Cartilage Free Captain

We’ve been complaining about the lack of serious transfer rumors, but yesterday fresh reports emerged that Tottenham Hotspur had a player-plus-cash proposal for midfielder Jacob Ramsey beaten back by Aston Villa a few weeks ago. Both Dan Kilpatrick in the Standard and Alasdair Gold in Football.London now write today that Spurs are considering a fresh approach for the 23-year old midfielder as they look to add homegrown midfield talent to their roster.

Both report that Spurs approached Villa about Ramsey a few weeks ago when Villa were reportedly still considering their financial options while under a PSR crunch. One apparently mooted proposal involved a bid — since £20m + Giovani Lo Celso, but Villa rejected the proposal as they were not interested in selling Ramsey who has three years left on his Villa contract. Villa manager Unai Emery calling him “a big, big player” and important to Villa’s future. Also since Villa are playing in the Champions League next season and Tottenham are not, it’s also not clear whether Ramsey would be at all interested in this move.

The interest in Ramsey is supposedly driven by Tottenham’s recruitment director Johan Lange, who worked at Villa before taking the Spurs job. Ramsey is considered an exciting young English player with a bright future and who can play across the midfield line, but he’s coming off of an injury-plagued season where he only played 853 league minutes. Ramsey was a key player for Villa in the previous two seasons, scoring six goals in 2021-22 and 2022-23, and adding seven assists in the latter season while playing primarily on the wing.

According to Gold, Spurs’ approach for Ramsey was likely driven not just by Lange’s admiration for the player but by the assumption that Villa would need to sell players in order to comply with the Premier League’s PSR financial regulations. Villa (and Chelsea) appear to be attempting other moves involving youth players or Douglas Luiz to Juventus in order to get around those rules and exploit some loopholes in the system.

I’m torn on Spurs’ interest in Ramsey. Tottenham are absolutely in the market for another central midfielder and are clearly looking to bolster their homegrown ranks so they can maximize their squad in the Europa League last season, but Villa are said to value Ramsey at £40m-50m and that feels like money that could be spent more wisely. It’s never a bad idea to look at players who are both young and English — it’s worked well for Spurs in the past. But Tottenham need upgrades in those areas, not squad players, and I’m not certain whether Ramsey’s promise is enough to make him a priority at this time.

good morning!

Welcome to another edition of “Where are they now?” where your hoddler-in-chief takes a look at Tottenham players past, and where they are now.

Today - Alex Morgan.

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This might be one of the more timely editions to come out of this series. New USWNT manager dropped Alex Morgan from the women’s olympics squad (which kinda spoils the whole “where are they now” bit, I know).

I don’t think Morgan haddest the biggest on-the-pitch contributions during her tenure at Spurs, but I felt she made a huge impact off it.

First, her transfer in 2020 was huge for the club. She was a major star at the time. I’d go so far as to say it was a higher-profile signing than bringing Gareth Bale back to the men’s squad.

This blog covered one of the big changes made during Morgan’s brief tenure, which was bringing the women’s squad to train at Hotspur Way.

Morgan was a huge, huge star at the time (still is). She was probably at or near the peak of her popularity in women’s football, and leveraged that to get the women’s squad to train at better training grounds.

Morgan’s loan at Spurs was brief and, unfortunately, marred by injruey. She scored two goals in four appearances. In December 2020 she returned to the US to be closer to her family.

Where is Alex Morgan now?

Well, she won’t be going to Paris.

“Today, I’m disappointed about not having the opportunity to represent our country on the Olympic stage. This will always be a tournament that is close to my heart and I take immense pride any time I put on the crest,” she posted on X.

Morgan was left off the US Women’s National Team squad for this year’s summer olympics by new manager Emma Hayes. A cruel reminder of the sporting cycle and how no woman or man can beat time.

It would be a sad end to an illustrious international career that resulted in 123 goals in 224 appearances.

She was part of the 2015 and 2019 World Cup winning teams, and won the gold medal in 2012 (among many other international and club awards).

