Article by Joe FishFollow e-Spurs on Twitter!
It has been an interesting week at Tottenham, and we still have a trip to Serbia and a Premier League game at White Hart Lane to look forward to.
Stadium and ownership talk dominated the pre-weekend chat before a promising display away to Sunderland ended in an unfortunate 2-2 draw.
A brief summary: our proposed move to Northumberland Park has been further delayed due to a legal wrangle, and, in the search for extra investment for the project, Spurs have spoken to an American company who may want to buy us.
So will we have new owners? Maybe. A new 56,000-seat stadium, adjacent to our current home? Eventually. A new captain? Yes. And his name if Younes Kaboul.
Kaboul had already been wearing the armband since the sale of Michael Dawson this summer and has skippered us intermittently over the past couple of seasons.
And Mauricio Pochettino chose this week to officially appoint the Frenchman as club captain, with Hugo Lloris and Emmanuel Adebayor both his deputies.
While the identity of the new triumvirate did not surprise me, it does worry me slightly as to Pochettino’s long-term thinking on the relevant personnel.
Their new roles would suggest that they are going to be first-team regulars, but, of the three players, only Hugo Lloris is somebody that the majority of Spurs fans would like to see as a permanent fixture in the team for the foreseeable future.
Our need for a top-class striker is well documented, with Adebayor simply not reliable enough to lead the line, as unplayable as he can be on his best day.
Kaboul at the heart of the defence is not as comforting a sight as it was in 2011-2012, when he made 33 appearances as we briefly flirted with a title challenge.
He has played only 20 times in the Premier League since that campaign due to a horrible series of injuries and has proven to be alarmingly erratic, particularly in big games, since his most recent return – as demonstrated in the Liverpool loss.
The prospect of a Kaboul and Jan Vertonghen centre-back partnership two seasons ago was exciting; the perfect balance of culture and physicality.
But we are now well stocked in defensive areas, and there is a growing sense that there are better options to partner our brilliant Belgian than Kaboul.
Vlad Chiriches sparkled at times last term, Eric Dier has shown great promise and could be shifted inside following the return of Kyle Walker, while we have just spent £8m to sign Sevilla’s Europa League-winning captain Federico Fazio.
Perhaps Pochettino knows this, and has named two vice-captains because he anticipates that Kaboul will be spending time out of the Premier League side.
Having a skipper who was in and out of the team worked with Ledley King, who, granted, is an exception to most rules, but Pochettino’s comments this week suggested that Kaboul has the same sort of leadership qualities.
He said: “Younes Kaboul has shown me all the values needed to be a captain. He has the character to lead this team as well as the respect of his teammates.”
As many modern managers do, Pochettino emphasizes the importance of ‘the group’, from the coaching staff to all members of the first-team squad.
He has appointed a group of captains, and if Kaboul has been elected head of that group because he, as the current Spurs player with the most years of service, knows and loves the club more than anyone else, then it is the right decision.
But if this is equally a show of faith from Pochettino in the 28-year-old’s ability to be a defender good enough to lead to us the top four, then it is the wrong call.
If captain Kaboul is going to play ahead of Fazio, then the Argentine’s purchase is pretty redundant considering the depth that we already had in his position.
And that’s my worry. If Pochettino does not feel that Fazio improves the team, then we have gone a whole transfer window without bettering our starting XI.
Only time will tell if this is a sensible move from Pochettino. But congratulations either way to Kaboul, who has always been a popular figure at the Lane.
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Still hasn't signed a new contract could be gone in the summer
ReplyDeleteOur worst central defender.
ReplyDeleteShould have kept Daws and sold Kaboul