Cartilage Free Captain

Good morning, dear hoddlers.

You might find this hard to believe, but we’re not far off from another season of Tottenham Hotspur Football. We’ll get more to that latest this week, but first we have to spend a little bit of time on some administrative issues.

Last year I asked you all to let me know what you’d like from the hoddle. Today, I come with the same request.

Here are a handful of regular hoddles we feature:

Look at the month ahead

EFL Championship recap

Look at the lower leagues

Look across Europe (semi-regular)

Pictures from around the league (semi-regular)

What are you reading right now?

Fitzie’s film and tv reviews

Track of the Day

The orchid tales (semi-regular)

Mingus Mondays (semi-retired)

But there’s still plenty more of us to hoddle about - especially with so much change in the air at Tottenham.

So today’s your chance to let me know what you’d like more from the hoddle. What do you want more from the Track of the Day? (NB: Not “less”, so don’t try any funny business).

Anyways, I’ll have a look through to see what new things I can introduce this season. Stay tuned.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Darn That Dream, by Dexter Gordon

And now for your links:

Alasdair Gold: “Daniel Levy’s £60m transfer reaction after Morgan Gibbs-White farce to follow Marinakis example”

The Athletic ($$): “The issues Frank has to solve in Spurs’ pre-season – especially with Gibbs-White signing new Forest deal”

The Telegraph: “Bitter legal threats and personal feud fuelled Nottingham Forest move to keep Morgan Gibbs-White”

BBC: “‘We’ll remember this forever’: England fans jubilant as their heroes win again”

Tottenham Hotspur departed England for Hong Kong today for the first leg of their preseason tour to Asia. The club released the traveling squad on social media, and as you can expect it’s a mixture of first team regulars and up and coming academy grads/U21 squad players.

That said, there are several omissions. The most notable are Destiny Udogie and Mikey Moore. Udogie was a last-second scratch ahead of yesterday’s scoreless preseason friendly draw against Luton Town at Kenilworth Road. Subsequent reporting stated that Udogie “felt something” while in warm-up and the club decided not to take a risk with his fitness. The fact that he is not on the plane suggests whatever injury he picked up might be more serious than first thought.

Udogie’s absence means Spurs don’t really have a natural right back in the squad. I suppose we will see some combination of Ben Davies and Djed Spence on that side in the two upcoming friendlies, or Frank may opt to bring in one of the youth players for substitute minutes. Jamie Donley, for example, has played at that position before, though it isn’t his natural role.

Mikey Moore, meanwhile, has been linked with a loan to several unnamed Championship clubs, with some suggestions that he has been pushing for a loan this season. If he’s absent, it could mean he’s close to securing a loan elsewhere, something that could be good for his development, or he picked up an injury in training that we haven’t heard about (yet).

Elsewhere, Tottenham’s trio of injured players are also staying home. Dejan Kulusevski, Radu Dragusin, and new signing Kota Takai are all at home recovering from injuries. Kulusevski and Dragusin have long term injuries that date back to the end of last season, while Takai either arrived with or picked up an ankle knock in training.

Thankfully, both of Tottenham’s South Korean players, Son Heung-Min and Yang Min-Hyeok, are on the plane, meaning they will be sure and collect the full amount of money promised them for visiting Asia.

Yesterday, Tottenham Hotspur academy graduate and midfielder George Abbott was a last-second replacement for Rodrigo Bentancur in Spurs’ 2-0 preseason friendly win over Wycombe Wanderers at Hotspur Way. Today, the club announced that he has signed a new long-term contract at the club.

The release doesn’t say how long Abbott’s new contract is or what his salary will be, but suffice it to say he’ll be getting a decent bump in pay. Abbott was one of the young Spurs players who had excellent loans last season; he spent the year at Notts County in League Two where he was a regular starter and ended up shortlisted for League Two Young Player of the Season.

