Cartilage Free Captain

Tottenham Hotspur Women haven’t made many waves in the transfer window thus far, with their only real move being making Sweden defender Amanda Nildén’s loan from Juventus into a permanent signing. Yesterday, the club finally broke the seal on new additions, just ahead of the team beginning preseason training ahead of the 2024-25 WSL season. Spurs announced the signing of England U23 international defender Ella Morris, from Southampton, on a three year contract.

Morris isn’t a name Spurs fans (including myself) will be super familiar with, but she’s a highly regarded young defender who came up through Southampton’s youth system and has played the past two seasons for the Saints in the FA Women’s Championship. She’s already made 114 first team appearances for the Saints at age 21, scoring 14 goals.

In her first interview since joining, Morris said she’s excited to join Tottenham, a club she describes as “ambitious.”

“I’m very excited to be here, it’s a big Club with big ambitions so I’m excited to get started and meet everybody. The training ground is pretty amazing and the staff here are incredible.

“I spoke to Robert and Vicky [Jepson], the style of football they want to play is really exciting and that’s something I want to be a part of. The girls seem amazing as well, so I’m excited to get going with them.

“It’s my first time moving to a new club so I’m looking forward to being in a new environment, meet new people and throw myself into the deep end, hopefully make some friends for life and learn as much as I can from my teammates.”

Since joining Spurs, head coach Robert Vilahamn has worked to create a squad of talented and young players who can adapt to his high pressing and progressive tactics. Morris looks like a player who can fit into that structure, even if it’s not clear yet whether she becomes an instant starter. Morris is clearly coming in as one of the replacements for the departed Shelina Zadorsky and Asmita Ale in the defensive corps, both of whom officially left the club this summer.

More importantly however, she’s NOT another blonde ponytail on a team full of them, meaning she’ll be more easily identifiable in the back line on grainy FA Player streams! (Think of the bloggers!)

Looking forward to getting to know her and watching her play. Welcome to Tottenham, Ella Morris!

good morning!

That’s right, fitzie is going back to the Motherland for a solid week. What are the plans? Not sure yet! We’ve got some unstructured time on this trip.

A trip to see Spurs vs Hearts though? Don’t count on it.

I would love to go back to White Hart Lane, but I’m not sure if time will allow for that this time. Which would be a shame since I had to sell my tickets to Spurs vs Chelsea back in November. There’s always next time, right?

Anyways, before I take a short trip to Yately from London, I do hope to go back to some of my favourite spots. Of course I’ll go to Sister Ray and Reckless Records, the many Caffe Neros and pubs as well.

From there, I’ll be making my way back to DC via Iceland. And this time I’m taking advantage of the stopover programme. Puffin tours, whiskey distillerys, lagoons and some beautiful landscapes hopefully await me. I will report back.

I’m also so grateful to escape this heat. DC has been unbearable. It’s broken heat records for, what, two days in a row now?

As some of you have probably guessed by now, this means you’ll have some substitute hoddlers-in-chief in the next 10 or so days. So treat them well!

Fitzie’s track of the day: Dedicated Follower of Fashion, by The Kinks

And now for your links:

Alasdair Gold ranks the Spurs players following the Euros and Copa America

There have been plenty of murmurs about Son Heung-Min signing a new contract at Tottenham Hotspur over the past year, but nothing has come of it. Now there’s a new report from Ben Jacobs that says Spurs will exercise an option in Sonny’s contract to keep him at the club for a further year.

So this actually makes a lot of sense and is illuminating as to what will likely be Tottenham’s plans for Sonny in the medium term. Sonny’s current contract lasted until the end of this current season, though everyone at and around the club seemed pretty relaxed about what that meant. This seems to split the difference between letting Sonny go at the end of the season and tying him down to a long-term contract, which is probably not a very wise decision either. Daniel Levy loves to put these extra one year clauses in his players’ contracts, probably for this very reason.

Son turns 33 this season and will be 34 by the time his now-extended Spurs contract expires. That’s pretty long in the tooth for a professional footballer, even one as beloved as Sonny, and Tottenham are clearly on a youth movement. He’s Spurs’ club captain and the face of the club since Harry Kane was sold last summer, but at some point he’s going to reach the point where Spurs will need to figure out what to do with him — now they have an extra year to figure that out.

Maybe Sonny eventually moves on, either as a sale next summer or as a free agent in June 2026. Maybe he ends up retiring, or moving to MLS, or back to the K-League. This keeps him at Spurs in an elder statesman role as he and the club figure out his future. I vote for a graceful retirement and an immediate and permanent club ambassador role. Oh, and a statue outside the ground. That’d be neat.

Who would’ve thought the Tottenham Hotspur Summer Transfer Saga™ would be Emerson Royal to AC Milan?

