Cartilage Free Captain

Here’s Part 1 and Part 2

We’re drawing near to the end of the international break, and that means an end to this three-part series aiming to make sense of Tottenham Hotspur’s performance in the transfer market and performance on the pitch, both this season and over the last few years. Diving into the data^, what are some of the conclusions we can draw from Spurs’ transfer activity of late?

Are Spurs really that BAD at transfers?

In Part 2, we took a look at the efficacy of Spurs’ recent strategy, as well as how Spurs have tended to invest in talent, with Spurs often seeing a poor return on said investment: both on the pitch and financially. Let’s delve into that more and understand just where the Spurs front office’s strengths and weaknesses lie when it comes to both recruiting and offloading players.

^ Data for this piece cover senior player incomings and outgoings in summer windows only; whether a player is considered a senior player or not is determined by Transfermarkt; promotions from youth teams are not included. Additionally, loan to buy deals are treated as just that: loans, and I have tracked free outgoing transfers and player releases separately… but more on that later. Basically, the idea was to compare apples with apples wherever possible.

Do Spurs offload players at the wrong time?

This is an interesting one. Knowing when to sell is key to continually improving your squad, and it’s easy for Spurs fans to remember a time when Dele Alli was worth a reported £100 million, only for him to eventually leave for… nothing. There was something of an argument to be made that perhaps sentimentality had an oversized influence on Spurs’ selling, though that now seems to have changed. Instead, Spurs’ selling activity now seems to be limited more by the quality of player Spurs have on the books (thanks, poor recruitment) rather than an unwillingness to sell. At least, that’s what many would say.

What do the data say?

Transfer Sale Performance: Fee-generating exit rate vs sales recovery, with total outgoings

Actually, while Spurs aren’t great, they could be a lot worse.

Over the last five seasons, Spurs have received a fee on 62.5% of the players that have exited the club; solidly better than Liverpool’s 55.9%; and for every € spent, Spurs made back 36.4% from sales, better than Arsenal’s 32.4%. Manchester City are far and away the best club in this respect, aided by an off-the-charts 24/25 offseason (and ya know, the cheating).

In this respect, it was a positive 26/27 window for Spurs as well: recovering around 45% of their spend and despite the relative exodus of ten players, the Lilywhites managed to collect fees on 80% of them. As a point of comparison, nine players left the club during the summer of 24/25, with Spurs making back 36.4% vs sales, but releasing four of those for no fee; not a great return. For those who might need reminding, that was Johan Lange’s first summer at the club: an auspicious start.

Why are Spurs (and other clubs) releasing players?

That takes us to the drivers of the above sale performance. Often, clubs don’t get a fee for a player. Sometimes, that’s a very young player who wants out for more opportunities. That’s not necessarily a negative: as we often say on this very site, youth development is a crapshoot. Remember when Reo Griffiths, who was lighting things up at U18 level, refused to sign a professional contract and went to Lyon? He is now playing in the Isthmian League South East Division - and I swear that is not a recurrently generated league. So no big loss there. In general, though, it’s not ideal seeing young players leave for nothing; it’s just not typically the worst-case scenario.

At the other end of the spectrum, players often choose to retire at a club. Sure, there’s an argument that there’s a missed financial opportunity there, but sometimes there’s more to life than £££, and it’s often really heartwarming seeing a player see out his days at a club and make a graceful exit (though sometimes Father Time comes hard and with a vengeance as form drops off a cliff (looking at you Michel Vorm, though there’s probably a couple of players I could have listed here).

What you really don’t want happening is peak-age players leaving the club for no fee: those between the age of 24 and 29. For those players to leave on a free, something’s likely gone horribly wrong either on the pitch or off it, and it generally represents a failure by the club to recoup some of what they’ve invested into a player and invest that into a replacement.

So which clubs fare well in these metrics? To help, here are some more data, this time normalized, covering released players vs outgoing transfers, with released players defined as those leaving on a free transfer, released by the club, retiring, or leaving for a “?” transfer fee (which I believe is only one player in our dataset).

