TOTTENHAM ARE STILL A BIG CLUB!

Southampton had a small squad that had basically run themselves into the ground by Christmas, I'm not sure it'll be as much of an issue at Spurs, even allowing for lol injury crises.

despite none of them being on the england plane, there are fourteen spurs players past&present going to brazil. that's not far off barca

Lloris, Vertonghen, Dembele, Paulinho, Modric, Chadli, Bentaleb, BAE, Dos Santos, KPB, Palacios, Zokora, Postiga, Pletikosa - right?

The last couple took me ages to get.

Corluka is in the Croatia squad, isn't he?

sixteen! forgot about postiga & pletikosa but yes there's corluka and also dempsey

looking over our squad, if vertonghen will play lb with a decent attitude that's 1 worthy first team defender. best of the rest are crocked or shakey or both, worst of the rest are awful or dgaf and can't be picked.

regardles of attitude i don't think jan is a fullback. agree that there are plenty of questions about the rest of em.
supposedly bidding 5M for jamaal lascelles who... has a cool name. don't know anything else.

http://thepremierleagueowl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Screen-Shot-2014-07-08-at-16.01.41.png

I wish I'd found that website, took me an hour in excel. tho I will as able to add a fairly pithy comment field.

lloris
vertonghen- if no prob at lb
kaboul- replace if possible
chiriches- replace if possible
walker- watch like a fuckin hawk, try to sell for decent cash, replace
Sandro
dembele
eriksen
Lennon
lamela not sure how adaptable he is at LW
Adebayor - flaky as fuck but its not gonna happen for soldado let's face it

flog- Dawson, siggurdson, paulinho, naughton, everyone, sell the club, stadium, buy gold or oil futures, learn peace, fuck hateful football

With Vertonghen, Walker and Chiriches it's a problem with decision-making, not ability or technique - Poch knows how to organise a defence and should be able to work those problems out, ideally with Vertonghen at CB. Kaboul is finished and should be offloaded as quickly as possible, he's either injured or a disaster area, but I don't think anyone would take him. Dawson I suspect will be gone by the end of the summer.

It appears we're hawking Sandro around which strikes me as madness, if we're going to play the sort of pressing game then he's essential in midfield. I was hoping the World Cup would illuminate something about Paulinho but he appears to be the ultimate water-carrier really.

Stoked to see what Poch will be able to do with Eriksen and Lamela.

yes to the three, being hugely optimistic, that being the outlook then kaboul being fit and not killed in a high line is no further of a stretch IMO matt. just can't see it!

bae back at lb or is the ship sailed?

Sandro is our best player alongside eriksen and lloris and our best leader alongside kaboul and it beggars belief that we're not fending off huge bids for him, never mind trying to sell him off our own bat.

paulinho is awful, not even showing ability in flashes like gylfi or chadli

I'm psyched to see what poch does with holtby and townsend

I still think paulinho has the most potential of our more attacking MFs, hope poch gives him a go

yeah tbf I would be uneasy about writing off anyone but Dawson, naughton from p much our entire squad there's a us able squad player at least in each of the rest and none of last summers purchases came near to their potential

would a move for di maria be out of the question

yes

i mean LFC probably had/have the money to buy Pogba but cmon now.

lascelles is talented but unless poch is v v diligent then moving to spurs at 20 now will surely turn him into another jenas/walker/naughton feckless pissflap

lack of midfield distributor still painfully obv from that stack of squad names there

jordy clasie would do nicely imo

depends on distribution method envisaged IMO, holtby can do metronome, for all the lack of form paulinho can surely carry it and provide simple links, dembele also capable of travelling with it if that's required, bentaleb p decent simple link. was prob the most overlooked/neglected part of avb setup maybe? and Sherwood wasn't gonna put it right, but I don't think individual ability is a huge prob in the midfield set

doesnt have to be thudd hollywood pings but u need more about u than those water carrier types to improve the laborious transitions you have right now

dembele capable, yeah gl with that

sorry the lackofform() function had more than just paulinho as an input but dembele is in no way a write off just yet imo

he's not but the fate of a season shouldnt rest on that whimsy either

other than for sociopaths "we're shit without you" is the arch anti-motivator, in fitba and indeed beyond

http://www.football365.com/tottenham-hotspur/9379550/Premier-League-Tottenham-ready-to-proceed-with-new-stadium-at-White-Hart-Lane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ateQQc-AgEM

He's definitely in the group of players I'd expect Poch to improve, so pretty happy about this. Pretty much the end of Vertonghen at LB I'd imagine.

he's not a bad backup and along with a lot of the players we keep getting rid of is a good cheap squad option

probably a bad sign for Fryers more than anything

fryers not being good enough to break ahead of naughton is a bad sign for fryers tbf

shape of things to come

https://vine.co/v/MVDztlqIUml

the fuck was that

Should have seen the Ceballos miss five minutes later.

Harry Kane has signed a new five year contract.

in absentia a europa league thread: fuck this stupid club that is above buying defenders

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/tottenham-hotspur/11048364/Tottenham-transfer-news-Spurs-set-to-bid-for-Sevilla-central-defender-Federico-Fazio.html

Don't know much about this guy, but 3/4 of a new back four would represent a decent summer.

Clad supposedly off to Roma

Vlad even.

I don't get selling Chiriches and letting Dawson and Kaboul hang around

idgi keeping any of em so sell em in whatever order

Harry Kane has sneakily developed into a decent player

good third choice in a one man system if our first choice was reliable and second choice suited the system but alas

does anyone feel certain if vlad is even any good or not

in a high line its been impossible tbh

I'm 90% sure he is but will happily defer to Rudi Garcia on the issue. He seems like he would know for certain.

sabatini otoh is a bit more hit and miss

Things that look like an ILF "the interior life of..." thread but aren't: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/aug/15/small-talk-michael-owen

"If I’m eating cheese on its own with a cracker it has to be really strong. I can handle a strong cheese. Stilton, things like that. If you’re buying mature cheese, than Canadian is probably the strongest one. Canadian extra mature, or Stilton..."

(haha sorry wrong thread, I get confused by all this "... are still a big club" business.

I'm pretty sure Vlad is a better player than either Dawson or Kaboul (now) but Poch doesn't want any of them. Kaboul is basically unsellable and Dawson doesn't seem to want to go to the sort of club that would sign him and this point.

Given QPR's recent signings at the back that looks like another dream has just died.

Paulinho is completely inessential and maybe now psychologically scarred but I bet you we still get decent money when we inevitably ship him off to some Serie A leper colony.

Mostly I find myself idly wondering if Lewis Holtby can be converted from a number ten into a deeper lying playmaker. He seems to have all the attributes but I'm not sure what his long passing is like.

iirc holtby has said he's v happy to play the 6/8 box to box linebreaker but he's not really had the run of games to see either way

he can spot a quick pass but idk about sitting there spraying it around, be more of a direct high-intensity dembele riff, would suit poch better you'd think

yeah if he starts its as an eriksen mirror in a high central two behind a lone striker I'd imagine, not as a carrier