TOTTENHAM ARE STILL A BIG CLUB!

i'm not even sure i know 1 player this refers to. gilberto maybe?

vieira, flamini, maybe hleb? decent transfer fees for the first and the last, sure, but still pretty happy to let first team players go for what seems like no particular reason.

have you never seen hleb play? being fucking frustrating and essentially pointless (remember we bought him to replace the super effective pires and replaced him with nasri who is looking like he will win poty) also vieira was shit in his last season and even if he may have been at winning sides in italy, was shit for them too.

noone was exactly happy to see flamini run down his contract.

I'm eagerly anticipating the Arsenal tantrum when Bale beats Nasri.

Should probably be Malouda over both, but he's faded a bit recently.

oh come on, bale would win it for some very good european games, he has been p average in the league

ah, forgot that nasri's entrance coincided with hleb's exit. i accept that hleb is pish obv, but i was thinking that he left with no particular replacement.

http://friendly.no/thorstvedt.php

This is Erik Thorsvedt's daughter...

omg

http://charlotteblogg.no/files/2011/01/DSC05094-630x418.jpg

Real life Photoshops!

She is repping for 1x awesome Jamie Lloyd/Quarion track and one lame James Blake song.

"There'd be nothing worse than, five years down the line, for a failing club not being able to meet its obligations because it's not getting 60,000, fans saying there's no atmosphere," he said, pointing out numerous problems with football being played in athletics stadia.

Love the strategy of 'well we'll pull down the olympic stadium if we get it to build our proper one' line of shocking the government into just sorting out naming rights instead. Of course this all falls apart if West Ham get relegated though. Or maybe QPR could have it.

The stats they've pulled out for this are quite sobering though - nearest seat something like 45m from the pitch, 20% of seats 190m+ away. If West Ham do get it, it'll be the worst ground in the country.

Charlotte Thorsvedt played a few minutes from my house the other week, headlining what appeared to be a night for Norwegian students - can't tell you how delighted I was when I saw the poster and Google confirmed the blood link a few minutes later \0/

Or maybe QPR could have it.

nah we're having tv centre once the beeb fucks off oop north.

is thorsvedt daughter one of the only ever natural blondes to look way better as a brunette? i'm calling it.

http://www.kickette.com/tottenham-hotspur-manbag-musings/

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48791000/jpg/_48791836_fritschx475-1.jpg

Huge blue cockerel set for fourth plinth and champions league place

This AND the year ending in a one. IT IS A SIGN.

"I couldn't say they (United) are on another level and are going to walk away with the title. I can't see them going the year unbeaten. There are lots of teams who could beat them on any given day."

they could they just don't wanna, just to piss off mcnulty

The unbeaten run is getting perplexing. Spurs were pretty decent yesterday yet never really looked like laying a finger on them. It's not even like there's a conspiracy or United have an invisible force-field around their goal or anything - it's more like a collective failure of imagination, or consensus to settle for draws as some sort of danegeld.

can't wait to read a run of play article on it

It's been easy to forget how good Ferdinand and Vidic actually are over the last couple of seasons, when one or the other has mostly been injured.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKCm5uWwtaQ

Can Spurs maintain their current level of spending? Been looking at the figures, and over the past five years their gross and net spends are huge. I imagine wage bill is also rising. But the capacity is the same and the prize money won't have gone up until this year's CL money comes in. Is there a danger they are overstretching? How important is repeated CL qualification? Can they keep this up while building a new stadium? Where's all the money coming from?

These are the questions I've been asking myself, and am now asking you.

http://www.transferleague.co.uk/league-tables/2006-2011.html

revenues have always been high, and i think an increase in wages and transfer spend both are inevitable consequences of cl participation.

Not particularly worried, and i'd hope they're not banking on cl every year because that wont be happening.

Damn.

my word's not gospel or anything, there's hope for you yet

I think it's already been established that that Transferleague site is not particularly accurate but yeah if Levy's let Harry off the leash then it's worrying in the longer term.

Redknapp's not actually spent that much on players overall but the wage bill could be growing at an alarming rate. £6.6m loss on turnover of nearly £120m is not great though.

xp

Am sticking voodoo pins on relevent grid of A-Z as we speak.

I wrote this about London football history this week by the way, maybe of some interest to some of you.

http://greatwenlondon.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/how-the-london-football-map-might-have-looked/

The big spend was Ramos, wasn't it?