Transfer Release Impact: Outgoing vs released (and retired) players, by age bracket

Again, Spurs are not the worst side here. Liverpool have actually had about 44% of their outgoings leave on frees over the last five years; 21% though have been in the older bracket, with a number of players retiring at Liverpool. Liverpool have also had the same proportion of peak-age players exit, again the highest of the four clubs in the dataset.

Even though Spurs do measure better than Liverpool on both of these measures, what is a little worrying is the proportion of peak-age players plus the younger age bracket leaving the club for free: a quarter of the players leaving Spurs over the last five years fall within that bracket, the highest of the four clubs. The other point of concern is the number of peak-age players that have left from 24/25 onwards: again, when Johan Lange joined the club. That’s something that his hard to fully pin on the Dane, however, given many of these departing players were recruited under previous regimes; but you also can’t say he is blameless when it comes to failing to secure a fee for the likes of Ryan Sessegnon or Sergio Reguilon (though for the latter, the player also reportedly should take a share of the blame).

The most recent summer was much more impressive: only two of Spurs’ ten outgoings failed to receive a fee, and only one of those was a peak-age player.

So are Spurs bad at selling?

Not really!

Again, let’s take a look at the data. For this visual, transfer income has been compared to Transfermarkt’s market value for the outgoing players. Retirees have been treated as having a market value of €0.

Outgoing players vs market value

And Spurs actually come out of this looking pretty good!

Out of the four clubs, only Manchester City has come out ahead of their Transfermarkt market value over the last five years when selling players (who says cheating never pays, at least in the short term); but Spurs are the next best club across the same time period. Now the market value of the players Spurs are selling is the lowest, indicating that perhaps Spurs haven’t quite maximized the possible profit, but it’s also important to remember that Spurs have also spent the least per player of the four clubs.

Arsenal are hilariously poor in this respect, returning €323 million from player exits worth €530 million, and Liverpool aren’t much better. Spurs’ worst window once more was the 24/25 summer, bringing in only around €56 million vs a potential €91 million (and you may start to feel a little sorry for Ange Postecoglou given what he would have had to work with reading these numbers).

All in all, though, when it comes to sales, Spurs definitely don’t seem to be as terrible as they are sometimes made out to be.

Are Spurs bad at transfers?

There’s your journey through the transfer window by the numbers. It’s been a mixed time of late for Spurs, and a fascinating window: an impressive number of deals put through with mixed results and a muddled strategy: increasing the age of the squad by some amount and perhaps spreading their transfer budget around too much, while the focus on Premier League players seems to indicate a lack of recruitment capability.

A lot of the ongoing critiques, however, lack merit. Spurs’ net spend was lower than some of the other big clubs, yet despite this their outlay seems to be used as a point of heavy criticism, without even taking into account the fact it’s arguably too early to judge the success of the window until the players have had more time to gel on the pitch.

The other regular point of criticism is Spurs’ inability to sell, but that also seems to be largely unfounded, though it appears Johan Lange hasn’t helped things here (though Rafi Moersen potentially has).

Are Spurs BAD at transfers? Not really. They’re just not great at it; and when against clubs with greater resources, greatness is probably what is required to secure an elusive Premier League trophy.

Or just cook the books. Either way apparently works.

Tottenham Hotspur had a chance to get a statement win at home against a quality opponent when they hosted London City at Brisbane Road on Sunday. Instead, they ran into a buzz-saw. London City, powered by a bevy of newly-signed talent, shocked Spurs with an early goal by Danielle van de Donk, who scored a brace, and pressed Spurs into oblivion on the first half, running out to a 4-0 lead. Spurs pulled a goal back via Victoria Pelova in the second half, but it was definitely not their day. London City were deserved winners, added late goals from Diani and Cascarino and established themselves as potential title contenders with a statement win over a quality Spurs side.

London City started the match with an extremely high energy and high intensity press, and it paid off almost immediately — an uncharacteristic giveaway from Toko Koga led to a well-saved shot by Kop on Van De Donk, but the rebound fell to Alexia Putellas, who slotted it home for the early lead. Spurs looked rattled with London City not giving Spurs time to breathe on the ball, but they settled more into the match a quarter hour in.

