Spurs Category
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Transfer balls: Spurs want Arsenal fan Moussa Sissoko who joins PSG after Real Madrid
Transfer balls: Spurs are after Newcastle United’s Moussa Sissoko, or at least they fancy the version of the Magpies’ midfielder who played well for France at Euro 2016.
The BBC says “Tottenham may offer midfielder Nabil Bentaleb, 21” as part of any deal. Or they may not. Bentaleb ‘may’ have read the news on ESPN that he “will not be sold by Tottenham this summer”. Things are far from certain.
Have Spurs seen enough of Bentaleb, of whom the Mirror reported in 2014, “Tottenham’s Nabil Bentaleb: I’m getting my revenge on the clubs that snubbed me”? He’s now playing for the Tottenham Under 21s. Revenge is a dish best served cold.
As for Sissoko, well, he was once batting his eyelashes at Arsenal. Sky Sports reported in June: “Moussa Sissoko wants to leave Newcastle and join Arsenal.” Arsenal were on “red alert” said the Sun. Sissoko was very keen, cooing: “…Arsenal is the club of my heart… The beautiful Arsenal. We will see. I cannot tell you if I am going to go to Arsenal.”
We can. You’re not.
As Arsenal didn’t call, Sissoko looked again. “I hope Real will come for me, I’m still waiting,” Sissoko told World Football in August. “If Real Madrid are interested in you then of course you will be happy, but right now I am still a Newcastle player.”
But he’s off to PSG. We know that because the Mirror wrote: “Paris Saint-Germain preparing move for Moussa Sissoko – once Paul Pogba joins Manchester United.”
Such are the facts.
Posted: 24th, August 2016 | In: Back pages, Sports, Spurs | Comment
Spurs balls: Christian Eriksen wants 368.75% wage raise
Football news: Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Christian Eriksen thinks his current contract undervalues his talents. The Dane is seeking to extend his contract, which has two years left to run, by securing a 368.75% pay rise.
Eriksen earns a basic weekly wage of £32,000. The Telegraph says he is seeking £150,000 a week – much more than Spurs top earner Hugo Lloris’ 95,000 per week. This, says the paper, has “stunned” Spurs. Balls. Spurs is owned and run by money-men. They know the market rate for a very good footballer playing Champions’ League football. They also know that a good club should strive not have the best players but the best team.
Is Eriksen a key part of an improving Spurs side? Yes. Can he be replaced by a cheaper and better player? Yes, of course he can. The hard thing is identifying and signing that player.
Spurs also know Eriksen’s worth if he’s sold*. Should they cash in?
*Unless a marketing spod at Manchester United, a desperate club in thrall of commercial possibilities, thinks Eriksen can sell merchandise, then any fee can rocket (see Paul Pogba).
Posted: 13th, August 2016 | In: Back pages, Sports, Spurs | Comment
Transfer balls: Spurs star Eric Dier to Bayern Munich
In September 2015 Eric Dier signed a contract that ties him to Spurs until 2020. Dier was signed from Sporting Lisbon in 2014 for a £4m fee. He’s become a mainstay of a dynamic Tottenham team and a key player for England. One site says Dier earns £60,000-a-week. Surely he can earn more at another club. And maybe – just maybe – if another club shows an interest in him he can negotiate a new contract?
Cue Neil Moxley in the Sunday People to report that Bayern Munich are looking Dier: “Backroom staff at the five-time European Cup winners have been making background checks on the England international during the last few days.” Background checks? His credit rating. Any criminal convictions or banning orders?
The Express has heard enough, yelling: Carlo Ancelotti eyes Tottenham swoop: Eric Dier in shock link to Bayern Munich.”
But what are the facts? There are none. But we do know that in April 2016, the Standard reported: “At this stage, Dier is simply a player Bayern will keep under observation.”
Is he ill? No. But he could earn a pay rise if he plays his cards right…
Posted: 26th, June 2016 | In: Back pages, Sports, Spurs | Comments (2)
Spurs balls: Harry Kane takes corners because he’s England’s best finisher
Why does Tottenham’s Harry Kane, the Premier League’s top goalscorer, take corners for England? Is the plan to have him bend one into the far corner? It seems utterly bizarre to have the side’s best finisher at the start of the move, marooned near the corner flag as the balls sails into the danger area.
