Cartilage Free Captain

Well, after nearly a month of nothing but low-level Tottenham Hotspur transfer rumor slop, it feels as though the Bat Country heavens have opened up. Fresh on the heels of the Mathys Tel rumor comes another one from Santi Aouna that says Spurs have “opened talks” with Brentford over a move for striker Yoane Wissa.

Aouna’s one of the more reliable transfer mongers out there, so that makes this particularly interesting. Wissa is having a nice season with the Bees with 11 goals and 2 assists in just over 1500 minutes of action this season. The Congolese striker is 28 now — not exactly a spring chicken — but he’s pretty good, with 0.67 npxG+xA/90, the highest of his career. He has 18 months left on his Brentford contract, so his value is very unlikely to get any higher and probably will drop further this summer. That might entice Brentford, who don’t have a ton to play for yet this season, to sell.

Wissa’s a warm body up top, but a pretty decent warm body at that. He’d be a capable replacement for Richarlison in the unlikely event Spurs move him to the Saudi Pro League this week, or just good rotation until Dom Solanke comes back.

It’s a rumor, and we know about how rumors tend to go. I’m not going to tell you that this is going to happen. But it does strike me as a plausible target Spurs could be looking at up top this month, along with Tel.

Potentially exciting news if you like transfer rumor slop — according to multiple sources, Tottenham Hotspur is one of several clubs interested in a loan or purchase of Bayern Munich striker Mathys Tel.

BILD (via SportWitness) reports that Tel, who has only made eight Bundesliga appearances for Bayern this season, has changed his mind and wants to leave the club in January, and Bayern is currently scrambling to find a new club for him. BILD also says he “doesn’t want to join Chelsea” (lol) because he sees the Blues as too congested at his position for reliable minutes.

Buddy, can I interest you in a club with 12 injured first team players?

We know already that Tel’s name came up in talks when Spurs were negotiating with Bayern for the sale of Harry Kane, so he’s a name that has been on Spurs’ radar for a while now. It’s not clear whether this would be an outright sale, a “dry” or a “wet” loan, or even if Spurs are actually interested. BILD notes that Manchester United and Arsenal are also clubs with an interest in bringing in Tel. Writing in the Telegraph (£), Matt Law seems to corroborate reports that Spurs are interested and open to talks, but only mentions Chelsea as an alternate option.

Sky Germany, meanwhile, write that United’s interest is precipitated on the club moving either Alejandro Garnacho or Marcus Rashford first, which... well. Marseille is also reportedly interested, which might interest a French striker looking for minutes. Even so, United being dumb would seem to provide an opening for Spurs to slip in with a bid. Arsenal’s rumored interest is a complicating factor, as they’re also looking for a front line option in this window after losing Bukayo Saka and Gabrial Jesus to injury.

Tel’s a player who can operate as either a wide or central forward, has decent statistics, and is only 19 years old. He’s not breaking through at Bayern right now but that doesn’t mean he’s not a good player or that he couldn’t do a job for Spurs. I’m extremely interested in Tel, though obviously this doesn’t mean a move is imminent or even likely. It’s been that kind of window.

Rumors abounded over the last 24 hours on social media that new Tottenham Hotspur youngster Yang Min-hyeok was destined for a loan stint, and we finally have something from a reasonable source. Alasdair Gold is reporting that the South Korean teenager is headed to the Championship for the rest of the season:

Queens Park Rangers are the lucky landing spot for Yang, reportedly beating out a number of other clubs both in the Championship and overseas for the winner of the K League’s Young Player of the Year award.

A stint in the Championship is probably a sensible move for Yang. Talent aside (and he is talented), the intensity of the Premier League will be a huge step up for him, and some time lower down the English footballing pyramid will help him adapt to the increased physicality required. As for QPR, they are not a bad place for Yang to head; in midtable, they’re reasonably safe from the threat of relegation but still and outside chance at reaching the promotion spots - meaning they will be willing to take risks on younger players in the hopes of climbing the ladder.

