Fresh Spurs From the fans, for the fans

Injuries cost Tottenham Hotspur £6.1 million last season as stars such as Toby Alderweireld and Victor Wanyama sat on the sidelines. However, their relative luck with injuries actually helped them secure Champions League qualification.

North London rivals Arsenal spent £12.9 million on injured players as they finished outside the top 4 for a second consecutive year, with Santi Cazorla and Mesut Ozil combining to cost the Gunners £5.9 million – almost equal to Spurs’ entire injury bill. Overall, Premier League teams paid out £151.2 million in wages to injured players.

A new tool from FreeSuperTips analyses official 2017-18 Premier League data and reveals the dirtiest team and players, as well as those who were unluckiest with injuries – and the impact that this had on each club.

West Brom were the dirtiest side, racking up 73 yellow cards and several missed games through suspension in a campaign that ultimately saw the club relegated to the Championship.

West Ham were among the unluckiest teams when it came to injuries, with their injury bill totalling a whopping £12.6 million. The calculator reveals that they would have finished ten league places higher and been in the Champions League next season, if not for injury.

As we approach transfer deadline day on the earlier date of August 9, it finally seems Spurs might be able to step up their attempts to sign key targets, one of those being Jack Grealish.

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It has emerged via the Telegraph that Grealish is keen on making a move to Tottenham happen before the deadline, in favour of transfers to South London to either Fulham or Crystal Palace. The prospect of working with Mauricio Pochettino and Champions League football are the reasons for his preference it is understood.

It is all very well the player being keen on a move to Spurs, but will Grealish be a success at Tottenham is he makes a switch rumoured to be worth upwards of £30m?

If you sat down with Jack Grealish and asked him about the season just gone (after asking him why he wears his socks round his ankles), I am sure he would say it was below his best and that he is capable of much more. Out until November with kidney problems, the Villa man made 27 Championship appearances, yielding pretty average results, three goals and five assists. Does that scream at you, ‘we need to pay upwards of £30m for this man, he is ready for the step up of playing for a top four club’? It doesn’t to me.

However, there are other aspects of the proposed transfer to look at before writing Grealish off due to his sub-par statistics from last season. First of all, he is only 22 years of age, nowhere near reaching his peak. There is a lot still to learn and a lot to be improved upon. With guidance from Mauricio Pochettino, Grealish could become a top drawer attacking midfielder.

Despite scoring just three times and providing five assists last season, the Englishman is more than capable of coming up with a little bit of magic when needed. Take his strike with five minutes to go against Cardiff in April for example to win the game.

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You will often see Grealish get a little frustrated on the pitch and his head may drop for periods. It only takes a good coach to turn this anger and frustration into passion and hunger for success. Mauricio Pochettino could be the man to do that.

In summary, spending upwards of £30m on an attacking midfielder that had an average season in the Championship in a team that failed to win promotion seems like a huge gamble. And it is. However, with the potential this youngster has, it could prove to be money well spent if Daniel Levy can land his signature for the right price.

Mauricio Pochettino signed a new contract earlier this year, and whilst Tottenham will never be able to compete with the top clubs financially, they do need to take an opportunity when it arises, and Anthony Martial wanting to leave Manchester United in exactly that, an opportunity – one that cannot be missed.

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It has been a long time since Martial indicated he wanted out, and no clubs appear to have made a serious move for the player as of yet.

Martial has been one of many victims of Jose Mourinho’s negative football tactics, but the potential is there for all to see. Should he come to play for a manager like Pochettino I feel we would really see one of the best young talents in Europe thrive again.

It’s easy to forget that the former Monaco man is aged just 22. There’s a huge amount of unearthed talent there and he has all the right ingredients to develop into a top player.

Harry Kane is, of course, a top player and getting him to sign an extension will be, without doubt, the best deal of the summer, but Tottenham cannot stop there. Too long, this club has been ‘close’ to winning major trophies, and as well as keeping our main stars, we need to add some top quality to the starting eleven to take us to the next level.

Martial may not do that immediately, but we do not have the budget to sign players, in their prime at the level we need to improve our eleven, instead, we must target players like Martial, who in the right system and coached properly would take the team to the next level and double their value.

Of course, re-signing Gareth Bale would be a dream, but Martial is the realistic alternative. As good as Kane is in attack, there is not enough quality in wide areas to support him.

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If you look at Liverpool and Manchester City last season, much of their success can be attributed to the attacking performances of their wide players, Raheem Sterling, Leroy Sane, Mohammed Salah, Sadio Mane – we don’t have a player in that mould currently and Martial could be the next to emerge.

