TOTTENHAM ARE STILL A BIG CLUB!

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.

But with VDV playing so far up the field he should be more than able to feed Defoe. They've played about 20mins together so far all season.

british bulldog arry as to send out a bigun and a littleun innit

'arry might be onto something. The smallest team in any major European league are currently Champions of Spain and half of them have WC and CL medals.

http://celticquicknews.co.uk/?p=4481

From the sample of 534 clubs, the one with the oldest average squad is European Champions Inter Milan, at 29.61 years, whereas the club with the shortest average players is the previous year’s European Champions, Barcelona, 177.38cm.

Clearly short old guys = the way to go.

The persistent talk of them selling Ireland just confuses ever more after a performance like that, it's true.

― Get fourth and multiply (darraghmac), Thursday, 6 May 2010 11:13 (8 months ago) Bookmark

What the hell happened to this guy at villa?

Interesting read about Damien Comolli's time at Spurs:
http://transferpriceindex.com/2010/10/damien-comolli-at-spurs-a-tpi-case-studyt/

But it overlooks one of the most important things - a squad needs to be appropriately balanced, both by position and age. By the dog days of the Ramos era we were anything but - short on options upfront, useless in defensive midfield, over-reliant on inexperienced centrebacks and with a surfeit of attacking, right-sided midfielders and not much with any experience down the left.

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

It's very hard to judge because pricing is quite sensible these days, but I don't think there's demand for a capacity of more than about 55k. Whether it's worth moving for an extra 13k is, I guess, the sticking point. The ideal thing would be to redevelop the Bridge, especially the shitty Shed/hotel, and put in something bigger because it is a vast site, but there are problems with crowd dispersal on to Fulham Broadway.

I'm sure it's something they'd like to do eventually because capacity is on the small side, but the benefits aren't so obvious as to make it a must-do as it is with Spurs.

They may just be content with filling the ground, waiting for the right opportunity and building megastores in Singapore and Los Angeles.

http://img.skysports.com/11/01/496x259/StevenPienaarTottenhamHo_2553216.jpg

The former Portsmouth and West Ham manager said: "I'm walking round the outside of the stadium, it's a fantastic atmosphere, there's all little stalls there selling sweets.

"I got some sweets, me and Kevin, and it was so packed. The next thing there's two guys on their knees in front of me and I felt someone pull my overcoat.

"I thought 'what are you doing?'. The next thing he's got my keys on the floor.

"I thought 'is he a blind man or someone having trouble walking properly?' What are they doing, these two blokes?

"I'm going 'let go of my trousers', pushing them away. While I'm doing that they're rifling my pockets, there were about six of them. And then they went.

"I thought 'what are they doing?' I went to put my hand in my pockets and realised what they'd done.

"They took everything. All my money, credit cards, everything really."

The Spurs manager said he did not believe the muggers knew who he was.

"I just probably looked stupid or something, and they thought 'here's one here, he's not Spanish, obviously and we're looking for a foreigner'."

this is highly convincing

Spurs Desperate For A Striker
I'm going to use some statistics to make a point. Here goes:

- I've looked at the games played over (roughly) the last year by Spurs in the Premier League - 23 this season, 15 last season - 38 games in all.

- I've then looked at the number of goals Spurs' strikers have scored in this time. VDV is not a striker.

- It doesn't make pretty reading.

- Defoe has 4, Crouch has 4, Keane has none, Gudjonson got 1 and Pav, the pick of the bunch, has 10. So I'm not sure why he didn't even make the squad on Saturday.

- That's 19 goals between the lot of them. Over 38 games. Meaning on average a Spurs striker will get you a goal every other game. So not only do we not have a 20-goal-a-season striker. All of them put together won't get you 20 goals.

There can be no doubt as I'm constantly reminded that it's a good time to be a Spurs fan. But all the press we've been getting lately, and bloody hell there's been a lot - Bale, VDV, moving house, a bit about Modric now, lovely sweets but blimey I've had me wallet pinched - doesn't cover up the fact that we are desperate for a goalscorer.

Desperate.

Dan Levy is obviously a very busy man, but I would implore him to take his eye off the long term, especially now that the bid has been submitted and do something for the short term this week. I fear that we're going to miss out on the top four as it is but signing a goalscorer now might just save us.

Andrew, Woodford Green

No that is entirely correct with the caveat that Defoe has been really unlucky with injuries in that time, and we seem to be undermining all of their confidence by chopping and changing every game. Either Defoe or Pav should have a sustained run and we probably need to be playing 4-4-2 against a few more teams.

Rossi has said he's not interested and i'd be surprised if Forlan will move. The big spending is a worry but the fact that a move for a striker appears to be reliant on Bent's fee being paid in full and kicking Keane off the wage bill would indicate that there's still a measure of control in place.

It's unfortunate as this should all have been settled weeks ago. It's not surprising that Pavlyuchenko and Crouch aren't in great form when they're both constantly being linked with Birmingham and Sunderland. If there isn't a first-class alternative lined up, they both need to be told they've got a long-term future at the club.

kinda depressing how good taraabt is doing. lovely goal (number 13) and assist (11) against coventry on sunday. hopefully next year he proves that the championship is his level.

don't know what to think about strikers.

even i'm beginning to find this ridiculous

they're gonna fuckin win it.

go on the spurs!

let's do em at home first

YEAR ENDING IN A 1

Has there been a greater plucky underdog run the CL since... Porto in 2004?

Chas and Dave's 'Together Again – The Final Tour 2011' appears to finish on Apr 21 - time to record one last cup final rockney banger before walking into the sea imho

Has there been a greater plucky underdog run the CL since... Porto in 2004?

Liverpool 2005?

cuntish underdog tbf

you know times are changing when the vietnamese shirt seller sites start stocking spurs strips

Siamese shirt sellers start stocking spurs strips
Siamese shirt sellers start stocking spurs strips
Siamese shirt sellers start stocking spurs strips
Siamese shirt sellers start stocking spurs strips
Siamese shirt sellers start stocking spurs strips
Siamese shirt sellers start stocking spurs strips

lol good spot