Gold also mentions this could mean Spurs are lining up another attacking signing, which... well, the saying goes that hope deferred makes the heart sick, and I am nigh on my deathbed right now. Maybe, though, just maybe, there’s a nugget of truth to Gold’s suggestion?

From the sounds of things, this could be made official very soon, so keep an eye out!

We’re almost at the end of the month, which means it’s just about time to check in on the Championship and what the next month has in store for Tottenham (hopefully unrelated to the Championship.). But before that, let’s take a look at the next three levels in the English football pyramid:

EFL League One

I know Wrexham are the darlings of the EFL right now with their back-to-back-to-back promotion still in play, but Leyton Orient is the story you should be most invested in. For starters, their badge is killer. Second, of course, is that connection to Spurs.

And this is Jamie Donley, currently on loan at the club. He’s made a really good impression at the club so far, and here’s to hoping he helps push them further into the playoff spots.

Top six:

Bottom four:

EFL League Two

I’m just here for AFC Wimbledon. Would love to see this club get promoted. I had actually convinced a friend of mine to attend one of their games when he visited London earlier this month (Wimbledon won 2-0).

Top seven:

Bottom two:

National League

Look at that - North London’s very own Barnet are top of the league! They are in a three-horse race with Forest Green and York City for title and automatic promotion. The other two will be consigned to the playoffs.

Top three:

Fitzie’s track of the day: Messy, by Lola Young

And now for your links:

The Athletic ($$): “How Tottenham Hotspur have gone from Big Six to the bottom six”

Football London: “Daniel Levy’s real £222m issue laid bare as Premier League rivals leave Tottenham behind”

Dan KP: “Tottenham’s transfer failure constitutes negligence, incompetence or both”

BBC: “Leicester City helicopter crash ruled an accident”

Hello Tottenham Hotspur fans. Sunday was a bad game. We’ve had a bunch of those lately. Let’s not dwell on it too much, because we’ve been having circular arguments about Ange Postecoglou’s future, the injury crisis, the fixture congestion, and Daniel Levy for two months now.

Instead, I have some good news to share with you. I have shared in the comments about my Stage IV colon cancer diagnosis earlier this year, though I’ve tried not to make a big deal out of it. (There’s a Caring Bridge blog in my name if you’re curious.) I’m very pleased however to report that after two surgeries and several months of treatment I have completed my full course of chemotherapy. I have a scan in two weeks, and if that comes back clear (and it’s expected it will), I am officially in remission and monitoring for the next five years.

I’ve said this before, but the main advice I have for people is to stay up to date with their preventative medicine to the extent that you’re able. Don’t put off your colonoscopies when it’s time — my initial tumor was caught on my very first colonoscopy, and it likely saved my life. Colon cancer in particular is on the rise among men and women, and it can also target younger people as well. But it’s also significantly more treatable than even five years ago.

And speaking of colonoscopies, I’m quite familiar with them now, and especially the dreaded “prep day.” If you’ve ever done one, you’ll know you get acutely familiar with Gatorade the day before the procedure. I’ve done enough bowel prep now that I have some TAKES on the various Gatorade colors and flavors available.

So here are your Tottenham Hotspur player ratings for their home loss to Leicester, to the theme of Gatorade colors.

This is pretty clearly the Basic Bitch Choice™ and I acknowledge that, but honestly there aren’t many better choices than your basic orange flavor. Orange is one of the artificial fruit flavors that most closely mimics the real thing, or is at least palatable, and importantly you can use it for prep day if it doesn’t have any red dye in it. I’ll also give a quick shout-out to the mango and citrus cooler flavors, somewhat hard to find but worth seeking out if you’re drinking a gallon of the stuff. Or even if you aren’t.

LOL there are no Spurs players here, are you nuts?

It’s really hard to go wrong with a fruit punch flavored drink because the flavor is so ubiquitous and everyone seems to love it. I’m the same way. The irony is that you can’t drink it when doing bowel prep (red, blue and purple have dyes in it that interfere with scans). Speaking of red Gatorade, there’s apparently a mythical strawberry flavor that I have yet to see in the wild.

