Looks flashy with those turns in the YouTube vids. What they don’t show you are the amount of times he losses possession doing that. He’s passing is distinctly meh too. Struggles to weight them well.

That said he’s a good player but nothing to worry about

That's definitely not the case Dules. Guy is a monster physically with the dribbling and close control of Cazorla. This is probably one of the only signings ever made by Spurs that I'm gutted by. Would have transformed our midfield and for only 55m. We fucked up both in our lack of intent and also in our inability to secure CL which probably meant any attempts would be futile as he wouldn't come here.

Gotta say I agree with Dula. He's a good prospect but the extent to which he's overrated on this forum is insane.

I don't think he's even as good as someone like Fabian Ruiz, for example. I sense people would not be threatening to jump off of buildings if someone signed Fabian Ruiz.

Remember all them years we were making the CL but going through the summers with only Cech as our signing?

Qwiss! wrote:

Claudius wrote:

Would a single one of our midfielders start at Spurs right now?

Spurs are massively overrated. They finished a point ahead of us. Ndombles had a great season but he wont turn them into title contenders as some are suggesting. Whats more if he does reach the heights some here think he might he'll be gone in 2 years time.

Gone in 2 years for some mega fee again to let them revive and reinvest while we sell our players for peanuts. 

Diaby KungFu wrote:

Gotta say I agree with Dula. He's a good prospect but the extent to which he's overrated on this forum is insane.

I don't think he's even as good as someone like Fabian Ruiz, for example. I sense people would not be threatening to jump off of buildings if someone signed Fabian Ruiz.

It's a pretty good idea though. Let's go and sign Fabian Ruiz. But only if he agrees to a hair transplant.

Ndombele fits pochs physical style perfectly, which is why he probably forced levy to prioritise him before anyone else. It all speaks to recruiting players that fit the managers vision, not the scattergun opportunistic bs we've been pulling the last 5 years.

It’s quite telling Pep wasn’t interested given City faced Lyon last season and they’re looking for/wee looking for Fernandinho’s successor

It isn't really. Ndombele isn't technical enough to play for pep. Ndombele doesn't do what fernandinho does either. You could probably deploy him like that but he'd be wasted

I'm annoyed juve got sidetracked by pogba. I really thought ndom would go there as matuidis replacement

Gazza M wrote:

Ndombele fits pochs physical style perfectly, which is why he probably forced levy to prioritise him before anyone else. It all speaks to recruiting players that fit the managers vision, not the scattergun opportunistic bs we've been pulling the last 5 years.

This is spot on. I’m not looking forward to playing them.
I just think back to that second half of the second leg against Ajax where they just outmuscled and outran the Dutch team. Ndombele adds to that tradition but with a bit more skill and real skill in transitioning D to offense quickly. Not our nondescript midfield.

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

It’s quite telling Pep wasn’t interested given City faced Lyon last season and they’re looking for/wee looking for Fernandinho’s successor

Unreal the big clubs didn't go for him. VVD all over again

[AS] Tottenham agree a deal with Real Madrid to take Dani Ceballos on season long loan

Onda Cero: Dani Ceballos is set to leave Real Madrid on loan this season with Spurs and Milan among the teams that want him. James Rodriguez will be sold. Keylor Navas is set to stay and be Madrid’s no.2 keeper.

Navas wants to stay at Real so bad.

Ayoze Perez to Leicester is pretty much a done deal. [Dean Jones- Bleacher Report]

Leicester owner Aiyawatt Shrivaddhanaprabha will not sanction any deal for Harry Maguire unless it eclipses the £75m Liverpool paid for Virgil van Dijk.

What the hell

[Mohamed Bouhafsi] Ander Herrera will arrive in Paris on Thursday to officially sign for PSG

ESPN: Gianluigi Buffon has agreed to a deal to re-join Juventus

As per @SkyKaveh, Marko Arnautovic has handed in a transfer request. West Ham think he should honour the contract he signed five months ago when he said: "I'm happy to stay. The fans gave me the power + the energy. That's why I have to be here and that's why I want to stay."

OFFICIAL: Stefano Sensi is a new Inter player

[Romano] Antoine Griezmann to Barcelona, here we go! The total agreement is almost ready, and confirmed as said one month ago ?? #FCB #Barça #Atléti

Atletico Madrid's €126 million move for forward Joao Felix from Benfica is being held up as they wait to receive an expected €120m from the sale of Antoine Griezmann

Sampdoria defender Joachim Andersen set to join Lyon for €25m + €5m in bonuses, DiMarzio.

Klaus will drink himself into a stupor as he celebrates the Anderssen to Lyon news.
Lyon will sell him on for double the price in 2 years. Klaus will drink again.

Why aren't we in for Ceballos?

Cos we have Xhaka, duhh.

Seriously though, fuck this window.

The most likely answer is that we are run by a bunch of incompetent idiots. It's been the answer for most of the head-scratching nonsense we have done over the last 5 years.

Lo Celso deal is off for Spurs, couldn't agree a fee phew.

Leicester is signing Tielemans and Ayoze for a combined 56m, while they won't entertain any offer of less than 90m for Maguire.

It's downright annoying how poor we are when we are supposed to be rich AF few years go. We really have a smaller budget than all the other clubs in the league argh.

