Cartilage Free Captain

Luka Vuskovic is by far the most talented young player Tottenham Hotspur have on their books right now — more than Mikey Moore, BIG WILLY LANKS, Yang Minheok, or any other player Spurs have. He positively exploded this season while on loan at Bundesliga club Hamburg, making the Team of the Season as a 19-year-old and causing even huge clubs like Bayern Munich to slobber over the possibility of signing him.

To be clear — Spurs have no intention of selling Luka. He’s under contract until 2030 and unless a club comes in with an absolutely ludicrously expensive bid, that’s a no-go. So Spurs fans shouldn’t be concerned with losing him, but there’s still a good amount of angst about where his immediate future lies. Previous reports had suggested that Luka could head back out on loan to Hamburg for another season where he could play with his brother, who is also at Hamburg.

However, a report in MOPO.de seemed to suggest that there’s very little chance of Vuskovic returning to Hamburg next season, with the paper suggesting a “99.9% chance” he rejoins Spurs. Vuskovic pretty much said his goodbyes to Germany, as his loan formally ended and he’s once again a Tottenham Hotspur player.

However, check out this report from Athletic writer and noted Spurs fans Seb Stafford-Bloor:

To me, this suggests something different — not about Luka Vuskovic, but about Cuti Romero. Vuskovic is clearly an excellent talent, and while I have hypothesized that he might not (yet) be quite ready for Premier League football, the ambiguity over his immediate future suggests that the club still doesn’t know whether they’ll have Romero, their club captain, next season or not.

If Romero is in the team, he’s a starter alongside Micky van de Ven. Kevin Danso and (presumably) Marcos Senesi would be backing them up, assuming Radu Dragusin is moved on this summer. (We’ll just skip over Kota Takai, who hasn’t yet played a minute in a Spurs shirt.) That doesn’t leave a whole lot of minutes for Luka as ostensibly a 5th CB on a Premier League team that will not have European match fixtures next season.

So I hypothesize that Luka’s future is tied to Romero’s. If Cuti stays, I think Luka will go back out on loan, possibly back to Hamburg or another team that would gladly take him and play him regularly. If Romero leaves, however, that opens up a slot for Vuskovic to come in and either start or be a very solid rotation option in the back line alongside Senesi

That’s my best guess, anyway. It would explain a lot — why Spurs are dithering over Vuskovic’s place in the squad, and why it’s not already clear whether he’ll be heading back out on loan or not. Luka is an amazing talent and he’s expected to be a big part of Spurs’ future. But it would make sense why Tottenham are dragging their feet here a little bit, because Romero’s shoes are huge and someone’s got to fill them.

Another signing for Tottenham Hotspur Women! Yesterday, the club announced the acquisition of Dutch central defender Caitlin Dijkstra, who most recently played for Wolfsburg until the expiration of her contract this summer.

I’ll confess to not knowing much about Caitlin. I know she’s 27, a full Dutch international with 35 caps. I know she’s a solid defender, and that the club needs defensive reinforcements after the departures of Charli Grant, Josephine Rybrink, Amy James-Turner, and Luana Bühler. Dijkstra is an experienced defender and was a reulgar for Wolfsburg this season in both the league and Champions League. It’s no secret that Spurs have Champions League ambitions and signing a player with CL experience is very good.

Based on the few highlight videos I’ve seen of her, she looks like solid defensive depth, something Spurs will need. They’ve got their starting defensive line more or less sewed up with Toko Koga and Clare Hunt, but Dijkstra has a pedigree that suggests she could push one or both of them for starts. If Caitlin is “solid but unspectacular”, well that’s a good outcome. And if she forces one of Hunt or Koga out of the lineup, well… that’s even better, because it means Spurs are continuing to improve and are signing players that will push those currently in the starting XI.

Spurs manager Martin Ho has promised that the club will be working hard to make improved signings and that the club will be highly active. They’ll need a solid window, especially after the departure of Bethany England, the club’s all-time leading goal scorer and club captain. I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of announcements of new signings this summer.