Lucas Bergvall (Community — 3.0): This is probably overrating him a bit due to the match context, but screw it — Lucas was pretty darn good on a day when few Spurs players were. A small bright spot from this disasterclass is that Bergvall continues to get important developmental minutes. Think he’s going to break out next season.

Richarlison (Community — 3.0): Good, tricky header for Spurs’ goal and clattered the post after. Shame about the groin, but it’s good to see him back out there.

This is the classic Gatorade flavor and color, and one of the two original flavors back when it was a drink mix and not available at literally every convenience store. It’s fine. Not the first thing I reach for but also not terrible, and you can drink lots of it without hating yourself or the company afterwards.

Antonin Kinsky (Community — 2.5): I don’t blame him too much for either goal, especially the first, which seemed to take a skip off the turf before he could get it. Had a lovely pass from deep that set up a big chance.

Archie Gray (Community — 3.0): Was worried about his hamstring when I saw him at LB but he did okay against Ayew and Justin. A little less effective when moved to CM.

Dejan Kulusevski (Community — 2.5): God love him, he’s trying but it’s clear he’s got very little left in the tank right now.

Son Heung-Min (Community — 2.5): Forced two quality Leicester saves, but he dropped off considerably in the second half. Fatigue? Probably. At least his minutes are kind of being managed.

Mikey Moore (Community — 2.5): Looked to be one of Spurs’ more creative players on the day, but that’s a tough ask for a 17-year old kid.

Sergio Reguilon (Community — 2.5): He was fine, I guess. At least he can run.

There are precious few things that are blue in nature, and for that reason I’ve usually steered clear of blue flavored drinks. Nine times out of ten they’re some variation of blue raspberry, a flavor I have bounced off of since childhood. Not a huge fan of the purple flavors either, as artificial grape always reminds me of Dimetapp and being sick as a seven year old.

Pedro Porro (Community — 2.0): Got the assist for Richarlison, but at least partially at fault for both Leciester goals. Might have made up for it on the offensive end but squandered two good chances by taking shots that hit side netting instead of squaring to teammates. Overall: bad game.

Radu Dragusin (Community — 2.0): Hung out to dry by Porro on the first goal, but was again loose passing out from the back.

Ben Davies (Community — 2.0): Gave El-Khannous way too much space for Leicester’s second goal. An uncharacteristic less-than-solid performance from Gentle Ben.

Rodrigo Bentancur (Community — 2.0): God, he was bad. Loose passing, bad tackles, no real chance creation. Awful performance.

Pape Sarr (Community — 2.0): Awful, but then again he was injured and according to Ange shouldn’t have been playing at all. Kinda hard to blame Pape for that.

Ange Postecoglou (Community — 2.0): I know, it’s hard to succeed with two hands tied behind your back, but still, one point from two games against Leicester this season should never be acceptable. And also Ange — you had Lankshear right there.

I made the mistake of buying a six pack of this ahead of my initial bowel surgery prep (gotta mix things up, right?), and it’s the worst, like the absolute most garbage cheap-ass Great Value brand cherry-lime cough syrup. It’s also visually dis-congruous — who makes white things taste like artificial cherries? I’d rather eat cherry Chap-Stick. I had to choke this down and have now sworn off the stuff forever. The hardest of passes.

No Tottenham players were as bad as white Glacier Cherry Gatorade.

Tom Carroll Memorial Non-Rating:

Did you really think I’d miss an opportunity to talk about 2025 Australian Open champion Maddison Keys?

I have followed her career for so long, from her debut at the 2013 Australian Open to her crushing defeat to Sloane Stephens in the 2017 US Open final.

Anyone who watches Maddison Keys play knows how hard she hits the ball. Few on the tour have as big a forehand or backhand as her, and she’s got a powerful serve too. But others will also point out that she frequently crumbled when facing the biggest moments in her career (too many major quarterfinals and semifinals to count).

And then Keys put in one of the greatest runs this sport has ever seen, defeating World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3 2-6 7-5 in the final, outhitting the hardest-hitting player in the WTA.