Spurs had a couple of half chances in London City’s box but couldn’t turn them into real chances. And then London capitalized — Spurs’ defense broke down allowing Putellas to put a simple cross across the face of goal for Kadidiatou Diani to tap in unmarked, putting the visitors up 2-0 inside a half hour.

London City made Spurs’ day even worse at 34’ when Alexia fired home a third goal from a simple cutback. Tottenham looked absolutely outclassed in the first half, with London City playing like potential title contenders. Spurs’ best chance came just before halftime; Julie Blakstad forced a fantastic one-handed save from City keeper Elene Lete who tipped the shot off the post and out. London City took a 3-0 lead into halftime.

The second half started much in the same way as the first, with former Arsenal attacker Danielle van de Donk bundling in an early chance, her second of the match, to put Spurs down 0-4. But Victoria Pelova gave Tottenham a bit of hope with an immediate response, firing home a cross from Julie Blakstad to put Spurs on the scoreboard. Matilda Vinberg had a golden chance to cut the lead even further minutes later, but couldn’t direct the Olivia Holt cross on target.

Diani made the score 1-5 after Lize Kop rushed out and had a clearance blocked by Diani, which fell right to her feet and allowed her to tap into an empty net. That was pretty much the end of any chance Spurs had to engineer an admittedly unlikely comeback. Delphine Cascarino piled on the misery with an injury time goal for London City, and Spurs were left to lick their wounds. The final score was 1-6.

Match Reactions

This one is big. Tottenham Hotspur Women have started the season exceptionally well, with three wins and one draw from their opening four games. That, plus a league leading +13 on goal differential, has put them second in the table. Today’s match against London City Lionesses will be their biggest challenge yet.

London City finished sixth in the WSL last year, but they’re hardly expected to struggle. By contrast, owner Michelle Kang has sunk millions into building a team that hopes to compete for a Champions League place, and studded with recognizable names. Chief among those is Alexia Putellas, two time Ballon d’Or winner, who moved to London City from Barcelona this summer. Other recognizable players include Alexia’s Barca teammate Mapi Leon, England’s former #1 keeper Mary Earps, former Spurs midfielder Alana Kennedy, England international Nikita Parris, and former Arsenal star Danielle van de Donk. This is a team engineered to win, and to win quickly.

Contrast that to Spurs, who have spent the past few years gradually improving the team over time. But Spurs are also a good team — they have the league’s co-leading scorer Victoria Pelova, the league’s assist leader in Signe Gaupset, one of the best midfielders in the league in Olivia Holdt, a proven striker in Cathinka Tandberg, and a team that is well drilled and executing at a high level under Martin Ho.

But make no mistake — this will be the biggest challenge yet in this young WSL season. Spurs are at home, but they haven’t played a team as good as London City yet, and this is an important measuring stick as to Spurs’ ambitions this season.

This is your open thread.

Tottenham Hotspur Women vs. London City Lionesses

Brisbane Road, London, UK

TV: CBS Sports Network (USA), Sky Sports Football (UK)

Stream: Paramount+

It’s a good time to be a Tottenham Hotspur Women supporter. Spurs are currently second in the WSL and are coming off of a win in the Subway (Women’s League) Cup group stage and two dominant performances in the WSL. Thanks to that, they’re absolutely racking up WSL monthly award nominations for September.

First, Martin Ho has been nominated for September Coach of the Month, along with Chelsea’s Sonia Bompastor, City’s Andree Jeglertz, and London City’s Eder Maestre.

Two of Tottenham’s midfielders, Victoria Pelova and Signe Gaupset, are nominated for Player of the Month for September. Pelova is currently tied with Bunny Shaw as the league’s top goal scorer after scoring four goals in the past two league matches, while Gaupset currently leads the league in assists with three.

Kirsty Hanson was also nominated for Goal of the Month for her curling blast against West Ham in the opening match of the season. You can watch the goal below.

