Daniel Levy, from underneath his desk in the boardroom at White Hart Lane, (the new one, that is), has dictated a memo to his secretary which has now been circulated to everyone he deems important with, as a courtesy, a copy being sent to Mauricio Pochettino .
In this memo he details how Spurs need to recoup some of the money he has spent building them a nice new stadium which, when he has a decent team with some new players, he hopes will be filled to it’s 60,000 capacity.
The problem is that, in order to buy said players, Danny Boy has decided it is necessary to sell some first. To this end he has decided that Mousa Dembélé, Danny Rose and Toby Alderweireld are all surplus to requirements and can exit, stage left, as soon as possible.
Consequently, he is prepared to listen to offers for all three. He will then pretend he didn’t hear any of those offers and add at least £20 million to each of them. Eventually the players will be sold and Spurs can get on with replacing them by buying Jack Grealish from Aston Vila.
This may not be music to the ears of Tottenham fans as they would have been hoping to see several new arrivals at the housewarming party.
No problem though, because the players marked down by Daniel Levy as “redundant stock” weren’t involved in the first team anyway and had all lost their place a while ago, so they won’t be missed.
All he has to do now is sell them, get paid for them and buy some new players for his manager. It really is that easy! Oh, and he has to buy the new ones before the transfer deadline which is in a week.
Will Manchester United re-ignite their interest in Danny Rose now that he is officially available? Or will Mourinho persevere with the two old men masquerading as full-backs and relying on David De Gea every game?
Why has he waited until now to announce that these players are available? Well, we can think of two reasons. If any English clubs want them, (Manchester United?), he feels he will be able to squeeze more money out of them.
Also, if his way of thinking is that he doesn’t particularly want to sell the players to other English clubs then he knows he has left very little time for them to act. The transfer window for the rest of Europe, however, doesn’t close until the end of August so those clubs will still have plenty of time to buy the aforementioned players.
Is Danny playing a risky game or is he being clever? We know what we think he thinks but what do you think?
Up in Manchester…..
And the flicker of a smile is beginning to appear on the face of José Mourinho. He wants a centre back and it is very possible that he will get one. Reportedly, personal terms have been agreed with Yerry Mina of Barcelona and, thanks to Daniel Levy’s unprecedented generosity, his number one target, Toby Alderweireld, is also available.
The Belgian wants to move to Old Trafford but, if Levy wants far too much money for a 29 year-old, which he undoubtedly does, then United may wait another year and pick him up for £25 million which will be his release clause at that time. Apparently, this is something Alderweireld would also be prepared to accommodate even if it means he doesn’t play much football next season.
The risk/reward here appears to be more risk than reward. Who knows whether he will still be required by United in 12 months? That’s another year of progress for Victor Lindelof and Eric Bailly and, if Mina has signed then he, along with Phil Jones, will be part of a quartet fighting for two places in the team, (this assumes, and hopes, that Smalling and Rojo will have gone by then).
Mourinho’s attention, by this time next year, may well have turned to where he really needs players which is the full back area. The two old wingers who are currently pretending they can defend surely can’t last another season without somebody other than ourselves exposing them as frauds.
This is the risk Alderweireld is prepared to take to get a move to United. Good luck to him.
And finally…..
Arturo Vidal – Everybody’s favourite Mohican is moving to Spain to play for Barcelona
Now that Liverpool have actually bought a goalkeeper who may be quite good, we are struggling to find snippets of information to fill the “and finally” spot.
For one day only, probably, we move away from the Premier League to bring you the news that Arturo Vidal, one-time Manchester United target, has been sold to Barcelona by Bayern Münich.
Quite why he keeps leaving one big club for another is a little puzzling but he does have a history of being rather troublesome so maybe Italy and Germany have given up on him and decided it is the turn of Spain to have a go at taming him!
The problem is that, if the Germans couldn’t manage it, then it is unlikely that the Spanish will, but good luck anyway.
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 