Spurs 22/23: So, do we have a manager?

DJnVa

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More moves:

Doherty to Atletico on loan, no buy option. Surprised it's him and not Royal, since Doherty can cover both sides.

Spence is off to Rennes, same deal--loan, no buy option.

So, Doherty can play with Reguilon and Rennes with Rodon.
 
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Zososoxfan

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More moves:

Doherty to Atletico on loan, no buy option. Surprised it's him and not Royal, since Doherty can cover both sides.

Spence is off to Rennes, same deal--loan, no buy option.

So, Doherty can play with Reguilon and Rennes with Rodon.
It does work out nicely with 2 options at each FB spot now (Sess and Perisic on the left, and Porro and Emerson on the right). I like that Spurs have really gotten into gear with these last few moves--most importantly getting Porro over the line. Perhaps they can still pip a LCB or CCB--Skriniar getting the smoke signals these last few days, just not to Spurs. More likely though they'll make another pass at Bastoni in the summer. I don't think they can hang in the Gvardiol sweepstakes. I've given up hope on getting a CAM.
 

coremiller

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That Spurs are sending recent buys out on loan to make room for the new ones really speaks to how poor the squad building and transfer policy has been over the last few years.
 

DJnVa

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That Spurs are sending recent buys out on loan to make room for the new ones really speaks to how poor the squad building and transfer policy has been over the last few years.
Perhaps because they can't keep a manager?

Doherty was bought by previous regime and he had a great run of games last season before injury, but he's not the future. Spence was not a Conte guy, but a club buy, and I still like him, but he needs playing time.

Gil--man, there are flashy skills there but he just might not be a PL player at his size and style.
 
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DJnVa

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So Doherty wasn’t loaned out after all. His contract was terminated and he will likely be signing with Atletico on a free.

Apparently the Spurs were at their loan limit of8 and couldn’t find a work-around.
 

Jimy Hendrix

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Football aside, he's had a truly wretched six months as a human being with three friends dying to cancer and now this. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't sign a new deal at the end of the season simply because he's a guy who's going through all of that and has the financial option of going home to be with his family for a while.
 

DJnVa

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Football aside, he's had a truly wretched six months as a human being with three friends dying to cancer and now this. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't sign a new deal at the end of the season simply because he's a guy who's going through all of that and has the financial option of going home to be with his family for a while.
I agree, which makes the Spurs going hard after Porro, who was Conte's #1 choice, a little strange.

Granted Porro is likely gonna be good no matter who the manager is, but Conte wanted another offensive option and he wanted Porro and he got that.
 

Jimy Hendrix

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The second part is what makes me feel sanguine whichever way it happens. Conte's proclivities tend to leave squads stronger than they were when he got there by the end of his tenures.
 

DJnVa

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So Kane gets the record with a winner versus Man City. And who knew that a 1-0 loss to Spurs would be the best part of the last 24 hours for Man City?
 

DJnVa

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Understanding I have PTSD from being a 49ers fan, but who is Forster's backup now?
Brandon Austin I would imagine. I think he's listed on the CL roster.

Whiteman was playing U21 last month after returning from a loan.

EDIT: Whiteman is on the CL roster too.
 

Zososoxfan

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Welp, time to find out for real whether Forster can be a valuable part of this club. The next two month stretch is immense for the season, as there's 7 winnable EPL matches, and winnable ties in FA Cup and UCL (Milan is imploding in spectacular fashion).
 

Kliq

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Yeah the Milan game has looked easier and easier as the weeks have gone by.
 

DJnVa

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Welp, time to find out for real whether Forster can be a valuable part of this club. The next two month stretch is immense for the season, as there's 7 winnable EPL matches, and winnable ties in FA Cup and UCL (Milan is imploding in spectacular fashion).
Haven't kept up with that--what's happening?

A buddy is a big Milan fan, we're planning to get together and watch the game next week.
 

Kliq

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Haven't kept up with that--what's happening?

A buddy is a big Milan fan, we're planning to get together and watch the game next week.
They've been in awful form lately, having drawn with bottom-feeder Lecce, gotten embarrassed by Lazio 4-0, then humiliated at home, losing 5-2 to Sassuolo and then losing to Inter 1-0. Like Spurs, they will be on their back-up keeper as Mike Maignan has been out injured and the results for Milan's defense have not been good.

Rafael Leao was on a heater to start the season but has been in poor form since Serie A resumed play, which hurts their attack as outside of him, it's relying a lot on old Olivier Giroud to put the ball in the net. It should still be a tough game for Spurs, but they are in significantly worse form than they were when the draw first happened.
 

Zososoxfan

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Starting Porro in a match at the same time you deploy Tanganga is malpractice. Starting Son over Richy is malpractice. What a fucking disaster of a match. The club desperately need to upgrade at CB, but these lineups are also no good. What a shitshow.
 

