The January Transfer Scouting Thread

[JUSTINSIGNAL]

It’s time to shit or get off the pot.

There’s no point building a world class Stadium and training ground and hiring an elite coach and his staffing team, getting a £150m investment into the club from the owner and then not aiming for this, but especially when you’ve bought in a world class DoF in Paratici to make it happen.

I’m also not saying we need a raft of £100m players either. Lloris, Son and more recently Deki, Romero and Bentancur shows that you can get the right quality players in for a price that works for us.

I get that the stadium build and then COVID set is back a bit, but the club need to (and I believe will) step up and do what’s needed now.

This is all well and good. Our problem is we are really struggling to sell players due to most clubs in europe being broke. There is only so much money we can spend without having any incoming revenue. There is also the issue of squad spaces/HG quota to consider.

 

[brasil_spur]

This is all well and good. Are problem is we are really struggling to sell players due to most clubs in europe being broke. There is only so much money we can spend without having any incoming revenue. There is also the issue of squad spaces/HG quota to consider.

I mean I sort of get it, but the reality, even more so now than it has been, is that if as a club we have actual ambitions of top 4 and CL qualification, let alone winning some silverware, there is simply no option but to cut our loses on players that were shit purchases.

Conte has been clear about this - he doesn't want his time in charge to be impacted by the shit decisions of a crappy regime that came before him. If we are truly serious about sustaining our place in the top 4 and CL and want to challenge for silverware then we must back Conte. In order to back Conte we must give up on worrying about player recoup fees for the badly bought players we acquired before his time.

If we're happy with top 6-8 each season and fuck all chance of silverware, then as a club we can feel free to worry about recouping money from bad purchases in a down market. But it will end up cost us far more. CL alone is worth circa. £50-80m, it's therefore worth writing off a chunk of that amount just to stay in the competition. Also with Paratici and a proper regime at the club now we shouldn't keep making these purchasing mistakes.

But on the budget side, let's say we cut prices on players to get them sold:

Sanchez - £15m, Emerson - £15m, Reguilon - £10m, Rodon - £15m, Ndombele - £20m, Lo Celso - £15m

That's £90m right there. We for sure have £50m available from the £150m. So that's a total budget so far of £140m.

Let's assume we use a further £30m from the CL money now we've made it to the knockout stage and then let's add another £30m for next summers transfer budget.

So that's a very conservative £200m that we have to spend on 6 players over Jan and the summer.

Again we don't necessarily need big money players in all positions, we can easily find quality players in the £25m-40m range, even more so if we shop in Jan from the pool of players with contracts expiring in the summer.

The HG issue needs to be looked at, but of those players we most need to replace (Emerson, Sanchez & Moura/Gil) - none of them are HG anyway, so it's one-for-one.

 

[brasil_spur]

Does he? I must have missed that thanks make.

I'd also missed this too until last week, turns out the CL now allow non English clubs that play in the English League to count as HG, which is frankly about time. Also would mean Rodon, should he return, would also be HG.

 

[VancouverSpurs]

A player who has come to mind for me recently is Ivan Toney. Is he not the perfect long-term replacement for Kane? He's a proper #9, creative, free-kick/PK taker and home-grown. In the summer, I can see us pulling a Richy and plonking 60m down for him and daring Brentford to refuse it. That would be a real statement of intent to Conte, Kane, etc.

 

[Wick3d]

A player who has come to mind for me recently is Ivan Toney. Is he not the perfect long-term replacement for Kane? He's a proper #9, creative, free-kick/PK taker and home-grown. In the summer, I can see us pulling a Richy and plonking 60m down for him and daring Brentford to refuse it. That would be a real statement of intent to Conte, Kane, etc.

Most likely to be banned due to betting offences. I don't think the club would be wise to go anywhere near him at the moment.

 

[Bluto Blutarsky]

A player who has come to mind for me recently is Ivan Toney. Is he not the perfect long-term replacement for Kane? He's a proper #9, creative, free-kick/PK taker and home-grown. In the summer, I can see us pulling a Richy and plonking 60m down for him and daring Brentford to refuse it. That would be a real statement of intent to Conte, Kane, etc.

News comes at you fast...

 

[VancouverSpurs]

Most likely to be banned due to betting offences. I don't think the club would be wise to go anywhere near him at the moment.

Thanks for the heads-up. I just read this article. It lists some precedents (including a pair of players who had 757 breaches of the betting rule and got 5 month bans). All in all, if he accepts the breaches and the resultant ban, I would expect him to get something similar or less than that length of ban. Obviously we have to wait for the details to come out and see how bad his offending behaviour was. But assuming that it was something along the lines of what the others in that article did, I would not hesitate to sign him. He's not alone in breaching these rules and Trippier's case shows that your reputation/playing ability is not permanently harmed as a result. He's way too talented for this to prevent us from looking at him. If anything, it could lead to a price reduction.