Fitzie’s track of the day: So Tired, by Bobby Timmons

And now for your links:

What Tottenham players can expect from Nick Montgomery in training

When The Guardian said Alex Morgan is the Tottenham signing that is ‘bigger than the club’

Now we’re talkin’. Our good buddy Gianluca DiMarzio has a report out — actually more like a sentence, more of an offhand mention at the bottom of an article about an entirely different player — that states that Tottenham made a Richarlison-plus-cash offer to Newcastle for striker Alexander Isak. It was rejected.

...Wait, that’s it? Yep. That’s all we get. Just Richy and an undisclosed amount of money for one of the in-form young strikers in the Premier League last season. Isak was phenomenal, scoring 21 league goals last season and two more in the Champions League. He’s a player Spurs reportedly had an eye on a couple of years ago before Saudi Arabia swooped in to get all sportswashy Tyneside.

Isak would be a fantastic addition to Tottenham’s offense, but you can pretty much understand why Newcastle dismissed it out of hand — they reportedly quoted Chelsea a £200m transfer fee a while back and as much as I love Richy I don’t think offering an aging striker who struggled with injury last season as a makeweight is going to move the needle all that much (though I suppose it depends on the size of the pile of cash).

It’s also not entirely clear why DiMarzio would have the scoop on a potential transfer involving a Swede and a Brazilian between two English teams, though I guess he’s connected enough that maybe that’s a thing now. Whatever.

A signing! A real Tottenham Hotspur signing! Okay, it was more or less expected to happen, but it’s still good — Tottenham Hotspur Women announced today that they have permanently signed Swedish international fullback Amanda Nildén from Juventus through the 2026-27 season.

Nildén arrived from Juventus in January, initially on a loan but with a purchase option, which Spurs have now exercised. The transfer fee was not disclosed. Nildén instantly walked into Robert Vilahamn’s starting lineup, starting every one of the ten WSL matches she was available, and playing a key role in Spurs’ march to the FA Cup final this spring. She’s a fantastic player, which makes her signing a no-brainer. That’s a significant transfer, too — a three year deal is relatively unusual in the WSL, so it’s a real commitment to Amanda from the club.

As little news as we’ve heard from the men’s team with regards to transfers, we’ve heard even less from the women’s team. That’s not really a surprise — while there’s more news these days than in past years, there are only a couple of reporters in England that cover WSL woso transfers. But this one feels good. Now we just need to send a helicopter to Manchester to kidnap Grace Clinton and smuggle her back to Hotspur Way.

How starved are we for quality transfer rumors? Very! It feels like things have slowed to a crawl as we glom around various online sources for any nuggets of transfer information that may not be likely, but may be at least plausible.

God help me, I’ve even started to go back to the Italian media, something I’ve more or less written off since Antonio Conte left the club. But needs must — today, Tuttosport is reporting that Spurs are preparing an approach for Bologna and Italy left-sided central defender Riccardo Calafiori.

Is “preparing an approach” basically weasel words with no real meaning barring any solid leaks from either club? Yeah. But I’m so desperate for any news that I’m temporarily setting aside my skepticism because I kinda want this to happen.

Calafiori, 22, was one of the last players to be called into Italy’s squad after a breakout season with Bologna, and has had an impressive EUROs, slotting into the starting lineup and helping the Azzurri eke into the Round of 16 against Switzerland.

Honestly, Calafiori is exactly the kind of left sided defensive reinforcement that Tottenham need as they prepare to return to European competition next season. Radu Dragusin can PLAY on the left as we’ve seen, but he’s more comfortable on the right. Calafiori can play both as a central defender and as a left back. He’s good enough that he should be able to make the step up to the Premier League and would offer Ange Postecoglou a non-Ben Davies versatile defender on that side who could grow into a starting role.

Calafiori was closely linked to a move to Juventus, furthering the narrative that Italian players don’t really like to leave Italy, but Juventus has since backed off after having a €25m offer rejected because he’s out of their budget. Tuttosport reports that Bologna have upped their asking price for Calafiori to €50m (£42m), which is a lot for a 22-year-old but still in the ballpark for what we could expect Tottenham to spend for a player, should they be interested. But the same report states that Arsenal are now also interested in the player, because of course they are.