Clrnc wrote:

 We really have a smaller budget than all the other clubs in the league argh.

You can't just factor in the transfer fee when you're talking about budgets, it's disingenuous. We spend £121m a season more on wages alone than Leicester (we also spend roughly 90m more than Tottenham too by the way). 

Even if you don't factor in wages, we have the 3rd highest net spend in the league over the last 5 years, that's why we're ahead of most of these guys.

goon wrote:

Clrnc wrote:

 We really have a smaller budget than all the other clubs in the league argh.

You can't just factor in the transfer fee when you're talking about budgets, it's disingenuous. We spend £121m a season more on wages alone than Leicester (we also spend roughly 90m more than Tottenham too by the way). 

Even if you don't factor in wages, we have the 3rd highest net spend in the league over the last 5 years, that's why we're ahead of most of these guys.

Yup, we all know how badly we underperformed when you compare wages to Spurs. We also know we are fucking inept at finances and extracting maximum value for the club. 

The sad fact remains, we now have no money to spend to bring us back to the level we belong. Doesn't change that fact and it's annoying as fuck. Even highly affordable players we won't be able to buy. 

Oh definitely. The end of last season really killed us and most hope for the short term. Player sales are the only hope.

jones wrote:

We get new money from Sky every single year. How are wages the reason we only have 40m, it would mean we'd have bet on the new TV money or CL with our current wage deals and how likely is that with our ridiculously risk averse management.

Stop shilling for Kroenke you Yank fraud

Well that's simply the reality, it's all there on paper.

Thuram to Gladbach for 10m. Ffs

Looks a great raw and versatile talent.

I've only seen him a few times, but you really think he's good enough for Arsenal? I would say not even close.

Hes raw but has some serious potential. Monster physically and great feet for someone of his size, easily good enough to start on the wing for us as he is and could eventually move centrally in a few years

Ricky, he's still young, but fundamentally a tremendous athlete. What struck me watching him this summer was the combination of speed and strength he had, just able to power past people. He's confident and able to take opposing full-backs on. He can do both wings, and as Jones say, could go central later. 10m Euros would have definitely been worth the punt

Fair enough. His touch and close control is way below the sort of level that I think we should be looking at, in my opinion. He does more upside as a centre forward, and his goal scoring stats for last season are half decent.

Gladbach seems about right for him right now to me.

Welbz being offered to Bordeaux, but deal can't be completed because of his wage demands.

Ricky1985 wrote:

A lot of money or not, Maguire will improve them. He's much better than anything else they have at centrehalf. The same with Wan-Bissaka: Expensivre, yes, but hugely superior to Ashley Young etc.

[Twitter]
Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear.

Aren't we supposed to kidnap him and have Levy pay for his taxi to the Emirates?

Kudos to anyone who gets the reference. :opti:

Don't think any of us know what you're on about mate.

Isn't that the Petit deal?
But fucking Spurs. A similar thing happened to them a couple of years ago with Willian. He had done a medical with them and then when he returned to London to finalise everything, he somehow ended up at Stanford Bridge.
They were supposed to be THAT club forever

That's the point Claud. Don't think anyone who supported us back then didn't know that.

LOL. Sad to see how we've fallen. But it's promising that last season with their Champions League revenues and our combination of Europa and Puma loose change we still made about 10m pounds more than them. They were making Wembley revenue, so I don't think the stadium should have massive topline effect.

This is what gives me hope. That if we can fix our shit and somehow qualify in 4th this year, and clear out the nasty contracts, then we are in a good financial position next year relative to Spurs. We will never make the 100-150m pounds we gave up in lost Champions League revenue in 2017-2020 but we must look forward.

Hopefully mate. I have no real expectations going into this season given how much we're struggling to recruit and also what our rivals are doing but definitely looking forward to seeing out things go.

The door is open when looking at our competition for 4th. We have to absolutely nail the recruitment though

I’m optimistic - surely we can only improve on last year. Emery will be more familiar with the players and has the opportunity to address issues this summer.

I think Spurs and Chelsea will drop a level next season

Think it'll be a battle for 4th between us, United and Chelsea. Top 2 will be Liverpool and City, Spurs confortable in 3rd and the resf of us in a free for all.

Honestly it's the first time I believed Spurs will be too far for us to pass before a season has started. Even at our worst over the last 3 years I always believed we'd end up ahead of them this season but really can't see it this year.

Hope I'm wrong of course but just can't help but think with their recruitment of Ndombele they've given themselves the guile and technique in midfield they've been missing to pull away.

Big Willie wrote:

Think it'll be a battle for 4th between us, United and Chelsea. Top 2 will be Liverpool and City, Spurs confortable in 3rd and the resf of us in a free for all.

Honestly it's the first time I believed Spurs will be too far for us to pass before a season has started. Even at our worst over the last 3 years I always believed we'd end up ahead of them this season but really can't see it this year.

Hope I'm wrong of course but just can't help but think with their recruitment of Ndombele they've given themselves the guile and technique in midfield they've been missing to pull away.

This is how I see it. They have fixed their frontline depth issue. And they’ve thrown a unit in the middle. The interesting team is Pool. Can they pull another 90 point season or do they get dragged into a battle with Spurs?