Despite the negatives floating around Tottenham Hotspur this season, with criticism coming from heavy spending in the summer, boring style of play, the premature sacking of Andre Villas Boas and the poor performances from big money signings. After a summer in which we invested well over £100 Million for new talent, despite selling well over £100 Million ourselves, normally further investment in January would seem obscure, but considering our weakness’ in certain games this year, as well as fragilities upfront, I believe at least one further signing wouldn't go a miss.
As I mentioned before, our strikers have been heavily criticised this season, from Adebayor being far too lazy and causing trouble, to Robbie Soldado’s lack of movement on match days, further speculation has arisen concerning our front-line, specifically after the sale of Jermaine Defoe to Toronto, which will mean we’ll be left with only two tried and tested forwards after the end of February.
Speculation has arisen that we are in the market for a new forward, with players with premier league experience such as Sunderland’s Scottish international, Steven Fletcher and West Brom’s Shane Long, both being linked with moves to the Lane, whilst fans would clearly prefer Aston Villa’s Belgium giant, Christian Benteke to make the move over to the capital, despite his poor form as far this season. Other names such as Alvaro Morata, of Real Madrid and Mirko Vucinic of Juventus have been speculated, however the last thing we want is a further member of our squad of who isn't used to the league, and will take time to bed in.
After injuries to Jan Vertonghen and Vlad Chiriches, as well as Younes Kaboul’s continuing problems, we’ve been left looking thin at centre half at times this season, resulting in players like Etienne Capoue and Zeki Fryers to have to take up this role, despite preferring to play in the centre of midfield and left full back respectively. This has caused us to be linked with a loan move for Manchester City’s out of favour centre half, Joleon Lescott, of who is looking for a move to reignite his world cup dreams as he attempts to make England’s plane to Rio. A deal would be preferable for both sides, allowing Lescott to receive game time, whilst we would only pay a portion of his wages, in a similar structure to when we loaned Emmanuel Adebayor from Manchester City, a couple of seasons ago.
Nottingham Forest’s young Goalkeeper, Karl Darlow has emerged as a potential target for us as we attempt to rebuild our goalkeeping structure, of which currently has only Jordon Archer (20) as the youngest of all of our keepers with Brad Friedel (42), Heurelho Gomes (32) and Hugo Lloris (27) all well established. Darlow, at only 22 became Nottingham Forest’s first choice ‘keeper after Lee Camp’s free transfer to Norwich, and has gone on to impress for the Championship play-off hopefuls, and any move would more than likely see him loaned back to the Championship side until at least the end of the season.
Of course as many rumours as there are of players joining the club, there’ll always be rumours of players leaving, with Lewis Holtby and Erik Lamela both linked with moves away from the club, after each becoming frustrated at a lack of game time under Tim Sherwood.
Lewis Holtby has been linked with a move back to Germany, with German trio, Schalke, Wolfsburg and Hannover all interested. Now whether this would be a loan move, or a full transfer is yet to be speculated, but Lewis Holtby would undoubtedly be a miss, after becoming a fans favourite at the Lane, due to his hard working play style and clearly being passionate about the beautiful game and the club.
Erik Lamela meanwhile has experienced a difficult six months at Tottenham, after the 21 year old Argentinian’s £30 Million move from Roma in the summer. Lamela has been linked with a move back to Italy, with both Milan clubs and Juventus interested after Lamela’s father reportedly said that Erik wanted to return to Italy. Despite during the first period of the season, we always knew that it would take time for Lamela to bed into the side, and we cannot give up on him after only six months, he remains one of the brightest starlets in European football and must be allowed time to adjust to the league and learn about his team mates and opponents.
So, who will we realistically buy? Bugger all probably, maybe Leandro Damiao...
Source: DSG