Barney Ronay tells Guardian readers Kane taking corners makes “no sense”. Which of England’s opponents won’t be delighted to see Kane stuck out wide, preferring, surely, to battle in the box Wayne Rooney’s waning talents.
Kane has yet to score direct from a corner. Moreover, against Portugal this week he managed to pass directly to an opposition player. David Beckham he ain’t. Yet England manager Roy Hodgson says Kane is the “best man for delivery”. What does that say about the rest of the team’s aptitude with the dead ball? Says Roy: “I don’t need to apologise for Kane taking a corner, especially if you’ve got a player with his quality striking a ball and no one else in the team who comes up to that level of striking a ball.” It’s the same skill that makes Kane’s England’s best finisher.
What of the alternatives? James Milner took 116 corners for Liverpool last season. A big number. Most of them were functional or, as against Borussia Dortmund, weak. Everton’s Ross Barkley took 70 corners. Southampton’s Ryan Bertrand took 52. Kane took 7 for Spurs – and you can only envy Spurs for having Christian Eriksen, who hits the ball so sweetly. Rooney took five for Man United, the same number Raheem Sterling took for Man City.
Surely dropping Rooney for Sterling and honing the winger’s deadball abilities is one sensible move? But Hodgson sticks with his captain, which means Kane really is the best England man for the job – more’s the pity.
Posted: 4th, June 2016 | In: Sports, Spurs | Comments (2)
Harry Redknapp, angry Newcastle fans, sunshine Spurs and Arsenal failures
A few days before Newcastle United fans hymned their team to a 5-1 thrashing of fancied Spurs, former Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp told his Evening Standard readers:
Angry Newcastle fans can help Tottenham finish above Arsenal
He went on:
Newcastle’s relegation should ensure a hostile atmosphere which Tottenham can take advantage of to secure second place in the Premier League…
Spurs…are still a top side and you would fancy them to win at St James’ Park against a team with nothing to play for under a manager who is probably going to leave… The fans up there will be angry at how things have panned out after Sunderland beat Everton and the Newcastle players will just want the season over with.
Here’s what George Caulkin had to say about the match in the Times:
This was a peculiar day at St James’ Park, where a relegated side played with the zeal of champions and their supporters sang merrily in the sunshine and when Spurs, for so long an embodiment of promise and quality, simply imploded. Old, tired, perennial failures Arsenal — or so the narrative goes — hopped above them and a campaign that has featured upset at its core ended in a suitably perplexing manner.
More expert inside knowledge from Harry Redknapp all over the media every week.
Posted: 16th, May 2016 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Sports, Spurs, Tabloids | Comment
Happy 21st Arsenal: Newcastle thrash Spurs on #StTotteringhamsDay
At what point do Spurs fans give up? Going for the Premier League title just a few weeks ago, Spurs managed to implode at Chelsea and then play so lethargically and poorly in subsequent games they were overtaken by Arsenal, who claim the runners-up spot.
Arsenal have finished above Tottenham for the 21st season in a row.
Losing 5-1 to an already relegated Newcastle United, as Spurs did today – a Newcastle down to 10 men after 67 minutes – when you need only a point to finish second in the table and, crucially, above your local rivals for the first time in a generation is utterly awful. Arsenal fans expected it was coming, of course. After all it’s #StTotteringhamsDay.
Arsene Wenger. Well, he always knows, doesn’t he?
Well, no, not really. As Arsenal fans celebrate the club’s highest league finish since they rocked into the Emirates, they should recalls that Spurs’ title challenge outlasted Wenger’s marvels. Weak in the Champions’ League and league also-rans since February, Arsenal ended the season 10 points short of Premier League winners Leicester. Last season the Gunners fell 12 points short of Premier League winners Chelsea.
Not exactly the catharsis, is it? Spurs are on the up. Arsenal are becalmed under Wenger. But does the Frenchman know it?
Posted: 15th, May 2016 | In: Arsenal, Sports, Spurs | Comment
War Chest Watch: Manchester United, Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal, Everton, Manchester City and Liverpool transfer budgets announced
As the Premier League season ends big media turns to transfer rumours. One issue is deciding how much each club has to spend on new players. With every club in line for a £99m bonus next season, you’d suppose every PL club can spend large on recruitment.
