europe, when it's common for the big clubs to be more hesitant. How often does a top class, young player, come from one of the biggest French clubs and not go straight to one of the richest clubs? Of course bargains can be picked up in France, as they can Holland, Belgium and Serbia etc etc. But you've got to be a tad suspicious when a player as obviously talented as NDombele, playing in CM for Lyon, gets passed on by the giants of European football.
Obviously we need to take gambles, as otherwise there is no way to compete with the biggest, richest clubs. But I think the lesson here, is to gamble on players from lesser leagues, rather than gamble big money on players from a league and club, we know traditionally produces for Europe's elite.
Of course, I'm not saying NDombele won't turn things around and that our gamble wont pay off, but even so, I think we have to learn a lesson from this, as we aren't a club that can gamble with such huge fees. We've done our best gambling on players from the lower leagues and smaller European competitions. Modric, Bale, Ali, Verts and so on. I feel we are more likely to find good deals looking in those areas. I'm not convinced that shopping at the big French clubs is a good strategy for us.
When we signed GKN, though I'd never seen him play, I was extremely confident that he wouldn't make the grade with us. Logic dictated that he was going to be a flop and I was surprised that Levy, a man with a 1st Class honours degree from Cambridge, didn't over rule our scouts and sanctioned the deal.
Other than Brazil, France exports more footballers than any other country in the world. Ligue 1 is by far the most scouted league in Europe. It is therefore a reasonable bet that Marseilles and Lyon (why bother with PSG?) are going to be the most scouted teams in Europe. It's also a very likely, that along with the Dutch, the French U21 team will be the most scouted European international team. I don't have any definitive proof of that, but I think it's fair to say no one would bet against it and that it's very likely to be true and if not, certain to be be very close to true.
So, GKN was a French U21 international, playing for Marseilles and therefore would have been scouted numerous times, by every top level club in Europe. Though not well known to the football viewing public, it's fair to say GKN would have been one of the most watched players in Europe. Yet somehow, he was available to us for £5 million. Surely when our scouts, or player buying committee, approached Levy, alarm bells should have started ringing. Martial, Dembele and Conman wouldn't have been available for such a low fee with seemingly no competition for his signature. Obviously a business owner needs to have faith in his employees and let them do their job. But at the same time Levy would surely have been wondering why Marseilles, having worked with daily, had decided to let him go for such a low fee? Why weren't the scouts of Madrid, Man Utd, Dortmund etc etc telling their clubs to buy and forcing the price up, as we see with French U21 internationals all the time? It's just the way markets work. The market signals, were telling Levy not to buy him. Levy is almost certainly an Austrian School economist and he committed the cardinal sin of ignoring what the market was telling him in favour of human interference (Keynesian madness!) The season before we ended up with N'jie. How often do you get top quality wingers from Lyon on the cheap? GKN had way more red flags than N'jie.
So back to NDombele. We can all see he's got brilliance in him. We've all seem his games against City and various other full match highlights videos, where he just looks top class. Yet somehow, PSG, Barca, Mardid, City etc didn't blow us out of the water when the bidding started. It's not like a Lloris situation, when there are only so many spots for GK's in European football, due to only 1 starts, they rarely come on as subs and they are rarely rotated. A club of our stature will always be able to attract quality in the GK position, as the number 1 spot at big clubs rarely becomes available. But CM is different. Every top club can have 4 or 5 top quality CM's in their ranks. When a seemingly special talent becomes available, having played in a league known for producing elite league talent, whether they are desperate for a CM or not, there should be no shortage of takers.
So basically, this all leads me to believe, that NDembele's troubles adapting haven't come as the slightest shock to the European giants, who you'd have thought we have been hugely attracted to a talent like him. I suspect they all decided to pass due to the fitness and attitude issues that have been discussed in his time with us. When you look at him on YT, it's almost too good to be true that we'd get a pretty much free run at him and tie the deal up reasonably early in the transfer window. It's not like he was playing in Holland or Eastern Europe, when it's common for the big clubs to be more hesitant. How often does a top class, young player, come from one of the biggest French clubs and not go straight to one of the richest clubs? Of course bargains can be picked up in France, as they can Holland, Belgium and Serbia etc etc. But you've got to be a tad suspicious when a player as obviously talented as NDombele, playing in CM for Lyon, gets passed on by the giants of European football.
Obviously we need to take gambles, as otherwise there is no way to compete with the biggest, richest clubs. But I think the lesson here, is to gamble on players from lesser leagues, rather than gamble big money on players from a league and club, we know traditionally produces for Europe's elite.
Of course, I'm not saying NDombele won't turn things around and that our gamble wont pay off, but even so, I think we have to learn a lesson from this, as we aren't a club that can gamble with such huge fees. We've done our best gambling on players from the lower leagues and smaller European competitions. Modric, Bale, Ali, Verts and so on. I feel we are more likely to find good deals looking in those areas. I'm not convinced that shopping at the big French clubs is a good strategy for us.