Zososoxfan

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Starting Son over Richy AGAIN sucks. Deki was bad, again. Romero got beat on an aerial duel leading to the goal. Forster's not at fault for the goal, but probably should've done better? Perisic just turned 36 and is being asked to play WB for Conte 2x/week. Kane looked off. Things are not well in Spursland. All that said, and it's pretty awesome that the 4th and 5th CMFs are both young and played a terrific match against good European competition.

Spurs are off until Sunday when they face WHU at home. WHU is in a somewhat surprising relegation battle, and their form coming in is comparable to Spurs. They got stodgy draws against Chelsea and Newcastle recently, but also lost to Wolves, before beating Everton and Derby (FA Cup).

Conte really needs to sit Son and get the defense and general tactics sorted out. I respect the hell out of him for coming back to Spurs so soon after surgery, and the guy has had a shit year in his personal life, but this is professional football and he needs to do much better.

In other news, the Financial Times has reported a group led by Jahm Najafi is interested in buying the club:

Iranian-American billionaire Jahm Najafi is preparing a blockbuster $3.75bn takeover bid for Tottenham Hotspur, the Premier League football club, according to two people with direct knowledge of the plans.

Najafi, who is the chair of MSP Sports Capital, is working with a consortium of investors to structure the bid and is weeks away from formally approaching Spurs owner Joe Lewis and the football club’s chair Daniel Levy, these people said.

The Najafi and MSP-led offer would value the club’s equity at approximately $3bn before adding about $750mn of debt on the club’s books. The bid is structured so that MSP and its partners will put forward 70 per cent of the purchase price, while backers from the Gulf, mainly from Abu Dhabi, will contribute the remaining 30 per cent.
LINK

I'd like for Spurs to stay away from ownership groups resembling those of PSG, MANC, and Newcastle. I may hate-watch Spurs these days, but I'll take it over an ownership group like that. Of course I'd be lying if I said I won't watch or support the club if it comes to pass, but I certainly won't be jumping with joy.
 

SocrManiac

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You guys have said Son wasn’t himself even before the injury. I appreciate that because without the insight I’d have guessed this was a mental problem brought on by wrecking his face. He looks timid. One of my big knocks on him a couple of years ago was he was overly selfish at times, dribbling down blind alleys and taking a shot when the extra pass was on. Now he’s a beat slow on his decision making (doesn’t look physical) and he’s not finding space to play. Very weird regression for a fantastic player
 

Jimy Hendrix

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The Najafi and MSP-led offer would value the club’s equity at approximately $3bn before adding about $750mn of debt on the club’s books.
The above is apparently an ambiguously written sentence and not a horrible omen. It seems to mean they value the club at 3 billion and its debts at 750million, hence their total offer and not, as was alarming, that their offer includes putting 750 million of additional debt on the club.

Amazing that you can write a sentence that means "they're planning to retire debt as part of the offer" and have it completely reasonably syntactically read "they are planning to add debt to the club as part of the offer".
 

Jimy Hendrix

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You guys have said Son wasn’t himself even before the injury. I appreciate that because without the insight I’d have guessed this was a mental problem brought on by wrecking his face. He looks timid. One of my big knocks on him a couple of years ago was he was overly selfish at times, dribbling down blind alleys and taking a shot when the extra pass was on. Now he’s a beat slow on his decision making (doesn’t look physical) and he’s not finding space to play. Very weird regression for a fantastic player
Son's been streaky even when he's good, you could probably find 5-game stretches in his golden boot season last year when he looked like this. This season's been all bad and no good on that front for the most part, and without the games he'd have where he looks like kinda crap but puts up numbers anyways.

The two tactical explanations I've potentially seen are
  1. Conte has Kane playing up higher and his reduced amount of dropping deep and threading passes through is hurting Son. He's scoring more and assisting less than he was for the past two years when the "Harry Kane, playmaker!" thing really took off.
  2. Perisic as a two-footed winger type wingback is taking up a lot more of Son's spaces than say Sessegnon or Reguilon did as a more typical overlapper.
I buy 1 a lot more than I buy 2, and I buy "he started cold and is just a mess in his head" most of all.
 

teddykgb

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Hasn’t Son been an over performing his xG monster? Maybe this is just regression to the mean? Either way as a completely abused City fan I’d always rather see Richarlison in the lineup against us than Son
 

Kliq

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Almost every elite goal scorer overperforms their xG, that is why they are elite players--they convert chances that average players would not.

That of course is the problem, Son hasn't performed like an elite player. I'm becoming more pessimistic about his ability to rebound, pacey wingers lose it quick.
 

Zososoxfan

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The above is apparently an ambiguously written sentence and not a horrible omen. It seems to mean they value the club at 3 billion and its debts at 750million, hence their total offer and not, as was alarming, that their offer includes putting 750 million of additional debt on the club.