This morning, The Athletic’s Tottenham Hotspur beat writer Jack Pitt-Brooke released a new piece about the recent statement from Spurs owners the Lewis family and CEO Vinai Venkatesham, all commenting on the season that just finished. JPB’s piece, which is worth a read, is very similar in tone and conclusions to the opinion I wrote and published yesterday, noting in particular how the current Spurs leadership appears perfectly willing to throw Daniel Levy under the proverbial bus, but that move can only be done so many times before it loses effectiveness.

But there was one paragraph near the end that I want to highlight, since it addresses the future of current Sporting Director Johan Lange. Tottenham had been public about its search for a co-Sporting Director to work alongside Lange, the way Fabio Paratici had done for a couple of months at the start of the year before Paratici departed for Fiorentina. Names such as former Crystal Palace director Dougie Freedman, currently in Saudi Arabia, and former Dortmund SD Sebastian Kehl. However, there were murmurs from Alasdair Gold that Lange’s future might not be as secure as what we once thought.

And here’s Jack with more detail.

Tottenham have been looking for a new sporting director for months, ever since Fabio Paratici left at the end of the January transfer window. While the initial brief was to find someone who could work alongside Johan Lange, someone with experience working in a structure, someone used to being a No 2 rather than a sole decision-maker, the hierarchy are now looking for something slightly different: someone world-class in that position. What that means for Lange remains unclear.

— Jack Pitt-Brooke, The Athletic

That is… significant, not just as a signifier that the club is aware of the Lange Problem™ and is taking steps to address it, but that they are now looking at a future in which Lange does not hold his current position, whatever that means. It could mean that the club lets Lange go after a series of underwhelming transfer windows resulted in a hugely unbalanced and flawed squad the club’s near relegation this season. It could mean that Lange stays, but in a demoted role subservient to the new Sporting Director.

Honestly, if the writing is as on the wall as what it looks like at the time of this article’s publishing, I don’t understand why Lange doesn’t just resign. After all, his Spurs career seems like it’s mirroring what happened to him at Aston Villa, a place where he underwhelmed before being demoted and eventually leaving.

I’ll say that from my perspective this is welcome news. It’s clear that, whatever else happened (and a LOT happened), the executive structure and staff at Spurs has been deeply flawed and disappointing. The club has already signaled that significant change is coming, starting with the appointment of a new Sporting Director. This report suggests that change will involve a notable and “world class” figure, and may not include Johan Lange after all.

Good morning everyone! We’re continuing our roundup of the EFL playoffs. Today is the final one with League 2.

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I don’t have a whole lot to say about this one. I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to watch it. But, spoiler alert: Notts County have been promoted to League One!

It all looks like a straightforward 3-0 victory to me. Notts were up 2-0 by half and Jodi Jones put it away in the 69th minute. That means the club that was taken over by some Manchester United greats will have to endure another year in League Two.

And, for Notts, it means they’re now one league behind Wrexham (this was a plot line on that Welcome to Wrexham series a few years back).

So who do they join in League One? Bromley, MK Dons and Cambridge United, who were also promoted, and Oxford United, Leicester City and Sheffield Wednesday, who were relegated from the Championship.

This should make for a very interesting season with Leicester, Luton, Argyle, Reading, Blackpool and Wigan.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Adam Raised a Cain, by Bruce Springsteen

And now for your links:

The Independent: “How to fix Tottenham: Start by selling Cristian Romero, and follow this blueprint”

The Athletic ($$): “Lewis family promise investment in Tottenham, take ‘ultimate responsibility’ for struggles”

BBC: “Nuno to stay as West Ham boss after relegation”

Well, this one has been in the works for a while and according to Fabrizio Romano, it’s a done deal — Andrew Robertson will be signing with Tottenham Hotspur momentarily after reaching full agreement on personal terms with the club. Robertson, a Scotland international fullback, is leaving Liverpool upon the expiration of his contract and will sign with Spurs on a free transfer.