Sunderland: “Sam Allardyce will demand a summer war chest of up to £50million” – Sun
Spurs: “Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino to be handed £60m war chest to strengthen squad” – Mail
Arsenal: Arsene Wenger £75m transfer fund this summer to bolster fragile defence and midfield” – Daily Telegraph
Everton: “£100m war chest to fund spending bonanza” – Daily Mirror
Liverpool: “Liverpool boss handed £100m summer transfer warchest… and targets have been identified” – Daily Star
Chelsea: “Chelsea to use chunk of £130m warchest to beat Arsenal to Alexis Sanchez replacement”
Manchester City: “Manchester City to hand Pep Guardiola a huge transfer chest for the summer” – Manchester Evening News
Manchester United: “Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal to get £150m war chest even without top-four spot” – Daily Express
Manchester United: “United Uncovered: Jose Mourinho’s £300m warchest” – Daily Express
Such are the facts…
Posted: 15th, May 2016 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Broadsheets, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, manchester united, Sports, Spurs, Tabloids | Comment
Spurs balls: Pochettino joins Jose Moutinho at Manchester United (says The Sun)
The Sun has an “exclusive”. It says Manchester United have sparked “PANIC” at Spurs. The Red Devils want to take Mauricio Pochettino from White Hart Lane to Old Trafford.
Spurs bosses are “edgy” and “concerned” that Pochettino will leave the club and head to Manchester United. They need not worry. After all the Sun has told us over and over and over that Jose Mourinho is United’s next manager.
December 21: “LOUIS VAN GAAL is on his way out of Manchester United after contact was made with Jose Mourinho…Van Gaal could now be gone before the Boxing Day game at Stoke. At best, he will have that plus the home clash with Chelsea next Monday to keep his job.”
March 26: “JOSE MOURINHO will be offered a mind-boggling £60million to send Manchester United soaring back to football’s summit.”
March 19, 2016: “Man United transfer news: Jose Mourinho ‘wants £60m Harry Kane to be prime target’”
Atop Press: Sun Panic that all its exclusive news has been utter balls.
Posted: 20th, April 2016 | In: Back pages, manchester united, Sports, Spurs, Tabloids | Comment
Transfer balls: Spurs Harry Kane to Barcelona, Manchester United in big summer of no news
The Guardian says Bayern Munich and Real Madrid are looking to buy Tottenham striker Harry Kane. The story contains not a single fact, quote or source. It is classic transfer balls. This summer will be busy for Kane news.
The Standard says Harry Kane “is the subject of renewed interest from Real Madrid and Bayern Munich”. Real and Bayern are both said to be “desperate to prise Kane from White Hart Lane”. But Bayern, “will only opt for Jane should Robert Lewandowski leave the club in the summer.”
Kane earns £50,000 a week at Spurs. Surely Barcelona and Bayern will top that, reasons the Standard.
The Week chucks in another team, saying Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane “has identified Kane as the man to lead the line next season.” You’ve got to love “identified”. It implies that Zidane has studied Kane for promotion to the big time. Kane is the Premier League’s top scorer. Identifying his talents is marginally less tricky than looking at a puppy stood by a pile of poo and working out whodunnit.
And then there’s Manchester United. Earlier in April, the Indy said Kane “could regret turning down transfer”. Well, so said Teddy Sheringham.
Looking at Kane flying high with Spurs, you have to wonder why he would leave the club.
Posted: 19th, April 2016 | In: Back pages, Sports, Spurs | Comments (5)
Manchester United got Van Gaal and Spurs get to dream
Does Louis Van Gaal regret turning down Spurs in 2014? “The challenge was bigger for me at Manchester United and shall always be bigger,” says Van Gaal. “I’m sorry for Tottenham but Manchester United is a bigger club.”
Spurs fans celebrating a rare 3-0 win over Van Gaal’s Man United must be gutted. They could have had hammer-headed Van Gaal and his ego instead of young Mauricio Pochettino and his vision.
