Cartilage Free Captain

Tottenham Hotspur are currently in Hong Kong and preparing for the first stop of their Asia tour — a preseason friendly against arch-rivals Arsenal. Shortly after landing, Spurs manager Thomas Frank gave an interview to the assembled media about the upcoming match, transfer plans, Morgan Gibbs-White, and squad injuries.

Of all of it, the injuries were the most interesting. Tottenham left a number of players at home in this one, including Dejan Kulusevski, Radu Dragusin, and Manor Solomon. Two late additions to the scratch list were Destiny Udogie, who pulled out of Spurs’ friendly last week after he “felt something” in warm-up, and new signing Kota Takai, who either arrived at preseason with an injury or did something in training.

Frank gave a short update on both Destiny and Takai, and welp, the news could be better.

“Kota’s got plantar fascia unfortunately. I don’t know exactly the scale of it, weeks. Destiny has got a knee injury that we are assessing at the moment that just kept him out of the pre-season tour. When we know more, we will update more.”

Ugh. As anyone who has ever been a runner and suffered from it can tell you, plantar fasciitis is a nasty injury that can take a long time to heal. Frank’s assessment of “weeks” is both unfortunate and probably pretty likely. That’s not a great sign for Takai and again probably leaves Spurs short handed on the defensive end to begin the Premier League season.

As for Destiny, we don’t know the extent of the knee injury he’s suffering from, but hopefully it isn’t too bad. It’s bad enough that he was left back in London while the rest of the squad jets off to Hong Kong and Seoul, but maybe that ends up being a good thing? It will allow Djed Spence, Ben Davies and Pedro Porro to get extra minutes, and it also probably means first team preseason minutes at left back for Jamie Donley, who could use them.

Elsewhere, Frank talked a little about Mikey Moore, who is expected to finalize a season-long loan to Glasgow Rangers in the Scottish Premier League very soon. Frank suggested that a loan to a club at the top of its league like Rangers and the first team opportunities it provides will be very good for Moore’s development.

“It is very important. Mikey is a big talent. I’m really excited about his future here at Tottenham. I think for all players but especially younger players they need consistent first-team football into their bodies. I think if we can find the right option we will do that.“

Tottenham’s preseason friendly against Arsenal kicks off this Thursday at 7:30 a.m. in Hong Kong. The match is not broadcast or streamed in the UK apart from on SpursPLAY, Tottenham’s in-house streaming service, but will be streamed on both Paramount+ and CBS Sports Golazo in the United States.

A few days ago you might have seen rumors floating around the Spurs-o-sphere linking Tottenham Hotspur with an inexplicable loan to Lille in Ligue 1. The idea was pretty straight forward — Lille just sold their starting keeper, Lucas Chevalier, to PSG in a deal worth €40m, and hence are on the lookout for a new starter between the sticks. Kinsky was mooted as an option — he’s a talented young keeper who, the thought was, is stuck behind Guglielmo Vicario at Tottenham. So let’s get him in on loan!

This is stupid for a couple of reasons. First, Tottenham are in four competitions including the Champions League, and injuries happen so there’s going to be plenty of competitions and opportunities not only for Kinsky to play, but also to push Vicario for a starting job. Secondly, while letting Kinsky go out on loan would mean first team, every week football for the 23-year old Czech keeper, it would mean if something happened to Vicario, Tottenham’s keeper options would be Brandon Austin and U21 keeper Luca Gunter.

Not great! Thankfully, according to a source from Kinsky’s home country, it’s all bogus.

Stephan Kubin, writing for Infotbal.cz, say that there are no negotiations between Tottenham and any other club happening at the moment, which makes sense considering Kinsky is currently in Hong Kong with the rest of Spurs preparing for a ridiculous preseason friendly against Arsenal.

What about after the tour? “Nothing can be ruled out,” says the article, but they view it as incredibly unlikely, considering how much it would weaken Tottenham at the keeper position, and that it’s hard to imagine a scenario where they would allow Kinsky to leave the club on loan.

