The arrival of Pierluigi Gollini at Hotspur Way is a welcome one, the more new faces about the place, the better for all concerned. It is no surprise that Tottenham’s fall from grace from a Champions League regular to Europe’s third tier of competition, the Europa Conference League. The squad was not only allowed to churn sufficiently for years, and two good managers lost their jobs as coaches in the process.
Sky Sports’ Michael Bridge understands that Gollini is effectively on approval to see if he is capable of graduating into Hugo Lloris’ shoes. This leaves the one-time Manchester United and Aston Villa ‘ace’ with quite a mountain to climb.
As for Joe Hart, it appears we have another Levy Special underway, a player that is of questionable ability yet not one that the club is in a hurry to move on.
I take a view that the inexpensive Gollini is a calculated risk, enforced upon Levy by Tottenham’s financial position. It also confirms that there is no faith in Hart other than in the event of an emergency.
He can’t play to his strengths. I don’t think he’s weak, but sometimes he just bounces off players. He’s rather quick but rash, so even when he keeps up with pacy attackers, I’m still worried he will barge them over needlessly (often in the box).
Bit similar to Serge in that regard. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, but nothing was done about the latter during their time at Spurs.
I suspect that’s Levy all over. Price a player at 75M, which no one will pay, let him deteriorate at the club and sell him for 13M two or three years later.
See also: Christian Eriksen and Jan Vertonghen.
Also, as for coaching – I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Sanchez looked good when he arrived, but it’s been all downhill from there. If Poch and Jose couldn’t improve him, I think Nuno won’t either. Same goes for other deadwood players like Winks, Sissoko et al.
Another annoying thing with Sanchez is when he trys to out muscle the opponent and loses out as he is not as ard as he thinks.
Even more annoying when this happens he has the pace to get to the ball and lay it off to someone but he kind of wants to test his metal or whatever.
Regardless still take him over Dier who has the attention span of hamster.
I agree, he was a great addition. We should have sold him when Poch wanted to when I suspect that he had spotted his legs were gone but Levy overpriced him at circa 75 mill which was ludicrous. I would sell Dier before Sanchez who has one thing in his favour which is his pace. His problem is he ball watches and consequentially gets the wrong side of his man. Surely if I can spot this as well as the next man, can’t the coaching staff sort this out?
Toby’s time is up. Shame, as he had a brilliant impact when he first came in – not only was he a very good CB himself, but he also made Verts sit up and start paying attention again.
If I had the choice, I would first lose Dier (and then probably Sanchez), but in all likelihood, people won’t stand in a queue for them.
There’s something in the water today. Maybe the fear of having their furlough cut off is getting stupid people jumpy – it certainly ought to.
I don’t trust you.
Kept the marketing team at Head and Shoulders happy perhaps
They’re all showing us their true colours and where their allegiance lies. Getting easier to spot them
Hart was another joke signing. Levy specializes in them.
At least Southgate didn’t get this job, he’s busy showing what it takes to be an MBE. Utterly dispicable man, ‘come on kids, you want your freedom back don’t ya…well you know what you have to do..’
Sam Johnstone was there for the taking.
Sad thing about Hart, he’s the same age as Lloris and has been subpar for the better part of a decade now, while Lloris continues to be one of the better keepers in the league. Maybe Hart was always poor, just slightly better than the crop of English keepers of his generation, Pep didn’t waste any time moving him on.
One guy I always thought could be a good backup/ successor to Hugo is Jack Butland. Watch him have a great season for Palace if he’s healthy.
This Gollini deal must be because we can’t afford Nick Pope this summer or maybe he is the plan for next summer..I’d like to think.
This is only a loan with an option to buy after a year but I wonder why we couldn’t find an English keeper in order to balance our quotas out better. It does appear that we are trying to shift some deadwood as it has reported that Alderweireld is joining a Qatari team for 13 mill although it would be unfair to describe him as deadwood. If we sign Romero from Atalanta, I will be impressed as I watched him in the Copa America and he was very useful but there’s a lot more churning to do yet.
Hart seemed ok at first but quickly it was apparent that a traffic cone has more mobility. I too don’t blame him for hanging on and hanging out at Spurs in case we need an emergency Keeper in Kazakstan for these UEFA follies.
He has been past it for a long time. He was rubbish whenever he played. Don’t blame him for hanging on, one last payday.
I thought Hart’s arrival was a smart move – a winner in the dressing room, but it wasn’t enough. We only needed 10 more …….
I think Dino is talking about Joe Hart. He was with Burnley before he joined spurs.
He’s never played for Burnley. If you meant Villa he was 21. I can’t say I’ve seen him play but 5 years is a lot of time to develop and right now I’d trust Paratici over someone who can’t even read up on Wikipedia.
If he couldnt get into Burnleys 11… not good enough for us. I actually thought Man Utd 2nd choice Romero? Was decent yet no other clubs showed interest