Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
What about the option of Wimmer off the bench into midfield to see off games? He has similar qualities to Wanyama, and is more cultured and composed on the ball
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Victor Wanyama
- Thread starter Robbo
- Start date
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
I disagree that Dier's (lack of) quality on the ball was a factor in us stuttering in our final four games last season. We scored in each of those games and got 2 against Chelsea. We were also ahead in 3 of the 4 games. The goals we scored in those 4 games should've been enough to get us at least 2 wins and a draw.
I don't think Dier's use of the ball contributed to our run in at all. Our ability to hold on to a lead was a bigger factor in those games. The question is whether having a player like Wanyama on the pitch would help in this aspect? You could argue the case either way here with arguments about us strengthening our defensive shape being countered by arguments about us inviting pressure or reducing our effectiveness on the break. My concern is more around the fact that if Dier isn't fit then we lack any other player who can play that role without weakening the team elsewhere. Wanyama is the perfect sort of player to use in the Dier role. I think his passing ability is also being slightly unfairly criticised, from what I have seen his passing is every bit as good (or perhaps a better adjective here is 'adequate') as Dier's.
I really don't see why anyone wouldn't want to bring Wanyama to Spurs. We know we only have one suitable, proven option in the squad to play the holding role. We know Wanyama is suited to PL football, we know he is suited to a Pochettino system and we know that he can handle Pochettino's training regime. He would allow us to rotate our first team without having to change the way that we play. He is also a player that wants to join us, theoretically we should be able to afford in terms of wages and he has a contract situation that we can exploit.
In normal circumstances Wanyama's value would be between about 18 and 25 million. If we can get him for anything up to the bottom end of that valuation then it would be excellent business. He would be proper competition to Dier for his place in the team and not just a 'cover' option.
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Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
???? When exactly has Wimmer shown that he is more cultured and composed on the ball than Wanyama?
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Like I said I would want us to aim higher. If we fail with other targets and find ourselves where we currently are mid August I wouldn't be unhappy with Wanyama as our fallback option. I wouldn't be unhappy with Wanyama signed now either mind you, but I would be somewhat underwhelmed. His contract situation certainly makes him a more palatable target. £20-25m for him would make me cringe just a bit.
I would like to see us primarily target players that are either capable of stepping right into our current first 11 and make us stronger (very few of those around) or players with the potential to become better players than our current starting 11. Player development is one of our biggest strengths at the moment. For me Wanyama doesn't fit that profile so I think we can aim higher.
Personal preference I also have a huge soft spot for deep playmakers. Unless Bentaleb steps it up again we're short in that department at the moment and I would rather see someone closer to that end of the spectrum brought in than someone more towards the "adequate on the ball" end. You're talking similar money for Wanyama as City paid for Gundogan. I know he wasn't a realistic target for us, but that's a good chunk of money. For me I think Mitchell and the transfer committee should be able to come up with some very good options for that kind of money.
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
I guess the question here is whether we want to be able to continue play with exactly the same shape and continue with the same style of football (a Dier type at the base of the midfield) or we are going to change the way that we play by instead deploying a deep playmaker. If we opt to bring in the latter then can I assume that you would want Dier to transition back to centre half to compete with Alderweireld/Vertonghen/Wimmer for a place
in the team?
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
I don't think it necessarily comes down to that. Certainly not next season. Dier potentially transitioning back to centre half at some point in the future is something I'm at least open to. If someone long term develops into a very good or top class deep playmaker that transition might be desirable. Short term I don't see it as a problem.
My "ideal central midfielder" for this summer is someone who can play next to Dembele or Dier. Someone solid enough defensively to replace Dier, but someone whose also good enough on the ball to replace Dembele. I'm a lot less enthusiastic about a like for like backup to Dier. Dembele is the one with the fitness issues that might still see him struggle to play much more than once a week. A rotation option for him is much more important than a rotation option for Dier. Dier seems comfortable playing twice a week and his role doesn't require him to run 13 kilometers a game. A strong backup for him would be good, but someone who can fit into both roles would give us a lot more actual options rather than being a "backup player". No, I don't know who that player is.
Similarly someone with more of a deep lying plymaker style would give us options for those games where perhaps Dembele and Dier do not provide enough on the ball. Games we dominate and games where upping our passing tempo through midfield is important.
I think Dier and Dembele are good enough that we're not desperate for someone PL proven in or close to their prime. There have been times in the past when that's been exactly what we've missed and players like Palacios and Parker have come in with very good effect. But right now we have a very good DM in Dier and we can afford the slightly more patient and player development focused route of going either for someone younger than Wanyama with more potential or someone outside the PL that might take time to settle in.
