Cartilage Free Captain

The only Tottenham Hotspur player to get through this most recent international break injured is Yves Bissouma, who planned to use Mali’s World Cup qualifying matches as a means to regain match fitness after from one injury, only to see himself pick up an ankle injury moments after coming on as sub. He was stretchered off the pitch in Mali’s first match and missed the entirely of their second this week.

That’s not great! But the good news is that it’s not as bad as it COULD be. According to Football.London, sources within the Malian physio department said the injury to Yves’ ankle doesn’t look to be as bad as initially feared, with a recovery time of two to three weeks.

Of course, Bissouma hasn’t yet returned to London and the Spurs physio team will also want to come to their own conclusions, but that’s not too bad for what was described as possible ankle ligament damage. It’s a shame, since Biss rounding back into form could’ve been very good for Thomas Frank’s midfield rotation options, but considering the error bars for any kind of ankle injury sustained in a football match I’ll take it.

The better news is that Football.London also reports that both Randal Kolo Muani and Kota Takai are back in full training after coming back from (respectively) a severe dead leg and plantar fasciitis, and both could be available for selection. Will we actually see them play on Sunday against Aston Villa? Well, maybe we’ll see RKM, but I’d be shocked if we get a Takai debut except maybe as a late substitute to get some minutes in his legs, and hopefully while running out the clock with Spurs having a multiple goal lead.

Thomas Frank also recently gave an update on Radu Dragusin, who is recovering from a major knee injury last spring that required surgery. He’s back on grass but apparently hasn’t yet joined full training and will be out of action for at least the next few weeks. No word yet on the status of Dominic Solanke, who recently had minor surgery to connect an ankle issue of his own.

Maybe it’s the international break or maybe it’s just Tottenham Hotspur fans latching onto spurious speculation and huffing the hopium, but there’s been a fair amount of background chatter about Harry Kane coming home this summer. How much of this is plausible and how much is just rank speculation isn’t particularly clear, and now Kane himself has opened up about it and his answers don’t clarify anything at all!

In quotes reported by Goal.com, Kane responded to the rumors of him returning to Tottenham this summer and said… well, basically nothing. Which, honestly, is par for the course when it comes to Harry Kane speaking on transfer speculation.

A couple of things — he used the word “we!” That feels slightly important, considering how when he was trying to facilitate a move away from Spurs he went on Hot Ones and steadfastly refused to say the words “Tottenham Hotspur,” instead using the phrase “the team I’m on now.” He says nice things about Spurs, and he usually avoids doing that! That feels significant!

That said, the “I’m not thinking about it, I’m happy where I am” is probably the first thing professional footballers learn to say in Media Literacy class. It’s the kind of phrase designed in a lab to neither dismiss nor fully shut down any speculation, to address the issue without actually addressing it at all. And I will say that Harry Kane is exquisitely media trained — you almost have to be when you’re a superstar at his level. It takes a superb amount of training and personal discipline to say nothing at all while saying so many words.

So is Harry Kane coming back to Spurs this summer? Dude, I have no idea. Ask him. Oh, someone did? Well, what did he say? Nothing? Cool. Guess we get to talk about this for the next eight months then.

As of Friday, Tottenham Hotspur has the fifth-best odds of winning the Premier League and 11th-best odds to win the Champions League, which is an imprecise (but useful) way of saying that everything is on track right now. It has not always felt that way through 10 competitive matches, but Spurs should not complain about sitting in third place after seven matches when Aston Villa comes to town in the bottom half of the table.

After three straight seasons in the top seven, Villa has some work to do in order to end up in Europe again. Five straight winless league contests finally gave way to consecutive victories before the international window, but a stretch of Tottenham, City, Liverpool, and Bournemouth could see the club sink right back down towards the bottom. Obviously Villa has plenty of talent, but the terrible start certainly raised some eyebrows.

Match Details

Date: Sunday, October 19

Time: 9:00 am ET, 2:00 pm UK

Location: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London

TV: USA Network (US), Sky Sports Main Event (UK)

Table: Spurs (t-3rd, 14 pts), Villa (t-11th, 9 pts)

Spurs lost at Villa Park right before the Europa League final last season and were also knocked out of the FA Cup in the Fourth Round at the same venue. The previous meeting in North London was much more positive, however, with Brennan Johnson, Dominic Solanke (x2), and James Maddison all scoring in a 4-1 win after falling behind at half, the fourth coming on an impressive free kick:

Three Big Questions

Are Villa’s struggles over? Even after scoring three against Fulham and two against Burnley, Villa are still near the bottom of the league in goals (with the fourth-lowest non-penalty xG) thanks to four scoreless outings to start the year. However, four straight wins across the Premier League and Europa League have quickly silenced a lot of the early fears.