Of course, Van Gaal was not boasting about Manchester United. He was put on the spot by a journalist. The Dutchman soon turned on the reporter. “It is a little bit pathetic you asked that,” he sniped. “It’s easy to ask that but, ok, you enjoy yourself.”
Van Gaal then added: “Can we finish fourth? Yes, because we have 18 points available. It’s more difficult than before the match, that’s for sure. Everybody can lose to everybody else. We are still in the race.”
How far United have fallen to be “in the race” for fourth. They are, says the Times, “clueless”. Their capitulation more akin to the Spurs of old.
Spurs, meanwhile, can dream of winning the title for the first time since President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.
Can they do it? Yes.
Tottenham have scored the most goals and conceded the fewest in the Premier League this season. Six teams have achieved that in the Premier League era. Five times – Manchester United in 2001 and 2008, Arsenal in 2004, Chelsea in 2006 and Manchester City in 2012 – that team won the title. On the other occasion, United finished second in 1998.
Posted: 11th, April 2016 | In: Back pages, manchester united, Sports, Spurs | Comment
Manchester United and Spurs balls: Kane and Pochettino got their separate ways
Big news in the Sun that Tottenham striker Harry Kane has “urged” manager Mauricio Pochettino to remain at White Hart Lane and snub any move to Manchester United.
That in the Sun, which has told us:
December 21: “LOUIS VAN GAAL is on his way out of Manchester United after contact was made with Jose Mourinho…Van Gaal could now be gone before the Boxing Day game at Stoke. At best, he will have that plus the home clash with Chelsea next Monday to keep his job.”
March 26: “JOSE MOURINHO will be offered a mind-boggling £60million to send Manchester United soaring back to football’s summit.”
Save the urges, Harry, The Sun says Mourinho’s already got the job.
And pack your bags. After all, the Sun told us that Kane is Manchester United’s leading target:
March 19, 2016: “Man United transfer news: Jose Mourinho ‘wants £60m Harry Kane to be prime target'”
All utter balls.
Posted: 9th, April 2016 | In: Back pages, manchester united, Sports, Spurs | Comment
Transfer balls: Spurs lose Pochettino to Manchester United in cut-price deal
Transfer balls: Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino, 44, has a £10m buyout clause in his contract, says the Sun.
SunSport can reveal any clubs looking to poach the Argentine will have to stump up the massive eight-figure sum to have any chance.
Can this be the same SunSport which in February pitted Pochettino in a head-to-head with Jose Mourinho for the Manchester United job, telling its readers:
[Spurs] Chairman Daniel Levy is a notoriously tough and difficult negotiator who is willing to stand firm on keeping the club’s best talent… Levy will resist United’s interest but is expected to demand £20m compensation if Pochettino leaves for United. However, a tribunal is more likely to set the figure at around £6m-£8m.
Such are the facts.
Posted: 23rd, March 2016 | In: Back pages, Sports, Spurs | Comment
Chelsea balls: Spurs managers makes shocking, shocking, shocking move
The Sunday Times says Chelsea have made a “shock” move to “tempt” Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino. He’s been added to Chelsea’s “shortlist” of future managers.
The Sunday Times has been informed that Chelsea officials approached representatives of the Tottenham Hotspur manager towards the end of last month to discuss the possibility of him filling the vacant position.
Shocking stuff- but not to Independent readers who read the same story back on January 26:
Mauricio Pochettino to Chelsea: Tottenham manager added to Blues wish list
It was also shocking in February, when the Daily Star reported on the rumour:
Shock of shocks…
Posted: 6th, March 2016 | In: Back pages, Chelsea, Sports, Spurs | Comments (7)
Spurs balls: losing to Crystal Palace was the worst and best thing
Can Tottenham march to glory this season? The London Evening Standard is full of advice. Tom Collomosse tells readers:
If Tottenham believe elimination from the FA Cup to be a blessing in disguise, they should use the memory of last season to banish that thought from their minds.
Losing to Crystal Palace was bad. There is no silver lining. Got it. Over to Tony Evans, then, who tells Standard readers:
Losing to Crystal Palace might have been the best thing for Tottenham’s title challenge. Spurs looked short on energy and ideas yesterday. Battling on two fronts rather than three could suit Mauricio Pochettino’s side.
