Cartilage Free Captain

Listen, I had no intention of writing about Wimbledon today. I had planned on waiting until the end of the tournament, but things change.

That’s because it’s been a wild two days to begin the greatest tennis tournament in the world. We’re only one round in and some of the biggest seeds in both fields are out. Let’s take a quick look.

Men’s draw:

Arthur Renderknech def (3) Alexander Zverev 7-6 6-7 6-3 5-7 7-6

(Q) Nikoloz Bashilashvili def (7) Lorenzo Musetti 6-2 4-6 7-5 6-1

(Q) Nicholas Jarry def (8) Holger Rune 4-6 4-6 7-5 6-3 6-4

Benjamin Bonzi def (9) Danilil Medvedev 7-6 3-6 7-6 6-2

(Q) Valentin Royer def (24) Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-3 6-2 ret.

Jaume Munar def (28) Alex Bublik 6-4 3-6 4-6 7-6 6-2

All in all, 13 of the 32 seeds in the men’s draw lost in the first round. Four of those were players currently in the top 10, and two were semifinalists last year (Musetti, Medvedev). Bublik had also won one of the biggest titles of his career just weeks earlier in Halle after defeating World No. 1 Jannik Sinner in the quarterfinals.

Meanwhile, Carlos Alcaraz, Taylor Fritz and Novak Djokovic all faced major scares in the first round.

The womens’ draw is just as insane:

Dayana Yastremska def (2) Coco Gauff 7-6 6-1

Elisabetta Cocciaretoo def (3) Jessica Pegula 6-2 6-3

Katarina Siniakova def (5) Qinwen Zheng 7-5 4-6 6-1

Katie Boulter def (9) Paula Badosa 6-2 3-6 6-4

Xin Wang def (15) Karolina Muchova 7-5 6-2

Sonay Kartal def (20) Jelena Ostapenko 7-5 2-6 6-2

Ten seeds fell in the first round, including four in the top ten.

Donna Vekic, who made the semifinals last year, also lost in the first round. Last year’s champ Barbora Krejcikova and runner-up Jasmine Paolini both avoided major scares, surviving in three sets.

This all sets the stage for what’s going to be an insane Wimbledon. In the men’s Jannik Sinner is the clear second favourite behind Carlos Alcaraz, whose draw opened up very nicely with the upsets. Djokovic also is in the mix.

The bottom half of the women’s draw completely blew up with Gauff and Pegula losing in the first round. Does this mean former World No. 1 Iga Swiatek can make a deep run here? Or will former champion Elena Rybakina again find herself in the final?

All I know is you should stay tuned for what’s poised to be the most chaotic championship in years.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Bloom Baby Bloom, by Wolf Alice

And now for your links:

The Athletic ($$): “Tottenham Women to appoint Martin Ho as new head coach”

Alasdair Gold: “Who the next Tottenham transfer signing will be as Thomas Frank prepares to meet squad”

BBC: “Semenyo extends Bournemouth contract until 2030”

The Guardian: “A moment to sense the sheer scale of progress: Euro 2025 set for kick-off”

After strong links earlier in the summer transfer window with Eberechi Eze, it seems Tottenham Hotspur may have shifted their gaze to a new target: Mohammed Kudus.

A number of reports have begun to filter through over the last 24 hours around Spurs’ interest in the Ghanaian footballer, not least from noted Spurs fan Matt Law at the Telegraph (paywall), declaring Kudus is “a primary target” for the Lilywhites (with that “a” doing a bit of heavy lifting in that sentence which is a direct quote from the piece).

Spurs had already been linked previously, with us covering a rumored £50 million bid a couple of weeks ago - something that has been echoed by a handful of parties. In Law’s piece, however, he indicates Spurs are yet to bid but are monitoring the situation, also addressing the historical bad blood between the two clubs (but not really speaking as to how that could impact this current situation).

It’s hard to know exactly what’s true - Law tends to write with a little bit of an “agenda” when it comes to Spurs but is typically pretty accurate, and this could be a case of semantics. West Ham are in a bit of trouble under PSR, and need to sell some players; they view Kudus as an easy way to recoup some cash, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Daniel Levy, ever the opportunist, snuck in a sneaky verbal offer just to test the waters; not an “official bid” as such, but potentially laying the groundwork for something more formal.

Further sources have corroborated Law’s piece over the last day, as Fabrizio Romano declared that Spurs have made contact with Kudus’ agents, with the attacker open to a move. This was then echoed by Jacob Steinberg of The Guardian and Ben Jacobs of GiveMeSport, who both intimated there is a “sense” that £60 million could be enough to get the deal done. Romano then followed up on his YouTube channel, reporting that Spurs had asked Kudus’ agents to keep them informed on any movement for the player.

