Overall I think we had a very good season despite the disappointing end and failure to qualify for the Champions League again. We had some great games and performances such as the Inter Milan and AC Milan wins and some very memorable Premier League games such as the 2-3 win at Arsenal. As was expected by many, we suffered from our Champions League exploits in the midweek games and were then too physically and mentally drained to perform well in the weekend Premier League games. Though it's become a bit of a cliche, there really are no easy games in the Premier League so the team needs to be on their A-game to beat Stoke at home for example. You can't blame the management or the team though really, as the ability to juggle both compeitions is something that has taken Man Utd and alike several years to master.
This close season is very important to the club and will be interesting. As usual, we are being linked with every man and his dog but the players we bring in and potentially lose could be vital to our success or failure next season. I will give some of my thoughts on the in's and out's I would like to see (because let's be honest, my opinion means a lot and I'm pretty sure Daniel Levy reads my blog).
Let's start with the goalkeeper. As much as I love him as a character, as well as his occasional world class saves, Huereleo Gomes doesn't quite cut it as a top level Premier League keeper and I think it's time we said 'tchau' to the big man. These mistakes he's making, often at crucial moments in crucial games just cost the team too much. I'm a little confused by the signing of Brad Friedel as I would have assumed he would have been brought as a back-up keeper as he is 40 years old, however we had already offered Carlo Cudicini (our current number two) a one year contract extension. If Man City would sell him to us, I would have thought Shay Given would have been an excellent signing with plenty on years left to play and has over the years proven to be one of the best keepers in the league. Brad Friedel still looked fit and on good form last season so as it stands I would have him as next season's number one.
The defence is an interesting area for Spurs where on the face of it we have a lot of depth of solid players but constant injuries means we were down to bare bones last season, often forcing people to play out of position. William Gallas (great signing on a free as it turned out) was brought as a back-up but ended up playing an invaluable role as a starter for the majority of last season. Ledley obviously has his chronic knee injury, Woodgate is always out, and a number of the other defenders seem injury prone meaning we rarely have many of them left to choose from. I would like to see us buy a new centre back that is brought to be a starter. I would go for Hangeland from Fulham from what I have seen of him he looks quality. I would like to see Kyle Walker given a chance at right back as he looked handy while on loan at Villa last season. I don't think Bassong quite cuts it at the higher Premier League level so wouldn't mind him sold, and though good in an attacking role, Alan Hutton is accident-prone and not the best from a defensive point of view so these two can both be shipped out. Ledley King still performs ridiculously well in the odd games he plays so I would like to see this Rolls Royce of a defender keep his career going, maybe on a pay-as-you-play basis.
Midfield. We have waaaay too many midfielders in our squad at the moment (this obviously doesn't stop us being linked to ten or more every day in the papers) so this is an area we can trim the overall size of the squad. Out the door needs to go O'Hara (already more-or-less signed for Wolves apparently), Jenas (consistently inconsistent), Bentley (never recreated Blackburn form), Kranjcar (really like him but apparently Harry doesn't) and Palacious (not as good as Sandro). It looks like Parker is a shoe-in to join us which I have mixed feelings about. Although he was great for West Ham last season he might not fit in as well into our team and he is getting on a bit so will probably be overpriced. Keeping Van Der Vaart, Bale and particularly Modric is essential. Any players brought in need to be quality players that we are buying to start in my opinion if we are going to push for the Champions League again. I quite like Marin from Werder Bremen but he will probably cost a lot.
A lack of goals from our forwards is the main reason we failed to make the top four last season. None of Defoe, Pavlyuchenko, Keane or Crouch performed well enough and scored enough goals. I think we should ship out Keane as he has never been the same since we sold him to Liverpool and eventually brought him back. Pavlychenko shows signs of real quality at times but these are fleeting and I don't think he is consistently effective enough for us. I would like to keep Defoe as I think he has just had a poor season that was largely blighted with injury and can come back and bang in a load of goals. Crouch has his uses in certain types of games as a starter or a sub so I don't mind keeping him. Also he looks funny. That means we probably need two additions if we lose Keane and Pav and I reckon a mix of experience and youth in these two would be ideal. An experienced striker who has a winning mentality and the quality to still do some damage would be great. Drogba obv. We have been heaviliy linked to a young Brazilian named Leandro Damiao who I know nothing about but comes from the same club we brought Sandro from (Internacional - we have some sort of agreement where we get first dibs on their good players) and is rated at £16mill so you would hope he is pretty handy. At just 21, he fulfils the youthful side of out attack I mentioned.
The key thing for Spurs is to keep all our best players but this is going to be very difficult as we don't have Champions League football anymore and we can't offer the high wages other clubs can. It seems Modric has already had his head turned as he had made some very non-committal statements in the press about his intentions and every big club seems to be linked with him. As I was writing this blog post, I read a story about us rejecting a £22 million bid from Chelsea. Frankly, if Jordan Henderson is worth £20 million then Modric is worth at least £40 mill. Levy knows this though so if he end up 'having' to sell him it will be for A LOT of wonga. If we do manage to keep our best players and get a few nice additions in, as well as getting rid of the dead wood I'm really optomistic for next season.
Starting team next season:
Given (GK)
Walker (RB) Hangeland (CB) Dawson (CB) A.Ekotto (LB)
Sandro (DM)
Lennon (RM) Modric (CM) Bale (LM)
Drogba (CF) Defoe (CF)
Poker
Have been playing a decent amount of poker since my last blog post and I'm doing okay. For a while I was in that great zone where I had forgotten how to lose but my last few sessions have been more bumpy and resulted in losses. At the moment my expectation drops quite dramatically every time Japete or TimJeff joins my table as they are owning me pretty hard right now. This usually results in me telling them how lucky they are or that they play bad which I must stop because it's dumb and rude. I guess I just don't like losing. Today I 5-bet jammed 68s and KJo and ran into AA and QQ vs the same player. I'm not sure why I levelled myself into these two jams except that they seemed like good spots to me for the player to 4-bet. Saying that, I don't think I know enough about the guy to know what level he is on and therefore have enough reasoning to shove in $1k in those spots.
With the staking that my friend and I have been doing I have a fair amount of money on Full Tilt and some on UB which is a tad worrying at the moment. On Full Tilt I have been able to withdraw small amounts to my Visa card but not to Neteller (I have had $5k pending for nearly two weeks now). The people I am staking are unable to withdraw to Neteller as well. I think it's just a case of keeping the bare minimum on these sites at the moment until we know exactly what is happening with the site. It seems every time there is news relating to the poker economy it is bad news which makes me worry for the longer term future of the game. Whatever, it's Vegas time soon so I'll at least enjoy it while I can!
Modric leaving = def a good thing for you
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