Cartilage Free Captain

The transfer window keeps on rolling and the deals keep on flowing as Tottenham Hotspur this morning announced the club record signing of midfielder Sandro Tonali:

The Italian midfielder has signed with Spurs for a deal purported to be around £100 million, a huge fee that anybody who has been following the club for some time will scarcely be able to comprehend.

Tonali is yet another player to join from a fellow English club, joining from Newcastle United after spending three years on Tyneside. That stint was a mixed one, with Tonali’s time on the field interrupted by a suspension due to breaches of both the Italian Football Federation’s and English FA’s gambling regulations. Despite this, on the pitch he was largely a success, endearing himself to their fans and they to him, with Tonali posting an emotional farewell post via social media:

It’s a transfer that is something of a puzzling one for Spurs. Though the Lilywhites have desperately needed investment in their midfield for some time, Tonali’s profile is relatively similar to those already on Spurs’ books: a do-everything midfielder who is a dynamic runner and aggressive presser. He’s just a bit better at all of the above, which includes Spurs’ missing secret sauce in the form of passing, while not really being a playmaker. He also benefitted from playing next to the excellent Bruno Guimaraes in Newcastle’s midfield, which made up for some of Tonali’s weaknesses.

With that in mind, his past controversies, and his age meaning it’s unlikely Spurs will be able to recoup the cost, £100 million feels very much an overpay. Don’t get me wrong - Tonali is a GOOD player - but £100 million good? That’s probably pushing it, and in some ways feels a bit like another Conor Gallagher deal, whereby Spurs are spending big for a recognizable name.

That said: it’s not my money, and Spurs have shown no willingness this summer to stop spending. My concern in years gone by would be largely around opportunity cost: who do we miss out on due to pushing this deal through? But this new version of the club seems to be very happy to throw cash around like it’s confetti, so in this case that concern may be largely unfounded.

Tonali was clearly a player identified early in the summer, with Roberto De Zerbi reportedly a huge fan of the midfielder. The two apparently were in regular conversation following the end of the season, with Spurs’ head coach key in convincing Tonali to join, perhaps capitalizing on a point of familiarity with the two coming from the same town in Italy.

This means an all-new midfield duo for the coming season, with Mateus Fernandes also already locked in. It’s an exciting prospect for any Spurs fan, who will be hopeful this season will be a significant turnaround from the last.

Welcome to the club, Sandro! (Can we call him Sandro #2?)

It’s a packed preseason campaign for Tottenham Hotspur as we look towards the 2026/27 season, with six fixtures and a trip down under to New Zealand and Australia for a Vegemite sandwich; but apparently not packed enough, as Spurs have now added a seventh match, against Getafe CF:

As covered in the release above, Spurs will play the La Liga side in a behind-closed-doors friendly at Hotspur Way in early August, a week after their match against Chelsea in Sydney. Getafe finished seventh in the Spanish top flight last season, which *checks notes* is somewhat higher than Spurs’ 17th-place finish. With that in mind, the clash presents as a tough challenge as the Lilywhites look on combinations, fitness, and match preparedness in the run-in to kick-off on August 22nd.

Perhaps too tough.

The thing about Getafe is that they are known as an extremely physical, gritty (some would say dirty) side. They often rank highly for fouls committed amongst Europe’s top leagues, and they play an extremely rigid, defensive style while treating matches not unlike an MMA bout. In short, they are essentially Spain’s Millwall; and with that in mind, it’s an odd choice for a preseason friendly opponent. Paraguay vs France? Yeah, that’s probably along the lines of what you can expect.

The last thing you want to risk right before the season gets underway is injuries to your players, and this fixture seems like a ripe opportunity for such an eventuality. Many Spurs fans will remember Gareth Bale famously being clattered by Charlie Adam in a preseason match against Liverpool in USA; the last thing we want is something similar.

There’s little history between the two clubs, thankfully, so hopefully that will ensure proceedings stay friendly. Spurs have only taken on Getafe on one prior occasion, losing to them at White Hart Lane in the Europa League, almost 20 years ago. Given the above, here’s hoping it will be another 20 years until the next time.

Good morning everyone! As hinted last week, I am doing something different with the Tracks of the Day this week. I’m still in the process of updating the TOTD playlist but it’s brought back some memories for me when I began doing this hoddle more than four years ago.

