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Moussa Sissoko

SUIYHA said:
I am genuinely gobsmacked that we've made this transfer. It doesn't make sense at all.

Firstly - Saudi Sportswashing Machine fans all hate him. They are over the moon that he's gone. One good game every 5 or 6 if they're lucky. They have moaned for years about his lack of effort and bad attitude, let alone the fact that he regularly wastes possession, hardly creates anything and hardly scores any goals. How many players from relegated sides that fit that kind of profile have joined Champions League clubs and gone on to be successes?

Second - I know that the transfer market was crazy this summer, but seriously, for that kind of money there were players available who moved during the window that could have easily improved our starting lineup. Where is he going to play? On the wing ahead of Eriksen or Lamela? Or in the middle ahead of Alli, Dembele or Dier? And I haven't even mentioned Wanyama. Who would he start ahead of? SURELY there's no way we could sign a player for that kind of money to be a reserve? I know there's more games to play this season in the Champions League but our record signing is going to expect to start most games when fit.

Third - This is so unlike Levy. On one hand it's good to see him backing a manager with a big transfer fee. But on the other, this is a 27 year old with a history of attitude problems, joining a manager with a history of quickly axing players, even if they are club record signings or top earners, that have bad attitudes. If things go sour, he'll be out of the team quickly and have practically no re-sale value as a 27+ year old problem child. By starting at £16m and almost doubling it to £30m, Levy has massively damaged his reputation as a tough negotiator and that could have major long term consequences in future.

On top form he's devastating, and could prove very useful in some of the bigger games this season when we're playing on the counter attack. I'd have happily signed him for the money that we were originally offering. But £30m? £30m! Unless he becomes at least 5/6 times more consistent than he is, I wouldn't even consider substituting him on for one of our current first teamers, let alone starting him ahead of one of them.

You can bang on about "if he's good enough for Poch he's good enough for me", but that's a cop out. People used to say the same about players during honeymoon periods under Ramos, Redknapp and AVB as well. Poch's record in the transfer market is far from perfect, and this comes from someone who talked him up as first choice to be our manager long before he was, and defended him through all the brick in his first half season.

We have a long track history of signing brick players from relegated teams and this feels like the sort of waste of money signing we were making pre-stadium construction. I'd love to be proven wrong about him but this seems like a very strange one.

Now I'm off to watch Euro 2016 highlights in bed.
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I find it hard to take seriously any fan base that worships Kevin Keegan.
 
On the surface this transfer seems strange.

However I am backing Poch in, I am chosing to ignore the Sky pundits and the armchair experts that inherit this forum.

With Dembele, Dier, Wanyama and Sissoko we have a central midfield rotation that truly is enviable in terms of its power.

The one thing I worry about is creativity, but I think we can push Dembele higher up when needed and lets not forget Eriksen, Alli, Son and Lamela.
 
Crikey, we just went full Chelsea on Everton. May GHod forgive us.

Welcome, Mousa. You'll do just fine.
 
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He played on the wing for Saudi Sportswashing Machine most of the time didn't he?

Pretty sure he played more central for France in the Euro's and had a good tournament.


Sent from my Nokia 3210
 
I don't know if these have already been posted, but here goes (lights blue touch paper and stands back a safe distance):


“Arsenal were my favorite club when I was young and my idol was Patrick Vieira. I have always loved this club and I still love them.”


“If Arsene Wenger calls, I’ll have a man-to-man discussion with him and then we’ll see. Arsenal has always been the club of my heart.”

Moussa is a Yid?
 
I think he will do well for us.
Yes probably more than he should have cost but thats how it goes .He was available,wanted to come and fit a postion we were looking to strengthen.He was one of the main players in a france team that got to the euro's final.
I think we only waited because we had other options but they all fell through so the slightly weaker more expensive option was the one and we did it.We could easily not have bought him but i am glad we did.We didn't spend money we couldn't afford.
 
SpurMeUp said:
@DubaiSpur was this kind of signing what you've been looking for from Levy?
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Mmhmm. I wanted to see a signing that proved that he was willing to give Poch what he wanted. Without extensive haggling, without equivocating, without slowly, fruitlessly searching for the cheaper option. The fact that Sissoko seems like such an atypical signing to make, and the fact that I myself am not convinced by the guy actually heightens my sense of gratitude to Levy for a deal like this - Poch wanted someone out of left field, Levy went and gave him that player. Now it's up to Poch to do what he needs to do to make Sissoko a success - his success or failure now doesn't need to be qualified by 'but he didn't get who he wanted', at least in this instance.

