Article by e-Spurs Writer James Pike (USA)
Happy Wednesday, Spursland!
Only with all these re-runs of Europa/Champions League/La Liga/Serie A games on TV am I beginning to realise how inadequate my FIFA setup is: FIFA 13 on an iPhone is just not cutting it for me. Should anyone want to donate to the “James’ new PS4/ FIFA 14” fund, I will gladly accept gifts!
In the stateside Tottenham fans department, there isn’t much news to be had. I suppose that with the end of the season, that’s not a huge surprise. My guess is that some of the larger OSCTHs have some Summer leagues that they put out sides for, but North Carolina Spurs isn’t quite at that point yet. We’ve got official business (in terms of our summer Club Meeting, which will happen in a little over a month) to take care of first. Likewise, I’ve yet to hear of anyone headed to Hong Kong for the Barclays Asia Trophy from our neck of the woods, but I suspect that some of the larger OSCTHs (Los Angeles, New York, Chicago) will be sending contingents to the Far East. In the meantime, we’ll start drawing up some ideas and see what we can do to keep ourselves busy!
Life without Tottenham has been a bit of a drag. I figure that I’m not the only one that feels this way, but at least you all probably have much better setups to weather the lack of football for 3 months- you have a league that you play in, you actually have a copy of FIFA 13 on a proper console, you’ve got tons of tapes of historic great matches at White Hart Lane, etc. I don’t really have any of those. Got to find a way to fix that.
Now, I suppose that Tottenham hasn’t completely gone away from us this summer, because instead of games, we get transfer rumours! Hooray.
Maybe I’m a little jaded, but the excitement that the transfer window brings a lot of people just never hits me. If you’ve read my profile on here, you’ll know that I am a motorsports guy first and foremost. And in the world of motorsports, there is a rough equivalent to the transfer window of football called “Silly Season” (or at least that’s what we call it in the United States). And in the Silly Season of the motorsports world, news and rumours are very cut and dry- rarely do you see something reported in an article unless there is at least an 80% chance of it happening. If a driver decides to switch teams, or a team decides to switch engine suppliers (which is known here as switching manufacturers, since the bodywork of a car ends up changing along with the engine), it will usually be reported anywhere from a few months to a few weeks before the change is officially announced. It reaches a point where by the time changes in the motorsports world are officially announced by teams/ drivers/ etc., they are almost old news, and most people expected said changes to happen anyway.
The football transfer window is almost the complete opposite. Granted, that might be because there are far more people who pay attention to football than motorsports, but at any rate, you’ll hear all kinds of rumours from all over the place. Some can be legitimate, and some can be outright insane, but the sheer number of them is so large that it makes it difficult to figure out which rumours to listen to and which ones are fake. It’s much like the Old West here stateside, where just about anything goes. Or Vegas. Vegas works too. And I’m not a fan of it at all, especially compared to the Silly Season of the motorsports world. Why can’t it be that simple?
At any rate, those are my two cents on the whole transfer process. That, and someone needs to clue Americans in on the fact that when transfers occur, you’re dealing with the player and his team (as opposed to sports over here, where there aren’t any sort of transfer fees paid to a player’s team if he decides to depart, especially in baseball, basketball, football, etc. Deals are done exclusively with the player). A lot of people over here just don’t understand that concept.
I figure then that the best thing I could do would be to outline the significance of the summer transfer window for this club (and especially for this upcoming season). Most of you understand how much these next few months are going to mean to this club, but I want to emphasise it again: by August 31, we will know whether or not Spurs will make the Champions League. Our qualification for the 2014-2015 edition of Europe’s top competition will almost entirely be dependent on the acquisitions we make this summer. Of course, there is always a slim possibility that we could make the Champions League with the squad that we currently have, but I’m betting against that happening anytime soon. If this past season taught Tottenham supporters anything, it’s that you can’t depend on other clubs to slip in order to make it- you’ve got to qualify yourself. The responsibility is yours.
And in the next few months, it’s our responsibility to go get a striker, a striker, a striker, a striker, a midfielder, a left back (maybe), and a striker. But mostly a striker. And if it were me, I’d zero in on these two strikers:
·
Christian
Benteke (BEL), ST, Aston Villa (ENG)
o
I
think that of the three, this would be the one that would get the most nods of
approval from the E-Spurs readers out there. Any why wouldn’t he? He is the
definition of the massive target man that would be ideal for AVB’s preferred
4-3-3. He’s 22 years old, and could be around our first team for a long, long
time if he came. And he’s Belgian, so he’s have the chance to gel with his
compatriots Dembélé and Vertonghen at White Hart Lane. What’s not to love about
this guy? He’d be great for Spurs.