Robertson is a good player and will probably be competing with Destiny Udogie next season at left back, but the real thing he brings to Spurs, according to all the previous reports, are things like experience and leadership and capability. All good things, to be fair! Robertson has lost a step from his peak years at Liverpool and that’s a little scary, but the one thing he does know how to do is pick out a good pass, and that’s something Spurs really really really need.

There’s no word yet on the length of the contract or Robertson’s wages. Robertson reportedly earned £160k/wk at Liverpool and who knows if we offered a bump in his wages — if you listen to Vinai Venkatesham then Spurs have already overhauled and raised their wage cap going forward, so I’d expect he’ll make at least that much at Spurs this coming season, possibly more.

I’m not sure this is a signing that I would’ve gone for if it were me, but I don’t hate it necessarily. If nothing else having a competent natural LB to come in when Udogie’s glass ankles break again will be a good thing. And I can’t remember the last time we had a Scot on the team — Alan Hutton, maybe? Boy, that takes me back.

We’ll wait for the official announcement, which I expect will come soon, or perhaps when the window officially opens in a couple of weeks.

“Since the first day I arrived I feel at home. From the supporters, the crowd. Top club. Who doesn’t want to play for Tottenham and stay here? I have everything here. But this is like a marriage. What I can say to you is I would really like to be here and I enjoy it a lot this season with this club – even with it being a tough season.”

“I think the next season will hopefully be really different and I truly believe,” he said. “This season will help Tottenham for the future. Analyse the season, what we did wrong, what we did well and it will be a big improvement and a big relief after the season.”

To the fans,

As owners of 25 years, we have lived the highs and lows of Spurs with you.

Finishing 17th this and last season does not reflect the stature or potential of this football club. We are bitterly disappointed and share your frustration. You, and we, expect more than this. We know this must never happen again.

Our approach to running the Club is, and has been, to trust the experts to do that, while backing them to be successful. The problems we found were deeper than we realised and were allowed to build over the last few years. We know that has eroded trust and we have to win that back. As owners, we take ultimate responsibility for the situation in which the Club finds itself.

We also take responsibility for rebuilding Spurs. Our ambition is to recapture the spirit of the Club and bring back the excitement, the fearlessness and the bold football we have always felt defined us. That means football comes first. The Board and Executive team have laid out their plans to meet this ambition.

This will require investment – in our teams, the academy, our backroom functions and more - and we are fully committed to this. We are not selling the Club. We are all in. We are investing in it. You will see more of this in the coming months.

We care deeply about Spurs. The rebuild the Club needs, and you deserve, has begun. The change required is deep. It will take time and commitment, but change is happening.

”On my very first day, what I thought would be a realistic target for the men’s first team would be competing for European places. If you’d have asked me a few months after I joined, when I was no longer an outsider, I would have told you the club was in a significantly worse state in some places than I thought.

“That is absolutely not meant to be a criticism of anyone or anything. It was just what I found. It was very clear that this wasn’t some form of turnaround that was required of the club in quite a few areas. It was really a complete reset.

”If I had to generalise, I would say on the non-football side of the club, in particular around stadium operations and commercial, that the club was and is really strong.

”I think if you look at the football side of the club, over a timeframe of five years or so, there has just been an explosion in progress across the Premier League.

”I’m not saying that Tottenham didn’t improve in that period. But what I can tell you is that when you look at where Tottenham were in many of those areas, compared to where I believe other Premier League clubs are, there was a significant gap. In some areas really quite worryingly so.

”I don’t think that there was what I would call a relentless obsession with football success.

”Our training centre is amazing, one of the best, if not the best in the world. But when you look around, it looks more like a five-star hotel than it does a performance environment. That will change over the summer.

“I think there are many areas where the club hasn’t got the right level of expertise.”

”Obviously, we were very disappointed when it became clear that we wouldn’t be appointing Roberto on a permanent basis [in February]. We were then in the interim market, which is generally not the broadest. There were a number of reasons why Igor was selected: he had managed in very high-profile and high-pressure environments - we didn’t want somebody that was going to wilt under that pressure.

”He has a history of making an immediate impact. He has managed in big clubs. He has quite a different personality to Thomas and we felt like something different was needed.