I have no idea if Abbott will join players like Oliver Skipp and Harry Winks into the Spurs first team but coming off of last season he’s undoubtedly earned another loan up a division or two. Extending his contract and sending him out again is pretty par for the course when it comes to talented young academy grads; if he raises his profile on loan it boosts his (still unlikely) chances of cracking Spurs’ first team, or getting sold to another club for a decent fee.

Abbott’s been one of the Spurs academy players who has flown under the radar during his career, but he’s showing he’s got a future in the professional game. Good to see him earn a new deal at Spurs.

UPDATE — So I guess I was a little behind on the news. Gibbs-White has apparently signed the new deal through 2028 and Forest have announced it on their social media channels. The Tottenham Hotspur move is now officially off.

Incredible.

I mean, you almost have to laugh. David Ornstein is reporting in the Athletic this afternoon that £60m Tottenham Hotspur transfer target, England international, and Nottingham Forest attacking midfielder Morgan Gibbs-White is now apparently in discussions with Forest over a new and improved contract.

I don’t really need to recap all that’s gone on between Tottenham and Forest over Gibbs-White over the past few weeks, but just in case you’re reading this after coming out of a coma or something, let’s do it. Gibbs-White was the subject of a £60m transfer bid by Tottenham two weeks ago, a figure that, not-so-coincidentally, happened to meet a “super sekkrit” release clause in MGW’s contract. Gibbs-White was apparently keen on the move and a physical was scheduled, only for Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis to throw a hissy-fit, accuse Tottenham of an “illegal approach,” and threaten to report Spurs to the Premier League. It’s not clear whether he actually did that or not, but Spurs have been keeping quiet with the understanding that this was a delay tactic and MGW would be wearing Lilywhite before too long.

Gibbs-White, meanwhile, has kept his head down, reporting for Forest’s warm-weather training trip in Portugal and not demanding his transfer be upheld.

If Gibbs-White were to sign a new contract at Forest, that would pretty much put an end to everything, though one wonders if Spurs would have any recourse to sue or report Forest for meddling. Forest, meanwhile, say Spurs were underhanded on how they were able to discover “confidential details” of Gibbs-White’s contract (spoiler: it was his agent).

It’s a big mess all around.

Now, look — I wasn’t wild about the Gibbs-White purchase to begin with, not because he’s not a good player, but because I didn’t think he was necessarily worth the quoted price when there are comperable or better players available for cheaper. I’ve also long been on the “let’s just move on to other targets” bandwagon once the kerfluffle between Spurs and Forest really kicked off.

But it is ironic that the one time Tottenham actually do “just effing spend the money Levy” they STILL might not get the player they want. Silly season!

Tottenham Hotspur completed its doubleheader day of friendlies with a 0-0 draw at League One side Luton Town this afternoon.

Using a split squad like many Major League Baseball sides do in the lead-up to the grueling 162-game season, Thomas Frank had his own version of this today.

With the first squad taking on Wycombe back at Hotspur Way — a game that resulted in a 2-2 draw — Frank got on the bus with other members of the squad and staff to Kenilworth Road for a 3 p.m. contest with former Premier League foes Luton Town.

Putting forth a strong enough squad that would dictate the pace of the game, Jamie Donley came in last second for Destiny Udogie to fill in the left back role. But, for the majority of the first half, Spurs kept the League One side at bay as Kevin Danso and Mickey van de Ven controlled the backline.

Overall, the match was a snoozer, as neither side really created any dangerous moments, but the bright spots came from the duo of Mohammed Kudus and Mathys Tel. With Kudus playing out on the right and Tel floating around in the striker role to the left wing, the link-up play between the two brought the best attacking moment of the first half. Tel won the ball from a recycled defense and made a turn off his control towards the box. With Kudus running down the middle, Tel chipped a pass past the Luton defender and onto the feet of Kudus, who had his shot cleared off the line.

