Season’s greetings everyone!
With a memorable World Cup still visible in the rear-view mirror, it doesn’t really feel like football has been away for that long.
To me, it only seems like a few weeks since Tim Sherwood gave a massive middle finger to the ‘supporters’ who spent months criticising him for not doing the equivalent of drawing blood from a stone; and actually told a fan to sit in his seat and do it himself.
He’s out, another bloke is in and here we are.
It’s been a refreshing winter for your writer. There’s been plenty of pints between the final kick of last season and the first of this one to drown out the sorrow of such a disappointing and unstable year – so consider me ready for whatever 2014/15 will bring.
Lets get this underway then, because the game starts in 42 minutes:
Predictions:
Positions:
Premier League: 5th
FA Cup: Quarter finals
League Cup: Final
Europa League: Quarter finals
Players:
Player of the season: Hugo Lloris
Youngster of the season: Erik Lamela
Top goalscorer: Roberto Soldado (please)
Most assists: Christian Eriksen
Most improved: Etienne Capoue
Most disappointing: Aaron Lennon
Surprise package: Ryan Mason
Best signing: Eric Dier
With all that out the way, I’ll begin by addressing the new manager. Mauricio Pochettino, or Poch as I’ll henceforth call him, did a stellar job at Southampton last season. He had an incredibly solid squad, but he brought many of its members in and made them gel into an imposing unit. It’s a testament to his work that Katerina Liebherr has managed to so substantially improve her everyday savings account with the pillaging of a squad that finished 8th last year. Luke Shaw (£31m), Callum Chambers (£16m), Dejan Lovren (£20m), Adam Lallana (£25m) etc. have gone, but I wonder whether Poch will be their biggest loss of all. It looked like Jay Rodriguez and Morgan Schneiderlin would be heading our way to complete the exodus, but despite the dummy spit of the latter, it seems like Ronald Koeman may actually have 11 men to field tomorrow at Anfield.
I didn’t watch much Soton, or indeed Premier League football, last season – such was my disillusionment at the state of affairs at Spurs (see my later rant on our fans) – but they say that a hallmark of Pochettino’s management is his organised, high-tempo style of play. The players seem to have liked him at all his previous clubs, not that it means much (see AVB and Gareth Bale’s bromance) in fairness – but maybe our whole squad will buy in.
On the squad; we now have 31 first team players, or something like that, and it looks like some will have to go. We’ve signed three young defenders in Dier, Ben Davies and DeAndre Yedlin (arriving next year), and it appears that time is about to be up for some of your writers favourites. The cool Benoit Assou-Ekotto already has one wheel of his smartcar out the door, whilst my man Michael Dawson is about to be hounded out by the people who claim to be supporters of this football club. I use the word supporters reluctantly, because they’ve spent all summer on the official Facebook page whinging about everything from homegrown prospects Danny Rose and Harry Kane penning new contracts to the admin having the temerity to show pictures of Dawson still training at the club.
Even still, despite how much I love Mr Tottenham, I can see that it’s unviable to have five first team centre backs in the squad if young Dier is good enough to be a starter. Jan Vertonghen is clearly first choice, but who stands next to him is the mystery. Still nursing the hangover from never having to play left back again, Superjan will quickly sober up when he realises that his prospective partners at centre half amount to the always injured Younes Kaboul, the technically proficient but aerially useless Vlad Chriches, Dawson whose deficiencies are well covered and the untried Dier.
Poch wanted to bring in Mateo Mussachio from Valencia, and it looked all but done until the third party owners that plague mainland Europe reared their ugly heads and scuppered it.
I don’t think we need any new signings, and I’d be happy to cut BAE and Nacer Chadli, and loan Tom Carroll or Mason, and leave it at that – but we’ll soon see what the boss wants. Perhaps more importantly, we’ll also see how happy Daniel Levy will be to open his wallet on the final day of the month.
Best XI:
Lloris
Walker Kaboul Vertonghen Davies
Capoue Dembele
Lamela Eriksen Townsend
Soldado
Vorm, Dawson, Naughton, Sandro, Lennon, Holtby, Adebayor
I realise that I’ve labelled Dier as our best signing and not even included him in the side, but he’s one for the future.
Finally, just on the the years to come, the fact that our academy finally seems to be churning out prospects excites me greatly. I’m a big believer in a British core, and the signings of Davies and Dier will be joined by Andros Townsend, Mason, Rose, Carroll and Kane as first team members.
As far as the season proper goes, I’m not expecting much – and I’m loving it. I couldn’t give a monkeys whether we finish top 4 anymore, and I feel like most fans agree with me at this stage. The way I see it, we aim for first every season, not fourth, but we try get there by having fun and engaging the supporters.
If Poch can get these boys smiling and playing with the Spurs flair that I grew up to love – I’ll be happy.
Come On You Spurs.
Dean GOLDSTEIN 