Look, it makes sense that the French media might grasp onto a fleeting rumor about a French club that just sold its starting keeper to the league giants might be interested in bringing in Spurs’ No. 2. That would make a lot of good sense for Lille. The problem is it doesn’t make a lick of sense for Tottenham, even if Kinsky wanted the move. Calling it right now — this doesn’t happen. And if I’m wrong about this, then I’m going to have some serious concerns about what kind of operation Johan Lange is running over there.

Another week has gone and we’re now without two incredible sporting events: the women’s Euros and the Tour de France.

Even though I don’t bicycle (because of a near-death experience as a child), I love watching the Tour de France. I can’t relate to the athleticism required to win, but nonetheless I tune in each morning when the race starts.

What is it? The hundred-plus cyclists, the rainbow of jerseys (not to be mistaken for the rainbow jersey), the thousands of fans that line the street, or is it gorgeous scenary from the mountains to the dramatic finish in Paris?

Either way, the tournament always brings out some incredible photos. Here are just three I liked from the final couple days:

Stage 20

I wish I could find the original source for this image, but I came up unlucky whilst scrolling through Jered Gruber’s instagram. He’s got some incredible pictues on there, but this one looks insane. I remember Stage 20 being particularly brutal.

Ivan Romeo

You might find it hard to believe by looking at this picture, but Spanish champion Ivan Romeo completed this stage (again Stage 20) and the tour itself.

Romeo was part of the lead group during a very wet Stage 20 from Nantuato to Pontarlier, and suffered a nasty crash while rounding a bend. It seemed his bicycle just lost traction and Romeo could be seen sliding on the pavement and colliding hard with the curb.

He looked pretty beat up and it wasn’t known at the time if he’d be able to continue. Thankfully he did, and the above picture is him after crossing the finish line.

The climb up Monmartre

Tour organisers altered the final day of the course this year. Instead of the traditional loops around Paris, this stage featured a new route.

Aside from the rain, it paid off in divdends. Wout Van Aert broke past Tour de France winner Tadej Pogacar to win the stage and we were given an incredible view of the Côte de la Butte Montmartre.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Trans-Europe Express, by Kraftwerk

And now for your links:

The Athletic ($$): “If Spurs aren’t signing Morgan Gibbs-White, who are the closest alternatives?”

The Standard: “Tottenham XI vs Arsenal: Confirmed team news, predicted lineup and injury latest for pre-season friendly”

BBC: “Morecambe suspended from the National League”

Son Heung-Min may or may not be a Tottenham Hotspur player when Spurs kick off the Premier League season in August, and that hasn’t been decided yet. But now it sure seems like we know what one of the options is. Ben Jacobs and Tom Bogert are reporting that Los Angeles FC (LAFC) are “advancing talks” to bring Son from the Premier League to MLS this summer, though naturally any move would take place after Spurs’ preseason tour to Asia.

So this rumor is not new — we’ve known about LAFC’s interest in Sonny for a few weeks now. What is new is that the club is now in active negotiations. That not only says that LAFC have interest in Son (lots of clubs probably have interest in Sonny) but that Spurs are potentially open to whatever small transfer fee LAFC would be willing to spend for him.

That’s significant, and probably plays into Spurs’ willingness to let Sonny determine how he wants to end his own career. The above report states that Son would prefer an MLS move to one to Saudi Arabia, and that talks will take place between Son and Thomas Frank to go over his role in Spurs’ squad this coming season. There’s willingness to keep Sonny and let him depart on a free transfer when his contract expires, but Spurs wouldn’t stand in his way should he want to leave now for a new opportunity on a different continent.

The article states that LAFC are close to agreeing personal terms with Son as a Designated Player. Meanwhile, the unnamed Saudi Arabian club would offer as much as $40m for Son, should he decide he was willing to play football in the Middle East for a couple of years.