Was looking at player turnover as well. Chelsea signed just 18 players in last five years; Spurs 43.

signs of flawed policy either way there though

Think Chelsea are more at fault. No idea on average player turnover, but I bet 18 is right at the bottom end, and the staleness shows.

pienaar at 3m could have been a staleness steal. Eh? Eh?

Most of the Chelsea first XI were there five years ago. Apart from Lennon, King and Dawson, none of ours were. Well, Defoe as well, but we sold him and bought him back in that time so I assume he counts as one of the 43 signings.

king?

feel like arry's hit rate transfer wise has been strictly ok, tbh. First team-wise, arry successes numbered as vdv, palacios?,

Those who were there already- bale, lennon, modric, dawson, gomes

Current first team not rly all that- crouch, bassong, hutton?

? Where i was unsure bout signed under arry innit. Defoe, kaboul resigned, i suppose you could count em if you wanted

I wrote this about London football history this week by the way, maybe of some interest to some of you.

http://greatwenlondon.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/how-the-london-football-map-might-have-looked/

Talking of which, Chelsea actually play in Fulham rather than Chelsea, don't they? (I assume this as the ground's right next to Fulham Broadway tube). When that MP was saying that Spurs shouldn't be allowed to keep the 'Tottenham' part of their name if they move to Stratford, I wondered how far they should take this line of argument. Maybe Chelsea should be called Fulham, Millwall should become Deptford, and Queen's Park Rangers probably need their name sorting out as well.

East Ham United

trafford united

Yeah, Chelsea are in SW6 and the Fulham town hall is right opposite the station. They nearly called themselves London FC, which would have been great.

But Crystal Palace moving back to Crystal Palace is clearly a step in the right direction.

Interesting article Pete, and a nice set of comments too. What about Chelsea planning to move, is that still on? Do they have the fanbase for it? It may be the horror stories of ultralow numbers at the Bridge in the 80s, but Chelsea crowds seem more precarious than others somehow

Current first team not rly all that- crouch, bassong, hutton?

Hutton was a Commoli signing.

I remember Ramos was asked about the prospect of signing Hutton during that transfer window and he said he'd never even heard of him. He made his Spurs debut two weeks later.

Harry signings:

Van Der Vaart - Success
Palacios - Qualified success
Gallas - Success
Kranjcar - Successful before he fell down the pecking order
Two Kyles - too early to tell
Sandro - too early to tell
Gudjohnsen on loan - we barely knew you
Cudicini/Pletikosa - decent sub goalies

Re-signings:

Defoe - Success
Keane - FAIL
Kaboul - Doing okay
Chimbonda - lol

That's not actually that many and it's a pretty good return.

Oh and Crouch. He got us into the Champions League and for that I will love him forever but he's not the solution to our current striking issues and never will be.

someone better would have got us there quicker, and would have us in a better position this year already

I wasnt putting kranjcar in there as i was really trying to go on first team only, but yes great signing.

Jermaine Defoe opined, having seen Everton’s Steven Pienaar turn down a move to Chelsea to join him at Tottenham, that it marked a shift in power. And he’s right, I suppose. No player in their right mind would have chosen Spurs over Chelsea 12 months ago.

Now it doesn’t seem so utterly mental. It speaks to the improvement that Spurs have made but also to the way Chelsea have imploded.

What he’s trying to do is obvious, fill his team with small players and hope they can click. Rafael van der Vaart, Modric, Defoe, Keane, Krancjar, Lennon, Palacios and now Pienaar. Sure, he’s got a couple of weirdly big lads like Crouch and Kabul to beef things up but they’re sideshow freaks and not at all integral to how Spurs play.

Dude called Gareth Bale. Tall lad, kind of important to the team?

I just can’t help thinking that in order to progress they could do with a bit more height and British height at that. Less Pienaar, more David Howells, less Modric more tough goalscoring bustle like Chris Armstrong.

There isn't a single Spurs fan in the country who agrees with that.

Also, Christian Gross?

The "more like Chris Armstrong" bit rather than the "more height" bit.

less Modric, more Armstrong - Chris Armstrong's mum wouldn't even agree with that

if you want to play quick, passing football based on movement then you need a few small lads able to pass and move.

Have no issue with the idea of big men up front and at the back, nor with eg bale being 6ft if he can play a bit.

No crouch.