when the levy breaks: summer transfer window 2019

villa after trezeguet too

never heard of the team he plays for

xp not to be testy tim but yr response practically sighed and blew its hair out of its eyes tbh- the question wasnt thrown out there as a parochial slur on anywhere

'there' is roma the club, we can obv build in the quality of life factors (weather aside, are they so different for an athlete multimillionaire celebrity between london and rome? who knows?).

is roma the club a step up? id have said not, history and all that say its level at present.

is the salary on offer (after tax and all whatnot) at roma now (inc years offered) going to beat any spurs offer (likely, likely) as well as any other offer coming in (id really have thought not)

and then the old "am i in the right place now, is the risk of a move a factor"

theres a ton of places id have thought were obvious better options on a range of relevant items....idk do spurs fans overrate him or what but id have him walking into pretty much any first xi in the world, and 30 isnt any age for a centre back without any real history of injuries.

its a curious one, is all. maybe hes decided already to run down the last year?

All of which does beg the question: why on earth are Spurs considering letting him go?

It's not long before the £25m release clause in Toby's contract expires. Given his age and the fact he has one more year on his contract it's unlikely that, great as he is, he'll be worth much more than that. So I guess Levy is desperate to offload him.

The alternative is he signs a new contract, which I personally would love, but that's the likely end of any major resale value.

Vertonghen has been the better CB over the last couple of seasons but Toby's playmaking abilities and long passing ability from CB are a really underappreciated aspect of the way the team plays. There aren't many CBs who can do that.

He's technically good enough, not to mention smart enough to have at least 4 more years in him (arbitrary figure, probably) - that's the value, innit? Strikes me there aren't many of Toby's quality around so unless he's agitating for a move, you do everything you can to keep him?

Or what Matt said.

yeah pref to resign him on decent money, imagine that the length of contract is the major prob.

pref after that is another year out of him at current salary. 25m isnt that much to forego for the calibre of player in it, and if nothing else it reinforces levys hardman ego

xxp I'm feeling untestily Fridayish, even in the face of unwarranted and hurtful hair jibes directed at one of ILx's baldest men.

'there' can be Roma the club if you like but 'there' is also unavoidably Roma the city, and Italy the country, right? Also Italy the footballing culture. I understand the requirement for close reading of your communiques but insisting on only one of these 'there's as a subject for your speculation is a bit bleedin' rich I'd say.

There are only a few reasons why a football club would want to retain the services of a player but there are loads of reasons why an individual might want to make a move, even a sideways move. I mean, we can play a game of imagining personal motivations if you like?

ill put my scantily clad pate up against any non-finn here tbh

Promises, promises.

I'll out-bald you pretenders all day, any day.

Wondering if the 'sideways' comment is acceptable to Tottenham ILXspurs fans.

anyway, if i ought to clarify that the *why there* carried the unspoken *instead of * of ~all of the supposed options~ and not just stayin at spurs then im happy to do so.

like imagining personal motivations is p much baked in to what we are discussing but its very hard to not imagine madrid, barca, juve and a host of others not offering a better overall package from cafes to dusky evening sunlight year-round but being an obviously more appealing destination career wise.

utd or city for cash while stayin in england if for family reasons or whatever thats a concern

ajax for sentiment

i stand by the confusion over roma being:

- especially appealing to him as an option

but more, i suppose

- being the best offer he has, that we know of

Wondering if the 'sideways' comment is acceptable to Tottenham ILXspurs fans.

― Orpheus Knutt (Tom D.), Friday, 12 July 2019 14:16 (twenty-eight seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

i for one am enjoying even the opportunity for such magnanimity tbh, its lovely up here

My "sideways" was a ref to deems's "history and all that say its level at present" fwiw. I try not to get into "which club's bigger" anymore because I can't make sense of the arguments involved; was happy to rely on the opinion of a hairy expert.

* trying desperately not to make a comment about Exeter City *

anyways spending even five mins imagining such a dilemma has put me in right good form tbh

now pondering a transfer-column style breathless reporting of rumours linking me with a move to the office of public works

"he likes their style of operating, but the location on the southside could be an issue for him, we hear"

"the salary package is fine, but the departments are wrangling over the final details and hes asked for a window desk which will upset a number of long-serving incumbents"

two bald men fighting over a rome at this stage

"there was a fall-out in the weekly team meeting in which two cups of coffee were spilled"

xp haha

griezemann to barca is done?

