TOTTENHAM ARE STILL A BIG CLUB!

Yeah but the last few months, when he'd decided he wanted to go to United, he really did just stand around flouncing petulantly.

Part of the problem with Spurs in previous years has been that the best players wanted to be playing in the Champions League. Now they are, so you'd expect it to be theoretically easier to hang onto them. A lot depends on whether or not we finish fourth this season obv.

Depends on Bale's attitude as well. Can see Spurs pricing him out of the range of Man United or Arsenal. He might go to Man City for the money alone.

we might sell him to them for the money alone.

Flouncing around petulantly - berbatov mo

Arsenal generally less a selling club than a letting players go for no particular reason club.

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

bale will totally be sold for wads and wads and wads of cash and possibly and oil reserve. what is the aulas thing, 'no player is for sale until someone bids way higher than the player could ever conceivably be worth'?

will settle for that tbh, 55m would get us a left back and replacements for king and woodgate.

55m will get you a well scouted team plus a superstar

tottenham are still a big drinking club

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/12/16/article-1339076-0C8098C8000005DC-51_468x561.jpg

also, thank god footballers can't design their own kits

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/12/16/article-1339076-0C809BB8000005DC-552_468x507.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/12/16/article-1339076-0C809908000005DC-758_224x619.jpg

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.