Cartilage Free Captain

Hey, ‘member that time? When Micky van de Ven? Like, went into a tackle and his knee looked like it buckled the wrong way? And ‘member how he was, like on the ground? For a long time? And then got back up again and played like he was okay? And then, like didn’t play for Spurs in Sunday’s loss at Newcastle? ‘Member that?

That was awesome.

Well, I have more good news for you — and you can interpret “good” as either something ironic or completely straight truth, depending on how you like to interpret Rorschach tests. Because according to the Internet™, Netherlands manager Ronald Koeman has replaced Micky in the Oranje team with Brighton defender Jan Paul van Hecke, because of Micky’s injury, assumedly the same one he sustained against Everton and that kept him out of the Newcastle lineup.

Now here’s where your ability to read news headlines clashes right into your general outlook on life. Because I can guarantee half of you read that are are all Oh FUCK Micky’s seriously hurt he’s gonna be out months and we’re screwed and the other half of you are Thank God, now Micky can rest for two weeks so he’ll be back in time for us to kick Arsenal’s butts in the North London Derby.

The truth is likely somewhere in the middle. Yes, it’s not GREAT that Micky is apparently hurt enough to miss both the Newcastle match and get recalled from international duty, but spending time recuperating is certainly better than limping around at 50% or whatever playing stupid Nations League matches with his national team and possibly prolonging whatever’s wrong with him.

So I choose to be optimistic. We didn’t get anything from Ange (and he pointedly avoided talking about Micky in his pre-match presser) and we might not, but I choose to believe he’ll be okay.

BRB, lighting candles for a prayer circle.

“Yeah, obviously [wondering how Spurs didn’t get a result]. Very similar, I guess to our first away game when we controlled it for the most part, nullified most of the threats that Newcastle have. It’s obviously a difficult opponent here at home. The crowd create a pretty strong atmosphere for the home side, little things go their way but I thought for the most part we handled that really well.

“Then we gained the ascendancy in the game and we just needed to kill it off and we didn’t and a disappointing second goal. I thought we switched off a little bit but the game should have been well over by then. So, another sore one unfortunately where we haven’t got the rewards for our play, but ultimately it’s three strong performances from the first three games. The results don’t reflect it in that way.

“Potentially [we missed Solanke and Richarlison] but I still think even outside of that we just had some really good opportunities, a little bit more composure. Fair play to Pope, I thought he had an outstanding game. But I thought we could have tested him a few more times with just some better decision-making. It’s not just the opportunities we did create. I thought there was another probably six to 10 moments where we could have created even more opportunities. That’s been a constant theme for us that we’re trying to break through.”

Postecoglou noted that Tottenham were frustrated a bit by Eddie Howe’s decision to play bunker-and-counter defense against them on Sunday, but also noted that Tottenham did a decent job of getting into the box despite a number of long shots.

“When an opposition defence stays deep, it’s pretty hard to get in there. There are 10 bodies in there at times. Apart from Isak, everyone else is in there. But yeah, we worked our way into that area pretty well, but there were other times when we got even closer to goal in the box and obviously, like I said, we just lacked a little bit of composure, sometimes our positioning was off where we should have been with work and we let them off the hook.”

Ugh. Tottenham Hotspur went to St. James’ Park, their Waterloo in recent seasons, without their starting two strikers and their fastest defender. And they played well, dominating possession and getting plenty of touches in and around the box. They forced Nick Pope to make a number of quality saves on the day, but their only score came from a Dan Burn own goal and despite 20+ minutes of relentless pressure they couldn’t find a second goal.

Spurs really really really missed Dominic Solanke and Richarlison in this one, but there were some good overall performances in there despite the result. That’s where you come in.

It’s time to rate the players.

Rate the players from 1⁄2 to 5 stars. If the player doesn’t deserve a rating due to minutes played, DO NOT RANK. I will round the stars up/down to the nearest half-star for the player ratings later this week.

