While Tottenham’s transfer window is doing a good impression of someone who is housebound, work closer to home begins in earnest today for three players who have been out of action for some considerable time.
Matt Doherty, Japhet Tanganga, together with the lesser spotted Oliver Skipp are all scheduled to shake off the cobwebs at Hotspur Way today according to The Athletic‘s Charlie Eccleshare (£).
Skipp’s return is particularly welcome, but I take a view that many fans have fallen into the trap of somewhat immortalising the guy during his prolonged absence. A note of caution here, that the lad was only ever useful in my opinion, and now we will need to see how he responds to the setbacks of being sidelined and having undertaken surgery.
Ollie’s pelvis injury was no nose bleed, and the 21-year-old hasn’t kicked a ball in anger in 3 months.
Quite what we get from Doherty and Tanganga remains to be seen; the Irishman appeared to be showing some signs of improvement, whereas the Englishman had lost his way a little. Hopefully, a fresh start to a new campaign that includes Champions League football will boost everyone’s morale.
The off field infrastructure has no bounds ..
3 Stars ..begin pre season….Doherty Tanganga and Skipp..3 stars ..everything is wrong.
Royal is going to put him straight on that ..!!
Tanganga will be about the 4th choice as RCB and LWB, and 3rd choice at RWB. Prime candidate for a loan to the Championship
We will have a lot of matches to play, and the world cup participants are going to need some recovery mid season. He will probably get a decent amount of minutes, even as 3rd or 4th choice.
Skipp also has to overcome the disappointment of seeing two MFs coming in ,one having slotted in very nicely and one other who should prove to be a real winner.
Coming off the bench late on must be Skipp’s best hope for the coming season,unless heaven forebid Bissouma or Bentincur go down with a nasty injury.But he will get cup games I suspect
Tanganga. Doesn’t understand the term.’goalside’ and always turns the wrong way when marking his man. How is a professional footballer.? Incredible.
I think Skippy will be a ‘see out the last 20 minutes’ specialist this season.
Tangy will be…?
I think Tangy and Skipp will struggle to breakthrough for game time.
I think that understanding ENIC’s model was a long term one (invest in the off field infrastructure that will then enable us to generate the ongoing income to invest in the team), is not necessarily the same as defending it. I also think that ENIC’s player recruitment, whilst never easy, needed to be far, far better than it was, given the limited financial resources.
I think I am the last man standing, mate. All the others have been seen off, one way or another. Which is a pity, because those are the guys that trigger debate and good scraps.
Skipp was unlucky because he was our player of the season up to his injury…although admittedly it had been a mixed season up to that point and lots of our players had been underperforming (Kane etc)
Hope he makes a comeback.
You know H one of the things that gets me steamed up is this constant rolling out of meaningless defences of our Enic tenure you know them all so I wont bother to list them.
Now we have Sir Ali of Goldtown laughing at Spurs fans because there has been a gap in sealing our 4th signing and doing what I mention above – telling us what a clusterduck we were in this time last year so that makes it all right then (silly fans for not being patient).
Just like I heard the mighty KnobSpur tell us a few days ago that Joe Rodon failed under 4 managers failing to fill in the gaps that 2 of those weren’t real managers (1 being a temp. Cone Boy the other a Statue).
So as you say – we dont know if Skippy will be the same player after his very serious pelvic injury (I am no fan but apparently medically Winks hasn’t).
Loan Tanganga I dont know what happened to that player who bombed down the right on his own – was it against Bindip FC? – he looks a shell of a player.
As for Doherty – signs of improvement before injury lets hope it continues.
Which leads me to my final point – are you the only truly independent left – it seems all the other commentators are on the Spurs payroll to varying degrees (seat at presser/free tickets/upgraded seats/kickabouts at the ground/free Cheese etc)?
Tanganga’s problem for me is being used across the back 4 and not in one position. Find the role he’s good at and stick to it. Being flexible is ok to a point but you can’t blame the player if his performances aren’t 100%
Doherty needs to come out of the blocks quick time and make the position his. We know there’s a player there. We saw it at Wolves.
The issue now for Skipp is the new signings and where he’ll fit in. I can’t see him displacing Bentacur and Pierre any time soon. Both were immense as a partnership.
Important season for Tanganga, even as a backup player. Is he the player that impressed in his early performances, or full of the ‘accident waiting to happen’ performances that made him an area of weakness that the opposition could easily capitalise on? I’d send him on loan to a newly promoted side like Forest for more game time and less pressure to hopefully get himself ‘realigned’…