There is a silver lining?
Posted: 24th, February 2016 | In: Back pages, Sports, Spurs | Comment
On this day 1913: Arsenal cross the River and park their tanks on Tottenham’s turf
With the next North London Derby fast approaching, and this one really shaping up to be a vital tussle, it’s worth reflecting on the origins of the great rivalry, especially on the anniversary of the decision that kicked the whole thing off.
It was on 22nd February, 1913 that Woolwich Arsenal revealed their decision to uproot from their home in Plumstead, South East London and move to a brand new stadium in the North London district of Highbury.
Attendances at the Manor Ground in Plumstead (pictured above), where Woolwich Arsenal played, had been declining. Majority shareholder Henry Norris had originally wanted to merge the club with Fulham, but the Football League ruled this new side would have to play in the old Second Division, and Norris baulked.
He decided the Gunners had greater potential, but only if they could move to somewhere with better transport links and a catchment area with more oomph.
The site he identified was the sports ground of St John’s College of Divinity in Highbury – literally just down the road from Tottenham.
Local residents objected, as did Spurs and Clapton Orient, but the move went ahead anyway.
It proved successful, with attendances doubling in the first season at the stadium designed by Archibald Leitch – the very same architect who designed White Hart Lane.
The move across town also set up a tense relationship with neighbours Tottenham, one that was made all the more fraught in 1919 when Arsenal were granted membership to the newly expanded, 22-team First Division at Tottenham’s expense in questionable circumstances.
To this day, Spurs supporters still wind their neighbours up by calling them the Woolwich Nomads, and not a derby goes by without Tottenham fans loudly advising their rivals to return from whence they came.
Arsenal fans usually retort by trotting out the fact that Tottenham was in the county of Middlesex until 1965 and so Spurs’ claims of being a North London team are fragile at best.
However, this is a rather dry and blinkered reading of local government bureaucracy.
The fact is that suburbs such as Tottenham had been considered part of London since at least 1840, when it had been brought under the Metropolitan Police’s area of responsibility.
Social and economic histories of the time refer to Tottenham as a London suburb, the sports press referred to Tottenham Hotspur as a London club, and in the public eye Tottenham was a part of London.
Unlike other counties, Middlesex had not had a single established county town since 1789, instead regarding London as the county town, further establishing Tottenham as part of London in the public eye.
The fact that the administrative naming conventions of local government structures did not reflect the reality of the situation really rather undermines the Arsenal fans’ entire (and rather bureaucratic) riposte.
That said, I don’t for a moment suspect that this will be the final word on the subject!
Posted: 22nd, February 2016 | In: Arsenal, Sports, Spurs | Comment
Spurs go marching on as Leicester sacrifice Cup glory for league success
Spurs are on their way to Wembley! Well, if they can negotiate a deal to play at the national football stadium while their new ground is being built, then yes, they are. Before that they will play at least one more round in this season’s FA Cup, having seen off Leicester City in a replay earned via an iffy penalty when the team first met. The tabloids all lead with Spurs’ 0-2 win at Leicester.
The Sun – “It was the Son wot won it” – hails Tottenham’s Heung-Min Son. His goal hit the net at 54mph. Good to know. No less interesting is the paper’s dire and ubiquitous “5 Things we learnt” column, in which a football writer is tasked with the dread job of making a list to fill a space. The first point is: “Tottenham’s reserve team was far better than Leicester’s reserve team.” Not so. Of the 14 Spurs player who took part in the match, 8 played against Leicester last weekend. Leicester called on 6 from 14. Neither side was at full-strength, but to call them reserve sides is wrong.
And what football writer worth their corn had to watch the match to “learn” that bigger, richer Spurs have more strength in depth than smaller, poorer Leicester?
When Spurs went 1-0 up, fist-choice striker Harry Kane came on. Only with Leicester 2-0 down did Claudio Ranieri, Leicester’s manager, send on top-scorer Jamie Vardy. Two Leicester City players – Demarai Gray and Ben Chilwell – were making their home debuts. Son’s fine goal was in part down to Chilwell’s failure to close him down. It’s pretty clear that Spurs manger, Mauricio Pochettino wanted it more.