Finally I continue to rate Bentaleb as a very good talent. And I will continue to do so all summer (at least), up until the hypothetical day where the naysayers are proven right and he's actually sold. The club paying £15m or more for a player that's "adequate on the ball" that will most likely come in and halt Bentaleb's development by getting most of the limited game time behind Dier in the queue fills me with a certain... unease.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
Every time he plays. He finds time under pressure and uses it intelligently. He's not quite Verts, but looks a comfortable with the ball. Wanyama is more on the 'second touch is usually a tackle' David Batty scale
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
A fair enough opinion. It just differs from mine. A few points on why I see things differently.
I think Pochettino's system requires quite specialist roles:
- Fullbacks who want to get forward and have a huge amount of energy.
- Centre halves who are comfortable playing at fullback (as they have to fan out and are often faced with one v one situations from the opposition's wide players when our fullbacks are caught upfield)
- A holding midfield who is extremely positionally disciplined, very physical and is comfortable at playing at centre half (as he will have to fill in in that position when one of our centre halves fans out to the fullback position.
- A number 8 who can receive the ball in tight situations, look after it and allow us to transition from defence to attack.
- Numbers 7 and 11 who are good on the ball, want to be involved centrally, but are prepared to run 13+ kms a game to track the runs forward of the opposition's fullbacks
- A number 10 who will play his part in the press and also get beyond the number 9.
- An all round number 9 who can act as a target man but also drop deep to pick up possession and play a big part in the build up
I take your point about Dembele's fitness issues and for that reason I think it is imperative that we find an alternative to cover/challenge him, I'm just not sure that we can find a player who could give us (say) 95% of what both Dembele and Dier give us.
I also take your point about a deep lying playmaker style giving us options for games where Dembele and Dier do not provide enough on the ball. However I'm not sure that I saw the ability to break teams down as a problem. last season, it was very rare for us not to score in a game (off the top of my head - Man Utd away, Leicester at home and West Ham away) I think many teams find our tactics difficult to cope with, I would rather we could continue with those same effective tactics if one or two players are missing instead of having to change our gameplan (although it would be nice to ALSO be able to change our gameplan if we chose to instead of being forced to by just a single player injured/rested).
Regarding your comment about being able to bring in a younger player. I can see you point about us not being desperate. However I would counter argue that we already have the youngest team in the PL. We will also be playing in the European Big Cup next season and (hopefully) challenging for at least one of the FA (please Mr Pochettino) or League Cups. With that in mind I don't think it should be our priority to add another player of 21 or younger to the team. Additionally Wanyama is hardly old at only 24 (25 by the time the season starts).
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
I'm glad you understand why Wanyama doesn't seem like a great or obvious signing to some of us.
I think you might be confusing what specialist roles Pochettino needs to make his system work with the types of players he's made his system work with for us at this time.
Someone who can play both roles in deep midfield is most likely going to be hard to find, I agree. I take it from your comments you want us to sign both Wayama and a cover/competition player for Dembele. I get the wish for competition and cover, I really do. But don't you worry about (1) the cost and (2) the detrimental effect this will have on our youth development? You're essentially saying that until the point where either Dier, Dembele, Wanyama or the cover/competition player for Dembele is sold game time for any young central midfielder in our squad is likely going to be very limited at best.
It's not a priority for me to bring in young players for the sake of bringing in young players. If we had gaping holes in our first team I would be perfectly happy to see us plug them with more experienced players like we did with Alderweireld last season. Right now we have none of those. Younger players are likely to have more potential and that works better with what I think is a key part of our strategy - player development.
This is something which I've thought for a while and which always gets lost on here when there are spats between people over which of Carroll, Mason and Bentaleb should be kept or sold. Based on last season Dier and Dembele are head and shoulders ahead of those three and what we need are players to challenge / compete with Dier and Dembele.
Neither of Mason and Carroll are well suited to being a replica of either Dier or Dembele. Bentaleb on the other hand could (I emphasise 'could') become Dembele's back-up given that there are a number of similarities - physique is similar, both have excellent close control, both protect the ball well, both like to put their foot on it (and both equally probably take too many touches), both strut around the pitch in the same way (by which I mean you rarely see either sprinting - they let the ball do the work), both are most comfortable in the middle third rather than defending or getting beyond the CF,...
Bentaleb just needs to get his head right and not do high risk stuff in stupid areas. He should spend his summer watching videos of Dembele last year and be told that he needs to replicate Dembele's strengths so that he can challenge him....and if not, then we'll flog him as he doesnt have a role at Spurs
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
Last season Victor Wanyama was dispossessed 0.8 times per game. This is exactly the same number of times that Dier was dispossessed per game. The two players also had identical pass completion rates of 82.5%
I'm not sure that those facts lend much weight to your statement above?