”But of course we were really aware he had no Premier League experience. Was it a risk in appointing him? Absolutely.

“It didn’t work out. I think it’s very clear it didn’t work out. And I don’t think that is in question. I don’t think anybody would argue anything else.”

”I understand the frustration around supporters. I think Tottenham supporters have been frustrated for some time. This is two 17th-place finishes in a row. It’s clearly not good enough. I think that is rational, normal, sensible, and, is what we would expect from supporters.

”The club had some serious challenges that it needs to address on the football side. We know what those are. We are addressing them. We are fixing them. Those challenges have not disappeared overnight. They built up over many years. I wish I could wave my magic wand and fix them overnight, but that is not possible. It takes some time to fix those issues.

“So I have complete confidence in what we’re doing, how we’re doing it. But supporters are rightly impatient. So I have to weather that storm.”

good morning everyone! the hoddle is continuing its roundup of the playoff finals from this weekend. Yesterday was the EFL Championship. Today we take a look at League One:

Bolton Wanderers are returning to the Championship after seven years!

Has it been seven years? That’s crazy. But a huge testament to the club’s turnaround after they entered administration in 2019. They fell as low as League Two in 2020.

Now, they’re back in the second tier.

Bolton handily beat Stockport County 4-1 on Sunday. It was a bit of a disasterclass from Stockport, who were terrible at the back. They handed Bolton a goal in the opening minutes of the game after their keeper failed to control a shot, and then couldn’t get organised in the second which resulted in an own goal.

Stockport’s Josh Dacres-Cogley was also sent off in the 90th minute which resulted in a penalty, but the game was pretty much already decided by then.

It’s a shame because I thought it would be fun to a see a club like Stockport County in the Championship, and a little concerned if they can come back after collapsing in back-to-back seasons.

But for Bolton, they’re back in the championship. And I think they stand a decent chance at staying up. There are some pretty weak clubs there, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Wolves flirt with back-to-back relegations. Plus we also get to see Lincoln City play host to West Ham (lol), while Cardiff City’s return means there’ll be three Welsh clubs in the second tier (along with Wrexham and Swansea).

Fitzie’s track of the day: Lonesome Cowboy Bill, by The Velvet Underground

And now for your links:

The Times: “How Tottenham Hotspur were almost relegated from Premier League”

Alasdair Gold: “Big Tottenham changes - Pitch investigation, psychologist and injury fixes in internal review”

Jay Harris ($$): “Joao Palhinha says he wants Tottenham stay: ‘This is like a marriage’”

The Telegraph: “Tottenham to overhaul medical department after season wrecked by injuries”

A couple of days ago, the subtext of Tottenham Hotspur non-executive chairman Peter Charrington seemed to suggest that everything was business as usual and trust the process regarding the executive leadership positions at the club. I took that to mean that both CEO Vinai Venkatesham and Sporting Director Johan Lange had the vote of confidence from the Powers that Be and were both safe in their jobs, with Sebastian Kehl coming in as a new co-Sporting Director to work alongside Lange.

Tottenham’s non-executive chairman Peter Charrington wrote in an open letter to the supporters on Monday that “the board are committed to this leadership group and will give them the stability and support they need to run this club in the right way”.

That was assumed to include Lange but football.london understands that while CEO Vinai Venkatesham remains part of the club’s plans moving forward, there are those inside and outside the north London outfit who believe it is increasingly unlikely that Lange makes it through the summer, as the football figurehead for a horrendous season, and if he does, it will be in a role supporting a new sporting director.

It’s no secret that I, the rest of the masthead, and the vast majority of regular commenters on this blog dot com are united in the idea of Johan Lange being let go from his job for poor performance. It has baffled me how the club has even let things go this badly for this long without making a move, though previous reports of executive upheaval (“building the plane while it’s in midair”) maybe suggests that not having a Sporting Director was considered a worse outcome than having a bad Sporting Director. Regardless, it’s comforting to know that there’s at least some recognition that the past two years under Lange have been… well, sub-optimal, especially from a squad construction perspective.

