At the risk of inducing a series of heart attacks in my reader, I’d like to pitch a positive solution to the Harry Kane absence – and you won’t have to trawl through 1000 words for it.
The answer straightforwardly is Dele Alli.
Milton Keynes’ answer to Dre is more than capable of morphing from a deep lying shadow striker to full blown front man.
A couple of seasons ago he would have probably made an utter fist of it, but just as a week is a long time in politics, time passes at an even more peculiar rate in the Premier League.
Dele Alli’s base instincts are that of an opportunist, plus he has some credible form for making the right decisions in front of goal.
Indeed, my longstanding gripe with the lad is that he routinely acts like a striker in terms of his contributions on the pitch.
Take a cursory glance at his average match stats and you’ll frequently see his actions bare more similarity to Harry Kane’s.
Of course, this is precisely what endears him to so many of you, while I’m left grouching about his low numbers when it comes to recoveries and challenges.
You’ll have been inundated with a whole cavalcade of nonsense in the last 24 hours, talk of the mysteriously spent Janssen and Slo Mo Man Llorente.
Yes we’ll be paper thin, but I genuinely believe that Oliver Skipp is ready for more game time, and when Aurier isn’t being arrested, he too has more to give.
Of course Levy is an incompetent cretin, but we knew that with resounding certainty long before a Harry was left clutching his ankle.
This won’t prevent Dele Alli from turning it on, and my considered option is that he will.
Dem too bruk the country yet still living the high life. No austerity for them.
Personally I would list KWP as our best right back. He is FAR less accident prone. Only issue is his delivery into the box, and to be fair, Trip’s is below average right now.
Yep and bankers .
Trippier is an accident happening every week. I would take this risk and continue with the wait. KWP is better than Trippier also
Yes, like a lot of these big potential City clubs. They’ve all been hamstrung. Geordies…Leeds…Sheff Wed…Forest…football suffers for it. The Community’s too.
Unlike CORIC not for me!!
I absolutely agree we should be looking at the likes of Isco,however we all know the level at which Levy operates in the transfer market.And his modus operandi makes him a person that other managers and agents are reluctant to deal with.
The current owners and chairman holding the debt they have saddled the club with are now hamstrung in the transfer market even after publicly stating that the stadium build would not impact on transfer dealings.
We need investment in the team to now move onto the next level as our current situation is precarious without new arrivals.
Aurier is an accident waiting to happen.
I agree! And for all games in future!
My old man is a Leeds fan, I personally think there is potential there, if they get back up (when), but it wont be straight away. For some reason they always struggle to get real investment.
Will neer pay that much for a loan.
Surely he aint that bad!
If Poch could entice unsettled Coutinho that would be a coup!
Ah Wages – forgot that?
He would bring in some quality in the summer but…..we’ll never know probably…
I am more worried about weekly wages, Batshit, Sturridge, Arnautic would all be £100k plus.
£20 for sturridge is cheap. Ihneacho?
Austin £15M
Some of this is true but the fact remains, every single one of them is better than Fernando.
Accurate
Surely no chance with this lot?!
Batshuayi – £25M
Blue Racist curently on-loan wants a permanent move to Everton
Arnautovic – £35M
Mercenary off to China
Sturridge – £20M
broken
Wilson – £75M
Excellent player, no way we would pay. No chance of a loan
Austin – £15
Spent force. 2 gaols all season. Too old
Long – £7M – £10M
Spent force. 1 gaol all season. Too old
Ings – £20M
broken
Just trying to put out one or two ideas to fill out our depleted squad.He’s 31,a Chilean international,so won’t get a long contract,but is a fighter.
Playing briefly for Cardiff City tigerish Chilean midfielder me thinks
Dont forget the Q. I cant keep up either
That could work in our current situation.
Even Newsnow are not linking us with anyone – a few “reports” of opinions of who we should sign, but even the gutters cant bring themselves to link us with anyone. we are over half way through the 2nd transfer window of the season, we are down to below barebones in midfield, and lost arguably the worlds best striker for 10-12 games…How are we not linked to even a championship starlet right now? Only ITK we have is a player leaving! (Dembele and Llorente).
I thought about him ,he is probably more glue factory than Dembele but could boost the dressing room with his presence .If his wages wernt stupid and it was a play and paid jobby why not,i wouldn’t let him have the last champs league spot though if Dembele goes.