It’s a lot of smoke, and enough to say the interest is real. Is it any more than interest, or is Kudus just one on a list? It’s hard to say, though it does seem to feel like the needle is starting to move towards the former. That said, the line of reporting does seem to scream “agent talk”, so it is quite possible (even probable) that Johan Lange has a few irons (get it?) in the fire.

Kudus is a decent player who has come off a pretty bad season. I think he could add something to this Spurs side; but I’m not sure the outlay is worth it in this case, with other options from the continent providing similar or better output for less money. And that’s without going into the whole situation where Kudus whacked one of our squad in the face during a match.

There is talent there to dream on, though, and Kudus would also bring a level of versatility with him that could be useful. He’s arguably also a better fit than Eze in a Thomas Frank-led squad. Let’s see where this one goes.

Another day passes without a transfer for Tottenham Hotspur... but we have one that seems to be getting closer!

No, commentariat, I’m not moving; but Kawasaki Frontale are, confirming via their social media channels that Spurs-linked Kota Takai will be leaving the club:

Now, I don’t speak Japanese - but the internet is here to help us with that sort of thing. Here’s roughly what the announcement says:

Kota Takai is preparing for transfer to an overseas club

As part of those preparations, he will leave Kawasaki Frontale on July 5th to travel overseas

From then on, he will not be available for selection

Further details will follow once everything is formally decided

Basically, the Japanese club is holding a Fan Appreciation event on July 6th, for which it seems the playing squad would be present. As Takai is not going to be around for said event, it seems Frontale have felt the need to communicate to fans ahead of time that one of their star players will not be present (a refreshing level of transparency in professional football).

You’ll also note though the slight hedging of bets there - it seems things are very close, but not fully done. I imagine the final details consist of something along the lines of a medical or potentially some payment structure fine-print, so as far as all parties are concerned this is happening; just not official.

This is a great signing for Spurs to make. Clearly talented, young, with lots of upside, Takai follows in the steps of Johan Lange signings such as Archie Gray, Wilson Odobert, and Lucas Bergvall. It remains to be seen as to whether he’ll slot straight into the squad or head out on loan, but either way it’s a smart buy.

It looks like we won’t have to wait too much longer to see Takai holding up a Spurs kit.

A month without Tottenham Hotspur football?

NOT SO FAST!

We have three preseason friendlies on the docket this month as Thomas Frank’s Tottenham begins to take shape. Who’ll be in the squad? Who knows.

What we do know is that Spurs are set to play against Reading on 19 July. Then they’ll be trading those comfy confines for a road trip to Luton Town before jetting off to Hong Kong at the end of the month.

According to the club, this will make the first time the North London Derby will be played outside the UK. Feels strange.

Here are the fixtures in bullet form:

At Reading, 19 July

At Luton Town, 26 July

Versus Arsenal (in Hong Kong)

In other Spurs-related news, the Champions League also kicks off again (sort of) with the first stage of the qualifying round.

But all this comes as we await first-team arrivals for the men’s squad. The links have come in a not-so-steady drip drip drip, but maybe by the end of this month we’ll get some more activity once Frank gets a better look at the squad.

There’s even less going on with the women’s squad. We still don’t have a manager. This’ll be the last season before the Women’s Super League expands from 12 to 14 teams in 2026-27.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Everybody Laughs, by David Byrne

And now for your links:

Matt Law: “Tottenham eye West Ham’s Mohammed Kudus in end to unofficial ‘transfer embargo’ between rivals” (more on this from menno later)

Sky Sports: “Sheffield Wednesday: Wages not paid to majority of players and club staff for third month this year”

The Guardian: “From Russo to Katoto: six contenders to be top scorer at Euro 2025”

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but according to one source in Argentina, Tottenham Hotspur and Atletico Madrid have come to a “verbal agreement” for the transfer of Cristian Romero. The fee is reported between €55m-60m (£47m-51m). The article comes courtesy of Argentine journalist Fernando Czyz, whom I don’t know but who is apparently followed by Fabrizio Romano and Felipe Cardenas. Czyz calls it a “bombazo.”

Yeah, I’d say so. “Bombazo” indeed.

The report goes on to say that Tottenham’s asking price is €70m (£60m), and that Atletico already has Romero’s verbal agreement to join this summer. That said, it’s not a done deal and there’s a lot that could happen that could still tank this deal. Czyz suggests that Romero might put in a formal transfer request to speed things along.

I think we all saw this coming. There have been signs, going back to last season - small comments, minor micro-agressions, Cuti seemingly prioritizing international duty over Tottenham. And he reportedly was not happy with the sacking of Ange Postecoglou, with whom he had a good relationship.

