After six weeks of frenetic assessing of last seasons squad, Frank & Jacque realised that they had to do something quickly, if they are to have any chance of having anything like a decent season.
Spurs fans will be painfully aware that in previous seasons we have gone out and purchased star strikers whilst ignoring the problem area of midfield, centre back, left back etc, not to mention even contemplating bringing in replacements to understudy the injury prone players.
This time round Spurs have taken a more pragmatic approach and bought in a mixture of players for the short & long term team building without spending any money.(The sales of Postiga & Carr have more or less covered the cost of purchases so far).
They also have tried to fill every slot with players operating in their natural position, which has to been a huge improvement on using makeshift midfielders which invariably are only partially successful whilst leaving holes at the back(As if we didn’t have enough already).
So although none of our signings are spectacular, they do give us a clear 1st & 2nd choice in every position which is something we have not had for a long time.
This will at least give us a platform to build on and we can now bide our time in the transfer market until quality players become available at the right price (Shame about Danny Murphy, but it is the 2nd time he turned us down).
Also we now no longer prone to panic bids such as £10m+ for Andy Reid, what’s the betting that Joe Kinnear is not exactly flavour of the month at
What’s in store for us this season, well we are still short of a quality attacking right and left sided midfielder but a least we have a couple of component ones, so expect to finish somewhere between 10th to 6th given that two of our rivals (Birmingham and Middlesborough have strengthened considerably (On paper at least) 7/8th is looking likely).
Spurs do have a very tough opening fixture list, coupled with all the new players in the squad needing time(Such a precious commodity in soccer) to gel, we can expect to come under pressure early on, once we have weathered this we will be OK, and just for a change we should finish strongly.
Hopefully the new medical team will also have significant input into reducing and avoiding injuries. (They will certainly get plenty of experience!)
As always a good cup run would not only be welcome, but it tends to keep everybody happy.
Players Incoming
Pedro Mendes (FC Porto) – (Part Of Postiga Deal)
Robinson (
Defendi (Cruzeiro) - £600,000
Thimothee Atouba (FC Basle) - Undisc.
Sean Davis (Fulham) – £3m
Edman (Heerenveen) - £2m.
Marton Fulop (MTK Hungaria ) - £1m.
Leigh Mills (
Players Departed
Helder Postiga (FC Porto) £5m
Stephen Carr
Darren Anderton Released
Shwan Jalal Released
Sergei Rebrov Released
Christian Ziege (M'gladbach) – Released
Danny Foster – Released
Lars Hirschfeld – Released
Gustavo Poyet – Released
Players Still Likely To Depart Now Or In The January Transfer Window.
Goran Bunjevcevic
Dean Richards
Gary Doherty
Jamie Redknapp
Rohan Ricketts
Jamie Slabber
1st Team Squad
GK
Paul Robinson
Kasey Keller
Marton Fulop
LB
Erik Edman
Mauricio Taricco
RB
Stephen Kelly
Philip Ifil
CB
Ledley King
Nourredine Naybet
Anthony Gardner/ Gary Doherty
Mbulelo Mabizela/ Goran Bunjevcevic
CM
Pedro Mendes
Sean Davis
Michael Brown
Jamie Redknapp
LM
Thimothee Atouba
Johnnie Jackson
RM
Simon Davies
Dean Marney
Strikers
Fredi Kanoute
Jermain Defoe
Robbie Keane
Mark Yeates
Lee Barnard
.