That will be Dembele off then.
https://www.spurs-web.com/spurs-news/photo-leaked-pic-of-mousa-dembele-signing-for-his-new-club/
There are loads of players at clubs below us and in the Championship, who could add to our squad. Doucoure, Wilson, king, sessengon, mitrovic, Drinkwater, Dzeko, grealish…we should have been in for Kovacic and Maddison in the summer. Could feasibly have got Vardy, Cahill, Arnautovic etc. The idea that our players are so good there are no options costing below £80 mil seems like Levy propaganda to me.
4-2-3-1 with Verdonkey & Winks in the 2, Llorente up top, Dele Eriksen Moura in the 3, Lamela on the bench since he can probably play any of the CM/AM roles but also is likely second choice in any of those roles.
https://theboyhotspur.com/relieve-tripps-from-corner-duties-asap-video/
Pass the tin foil, my head feels cold 🙂
So really we’re looking like this:
………Lloris
Trips. jan. Toby. Davies
…….winks. Skipp
Lamela. Eriksen. ?????
…………Alli
Bench:
Gazza
Nkoudou
Parrot
Sanchez
Rose
Llorente
Zokora
Yikes
Why not sign Yaya Toure who is free agent for just 5 or 6 months the guy has won so many trophies and we need some one in midfield like him who has the experience strong presence and can mentor the youngesters Winks and Skip it is a win win till the end of this season.
Batshuayi – £25M
Arnautovic – £35M
Sturridge – £20M
Wilson – £75M
Austin – £15
Long – £7M – £10M
Ings – £20M
No idea who he is. why 10m for 18months?
Pochettino is like Wenger in the sense that he’s loyal to players who are loyal to him. His big players. Lloris is one of them. He won’t drop Lloris due to bad form. In fact, history has shown Poch nearly always preserves with bad form if they are still grafting – he only bins players off if he doesn’t like their character (Janssen / Townsend).
LGBT, covers all.
I believe its £3m for 1 season loan.
Less than dropping out of the Champions League places and the total failure of the club/team on all four fronts just as we enter the new stadium.
What Marcelo is doing there is special, its clicked and that ground and City is a landmine waiting to be detonated. They could given the chance but they won’t get it.
More grist for Daniel’s mill 😞
I can feel you angst OM!
Id like Gaza in goal as our number 1 ive lost faith in Hugo
The Isco story was an ITK source and he is absolutely the calibre of player we should be looking at. I think we are better than a Liverpool reject and a guy who got relegated with Cardiff.
Kwp and Aurier better than Trippier. Davies bang average, yes to Hugo, great shot stopper BIG full stop after that. Midfield is bare, being lost in the Kane/Son issues. I would try everything I could to get son out of International Duty, he has played two tournaments in the last 8 months FFS
So are Arsenal…
thats the spirit Tappa!!
None of the decisions politicians make affect their standard of living. F u c k dem.
I would stick Gazziniga in goal for the Fulham game.
More dangerous in a yoga class than up front for Fulham by all accounts!
they have been playing well and not winning, they are due an upturn, we have the ingredients for them
Good shout HH, get some support around him and you’ve got a striker in Alli, has it in him.
The only problem there is that with so few options in midfield Alli dropping in and making up the numbers in the midfield area has been a feature of our play for some time.
Think it might be Moura with Dele as the 2nd striker, I agree. Not sure we’ll miss Kane in the way many expect. Over a season yes but 5-6 games it’s possible another dynamic up front could emerge…
You think a newly promoted Leeds (with any manager) could challenge more than lower mid table?
My preference in order and realistic chance of getting..
Arnau/Austin/Sturridge
China are shit
Excellent choice sir, more dust for Table 3, immediately!
For me we need a loan not a signing unless Llorente leaves. then what we need now is not what we really need. Central midfield, I 100% agree with you, our issues need long term solutions…but quality enough to start now.
This was for Joe below
As far as I am aware nobody at Spurs has spoken in terms of Isco,It’s only in the media.If you honestly think we have any chance of signing him anyway you must be off your meds.Names mentioned on this forum are typical for our pricing catchment area.As a good example remember the Grealish fiasco last summer.Even for him Levy wouldn’t go the extra mile.
Not sure Newcastle would sell.We could have gone for Moutinho,however 5M was too much.Maddison was considered out of reach at 25M I believe it was.
The problem with trying to do any business is Levy.He’s a real liability.
What’s the female for w a n k e r?
