Twenty in February, Bryan Gil Salvatierra looks set to arrive in London after Tottenham part with €25million and one Erik Lamela. Already the chitter-chatter has built this deal up as short-term thinking by Sevilla, and a fabulous opportunity for Tottenham.
The reality of the situation is that this is, with the best will in the world, another punt. Please don’t mistake this as disdain for Bryan, he looks to be a decent prospect, but these are extremely early days.
If we avert our gaze from the YouTube compilations for a moment and look at the facts, we have a very young player who has just made his breakthrough season of sorts, with 28 starts for Eibar where he’s been on loan. Of those games, Bryan was subbed off 10 times and subbed on on two occasions.
What we’re looking at here is a possible understudy to the 29-year-old Heung Min-Son, and right now, nothing more.
Whilst I’m in no way down on the acquisition, if money is in short supply, and the markets so compressed, I question the merit of not addressing perhaps more pressing matters such as our defense. Perhaps those deals are already wrapped up, and we haven’t been gifted that news as yet. Or perhaps the notion that punts win prizes still rules over the decision-making at Tottenham Hotspur.
True Tony. A sunrise can be a great way to convince you that it’s going to be a sunny day.
They don’t always deliver a hopeful day. It’s a beautiful way to convince you it might however.
I have so many bottles of sun cream in the cabinet I’ve never used.
ENIC are convinced they can light a sunrise with a pair of AA batteries and a crumpled up picture of Pamela Anderson.
Am little disturb that we have Jack Clarke same age lacking development. Send him out – Tom Carroll on our hands again.
What we sign in the earlier stage does not concern as much as where we are with getting rid of sanchez, and Winks. We do not need to fill Winks stop. So this one outcoming should bring us $20-25M to cover the exhange for Sanchez. Aurier unfortunately will be here, so do Dier and we need a central defender. Tanganga is not ready and we will be overloaded at rightback. Ings is over estimating his value. He can come to Spurs and partner Kane or play on his own. He will not be at Manu, not with Cavana, Martial and Rasford.
The hourly rate must be shat…
Fook em.
I was referring to profiency of crossing the ball. Wingbacks being the prime supply into the box. Still makes my stomach hurts.
I think Saka has a right foot he used it for the OG v Denmark, however I agree with the sentiment inverted wingers are easy to mark against & besides it relies on fullbacks crossing the ball…something our fullbacks struggle to do every game & was sadly missing in the Euro final once we scored
Understand the point you’re making. Sunrises are one of nature’s most beautiful moments and always deliver whereas ENIC…….
The age of the boy is a concern and whether he’s ready to move away when so young, despite this fact he looks a prospect, and hope Lamela is finally moved on.
We were on the cusp of that under Poch with Bruno Fernandez and Dybala, but then Levy reverted to type.
Doubt he’ll be a starter for some time yet.
So I read this as paying Sevilla 25mil to take Lamela and his high wages and medical carrying costs off our hands and getting back a young kid with a lot of hair that we don’t have to pay high wages to and might be able to sell on in a few years for big money if Spurs don’t destroy his career first.
Obviously the ENIC shills are out in force today judging by the number of down arrows.
Might be good. Might not be. You can bet that the €25m will be target related and spread out over 5 years!
What’s Lamela worth? €15-20m? Seems like a lot of money for a 19 year old – suspiciously uncharacteristic of our usual transfer policy.
€25m + Lamela for a 19 year old prospect doesn’t see that lopsided to me.
Getting Lamela out the door is a priority, replacing him with someone who is capable of passing a football will be good business IMO.
Agree with most of that but please don’t forget not every player the press link THFC to is fact & maybe Paratici is making a difference??
Because they’re skint & have to sell &/or reduce wage bill & why they’re willing to let Koundé leave for right money too.
(Most clubs in Spain are ‘brassic’)
The problem here is managers and modern day football has no use for players with skill to spare playing on one foot. That magical left foot, for some reason makes you like Rudoph’s nose on a dark winter’s night when they are on. Next thing he is turned into an inverted right winger, just like they are doing to Saka. They wonder about his development. Unable to hit a ball into the box with the right foot. Dribble across the face of goal right left just to get a shot off. He has skillset. Now we can move Son to the right and sit Moura and Stevie B.