Tottenham Hotspur tasted defeat for the first time in the Premier League with the side dropping a 2-1 contest at Newcastle United on Sunday.

Coming into St. James’ Park with the flashbacks to the previous two seasons where the Toon side had their way with Spurs in 6-1 and 4-0 wins, Spurs came out a little awkwardly in the first 20 minutes before an injury to an assistant ref seemed to calm the game down for Spurs.

From then, it was a strong press from Spurs that kept Newcastle on the backfoot before a bad lapse of getting back into defending on a throw-in the 34th minute put Newcastle in the lead.

Throwing the ball quickly into play and getting Lloyd Kelly into the left wing with a delivery through the legs of James Maddison, the cross found a streaking Harvey Barnes in the middle of the box for a first time strike to go far post for a 1-0 lead.

Trailing at the half, Spurs made a change of Brennan Johnson coming on for Pape Sarr — who picked up a yellow — and the attack/press had strong moments as they did in the first half.

The first chance coming from Johnson to the back post on a deflection saw Wilson Odobert stuck in between going for a high volley with his leg out and the ball ending up hitting his knee just outside the post.

Being strong in opportunities, Spurs got the equalizer on an own goal from Dan Burn that was intentionally saved from Nick Pope on a follow up shot from Johnson that went off the finger tips of the Newcastle keeper.

Bringing life back into the game and sensing an opportunity to get the winning goal, Spurs showed their old self under Ange Postecoglou of failing to bury in the chances.

Seeing shots from outside the box hitting the post, tipped over the bar, or near misses, the question began to circle of — can this team ever score a chance that they create in and around the box?

A lot of that will come true as Dominic Solanke and Richarlison get back into the side, but for now, the chances missed hurt Spurs yet again.

Missing the chances to grab the game and solidify three points, a bad highland once more hurt Spurs.

Newcastle’s Joelinton broke a press by leaving Maddison in the dust and sending a tough ball through the middle of the channel for Jacob Murphy. Having Destiny Udogie a step behind him and Guglielmo Vicario starting to come out of his box, Murphy slotted a ball across the six-yard box for Alexander Isak to tap-in the eventual match winner in the 78th minute.

Notes:

We haven’t really done a loan report for Tottenham players out elsewhere (who’s had the time?) but Alejo Veliz has started his year at Espanyol pretty well! He’s integrated himself into the team and has started each of Espanyol’s first three matches.

Then today he started again up top for Espanyol against Rayo Vallecano and did this in the 90th minute:

Yup, that’s a 90th minute winner for our boy as Espanyol won the match 2-1. It’s a banger of a goal, no doubt, but what’s almost as impressive is that he didn’t manage to scream at his teammate for not squaring the ball to him on the initial break. (He was open, probably would’ve scored there.) Whatever. It was still a great goal and a great moment for Veliz, who hasn’t had that many of them since joining Tottenham from Rosario Central in 2013.

Espanyol are 1-1-2 after four matches, 12th in the table. Heading into today’s match Veliz was second on the team in shots and first in shots on target. He’s had six shots in his opening three matches in La Liga for an xG+xA/90 of 0.58, pretty respectable! And it sounds like he’s going to be an important player for Espanyol this season.

It’s over! The summer 2024 transfer window has officially closed, and the best I can say about it is... wow, was that ever weird. The market was bizarre, many clubs were hamstrung by PSR issues that either prevented them from making signings or resulted in some very strange and inflated deals involving young players, and the backstop of Saudi Arabia money never fully materialized. It felt in a lot of ways like everyone was stuck in mud.

That said — Tottenham Hotspur actually did a lot of business, and much of it good! They brought in five players, and send a whole mess of players out of the club, either via free transfer, permanent sale, or loan (including academy kids who did not make the grade). There was a definite intent in this window to target younger players with high upside and take a chance on them developing into the stars of the future... and also a club-record signing of striker Dominic Solanke.