After Dustin wrote late last week about Spurs’ rejection of AC Milan’s “formal bid”, more details have emerged courtesy of Alasdair Gold of Football London and Nizaar Kinsella of the BBC - so here they are for your reading (dis)pleasure.

Dustin talked about brinkmanship and negotiation through the media. It’s not uncommon to see sides take a pretty hard public stance around the transfer fee for a player, and in the same vein, often those sides find some sort of compromise somewhere in the middle. Spurs have been firm on their asking price of €20 million for Royal, and honestly, it feels like a reasonable ask. It’s already down from their initial reported asking price of €25 million, so it’s not like Spurs haven’t shown some willingness to negotiate.

And that’s where Milan come in. A figure of €15 million had been rumored as an opening bid, and that’s a difference with which you can work to find common ground; but Gold and Kinsella are reporting Milan’s official bid was €10 million, half of Tottenham’s asking price. For those passionate about the King’s currency, that’s a paltry £8.5 million.

That’s ridiculous.

It wouldn’t have surprised me if the faxed offer (you just know they faxed it) was used as a dartboard, or perhaps even toilet paper in the Tottenham Hotspur headquarters; or maybe Daniel Levy used it to wipe away his tears of laughter? Who can say. Clubs on the continent are struggling financially, but Milan are a team who just finished second in Serie A, won the competition just a few seasons ago, and are in the Champions League next season. They can afford to shell out a bit more cash.

The kicker here is that reportedly contact has gone completely quiet between the two clubs. This could be Milan pulling out of the deal - they have been linked to other potential right back candidates - but more likely they are going full method on their bluff, which I wouldn’t be surprised if Levy & Lange call. There’s been recent rumored interest from Saudi clubs, and even if Royal stayed, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world: he is able to provide cover in multiple positions (which Spurs sorely needed last season), the club are playing in Europe which means more fixtures, and it may take pressure off the likes of young Archie Gray, allowing him to more naturally ease into the side if (God forbid) Pedro Porro were to get injured.

Maybe this is the last we see of Milan. I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t.

good morning!

It isn’t every day you get to ask a question to someone affiliated with Tottenham Hotspur.

Even rarer is the day where you get to ask a question to two members of Tottenham.

Today is one of those rare days.

Both Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall will be participating in an AMA on the COYS reddit today (apologies to you West Coast folks, but at least it’s some good reading with your morning joe).

It’s an interesting premise, especially when you consider these two players are considered to be the future of Tottenham. And, hey, two very intriguing signings!

So here’s the Q - if you had a chance to ask Bergvall or Gray a question, what would it be?

Lets hope the folks at COYS reddit will have some good choices.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Mother Of Pearl, by Roxy Music

And now for your links:

Alasdair Gold on who might play vs Hearts

How Copa America nearly became a tragedy

Tottenham Hotspur will open their (public) preseason account this coming Wednesday against Scottish Premier League club Heart of Midlothian. If you’re in the United Kingdom, the match will be watchable on Tottenham’s premium streaming service SpursPLAY for those who are subscribers.

That’s also true for American Spurs fans, but there’s also another option. According to a current CBS Sports employee who is close to the blog and who let me know of this opportunity (feel free to connect the dots lol), Wednesday’s friendly will also be streamed for FREE on the CBS Sports Golazo Network!

There are a couple of ways you can access this on Wednesday. CBS Golazo Network is available via Paramount+ (search for “CBS Golazo”) if you subscribe to that service, which might be the most direct way to get the match on your big-screen TV. But you can also click on the link above, which should take you right to the stream by kick-off.

This will be the first opportunity for Spurs fans to take a look at the team this preseason; Spurs defeated Cambridge United 7-2 on Saturday afternoon in a behind-closed-doors friendly match at Hotspur Way.

Tottenham will still be without all of the players who participated in the European Championships and Copa America tournaments this summer; players who departed early such as Radu Dragusin, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, and Guglielmo Vicario are expected back this weekend, too soon for this match but probably in time to play in Spurs’ 2nd preseason match against QPR. The rest of the squad likely won’t return for training until early August.

The match kicks off Wed. July 17 at 2:00 p.m. ET / 7:00 p.m. BST at Tynecastle Stadium in Edinburgh, Scotland. Spurs are participating in the match as part of Hearts’ 150th Anniversary celebrations.

I hate international football.

But as the major international tournaments of the summer come to a close, you have to admit that there’s been some great moments. Watching the shuffling corpse of Harry Kane amble around the pitch in the Euros final wasn’t one of them, but I digress.

As the Euro and Copa America competitions have gone on, there have still been some shining lights involved hailing from our little club in Enfield. In my last round-up, all of the Tottenham Hotspur players involved at the Euros qualified for the knockout rounds, while Spurs’ three Copa America representatives had made strong starts to the group stages.