That came after wins against world No. 2 Iga Swiatek, No. 28 Elena Svitolina, No. 6 Elena Rybakina and No. 10 Danielle Collins. Her average opponent was ranked somewhere between 12.3, making this the toughest stretch for a major champion in modern history.

For Keys, a protoge of Lindsey Davenport, the biggest factor was a change in mindset. During her post-match presser, Keys said she learnt to be happy with a career that didn’t hinge on winning a major.

We saw that freedom with which she played not just in this fortnight, but in her warm-up tournament as well. defeating World No. 6 Jessica Pegula in the final of the Adelaide International.

That means Keys is 5-0 against top 10 players this year (4-0 during the Aussie Open) as she reclaims her career-high ranking of 7. I couldn’t be more thrilled to see Keys lift the trophy on the same stage where she made her breakthrough more than a decade ago. It’s long overdue.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Who Needs You?, by Queen

And now for your links:

Dan KP: “Tottenham ARE in a relegation fight and history shows Daniel Levy should be worried”

Alasdair Gold: “What Ange Postecoglou needs this week to save his Tottenham job”

The Guardian: “Levy wants under-fire Postecoglou to plot course through Spurs’ storm”

Jay Harris ($$): “How long can Tottenham let this go on for?”

BBC: “Referee Coote hid sexuality for fear of abuse”

There’s not a ton of Tottenham Hotspur transfer slop coming out at the moment, much to everyone’s extreme chagrin. But we do have some crumbs of rumors that have fallen from the Great Bat Country Transfer Table, courtesy of our good buddy Matt Law.

Writing in the Telegraph, Law is basically the first real journalist to confirm Tottenham’s long-rumored interest in Southampton’s 18-year old winger Tyler Dibling, and also notes that the club is looking at fellow Brit and Lille midfielder Angel Gomes.

That’s the good news! The bad news is that while Spurs have been in negotiations for both players, it’s more likely that both/either would come in the summer as opposed to this month.

Let’s start with Dibling — he’s been one of the few bright spots for Southampton in this dismal campaign. He’s been a regular starter on the wing for Soton and has 20 appearances and two goals in just over 1200 minutes. Not bad for an 18-year old, though Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall can ask him to hold their beers.

Dibling is one of those “could explode in the future” signings, but his profile is absolutely one that Spurs have coveted since Ange Postecoglou joined the club. He’s a speedy, ball-carrying winger with just under 4 progressive carries/90 and more than two successful take-ons/90. He’s young and a little inconsistent, but appears to be the dribbly boi profile that we’ve needed (and that, for all his goal scoring ability, Brennan Johnson is not).

Angel Gomes, 24, is one of the young English stars that got away — he was a member of the England squad that won the U17 World Cup back in 2019, along with such players as Jadon Sancho, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Marc Guehi, Morgan Gibbs-White, and Phil Foden. A United academy graduate, he moved to Lille in 2020 and started to break through last season with eight assists. He profiles as more of a “floaty, passy 8/10 hybrid” and he’s not a large guy at 5’6”, but he’s definitely got some passing and creative skills in his locker. His “Similar Players To” profile on FBRef is a who’s who of excellent creators, including Ilkay Gundoguan, Luka Modric, Joshua Kimmich, Phil Foden, and Martin Ødegaard. And at age 24, he’s right in the sweet spot for potential production. Consider me intrigued.

According to Law, neither player looks likely this month, but locking down two potentially impactful players for the summer now would still be good business. And Law does state that while the January window has been “extremely challenging” for Spurs, that the club wants to bring in at least one player to help ease Postecoglou’s immediate crisis. We’ll see about that. But the above moves certainly look promising.

Look, let’s not pretend that things are rosy and peachy-keen at Tottenham Hotspur. They are not. The club is on a historic bad patch, currently its worst Premier League season EVER, and just lost at home to a team in the relegation zone. Spurs are decimated by injuries, and the surviving players are so exhausted from playing two matches a week that they can’t last 90 minutes without keeling over. The club has also gone to the last week of the transfer window without adding significant reinforcements to the squad, with the exception of keeper Antonin Kinsky.