And while this isn’t a monthly award, Caitlin Dijsktra, who has started every match for Spurs so far this season, was the only Tottenham player named in the WSL/WSL2 Team of the Week; Dijkstra was solid in defense and scored a goal in Spurs’ 4-0 win over Aston Villa last weekend.

Spurs’ next match will be a challenging one — a matchup against London City Lionesses and two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas. London City currently sit fourth, one point behind Spurs, and along with Spurs are a significant threat to gatecrash the top four this season in the league. Owner Michelle Kang has spent tons of money this offseason to create what she hopes will be an instant contender, and they will be a formidable opponent. That match kicks off this Sunday at 9:00 a.m. ET; the match will be televised on CBS Sports Network in the USA and Sky Sports Football in the UK, and streamed on Paramount+

Let’s talk some more about the transfer market!

Tottenham Hotspur had an eventful, if not crazy, summer transfer window that is yet to translate to success on the football pitch, and this series aims to make sense of it all. Though it’s well known that a club’s wage bill is arguably the most reliable predictor of success in the Premier League, it’s nonetheless interesting to dive into the data^ surrounding Spurs’ transfer activity to understand the approach, strategy, and whether there are any indicators for future success in there.

In short, are Spurs BAD at transfers? And should we be hopeful following Spurs’ eventful 2026/27 summer transfer window?

We left off Part 1 with an overview of Spurs’ 26/27 summer transfer strategy: invest heavily in experienced, Premier League-ready players while significantly turning over the squad. Will that be a successful strategy, and how does said approach compare to that of some of the Premier League’s most successful clubs?

^ Data for this piece cover senior player incomings and outgoings in summer windows only; whether a player is considered a senior player or not is determined by Transfermarkt; promotions from youth teams are not included. Additionally, loan to buy deals are treated as just that: loans, and I have tracked free outgoing transfers and player releases separately… but more on that later. Basically, the idea was to compare apples with apples wherever possible.

Reviewing Spurs’ transfer strategy

As covered in the previous piece, there were a few notable takeaways from the data with regards to Spurs’ summer: ALL of Spurs’ ten signings were from English clubs; Spurs’ average incoming age of 27.4 was the highest of the four clubs in our dataset; and Spurs splashed the cash on two record signings.

What do the data, however, say about the impact of that approach on Premier League performance? Let’s take a look at how this approach has impacted clubs’ points in the ensuing seasons:

Transfer success analysis: % of signings from English clubs, age refresh gap, and largest two signings % share of spend vs points change from previous season

Firstly, there’s the focus on “Premier League-proven” players, or at least those coming from within the English pyramid, and there’s not really much correlation with a year-on-year improvement here. You could maybe make an argument that too many signings from within the UK or too few is a net negative, but probably the biggest takeaway is that the cliche has little truth to it: it doesn’t really matter whether players come from within the Premier League or not; a transfer strategy focused on homegrown players not guaranteed to improve your overall performance. With that in mind, Spurs’ insistence on signing only players that meet this criterion seems less like a strategic focus and more like a failure in scouting.

Next, there’s the age factor. Does it make sense to target older players? In short, no. For this one, the metric of interest is “Age Refresh Gap”: the difference in average age of incoming vs outgoing players, where the number represents how many years younger a squad is getting (i.e. a positive number means overall the squad has got younger). This is one metric where there does seem to be a reasonably clear relationship: apart from Spurs’ massive drop-off in 24/25, there is a decent correlation between making your squad younger and improvement in Premier League performance.

This metric for the summer just been sits at -3.9, with Spurs having an average incoming age of 27.4 and an average outgoing and released age of 23.5. That -3.9 is roughly around where some of those -10-to--20-point drop-offs sit, which doesn’t fill one with confidence as to Spurs’ transfer strategy. There’s a point to be made that last season’s average squad age of 24 is towards the lower end of the squad age numbers in our dataset and therefore that Spurs needed to add experience, but that point is made with additional caveats: firstly, Arsenal won the title last season with a squad that had an average age of 23.9; and secondly, Spurs’ average age now is 26.6, the highest of any of the sides / seasons in our dataset. Did Spurs need to bring in more experience? Maybe, but they now have a rather old squad in the scheme of things, which doesn’t tend to lend itself to success (coincidentally, this season’s Arsenal squad is somewhat close as well, with an average age of 26.5).