Czyz suggests that if the Romero deal doesn’t go through for whatever reason, Atletico will turn to Piero Hincapie, whom honestly would make a pretty fantastic Cuti Romero replacement at Tottenham Hotspur — Johan Lange should maybe take a look at that guy. If Romero does leave, Kevin Danso would step into Cuti’s role alongside Micky van de Ven if they don’t make another defensive purchase. That’s probably okay. Danso isn’t Cuti Romero, but honestly nobody is, and Danso can capably fill that role if required. The bigger issue is if Micky continues to get injured — I have a lot less confidence in Danso if he’s lining up beside Radu Dragusin.

I would’ve wanted closer to £60m for Cuti (assuming, y’know, this happens) but you don’t always get what you want in football. All that said, despite the “bombazo” language this doesn’t feel like it’s anything close to done deal... though now it’s starting to feel like a fait accompli.

Welcome everyone to another edition of Your EFL Championship roundup, where hoddle headquarters takes a look at what’s going on in England’s second tier.

——-

We have to talk about Sheffield Wednesday.

While there may not have been any matches this month, Wednesday’s future in the second tier - and perhaps even in the English system altogether - is in serious peril.

Sheffield Wednesday must pay their players’ today. The deadline comes after the English Football League had already hit Wednesday with a spending ban until January 2027 after the club had “[exceeded] 30 days of late payments”. Wednesday are appealing the decision.

Wednesday and its chairman Dejphon Chansiri were separately charged of non-payment of player wages in March and May this year.

The Guardian reported that some players still have not received their wages, and players could give notice of their intention to terminate their contracts.

This all comes as manager Danny Rohl’s future remains up in the air. The Independent (via MSN) reported that Rohl is currently in talks about leavin the club. It would be a such a shame for him to leave considering how well he did to tidy things up at Hillsborough.

But when your staff aren’t getting paid and you face a transfer window ban because of your owner, then you have every right to head for the door.

In a lengthy (and bewildering) statement this week, Chansiri rejected two offers from a US consortium buying the club.

“The second offer was £40m plus limited future Premier League promotion payments – far from a guaranteed $75m which was reported in the second media interview.”

But how seriously is he about engaging in discussions to sell?

That’s one of many questions that need to be answered. But none are more important than if the club is able to pay wages this month. What happens after that? Who knows.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Drop me off in Harlem, by Sun Ra

And now for your links:

Alasdair Gold: “Tottenham’s ‘Neymar-like’ wonderkid offered new contract amid negotiations”

The Guardian: “Harry Kane sinks Flamengo to set up Bayern Munich’s Club World Cup tie with PSG”

ESPN: “USMNT beats Costa Rica in shootout to reach Gold Cup semis

Do you know how quiet it is out there on the transfer front? There’s been, like, almost zero news and most of the rumors are dumb. Makes it difficult to write about stuff, even more so because I’m set for a little time off from the blog here in the next week for another cancer-related medical procedure. But let’s talk about one iffy rumor anyway.

Alan Nixon, a sportswriter and journalist and ersthile of a periodical that we will not name because it sucks, is nonetheless at times strangely reliable with the transfer rumors. Most of his good stuff he posts on his Patreon now, which I will not subscribe to. Nevertheless, there’s a new rumor out (via Football League World) that says Sheffield United are interested in making a permanent move for Tottenham Hotspur’s 20-year old central defender Ashley Phillips.

Ash hasn’t cracked the first team at Spurs yet but has had a couple of successful loans in the Championship. He’s coming off of a good loan last season with Stoke, and Sheffield United — who recently dumped Chris Wilder for Ruben Selles — would like to make him one of their key offseason additions.

Tottenham reportedly rate Phillips at £6m, but the report suggests that Thomas Frank isn’t willing to sell, because Frank wants him as part of next year’s squad. Now, there’s some wiggle room in that statement — unless you count tape, Frank hasn’t actually seen Ash play. That said, it’s not at all surprising that Frank might want to keep Phillips around in preseason to run him through his paces and see if he’s ready to make the step up to Premier League level. If Spurs are rebuffing purchase offers for him, that suggests that at minimum Frank wants to keep him around for preseason, and likely for the tour to Asia.

Now does that mean that Phillips is in Frank’s first team plans. Absolutely not (although... maybe?). I can certainly see a situation where he’d be loaned back out to the Championship again if it doesn’t seem he’s quite ready yet. He’s only 20, and you don’t see may 20-year old top level central defenders (the exception being Dean Huijsen, now at Real Madrid).

So stick a pin in this rumor for now. Tottenham clearly have no interest in selling him at the moment, even with a buy-back clause (something I think Spurs should do more of), but that doesn’t mean Ash Phillips won’t move somewhere else this summer. Let’s wait and see.