WePlayWednesday
Essex Yid ??
- Jun 14, 2019
- 728
- 3,215
I agree with most of what you said here, with one exception. When we were talking about signing GKN and N’Jie, we were going on. When we concluded the Ndombele deal we had just had our best ever run in the CL and taken notable scalps on the way. We could be considered a Big Club now, despite a blip in this league campaign m.
Big Manager? Yep
Big stadium (empty..)? Yep
Big star players? Yep
Big star signings? Step forth Tanguy.
Whether or not he settles in the league or not, he has the quality, and will undoubtedly settle at a big club, whether it’s Spurs or another...
JayB
Well-Known Member
- Aug 24, 2011
- 6,665
- 26,109
His possession adjusted tackles numbers -- 2.44 per 90 at the 71st percentile -- are better than Winks' (1.55 p90 ranking at 56th percentile) and Sissoko's (1.65 p90 ranking at 65th percentile) according to FBref stats. Despite his poor fitness and work rate, he's actually quite a good tackler, which suggests to me that if he ever sorts out his mentality and puts in the necessary work he could be fairly stout defensively.
ClintEastwould
Well-Known Member
- Jul 3, 2012
- 4,748
- 9,845
DogsOfWar
Well-Known Member
- Jan 12, 2005
- 2,303
- 3,645
One look at our top most expensive signings shows that when we try to shop at the highest level it doesn't go well.
Poch's success was based on getting in Toby, Wanyama, and back-up FB's Trippier and Davies.
When he chucked relatively big money around on the likes of Sissoko, Aurier, Sanchez, and Ndombele it didn't go quite as well and I have no doubt contributed to his downfall.
We need to return to buying players from areas no-one else at our level is scouting at such as the lower leagues in this country or the unfashionable leagues abroad where we will be seen as a big step up.
SpursSince1980
Well-Known Member
- Jan 23, 2011
- 4,755
- 14,487
I do wonder if Jose will be tempted to cash in, if the likes of Inter were willing to meet the same price we paid for him? it would at least bolster the war chest, which may be worth it, if Jose doesn’t have confidence in the player. We can’t have a 60m player on 200k wages per week, playing 40mins every nine games. That is absurd.
We desperately need a replacement for Eriksen. And Ndombele is sadly not the answer, it would seem.
We desperately need a replacement for Eriksen. And Ndombele is sadly not the answer, it would seem.
C0YS
Just another member
- Jul 9, 2007
- 12,780
- 13,817
Not quite. Luka Modric started almost every game for Madrid in all but the first half of his first season there. OK, it helped that Alonso was injured quite a lot but...
Looking exclusively at La liga
Modric
12/13 Available 35g Starts 25g
13/14 Available 35g Starts 29g
Alonso
12/13 Available 30g Starts 22g
13/14 Available 27g Starts 23g
They probably started about the same percentage of games (eyeballing it, not doing the math), but Luka started more games than Alonso both seasons. When both fit, they normally played together. Was sort of controversial at the time, but it worked. When all fit it was normally It was Khedira who made way, not Modric.
So when Alonso left, who do they get in to partner Luka? Toni Kroos. A, at the time, more offensive but similar styled player to Alonso.
Kroos was the player who replaced Alonso. In fact, the spanish Media saw Modric as someone who would player further up, maybe challenge Ozil or Di Maria as a starter. They did not really understand the player they bought. You would think the coaching staff had a different mind, but that is where he played in the first half of the season, before they realised he was more effective from a deeper position.
It is also part of the myth that Modric was made into a complete midfielder in Madrid, 'cos pundits never bothered to pay attention to what he was actually doing at Spurs and in the national team.
Anyway, point is, I don't really buy into it being some great foresight from a club famed for their short term thinking and lack of long termism (it's hard when you are elected into a presidential position).
It's hard to replace a player before they leave. Normally, that requires buying potential and hoping they develop in the way they would like. Most clubs do this to a certain degree, but most of the times clubs end up replacing core players by buying someone in, not always a direct replacement mind.
HedgieSpur
Well-Known Member
- Jan 21, 2020
- 1,470
- 4,971
Completely agree...would be the smartest way to utilise his attributes.
Pochemon94
Well-Known Member
- Aug 6, 2019
- 1,617
- 4,390
Man i almost forgot that prime Cambiasso Zanetti partnership, man I would give up an arm and a leg for them behind Lo celso Moura and Son
spursville
Well-Known Member
- May 7, 2019
- 794
- 1,236
Agreed. The only way out of this mess (which obviously can't be done at a professional club at this level) would be to start him in one of these formations EVERY GAME, sub him when he gets too awful or can't run - almost shame him /persuade him that he needs to do something about his fitness / attitude and at the same time giving him game time/match fitness. Or are we hiding him away so his sell-on value doesn't decrease?
richard_gleeson
Richg
- Jan 31, 2006
- 2,184
- 6,495
Are the alternative option was Stankovic and Motta. Those 4 centre mids are so strong and dominant compared to ours.
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