I don’t think we have enough information to know what Sonny wants to do or what he will do; that will likely emerge when the club gets back from South Korea. I do think if Spurs wanted to prioritize maximizing profit on Sonny’s transfer fee then there’s little chance they’d consider a move to MLS, which has a league-wide record transfer fee of $22m. LAFC has never spent more than $11.4m for a player before.

But as I’ve stated before, Sonny has done something no other Tottenham club captain has done in nearly five decades — delivered a European title. He is forever a club legend, deserves a statue outside of White Hart Lane, and has earned the right to make whatever decision he feels is the best for his career. We’ll probably know before too long what he wants to do.

OK, stop me if you’ve heard this one already — 24-year-old Real Madrid attacker Rodrygo Goes is linked with Tottenham Hotspur, who are reportedly in talks to ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha I’m sorry I’m still not sure I can do this. A few days ago, Carty Free Editor Emeritus Sean Cahill returned from retirement to write up a Bat Country article about this very rumor, and there doesn’t yet seem to be much reason to dispute anything in there.

Or is there? There probably isn’t. BUT WHAT IF? For whatever reason, these rumors aren’t going away. The latest comes from Spanish journalist Ramon Alvarez de Mon, who reported on Twitter that Tottenham are “in talks” over Rodrygo, but are waiting to see whether Liverpool decide to make a move for him or signs Alexander Isak from Newcastle instead. There’s still every chance that Rodrygo decides to stay at Madrid, however.

So, a couple things about this. First, the reasons why this won’t happen are still very real — Rodrygo is a very good player and would undoubtedly improve Tottenham Hotspur’s first team, but he would cost a pretty penny to get out of Madrid. Then there’s the question of his wages — Rodrygo makes about £200k/wk net, not gross, meaning after taxes. Most wages in English football are reported as gross. So his wages are stupid high, some saying as high as £400k/week. That would smash completely through Spurs’ wage structure and would likely have long tail implications going forward.

There’s also the question of how badly Rodrygo wants to leave. It does sound like Madrid are willing to let him go. He’s a good enough player that he’d be a target for clubs much richer and better than Tottenham Hotspur, but almost all of those teams have already done or are doing their business. That could put Spurs in the position of “next best club available” for Rodrygo, again if he’s willing to leave Madrid to make that kind of step down. It would take a number of highly specific dominoes to fall in just the right order for it to happen, but part of the transfer window is clubs getting themselves in the right position to take advantage of situations that might occur.

My gut feeling is that this rumor is still fake as hell, or just Rodrygo’s agent working feverishly to try and create a market for his client. There’s also the possibility that whatever “in talks” means isn’t as sexy as we want it to be, i.e. Spurs have made some kind of preliminary contact for Rodrygo that probably won’t go anywhere.

There’s also a possibility that this could turn into something like a deadline day loan with a purchase option, which would be fun but I’d guess Spurs would still be on the hook for nearly all, if not all, of Rodrygo’s wages. And that’s really the sticking point here: I just don’t see Spurs doing that, and I’d be a little upset if we bet the farm on this happening rather than continuing to strengthen other areas.

So, I’m still deeply, deeply skeptical that this is something that is a) a thing and b) a thing that will happen. What’s more interesting is that these rumors aren’t going away despite people like us laughing at the possibility.

But yo, it’d be pretty rad if it did.

Yesterday, there were some curious absences when Tottenham Hotspur announced their travelling squad for their Asia preseason tour. One of those absentees was 17-year-old winger Mikey Moore, who is reportedly looking to secure a loan for more playing time.

Enter everybody’s “favorite” Telegraph journalist, Matt Law, with his read on the situation:

Now that’s interesting.