For anything less than £60million, Martial is worth the investment and Tottenham should not hesitate in making their move.

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The Premier League season gets underway on the 11^th August, with the transfer window closing at the earlier date of the 9^th August, meaning there will be no final day of August drama for Daniel Levy and co as all business will have to be done and dusted before the season starts. So, who will the Tottenham strike-force consist of come the 11^th August?

Harry Kane’s contract guarantees the fact that he will lead the forward line as first choice striker for Spurs next term. His £200,000-per-week contract surprised many as the former wage structure was torn up in the process. Kane’s 41 goals in 48 appearances last term proved crucial in guiding Tottenham to a top four finish for the third consecutive season. If we can be sure of one thing for next season, it is that Harry Kane will be first choice striker for Mauricio Pochettino.

All good strikers need effective and efficient backup. Or at least you would think so anyway. The backup provided for Kane has been below par in the past couple of seasons to say the least, and surely it is an area of the squad that needs urgent attention. With two other strikers on the books at the moment, shall Spurs stick or twist going into next season?

Vincent Janssen was brought in as a young and hungry alternative option to Kane, and the signing on paper looked to be an impressive one for £17m from AZ Alkmaar. The Dutchman had fired in an impressive 31 goals in all competitions spread over 49 appearances for AZ and some of those were sublime. As we quickly learned, Janssen’s game is centred around holding the ball up, bringing others into play. His debut came in the opening day 1-1 draw at Everton, where he saw his effort from just a few yards out saved on the line, my feeling is that his confidence took its first big hit at this moment.

Mauricio Pochettino was feeling experimental against Crystal Palace. He played both Kane and Janssen up top in the 1-0 win. Not the perfect partnership judging by those 90 minutes, but it had potential. Janssen’s opportunity to impress came when Kane was injured in mid-September, and the striker led the line for the next few weeks. Despite getting involved heavily in the build-up play, Janssen struggled to find the back of the net and this dry spell continued for the whole season as his confidence took a severe hit over this period. The 24-year-old netted just once from open play in the Premier League and once from open play in the FA Cup against Millwall.

Omission from the 2017-18 Champions League squad seemed to signal the end for Janssen, but a loan move to Fenerbache last September appeared to be one final chance to impress with the potential to revive his Premier League career. However, his season in the Turkish league has been nothing more than average. 17 appearances in all competitions has yielded just five goals for Janssen in what has been an injury hit season. Although he is a favourite of mine and there is nothing more I would like to see than him succeed at Tottenham, it looks more likely than ever that Janssen will be moved on this summer.

That leaves us with last summer’s striking signing Fernando Llorente, who has failed to make the desired impact in North London since arriving from Swansea. Best known for his headed goals and role as a target man, the signing seemed a little puzzling when I looked past his impressive goalscoring record in the Premier League.

Llorente has mainly been used from the bench this season, mostly when the team has been locked in a stalemate or when the team have been chasing the game going into the final minutes. I fully support the idea of throwing on a target man when chasing the game, but if you are going to do it, at least play the man’s strengths! Otherwise, it is simply a wasted substitution. Quite a few times this season, Llorente has been thrown on with minutes to go and we simply haven’t delivered decent quality balls into the box. This is partly why I feel sorry for Llorente, as Spurs simply do not play to his strengths.

As with Janssen, the partnership with Kane was experimented with at one of the toughest places to visit in Europe, the Bernabéu. It proved to be effective as Kane and Llorente linked up well, with Llorente winning all of the knockdowns and first balls as Kane played just behind to benefit from the knockdowns. A 1-1 draw and a point was earned with the potential for this partnership to be developed.

However, as the season has drawn on, the more and more Kane and Llorente play together, the more and more they seem to get in each other’s way, the understanding doesn’t seem to be there. Playing up front on his own hasn’t been much more effective for Llorente. Scoring in a 2-0 away win at his former club Swansea proved to be the Spaniard’s only Premier League goal of the season and a hat-trick against Rochdale in the FA Cup is something Llorente hasn’t been able to build on thus far. Does Llorente have a future at Spurs? I would argue no. He has failed to strike a good partnership with Harry Kane and doesn’t have the desired impact playing up front on his own, with just five goals in all competitions last season.

In answer to the original question, to stick or to twist, I would argue that Spurs should have one last role of the dice in terms of signing a new striker. Ante Rebic, who can play both out on the left and as a striker, has been a name thrown around by Spurs fans following his performances for Croatia at the World Cup, would he be a realistic target?

