A disastrous summer transfer window is to blame, spent big on dross.

I disagree on Winks, he's been making a very good case to be considered a first team, if not a starter.

I also think N'Koudou and Sissoko have starter to show some promise, offering more directness and intent, so as 'squad options' they're decent. If you say yesterday's 11 was our 'first team', then without injuries our bench could include:

Dier, Winks, Lamela, Jansenn, Sissoko, N'Koudou.....

I don't think that's too shabby personally.

Imagine for example the Sissoko money was spent on Mane.

And the Janssen money on someone like Llorente, proven at a top level and a much better option. Or a Callum Wilson.

Of course it's easy to say in hindsight but transfer business is where the club fell down.

comment by Philspurs - Millionaire travel agent (U3278)




posted 2 minutes ago



I disagree on Winks, he's been making a very good case to be considered a first team, if not a starter.

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Agree with this, thought he was good when he came on yesterday.

comment by Philspurs - Millionaire travel agent (U3278)
posted 2 minutes ago
I disagree on Winks, he's been making a very good case to be considered a first team, if not a starter.

I also think N'Koudou and Sissoko have starter to show some promise, offering more directness and intent, so as 'squad options' they're decent. If you say yesterday's 11 was our 'first team', then without injuries our bench could include:

Dier, Winks, Lamela, Jansenn, Sissoko, N'Koudou.....

I don't think that's too shabby personally.
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You think Winks, at his current level is good enough to be pushing for a start in a team that had ambitions to win the PL at the start of the season? I have to disagree there

Did you think this last season?

comment by OneHopefulFan #Spurs (U8366)
posted 48 seconds ago
comment by Philspurs - Millionaire travel agent (U3278)
posted 2 minutes ago
I disagree on Winks, he's been making a very good case to be considered a first team, if not a starter.

I also think N'Koudou and Sissoko have starter to show some promise, offering more directness and intent, so as 'squad options' they're decent. If you say yesterday's 11 was our 'first team', then without injuries our bench could include:

Dier, Winks, Lamela, Jansenn, Sissoko, N'Koudou.....

I don't think that's too shabby personally.
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You think Winks, at his current level is good enough to be pushing for a start in a team that had ambitions to win the PL at the start of the season? I have to disagree there
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Yes I do.

Didn't say he's the finished product, but I think when he's had the opportunity he's performed very well, and is a more creative passer of the ball than our other CM options.

I don't mind us disagreeing though.

I think last season we had more experienced squad players so essentially more strength in depth. With that said we still had massive holes, but i feel players like chadli, mason have been replaced by kids (yes mason was inexperienced but was still about 24?). Regardless of if I felt like this last season, we had a summer to bulk the squad but we have instead trimmed it

Philspurs
Fair enough. It is completely fine to disagree . I think thats the on this forum - fans don't realise its ok to disagree! He is good and I'm happy for him, just don't think hes ready yet if we want to be top 4/title contenders. But we don't seem good enough for that atm so maybe winks is fine

comment by OneHopefulFan #Spurs (U8366)
posted 2 minutes ago
I think last season we had more experienced squad players so essentially more strength in depth. With that said we still had massive holes, but i feel players like chadli, mason have been replaced by kids (yes mason was inexperienced but was still about 24?). Regardless of if I felt like this last season, we had a summer to bulk the squad but we have instead trimmed it
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Getting rid of Chadli was a huge mistake. He could have made a massive difference coming off the bench yesterday.

comment by OneHopefulFan #Spurs (U8366)
posted 3 seconds ago
I think last season we had more experienced squad players so essentially more strength in depth. With that said we still had massive holes, but i feel players like chadli, mason have been replaced by kids (yes mason was inexperienced but was still about 24?). Regardless of if I felt like this last season, we had a summer to bulk the squad but we have instead trimmed it
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Totally disagree our squad is more experienced this season

Waynama replaced Mason = clear upgrade

Sissoko replaced Chadli = more experienced but downgrade

Janssen replaced no one

Nkoudou replaced Njie = like for like

Our problem is our attackers this season all in bad form at the same time.

With all our players back (bar Lamela) I'd constantly play last seasons x1 to see if we get them back into that form

I think we've been a little burnt before with players like Carroll and Mason, who have been 'ok' but not good enough for the top level. I didn't have much expectations from Winks but I think he's done very well whenever he's played this season, and looked every bit as good as Dembele for example (who admittedly, has been below par in general).

