EPL Talk » Luka Modric

Tottenham Sign Defoe But Is It The Wrong Move?

Lonnie — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:12:51 +0000

Striker Jermain Defoe should complete his return to Tottenham Hotspur after the two sides agreed terms on an as yet undisclosed transfer fee. The fee is expected to be in the £15m range, a significant increase from the £7.5m that Pompey paid Spurs for Defoe’s services in 2008. The BBC reports that the deal will also take into account monies owed to Tottenham by Portsmouth in deals for Younes Kaboul and Pedro Mendes so just how much Pompey will net remains to be seen. It should ease some of the financial strain the club is under though losing one of their main offensive weapons will be difficult.

For Tottenham, I have to wonder if this is the right move. Spurs have not been prolific in goal-scoring this season but I don’t know that they are lacking in options up front. They already have a solid starting pair in Darren Bent and Roman Pavlyuchenko. Pavlyuchenko started slowly but has shown signs of late that he is adapting to the Premier League. They also have Frazier Campbell on loan and one has to wonder what his future at the club is now that Defoe has arrived. Campbell and Defoe are similar players and Campbell has been solid for Spurs in his limited playing time, notching 3 goals and 4 assists. Defoe has been more prolific this season but is a few years older and has also had more playing time. Is Defoe worth the big cash that Tottenham are throwing out to land him? I don’t think so as a further strike against Defoe, at least for me, is that he is cup-tied having played in the UEFA Cup for Pompey.

I feel the real trouble with Tottenham has been in the midfield and at the back. For starters, I don’t think they have the right mix of players in midfield at the moment. Adding Stewart Downing, though that is looking unlikely at the moment, may not be the right answer as questions linger about whether his potential has been overestimated. Spurs already have enough cover at the under-performing midfield position with David Bentley, Aaron Lennon and Jermaine Jenas all fighting it out for the ‘honours’. If they are looking for a left-footed player in midfield, then Gareth Bale may be a reasonable answer. He does not seem to defend well enough to be a starting left-back at the Premier League level but he has the pace and skill going forward to make a decent left-sided midfielder.

The potential good news for Spurs fans is that free agent Stephen Appiah has been training with the club and is likely to sign a deal this week. Appiah is an experienced midfield presence that will bring loads of energy and positional awareness to the side. He’s a strong two-way midfielder and will add some defensive strength to the club if they sign him.

One area that Tottenham has failed to adequately address in the past couple of transfer windows is reliable cover at the back. They are especially vulnerable at centre-half with injury-riddled Jonathan Woodgate and Ledley King seemingly unable to start consecutive games. That instability makes it hard to keep clean sheets and have a solid base upon which to build. Their first choice right-back Alan Hutton has also been injury-plagued and though Verdan Corluka has been good cover defensively, he is not as proficient on the flank as Hutton.

Questions still hover over Spurs keeper Gomes as well and though his play has improved, I don’t know that he instills a great deal of confidence in anyone right now. A move for an experienced keeper like Reading’s Marcus Hahnemann or a younger prospect (with some experience) like Manchester United’s Ben Foster might be on the cards. Even if Tottenham stick by Gomes, someone to push him for the number one shirt would be a good idea.

Something had to be done at Tottenham to shake things up as a run of one win in six league games leaves them above the relegation zone only on goal difference. The initial magic of “Harry Houdini” has worn off and now the hard work begins. The Defoe signing is a signal of intention that Spurs are not willing to stand pat and hope for the best with what they have. Will the Defoe signing payoff? If they avoid relegation then of course the answer will come back yes but let’s wait to see what other moves are made before judging this deal as a positive step for the club.

What are your thoughts on the signing?

Tottenham 4-0 Dinamo Zagreb: Video Highlights

The Gaffer — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 08:18:33 +0000

Video highlights of Spurs earlier in the season would have been filed in the Horror category, but their performances of late can be found under the Best Seller section, such is the way Tottenham are playing. Harry Redknapp has turned the side into world beaters especially after their convincing 4-0 win against Dinamo Zagreb in the UEFA Cup.

Darren Bent emerged as an unlikely hero after working incredibly hard to score a hat trick. Luka Modric had a wonderful game right behind Bent in attack, and the pair created plenty of chances as did Aaron Lennon on the right and David Bentley on the left.

Other than the performance by Spurs, I was very impressed by the away support of Dinamo Zagreb, the Croatian side. For almost the entire 90 minutes, the away fans were louder than the home fans. They kept on singing loudly with an unmistakeable deep Croatian voice. In the first half, it sounded like they were singing a version of “Yellow Submarine.” And right before the first half whistle, I could have sworn they were chanting “3,000 nutcases” over and over again.

Three thousand nutcases they were as the Dinamo Zagreb fans literally set White Hart Lane on fire with flames that were thrown into the away section. Smoke from the flares swept across the pitch at times. Sure, it created a great atmosphere but the Tottenham officials must have been concerned about the safety of the away and home fans.