Bergwijn was a deal to be done, not filling a position of need. Hasn’t worked out so far.
So Levy maybe getting some bank now Hearn has realized he can’t get away with swerving Usyk for Joshua. I will not be surprised if this fight is cancelled though like Fury’s due to “positive tests”. That’s if venues are open in September even. If it does go ahead I’m sure Usyk will be told by his stable master to have an off night….
If you’re spending essentially €35 million he’s a bit more than one for the future.
I’m not sure we attract the best of the best for a variety of reasons
I doubt he has any,just told who’s coming in.
So 25M plus Lamela [10M?].That’s a big punt on someone so young and unproven in the PL.The equivelent of what Wolves [Nuno] paid for Fabio Silva at 19.He didn’t work out too well.If it comes off let’s hope it is worthwhile.
Clearly this position isn’t one of our priorities and if we go for young hopefuls like this there will be no funds for defenders.Levy said we must sell to buy.And we are apparently quibbling over a couple on miliion for the Japanese at 17M.Something doesn’t add up here.
I think this a fantastic move. He plays like Ginola. The last naturally gifted players we had at the club were Dembele, Taarabt and Berbatov. Nothing since them, so Spurs have been dull and functional to watch. We need a creative maverick to liven it all up.
Top player I watched him for a couple years now more of a erikison type of player from the wing loves to cut in wins loads fk n in great areas upgrade on lamela already
If only…
Wide attackers wide attackers wide attackers. Yes, there are more pressing issues to focus on. The question is, why would Sevilla let this young talent go so easily? Could be another one who has 1 great game and 8 anonymous ones….Lamela is out so that’s something.
Two really perplexing arrivals.
Every transfer is a “punt” I am afraid – even those with proven experience / success (Fernando Torres to Chelsea, Alexis Sanchez to Man U, Eden Hazard to RM) can not turn out well.
I did not rate the player recruitment previously and while I am willing to give Patarici time to prove himself, it seems to me little has changed – identify 5+ players for a given position based upon profile and see who you can negotiate the best deal for. Didn’t see Liverpool doing that with VVD or Utd with Sancho – they both waited and got their man.
Agree that other positions need prioritising but the counter argument is that if there is a deal to be done that all parties are willing to do, even though that position may not be a priority, why wait? Better to get the new player in asap. There could be a whole number of things holding up deals for defenders.
With Lamela nearly out the door, I’m seeing that Nuno wants rid of Winks, Dier, Toby, Sanchez, Aurier and Carlton Vickers. Pleased if this is true but would like Sissoko and Dele added to that list.
Who knows what the squad will look like come 1st September? Happy if we bring in 2/3 centre backs, right back, playmaker and striker
money not there NO ITS IN ENICS NEST EGG
Levy had two approaches to choose from for the rebuild:
Levy is clearly reverting to approach 2 and is why Kane wants to leave as the club does not match his ambition of seriously competing to win the major trophies.
I have no problem with Kane’s stance and I would have no problem with Levy’s approach, considering the current financial situation, if tickets were not priced for approach 1. However, the disparity between ticket prices and the investment in the product provided for the fans is my bone of contention and, based on the loud grumbling on social media, the majority of fans have now woken up to disbelieve the Levy spin that patience doesn’t bring better days in the future – only a richer capital investment portfolio.
The coming seasons will be interesting. I’m guessing the current split of season ticket holders consists of ~50:50 split between legacy fans and those who jumped on the TH Stadium bandwagon. If the bandwagon continues to meander I expect many of those who jumped onboard will leave in their droves leaving a depleted fan-base buying overpriced burgers and craft beer.
Only then when TH Ltd may we see the transfer policy change…or maybe not as other sporting and entertainment events become the main breadwinner and the football is a bygone legacy.
The problem is that we stopped buying young up and coming players players and instead spent our budget on players like Aurier, Sissoko and Lucas, who while okay were both expensive and nowhere near good or consistent enough to improve the 1st team. Imagine if we’d bought Tielemans or Barella in 2016 when planning for life after Moussa Dembele instead of spaffing 30m on Sissoko. FWIW Poch also stopped taking chances on younger players once he had something to lose.
Let the churn begin H!