A big hope of mine when starting the TOTD feature was to end the hoddle on something fun to listen to, to share some music I like or I think is interesting. Heck, even if I didn’t like it, I thought to myself, “Maybe it’s worth putting out there anyways”.

More than 1,000 songs have been featured since then. Here are the first ten that were featured:

Wild Blue, by John Mayer

The Boss, by James Brown and the JBs

Too Late Now, by Wet Leg

Cupid, by Sam Cooke

House of Cards, by Radiohead

Stand For Myself, by Yola

Marquee Moon, by Television

Sheena is a Punk Rocker, by The Ramones

Hora Decabitus, by Charles Mingus

The Walls Are Way Too Thin, by Holly Humberstone

I gave a pretty big hint on the kinds of music that’ll be most featured in the hoddle. We had our first Mingus Monday with Hora Decabitus, two CBGB-era bands in The Ramones and Television, a little bit of soul with James Brown and Sam Cooke. We also have some lesser-known artists there that I like to feature such as Yola and Holly Humberstone.

I’ve carried out a similar formula in the years since the TOTD began with those ten.

Something you might not know is that I was torn on what the first TOTD would be. The Boss by James Brown felt like it could be coming on a bit too strong and I didn’t want to give off that impression when I made the transition from commenter to hoddler-in-chief.

So I chose something much softer: John Mayer’s Wild Blue. And here we find another pattern in that there are lots of songs in here I first heard on the SoCal station 88.5FM. I really enjoyed that song of his and the promotions on the Los Angeles billboards at the time.

Now, let’s get to the Revisited Track of the Day.

It has to be Wet Leg, right?

You all know how much I love Wet Leg by now. Heck, you should have known this in 2022! When I first heard Chaise Longue on the radio years ago, I was hooked. Then annoyed, then hooked again. I bought their debut album and was floored.

Too Late Now was a heck of an album closer, and it’s the one I wanted to share with you all first (before a handful of you decided you don’t like this band - but oh well!). This was the first of 10 Wet Leg songs to be featured in the Track of the Day, and features the band before their edgier look.

Fitzie’s track of the day (revisited): Too Late Now, by Wet Leg

And now for your links:

The Athletic ($$): “How can USMNT win without Folarin Balogun? Look how Mauricio Pochettino replaced Harry Kane”

BBC: “BBC offers ‘Stay Up or Catch Up’ for England v Mexico”

The Guardian: “‘Now the flag is everywhere’: how World Cup success has changed life in Cape Verde”

Another Tottenham Hotspur player is out the door! According to Alasdair Gold, Tottenham has reached an agreement to sell Romanian central defender Radu Dragusin to Fiorentina this summer. The deal is reportedly a loan with a purchase obligation, with the loan fee plus obligation totaling £21.5m.

Ironically, £21.5m is exactly what Spurs paid to Genoa when they purchased Dragusin in January 2024, so that makes this transfer a pretty good deal for a player that never seemed to fit in with Tottenham or their tactics. Dragusin proved to be a little too slow, a little too poor in possession, a little too bad at playing out of the back to really establish himself at Spurs, then he went and did his knee and missed almost a year. Now it’s clear he’s surplus to requirements after Spurs went out and acquired two central defenders to play ahead of him.

I’m not wild about the “set number of games” clause to hit the full purchase price, because there’s always a chance that STUFF will happen and he might not hit those numbers. That said, this is definitely Fabio Paratici, once Spurs co-Sporting Director and now Director of Football at La Viola, doing us a solid. The 10% sell-on fee is pretty nice too. Thanks, buddy!

I don’t have anything against Radu. By all accounts he was an exemplary teammate and a good guy, and he did win the Europa League trophy with us. I’ll miss his Rubix Cube abilities and his wacky top knot hairstyle, but I won’t especially miss his football — he never did seem like he was good enough to really play at the top level (or even the bottom level) of the Premier League.

Italy seems like a good place for him to kick-start his career back in motion, and I wish him well. We’ll wait for the official announcement, but I expect it’ll come soon.

Alfie Devine was purchased by Tottenham Hotspur in 2020 from Wigan Athletic’s academy, and he showed a lot of promise as an academy kid and young professional footballer. But over the past few years it’s become increasingly clearer that Devine was unlikely to crack Spurs’ first team. That’s even more clear now that Tottenham have purchased two central midfielders and are committing to a concerted push to return to European placements.