Spurs march on. Leicester continue to be the season’s surprise package.
Posted: 21st, January 2016 | In: Back pages, Sports, Spurs | Comments (2)
Tottenham: Spurs put underpaid Kane and Alli in the shop window
When Tottenham offered Dele Alli an improved contract, the player was happy to sign on for a further five and a half years. On Tuesday Alli agreed the deal. His pay doubled to £25,000 a week. With the ink still wet, Spurs coach Mauricio Pochettino compared Alli to Paul Pogba, the star Juventus and France player.
Pogba earns far in excess of Alli’s weekly wage. Should Alli continue his rate of improvement chances are bigger club will offer him a lot of money to play for them. At his age, Arsenal’s Jack Wilshere was earning closer to £50,000-a-week. The big wages help to make Arsenal look ambitious.
Today the Times says Spurs are aware that £25,000-a-week is getting “England’s Pogba” on the cheap. So in the summer Alli will be offered a new deal. Spurs, we read, “are aware that Alli remains relatively underpaid… but are also conscious of his age and the advisability of rewarding him gradually.”
Sure they are. Alli is being underpaid.
And so too is his Spurs teammate Harry Kane. And Pochettino is happy to talk up his striker.
“I was a player. When you have up front Ronaldo, Romario, your challenge is to fight with them and you need be ready 200 percent, not 100 percent. It’s like when Harry Kane starts, for example,” Pochettino said. “Now Harry Kane is a top-class player and it’s always a challenge for the centre-backs to try to stop him. It’s a big challenge. It’s changed how they see us.”
Kane earns £70,000-a-week.
Unless Spurs pay the going rate for regular Barclays Premier League starters and England internationals, their best players will continue to leave the club. Maybe that’s the plan. Alli has no buy-out clause in his contract. The Times says Tottenham will reply on the negotiation sills of club chairman Daniel Levy should they receive any offers.
They will do. And Levy will sell.
Posted: 15th, January 2016 | In: Back pages, Sports, Spurs | Comments (5)
Transfer Balls: Spurs and Stoke in for Berahino as West Brom seek a winger
The Times says Stoke City are aiming to beat Spurs to West Bromwich Albion’s wantaway striker Saido Berahino.
West Brom have agreed to let Berahino leave the club. They hope to raise funds to sign a winger.
Tottenham’ manager, Mauricio Pochettino, says he is keen to hire a new striker – but on if the player is of the right characters. Does that count Berahino out? He threw a hissy fit when West Brom blocked his move to Spurs over the summer. Do spurs need the aggravation?
Posted: 14th, January 2016 | In: Back pages, Sports, Spurs | Comment
Spurs make Alli the cut-priced Pogba
Can Tottenham hang on to Dele Alli, the 19-year-old midfielder signed from MK Dons for £6m? Alli has signed a new deal to keep him at Spurs for the next five seasons. His pay rises from £12, 500 to £25,000 a week, says the Sun.
So good is Alli that the Sun, which leads with news of his new contract deal, hails him as “the English Paul Pogba”. That’s Paul Pogba, 22, the languid, purposeful, imaginative, gifted Frenchman who ended last season playing for Italian double-winners Juventus in the Champions’ League final.
Pogba finished 15th in the Ballon d’Or list. On Monday, he was named in the FIFPro World XI for 2015. At the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, he was named best young player of the tournament. Gifs and Vines of Pogba’s skills are all over the web.
Pogba makes and scores goals. He bosses games.
If Alli is the English equivalent of the shining Pogba why is he on the kind of wages that surely make every team bigger than Spurs confident of securing his signature? Gazzetta dello Sport says Pogba earns €4.5m (£3.3m) a season.
The Mail says PSG are watching Alli. The player, we learn, “is keen to play abroad in the future”.
So why don’t Spurs put him on higher wages?
In December 2012, Arsenal’s Jack Wilshere, then 20, signed a new contract. The Mail said his wage was £80,000-a-week.
If Spurs think Alli can be one of the best, why don’t they pay him a wage that will stop him looking elsewhere?
Posted: 13th, January 2016 | In: Back pages, Sports, Spurs | Comment
Transfer balls: Saido Berahino will only play for Spurs – unless Liverpool buy him
The Sun says West Bromwich Albion’s occasional striker Saido Berahino wants to join Tottenham this January. The paper says Berahino is ready to reject other all offers in favour of Spurs.