Lamela out is the news here (if legit). Long overdue.
To get an up and coming Spanish international in his place, agreed is a punt, but one worth taking in an area that is relatively strong for us.
Fingers crossed for strong defenders now ASAP!
Tough to love a sunrise when you’re told to look at it every morning.
Yes one for the future only I’m afraid. It will take him some time to adapt and prove himself in our league coming off the bench. Might well be a starter in the Conference league though.
It seems we either get more mature, ready made players that aren’t good enough (Sissoko, Aurier etc) or we take a punt on kids. It’s not guaranteed success either way. Perhaps we should have considered buying far less but much more expensive players that would have been nailed on to work for us. The amount we’ve wasted over the last decade on either kids like the N’ crowd, Jack Clarke etc. and older players who nobody else was in for, we could have bought some established stars instead. Works for the other big 6.
Yep we are back to the pre-Poch transfer strategy, It got us to become top four regulars and challenging for the title. Our decline started when we changed strategy and started buying older players like Sissoko, Lucas, Doherty, etc who while talented at best only improved the bench but couldn’t challenge the first choice players.
The fact is, this is yet another ‘jam tomorrow’ move by Levy. We were constantly told that the team under Poch of a few seasons ago had this historically low average age, fantastic future etc. They won nothing.
Unless you augment this kind of signing with proven quality across the squad, it makes no difference how good he’s going to be in 5 years time. Just more buy cheap and young, well, so far it’s all resulted in nothing. Even when we won the League Cup back in the day, we had Woody and Ledley at the back Keane up front etc.
Poch took this kind of signing as far ad he could as a group, then it needed churn, then it needed well thought through additions and quality ones at that.
This smacks of Levy trying to recreate the kind of thing we had a few years ago. Let’s just remember, we waited for them to come good, when they did nothing else was added to see it over the line. They won NOTHING…
EVERY transfer is a punt, even some very established players from other leagues never truly performed to their best in the Premier League; Falcao, Roque Junior, Shevchenko, Veron, Brolin, Gilberto, van der Meyde to name a few & whilst I’m aware Mr.Levy has a wanton propensity for many dodgy signings too, we just have to hope IF this is a done deal, it does work out.
Maybe the plan is to play Gil or Bergwijn on the wing and stick Son up front alongside Kane?
In any case Gil is a good prospect who looks very skillful and dangerous on the ball. The question is whether he is going to adapt to the PL where he will get kicked for 90 minutes each game. If he’s made of glass we might end up swapping the old Lamela for Lamela 2.0.
Our most successful transfer strategy under ENIC was a DoF signing players on the up and up. Berbatov, Modric, Bale, Son, and so on. Once we hit top four that stopped and churning the squad meant buying proven top-level players. We don’t have the budget to keep up with the other top four contenders so signing young players who may take one or two seasons before becoming regulars- alongside integrating our own youth prospects- is a good strategy to keep the squad fresh and competitive.
Of course at the moment the level required to improve our first 11 is nowhere near as high as it was in years past.
COYS
Positive signing (if it happens) and more akin to what we have done in the past, buy young and potentially sell on for a high price. Its what we have always done and will continue to do while we have ENIC/Levy at the helm.
Lament Lamela
I for one will miss him. To be fair I never thought he would kick a ball again after injury. He was the most watchable, most nasty, most skilful
He appears to be the marmite player for many Spurs fans but many forget pre-injury he had rattled in 10 goals a season.
On some common ground all would concede he was 100% in getting stuck in.
I for one will follow him closely in Spain as there is magic in those boots I will stick my neck out here. I bet Seville fans see they have the better deal here. If you wanted to share Youtube cameos would there be any comparison.
It is time to move on for Lamela but I will miss him fizzing like a bottle of pop and the 100% in your face player.
Did he ever come of the pitch making any friends?
,
I think with a player of his type you make very valid points, however the more important thing is does he suit the premier league, he is of an age that can be influenced by good coaching and hopefully it works
He ticks some boxes and we start to get a little churn, plus the lad has potential so I’m guessing it’s a 5 year deal with 1 year option so it looks good for the spreadsheet.
But as levy has said himself money isn’t there anymore for the squad so we’ve got to be frugle with what we spend unless kane is gone this summer. Though levy cannot seem to prioritise except there is not much expectation for the coming season.