The final metric in the list of charts is the big money buys, or how each club focuses (or spreads around) its transfer activity. For this one, there’s again not a strong correlation with performance improvement or drop-off, though you could loosely make the claim that if you don’t have a high overall transfer spend (the size of our plot points) AND most of that spend is only on a couple of players, that tends to not go so well. Conversely, a decent-sized transfer budget spread across multiple targets seems to garner reasonable success (outside of Liverpool’s hilarious drop-off last season). Spurs’ Largest Two Signings Share of Spend at 56.5% this summer combined with significant overall spend thus signals both intent from the club to improve and hopefully an improvement in points secured this season.

The conclusion to take from this is that a number of the cliches spouted from many a pundit and a fan really hold very little truth. Premier League-proven is something of a myth; you can actually win things with kids; and focusing purely on big money signings isn’t a guarantee of success. With that in mind, Spurs’ strategy through the 26/27 summer transfer window is unlikely to result in a substantial improvement, apart from the fact that they, ya know, spent a bunch of money. It’s just hard to argue they spent it well.

Which brings me to my next point.

Are Spurs… cheap?

This is one of the most telling visualizations yet. It’s a simple data plot, with four data points, one for each club. How many players did each club bring in, and what was the average transfer fee? You can view both the 26/27 window and the entirety of the past 5 years using the dropdown:

Total incoming transfers vs average incoming transfer fee, last five summers and 2026/27 summer

That is a fascinating look into Spurs’ approach. Despite Spurs’ significant investment over both the past five years AND this summer, the Lilywhites trail the other three clubs by some distance when it comes to actually spending money on individual players. The Spurs front office just does not seem to want to invest big money in particular players… or when they do, bring in a bunch of very cheap (or loans, or free) players to offset that cost.

What’s particularly saddening is despite the big song and dance around Spurs’ investment this summer, this hasn’t changed. Yes, Spurs’ €36.64 million average player spend is a solid improvement on the five-year average of €29.55, and close to Arsenal’s five-year average of €36.88 million; but all the other clubs have also raised their game, with Liverpool the closest to Spurs over the summer with a whopping average fee of €44.1 million.

Those numbers do not make for fun reading.

Do Spurs at least get a good return on investment?

Okay, so this all starts to paint a not-so-pretty picture. A mixed-at-best strategy combined with a reluctance to spend to bring in quality. Quantity over quality does not tend to work in the Premier League… unless you can operate like a Brighton & Hove Albion and turn that quantity into decent profit to then reinvest in your squad, eventually reaching level where you can compete. Stop me if you’ve heard that one before.

To assess this, we can take a look at some normalized data across the last five years. For every €100 Spurs spend, what’s the return?

Normalized transfer spend, past five summer windows

The answer is, “Not great, Bob!”

For every €100 Spurs spend, they’re only getting back €36.35. That’s really poor, especially considering Manchester City’s whopping €74 recovery per €100 spend. That said, Spurs are better than North London rivals Arsenal who seem to make a number of poor investments, only recovering €32.42.

This comes dangerously close to arguing for profit over glory, and that’s definitely not the take-away from these data; instead, this is an attempt to highlight the importance of smart investment, especially given Spurs’ quantity over quality approach. If Spurs are targeting a cheaper brand of player, those targets need to have a level of quality that transcends the price tag: diamonds in the rough, so to speak. Those players either need to turn into stars, or develop in a manner that allows Spurs to move them on for a profit and bring in a player at a higher level, gradually improving and growing the squad.

And that all starts with strong talent identification: scouting and data, where Spurs have clearly fallen behind.

In Part 3, which will be out early next week, we’ll take a bit more of a detailed look into Spurs’ selling activity and how this summer really compares to a successful window, as we attempt to answer: are Spurs BAD at transfers?

good morning everyone! We continue to make headway on Fitzie’s Track of the Day (Revisited), where your hoddler-in-chief revisits some old favourites and curiosities he’s shared across the years as your hoddler-in-chief. Here’s a look at what we’ve seen so far.