·
Son
Heung-Min (KOR), ST, Hamburg (GER)
o
I
suppose that I should go ahead and preface this one by saying that I have quite
the soft spot for the Bundesliga. It comes from my father’s side of the family,
where everybody loves the Bundesliga because they all lived in Germany and watched
it/ attended games/ grew up with it back in the early ‘80s. It just so happens
that their favourite German side (and, by default, mine) VfB Stuttgart qualified
for the Europa League as well… I’m knocking on wood that we don’t draw them!
But to bring this back on topic, when it comes to leagues other than the Prem
that I watch, the Bundesliga comes next in line. And that time spent watching
the Bundesliga has given me the chance to see Son Heung-Min in action (and more
so than most Spurs fans, I think). I can say that from what I’ve seen, this kid
would be awesome in the 4-3-3 if AVB wants to start switching to it. Son
Heung-Min is listed as a striker, but he can play just about anywhere at the
top of the pitch- I’ve seen him used as a lone striker, a second striker, a
wide midfielder, and even a CAM if we decide to go 4-2-3-1. And he looks at
home in all of those positions. Kid can also dribble, run at defenders
(although not quite the same way that a certain Welshman does), and pass much
better than most folks playing on the front line. In fact, he’s quite creative
in his dribbling and is much more keen on outfoxing defenders than our resident
Welshman (who just leaves them in the dust). At Spurs, he would be able to slot
into tons of positions for AVB- I think he could come in and immediately be the
most versatile player in the first team. And that’s before we get to the fact
that he’s easily the most popular player in South Korea since one Park Ji-Sung.
We sign this guy, and I think Tottenham get an extra marketing boost in Asia,
much like Manchester United did about a decade ago. The only problems I have
with Son Heung-Min are that he can disappear on the field when he isn’t playing
well (think Holtby in that regard, and you’ll get the idea) and it’s been
rumoured that Dortmund want his services as well. Let’s be honest- we’re not
going to sign anyone over the European runners-up, even if we can offer similar
wages. But if we could sign him, I think it would be a bit of a coup.
You will notice that
those two players aren’t the combo that the media are mentioning most
consistently at this point. That is intentional. I don’t want David Villa- I
think he’s a little too old at 31, and that he won’t be able to provide the
returns for the amount of money that we would have to pay to get him (Gonzalo
Higuain also falls victim to the latter bit in my book too). And I am
absolutely sick and tired of Internacional dragging us around in our hunt for
Leandro Damião. If it isn’t clear by now, Internacional really don’t want to
sell to us unless we’re the only takers- they would much rather have a larger
club come in and buy Damião for more money than we could offer. At this point,
I don’t want to keep chasing him unless another club comes in and launches a
serious bid for him. What I do want is to see Internacional pay for their
ridiculousness and lose out on the transfer fees we would give them.
Truth be told, I
haven’t quite figured out who I would want to sign as our midfielder for the
summer yet. Originally, I thought that Montpellier’s Younes Belhanda would be
awesome to sign, but he would be our umpteenth number-10 in the squad, and
wouldn’t really fit the 4-3-3 all that well with the personnel that we already
have. And with Moutinho off to Monaco, and Christian Eriksen likely on his way
to Dortmund, I haven’t quite found someone that I like as much as those three
yet. Maybe Valencia’s Ever Banega (who we might be able to pair with Roberto
Soldado in a deal, perhaps)? Otherwise, there aren’t too many names that jump
out at me.
I think a similar
problem comes up at Left Back. We could sell BAE, but who would we be able to
replace him with if that’s the calibre of player we’re looking for? The only guy
that instantly jumps to my mind is Southampton’s Luke Shaw, but seeing as he
just re-upped his contract with Saints, and he’s virtually the face of that
whole club, I don’t think we’d be in for him unless we were willing to pay
stupid money (and we won’t ever do that with Levy at the helm).
Anywhoo, just a few
thoughts. I’ll bee keeping an eye out on the rumour mill (as will you), and
we’ll see what comes. Hopefully we’ll have our issues sorted out before long!
-James
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