Maybe the brace from Donyell Malen right before the break will inspire some production from Ollie Watkins, Emi Buendia, and Morgan Rogers, who all should challenge a Spurs defense that has opened itself up to some questions despite just allowing five league goals. The chance creation has been much better from Unai Emery’s squad as of late, and while the frigid open to the year cannot be ignored, water is going to find its level.

Could the striker position actually have options? Last time we saw Tottenham it was Mathys Tel who started, scored, and played pretty well as the No. 9 against Leeds. Maybe this was out of desperation with Richarlison the only other healthy striker and Tel’s ineligibility in Europe, but it was a reassuring sign for Thomas Frank to have another option up top.

Hopefully the returns of Dominic Solanke and Randal Kolol Muani are near, as Spurs are in desperate need of more production (and will need multiple available bodies for the upcoming run). Goals from the No. 9 would be very welcome, but even just better hold-up play is essential. Villa has allowed the second-fewest shots on target this year and has conceded multiple goals just once in 10 matches across all competitions, so a spark will have to come from somewhere.

How about another four-goal outburst? Despite Villa’s stingy defense, two of the past four league contests between these sides were a 4-0 Spurs win on the road and the aforementioned 4-1 win at home last November. Both of those matches featured slower starts from the Tottenham attack but ended as some of the more impressive showings of their respective seasons.

Will this be another four-goal outpouring or will it instead mirror a 2-1 loss that paired with those wins in each of the last two seasons? Given both team’s form it feels unlikely that Spurs simply unleash the floodgates, but given the upcoming fixture list, it would be nice to see everything start to click. This feels like a tricky way to begin that stretch, but recent history suggests there could be a satisfying result ahead.

The news broke a couple of days ago that Fabio Paratici was coming back on board at Tottenham Hotspur, where he will share the Sporting Director title with Johan Lange.

It’s not a development I’m especially happy with (though if I squint, their strengths and weakness do complement each other well), though that’s more to do with how I feel Johan Lange has performed in the role alongside Paratici’s affinity for… well, crime. What’s odd though is a setup where you have two people effectively performing the same role, but with slightly different duties.

In most standard organizational structures, you would have one reporting into the other, with the senior staff member delegating certain duties to their employee, but that’s not what’s happened here, with the two apparently sharing seniority. Like I said, it’s a bit strange, and it feels like nowadays you see more and more unusual arrangements such as this in the professional landscape.

Dotted reporting lines, shared responsibilities, no direct line manager - all occasional features of the modern workplace. It’s something I’ve experienced earlier in my career as well. I was appointed to a role within an organization in which I effectively had two distinct responsibilities: one in which I reported to a certain manager (let’s call them Jeanette) and another part that was managed by Jeanette’s superior (let’s call them Jimmy). This means I had two managers, but for half of my role I sat at the same level in the org chart as Jeanette.

It’s a setup I think can work, if the personalities are the right fit and egos don’t get in the way. Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case, and Jeanette certainly wasn’t happy about the way things were. This culminated in me leaving the job, after she lied to Jimmy about saying I could take leave for an overseas trip which I proceeded to book. Incidentally, this was also the point in my career at which I learned to always get things in writing. Not a fun way to learn that lesson, so hopefully my experience helps somebody in the commentariat early in their career…

What about you, have you experienced any odd organizational structures or role breakdowns? Do you think it can work between Paratici and Lange?

Sean Walsh, courtesy of goal.com, takes a look at some of the #narratives heading into the next round of the Premier League

Real life is annoying sometimes. It gets in the way of fun things, like hobbies. For those who don’t know, I used to be a pretty keen gamer; I wouldn’t define myself as “hardcore” (whatever that means) but probably more of an enthusiast. I’ve found though in recent times as I get older and family and work commitments get in the way I have less and less time to commit to gaming; especially as I am generally a fan of more story driven games, liking to throw myself into something for significant stretches of time. That time is currently in short supply!

That game is Blue Prince. It’s a puzzle game at heart, with some interesting twists. What makes it a great fit with my life is it doesn’t require a high spec PC, meaning I can play it on my laptop, and I can play in fits and starts and if I need to step away from the computer for whatever reason, I just leave it running and come back to it later. There’s nothing trying to attack you, there’s no online component, you’re just exploring a house.