If that happens ill cry. Fantastic player. Feet sweeeeet. He’d be right up our lane.
You’re right man. Its true. We’ll get through this yes 🙂 we are TOTTENHAM. Just have to play like we have ten men. Will burn out a high press closing down fast team quick though. We run too much. If everyone is in their right position there is no need to. Work the ball. I bet the great Brazilian teams of yesterdecace never ran 10k a game
Time to dust off the ‘special relationship’.
I would have agreed at start of season and i’d take him now but given HK/Son issues we have more important fish to fry
Paul could you prices on these players please.
I wish I could be as relaxed as you two. Way I see it:
Goal keeper – Lloris is average right now and Gazza cant seem to get a go
full backs – Right back is a clusterf**k (Aurier still screwed in head and Trips cant seem to defend AND attack in the same game), Left back is Rose seems to be great and poor at the same time and Davies has the pace of a geriatric sloth.
CB – One position I am comfortable with now all fit, Jan/Toby first choice, Sanchez and Foyth (I would argue a world class 4, best in PL easy). hopefully they keep focused. Depth allows us to consider 3 at back to remediate other issues
Midfield – Winks is fit (rest are not! Wanyama, Dier, Dembele are all crocked or leaving) Sissoko (never thought him being injured would be a bad thing). Skipp is good but we have no combat. We are forced to push Eriksen/Alli back to help.
Attacking midfield – Son away, Alli/Eriksen seem to be pushed backwards, Lamela is ok, but a yellow waiting to happen, Moura just isn’t good enough (then a truck load of useless like N’cluedo hanging about)
Strikers – Kane…well…Llorente, not good enough unless we change formation, Janssen will never play for us again… so basically not a lot up top.
We have players we can juggle, but with no depth due to injury and lack of buying policy worth a damn, any shuffle we do will impact somewhere else. Alli upfront leaves us very short in the middle (and none with any grit – he maybe that jumped up kid that thinks he’s hard, but the rest are not even that).
I think some of these are possible, but others (like Batshit, Sturridge… from our competitiors) will not happen at this point, will help us too much. Sturridge weekly pay is the same as Kane too. I think we will end up with a Championship player.
And relegation candidates Fulham possess the dangerous handful Mitrovic!!
We all have to understand that THFC is ina different place , a different project to every other club. It is just not possible for us to find anyone who can add quality to our squad. After all who could possibly have predicted that Kane would get a knock during the season. He would have to play nearly every game for that to happen. Also Levy should not be critiqued for not even being aware that the transfer window is open. He is so busy preparing for a Christmas 2019 stadium opening how can anyone reasonably expect him to be focused on anything other than signing up new cheeses …..
Dele has calmed down these days. You can see it at flash points recently. Getting booked for simulation in the other hand…..
People are funny. I’d rather we signed nobody than some of the dross mentioned on here. On the one hand we castigate Levy for his cheapskatery and on the other we come up with Levyesque signings; Shelvey, Medel, Austin! WTF None of these plebs are good enough for Spurs. We have enough S H I T E in our squad already. This argument that they would provide good ‘cover’ For who, Dier, Sissoko? it reminds of when people were championing Matt Philips from WBA because he his a purple patch for 15 mins. We shouldn’t be looking for cover, we should be looking to improve on what we have. Talk of Isco at least shows were are thinking along those lines.
Sonny inspires South Korea to 2-0 win over China and Top of their Group, missing him already !!!
Gary Medel is available for less than 10M.Good cover for midfield and defense for 18 months and doubt his salary would be too high with the offer of Ch.Lge.Could pick up a red card or two though.
I’m going to get a job as mystic megs replacement. How many predictions??Just a week ago or so I said watch Bielsas position cos the sky elite won’t want a dangerous Leeds in the Prem challenging the status quo….now all this spy stuff has blown up from a minor event and some people are saying he is resigning, a press conference imminent. It be shocking if its this early but I am was sure something would happen eventually.
Dele does like to step up, he did when kane was injured last year and I think Poch sees that in him.
Sorry Harry. For the first time ever I will have to disagree with you. Alli is a Martin Peters, late arriving in the box unnoticed player. As an out and out number 9, with the battering that HK normally gets, with his short fuse he is a red card waiting to happen…
Dele up front. That he is
When it comes to incredulity and just when you think it can’t get any worseness Levy always comes through.