Look, I have no idea how much of this is real and how much of this is the Italian media hyping an Italian player to boost the price for an Italian club. What I do know is Spurs need another defensive reinforcement (among other things) and Calafiori would be a fantastic addition to the squad. He’s not going to move anywhere until after the EUROs and he’s also suspended for the R16 match against Switzerland after picking up two yellows in the group stage, but if the Azzuri get eliminated that could grease some wheels.

So do I know this is true? Nope. But I certainly hope Calafiori’s name is one that is high on Johan Lange’s transfer list. In this brave new leak-proof world, that’s about as good as we’re gonna get right now.

good morning!

We’re well underway at the Euros, so I figured now’s a good time to take a look at some of the best pictures from the competition.

This year’s competition has featured some pretty dramatic matches, including Austria’s 3-2 win over the Netherlands to top their group.

And, of course, there’s bound to be lots of #discourse over Gary Southgate’s England squad, right?

Anways, on with the pics.

Micky van de Ven plays

This picture of Micky van de Ven was taken when the Dutchman faced pressure from Austria’s Romano Schmid. VDV came on in the 65th minute.

Here’s another photo of Micky van de Ven. This time it’s during the Netherlands’ win over Poland.

It’s nice that our boy got gametime in both matches. And not so long so that it jeopardises his fitness for Spurs. We know our priorities here.

And here’s another picture of Micky van de Ven.

This time he’s on a bicycle. Of course, this isn’t during match play. This was actually before the tournament began.

Seriously, though, is there anything VDV can’t do?

Fitzie’s track of the day: Linger, by The Cranberries

And now for your links:

How Ralf Rangnick restored his reputation by managing Austria

Jonathan Liew on the ‘paradox’ of Harry Kane and his form at the Euros

A new youth player just dropped. According to multiple sources including Football.London’s Alasdair Gold, Spurs are set to announce the signing of 16-year old Northern Ireland striker phenom George Feeney for Tottenham Hotspur’s academy.

Feeney reportedly became Glentoran’s youngest ever goal scorer last year at age 15 in one of the NIL cup’s early rounds, and he’s on the fast track to crack SOME national team or other; he’s already capped for Northern Ireland and Wales’ youth sides; Feeney was born in Wales but is the son of Northern Ireland international Warren Feeney.

I really can’t tell you much more about this kid — just that he’s talented, extremely young, and looks to be a promising player. This is, I’ll say again, the kind of signing Spurs should be making all the time — it costs very little to bring in talented youth players, and as one of my colleagues pointed out in Carty Free’s Slack channel today, even if he never makes it for Spurs it’s worth keeping this kind of young player pipeline going. Selling one of these kids — Troy Parrott, say — for like £9m or so essentially funds any number of promising future prospect purchases, so you keep doing it and hope that one day a Harry Kane develops and becomes your all-time leading scorer. Or not, and you keep selling these kids elsewhere for decent money.

So this is cool, and maybe we’ll all start obsessing about Feeney the way we do the players in this current generation of Spurs youth. I’m all for snaffling up all the talented national and international youth we possibly can.

Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham Hotspur coaching staff is set to welcome two new additions this summer. A few weeks after Big Ange’s top assistant Chris Davies left to become the new head coach at Birmingham City, Australian outlet FTBL announced that Tottenham will appoint Nick Montgomery as a new assistant. The reporting has since been confirmed by Jack Pitt-Brooke in The Athletic, who also notes the appointment of Sergio Raimundo.

Montgomery, 42, was born in Leeds but has managed all over. As a player he had a long career at Sheffield United before eventually ending his career in Australia. As a manager, he won the A-League with Central Coast Mariners in 2022-23 and was sacked in May by Hibernian F.C. in the Scottish Premier League after one year in charge, finishing in the bottom half of the league. FTBL paints a picture of “much upheaval and broken promises on player recruitment by the club’s owners” which sounds, y’know, pretty toxic. There’s the sense that this is likely another springboard position to another head coaching job for Montgomery, but Ange seems to not care and even encourage such things.