The setting is a somewhat magical faraway land, where you have just inherited a mansion from your uncle - provided you can reach the mythical Room #46. You do this by “drafting” rooms; there are a number of room designs from which you can pull. Each of those rooms have unique attributes: some provide items, some have multiple exits, and some can have negative effects. The kicker? Every time you enter a room, you lose steps, meaning you have a limited “time” (or rather, room entries) in which to reach Room #46 - and when you run out of steps, you have to “Call it a day”, meaning you lose all progress (outside of the knowledge you have gained) and have to start again.

It’s a brilliant, frustrating, and confounding game. The puzzles are brilliant, and so much of the setting provides clues to increasingly complex problems. You find yourself taking notes on items you are sure are important, only to completely ignore other information that seems superfluous yet contains the key to unlocking mysteries.

What I really love though is the setting. The soundtrack is brilliant, providing an eerie but inspiring backing to an environment that very much has a “liminal space” feel to it that is gripping. In some ways (and excuse the lazy comparison), it reminds me of playing Myst as a child - thrust into an unknown realm, with no real hints or targets outside of a singular high-level goal, and with a rich lore and history underpinning the whole experience. It’s worth a look!

Tottenham Hotspur have had a number of football operations models over the past 20 years, ranging from managers having the primary responsibility for identifying talent to various Directors of Football who oversaw all behind the scenes operations and everything that didn’t involve kicking a ball around a football field. But up until now, they’ve all had one thing in common — former chairman Daniel Levy was the man primarily responsible for negotiating player transfers and sales and for Doing the Deals™, even when men like Fabio Paratici lined them all up first.

Levy of course had a reputation for being a hard-nosed negotiator and one of the toughest chairmen in the Premier League. Who can forget Sir Alex Ferguson quipping that dealing with Levy was “more painful than my hip replacement,” or an unnamed league chairman, saying about Levy’s negotiating style that “Daniel likes to squeeze your balls until your eyes start to water.” That was, as we Spurs fans know intimately, a double-edged sword — Levy pulled off some amazing deals on both the buying and selling style, but it was just as likely to backfire, leaving Spurs holding the metaphorical bag.

Well, Levy is now gone, forced out in a palace coup by Joe Lewis’ adult children, and replaced by former Arsenal executive and CEO Vinai Venkatesham who is overseeing all football related activities, while non-executive chairman Peter Charrington handles all of the non-football and board-related business. And it’s led to some fans wondering just what the heck is happening now — who’s in charge of the transfers? Is Johan Lange the guy? What about Paratici? Is Venkatesham going to be the face of the club in negotiations?

Tottenham have released a new video that explains most of that. Posted on YouTube on Spurs’ official channel, the video explains that what used to be Daniel Levy’s job will be split between Lange and Paratici, with the men working together as Co-Sporting Directors to create a smooth process. This is also confirmation that Paratici, once Tottenham’s Director of Football but reduced to that of a consultant during his multi-year ban on football related to the plusvalenza scandals at Juventus, has been offered and accepted a new major role at Spurs.

The video is worth watching, but here’s a summary of the main points.

The two describe their jobs as “complementary,” with each person having specific areas of responsibility while collaborating on major decisions.

Johan Lange’s new role at the club is a promotion, and his responsibilities are in infrastructure and operations, with emphasis on scouting, performance (medical, sports science, nutrition), data analytics, and the academy. Lange is also effectively a chief of staff for the hundreds of workers at the training ground and stadium, with an emphasis on empowering section heads to do their jobs and fostering a culture of collaboration.

Fabio Paratici’s responsibilities include the “immediate, player-focused, and market-facing aspects of the football operation.” He’ll manage current players, player loans, and pathways from the academy and reserves to the first team, and during transfer windows he will take care of the negotiations and executions of player deals, both incoming and outgoing.

Both Lange and Paratici will work together on the identification and recommendation of player talent, in close collaboration with both Venkatesham and of course Thomas Frank as head coach; it was also noted that the dual-Sporting Director model was one employed at Brentford so Frank would be quite familiar and comfortable with how it works.

This would seem to put each man in the position of greatest strength — Lange oversees the technical side of recruitment and will continue to work with his small army of nerds to find data-driven approaches to talent identification, while the outgoing and charismatic Paratici will take care of the actual negotiations and get the signings over the line. Lange will be the one behind the laptop looking at WyScout profiles, while Paratici will continue to be spotted at the games with wired earbuds connected to his phone schmoozing with various club executives and player agents. The implication is that the role of Sporting Director at a club the size of Tottenham is too large for just one person — it takes a village, apparently comprised of Danish and Italian Sports Guys™.