Amazing that you can write a sentence that means "they're planning to retire debt as part of the offer" and have it completely reasonably syntactically read "they are planning to add debt to the club as part of the offer".
This just started making sense to me now, thanks lol.
 

Zososoxfan

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I'd say yesterday's XI is the best XI for the time being--i.e., based on a combination of quality AND form. IOW, Davies at LWB and Richy at LW. Porro will eventually become a better option than Emerson against sides that defend deep, Son may pass Richy, and perhaps a rested Perisic > Davies at WB, but otherwise that's our strongest. I worry that yesterday's match says more about WHU than Spurs, but at this point in the season it's just about results. Nab top 4 this season, and the outlook for the club continues to look stable and promising.
 

Kliq

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After this Chelsea game Spurs have a pretty soft stretch of PL games that will likely determine where the season goes. They play @wolves, Forest, @Southampton, @Everton, Brighton and Bournemouth. That then sets up the key three games of the season, @Newcastle, Man U and @Liverpool. If they can really take care of business during that softer run into those huge matches, they will likely only need to do so-so in those three games to stay in the Top 4.
 

Zososoxfan

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Thought some of you would get a laugh out of this :)

View: https://youtu.be/tZuMSXalq78
That's terrific. Already sent along to my Spurs friends and Pub Team.

Huge win against the Secondary Scum yesterday. Masterclasses from Skipp and Romero, and strong performances from Emerson, Kane, Hoj, Dier, Davies, Lenglet, and Forster. I thought Deki was poor, Richarlison was OK, Son had a big contribution hitting the corner leading to the Dier-to-Kane 2nd goal, and Porro DNQ for a rating.

Skipp continues his excellent form and had a mansome banger of a goal. He shrugged off Felix like a wee lad, before blasting a half volley by the shitty Kepa. Gawd I hate Kepa's face and I don't think he's very good. Skipp also bawsed the MF along with Hoj and he continues to show confidence and physicality.

Romero has really started to come on following the WC. The guy is an elite CB and if Spurs can nab another this summer, they might really be cooking. The guy goes in SO EFFING HARD when he chooses to, and he doesn't particularly care where on the field his services are needed. Once he's decided to hound a player in possession, Romero's getting the ball or that guy's going down. He's really starting to build a nice partnership with Emerson too, both in defense and attack. There was one play on D--mid to late 2nd half--where a ball was played into space behind Emerson, but both Spurs defenders were in position to track and chase. Emerson begins his brisk jaunt over to close down the Chelsea attacker, but Romero shoulders him off (lol) and cracks the attacker. Delicious.

Emerson's underlapping role in attack have really opened things up down the right for Spurs. Emerson underlapping has opened the deep wing for Romero--who's just fantastic with the ball at his feet and uses the extra time to good effect--and the higher wing for the LW, which was a dead end before this tactical change. Emerson looks really comfortable on the ball in the middle and has even been combining with the forwards in the final third. What a drastic change from his earlier form. It really allows Porro some needed time to bed in, and I think we saw a preview of things to come when Porro came on for Richy at the very end, but ended with Porro at RW and Son on his preferred LW.

Riffing off of that, Davies at LWB also may provide a boon to Son since Davies' positioning and running preferences are so different from Perisic and Sess. More bluntly, Davies is less likely to jump into attacks and take up positions that crowd Son's preferred areas, and getting Son firing could be huge down the stretch.

Lastly, I'd like to just give some love to Forster. He's good with his feet--which makes him miles better than Hugo--and the wide defenders (Romero and Lenglet) benefit from that a great deal. It let's Spurs build from the back with some basic confidence. He doesn't always make saves look pretty--he seems pretty fond of neck saves (ouchie)--but he's stopping the shots, and he's a goddamn behemoth who controls his area well.

Interested to see what happens with the XI on Wednesday against SHU. We need to progress in this competition, but keep EPL as top priority. i.e., Kane shouldn't start, and players like Porro, Sarr, Danjuma, and others should get the opportunity to show their quality.

COYS!!
 

DJnVa

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That's terrific. Already sent along to my Spurs friends and Pub Team.

Huge win against the Secondary Scum yesterday. Masterclasses from Skipp and Romero, and strong performances from Emerson, Kane, Hoj, Dier, Davies, Lenglet, and Forster. I thought Deki was poor, Richarlison was OK, Son had a big contribution hitting the corner leading to the Dier-to-Kane 2nd goal, and Porro DNQ for a rating.
Richarlison made a nice play on the first goal. He corralled the header and sent the ball across to Kulu who laid it off for Royal.
 

Jimy Hendrix

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Richy is also a grinder off the ball which Son, for all his pluses, just isn't. Richy/Davies and Kulu/Royal are two extremely defensively diligent combos down the wings in a way that Son/Perisic simply is not.
 