I don't think he should be a nailed on starter. But I wouldn't be disappointed to see him in a starting 11. I was at Wembley last week and had no concerns at all when I saw that he was playing, and he was one of our best players.

comment by Nicky Law's bald coot (U6025)
posted 5 minutes ago
Imagine for example the Sissoko money was spent on Mane.

And the Janssen money on someone like Llorente, proven at a top level and a much better option. Or a Callum Wilson.

Of course it's easy to say in hindsight but transfer business is where the club fell down.
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Small point maybe but Sissoki was on ‘HP’ terms of £5m a year I read. Mane or anyone else half decent for that matter would have cost way more up front and we all know that Mr Levy has a very tight grip on the purse strings. I also think Sissoko will settle though I wish he’d bleeding well hurry up.
I’m not defending the transfer policy and I have no idea how much is in the piggy bank like the rest of us but I’m sure if the money was there on the terms that we appear to need things might be different.

When was the last time we actually had a good summer though.

Normally we might buy 1 good player but never two or three at once

It's a decent squad overall. We have a top class striker and top class 1st team defence, with the rest being good if not great quality.

If we didn't have any European football I'd expect us to be challenging for the league, no question, providing we kept our 1st team for most of it. However with European football we are quite a bit off those other top teams. We don't have as many top attacking/midfield players as them.

Alli has the potential to grow to be one but I think with Lamela, Eriksen and Son even at their still relatively young age, we won't see them reach the heights of Sanchez, De Bruyne, Hazard. Even Coutinho has surpassed them. That's what sets us apart.

We don't look like buying that sort of quality anytime soon either, as shown by our latest summer transfer window.

I'm not too downbeat on our squad, wouldn't look half as bad if those that performed so well last year were performing to that level currently.

NKoudou deserves a chance still, has shown enough to see that he's not out of place. Janssen was a good signing on paper, just needs a couple of goals and time. Winks has looked good, Wimmer and Dier shown last season that they're good enough at this level.

Davies and Trippier aren't world class by any stretch but decent back-up, as is Vorm.

Edwards, although a youngster, looks a special talent and was unfortunate with the injury.

Chadli offered nothing at all as a sub when he came on. And goals apart, was a passenger in many games for us. And we have Son, scores some goals, passenger in a few games, but works even harder.

Our squads alright, our form isn't.

Agree with the OP. Not enough strength in depth in the squad, as was the case last season.

Wanyama is better than Mason obviously, and we did sign another striker. However so far Janssen has been ineffective, no two ways about it. Whether he's been here for 5 years or 5 months, nobody can honestly say that he's done the business up until this point.

Sissoko was crap at Newcastle and had been for the majority of his time there, while N'Koudou is extremely raw.

The bottom line is that there is talent out there in Europe who could have been bought for similar sums to what we've spent and who are better than what we have, but it seems we made absolutely no attempt to sign these players. Schurrle and Embolo moved clubs for about as much as we paid for Sissoko and N'Koudou is a prime example.

Too much emphasis has been placed on the academy and anticipating a natural improvement from our existing players.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

I said this in another article a while back, why aren't we looking at South American players? 4 of the best 5 current players in the league are South American, and our manager is South American which should give us an added benefit, no?

Just because Paulinho was a failure, and Lamela hasn't been the success we'd have hoped, doesn't mean others won't be, especially if they aren't coming from poor leagues.

others *will be

comment by Galvz (U10415)
posted 2 minutes ago
comment by Hengy (U9129)
posted 29 minutes ago
When was the last time we actually had a good summer though.

Normally we might buy 1 good player but never two or three at once
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08/09 was it?
Gomes, Modric, Giovani
Even that's not great
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Exactly my point 1 good player

Thing is I like what I've seen from N'koudou and the way the club took 2-3months to sign him you would have thought it was because we really wanted him. He has literally been another N'Jie. Almost exactly the same. What was the point in chasing after him for so long to barely use him? Confuses me!

I really despair at our scouting team, we had a great opportunity this summer to establish ourselfs as a top 4 club, but have blown it again, who the fack recommended Sissoko

comment by Spurtle2 (U1608)
posted 39 seconds ago
I said this in another article a while back, why aren't we looking at South American players? 4 of the best 5 current players in the league are South American, and our manager is South American which should give us an added benefit, no?

Just because Paulinho was a failure, and Lamela hasn't been the success we'd have hoped, doesn't mean others won't be, especially if they aren't coming from poor leagues.
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There's players all over the place, we're just either incapable of finding them or just too reluctant to move for them. If we're going to go for the youth route then surely we should be trying to find the best out there - affordability coming into play obviously?

Did we sign Vertonghen and Lloris in the same transfer window?