This structure would appear to address what some perceived as a weakness in the previous model — Lange is very good at finding players, but perhaps not so good at the art of closing deals. Paratici, meanwhile, was born with a phone on his ear and an eye for negotiations. It’s what Double Pivot podcaster Michael Caley called “a Cyrano de Bergerac” front office, and a process former Carty Free writer Joel Wertheimer hilariously summed up in a meme last August.

I’m curious to see how this is going to work, and we won’t have that long to wait — the January transfer window is swiftly coming, and while that’s a weird window it should give us a pretty good idea of how this new system will work. The real test will come this coming summer — there are hints that Tottenham will have money to spend with the club announcing an injection of cash by the Lewis family, and it’s the first major test on how effective this new model will be.

It’s a new era at Tottenham Hotspur, but the club will be managed by familiar faces in elevated roles.

I hate international football.

But hey - my New Zealand just managed a draw against (a Haaland-less) Norway, so that’s pretty cool, and we’re now only days away from having Spurs back in our lives again. And you know, all the joy, misery, and general sense of ennui that entails. Isn’t football fun?

But I digress.

The international break rumbled on, and with it, Djed Spence received his second consecutive start for England. He kept a clean sheet as the Three Lions racked up five goals against Latvia, creating one of those via an own goal by way of a wicked delivery into the box. You can take the man out of Spurs, but you can’t take Spurs out of the man. Lucas Bergvall also started for Sweden once more, but struggled, pulled at halftime as Sweden slumped to defeat against Kosovo. The defeat cost manager Jon Dahl Tomasson his job, sacked with Sweden languishing bottom of their World Cup qualifying group. Kevin Danso’s Austria also struggled, losing by a solitary goal to Romania with the center back benched.

The poor results kept coming for Spurs’ internationals: Ben Davies, on his 100th appearance for Wales, was unable to steer the Dragons to an unlikely win over Belgium, with teammate Brennan Johnson making an appearance off the bench. Richarlison’s Brazil also saw defeat, losing in a tightly fought battle 2-3 to Japan, with the Spurs forward again relegated to a substitute cameo. Perhaps the most disappoint appearance though was Yves Bissouma. He returned for Mali in his first minutes this season, before being stretchered off after being on the pitch mere minutes, the victim of a brutal tackle. It’s likely some time before we see him turn out again for Spurs, if at all.

In more positive news, though, Pedro Porro shined once more for Spain, as they defeated Bulgaria 4-0, while Micky van de Ven’s Netherlands beat Finland by the same scoreline. The Dutch center back was deployed instead on the left of the defense, with his Spurs teammate Xavi Simons coming off the bench and assisting the fourth goal late on. The 4-0 scorelines continued, with Pape Matar Sarr’s Senegal too strong for Mauritania, Sarr coming on as a substitute.

The bench was apparently the place to be for Spurs’ internationals, with Cristian Romero, Guglielmo Vicario, Destiny Udogie, and Joao Palhinha all placed on the pine, with only Palhinha of those four seeing the pitch as he came on for Portugal as they settled for a 2-2 draw with Hungary. Mohammed Kudus was slightly more selfish, though, refusing to share points as he scored the only goal in Ghana’s victory over Comoros.

A break that started strongly for Spurs’ international contingent perhaps finished on a more sour note for some, namely Yves Bissouma, who must have been aching to get back on the pitch. The rest though will hopefully return in the coming days to N17, as Spurs prep for their return match against Aston Villa; by no means an easy fixture.

I still hate international football.

Spurs International Appearances:

Djed Spence (90 mins, yellow card, clean sheet; 90 mins, clean sheet): England 3-0 Wales (Friendly); Latvia 0-5 England (UEFA World Cup Qualification)

Lucas Bergvall (85 mins; 45 mins): Sweden 0-2 Switzerland; Sweden 0-1 Kosovo - UEFA World Cup Qualification

Kevin Danso (90 mins, assist, clean sheet; unused sub): Austria 10-0 San Marino; Romania 1-0 Austria - UEFA World Cup Qualification

Ben Davies (64 mins; 71 mins, yellow card) & Brennan Johnson (76 mins; 32 mins, sub): England 3-0 Wales (Friendly); Wales 2-4 Belgium (UEFA World Cup Qualification)

Richarlison (11 mins, sub; 15 mins, sub): South Korea 0-5 Brazil; Japan 3-2 Brazil - Friendlies

Yves Bissouma (6 mins, sub): Mali 4-1 Madagascar - CAF World Cup Qualification

Pedro Porro (75 mins, clean sheet, yellow card; 90 mins, clean sheet): Spain 2-0 Georgia; Spain 4-0 Bulgaria - UEFA World Cup Qualification