If I’m going to be fair, and why not at least make the attempt, Lange has done a decent job at recruiting young talent, bringing in the likes of Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray. So in that sense keeping him on and demoting him to whoever the new Sporting Director is, would be a moderately acceptable outcome, if his remit is structured and limited. But we have evidence now on what Lange’s leadership in recruitment has resulted, and it’s not great. I don’t know what the end result will be and I don’t have a ton of confidence on anyone at the club making the right decision right now until proven otherwise, but there is some small comfort in knowing that there’s at least recognition that after two consecutive 17th placed finishes and a relegation battle that went to the final match, things aren’t exactly going well and a change might be warranted.

Good day, and welcome to this edition of Miguel Delaney Says Stuff. If you’re new to this series (I’m also new to this series), it’s when we report on football journalist and erstwhile transfer rumormonger Miguel Delaney when he writes articles about transfer rumors that essentially report on Things He Has Heard. Some of them are probably accurate. Others… well, maybe not. But he definitely has Heard Things™ and so we are here to summarize them.

I’m being a little cheeky, but Delaney does have the reputation, along with CBS Sports’ Ben Jacobs, of writing up articles reporting on things he’s heard from various agents and elsewhere. That doesn’t mean these rumors are not accurate, but it doesn’t mean they ARE accurate either! Isn’t transfer season fun?

In today’s edition, Miggy has been pretty busy, because he’s dropped a BUNCH of names in his transfer article on Tottenham’s upcoming summer in the Independent. Here’s the Readers’ Digest version:

Roberto De Zerbi wants to raid Brighton & Hove Albion, his old club, for their best players, including defensive mid Carlos Baleba, central defender Jean Paul van Hecke, and goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen.

It’s pretty unlikely Spurs can sign three players from Brighton this summer, so the club are looking at other targets, including (as we know) Bournemouth defender Marcos Senesi and Liverpool left back Andy Robertson, but also City defender John Stones and backup keeper James Trafford.

Spurs highly-rated defender Luka Vuskovic is expected to sign a new contract and then return to Hamburg for a second season on loan.

Micky van de Ven, contrary to popular opinon on this board and elsewhere, apparently wants to stay at Spurs and establish himself as part of De Zerbi’s new look defense.

OK! Now let’s talk about these Things Miggy Said. First, Migs goes on to suggest that Brighton are not going to want to sell Baleba, and that he could cost up to £100m. That’s a lot of money for a pure defensive midfield destroyer when we have a Joao Palhinha at home who would cost significantly less to sign permanently. I’m also wondering about the Van Hecke rumors — they only would make sense if both Cuti Romano and Radu Dragusin leave the club, which at this point does feel pretty likely. I get the sense from Delaney that it could be either Senesi or Van Hecke, but if Vuskovic does decide he wants another year in Germany to play with his brother, that might suggest another defensive opening. As for Bart Verbruggen… well, I’m inclined to sell Vicario, keep Kinsky, and sign Trafford to compete with him. Even though Spurs don’t have European football next season, there’s still no good reason not to sign an English backup keeper for squad purposes.

John Stones is another interesting target. The young future of England’s defense is now 31 with an expiring contract at Manchester City, which means Spurs could scoop him up early for free if they want to. I guess it depends on whether they want to, who’s leaving, who’s staying, and whether he’d be a good fit at Tottenham or not. He played less than 500 minutes under Pep this season. I don’t have a good read on whether this is a good idea or not.

I do, however, take some comfort in the idea that Micky van de Ven is ready to commit his future to Tottenham. I wonder about his long-term future as he’s a center back who is wildly pace-dependent, and I don’t know what happens if he were to lose a step in the near to mid future. But I do know I like him, I’d like to keep him, and he’s definitely one of the first players on my team sheet next season.

As mentioned, we’re going to get a LOT of rumors over the next few days and weeks now that the plug in the door to Bat Country has been forced out. I don’t have a firm sense of what, if any, of the Things Miguel Delaney Says will actually happen. All I know is that he said these things, and I’m here to tell you about them.

Until next time!