Rangers were runners-up in last year’s Scottish Premiership, and as such have qualified for European football. In fact, they could be playing Champions League this season, up two goals on aggregate in their tie against Panathinaikos in the Champions League Qualification second round, with one of Viktoria Plzen or Servette to take on in the third round to enter the competition proper.

This means Rangers will have to juggle European football with a league campaign for at least part of their season, resulting in plenty minutes to be shared. They also are coached by ex-Southampton manager Russell Martin, who has Rangers playing a modern, possession and passing focused style; not unlike the tactics that Frank will attempt to implement at Spurs.

This makes a season at Ibrox a pretty good landing spot for Mikey. It’ll help grow the physical side of his game too (assuming he returns with his ankles intact), the Scottish Prem notorious for sometimes brutal play.

That said, sending somebody so young away from home is a risky move, and he would be a valuable asset on Spurs’ UEFA List B as a player you could actually trust to play some minutes in the Champions League. Those are just two reasons why reports have indicated Spurs would prefer to keep Moore at the club for the time being, an approach with which I don’t necessarily disagree; however, he also needs minutes under his belt to continue to develop, and he and his representatives have apparently pushed hard in their preference for a loan. In fact, this push for such a move have reportedly been as part of contract talks, according to Alasdair Gold, and as such, it does make some sense to accede to Moore’s request.

These sorts of moves generally progress pretty quickly, so I’m sure we’ll get more details in the coming days.

Good morning, dear hoddlers.

You might find this hard to believe, but we’re not far off from another season of Tottenham Hotspur Football. We’ll get more to that latest this week, but first we have to spend a little bit of time on some administrative issues.

Last year I asked you all to let me know what you’d like from the hoddle. Today, I come with the same request.

Here are a handful of regular hoddles we feature:

Look at the month ahead

EFL Championship recap

Look at the lower leagues

Look across Europe (semi-regular)

Pictures from around the league (semi-regular)

What are you reading right now?

Fitzie’s film and tv reviews

Track of the Day

The orchid tales (semi-regular)

Mingus Mondays (semi-retired)

But there’s still plenty more of us to hoddle about - especially with so much change in the air at Tottenham.

So today’s your chance to let me know what you’d like more from the hoddle. What do you want more from the Track of the Day? (NB: Not “less”, so don’t try any funny business).

Anyways, I’ll have a look through to see what new things I can introduce this season. Stay tuned.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Darn That Dream, by Dexter Gordon

And now for your links:

Alasdair Gold: “Daniel Levy’s £60m transfer reaction after Morgan Gibbs-White farce to follow Marinakis example”

The Athletic ($$): “The issues Frank has to solve in Spurs’ pre-season – especially with Gibbs-White signing new Forest deal”

The Telegraph: “Bitter legal threats and personal feud fuelled Nottingham Forest move to keep Morgan Gibbs-White”

BBC: “‘We’ll remember this forever’: England fans jubilant as their heroes win again”

Tottenham Hotspur departed England for Hong Kong today for the first leg of their preseason tour to Asia. The club released the traveling squad on social media, and as you can expect it’s a mixture of first team regulars and up and coming academy grads/U21 squad players.

That said, there are several omissions. The most notable are Destiny Udogie and Mikey Moore. Udogie was a last-second scratch ahead of yesterday’s scoreless preseason friendly draw against Luton Town at Kenilworth Road. Subsequent reporting stated that Udogie “felt something” while in warm-up and the club decided not to take a risk with his fitness. The fact that he is not on the plane suggests whatever injury he picked up might be more serious than first thought.

Udogie’s absence means Spurs don’t really have a natural right back in the squad. I suppose we will see some combination of Ben Davies and Djed Spence on that side in the two upcoming friendlies, or Frank may opt to bring in one of the youth players for substitute minutes. Jamie Donley, for example, has played at that position before, though it isn’t his natural role.

Mikey Moore, meanwhile, has been linked with a loan to several unnamed Championship clubs, with some suggestions that he has been pushing for a loan this season. If he’s absent, it could mean he’s close to securing a loan elsewhere, something that could be good for his development, or he picked up an injury in training that we haven’t heard about (yet).