 

[Dunc2610]

Thanks for the heads-up. I just read this article. It lists some precedents (including a pair of players who had 757 breaches of the betting rule and got 5 month bans). All in all, if he accepts the breaches and the resultant ban, I would expect him to get something similar or less than that length of ban. Obviously we have to wait for the details to come out and see how bad his offending behaviour was. But assuming that it was something along the lines of what the others in that article did, I would not hesitate to sign him. He's not alone in breaching these rules and Trippier's case shows that your reputation/playing ability is not permanently harmed as a result. He's way too talented for this to prevent us from looking at him. If anything, it could lead to a price reduction.

You'd sign a banned player?? ? ?

 

[mdharris]

Pedro Porro would be my signing of choice.

Rotation for Kulusevski, in the same mould, would also be nice. Someone technically good, can deliver a good ball. Maddison perhaps, but can he play RWF?

 

[BorjeSpurs]

It’s time to shit or get off the pot.

There’s no point building a world class Stadium and training ground and hiring an elite coach and his staffing team, getting a £150m investment into the club from the owner and then not aiming for this, but especially when you’ve bought in a world class DoF in Paratici to make it happen.

I’m also not saying we need a raft of £100m players either. Lloris, Son and more recently Deki, Romero and Bentancur shows that you can get the right quality players in for a price that works for us.

I get that the stadium build and then COVID set is back a bit, but the club need to (and I believe will) step up and do what’s needed now.

I do find it funny how Spurs fans take the stadium & training ground for granted and want money spent on transfers whereas United fans take their money spent on transfers for granted and want more money spent on their stadium and training ground.

 

[DogsOfWar]

I mean I sort of get it, but the reality, even more so now than it has been, is that if as a club we have actual ambitions of top 4 and CL qualification, let alone winning some silverware, there is simply no option but to cut our loses on players that were shit purchases.

Conte has been clear about this - he doesn't want his time in charge to be impacted by the shit decisions of a crappy regime that came before him. If we are truly serious about sustaining our place in the top 4 and CL and want to challenge for silverware then we must back Conte. In order to back Conte we must give up on worrying about player recoup fees for the badly bought players we acquired before his time.

If we're happy with top 6-8 each season and fuck all chance of silverware, then as a club we can feel free to worry about recouping money from bad purchases in a down market. But it will end up cost us far more. CL alone is worth circa. £50-80m, it's therefore worth writing off a chunk of that amount just to stay in the competition. Also with Paratici and a proper regime at the club now we shouldn't keep making these purchasing mistakes.

But on the budget side, let's say we cut prices on players to get them sold:

Sanchez - £15m, Emerson - £15m, Reguilon - £10m, Rodon - £15m, Ndombele - £20m, Lo Celso - £15m

That's £90m right there. We for sure have £50m available from the £150m. So that's a total budget so far of £140m.

Let's assume we use a further £30m from the CL money now we've made it to the knockout stage and then let's add another £30m for next summers transfer budget.

So that's a very conservative £200m that we have to spend on 6 players over Jan and the summer.

Again we don't necessarily need big money players in all positions, we can easily find quality players in the £25m-40m range, even more so if we shop in Jan from the pool of players with contracts expiring in the summer.

The HG issue needs to be looked at, but of those players we most need to replace (Emerson, Sanchez & Moura/Gil) - none of them are HG anyway, so it's one-for-one.

It's not because that money is written off against their value on the books.
So, if we bought Ndombele for 60 million his value on the books after 3 years is still 30 million.
So if we sell him for 15 million we make a 15 million loss not a 15 million gain.

 

[Ghost Hardware]

I’m really curious to see if clubs will be taking the next month to try and tie up early deals for when the window opens or if it will be business as usual and everyone will wait until January.

Obviously it would be hugely beneficial for us to get players in the door on Jan 1st but I guess we will also be looking for last minute or opportune deals which usually don’t start popping up until mid/late in a window. Although it didn’t really help or effect us in summer.

 

[VancouverSpurs]

You'd sign a banned player?? ? ?

The answer is "Yes, but it depends."

1. We have to wait to see what punishment he gets and when it would be enforced (i.e. does he challenge the charge/punishment, etc).

2. Assuming he gets something equal to/less than 5 months, yes, I would sign him. He's that talented, English, young, plays a premium position where we need strengthening, etc. If we could sign him for a little bit of a discount because of his ban, so be it.

3. Bear in mind we signed Bissouma before the sexual assault charges were dropped publicly. We had clearly done our homework, knew the charges were either going to be dropped/very likely to be dropped. Yet, signing him before they were publicly dropped entitled us to a discount as we were taking on a risk that somehow they would not be dropped.

4. Compare Bissouma's charge to Toney's. All due respect but betting breaches of the FA's professional regulations do not compare to the seriousness of a sexual assault charge. So yes, if we were willing to sign Bissouma despite the possibility of a serious charge lingering over his head, I would imagine that we would not bat an eyelash to sign Toney despite the fact that he was banned/about to be banned at the time.

