Cartilage Free Captain

OK, I do this after every window as it’s a nice way of getting a bird’s eye overview of how things have gone in the transfer window that has now completed. Not going to sugarcoat it much — for the men’s team, it’s pretty grim. It’s SUBSTANTIALLY less grim on the women’s side of the equation, but we’ll get to that.

Anyway, the January 2026 transfer window has now SLAMMED SHUT and we can now bring you every move Spurs have made. There’s one outstanding deal that will probably get confirmed soon — 18-year-old Scottish striker James Wilson is expected to complete an initial loan from Heart of Midlothian to Tottenham’s U21 squad, and I understand there is likely a purchase obligation that kicks in in June. But we’ll post that when it’s official.

In news that will surprise precisely no one, according to Matt Law in the Telegraph transfer tracker, Spurs will not be adding any significant new signings to the first team with what’s left of the window. As of the time of this article’s posting, there is less than an hour before the window slams shut.

Here’s the relevant short post from Law:

Never say never, but the chances of Tottenham pulling a deadline day rabbit out of the bag are currently rated as unlikely. Spurs have dismissed any suggestion of making a dramatic late move for either Jhon Duran or Moussa Diaby, which means Randal Kolo Muani and Mathys Tel may have to stay put.

Oho, but what about 18-year-old Hearts striker James Wilson? That seems to be going through, take THAT Latt Maw!

But seriously, it doesn’t look like any of the proposed moves — Moussa Diaby, Jhon Duran, Maghnes Akliouche, is going to come to pass. We might nibble around the edges — see James Wilson or any number of youth loans — but this sure does look like it’s shaping up to be the quietest transfer deadline day in recent memory.

Feel free to growl about this in the comments, I won’t stop you.

It’s no secret that Randal Kolo Muani’s agents have been working overtime to get him out of Spurs and potentially to Juventus on loan. Italian sources have been practically slobbering over that possibility for the past couple of weeks, but it always felt like Juventus trying feverishly to make “fetch” happen — because for RKM to move to Juventus would require the agreement of both Tottenham Hotspur, where he’s currently on loan, and PSG, who are still pissed off at Juventus for failing to sign Kolo Muani this past summer.

So imagine our surprise — here’s a report from Fabrice Hawkins in France saying that ol’ Randy Kilo Miami is sticking around until at least the conclusion of his Spurs loan. Suck it, Juventus.

This might disappoint some of you who think Randy sucks and that Spurs can and should do better. And it might be a suggestion that Spurs aren’t close to bringing in another wide attacker to supplement Kolo Muani today. But we don’t know that yet. Kolo Muani certainly hasn’t been the impact player we thought we were getting when Spurs signed him on loan on transfer deadline day this past July. But he is a warm body, and getting rid of a warm body in the middle of an injury crisis doesn’t make much sense unless we replace him with another player. No signs of that happening yet.

It’s not the attacking reinforcement we expected, but it is (potentially) a signing? Reports from Sky suggest that Tottenham are set to GAZUMP Arsenal for the signing of 18-year-old Scottish striker James Wilson from SPL side Heart of Midlothian.

Oh, James Wilson? That guy? I’ve TOTALLY heard of him (I have not heard of him and neither have you). He’s 18, has only just broken into the Hearts first team, but he’s apparently talented and could be a very good pickup in a couple of years. The Sky Guy in that tweet makes it clear that Wilson would be signed for the U21s, which suggests he might need a couple of years out on loan before he becomes an option for Tottenham’s first team.

Arsenal are said to have been working on a loan deal for Wilson, and that seems to also be what Spurs are trying to do — a loan this spring with an obligation to buy in June when the transfer window opens up. Gotta love a good Spurs GAZUMPing, even if it’s not a done deal quite yet. It’s also clear from that video that the Sky Sports commentary team have no idea who this kid is. LOL and also LMAO.

This would be a deal that is more likely to cause exasperated yelling in the comments than anything that actually moves the needle, but hey, Spurs should always be on the lookout for talented youth, so this would be fine by me?

More Inaction Is Actually news — According to Tom Barclay, Tottenham Hotspur will not be making a move for Monaco’s Maghnes Akliouche with what’s left in the January transfer window.

Barclay writes for the S-n (I know, I know) but he’s one of the more reliable Tottenham reporters so I’m inclined to believe this is a thing. I don’t LIKE that it’s a thing, but it’s probably accurate.

To be fair, Akliouche is a Xavi Simons analogue and Spurs were reportedly very interested in him in the summer. Frankly I think that having Akliouche would be a good thing, but it’s also easy to forget that Spurs also have Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison who will, one surmises, eventually both get healthy and start contributing to Tottenham again at some point. When that point is, who knows.

Anyway, Akliouche’s stats have taken a hit this season from last year, but Monaco are also something of a hot mess so maybe that’s not surprising. Monaco just agreed to sign Simon Adingra from Sunderland, but that doesn’t seem to be an indicator that they’re willing to let Akliouche go.