It’s real bad. And as we’ve seen, there’s a deep divide in the fanbase as to who’s to blame: Ange Postecoglou? Daniel Levy? Johan Lange and his team? All of the above? A lot of Spurs fans, including myself, expected to wake up this morning to a CLUB STATEMENT and a photo of a Tottenham Hotspur Stadium corner flag.

But according to Alasdair Gold, that’s not the case. Gold, in the middle of a long piece about how Spurs are just plain embarrassing right now, slipped in a brief that the club is still backing Postecoglou (for now), understanding the incredible circumstances and bad luck that have led the club to this point at this time.

For now at least, football.london understands that Spurs are sticking with Postecoglou amid the injury crisis his squad is engulfed in and will try to sign at least one player for him in the week ahead to ease that, even if that should have happened long ago.

— Alasdair Gold, football.london

If you’re #AngeIn, this is a positive, as it is an indication that the board really does see this as a long term project, and that’s difficult to evaluate Postecoglou fully when he has both hands tied behind his back. Spurs are, after all, still in four competitions, one of only two clubs in the league to be in that position, and have a real chance of making the League Cup final. But there’s also recognition that, regardless of context, results have not been good.

I don’t know what the future holds for Postecoglou this summer — nobody does, really. But it does sound like Daniel Levy and Scott Munn recognize that that, at least for now, there isn’t much benefit to changing managers mid-season with everything else going on.

Proving that it is actually possible for Tottenham Hotspur to sign transfer targets in January, Spurs Women announced their third signing this morning, landing BK Hacken vice-captain and defender Josephine Rybrink until the end of this current season.

The signing of Rybrink continues Robert Vilahamn mining the Swedish League, where he has a lot of contacts, for squad reinforcements. Vilahamn has signed a number of players from the Damallsvenskan including Charli Grant, Amand Nilden, Olivia Holdt, Matilda Vinberg, Olga Ahtinen, Eveliina Summanen, and Ana Csiki. Vilahamn is the former head coach of Hacken, so he’s quite familiar with Rybrink and what she can bring the squad.

The weird part is that this is apparently only a six month signing through the end of the season. That’s pretty unusual. A quick Google explains that Rybrink reached the end of her Hacken contract and that this short term deal is probably a prelude for her signing a longer contract, either with Spurs or (more likely) somewhere else in a league with a summer-winter playing schedule.

Rybrink, 27, is an experienced defender with eight Sweden caps. She joins keeper Lize Kop and midfielder Olivia Holdt as new signings at Spurs this month. She’ll hopefully bolster Spurs’ back line in the short time she’s with the club. Welcome, Josefine!

Fair to say many questions were raised before, during and after Tottenham’s defeat to Leicester City yesterday.

As of this writing, Ange Postecoglou is still the manager (but how close to the sack is he?). Fan resentment towards Daniel Levy reached a crescendo (literally), and we don’t seem anywhere near signing a new player to help this depleted squad.

But we did learn one thing: Rupert Grint supports Tottenham Hotspur.

I really do pity the guy (but props to that kit, am I right?).

It also got me thinking which football clubs other members of the Harry Potter franchise support. So I did some light digging around for you all.

Daniel Radcliffe: Fulham: The boy wizard’s hometown club.

Emma Watson: Chelsea: Disappointing.

Oliver and James Phelps (who played Rupert’s brothers): Birmingham and Aston Villa. That’s certainly an odd pairing with the two rival teams.

I don’t really know who else was part of the cast, or who they support. I could not find information for Ralph Fiennes (who played Voldemort), but apparently his nephew is a West Ham fan.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Born Under A Bad Sign, by Albert King

And now for your links:

The Athletic ($$): “Nightmare for Postecoglou and Levy protests in embarrassing defeat”

Dan KP: “Tottenham fans turn on Daniel Levy as dismal Spurs reach new low”

Alasdair Gold: “Tottenham player ratings vs Leicester with Pedro Porro error as Spurs splutter at home again”

The Sunday Times: “Ange Postecoglou: This is our lowest ebb but my players still believe in me”

BBC: “Postecoglou unsure on future - but why do many Spurs fans blame Levy?”