Antonín Kinský came on for Guglielmo Vicario in the second half to be between the sticks. And as the game progressed in the second half, Frank left his starters on the bench for 60-75 minutes, as he wanted his players to get some key minutes under their belt with the start of the season just weeks away.

The first sub of the match for Spurs came to 16-year-old Junai Byfield, who replaced Danso at right center back. Byfield connected with Tel — who came into a center mid role to call for the ball — who took off with the ball and sprayed a cross the pitch ball to Brennan Johnson out on the left.

As the game continued, Frank made a series of substitutions to allow the academy kids to showcase their skills.

This is how the final 15 minutes looked for Spurs:

Kinksy

Kyerenaten

Roswell

Russell-Denny

Olusesi

Devine

Yang

Donley

Scarlett

Lankshear

In the closing minutes of the contest, Spurs had a chance to bag the winner, but Will Lankshear dragged his shot across the goal a little wide and outside the post.

Spurs now head off to Asia for the final leg of their summer tour, with Spurs taking on Premier League foes Arsenal on July 31st in Hong Kong and Newcastle United on August 3rd in South Korea.

The season is slowly creeping upon us, and although neither Spurs side got the win today, it is all about looking competent in what Thomas Frank is looking to build in his first year in charge.

Filed under:

Tottenham Hotspur Match Reports

Tottenham 2-2 Wycombe: Pape Sarr scores brace in first friendly of doubleheader

Friendlies are about fitness, but there are some takeaways from the first of two preseason matches today.

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A preseason friendly doubleheader? In this economy? Tottenham Hotspur played the first of two preseason matches today, the first a closed door friendly and a late addition to the schedule against League One side Wycombe Wanderers. Pape Sarr had a brace in this one to cancel out two goals from Wycombe winger Junior Quitina in a match that ended up a 2-2 draw. Tottenham’s starting XI, listed below, got between 60-75 minutes of action before Frank shuttled on the U21s.

Friendlies are about fitness not about results, but there are a few things we can glean from a training ground friendly with no fans in attendance. Here are a few reactions from the early match.

Match reactions

I think we got a pretty good sense of how Frank’s going to set up his team from this match. in this one Spurs attacked in a 4-3-3 shape, with Pedro Porro pushing into attack and Ben Davies tucking in alongside Luka Vuskovic and Cuti Romero. Spurs didn’t do a ton of defending in the first half but when they did it was in a back four, with Porro and Davies playing as more traditional wide fullbacks.

Tottenham pressed Wycombe again under Frank, but not as aggressively as we came to see under Postecoglou. As a consequence, the defense didn’t look nearly as exposed as it did at times last season. There’s also opposition effects — this is a League One opponent and a friendly — but it was notable.

The biggest issues I noticed aren’t exactly unfamiliar. With this lineup Spurs are still lacking a creative passing midfielder; Spurs’ two best passers of the ball were in defense (Romero) and attack (Odobert/Son). Gotta hope that’s something still on the mind of Johan Lange in the transfer window.

Related, I don’t know if George Abbott is any good or not but he looked decently tidy out there as a late replacement in the lineup for Rodrigo Bentancur, who was out ill. Abbott had 33 matches and 4 goals on loan at League 2 Notts County last season; he’s probably earned another loan and a step up in competition.

Odobert looked really really bright in the first half on the right, not his preferred side. Had several good crosses, some cuts central into space, and a couple of good looks on goal including what turned out to be Sarr’s first goal.

Brandon Austin is living a charmed life. I’m convinced he’s not a very good keeper but he is indispensable due to him being the only club-trained player at Spurs right now, so he’ll be on lots of Champions League benches. Anyway, Quitirna’s first goal was a real howler by Austin; it bobbled a bit at his feet but he 100% should’ve saved that.

Richarlison looked fairly decent in his first action of preseason. He held the ball up well, had some good passing moments. I wanted to see more on the offensive end from him — he scuffed one shot and missed a half-chance in the air. Nice that there was an ambulance pitch-side for this one in the event his hamstring exploded again.