To my mind, that's the way a manager should ideally be backed if we're serious about 'trusting' him (and Poch has proven more trustworthy than most). We've ended the window with a positive net spend for the first-time in yonks - no doubt that will go back to being a negative net spend when the options on Bentaleb, N'Jie and Fazio are exercised (plus some sales in the winter window or next summer), but that's fine. The key is that our overriding priority was not to maintain a negative net spend at all costs, or to only buy young, cheap or both. It was to give Poch a player he wanted, who didn't fit any sort of previous signing profile. Necessary balancing follows afterward.

The order of things that I've been advocating for ever since AVB gave his first interview outside our brand spanking new training ground all the way back in 2012. No more, no less.

So, yes, thank you, Daniel Levy. Like last season's summer window, you *ultimately* came good on a signing. I'll evaluate the window as a whole in a longer post somewhere (it had ups and downs), but for this, he has my gratitude.

@Rorschach - fair enough. Personally, I think we'll have at least asked Lloris about what kind of character Sissoko was in training and in games - don't think we would have done the same with Wijnaldum (given how unprofessional it is to talk about a third-party at a meeting to ostensibly discuss a move for the guy), but no doubt we'll have picked up whatever we could about the guy over the course of scouting Saudi Sportswashing Machine.
 
Too much pessimism on here IMO.

27 years old (prime age for a footballer). Current French international. Strong central midfielder brought to the Club at a time when Mason and Bentaleb are shipped out for not being good enough.

With decent coaching and tactics not to mention playing alongside a higher calibre of players, Sissoko could be a great signing. We need cover for Dier, Wanyama and Dembele, simple as that. Winks isn't anywhere near ready for Champions League, cup competitions maybe. Dier and Dembele would have been burnt out had we not signed Sissoko.

I have faith that with Lloris in the squad and Poch's not bullsh!t attitude, Sissoko will step up and become an important part of our first team squad.

We're now strong in central midfield, attack and defence (incl goalies) - happy fcuking days!

COYS.
 
SUIYHA said:
I am genuinely gobsmacked that we've made this transfer. It doesn't make sense at all.

Firstly - Saudi Sportswashing Machine fans all hate him. They are over the moon that he's gone. One good game every 5 or 6 if they're lucky. They have moaned for years about his lack of effort and bad attitude, let alone the fact that he regularly wastes possession, hardly creates anything and hardly scores any goals. How many players from relegated sides that fit that kind of profile have joined Champions League clubs and gone on to be successes?

Second - I know that the transfer market was crazy this summer, but seriously, for that kind of money there were players available who moved during the window that could have easily improved our starting lineup. Where is he going to play? On the wing ahead of Eriksen or Lamela? Or in the middle ahead of Alli, Dembele or Dier? And I haven't even mentioned Wanyama. Who would he start ahead of? SURELY there's no way we could sign a player for that kind of money to be a reserve? I know there's more games to play this season in the Champions League but our record signing is going to expect to start most games when fit.

Third - This is so unlike Levy. On one hand it's good to see him backing a manager with a big transfer fee. But on the other, this is a 27 year old with a history of attitude problems, joining a manager with a history of quickly axing players, even if they are club record signings or top earners, that have bad attitudes. If things go sour, he'll be out of the team quickly and have practically no re-sale value as a 27+ year old problem child. By starting at £16m and almost doubling it to £30m, Levy has massively damaged his reputation as a tough negotiator and that could have major long term consequences in future.

On top form he's devastating, and could prove very useful in some of the bigger games this season when we're playing on the counter attack. I'd have happily signed him for the money that we were originally offering. But £30m? £30m! Unless he becomes at least 5/6 times more consistent than he is, I wouldn't even consider substituting him on for one of our current first teamers, let alone starting him ahead of one of them.

You can bang on about "if he's good enough for Poch he's good enough for me", but that's a cop out. People used to say the same about players during honeymoon periods under Ramos, Redknapp and AVB as well. Poch's record in the transfer market is far from perfect, and this comes from someone who talked him up as first choice to be our manager long before he was, and defended him through all the brick in his first half season.