That makes Devine ripe for a potential sale, and that’s the latest rumor we have. The Glasgow Times is reporting that Celtic are interested in Devine, who is apparently valued at £6m by Spurs.

After a successful loan at Preston last season, Devine had a purchase option in his loan contract. Preston, however, apparently let the deadline for exercising that option expire, and now Celtic are showing interest. The article makes it seem as though £6m would be a potential hardship for Celtic, but Martin O’Neill is said to be a fan of Devine, and Spurs are likely to let him leave permanently if a decent offer comes in.

Again, this is the point where I tell people that not every promising academy talent will end up playing for Tottenham’s first team. In fact, that’s an incredible exception to the rule — almost all of Spurs’ academy prospects (or that of virtually every other team in English football) end up sold or released. That doesn’t make them failures. Devine’s a good young player and I have no doubt he’ll have a fantastic professional football career, even if it isn’t at Tottenham. And that’s okay.

Glasgow Times says that Wolves, freshly relegated, are also interested in Alfie. It may come down to Devine whether he wants to start the next phase of his career in Scotland, or in the Championship.

We already know the odds are extremely high that Guglielmo Vicario will not be wearing a Tottenham Hotspur keeper kit when the summer transfer window closes. We’re getting more dribbles of info that it’s actually quite likely that he’ll be wearing a Juventus shirt instead.

Calciomercato is reporting that Vicario tops a list of potential summer goalkeeper signings for the Old Lady, but that Spurs value Googly Elmo at €20m, a figure that is causing Juventus to swallow hard. That doesn’t seem like a lot of money, but that’s only in the context of the Premier League’s insane financial headway over the rest of the European leagues. You won’t see Juventus shelling out £86m for a player anytime soon, or if you do it’s likely to be followed by an investigation and possibly financial malfeasance charges.

There is, however, a possibility expressed in this article — a loan-to-buy. Calciomercato suggests Juventus would be open to a loan of Vicario with a purchase option at the end of next season, presumably to give Juventus a year to come up with the funds, or alternately try and negotiate Spurs down to a more reasonable fee next summer.

That’d be okay with me. It’s clear Vicario isn’t in Roberto De Zerbi’s plans, considering he’s already elevated Antonin Kinsky to the top spot and has signed Martin Dubravka to back him up. Having Vicario stick around would be AWK-ward, so I fully expect him to leave this summer, whether it’s to Juventus or somewhere else in Italy.

The possibility of a loan doesn’t bother me. A purchase obligation would be better than an option, and it’s unlikely we’ll get our full valuation out of Elmo’s eventual sale, but that’s okay. He needs to go. He wants to go. And if a loan is the best way to facilitate that, then that’s fine with me too.

The officiating at this World Cup has been… well, “good” maybe isn’t the right word, but “consistent” is probably closer. There’s been a clear directive to call fewer fouls and issue fewer cards (except, of course, for Michael Oliver) so that there aren’t suspensions later in the tournament. But I’ll be glad to see the back of Paraguay in this competition. They played one of the most cynical and awful matches against France, playing ultra-deep defensive sufferball and fouling the crap out of France’s forward, and the ref let them. It was a disgraceful performance from both Paraguay and the match official. I’m hardly a France supporter but I was glad they won.

It’s not that Canada was BAD. They actually won the xG battle against Morocco, outshot them and had more touches in the box, by a lot. It’s that Canada wasn’t clinical in finishing their chances, especially early in the match and Morocco eventually just wore them down. The first host to exit the tournament.

I’ve said everything I wanted to about this match in the article intro. One of the most perverse and cynical matches, and referee performances, I’ve seen in a long time.

I mentioned this yesterday in an article that was talking mostly about Eli Junior Kroupi, but Portugal international and AC Milan wide forward Rafael Leao is linked with a potential move to Tottenham Hotspur. His agent, Jorge Mendes, is apparently working feverishly to get his client out of Milan and to the Premier League, and he’s been offered to Spurs as an escape hatch.

According to two Italian media sources — Corriere della Sera and Gazzetta dello Sport (as reported by SportWitness) Mendes has offered Leao to Tottenham twice, and Spurs having him on a list along with Kroupi and Manchester City’s Savinho. Milan are said to value Leao at €60m (£51.5m), which means Spurs can probably negotiate that down a bit, and Mendes is also open to the possibility of a loan plus obligation deal for his client. There’s the thought that if Spurs wait until closer to the end of the window they might be able to get Leao for an even bigger discount.