Luka Vuskovic continues to be Very Large™. He was not as impactful in this match, but Wycombe barely mustered any attack despite scoring two goals. Vuskovich “Pavlyuchenko’d” a shot late in the first half that might have ended up on the M25.

Cuti Romero did a Cuti thing in the second half and threw an elbow on a Wycombe attacker who was grappling with him for the ball. Would’ve been an easy yellow card in a competitive match, and Romero needs to be careful in those kinds of situations.

Pedro Porro caught a stray limb to the head that flattened him and made him bleed his own blood. Dude looked extremely pissed off from that moment until his eventual substitution at 75’. Anyway, he was good today overall.

As promised, Frank made a raft of changes in the second half. Tynan Thompson and Oliver Iroh came on at about 60’ and then a raft of changes at 75’, too many to mention but Spurs were basically a U21 side after that. 17-year-old Thompson was actually a pretty bright spark in his sub appearance — went close on a shot late and looked to be tidy on the ball as a sub for Odobert.

Not much time to make an impact, but I didn’t see anything especially noteworthy otherwise from the kids.

The team is now on a bus and heading to Luton for the second friendly of today’s double-header. See y’all back on SpursPLAY for Game 2!

Most of the time transfer rumors are fun, and cool. Sometimes they’re a bit of a drag, or they just make no damn sense. Like this one — according to the Telegraph, Tottenham Hotspur are working on signing 30-year old Bayern Munich defensive midfielder Joao Palhinha on a permanent transfer.

Look, I’m not going to hide my feelings about this rumor or sugarcoat it — this is dumb and a bad idea, and I would feel pretty disheartened about Tottenham’s entire recruitment structure if this turns out to be true. Yes, Palhinha is a true defensive midfielder destroyer, a desperate need in the squad last season under Ange Postecoglou, and one of the roles that everyone has been clamoring for in this offseason. Yes, he was pretty good when he played at Fulham a couple of seasons ago. If we were interested in signing the 27-year-old Palhinha that played at Fulham, that might change the calculus for me.

But Palhinha is 30, just moved to Bayern last season for £42m, and they are now apparently desperate to get rid of him after just one year in Munich, mostly because he’s been pretty much crocked since the moment he set foot in Germany. Palhinha played less than 1000 minutes and had just six league starts for Bayern last season in all competitions while dealing with numerous injuries, and he’s only getting older. Signing Palhinha would also likely mean one or both of Yves Bissouma or Rodrigo Bentancur are out of the club, and while I agree both of them should probably be sold trading in one or two 27-year-old midfielders for a crocked 30-year-old midfielder doesn’t feel like a particularly smart move.

Even he’s on form, Palhinha is a limited player — a good tackler, but he doesn’t do much beyond that, and he’s already heading into his declining years as a midfielder. A loan would be one thing, but Joao Palhinha is not Luka Modric — signing him to a multi-year permanent contract would not only be a dramatic shift from Spurs’ past transfer dealings but likely a fairly expensive one unless Bayern are so desperate to get him out that they’re willing to eat a lot of shit on his transfer fee with three years left on his contract. Palhinho is said to be on wages of about £170k/wk, instantly making him one of Tottenham’s top earners.

I hate this rumor and I hope it’s just Palhinha’s agent trying to drum up a market for him.

Ready for some more outgoing Tottenham Hotspur transfer rumors? Here’s one. According to the Mirror’s transfer tracker, Alfie Devine is a target for Championship club Millwall. No one likes them, they don’t care; they’ll happily snaffle up whatever talent keeps them in the Championship and hanging around the promotion playoff spots. Last season Millwall finished eighth.

The report doesn’t say, but I’d have to think that any move for Devine would be on loan. Alfie’s initial contract runs through 2027, so if he does head back out that makes next summer a pretty pivotal one, with the club needing to make a decision to either offer him a new deal or sell him. Who knows whether the club actually wants to offload him; we might get more clarity after this weekend’s friendly double-header against Wycombe Wanderers and Luton Town.