Reportedly, Stoke and Newcastle are also after the 22-year-old but he’ll only joins Spurs – “he is ready to snub any other offers to make sure he becomes a Spurs player.” His “heart is set on White Hart Lane”.
Well, given the option of Spurs, Stoke or Newcastle, who would you chose to play for? Which city would you want to live in?
The Independent has a new option. It says Berahino has been earmarked to replace Daniel Sturridge at Liverpool. The Mirror agrees.
As for Berahino, the player who arrived in the UK as a 10-year-old fleeing for his life from the Burundian civil war, well, he’s managed to look every bit as doltish as the next hungry ‘I am’. He wanted to leave West Brom in the summer, handing in a transfer request that the club refused to agree to.
In December 2015, we read:
The Times has learnt that the 22-year-old became increasingly isolated after he angered the club in late autumn. Berahino is understood to have upset his fellow players with his reaction to being substituted at half-time in the 2-0 defeat away to Crystal Palace in October, when he listened to music through his headphones after learning of the decision to replace him.
He also upset the West Brom hierarchy by returning a day late from an agreed trip to Dubai.
One question: why do Spurs want him? He’s a good player. He’s ambitious But he also comes across as trouble. Why disrupt a tight dressing room?
Posted: 12th, January 2016 | In: Back pages, Sports, Spurs | Comment (1)
Transfer balls: Ezequiel Lavezzi beats Arsenal, wants Spurs, joins Barcelona
Transfer balls: a look at terrible football reporting. The Daily Telegraph has news for Arsenal and Spurs fans:
In case you thought the bitter north London rivalry needed anything else to ramp it up, it has been reported that both Arsenal and Tottenham are after the same man – and the team in white are going to win.
They are? Who is this player? And who picks Spurs over the Gunners?
Arsenal have long shown an interest in Ezequeil Lavezzi, reportedly failing to agree a fee for the Paris Saint-Germain winger last summer.
The piece ends:
The former Napoli man is out of contract in the summer and Spurs will be able to seal the deal for a knock-down price.
Number of sources linked to: nil.
Number of people quoted: nil.
But we can quote a source who seems to know all about Lavezzi.
Chelsea ready to pursue deal for PSG’s Ezequiel Lavezzi – May 2014
Arsenal transfer news and rumours: Gunners suffer blow in bid to sign PSG’s Ezequiel Lavezzi -PSG winger Ezequiel Lavezzi is unlikely join either Arsenal in January, according to his agent. – Dec 31, 2015
You can read those stories in the Daily Telegraph.
In other Lavezzi news:
And Gazzetta dello Sport says that Tottenham are not fighting Arsenal for the player – it’s Barcelona and Internazionale they need to beat. Best of luck with that.
Posted: 7th, January 2016 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Sports, Spurs | Comment
Spurs balls: Kane and Alli get pay rise but Manchester United and Chelsea wait
The Sun leads with news that Spurs will invest £25m in tying Dele Alli and Harry Kane to long term deals. The money won’t come in one hit. As the paper says:
Striker Kane, currently on £45,000 a week, is likely to be offered a deal worth £70,000 a week. Alli would double his pay from £12,500 to £25,000 a week.
Good money. Great money for young men doing what they love. But compared to the £300,00o-a-week Wayne Rooney earns at Manchester Untied or the £200,000-a-week Raheem Sterling earns over the same period at Manchester City, not much.
Spurs fans eager for their club to hang onto two bright prospects will not be comforted by the numbers. Any idea that Kane will stay put out of loyalty (the Spurs fans hopeful chant that Harry is “one of our own” is sweet and desperate) is undermined by pictures of the young Harry wearing an Arsenal kit.
As for Alli, he spoke with David Hytner in October:
In his first newspaper interview as a Tottenham Hotspur player, Dele Alli said “unreal” and “surreal” on a number of occasions. Then again, he was speaking after making his first start for the club, in the showpiece friendly against Real Madrid at Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena, in front of 70,000 fans and, 24 minutes in, he had nutmegged Luka Modric.