We have a long track history of signing brick players from relegated teams and this feels like the sort of waste of money signing we were making pre-stadium construction. I'd love to be proven wrong about him but this seems like a very strange one.

Now I'm off to watch Euro 2016 highlights in bed.
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I'm equally as surprised but what Poch has proven he can do is take a player with talent and make them more consistent (Dembele, Lamela). At least we know that Sissoko on his best day is a pretty good player. In terms of relegated players that have gone on to be a success - Defoe, Kevin Prince Boateng (Portsmouth to Milan), Carrick, Julio Cesar (QPR to Benfica), Ravanelli, Juninho, and Harry Kewell. I don't think we have a long history of signing brick players from relegated teams. Defoe, Carrick, Parker. Trippier is not brick.

I think he was bought for the fact that he offers something different. Directness and pace. As for where he will play, I would imagine it would be on the right.

I'm not worried and do not believe that Levy has damaged his reputation as a tough negotiator or that it will lead to consequences in the future. The fact is that the market was such that £30m was the going rate.
 
We had years of people whining about Levy not backing managers in the transfer window at exactly this point season after season.
Today he goes out splurges 30m on a player, not because he's good value, or has good potential, or was identified by a black box. But because Pochettino wants him and feels he suits his pressing style with his pace and athleticism.
And still people are whining.
 
Expect this to be dragged up by Gooners if he plays well and some of us if he's brick

http://www.skysports.ie/football/ne...-Saudi Sportswashing Machine-and-join-arsenal
"Everyone knows, I often said it when I was young, Arsenal is the club of my heart, because there were quite a few French players there like Thierry Henry, Robert Pires, Sylvain Wiltord, Patrick Vieira who was my idol…
"The beautiful Arsenal. We will see. I cannot tell you if I am going to go to Arsenal. For the moment, I am focused on the French national team and the Euros."
 
Modric THFC said:
We had years of people whining about Levy not backing managers in the transfer window at exactly this point season after season.
Today he goes out splurges 30m on a player, not because he's good value, or has good potential, or was identified by a black box. But because Pochettino wants him and feels he suits his pressing style with his pace and athleticism.
And still people are whining.
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If they were the same people.

I will whine now because I believe that backing the manager no matter the cost is a fallacy. You need input from more than one person to come to a sound decision and value for money should be an important factor.

We've just spent a lot of money on a very mediocre player. There is a massive risk here, because unlike Dembele who had the tools but wasn't using them correctly, Sissoko have a long history of not being bothered to use them and Poch has shown very clearly in the past that he doesn't take kindly to neither passengers nor big egos.
 
Jordinho said:
If they were the same people.

I will whine now because I believe that backing the manager no matter the cost is a fallacy. You need input from more than one person to come to a sound decision and value for money should be an important factor.

We've just spent a lot of money on a very mediocre player. There is a massive risk here, because unlike Dembele who had the tools but wasn't using them correctly, Sissoko have a long history of not being bothered to use them and Poch has shown very clearly in the past that he doesn't take kindly to neither passengers nor big egos.
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what kind of risk? worst case is he plays as many games as Chadli did last season, we sell him on for half the "quoted" price? Believe me, if he doesn't end up playing a lot of games, I'm sure we have clauses re total paid.

Your comparison to Dembele is interesting, because to me Dembele seemed to lack football smarts to use his tools, something that is much harder to train into a player than making them understand effort/ethic is expected regularly (especially when they switch to a higher level club).

The one thing no fan of Spurs has to worry about under Levy is financial miss management. The odd bad/over expensive buy is something we can absorb.
 
Raziel said:
what kind of risk? worst case is he plays as many games as Chadli did last season, we sell him on for half the "quoted" price? Believe me, if he doesn't end up playing a lot of games, I'm sure we have clauses re total paid.

Your comparison to Dembele is interesting, because to me Dembele seemed to lack football smarts to use his tools, something that is much harder to train into a player than making them understand effort/ethic is expected regularly (especially when they switch to a higher level club).

The one thing no fan of Spurs has to worry about under Levy is financial miss management. The odd bad/over expensive buy is something we can absorb.
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Good points. We might have overpaid for this guy, but if there's one thing we don't have to worry about, it's having put ourselves in a bad financial situation because of it. No way. So the money spent doesn't really matter that much. Look at the crazy money being thrown around this window. 30 mill is the new 8 mill, it seems.
 
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