1) Jan Vertonghen

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On Friday, Tottenham broke the news that star striker Harry Kane signed a new and improved contract at White Hart Lane, tying the striker down until 2024 at least. The news not only confirms that the Englishman will not be moving on to pastures new this summer, it also indicates something extremely significant.

Spurs Chairman Daniel Levy didn’t negotiate some of the most impressive deals in football without being stubborn and standing his ground. Widely renowned for being one of the worst people to deal with off the field, Levy has often taken the same, stubborn approach to internal matters, especially when it comes to the subject of player wages.

Smaller basic wages, boosted by sizeable performance-related bonuses, in theory, seems like a sensible way of paying the modern footballer, especially when you consider the fact that some players struggle to find motivation nowadays, as hard as that is to believe. Despite this, Spurs are one of the few clubs to adopt this strategy, and please note that the performance-related incentives are thought to be quite tasty in North London.

The wage structure at Tottenham has been a hot topic for discussion in the past year, and not only amongst fans. Danny Rose openly criticised the wage structure at the start of last season, who was thought to be earning £65,000-per-week at the time. Hugo Lloris was the top earner with £120,000 (including bonuses), followed by Harry Kane and Jan Vertonghen on £100,000-per-week. Surprisingly, Moussa Sissoko was reported to be on £95,000-per-week (what?!!). The question of how Tottenham would keep hold of their best players with such a wage structure was presented to Daniel Levy on many occasions. Bonuses appeared to be the answer to a searching question.

Kane’s new deal will see him trouser £200,000-per-week including bonuses, destroying the wage structure that was in place at Spurs just a few days ago. The catalyst for change is the man behind Spurs’ recent Premier League success, Mauricio Pochettino. The Argentine held crunch talks with Chairman Levy following the conclusion of the Premier League season, and these have seemed to have had the desired effect. The former Saints boss has emerged with a new contract for himself, the dismissal of the old wage structure, and an increased transfer budget of £200m for this summer. With negotiation skills like that, you would be forgiven for believing that Pochettino was in line to succeed Daniel Levy as Chairman at Tottenham Hotspur.

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The new contract for Harry Kane could be a historic moment in the history of Tottenham Hotspur. The start of a new era. The end of an era where Tottenham couldn’t financially compete with the rest of the big six, an era where Tottenham built up a reputation for selling their best players and an era plagued with mediocrity, although this has changed in recent years. Next season, Tottenham move into a world class 61,000- seater stadium, and it seems that Daniel Levy is taking significant steps to transform Spurs into a consistent title-challenging side. Therefore, don’t be surprised if we see new contracts over the summer for the likes of Jan Vertonghen, Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli, and don’t be too shocked if Spurs were to make a couple of big-money signings before the season starts on 11th August.

This report shows the Tottenham player’s wages – though we are not sure how accurate they are, they are certainly interesting and worth a look.

Tottenham’s reputation of cashing in on top players at the club is a reputation that has not died with successive top four finishes in the eyes of some. However, I believe the club is past this stage.

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Take the sale of Kyle Walker last summer. Some fans were serious when the news broke that the Yorkshireman had been sold to this season’s champions for a hefty £50m. ‘Same old Levy’ and ‘same old Tottenham’ were some of the cries as we watched another top-class player leave North London.

Unfair criticism it turned out to be in my view. Although Kyle Walker wanted to leave Tottenham, according to the Independent, his mind was made up as a result of an ongoing dispute with manager Mauricio Pochettino over fitness. As mentioned in that Independent article, Pochettino doubted Walker’s ability to play two games in one week, something the right-back disagreed with strongly at the time.

The decision to sell the player seemed to be best for both parties. Spurs got their £50m and Walker got to start a fresh with a different manager that maybe doesn’t doubt his fitness in the way Pochettino did. Although it can be viewed as a mistake selling to a direct rival and strengthening their team, the decision seemed to be the correct one to sell Walker. The situation is similar with Toby Alderweireld.

Tottenham had been keen to tie Alderweireld down to a new deal before the end of last season, but negotiations have been in deadlock for some time now. If the player was that keen to sign, he surely would have done so by now.

It has been a frustrating season for the Belgian defender. Not only has he had a couple of fairly lengthy spells out of action due to injury, but he has also seen himself kept out of the team by the solid and effective centre-back partnership of Jan Vertonghen and newcomer Davinson Sanchez. Due to the contract stalemate? Or due to the stellar performances of the pair mentioned before? This is an issue up for debate.