Don’t know how much truth is in it,but Mail/BBC are reporting the Arse could pick up James Rodriges from Bayern for 3M.Not sure how that works out from Madrid’s perspective,but surely he could do a job for us.OK his wages could be a sticking point but 3M……Jesus.Even off form he would be better than Moura and N’cludo.
I agree with HH! Incredible.
Lots of panic, media hyped frenzy. Its their new obsession…. relax my fellow Spurs fans. We have enough to make a decent fist of the games coming up. Dele is excellent in front of goal, Moura can be a threat, Son will come back and even Llorente can contribute.
We need a few tweaks. We cant hide behind HK’s injury, we should win the vast majority of the games with out him. The likes of Fulham, Newcastle, Palace shouldn’t worry us. Dele loves scoring against the racists too.
I am berry berry calm, berry happy we can compete
JJ Shelvey for midfield solution?
We’re in best worse case scenario territory. Retaining top four will now be number one priority. But to do even that without bringing one player in will be exceptionally difficult. There’s zero point bringing anyone in from outside the English leagues as we need them to hit the ground running. And imho there’s no point in Llorente as Poch is not suddenly going to change the entire way we play (evidenced by the fact that he never has before whenever we’ve brought him on). So, what are our realistic options. To me they look like something like bid or loan for;
Batshuayi
Arnautovic
Sturridge
Wilson
Austin
Long
Ings
Iheanacho
Now obviously a few of these would be ok to keep in the medium to longer term, as literally anyone would be a more effective bench option than Fernando but really the question is with Levy in charge will he do the necessary and would anyone sell to him/ us? You’ve got to imagine pooh and cheatski would be a no straight off the bat but player power is never to be underestimated so it would be nice to see him at least try.
Hands up who would have gladly welcomed back Defoe to see out the season?
Its back to losing at Stamford Bridge again….the others shouldnt be a problem unless we totally implode, even Watford at Wembley…..maybe.
But he looked 35 at birth
Who knows, but i did read somewhere yesterday that his attitude in training was not the best. shame really, because i think he would be better suited to playing than Llorente, who i think has his attributes but is past his best by a long way..
Wow – I wonder what happened there? was he not wanted from the start? or did he behave badly when he realised he was not in Poch’s plans? or is Poch making a point that Levy wont get away with “use one of the toys I have bought you” (that would be like a kid breaking their playstation and you try to convince them to play with a wooden hoop)
https://thisisfutbol.com/2019/01/blogs/jim-white-tottenham-considering-parrott-for-first-team/
Jim really is on his pipe today.
16
Fulham, Chelsea, Palace, Waltford and Newcastle without both of Son and Kane…How have we got so many London games…I see chlsea being an issue, Palace (depends on how they prioritise us in the FA cup), Watford will be an issue too. So really only 2 “easy” games before Son. If you consider before Kane, its far more scary.
does it matter how old he is? Rashford looked ok, Rooney was better at 16 than 28…
Eleven hang on, albeit physically strong how old was Wayne Rooney when he made his debut for Everton – 18 yrs or younger me thinks??
Nearly as bad as William Hagues “smoothy” baseball cap!
Painful to watch. So cringe worthy, its David Brent-esq
He bluntly said ‘He’s not in my plans’ and got up and finished the press conference !!
Amidst all the Brexit chaos one of the lighter moments of T May’s premiership!
Well choreographed and no spontanaity!
Dancing Queen!
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2018/oct/03/theresa-may-dances-on-to-the-stage-at-the-tory-party-conference-video
Lamela and Moura start, with Dele up front, and injured Sissoko. With kids off the bench, and maybe, just maybe, buy someone this month
You know what you could be on to something there. He knows where strikers like the ball (ts where he puts it) to get in to spaces. His touch is good. Can turn. hold off. swivel. head. Shoot. He understands the game and wont be bullied by defenders. It could very well work. I feel better now. DELE bring it
Dele can certainly fill the void but the last thing you want is him being carted off to the knackers yard once Kane returns having been flogged week in week out. This is a great opportunity for the big lump of Spanish paella to step up to the plate.
Plenty of talk of 16 yr old Troy Parrot being good enough to step up to the 1st team (on the basis that Rooney at 16 was good enough so why not…) I think its nonsense myself but maybe the best way to find out is to throw him in against palace in the cup to watch him sink or swim.
Interesting shout – would love to see if it would work. Wont be tested though.
Hes not even 17 yet!