Alli said that he and Real’s superstar midfielder had “had a laugh about it in the tunnel afterwards”.
That’s Modric, who used to play for Spurs before a bigger club beckoned him over. He plays with Gareth Bale, who made the same move from White Hart Lane to Madrid. Alli joined Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham squad in February 2014 for £5m.
Says Pochettino:
“It is the same situation as with Harry Kane last season. Be careful with the young players that arrive in the Premier League. It is not easy. You can see that Dele is very mature and a player who shows great quality. He has a great personality and good character. But it is too much of a rush to talk about bigger steps for him. Always in football, you need to take it step-by-step, game-by-game.”
Until a big club with vast sums of money comes calling.
Posted: 21st, November 2015 | In: Reviews, Sports, Spurs | Comment
Transfer balls: Chelsea and Manchester United linked to Spurs Dele Alli
Spurs midfielder Dele Alli played a blinder on his England debt. He tackled, scored a belter and moved well. At just 19, Spurs have a rising star in their ranks.
Ali is good enough for England. He’s good enough for Tottenham. But the Daily Express wonders: is she could enough for Chelsea or Manchester United? Bruce Archer asks the question no-one else is:
Spurs sit above dull, money-mad Chelsea in the Premier League table. They are just behind dull, money-mad Manchester United.
Why leave?
Arsenal and Spurs balls: Vertonghen gropes Giroud, Kane is ‘immaculate’ but Ozil is the star
Arsenal drew 1-1 with Spurs in the Premier League yesterday. The Mirror leads with “GET A ROOM BOYS”, a comment based on a picture of Tottenham’s Vertonghen with his hand close to Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud’s crotch.
The Mirror says this is “just like” when Vinnie Jones grabbed hold of Paul Gascoigne’s balls. But it isn’t. Vertonghen never takes hold of Giroud’s tackle nor appraises his target by calling him “fat boy”.
But sticking with the foreplay theme, the Sun thunders: “Gunners will never win title with fluff-it Oli up front”.
From fluffed to fluffer, Giroud is the subject of Steven Howard’s opinion that Arsenal will “win nothing with Olivier Giroud as the main striker”. All true – if you don’t notice that Arsenal won back-to-back FA cups with Giroud as the, er, main striker. And all true if you fail to spot that with Danny Welbeck and Theo Walcott injured, Giroud is Arsenal’s only fit striker with a goal scoring record. Yes, there’s Joel Campbell but he’s a makeweight, filling in on the right-wing as seven more accomplished first-team Arsenal players keep the medics busy.
The chief problem with Giroud is that he’s not English. Whereas the Frenchman is rubbished (goals this season in the PL: 6), Harry Kane of Spurs is “immaculate” (goals this season in the PL: 6). Kane scored one. He also missed a chance that would have put Spurs two up. He’s a very good player. But he’s not perfect.
One page back and the Sun’s Charlie Wyett also heaps praise on Kane. We learn that Kane” bullied Arsenal’s defence”. He didn’t. If any Spurs player did, it was Erik Lamela (not English), whose “terrier-like harrying” (Times) and all-round play is a massive upturn in performance from the player who joined Spurs for £25m in the post Gareth Bale shopping spree.
The Mirror’s Dave Kidd hails the best player on the pitch: Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil, who has for the first time in PL history provided assists in six straight games. The German is also the Sun’s man of the match.
In the Express, Matthew Dunn mentions Giroud’s “nightmare”.
The Mail’s Martin Samuel says “Arsenal got away with it”. And they can thank Mesut Ozil, also named as the Mail’s man of the match. In a hyped Premier League, Ozil is one of the few players with genuine quality.
Posted: 9th, November 2015 | In: Arsenal, Reviews, Sports, Spurs | Comment
Watch referee Arsenal enemy Mike Dean ‘celebrate’ a Spurs goal against Aston Villa
Arsenal fans don’t much like Mike Dean, the Premier League referee. Claims, however nuts, that the man in yellow doesn’t like the Gunners will not be undone buy the video of him reacting to a Spurs goal against Aston Villa.
What is he doing? And why is he doing it in public?
Posted: 2nd, November 2015 | In: Reviews, Sports, Spurs | Comment