Zososoxfan

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Believe you me, I have more respect than most for forwards who put in a shift defensively. Richy is ELITE in this regard. But I thought he was merely OK in attack, and that is the primary criteria for an attacker at Spurs. I still think he's the starting LW, and I'd love to see Richy get some time at CF.
 

Jimy Hendrix

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Believe you me, I have more respect than most for forwards who put in a shift defensively. Richy is ELITE in this regard. But I thought he was merely OK in attack, and that is the primary criteria for an attacker at Spurs. I still think he's the starting LW, and I'd love to see Richy get some time at CF.
Son with his head right and finishing boots on is no doubt the top of the depth chart at that position. Richy might be above the Son we've had most of this season though, which hopefully can let him get a bit more rest and become the first guy again.
 

OCST

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You know my feelings on Richy. Get on his back and ride him. He can’t create and score as well as an in-form Son - few can tbh- but Son is not in form and his game without the ball isn’t close to what Richy can do.
 

Zososoxfan

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What do people want to see for an XI on Thursday? My take:

Forster
Lenglet-Dier-Sanchez
Perisic-Sarr-Skipp-Porro
Son-Danjuma-Deki

The key to Thursday is to rotate a bit while still playing a strong squad. To that end, Spurs are oddly fortunate that a lot of attacking players are not in good form and they can use this match to right the ship.

I'd prefer to rest Romero, Hoj, and Kane so I started with that. I then looked at players who need to get in form and added Perisic, Porro, Son, and Deki. I wasn't sure whether to put Danjuma or Richy into the forward line, but Richy is needed to put in big shifts in upcoming fixtures so I started him on the bench, but I wouldn't have any problem if he got the start at CF over Danjuma. The important thing is that Richy's minutes are limited as he's the most important player between Son, Danjuma, and Deki right now--and that's an insane thing to say, but here we are.

I was also tempted to play Whiteman in this match, but Forster really needs the reps with the backline. Similarly, I toyed with the idea of a Davies-Lenglet-Sanchez backline, but I don't want to underestimate SHU and again, I think Dier, Lenglet, and Forster would benefit from more experience together. Although I picked Lenglet over Davies because Lenglet is a better passer from the back and Davies just might be our starting LWB. More likely Davies is the starting LWB against strong sides where his defensive abilities are really useful and one of Perisic, Sess (when healthy), or an inverted Porro can play against weaker opposition.
 

Kliq

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I think not putting more minutes on Kulu's legs would be more likely to get him in form than playing another weekday game.
 

Zososoxfan

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I think not putting more minutes on Kulu's legs would be more likely to get him in form than playing another weekday game.
Really? He looks tired to you? To me he looks a bit like Son in that his signature moves just aren't coming off consistently. There's been some reporting that Son's been carrying a niggling knock in recent weeks, so maybe it's similar for both, but IMO Deki needs more time on the field as he's only 22 and has been a high level pro for several seasons.
 

scott bankheadcase

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I think for the first time since Llorente, Spurs actually have a striker other than Kane on the roster in this is the perfect spot to play Richy up top.

And then play either Deki or Son, rest the other to play on the weekend.
 

DJnVa

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Really? He looks tired to you? To me he looks a bit like Son in that his signature moves just aren't coming off consistently. There's been some reporting that Son's been carrying a niggling knock in recent weeks, so maybe it's similar for both, but IMO Deki needs more time on the field as he's only 22 and has been a high level pro for several seasons.
Yeah, Kulu had the World Cup break off, he shouldn't be dragging.
 

Gunfighter 09

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I think for the first time since Llorente, Spurs actually have a striker other than Kane on the roster in this is the perfect spot to play Richy up top.

And then play either Deki or Son, rest the other to play on the weekend.
This is my preferred COA.

Start Kane on the bench and plan on him & Danjuma coming on in the second half. Let Richarlison play in his natural position where he has had the most career success for club & country.
 

Zososoxfan

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I think we all agree Kane should rest. I think the questions are which 3/4 start, and what is Danjuma's best position with Spurs.

Edit: What does the depth chart by position look like to you all?

Striker: Kane, Richy, Danjuma, Son? (When Kane went out a couple of seasons ago, Son played really well as a central striker, even playing with his back to goal).

LW (secondary striker): Richy, Son, Danjuma?

RW (creator): Deki, Danjuma, Porro? Porro > Danjuma?
 

OCST

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This is my preferred COA.

Start Kane on the bench and plan on him & Danjuma coming on in the second half. Let Richarlison play in his natural position where he has had the most career success for club & country.
Richarlison wears 9 for Brazil but I don’t think he’s an old school 9. At Everton he was at his best in a three man front, on the left. You want him facing goal and running at defenders, not holding up. He is not elite at any one skill of dribbling, creating, shooting, or heading, but he can do all better than average and to get that all in one guy is rare.