Nonetheless, without Alderweireld, the defensive unit has performed efficiently and effectively over this season, is the Belgian still the integral part of the defence as he once was? Or have we evolved as a team? If the answer to the latter is yes, £50m would be a healthy sum to sell to Manchester United for. However, we are left with the issue of strengthening a direct rival. This is something that needs to be considered carefully by the coaching staff at Spurs, but why not cash in on a player that doesn’t want to commit his long-term future to the club?

With Toby Alderweireld seemingly on his way out of Tottenham and Manchester United allegedly in talks, Mauricio Pochettino should look to get a player or two involved in the deal. There’s a wealth of talent at United that Mourinho is not currently utilising, and several of these players I feel could thrive under Pochettino. Here’s 3 I think we should try to involve in negotiations.

1 – Anthony Martial

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Martial is an incredible player but he clearly cannot thrive under Mourinho, who is stunting his talent growth. The youngster ends up playing as a left wing back at times for United when he should be playing in an advanced wide left position or even through the middle.

In an attack in combination with the likes of Kane and Alli, with Pochettino’s forward-thinking philosophy, Martial could have the platform to realise his huge potential. Considering his current situation I think this move could certainly appeal to Anthony.

Since bursting onto the scene as a teenager, Harry Kane has developed into an incredible asset for Spurs, and it is no surprise that his immense qualities as an out-and-out striker have attracted interest from leading clubs across Europe. Kane has been continually linked with a switch to Real Madrid for the last 12 months, but is a big-money transfer to the Bernabéu a dead cert? And what can Spurs do to keep him at the club this summer?

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Harry Kane has already cemented his place as one of the Premier League’s greatest strikers after scoring 39 goals in just 36 games during a single calendar year in 2017 to break Alan Shearer’s long-standing record. The 24-year-old has netted 134 times in 204 appearances since 2011 and is close to moving into the top five all-time goalscorers for the club. His legacy is already assured, but it would be a shame if Spurs don’t hold on to Kane during his peak playing years.

The greatest assets that Spurs have in their quest to keep Kane in North London is the move to a new stadium next season. The prospect of leading the line for the club in the “world class sports and entertainment destination” will be a huge pull for Kane as he would be an integral part of a glorious new era for Spurs. Being a local lad, he may regret moving on to pastures new without pulling on the famous white shirt in the 62,062-capacity arena.

In addition to exciting off-the-field changes, Spurs can also entice Kane to stay on by lifting the FA Cup trophy in May. A tough semi-final clash with Manchester United awaits in the last four, but there is a feeling that the current side has matured enough to take the next step on its journey by lifting domestic silverware. It has been ten years since Spurs won a trophy – the League Cup – and the club is now in a much stronger position compared to when it defeated Chelsea at Wembley back in 2008.

Mauricio Pochettino has been a revelation during his time at White Hart Lane, but he will be eager to support the vast improvements that he has made with a trophy or two to really show that Spurs have arrived and mean business. The FA Cup would be a perfect signal of intent ahead of moving to the new home in the coming months. It may be enough to show Kane that he can land the biggest honours here rather than moving abroad or up north to Manchester.

It would be disingenuous to suggest that Kane is the sole reason for the club’s recent success as he has been ably supported by a talented core of players, including Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen, Mousa Dembélé and Jan Vertonghen, so the impact of bringing in new signings to tempt Kane to stay is questionable, though adding more quality will only benefit Spurs ahead of the 2018/19 season. Regardless of Kane’s future, placing a bet with Stakers.com on Spurs will still offer great value moving forward.

There were also reports at the start of the year that Tottenham were ready to pay Kane £200,000 a week to ward off interest from other clubs. The striker denied that talks about a new contract had taken place but stated his desire to finally “go through to the final and win a trophy.” That dream, coupled with the stadium switch, may just be enough to ensure that Kane remains for at least another 12 months.

Source:

http://www.espn.co.uk/football/soccer-transfers/story/3341156/harry-kane-targets-spurs-progress-and-trophies-but-denies-contract-talks

http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/les-ferdinand-doubts-over-harry-kanes-spurs-future/11rl01c976erl1o4k1cgqh9k6w

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/42485875

http://new-stadium.tottenhamhotspur.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Kane

http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/spurs-all-time-top-10-and-100-club-271217/

http://www.espn.co.uk/football/soccer-transfers/story/3341156/harry-kane-targets-spurs-progress-and-trophies-but-denies-contract-talks

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=spurs+league+cup+2008&rlz=1CATAAB_enGB760GB760&oq=spurs+league+cup+200&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l4.4151j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8