From Rhys Jaggar
Myles,
Thought I would try and understand how Pocchetino thinks by looking at his major transfer dealings in his first 4 windows.
Obviously he must be doing something right.
Perhaps many don’t know that he was a defender as a player: to me Spurs hiring a defender as manager is a master-stroke, as traditionally they have been great going forward and leaky at the back. So if they could keep their good points and rectify their weaknesses, perhaps they would achieve something.
In window 1, Pocchetino focussed on his own expertise and dealt primarily in the defensive arenas, merely dispensing with two fringe attackers (Coulibaly and Falque) to cut costs and trading Sigurdsson for Vorm + Davies with Swansea. He brought in Vorm to replace Gomes who wouldn’t be happy in a reserve role, thus eliminating one potential source of discontent.
He released Assou-Ekotto at LB and replaced him with Davies, as well as bringing in a young American (Yedlin) who has been loaned out. Immediately, therefore, he had two left backs he was happy with to compete with each other (Rose & Davies). Both are still competing/cooperating in an equal role currently.
He sold Dawson at CB and sold Fryers to Palace and brought in Fazio, making £1m profit on the transactions and reducing the wage bill. He had 4 competent CBs, but he was clearly patching up and making do in his first season.
He replaced Livermore with Dier + Stambouli at a cost of £0.7m.
So in his first summer’s trading he made a £10m profit and replaced some ageing warriors with young and hungry talent. He focussed on the areas he had the greatest personal expertise in, allowing himself a bit longer to evaluate the attacking talent (much of which had been brought in with the Bale windfall 12 months previously).
In window 2 , he broke even, selling Kyle Naughton and buying Dele Alli.
A masterstroke with hindsight…….he must have been seeing Eric Dier as cover for Kyle Walker for half a season.
In window 3, he completed his defensive transformation, signing Trippier for less than he got for Naughton, to compete with Walker at RB; Alderweireld and Wimmer at CB replaced Kaboul and Chiriches (net cost £8.3m).
He emptied his central midfield, paying for Dele Alli by selling Capoue to Watford, Holtby back to Germany and creaming £10m for Paulinho from China. He used the profit, plus sales of Soldado and Lennon, to invest in Son and N’Jie. Dier was clearly pencilled in for CDM duties with Dembele.
HIs net spend in Transfer window 3 was £0.6m
Finally, in January 2016, he cleared out Townsend for £12m to complete his transformation.
Obviously, N’Jie hasn’t shown much yet which means Spurs are a bit short at Centre Forward in an ideal world.
But in 4 transfer windows, Spurs made a profit of nearly £22m, showing that you can produce a championship-challenging side without breaking the bank.
It does make you wonder why Man Utd claim they need to spend £250 – 500m to produce a team capable of winning the title.
Spurs will probably look at one more centre back, maybe one defensive midfielder, and a centre forward as their top 3 priorities in the summer, assuming that no-one is agitating to leave and leave holes in the squad.
Whether Arsene Wenger likes what is going on or not, he would no doubt approve of the financial acumen shown by Pocchetino and Daniel Levy in doing what they did.
Myles says:
For reasons best known to himself, Daniel Levy allowed smooth Italian Franco Baldini to spunk the Bale money on average players.
Baldini proved he could sign players. But not the right ones.
Pochettino was a centreback who played against England in the 2002 World Cup. We won that group game with a penalty by Beckham, after Pochettino clipped the flying Michael Owen in the box in the 44th minute.
Spurs would love to replace Chelsea as Arsenal’s main rivals in London.
BUT THAT’S VERY DIFFICULT.
However, this squad has achieved a huge improvement in two years. Their productivity in terms of goals scored is impressive, especially when you realise how little has been spent.
Their teamwork is outstanding, the energetic,two-footed Harry Kane is valuable even when he’s not scoring, and Dele Alli is the most exciting young British player for years.
It’s no secret that I’ve always had a soft spot for Spurs and went to White Hart Lane a lot with my Scottish flatmate John Mair when I lived in Crouch End and Stroud Green. We jumped around on The Shelf and saw Martin Chivers, Mike England, Ossie Ardiles, Glenn Hoddle, Mickey Hazard, and Graham Roberts.
One night in 1973 we saw Derby County beat Spurs 4-3 in a midweek FA Cup replay thriller with the big, skilful striker Roger Davies completing a hat-trick in extra time, after Spurs had been 3-1 up and apparently cruising .
Soon after the final whistle a couple of Spurs fans walked past us and one said, “Well deserved it, mate.” They thought we were Derby supporters but we lived a W3 bus ride away and had never been to the Baseball Ground.
Some winters it was freezing in Paxton Road when we waited for a bus and often the bus didn’t stop because it was full. One day the bus broke down in Alexandra Palace and everybody had to get off and hang about for the next one.
Can remember Spurs beating Bayern Munich in a very tight game where Mark Falco got a nice pass from Hoddle and scored the only goal after 82 of the longest minutes I’ve known. Bayern had a brilliant Belgian goalkeeper with permed hair and I thought he was going to save everything: Jean-Marie Pfaff, who won 64 caps.
All this was long before I got married and before I became a journalist asking manager Keith Burkinshaw why he did certain things.
I’ll finish by saying two things:
1. Thanks, Rhys, for summarising the facts of those four windows.
2. Pochettino has improved this group faster than any manager I’ve seen since George Graham between 1986 and 1988.