Micky van de Ven (84 mins, clean sheet; 71 mins, clean sheet) & Xavi Simons (6 mins, sub; 11 mins, assist, sub): Malta 0-4 Netherlands; Netherlands 4-0 Finland - UEFA World Cup Qualification

Pape Matar Sarr (90 mins; 22 mins, sub): South Sudan 0-5 Senegal; Senegal 4-0 Mauritania - CAF World Cup Qualification

Cristian Romero (90 mins, clean sheet; unused sub): Argentina 1-0 Venezuela; Puerto Rico 0-6 Argentina - Friendlies

Guglielmo Vicario (unused sub x2) & Destiny Udogie (unused sub x2): Estonia 1-3 Italy; Italy 3-0 Israel - UEFA World Cup Qualification

Joao Palhinha (unused sub; 28 mins, sub): Portugal 1-0 Ireland; Portugal 2-2 Hungary - UEFA World Cup Qualification

Mohammed Kudus (82 mins, assist; 76 mins, goal): Central African Republic 0-5 Ghana; Ghana 1-0 Comoros - CAF World Cup Qualification

I’m normally terrible at fantasy football — I’m the kind of person who thinks that it’s actually a very bad game with dumb and byzantine rules that’s governed more by dumb luck than any sort of actual skill. I’m a member of five or six leagues, including Carty Free’s, mostly out of inertia, and I frequently forget I have a team by about week 10 or so.

But somehow, this year, I’m having an all-timer of a season. Thorough very little of my own actual ability I’ve managed to luck my way into being inside the top 1-2% of all players this season. Back in GW 5 I finished 53rd… overall. Out of everyone. In the world. Pretty wild!

I’ve slid a little bit since then — I’m down to fourth in the Carty Free league — but am still ranked in the 600s in the USA. What’s my secret? Pick good players and get lucky with a few timely boosts. I got in ahead of the curve on a few low-budget sleeper picks, and decided to go Haaland over Salah. It’s paid off.

Here’s my current team heading into this weekend’s fixtures. How’s your team doing?

Song of the Day: Rushin’ River Valley (Live KEXP) — Fruit Bats

Here are your football news links:

Dane Scarlett was invited to train with Thomas Tuchel’s England at Spurs’ Hotspur Way training center ahead of yesterday’s match against Latvia. He wasn’t called up per se, just helped make up numbers after Ollie Watkins withdrew due to injury.

England defender Millie Bright has retired from international football after a stellar career.

Graham Potter wants to manage Sweden after he was sacked as manager of West Ham.

Who’s got two thumbs and forgot to write the Hoddle last night?

THIS GUY.

And because I’ve got stuff to do this morning, here’s a couple of paragraphs of lorum ipsum to fill things out, so y’all can go straight to the comments.

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This is on me, not Fitzie. I’ll do better tomorrow.

With no real football (no, international football doesn’t count) to talk about, what’s left but injury reports and transfer rumors? I have one of the latter for you — according to Julian Plettenberg in Germany, Tottenham “can see themselves” triggering Joao Palhinha’s €30m purchase clause this summer when his season long loan expires.

Is this a rumor or just connecting the dots? I dunno, could be either. Probably both. It’s not a difficult line to draw, that’s for sure. While I and others can publicly wonder about the makeup of Spurs’ midfield with a 31-year-old Palhinha and a 29-year-old Rodrigo Bentancur central to Thomas Frank’s plan (Where’s the passer, String? Where the f**k’s the passer?) there’s no doubt that a) Palhinha is extremely good at the things he’s good at and b) Thomas Frank seems to love the guy. Put him in a midfield that allows him to just tackle dudes and score the occasional banger and he’s 100% a plus add.

Now, Plettenberg is a Bayern guy so he’s obviously getting his info from the Bayern side of the equation. It’s no secret that Palhinha doesn’t fit in at Bayern and they’re looking to offload him, so this deal does make a ton of sense. Honestly, I can see it happening. I can even get behind it! Doing it, along with extending Bentancur, does meaningfully narrow the paths to actually signing a midfielder who can pass, though — it would require letting Yves Bissouma leave next summer on a free transfer when his contract expires and/or selling Pape Sarr.

Or maybe none of those things happen and we just continue to abandon central midfield and pump crosses into the box from now until eternity. That’s a choice and a thing that could happen! I think it would make me pretty irritated and not especially fond of Thomas Frank’s tactical choices, but hey, that’s why I’m a blogger and not the head coach of one of the ten richest clubs in world football.

Regardless, barring a catastrophic injury to Palhinha sometime this season I think this happens. It just makes way too much sense.