The only negative was that the club was not able to find a solution for Sergio Reguilon, the last of the “deadwood” players not in Ange Postecoglou’s plans. But there’s still time, as the windows in other countries close later.

We’ll be back soon to give our take on the window as a whole but for now here’s a summary of the incomings and outgoings this summer at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.

Incoming

Lucas Bergvall – £8.5m (Djurgarden)

George Feeney – undisclosed (Glentoran United)

Archie Gray – £40m (Leeds United)

Yang Min-Hyeok – £3.4m (Gangwon FC, January ‘25)

Wilson Odobert – £30m (Burnley FC)

Dominic Solanke – £65m (Bournemouth FC)

Outgoing

The current state of play with just under three hours to go in the transfer window is that Tottenham are unlikely to bring in any new players but they might still get a couple out the door — specifically Giovani Lo Celso (finalizing a €4m move to Real Betis) and Sergio Reguilon.

We’ve talked a lot about Gio today. The status Sergio is... uhhhhhhhhhhhhh not good. According to Dan Kilpatrick in the Evening Standard’s transfer tracker, the prospects of Sergio finding a new forever home at a farm upstate are, and I quote, “fast fading.”

Now, like I get not wanting to move to Saudi Arabia or Turkey, but come on buddy, the writing’s on the wall and Ange Postecoglou has already made it clear he’s not going to be part of the first team setup at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club this season. So I remain in hope that he’ll choose the Mediterranean air (and the abundant dolmas, lebneh, & baklava), or a bucketload of money to go live in the desert and play first team football in front of literally dozens of fans.

But he might not. And then I guess we see what happens after that, huh?

What a weird window.

Get (potentially, in the future) excited, USA Men’s National Team fans — according to Fabrizio Romano, Tottenham Hotspur are trying to get an “in” for American and Real Betis defensive midfielder Johnny Cardoso as part of negotiations to sell Giovani Lo Celso.

Cardoso, 22, is one of Betis’ crown jewels in their current squad, and has 15 caps for the USMNT. He profiles as a defensive midfielder — a (gasp) No. 6 — and his tackle numbers jump right off of his FBRef profile. In fact, they look kinda ridiculous. Cardoso would also be hugely exciting to American soccer fans and would likely draw a few more eyeballs Tottenham Hotspur’s way.

Notably, this isn’t a signing, but would exist as a promise from Betis to give Spurs a chance to match any offer that might come in for Cardoso, should he ever be sold, and also put Tottenham at the front of the line to sign him outright. UPDATE: Spurs are also attempting to purchase a future sell-on clause for Cardoso, so if he ends up going for stupid money somewhere that isn’t Tottenham, they’ll still have a cut of that transfer coming to them financially. Pretty smart.

The Giovani Lo Celso to Betis deal has been kinda fraught, and supposedly there’s a pretty substantial gulf in what Betis are offering compared to what Tottenham are demanding. So this might be one way of using “creative accounting” to bridge that gap — getting in the front of the line for a young and potentially excellent No. 6 in the future might be worth a few million Euros in the short term, if they can work out a deal.

Probably a lot more to come on this as the day goes on, but I thought it was interesting.

Ange Postecoglou doesn’t expect Tottenham Hotspur to make any more incoming signings on transfer deadline day, but stated that he feels that the club has fully backed him in the window this summer.

Speaking in a press conference ahead of Sunday’s match at Newcastle, Big Ange didn’t rule out that Spurs could make an opportunistic buy if the right player came available, but said he feels like he has been supported well in the transfer market by the club, and that Spurs’ approach this summer has been about getting younger and hungrier.

“Yeah. Yeah [I’ve felt backed].

“Well, [targeting younger players] was definitely part of my plan because I think when you’re trying to build or rebuild a team, you’ve got to...look, all managers hope they’re there for the long-term, but the reality is that you don’t know how long you’ll be there, but I’ve always tried to build teams that will last over a cycle which is, you know, three, four, five years.