Devine did well on loan in Belgium with Westerlo, so a Championship loan feels like a good next step. We’ll see what happens.

If there’s one league in the United States that we might have some marginal knowledge of, it’s the USL Championship. This league is the second-tier of professional football after the MLS, although there’s no promotion/relegation system.

A good question to ask is: Why should we care?

I don’t know if you should, unless you live in close proximity to El Paso Locomotive FC or any of the other 23 teams in the league.

I simply became intrigued by it because of Orange County FC, which is currently eighth place in the Western Conference. This would technically would have been my “local club” when I grew up. It was founded in 1998 (who knew!) as Los Angeles Blues.

There are two conferences in the USL Championship: the aforementioned Western Conference and the Eastern Conference. Both are split into 12 teams, with the top eight advancing to the playoffs. That seems excessive.

It looks like they’re about halfway into the season. Here are the top four teams in each conference.

East: Charleston Battery, Louisville City FC, Louodon United FC, North Carolina FC

West: FC Tulsa, San Antonio FC, New Mexico United, Sacramento Republic FC.

I gotta say - it’s pretty bold to suggest an entire state like New Mexico is united around this one second-tier football club.

And if you’re asking where the defending champion Colorado Switchbacks FC are in the standings, I’ll tell ya: They’re in LAST.

Fitzie’s track of the day: How to Fight Loneliness, by Wilco

And now for your links:

The Athletic ($$): “The homegrown rule that will cost some Spurs players a place in the Champions League”

The Guardian: “Spain to face England in Euro 2025 final after Bonmatí’s extra-time strike sinks Germany”

Sky Sports: “Hugo Ekitike joins Liverpool: Eintracht Frankfurt striker completes £79m transfer to Premier League champions”

The stories about Son Heung-Min’s Tottenham Hotspur future aren’t going to go away anytime soon. Already this summer we’ve seen rumors that he’s open to leaving Spurs for another challenge, and we’ve seen reports that say he’s more likely to stay at Spurs for at least another season, possibly longer.

So let’s throw another log on the fire, shall we? Paul Tenorio, a senior soccer editor at The Athletic, is now reporting that MLS side Los Angeles FC are “pushing hard” to bring Sonny in this summer, but the decision will ultimately be decided by Son and Spurs.

We’ve written before on how LAFC wouldn’t be the worst place for Sonny to spend his twilight years. It’s a large metropolitan city with a big Korean population. It’s a marginally shorter flight back to Korea for international duty, and it’s a place where Son would do well and enjoy a pleasant lifestyle. LAFC have a Designated Player spot held for Sonny should he decide to take them up on the offer, meaning they could afford a decent transfer fee should they want to pony up the dough. Also Son could play against Lionel Messi a couple of times a season. There’s a lot to like there!

That said, the MLS record transfer is $22m, and people who watch a lot more MLS than me have said that LAFC typically only bring in players that they can later move on for profits. Their record transfer cost $11m. Adding an aging superstar in Son Heung-Min would be a definite shift for them — not that it wouldn’t happen, just that it’d be a change, and it’s unlikely they’ll want to break the bank for him. Even with one year left on his contract, I’d hazard a guess that Spurs would want more than £8m for their club captain and one of the best players in club history.

The report says that nothing is close to finished, just that LAFC want Son pretty badly. I bet they do! Anything is possible and I wouldn’t completely rule out an exit, but to me it feels like a January departure to LA (or elsewhere) is more likely — it’s the start of the MLS season, and it would give Tottenham a chance to find out if Sonny’s still got the juice and is willing to sign a new contract to keep him at Spurs, or not.

We’ve vacillated wildly on the will-he-or-won’t-we spectrum over the past month or so, and I think that pendulum will continue to swing until we get a definitive idea of what Sonny wants to do. I suspect not even he knows that yet.