Rafael Leao is one of the more absurdly talented players in Europe. He’s no longer a young guy — he’s 27 now — but on his day he has skills and abilities that make him incredibly exciting. He’s an exceptional dribbler and has the ability to both score and assist teammates, when he’s on his game. The problem with Leao is that he has flaws equal to his skills, and those mostly involve concerns about his motivation and work rate. He’s coming off of a down year at Milan (referred to in the article as “a shadow of himself”) and has never scored double-digit goals since the 2022-23 season when he tallied 15G+8A. That could be just his lack of motivation after many years at Madrid, and his desire to get a fresh start. But it’s a somewhat troubling pattern.

Look, when Leao is on, he is ON. We saw glimpses of that just last night as he assisted Gonçalo Ramos with a lovely cross into the box for what turned out to be the winning goal over Croatia in the World Cup. But there are real concerns about his downsides, he can be an exceptionally frustrating player to watch, and I’m really unsure what the balance is between his reported transfer fee and those downsides. He’d also be taking a step up in competition by moving from Serie A to the Premier League. Maybe that, plus Roberto De Zerbi, is enough to motivate him into finally evolving into his enhanced Pokemon form, but it’s a risk.

That said, Spurs are the kind of club that can, and maybe should, take a chance on a player like Leao. Both he and Milan are ready for a separation, but SportWitness says at present the only real interest in him is coming from Turkey, and he’s not interested. Would I take him over someone like Kroupi or Savinho? Boy, I dunno. It might depend on the price. There are tremendous upsides to signing him and it’s a high profile transfer, but a move like that could also backfire spectacularly and I have no idea which way it might go, if not both.

To be fair, there aren’t many indications that Spurs are seriously considering making an offer for Leao at the moment, but he apparently IS on a list of possibilities. It might take some time to figure out which direction Spurs wants to go and whether they think they can fix him, or if it’s better to go after someone young with potential like Kroupi and Savinho.

Dear COYS,

I am writing this message with heartfelt gratitude for all the kindness and support you have always shown me throughout my time at this special club.

Representing Tottenham has had a profound impact on my life, not only professionally but also personally, and it is something I will carry with me forever.

I always tried to repay, in the best way I could, all the affection, respect and trust you showed me, both on and off the pitch.

As I have said before, what truly defines a great institution and a great football club is its supporters. Players, managers and directors come and go, but the fans remain. You are the ones who keep the flame of this club burning, season after season.

I could not leave without expressing my special thanks to my teammates, the club’s directors, the fitness coaches, the entire medical staff, and especially my dear Alessandra Massimi.

London gave me more than a professional career, it gave me two homes that I will always carry in my heart.

With the utmost respect and gratitude, I say goodbye to all of you.

Thank you so much COYS 🤍

good morning and welcome to another edition of What are you reading right now?, where your hoddler-in-chief takes the literary temperature of cartilage free captain.

A lot has changed since I last hosted this feature. The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis has come and gone. I even read another book in-between posts.

That book was Tokyo Express, a Japanese murder mystery housed in a slender novel that relied on the fastidious train schedules of post-war Japan. It was a fun read after some heavy lifting earlier this year. It essentially cast doubt on a double suicide along the beach - or was it?

There were genuinely some page-turning moments in there, but now I’m glad that I’ve got my palate cleansed.

And now I’m back to the heavy lifting with Say Nothing, a nonfiction which follows The Troubles in Northern Ireland. It’s been on my bookshelf for years. So long, in fact, that I had it before the Hulu series even existed.

I am reading the book the same time as I’m watching the series. I don’t necessarily think there are any spoilers to be contained because this all happened many, many years ago.

But this does seem like a book I should’ve read by now, and I want to rectify those years of neglect with some thorough page-turning in the coming weeks.

As always, feel free to share some of the things you’re reading - and have a happy and safe 4th weekend.

Fitzie’s track of the day: We’re an American Band, by Grand Funk Railroad

And now for your links:

The Athletic ($$): “How will Mateus Fernandes fit in at Spurs, and could De Zerbi ask him to emulate a former player?”