Today is a special Track of the Day (Revisited). Every year the hoddle has celebrated Tom Petty on the day of his death, 1 October. It’s staggering to believe that he passed away nine ago.

Petty remains an all-time favourite of the hoddle. His music is one of the most-often shared in the Track of the Day, and there’s still so much to explore.

But for now we’re throwing it back to one of the first ones to be featured. Refugee was the 163rd song to ever be featured in the Track of the Day (right behind Wildflowers).

And this is the version I like best - from his Live Anthology album. It’s a sprawling set of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from their Gainesville upbringing to their Hollywood heights. The first time I listened to this one was some time in 2018 on the way to work. My corded earphones were plugged in, I was walking toward the shuttle that would lead me to work.

It’s absolutely electric, even from the first moment. The raucous burst from the crowd when they realise what he’s playing, to Benmont Tench on the organ and Petty’s wail into the Mike Campbell guitar solo. It’s one of my favourite things Petty’s ever put out and I can easily play it my head over and over (sometimes I do).

But today I want to celebrate the coolest rock-and-roller in history: the inimitable Tom Petty. He left us way too soon, but he gave us a hell of a musical catalogue to listen to and to celebrate.

And I can find no better way to end this week’s Track of the Day (Revisited), than with Petty.

Fitzie’s track of the day (revisited): Refugee, by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

And now for your links:

BBC: “How author Stephen King is helping keep Highland League side going”

The Telegraph: “Matthias Jaissle interview: I had a tumour aged five – I am one of life’s fighters”

Far Out: “The 2004 song Tom Petty never wanted to end: “Go on”“

Tottenham Hotspur Women did just enough to squeeze past Brighton in the Player’s Cup. A last minute penalty shout for Brighton would have canceled out Olivia Holdt’s stunning opening strike, but the ref didn’t seem to notice, and we went home with our first victory of the competition.

There’s an argument Martin Ho rotated a bit too much for last week’s cup game against West Ham – that team didn’t quite seem to gel the way the teams that beat Crystal Palace Villa 7-0 and Aston 4-0 had. Ho’s side for Brighton seemed to compromise rotation with strength – five changes, and two of those were Matilda Vinberg and Eveliina Summanen, players who are well familiar with the starting lineup this season.

The game started out a typical slow, quiet cup affair with Spurs mostly in control. A flurry of activity at around the ten minute mark saw both sides squander good chances in front of goal – Brighton’s Murphy shot wide from point blank range, and Victoria Pelova rounded the keeper but couldn’t get a shot off her left foot in time – and the game settled back into calm possession. With ten minutes to go in the half, Victoria Pelova and Olivia Holdt (those two again) combined for a real banger of a goal. Pelova played her in behind, but Holdt still had plenty to do – she used a surge of pace to put her defender on the back foot, then cut to her right foot and shot beautifully past the goalkeeper. I got up on my feet for that one, so if you haven’t watched it back yet, you totally should.

This was not our best game in possession – lots of sloppy passing and lost possession – but I felt pretty confident about Spurs in this game up until about 60 minutes. At that point, we really started struggling to keep Brighton at bay. They had a ton of activity around our eighteen yard box which Julie Blakstad, Alice Sombath, and a rotating cast of others only barely contained. I was surprised we didn’t concede (and impressed with young keeper Selma Panengstuen for the part she played in not letting that happened) in regular time. I was even more surprised that the referee opted to blow her whistle to end the game rather than awarding Brighton what would have been a deserved penalty after Shekiera Martinez kicked a Brighton player in our box.

Reminder that there’s no VAR in the WSL and there’s definitely not VAR in the Player’s Cup. Sometimes you get fair goals chalked off like ours against Villa last week, sometimes you get away with a clear pen in a somewhat important cup game. Them’s the breaks!