Re: Wimmer in midfield. I wouldn't want to judge whether or not he would be a good option to play there based on how he passes the ball as a centre half. Typically you are afforded more time in that position to control it, look up and pass it. It could be that he has what it takes, but we won't know that having only see him play at centre half for us. Of course Pochettino will have much better information here based on what he sees in training. The fact that he hasn't trusted Wimmer to play there at all this season possibly suggests that he doesn't think that he has what it takes?
Rorschach
Sonny Walters
Agree with most of your points here except for one really. As much as I like Bentaleb and I do see great potential in him, he is not a similar player to Dembele nor will develop that way IMO. I would suggest that Demeble's skill set are a little unique and there are few that can do what he can do. IMO Bentaleb should be aiming to mimic someone like Carrick. There are calls in this thread for a deep lying playmaker and Bentaleb can be that if he chooses.
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
It is great to bring young players through. However in order to do that you need to have good young players ready to come through. Perhaps Yoof or one of those closer to the academy/under 21 set up can lend their own insight here, but I don't see any players coming through who are equipped to play instead of Eric Dier. We therefore either have to sign somebody or try to shoehorn in an existing player who either isn't equipped to play that role or (worse still) doesn't want to play that role. In fact the reason why I advocate a player like Wanyama coming in is because I think we do have some potential coming through that could be used in the Dembele role (I think Bentaleb, Onomah and perhaps Winks all have potential there and I also wonder whether Alli will eventually move back into more of a box to box role instead of the number 10 role that he plays in now). In an ideal World I would like both of Dier and Dembele to have proper competition in the squad. However if financial constraints meant that we had to opt to cover just one of them then I would opt for Dier as I don't see us having any player in the squad that can cover him at the moment.
Gazzasrightboot
Pascal Chimbonda
I think the comments on Wanyama's passing are a little bit unfounded, so I went on to Squawka and did a bit of a comparison -->http://www.squawka.com/comparison-m...ors_leading_to_goal/red_cards/yellow_cards#90
I realise that this is not conclusive in itself, but I think it shows that he is not a million miles different to Dier.
I'm inclined to agree with @braineclipse on this in that I would hope that we could find better at the prices being quoted, but I would be happy and i would trust Poch's judgement if we were to sign him. Having him come on when trying to hold on to a lead, or having him play in the first team at an away fixture to make us more solid is something that would add to us and not subtract.
I realise that this is not conclusive in itself, but I think it shows that he is not a million miles different to Dier.
I'm inclined to agree with @braineclipse on this in that I would hope that we could find better at the prices being quoted, but I would be happy and i would trust Poch's judgement if we were to sign him. Having him come on when trying to hold on to a lead, or having him play in the first team at an away fixture to make us more solid is something that would add to us and not subtract.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
If Poch doesn't rate any of our own young players as good enough then the option is always to sign someone, instead of signing Wanyama.
I mean, we're talking £15-20m for a non goal scoring deep midfielder. I'm guessing we could get someone with a huge amount of both talent and current ability from somewhere with that money, or less.
There are several ways to be successful in a role and within a system.
We don't have to look for a replica. Doing so severely limits our options in the transfer market. And we don't have to ask young players to replicate the more experienced players, doing so might hinder their development rather than help it.
Bentaleb might be the closest to Dembele in style, that doesn't mean that trying to play like Dembele is going to make him as good as he can become.
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
I'm not sure that you are paying enough respect to how important that "Dier" role is to our team. I think the fact that Pochettino just about ran him into the ground last season indicates both how important Poch sees the role as being and also the paucity of our options to cover that role. I agree with you that we should be able to find somebody with talent and ability for that sort of money. However that player would probably have to be coming in from a foreign league, that means there is the possibility of them not being able to adapt to the PL - Paulinho or Soldado are examples here. Big fees, apparently lots of talent, but absolute failures in England. There is a premium on players who are successful in the Premiership for a reason.... that is because there are a fair number of players who cannot adapt. With 2 or 3 years left on a contract IMO Wanyama would be valued somewhere between 18 and 25 million. With 1 year left on his contract I think he will cost between about 14 and 18 million. There might be better players out there for that same 14 to 18 million quid, but I would bet that each of them may well need 6 months to a year to settle into English football and one in three would be likely to not settle at all.
There are indeed several ways to be successful in a role and within a system. However our good season last year was built on a specific set of roles within the team (that I think we all tend to agree on). Our number 8 seems to have to be able to receive the ball even if tightly marked, be able to keep possession and transition defence to attack. Our holding midfielder needs to be extremely positionally disciplined and slot in as a third centre half. If we can add a player who can do both of these things then happy days.... I'm just not sure that too many of them exist... Typically players who are very skilfull on the ball don't want to play as a defensive midfielder and because they don't want to play there they tend to lack the discipline required to keep their position. If there are players that have the best attributes of both Dier and Dembele rolled into a single player then I'm not sure that we can attract a player of that standing them to our club currently?