Alejo Veliz’s future at Tottenham Hotspur was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever, about that. Veliz was a young player essentially signed as a lottery ticket, and the thing about lottery tickets is that most of the time they don’t pan out. Veliz spent the last season and a half on loan at Sevilla and Espanyol and hasn’t exactly set the pitch on fire. At this point it’s probably best for everyone involved if he finds a new club.

Pursuant to that, Racing de Alma today posted a story on its official web page declaring that it has lodged an official bid of $5m (£3.6m) to bring Alejo back to Argentina. That’s obviously not a lot of money for a player for whom Spurs paid £13m to sign from Rosario Central in 2023, but the proposal also has a 30% sell-on clause, so Spurs will get a little bit back if and when he does end up moving to another club.

It’s unusual to see a football club actually post about making a bid for a player, especially when the deal hasn’t yet been agreed to. You certainly don’t see that in England, but maybe that’s a uniquely South American thing, or maybe this is one way a small Argentinian club can put a little pressure on one of the richest clubs in world football, I don’t know.

The Racing de Alma report also says that Rosario Central, Veliz’s old club, is also pushing to re-sign him, but they only want him on loan. For that reason, Racing thinks it’s likely they can get this over the line. That’d be fine with me. Veliz might not have worked out, but he’s still a young player and could end up having a perfectly fine career in South American football. We’ll see if this goes anywhere.

Tottenham Hotspur have sandwiched in another preseason match ahead of the 2025-26 Premier League campaign. According to Reading FC’s website and Tottenham’s social media channels, Spurs will travel to the Select Car Leasing Stadium to face the Royals on Saturday, July 19 for a 10 a.m. ET / 3 p.m. BST kick-off.

This is Spurs’ sixth match of the preseason, including the tour to Hong Kong and Korea, and the earliest warm-up match, taking place in just 22 days. Weirdly, unless Spurs schedule a seventh preseason fixture, this will be the first summer I can remember where Tottenham didn’t schedule a preseason match at their home ground. All of them are either away or at neutral stadiums outside of the UK. Feels a little weird to NOT give the fans a chance to see their team play before Spurs’ first match of the season against Burnley on August 16, but I’m sure they have their reasons.

Below is an updated preseason match schedule. Most of the preseason matches will be streamed on SpursPLAY; free-stream or TV options have not been released, if there are any.

Spurs Preseason Matches

@ Reading FC

Saturday, July 19, 10 am ET / 3 pm BST

Select Car Leasing Stadium, Reading

@ Luton Town

Saturday, July 26, 10 am ET / 3 pm BST

Kenilworth Road, Luton

vs. Arsenal

Thursday, July 31, 7:30 am ET / 12:30 pm BST

Kai Tak Stadium, Hong Kong

vs. Newcastle United

Coupang Play Series

Sunday, August 3, 7 am ET / 12 pm BST

Seoul World Cup Stadium, South Korea

@ Bayern Munich

Thursday, August 7, 8:30 am ET / 1:30 pm BST

Allianz Stadium, Munich, Germany

Great news everyone.

The world has decided that we haven’t had enough music biopics in the last decade, so they’re giving us another one.

The subject this time: Bruce Springsteen. THE BOSS.

Playing Bruce Springsteen will be up-and-coming actor / underwear model Jeremy Allen White. A true unknown in Hollywood, and we must thank our lucky stars there is a new breakout American star.

Here’s a list of some (but not all) biopics that have come out since Bohemian Rhapsody in 2018:

Rocketman (Elton John)

The Dirt (Motley Crue)

No Way Home (Bob Dylan)

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (Al Yankovic)

Elvis (Elvis)

Back to Black (Amy Winehouse)

Bob Marley: One Love (Bob Marley)

Respect (Aretha Franklin)

Apparently there’s been one on David Bowie too that got a 19% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Here’s the thing. This biopic business is getting out of hand. It got out of hand a long, long time ago. I wasn’t certain on the Queen one, less so on Elton John. The Motley Crue film was bad and Amy Winehouse, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley and David Bowie all came and went with nothing to show for it.

The only two to leave some mark were the Elvis and Bob Dylan biopics. The former was really long, even though Baz Lurhmann did what he does best. And the Bob Dylan film, I will concede, was a lot better than I thought it’d be.

But that doesn’t excuse us having yet another one coming down the pipeline. Do we even need to know Bruce Sprinsteen’s story? He literally wrote a book on it, set a Broadway show and then streamed it on Netflix.

So why do we need this. Who asked for this?

I’ll be skipping this one.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Born in the USA, by Bruce Springsteen

And now for your links:

BBC: “LAFC consider former Spurs manager Postecoglou”

The Athletic ($$): “Leeds striker Oliver Boast, 16, set to join Tottenham”