Thoughts

We’ve now seen Matilda Vinberg on the right in a few games. I am starting to prefer it – she was much more involved in passing today, and her decision making certainly wasn’t perfect but to me, it was a marked improvement. I also really liked what Olivia Holdt did on the left wing today. I tend to prefer her as the number ten, but I forget that she’s scored some important goals for us as a winger. I really hope she’s cool with playing there since it allows us to get her on the pitch with both Pelova and Gaupset, which rules. It’s not exactly revolutionary to point out that Olivia Holdt, Signe Gaupset and Victoria Pelova are good players. But guys holy shit ha ha, how cool is it to have players like that doing their thing for Spurs?

That said, this was not my favorite Martin Ho performance ever. I don’t necessarily want to get too down on individual performances or those last 30 minutes, or even selection choices or substitutions. It was a whole lot of players who don’t usually play together or are getting used to the system, and I’m sure everyone’s really tired after the fourth out of five games in quick succession. But also yikes. If that’s how we looked against Brighton, I’m a bit concerned about how our defending will look against London City, Chelsea and Arsenal and their far superior attacking talent.

Looking Ahead

Our nice run of fixtures has officially drawn to a close. It’s been fun watching Tottenham smash up the midtable, but now it’s time to find out what this team is really made of. We face London City Lionesses on October 4th, and I truly have no idea what’s going to happen! Like us, they’re replete with talent all over the pitch, but they’ve also had a few wobbles. Our attackers are on a real hot streak and London City might be vulnerable there. But also, I don’t think we’ve had our defense tested yet, like pretty much at all. Martin Ho and his ball-playing defenders are not particularly known for their ability to defend the box (and in fact I was very uncomfortable watching them try to do so against Brighton in the very game I’m writing about here).

I’m pretty excited to test our mettle, but I’m also nervous to find out we’re not as good as we’ve looked throughout this strong start. It could be a high-scoring one, folks, so buckle up and get ready to face the music.

good morning everyone! We continue to make headway on Fitzie’s Track of the Day (Revisited). We’ve had a lot of fun so far, and we’re continuing it with Yola. We’ve featured Yola a handful of times in the hoddle. Today we’re revisiting something that’s a bit more country rock from her debut album, and which is #242 on the TOTD playlist.

Monday: Killing Time, by Pokey LaFarge

Tuesday: From the Inside, by Alice Cooper

Wednesday: Sante, by Stromae

We’re also now at the start of the month (and a little more than a week before the return of Tottenham Hotspur men’s football), which means now’s the time to have a look at what’s in store for Spurs —

Tottenham Hotspur men’s squad:

September was a rough month, and there’s little reason to believe this month will be any better. Trips to Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge await, while the international break has shown thus far Omar Marmoush and other would-be scorers haven’t actually scored a goal. But we’re Spurs fans, so we find hope somewhere anyways.

So let’s look at 19 October, when Spurs play Coventry. Yes I know they have a win, but they still look like one of the worst Premier League teams in quite a while. And I also think there’s still reason to believe Spurs shouldn’t get three points when Palace visit at the end of the month. Six points would be a helpful haul, but I’d settle for 12.

October schedule: at Manchester United (10 October), Coventry (19 October), at Chelsea (24 October), Crystal Palace (31 October)

Tottenham Hotspur women’s squad:

The women have been on a roll with big wins against Palace (7-0) and Aston Villa (4-0), a solid 1-1 draw to Liverpool and a frustrating penalty loss to West Ham in the Women’s League Cup.

This month looks even more challenging for the women than the month, with fixtures agaisnt Chelsea and Arsenal. Spurs lost both their matches to Chelsea last season, and got a draw and a loss against Arsenal. So it’s a big challenge, and these two clubs represent the next steps for the club.

October schedule: London City (4 October), at Chelsea (18 October), Arsenal (24 October), at Bristol City (28 October; Women’s League Cup)

Fitzie’s track of the day (revisited): Walk Through Fire, by Yola

And now for your links:

Football London: “Nine Tottenham stars doing extra training with Roberto De Zerbi as Dejan Kulusevski update emerges”

ESPN: “Cristiano Ronaldo leaves Portugal camp after coach says he’d be benched again”

BBC: “Infantino should have no place in future of football - Pinto”

I hate the international break. I think I hate this SUPER international break more because it’s more games and hence more opportunities for Tottenham Hotspur players to pick up stupid injuries. Injuries like Jan Paul van Hecke, who according to the Netherlands football federation has withdrawn from the Dutch team and returned to Tottenham due to an injury he picked up in the Nations League match between Netherlands and Serbia.