“It’s just a natural consequence of that. You’re looking at a younger demographic, a team that will grow, that will improve, that will adapt to the challenges ahead. So, like I said, when I got here it was a team that, even from a demographic point point of view, looked like it was at the end of a cycle.

“A lot of players who had had great careers but were either ready to move on or getting to the end of it. So that combination with a different approach for me, it was definitely part of it to go younger.”

That’s good to hear, but it’s certainly not the approach most Spurs fans were expecting in this summer’s window. That said, it’s been a super weird one — a lot of big clubs have been hamstrung by PSR issues and (Chelsea excepted) there really haven’t been many clubs making a bunch of moves. The market itself has also been strangely muted, with not a lot of big name players switching clubs; Spurs did make a club-record signing to bring in Dominic Solanke, but you can hardly call him a big name (apologies, Dom).

That said, the club is still planning on a few outgoings, including Giovani Lo Celso and Sergio Reguilon, whom Big Ange said were “exploring their options.” There may also be some youth loans, including Alfie Devine, who has interest from the Championship and from a few clubs abroad.

One of the big remaining concerns is in defense, with the club a little thin at left back and left central defender. But Ange didn’t seem concerned, and says the club is in a better position now than it was a year ago, and especially in the future with Ash Phillips and Luka Vuskovic potentially coming through next season.

“I don’t think we’re in the same position. I think Radu is a different proposition for us, and certainly with Archie coming into the group and and Djed probably not being in the plans initially, but now in I think we’re in a much different position than we were last year.

“We’ve got Ben Davies as well, obviously, who can play at centre back or at left back. But again, I mean, that’s the discipline of it. Yeah, we can go out and sign another centre back, but if the right player’s not there, I’m not going to do it. It’s as simple as that. I’m not, I never have, I never will.

“For me, it’s about getting the right people in and there wasn’t an opportunity for us to bring in someone who I thought was going to add to our group, so we don’t do it. We’ve got Ashley Phillips, we’ve got young Luka Vuskovic available next year. Two young centre-backs.

“I don’t want to block their pathway by doing something now. It might look from the outside, like we’ve got another player, but if that player is not going to be suitable to what we’re doing and not going fit in, why would I bring them in and potentially block the path for somebody else?”

And what happens if Giovani Lo Celso and Sergio Reguilon, both strongly linked with a departure from the club before the window shuts today, don’t get their moves? Will they be integrated back into the first team plans?

“No, they don’t have to get integrated back to the squad. It’s their decisions. It’s pretty clear where they sit in terms of where we are as a squad and where we are as a team, but, you know, I’ve never been one to force people out. They’ve got decisions about their own careers and what they want to do, and if they’re still here, they’re still here. We’ll work around that scenario, but it certainly won’t affect the way we work in the first team.”

So there’s good news and... okay, there isn’t much good news. Ange Postecoglou posted a video team news update on social media, as he did last season, and Tottenham will go into this weekend’s match against Newcastle without a healthy recognized striker in the side. Postecoglou said that Dominic Solanke, who injured his ankle against Leicester, is not quite fit enough to feature for Spurs at St. James’ Park, while Richarlison picked up an injury in training and will be out “for the next few weeks.”

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

With Will “BIG WILLY LANKS” Lankshear still nursing a hamstring injury, that means Spurs will go into this weekend’s match with Son Heung-Min as the most viable option at the center forward position. That might not be a bad thing — Wilson Odobert looked decently good on the left against Everton last week, or Big Ange could start Timo Werner and play one of Odobert and Brennan Johnson on the right. There are options. And it sounds like Solanke will be fully back and ready to go after the international break, just in time for the North London Derby.

Elsewhere, Big Ange confirms Rodrigo Bentancur has recovered from his concussion picked up vs. Leciester and is available for selection, so at least there’s that.