More youth loans, you say? More youth loans, I affirm. According to Alasdair Gold, Tottenham Hotspur is looking for a new temporary home for a couple of its academy graduates — George Abbott and Alfie Dorrington. Both Abbott and Dorrington were on loan in the fall at Wycombe Wanderers and Aberdeen respectively, and both were recalled earlier this month. Abbott in particular had struggled with injuries when he first started at Wycombe and then wasn’t able to settle in the squad, while Dorrington only made 10 appearances for Aberdeen — six in the league and four in the Conference League.

Gold writes that Abbott could head to League One side Mansfield Town, where Oliver Irow is currently on loan, and Dorrington is close to an agreement to head to League Two side Salford City. Gotta say I’m not wild about Dorrington landing in League Two after a couple of stints at Aberdeen, but it’s probably better than U21 football at this stage in his career. But it’s not very promising for a 20-year-old. Abbott, by contrast, probably just needs minutes, and League One/Champo is probably his ceiling.

Gold mentions a few other youth players that may or may not head out on loan, but with the injury crisis being what it is, some of them have been bench regulars lately. So we’ll see.

So mabye this won’t be as quiet a day as we thought. According to Miguel Delaney writing in the Independent’s transfer tracker, Tottenham are “working” on deals to sign former Villa attacker Jhon Duran, presently at Fenerbahce on loan from Al-Nassr, and Al-Ittihad winger Moussa Diaby.

We wrote about Diaby last week and I thought it seemed like a decent idea. Jhon Duran has been floating around the more specious corners of the internet, but it’s an interesting idea. Interesting in that Duran is also a former Aston Villa winger who moved on to Saudi Arabia and now wants out shortly after arrival. (That seems to be a pattern, and I’m not sure if it’s due to dissatisfaction with life in the Kingdom or if it’s that they got their fuck-you money in the bank and are ready to return to real football. Either way it could turn out to Spurs’ advantage.

The report is one paragraph long and doesn’t have any details, so we don’t know how much either would cost, whether they’d agree to come, or whether this is an either/or or both kind of situation. But it’s a nugget of, dare I say it, positivity? Maybe? Perhaps?

There is bad news in that same report — Spurs are also very interested (again) in bringing Monaco attacking midfielder Maghnes Akliouche to North London this window, but Monaco don’t want him to leave without finding a replacement. So we’ll see about that one.

Another article where inaction equals news! Hopefully there won’t be too many of these, right?

Anyway, a lot of fans have been curious about Tottenham Hotspur’s 18 year old Irish striker phenom Mason Melia who joined the club on January 1. Mostly we were wondering about whether or not he’d head straight out on loan, since the leap from excelling in the Irish Premier League to being a viable player in the English Premier League is massive.

Well, according to Alasdair Gold, the decision has been made to keep him around. Gold is reporting that Melia will stay at Spurs this spring.

Gold writes that Melia arrived at Spurs nursing a minor back injury which he had managed at St. Patricks’ Athletic in the fall. That isn’t expected to bother him too much but rather than send him straight out on loan Spurs want to keep him this spring, heal him up proper, and get him eventually into first team training.

This would seem to fill the role of a young striker training with Spurs but not really doing anything role that was recently vacated by Dane Scarlett, now on loan. To be fair, Melia likely will get more U21 matches than he will first team minutes unless the injury crisis becomes even more catastrophic, and even then there’s no way he’s ready. But training with the first team and getting PL2 matches will be good for him.

Welcome to transfer deadline day, the best worst best worst day of the transfer window! It could be an exciting day for Tottenham Hotspur fans, or it could be incredibly boring.

Let’s start with the boring. According to The Athletic’s Seb Stafford-Bloor, Antonin Kinsky will NOT be leaving Spurs this window, despite his agent desperately trying to get him to West Ham on loan.

Kinsky looked for a while there like he was not going to be at Tottenham long enough to become Guglielmo Vicario’s successor in goal. In fact, it looked like he was out the door, and still might be this summer, but it wont’ be to West Ham. That’s fine with me. Having to look for a backup keeper replacement in addition to all the other stuff Spurs apparently wanted to do this window (but haven’t) felt like an unnecessary distraction. Summer is the time to make wholesale changes, not now. Makes sense to keep Kinsky Boots around, at least for now.

Well, it’s not the hilarious win over City that I had hoped for, but a nearly equally hilarious 2-2 draw will do just fine. Spurs fought back from a dreadful 2-0 deficit to draw level thanks to a brace from Dom Solanke including a backheel flick finish that could go down as Goal of the Season.

Tottenham as Manchester City’s bogey team continues to be the funniest ongoing bit in soccer. Suck it, Pep. It’s time to rate the players.

Rate the players from 1⁄2 to 5 stars. If the player doesn’t deserve a rating due to minutes played, DO NOT RANK. I will round the stars up/down to the nearest half-star for the player ratings later this week.

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