Here are the video highlights of Spurs 4, Dinamo Zagreb 0:

[display_podcast]

Is Today The Day The Premiership Changed Forever?

Paul Bestall — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:17:57 +0000

I got up this morning expecting another tense, dull day to be spattered with the occasional factual transfer as the transfer window creaked shut getting excited about nothing much in particular. A day spent scouring the BBC and Sky Sports transfer vidi-printers and tutting at bored 14 year old’s just texting and e-mailing rubbish to fill the gaps as the frustration grew as the day shortened, the last couple of transfer windows have been very dull affairs, so I was not expecting much. Silly me.

What I didn’t expect was that Manchester City would, as of 9.30am, became the richest football club in the world with the end of Thaksin Shinawatra’s short reign as owner and start throing money around like water. I never expected the Royal Family of the United Arab Emirates to buy any club, never mind Manchester City and immediately tell manager Mark Hughes to spend, spend, spend in an unprecedented scenario. The new owners, Abu Dhabi United Group are the investment & financial arm of the Royal Family and have almost 1 trillion pounds available to them, or 10 Roman Abramovichs. This is football investment on an unbelievable level and has completely changed the entire landscape of world football in a few short hours.

If that wasn’t enough, they then offered a British record transfer fee of £35 million pounds for Dimitar Berbatov, which Tottenham accepted, then announced they’d bid £30 million for David Villa and a further £25 million for Mario Gomes. As I type this, Marca in Spain is reporting that they’ve also bid for Robinho and several other high profile signings but other than the 3 strikers that ADUG spokesperson Sulaiman Al-Fahim confirmed earlier today, nothing is concrete fact. Manchester City can now afford to buy anyone at any club with no worries at all, but the one thing that holds them back is the lack of Champions League football, a key point that will probably see Berbatov choose the red side of Manchester over the blue. Ferguson will be determined to finalise the transfer he sees as vital to enabling United to try and become the first club to win back to back Champions League titles and I expect Berbatov to be a United player by midnight.

The majority of players they need to push on to go for a top four spot would seem to be loathe to swap Champions League for a season of UEFA Cup football so they may not get the players they need by the time the window shuts at midnight but don’t rule out some massive deals being prepared for the next transfer window. Also key to their forward recruitment though is that City are in a position to attract these players in January when they’ll need them, so Hughes knows he needs to keep City in and around the top 8 come the turn of the year. Additionally, the due to Manchester City deal, I expect this to push DIC forward to purchase Liverpool, now that their royal rivals have trumped them to buying a Premiership club first, something that will not be going unnoticed back in the U.A.E.

One man who won’t be a Manchester City anymore is Vedran Corluka who confirmed his protracted move to Tottenham, originally completed on August 10th, this morning to join Pavlyuchenko at Spurs Lodge. It’s been probably the worst kept transfer in football so no surprises that he now joins up with his best friend, Luka Modric. A canny pair of signing for Ramos to add a bit more depth to the squad. All in all, today could be the most important day in the history of the Premiership so far and with 3 hours to go until the window closes, who knows who else is going to switch sides and which football club is going to be bought next by midnight.

Ramos’ Revolution Can Pay Dividends

Paul Bestall — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:36:27 +0000

It’s certainly been a busy summer at White Hart Lane this year as Juande Ramos begins to weed out the players he feels are holding Spurs back over the last few weeks and looks to bring in the kind of players he feels can bring more silverware Tottenham’s way. With the exception of Robbie Keane, Ramos has certainly been busy shipping out some of the dead wood and replacing them wholesale. There can be no doubt that come August 16th at Middlesborough, the Tottenham team that walks out at the Riverside will certainly be a team that Ramos has stamped his influence on in every area of the pitch.

Since he joined Spurs in October last year, Ramos has fetched in 9 new players and shipped out 13, trying to concentrate on quality rather than quantity which often seemed to be the key transfer policy at Tottenham since Santini’s ill fated tenure back in 2004. At some points during the last 4 years, it seemed that Spurs were applying to break some kind of recruitment drive record, since chairman Daniel Levy decided to try and pull the Premiership’s perennial under achievers back toward the top end of the table. Tottenham have brought in an amazing 48 players in the last four years and let another 37 leave, incredible figures and one that beggars the question, how on earth did they finish 5th in 2005-2006 and 2006-2007, never mind win the Carling Cup last season.

Ramos took over a talented team in free-fall, identified the issues and has so far addressed most of them. A leaky defence has been tightened up with the acquisitions of Alan Hutton, Jonathan Woodgate and Heurelho Gomes replacing Robinson, Chimbonda, Rocha, Dawson and Gardner with Gareth Bale’s return to fitness like another new signing. The midfield has a new look too with the delightful Luka Modric and Giovanni Dos Santos’ flair coupled with David Bentley’s wicked right foot to add quality to a sometimes lightweight area but it is up front that Ramos will have it all to do. The loss of Robbie Keane was unfortunate, but there was no standing in the way of Keane once Liverpool had made contact with the player. The £20 million paycheck will certainly help but Ramos knows he needs a proven top quality striker to support Darren Bent and the continued speculation over Dimitar Berbatov’s future cannot help matters. He knows he definitely needs one striker but he’ll probably need two which doesn’t help matters at all. Bent’s form in preseason has been incredible, hitting 9 goals in the last 10 days and he needs to hit the ground running for Spurs. Last season saw the striker struggle, but Bent seems to have been reborn since Keane’s departure. 2 hours after Keane’s transfer had been announced, Bent was hitting his 4th goal against Norwich City in a 5-1 win, a more timely announcement could not have been better planned by the like-able lad.