Elsewhere, Tottenham’s trio of injured players are also staying home. Dejan Kulusevski, Radu Dragusin, and new signing Kota Takai are all at home recovering from injuries. Kulusevski and Dragusin have long term injuries that date back to the end of last season, while Takai either arrived with or picked up an ankle knock in training.

Thankfully, both of Tottenham’s South Korean players, Son Heung-Min and Yang Min-Hyeok, are on the plane, meaning they will be sure and collect the full amount of money promised them for visiting Asia.

Yesterday, Tottenham Hotspur academy graduate and midfielder George Abbott was a last-second replacement for Rodrigo Bentancur in Spurs’ 2-0 preseason friendly win over Wycombe Wanderers at Hotspur Way. Today, the club announced that he has signed a new long-term contract at the club.

The release doesn’t say how long Abbott’s new contract is or what his salary will be, but suffice it to say he’ll be getting a decent bump in pay. Abbott was one of the young Spurs players who had excellent loans last season; he spent the year at Notts County in League Two where he was a regular starter and ended up shortlisted for League Two Young Player of the Season.

I have no idea if Abbott will join players like Oliver Skipp and Harry Winks into the Spurs first team but coming off of last season he’s undoubtedly earned another loan up a division or two. Extending his contract and sending him out again is pretty par for the course when it comes to talented young academy grads; if he raises his profile on loan it boosts his (still unlikely) chances of cracking Spurs’ first team, or getting sold to another club for a decent fee.

Abbott’s been one of the Spurs academy players who has flown under the radar during his career, but he’s showing he’s got a future in the professional game. Good to see him earn a new deal at Spurs.

UPDATE — So I guess I was a little behind on the news. Gibbs-White has apparently signed the new deal through 2028 and Forest have announced it on their social media channels. The Tottenham Hotspur move is now officially off.

Incredible.

I mean, you almost have to laugh. David Ornstein is reporting in the Athletic this afternoon that £60m Tottenham Hotspur transfer target, England international, and Nottingham Forest attacking midfielder Morgan Gibbs-White is now apparently in discussions with Forest over a new and improved contract.

I don’t really need to recap all that’s gone on between Tottenham and Forest over Gibbs-White over the past few weeks, but just in case you’re reading this after coming out of a coma or something, let’s do it. Gibbs-White was the subject of a £60m transfer bid by Tottenham two weeks ago, a figure that, not-so-coincidentally, happened to meet a “super sekkrit” release clause in MGW’s contract. Gibbs-White was apparently keen on the move and a physical was scheduled, only for Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis to throw a hissy-fit, accuse Tottenham of an “illegal approach,” and threaten to report Spurs to the Premier League. It’s not clear whether he actually did that or not, but Spurs have been keeping quiet with the understanding that this was a delay tactic and MGW would be wearing Lilywhite before too long.

Gibbs-White, meanwhile, has kept his head down, reporting for Forest’s warm-weather training trip in Portugal and not demanding his transfer be upheld.

If Gibbs-White were to sign a new contract at Forest, that would pretty much put an end to everything, though one wonders if Spurs would have any recourse to sue or report Forest for meddling. Forest, meanwhile, say Spurs were underhanded on how they were able to discover “confidential details” of Gibbs-White’s contract (spoiler: it was his agent).

It’s a big mess all around.

Now, look — I wasn’t wild about the Gibbs-White purchase to begin with, not because he’s not a good player, but because I didn’t think he was necessarily worth the quoted price when there are comperable or better players available for cheaper. I’ve also long been on the “let’s just move on to other targets” bandwagon once the kerfluffle between Spurs and Forest really kicked off.

But it is ironic that the one time Tottenham actually do “just effing spend the money Levy” they STILL might not get the player they want. Silly season!