Raimundo I know less about — just that he was Montgomery’s top assistant at Central Coast Mariners and Hibs and would also be joining Ange’s staff, should it be confirmed. Hopefully he knows how to coach set pieces? That’d be cool.

As JPB mentions, it appears as though this is not a direct replacement for Davies, and we don’t yet know who will assume the mantle of “senior assistant head coach”. Maybe that’s Ryan Mason, who has been groomed for an eventual head coaching position somewhere. We’ll find out pretty soon, no doubt.

We’ve heard a lot of dumb — and some not-so-dumb — rumors about Tottenham Hotspur already this summer, none of which are particularly trustworthy since Johan Lange has seemingly sealed all legitimate Spurs leaks inside the box from Dark Matter. But while we are a discerning Tottenham Hotspur blog and won’t bring you the worst of the rumors (except in Matty’s Bat Country pieces), we will now and then bring you nuggets of stuff we think is plausible.

Like this one — BILD (paywalled, via SportWitness) is writing today that Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg has emerged as a potential target for Dortmund in the Bundesliga. Hojbjerg has been [air quotes] strongly linked [air quotes] with Turkish side Fenerbahce and their new manager Jose Mourinho in recent days, and there are persistent, small links to various clubs in Italy. Hojbjerg’s new agent, Luca Puccinelli, has already said that Hojbjerg will not look to his future until after Denmark’s run in the EUROs is over.

Speaking of the EUROs, they’re being held in Germany which probably has given Dortmund officials plenty of opportunities to scout players. BILD writes that Hojbjerg has spent plenty of time in Germany during his career (stints at Bayern, Augsburg and Schalke) and Dortmund are looking to upgrade Emre Can and Salih Özcan this summer; Pierre would be one option if one of those two were to be sold or leave the club this summer.

That would be a pretty good place for Pierre to land should he leave Spurs, which seems likely. He’s had a pretty decent tournament with Denmark so far and it’s not inconceivable that he could raise his profile (and possibly his selling price) before returning to Spurs for the start of preseason training. BILD writes that Hojbjerg could leave for “a small fee” but doesn’t really say what that is. Guess we’ll find out eventually.

As always, we’ll see — this leak is almost certainly agent-driven and we won’t know until something is permitted to escape from the adamantium box at the center of Hotspur Way. But I wouldn’t hate it!

Here is your dad joke, as presented by the Dad Joke Generator:

Q: Which side of the chicken has more feathers?

A: The outside!

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I recently visited three book stores in Washington DC. Two second-hand stores, another Kramer’s (obviously).

The two goals of mine were to get a gift for my dad for Father’s Day, plus a book for myself - you can never have too many books after all.

I wasn’t really sure what I wanted as I was flipping through the shelves at Kramer’s. I hovered around the Business & Economics section, but came up empty-handed.

It was only a few blocks away where I once again found myself in the Business & Economics section. I find a book for myself.

That leaves one item on the to-do list: a book for father’s day.

So I go to the second second-hand bookstore, one I frequently patronise. I scrutinise the nonfiction shelves, only to come up a little bit short.

Darn it! I feel like I should get some sort of nonfiction.

But it wasn’t meant to be.

And so I made my through the fiction section and saw the names of the classic writers. Faulker wouldn’t do. I just bought a Faulker. Fitzgerald? Nothing I don’t have already. James? No, not right now. That reminds me, I still haven’t read my copy of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

Besides, I don’t think any of those would’ve been great gifts.

So I go to the mystery section.

Ah of course! Who could resist a good mystery book?

Agatha Christie. Raymond Chandler. Those are the only two I know. Plus whoever wrote The Maltese Falcon.

I spent what felt like forever in that store. Waffling back and forth between selections. It wasn’t until I realised I had to make an appointment that I resolved myself to go to the cashier.

Not entirely confident in my selection, I head downstairs anyways and hand the book over for purchase.

I walked out of the store with Nabokov.

Nabokov!

Fitzie’s track of the day: Linger, by Royel Otis

And now for your links:

Alasdair Gold with the latest on Tottenham’s striker plans

Jay Harris ($$): It’s decision time for Troy Parrott and Spurs