I would actually be interested to hear some suggestions of which players are out there that have both Dembele and Dier qualities, so could slot into our team without us having to change our game-plan as a result.
NaijaSpurs
Les Ferdinand
You have just made that up, it seems your disdain for Wanyama knows no bounds. I really question your judgement dude, especially when I remember you did not want Toby because we had Fazio
DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
Son - agreed, being written off too soon (even if he was hardly 'injured all season').
N'jie - agreed.
Mason - agreed.
Bentaleb - not entirely sure if it's right to lump him with the others, given that he seems to have had some rumoured schisms with the higher-ups in the past.
Pritchard - for the first half of the season, sure. Then he went on loan to West Brom, a truly baffling decision that *still* utterly bemuses me, and that probably set him back even more. Don't think people are wrong about this one, even if I am sad about his potential (as evidenced by his form at Brentford) not being fully realized.
Oh, yeah. No doubt about that. Paulinho was a waste of space, and Chiriches was even worse. Capoue was decent up until Cazorla (I think it was) landed on his ankle and broke it in the derby in November, which made him utter sh*te going forward.
Soldado, funnily enough, had the support of the crowd from day one until the day he left, and he was utter crap as well. Point being, of the seven players we bought with the Bale money, four were utter crap, two turned out to be really good and one did and continues to do a very passable job (Chadli). If the fans decide the people we bought with Bale's money were a waste, they'd be right in about four of the seven instances, which sort of bolsters my point about the crowd being right at least *some* of the time.
Ah, well. It's a hard task to try to defend the mob when (as I've mentioned previously) I deeply dislike and am disgusted by the sort of stuff that gets thrown the way of individual players (on their Twitter feeds, FB profiles et al) after a couple of bad games or a bad mistake by the hordes of angry fans. But still, @milo mentioned that people should stop writing players off given how frequently they've been proven wrong on the subject before - my only contribution is that this isn't always the case.
We all speculate, sure. It's just that, as far as speculation goes, one supporter's interpretation really isn't any better than another's, is all, and media reports are basically all we have to go on when speculating either way.
As for Wanyama, I entirely agree - he isn't very good on the ball, and we saw how Dier's sudden reluctance to conduct play from deep at the end of the season detracted from our overall effectiveness. If we can't find someone Poch wants more than Wanyama, then I'd be fine with his signing, but I don't think he would improve us as a side; he'd be great backup and a good rotation option for either Dier or Dembele (when we want to go with an impossibly solid double pivot in the DM role), but he won't bring anything to the table that we don't already have.
alekaras
The ITK of IDK
What might make more sense is bringing in Wimmer and pushing Verts up to partner Dier, in that case.
Gazzasrightboot
Pascal Chimbonda
Oh, yeah. No doubt about that. Paulinho was a waste of space, and Chiriches was even worse. Capoue was decent up until Cazorla (I think it was) landed on his ankle and broke it in the derby in November, which made him utter sh*te going forward.
Soldado, funnily enough, had the support of the crowd from day one until the day he left, and he was utter crap as well. Point being, of the seven players we bought with the Bale money, four were utter crap, two turned out to be really good and one did and continues to do a very passable job (Chadli). If the fans decide the people we bought with Bale's money were a waste, they'd be right in about four of the seven instances, which sort of bolsters my point about the crowd being right at least *some* of the time.
Ah, well. It's a hard task to try to defend the mob when (as I've mentioned previously) I deeply dislike and am disgusted by the sort of stuff that gets thrown the way of individual players (on their Twitter feeds, FB profiles et al) after a couple of bad games or a bad mistake by the hordes of angry fans. But still, @milo mentioned that people should stop writing players off given how frequently they've been proven wrong on the subject before - my only contribution is that this isn't always the case.
I think you're being a tad unfair there! What we have recouped from those players, versus what we have got in terms of performances and value from Lamela, Eriksen and Chadli will probably show that they were not a waste and that actually we've made money on that £110m investment. But let us assume that the crowd effectively judged these players. When we bought them, those same fans were saying that we would win the league. Hardly a ringing endorsement of their scouting abilities or ability to spot a player. Those fans had written off Lamela after a season. Were they right? Throughout our history, the crowd has effectively either written off players that have come back to prove us wrong. For every success you note that the crowd has noted, I bet I will be able to find one that they got completely wrong.
I would rather place faith in our club's assessment of a player rather than the fans. Especially when our club has Poch and Mitchell who I don't think have failed at all in the transfer market. In fact I would go as far as to say that they have been pretty savvy in the transfer market.