Well, that’s just GREAT. The release also doesn’t say what kind of injury Van Hecke picked up or for how long he’s expected to be out, though other outlets are saying it’s a foot injury of some kind. There’s still a week and a half left in this super international break so hopefully whatever it is JP is suffering from it can be ameliorated with about 10 days of rest, but knowing our luck Van Hecke’s foot probably needed to be amputated and he’ll be outfitted with a new foot made of wicker and mud daub.

I assume we’ll get some clarity in the coming hours and/or days, but for now I think it’s probably safe to assume that Marcos Senesi will probably be coming in for JP in Spurs’ next match at Manchester United. He’s not fast, but like JP, Senesi is a good distributor out of the back and can pass pretty well. Maybe we’ll get lucky and we won’t miss Van Hecke as much as I suspect we might. Time to encase Micky van de Ven in bubble wrap, too.

good morning everyone! Fitzie’s Track of the Day (Revisited) continues at a blistering pace. Today we’re throwing it back to Stromae, a Belgian artist who I heard on the radio one time. I thought this song was really interesting and I wanted to share it with you. And I wanna share it again. Here’s a recap of the TOTDs (Revisited) so far this week.

Monday: Killing Time, by Pokey LaFarge

Tuesday: From the Inside, by Alice Cooper

—-

Can you believe it? We’re at the end of September, which means it’s time for another edition of Fitzie’s EFL Championship Roundup, where your hoddler-in-chief checks in on all things happening in the second tier of the English football pyramid.

There’s finally been some football in this league, and so we’re beginning to have a clearer idea of where things stand. Here are a couple quick hits:

West Ham will probably sail towards the Premier League. The rest remains an open question

Preston are, predictably, terrible.

Burnley are, unpredictably, also terrible.

Wrexham appear to have taken a step back, and Birmingham still don’t look like a side that’ll challenge for promotion.

I think one of the biggest questions to ask at this stage of the competition is whether or not the team currently in first can maintain its form. This year happens to be Swansea City.

First impressions say this is a playoff contender, not an automatics contender. Their wins have come against Stoke (7th), Derby (22nd), Waford (20th), Burnley (24th) and Lincoln City (12th) - while they lost against Southampton and drew against Sheffield United and Wrexham.

I haven’t had the chance to watch them yet, which is frustrating. Usually when I look for promotion contenders I look at goal differential and goal-scoring distribution. Swansea currently have the third-best goal differential in the league, which is good, with their top scorer finding the back of the net three times (less good). I’m also not entirely convinced of their wins just yet - even the one against Stoke.

This month will be a big test for them with matches against Norwich, Millwall, West Ham and QPR. That should tell us early on if they’re contenders or pretenders. Otherwise, it’s too early to tell for the most part where these currents are flowing.

Top eight:

Swansea (17 Pts, +7 GD)

West Ham (15 Pts, +11 GD)

Middlesbrough (15 Pts, +4 GD)

Wolves (14 Pts, +5 GD)

West Brom (14 Pts, +2 GD)

QPR (13 Pts, +3 GD)

Stoke (13 Pts, +1 GD)

Bristol City (13 Pts, -1 GD)

Bottom three:

Derby County (5 Pts, -7 GD)

Preston NE (4 Pts, -7 GD)

Burnley (4 Pts, -8 GD)

Fitzie’s track of the day (revisited): Sante, by Stromae

And now for your links:

The Athletic ($$): “Why Tottenham are better than their start to the 2026-27 season suggests”

Alasdair Gold: “Tottenham summer signing slams fitness doubts and explains slow start under Roberto De Zerbi”

BBC: “Fifa accuses Uefa of ‘misinformation campaign’”

The Guardian: “‘The emperor is naked’: Uefa president Ceferin takes new swipe at Infantino”