The baggage of displacing Keane and the hefty price tag that accompanied him from Charlton seemed to weigh the young lad down last season but he can certainly match Keane’s 23 goals of last season. In his two seasons Bent hit 31 goals in 68 games, almost 1 every 2 games. Add to that the fact that his second season at Charlton saw him often played up front as a lone striker as Charlton struggled all year at the foot of the table and his figures become even better. Ramos knows the lad can be his ace in the pack but he needs some help to get the goals.

In my opinion, Ramos has yet to make a mistake in his acquisitions and he knows that the striker issue is key to Tottenham’s campaign in both Europe and the Premiership. He knows Dos Santos can play up front as well as the left hand side of midfield and Dos Santos himself feels his best position is as a front man, but Ramos will realise if Berbatov gets his transfer, they are very light upfront and need more quality to match his other transfers. He also knows that this team stands on the threshold of maintaining a consistent attempt to break into the sacred land of the Premiership’s top 4 and also push for the UEFA Cup and his next couple of signings will be key.

Spurs need another experienced centre half to support the quality but injury prone duo of King and Woodgate, a defensive midfielder to support Huddlestone and Zokora as well as a top notch striker such as Huntelaar, Arshavin or Pavlyuchenko, yet Ramos will not need anyone tell him what and who is required and I look forward to see just who joins the White Hart Lane revolution next. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a very exciting season for Spurs fans and fans of attacking football in general.

Tottenham Hotspur Is Ready To Crack The Big Four

The Gaffer — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:44:15 +0000

Sometimes it’s hard to fathom, but the Big Four as we know them won’t be able to sustain their power forever. At some point in time, one or more of those four will be dislodged and replaced by a new heavyweight. The question is, what team is capable of breaking the monopoly and which of the four clubs will be the first to drop from their mighty perch?

Call me insane, but I honestly believe that this upcoming season will see a shift in the power of English football. The club that will shake up the league reside in London N17 and is named Tottenham Hotspur.

Supporters of Spurs have been used to having their hopes built up only for them to come crashing down, but this season will be different. This will be the first full season that Juande Ramos, one of the best managers in the game, will be in charge. Last season’s experience was a good introduction for Ramos to learn more about his players, the Premier League and how things are different in England. With that knowledge under his belt, Ramos is now ready to deploy his tactical expertise in the matches against the Big Four and the other teams in the Premiership.

The four main reasons why the 16 Premier League clubs outside the Big Four have been unable to dethrone Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool are:

The 16 Premier League clubs have less money to spend on proven players,
The Big Four have better players to choose from, both on and off the bench, and
The clubs outside the top four have a lack of self belief and, as a result, psychologically think they’re unable to beat the Big Four,
The 16 clubs don’t have the consistency and staying power throughout the entire season to mount a serious challenge.

With Tottenham, I believe that under Ramos they have the answer and are able to meet the four main requirements to break into the top four.

Consider these facts:

The club has spent more money this summer than any other Premier League side
Spurs has signed the most new talent such as Luka Modric and Giovanni Dos Santos
Tottenham now has a team who is strong in every position
Psychologically, Juande Ramos is turning this Spurs side into winners, and
Ramos is continuing to work on the fitness of the team to ensure they can play the whole season at 100%.

This is not Martin Jol’s Tottenham Hotspur. The team has been spending the summer at an exclusive golf resort in Spain where Ramos has been putting the team through its paces. I have a strong feeling about Spurs this season. I may be proven wrong, but I really believe they’ll be able to crack the top four.

Who will be the team most likely to drop out of the top four to make room for Tottenham? It has to be Liverpool. I’ve been unimpressed by Rafa Benitez’s summer signings so far. It seems like he hasn’t been given the money to get a star signing and he instead is buying another crop of players who will quickly go through the Liverpool system and be sold in the next couple of years.

The key for Tottenham is to hold on to Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov. That struggle may seem fruitless but it seems that Tottenham are fighting to hold on to them. If they are sold, then Ramos will need to make some astute signings to find players with that caliber. Both Keane and Berbatov are dynamite up front and are one of the best striking partnerships in the world when they’re on song.

It’s time for Spurs to make White Hart Lane a fortress. With the ground possessing some of the most passionate football fans in the country, it’s already an intimidating atmosphere for opposition teams. But what the club needs to do this season is to take it to the next level and to make it like Stamford Bridge where Chelsea are undefeated in the league for years. Clubs need to fear playing at White Hart Lane.

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