I don’t know if you are aware that Daniel Levy’s father, Barry, was in the schmutter trade. He owned a company called Byrite, latterly Blue Inc,. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree! On the subject of Lamela, great disappointment but he always gave 100%.
Lamela should have gone much, much earlier. There were some pretty good games but too few and far apart. We’ll probably remember the two rabonas but one was in an inconsequential EL game (which we won 5-1) and the other in an NLD loss (where he got stupidly red carded), so apart from the wow factor, they meant very little. So for 8 or 9 years of service, we get that and him winding up Jack Wilshere, which was funny, admittedly, but not enough.
Maybe the Spanish league will fit him better.
As for the new guy, hard to disagree – and hard to see him make a meaningful contribution right away, which is what we need. Also, does this mean Bergwijn is off?
If Levy and co. don’t see that the defence is an absolute priority, this season is a write-off right from the start. We probably need to replace most of the players there over this and the next summer, so please get to it!
I know it’s difficult and defense is by far the most important area for strengthening/rebuilding BUT this is a player who has a clear ability to run at people and cause problems.
Have to say a swap with coco like this is exciting prospect and whilst not getting too excited, this was the kind of player we thought we had with him. But all he was good at doing really is that headless chicken routine.
It won’t take much to be an improvement.
Let’s hope those other deals are done soon in the defensive areas and get Bryan into preseason ASAP.
it’s hard… but let’s try to look at the positives here, there are a couple 🙂
Maybe Kane is already away & this kid is the first of 5 replacements… the japanese guy being no. 2 with some other Italians making up the rest. You have to wonder how much say Nuno has had in this transfer if it comes off…
He was very 1 dimensional but at least he had heart, which is more than can be said for some of the others.
Think the merit of this deal is being missed here. Sure it’s a punt but all transfers are ( ask Robbie Keane how the Reds worked out ) but we will be moving Lamela on. I love him but he has to go. Frees up net 30k a week in wages, it’s a good deal.
The transfer grapevine is a soap-opera every window. Entertaining, but rarely based on fact.
However, I’m worried about the lack of speculation at right back.
If Aurier and Dogherty remain our only two bona fide options in that position, we should be very concerned.
And for once we agree Harry. Posted exactly the same yesterday. Even if the guy was the real deal he’s still coming in to sit behind our only truly world class player (if Kane does leave). With money tight it seems such a silly waste – classic Spurs then.
I think all we can expect are relatively unknown prospects with potential. Spurs can’t offer any meaningful European football and CL looks to be some way off at the moment. We’re a good bet for young players with ambitions of playing in the PL. We can forget about expensive established stars looking to further their careers.
He looks like a member of the Spanish version of the Inbetweeners.
It’s a good anology, knock offs never quite fit right, always leave you feeling slightly twisted, just like Primark Levy.
Nothing wrong with punts – but as you say, it needs to be backed with legitimate fixes in key areas. Sadly though, Levy is like my dad when it comes to spending money…”In my day jeans cost £2″ so he will not spend more than that on jeans now. This results in market stall knock offs or old jeans.
Looking forward to seeing him play and really hope this move works out for him. I’m not sorry to see Lamela go. Rabona’s aside i feel he had a very mediocre Spurs career. Granted he did have a few injuries but he had plenty of time time to impress and failed to do so.
My prediction is that he will be MVP for Sevilla next season
He’s got a bit of Waddle to him 😋
This to me seems like a good bit of business, “assuming” our priority’s elsewhere are taken care of….getting rid of Lamela is a good thing, I’d of chucked in Winks and knocked off another 5m…..
However, don’t we still need a striker “even” if Kane stays…CB is a must but seeing Levy spending other peoples money on players rather than property is a good thing…
Youtube can be very misleading when a season is condensed into 5 minutes. I took a look at Erik’s 20/21 show reel and he looked like a Gil upgrade.
Legitimately excited by this kid. He knows the art of dribbling against the pace of the defender, and he looks like he has a final ball as well. Subbing and substitutions are no problem for me with a 19 yr old, thats part of the deal. My concern is that this looks so lopsidedly in favour of Tottenham that I’m surely dreaming.