5. All of this is based on the assumption that we would do our homework as to Toney as a player generally (personality, commitment, work ethic, team ethic, character). We can't simply assume that he will learn his lesson. We need to ensure we are not buying someone who is a bad egg generally (in which case the betting stuff would be the tip of the iceberg).

All this said, I have no news/rumours tying us to Toney. I just floated him as a perfect purchase to give us more depth in precisely the area(s) we need.

 

[elfy]

The answer is "Yes, but it depends."

1. We have to wait to see what punishment he gets and when it would be enforced (i.e. does he challenge the charge/punishment, etc).

2. Assuming he gets something equal to/less than 5 months, yes, I would sign him. He's that talented, English, young, plays a premium position where we need strengthening, etc. If we could sign him for a little bit of a discount because of his ban, so be it.

3. Bear in mind we signed Bissouma before the sexual assault charges were dropped publicly. We had clearly done our homework, knew the charges were either going to be dropped/very likely to be dropped. Yet, signing him before they were publicly dropped entitled us to a discount as we were taking on a risk that somehow they would not be dropped.

4. Compare Bissouma's charge to Toney's. All due respect but betting breaches of the FA's professional regulations do not compare to the seriousness of a sexual assault charge. So yes, if we were willing to sign Bissouma despite the possibility of a serious charge lingering over his head, I would imagine that we would not bat an eyelash to sign Toney despite the fact that he was banned/about to be banned at the time.

5. All of this is based on the assumption that we would do our homework as to Toney as a player generally (personality, commitment, work ethic, team ethic, character). We can't simply assume that he will learn his lesson. We need to ensure we are not buying someone who is a bad egg generally (in which case the betting stuff would be the tip of the iceberg).

All this said, I have no news/rumours tying us to Toney. I just floated him as a perfect purchase to give us more depth in precisely the area(s) we need.

Sorry, that's mental.

It's not like the Trippier case (which was him telling a mate he was off to Madrid and telling him to "lump on")

This is more akin to the Joey Barton case which resulted in an 18 month ban and ended his career.

Following your logic, you think it's good business to pay millions of pounds for a player that will not be able to play for 18 months, won't be match fit at the end of it due to not kicking a ball competitively, so probably closer to 2 years?

All the time paying him what, 100k a week?

Sorry buddy, I like the player but anyone signing him is batshit crazy.

 

[VancouverSpurs]

Sorry, that's mental.

It's not like the Trippier case (which was him telling a mate he was off to Madrid and telling him to "lump on")

This is more akin to the Joey Barton case which resulted in an 18 month ban and ended his career.

Following your logic, you think it's good business to pay millions of pounds for a player that will not be able to play for 18 months, won't be match fit at the end of it due to not kicking a ball competitively, so probably closer to 2 years?

All the time paying him what, 100k a week?

Sorry buddy, I like the player but anyone signing him is batshit crazy.

All due respect, we don't know yet. As I said, it all depends on the actual alleged conduct. Compare what we know of Barton's conduct vs. Toney's (which is not much at all at this stage). According to this article, Barton was "accused [...] of having placed 1,260 bets on football matches between 2006 and 2013. This figure included at least five matches in which he was a player." Consider also that Barton was 34 when the ban was put in force. I'm sure that a younger player with the prime of their career ahead of them would likely not receive a 18 month sentence.

What we know of Toney's alleged offences thus far:
- “It is alleged that the Brentford FC forward breached FA rule E8 232 times between 25 February 2017 and 23 January 2021.”

I think Spurs should do their homework, get in touch with Toney's people (without tapping up) and see what the actual details are. I don't see how any of this is problematic.

FWIW, I agree that if he was facing 18 months out of the game, spend the 40 million elsewhere. But if it's 6-9 months out? Buying him would be a good investment if you consider he would ensure a potentially world-class English striker could inherit Kane's position.

 

[Dunc2610]

Buying a player and not being able to play him is just illogical. 9 months is the best part of a season! And I'm pretty sure Conte isn't about buying players he can't actually play!

 

[Nine while nine]

There seem to be two schools of thought on how we should approach the potential signing of a player who may be suspended.

Does anyone have contact details for rupstoh? I'm sure he'd be able to clear it up.

 

[guy]

I really like toney as a player, he is a top notch finisher that is certain. At 26 he is really in his prime and would ordinarily be a great signing.

He only has a week to respond to the charges so the whole thing might all come to light and punishment finalised before the January window anyway.

 

[Finchyid]

Pedro Porro would be my signing of choice.

Rotation for Kulusevski, in the same mould, would also be nice. Someone technically good, can deliver a good ball. Maddison perhaps, but can he play RWF?

Pedro Porro just makes me think pedro pony. Can also bring Danny Dog with him

 

[DannyNZ]

Porro or Dumfries to upgrade RWB and De Vrij to upgrade CB and Carrasco to provide cover for Kulu and better quality down that left side.