Apparently, which makes Neymar seem far more unlikely to me but fuck it, small club mentality

BREAKING - #AtleticoMadrid confirm they are taking #FCBarcelona to court on signing of Antoine Griezmann, they believe they are entitled to an extra €80m https://t.co/3LtlBZBggO pic.twitter.com/168zwRkjPb

— footballespana (@footballespana_) July 12, 2019

Juventus 'complete £63m deal for Ajax star Matthijs de Ligt' https://t.co/An6xS6tS3d

— MailOnline Sport (@MailSport) July 12, 2019

Bruno Génésio is currently in England for talks to become Newcastle manager on a 4-year contract.

(Source: Le Progrès) pic.twitter.com/ruyRPMTEkJ

— Transferchanger (@TransferChanger) July 16, 2019

Sensible to pick a manager with strong experience of being hated by his own supporters and, on occasion, players.

So is Steve Bruce standing outside St James's Park with a suitcase having told his wife he's leaving her?

shes turned the toons agin me

Trippier to Atletico Madrid looks like a done deal as well.

yes saw that

you see it being backfilled by aurier/kwp/~~foyth~~ or dyou think theyd like a good right back

My understanding is that Aurier is up for sale as well. I like KWP but it still feels too early for him, Foyth should be nowhere near the team.

So yeah I'm guessing we're buying one. RB and central midfield were our main problem positions last year.

of the two id have trippier ahead of aurier certainly, even before wages

Weird one, Trippier doesn't seem near the level ATM aspire. Who'll be his replacement?

depends on whether you think last season was purely post-russia groin strain induced

i mean what even is a good full back now? theyre all shit afaict.

Fair point. Trippier's not better than Arias though, so not sure why they'd go for Trip.

I feel like it's easy to assume that under performance in the Prem won't define your ability in other top flight Euro leagues

Given that "under" is a question of perception in any context, D

also think that full back is a position pochs tactic asks so much of that the difference between "walker is now worth 55m"(when 55m was a lot) and "how can this fool who started the cl final possibly move to a big club" is really marginal.

its a horribly exposed position with huge asks in both attack and defence and if you make a slip our centres and goalie havent been great at covering, but facts is that trippier has had a year of slips and as a result his stock is probably undeservedly low.

still kinda impressed at the move. fair play to him.

tbf every manager on earth's tactics ask so much of a full back. it's a brutal position and you can't do it right really.

and of course, fair play to him.

Rooon locked in a helpless reverie right now

:D

I hear that Andy Robertson guy is not shit.

Though he might be if played for Spurs, of course.

lfc have two crackers for sure but they have a good gk

The other big difference between World Cup Trippier and last season's Trippier is that England played in a back five with Walker there to cover for him.

Trippier's main assets are the quality and accuracy of his cross and his ability with a dead ball and as an old fashioned English winger he might have worked well but high level teams don't play with them any more.

For a while it looked like Poch intended to go with a back five but without Dembele our squad lacked the really commanding midfielder who can protect them.

Probably the best analogue is the role Victor Moses played under Conte. No one thought Moses was a world class right back but he did exceptionally well in a team where everyone knew their role and they never needed to rotate. Moses could go forward because he had two (at the time) excellent recovery defenders in Azpilicueta and Cahill and an erratic but talented one in David Luiz whose mistakes they could also cover for. They also had probably the world's best defensive midfielder in Kante and we haven't come close to finding a player like that. On the other side Marcos Alonso also had an amazing season and hasn't played quite as consistently well as that since.

The closest parallel to that excellent recovery defender in the Spurs squad is Sanchez who has also the pace and ability but is still cutting out his own mistakes. Better to trade up for a proper well rounded right back rather than wait for Sanchez to progress to the level when he can reliably bail Trippier out.

Bruce appointed at Newcastle after all. Rondon sounds like he's off to Dalian and Perez has already gone to Leicester. Joselu has also left. I think that leaves Gayle as their only striker.

Great, a season of Bruce's earnest regretful whinging, "You don't like to be critical, they've got a hard job to do, but...". When I say 'season' I mean until he's sacked, of course.

amazing stuff

Tbf he's got an excellent track record in the Champo

I think that leaves Gayle as their only striker.

Yoshinori Muto is still there iirc.

Bruce couldn't have happened to a nicer club tbf.