And the glory continued - for some, at least.

Guglielmo’s Italy and Pierre-Emile Hojberg’s Denmark were the first sides to falter post-group stage, with the Italian goalkeeper once more not seeing the pitch as they lost perhaps surprisingly to Switzerland. Hojbjerg put in a typically workman-like 90 minutes against Germany, but was unable to spur (ahem) his side to the quarter finals in a 2-0 defeat.

Radu Dragusin’s strong tournament came to an end soon after, playing the full match as Romania were swept aside 3-0 by the Netherlands. Micky van de Ven, appearing mostly as a substitute for the Dutch, went furthest in the tournament of the Spurs representatives, as the Netherlands also took down Turkey 2-1, before losing to England 2-1 in the semifinals. Micky was probably unlucky not to play more minutes for the Dutch, with his pace a shining light when he came off the bench and a heroic moment of his own, making a huge goal-saving block late in the quarter final against the Turkish.

It was on the other side of the Atlantic, however, where Spurs’ international players really shined - well, two at least. Cristian Romero was instrumental in securing Argentina a second straight Copa America win, being arguably one of the players of the tournament as the Albiceleste conceded only a solitary goal all competition. He was joined on the winners’ stage by Giovani Lo Celso, who, as we all know loves to absolutely turn it on in white and blue. Unfortunately, this tendency seems limited more to a lighter, more sky-leaning shade. His contributions can’t be ignored, though, as his one-touch pass to assist the cup-winning goal was phenomenal (and hopefully will aid Spurs in securing a tidy fee as he looks to leave the club this summer):

That leaves Rodrigo Bentancur. Playing limited minutes initially for Uruguay, he became more involved as the tournament went on; unfortunately, in the entirely wrong way as Uruguay were knocked out in the semis by Colombia. While the fallout from that match is still to be determined, a positive takeaway is the injury he sustained in the semifinal was not as severe as it perhaps first looked, with Bentancur starting the Bronze final days later. He scored an early goal in that match, striking home a second ball from a set piece, before dispatching his penalty after the match went to spot kicks to help achieve third place for La Celeste.

Our internationals now take a deserved break, before rejoining the club later in preseason as Spurs prepare for the 24/25 edition of the Premier League. COYS!!!

I still hate international football.

Spurs International Appearances:

Euros Knockout Stages

Radu Dragusin (90 mins): Romania 0-3 Netherlands

Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg (90 mins): Germany 2-0 Denmark

Micky van de Ven (21 mins, sub; 17 mins, sub; unused substitute): Romania 0-3 Netherlands, Netherlands 2-1 Turkey, Netherlands 1-2 England

Guglielmo Vicario (unused substitute): Switzerland 0-2 Italy

Copa America Last Group Stage Match & Knockout Stages

good morning!

Well, Sunday was stuffed with sports. From dawn to well past dusk, there was always something good on the television. And with DC having another brutally hot day, it was the perfect day to stay inside.

Here’s a quick recap:

Tour de France, stage 15: Tadej Pogacar came up with a big, big stage win (his second in a row) with the race now in its final week. The Slovenian cyclist added to his lead over Danish rival Jonas Vingegaard, a gap that is now 3:09.

Vingegaard believes the race isn’t over, but it sure feels close to it.

Wimbledon, men’s singles final: What a dominant service display from Carlos Alcaraz, who defeated Novak Djokovic 6-2 6-2 7-6.

Djokovic felt flat the whole match, but Alcaraz also didn’t give him much of a chance. He was serving much bigger and took advantage of Djokovic’s limited movement. It is the Spaniard’s fourth major singles title, and he’s still only 21. He’s also one of the rare players to get the Roland Garros-Wimbledon double.

Euros, final: A boring first half gave way to an exhilerating 45 minutes, with Nico Williams scoring the opener within the first two minutes of the second half.

Jude Bellingham looked the best player for England out there on the day, and it was his pass that set up Cole Palmer’s equaliser. Then, late on, Marc Guehi lost Mikel Oyarzabal, who perfectly timed his run. 2-1 Spain, and more heartache for England.

MLB: Our last round of games before the All Star break. Among the excitement was a walkoff win for the Orioles, who currently hold a one-game lead over the Yankees in the AL East.

Copa America: We’re still in the first half as I type, and I’m not watching it. You folks might. It looked like there was a scary security breach that delayed the start of the match.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Blue Monk, by Thelonious Monk

And now for your links:

Alasdair Gold: Lucas Bervall and Archie Gray make appearances in closed-doors friendly

Harry Kane speaks on the pain of losing after defeat to Spain

Gareth Southgate says ‘now not the time’ to decide future

Filed under:

Tottenham Transfer News & Rumors

Dispatches from #batcountry

Dispatches from Bat Country: July 2024 - Edition 2, Country of Bats

If you build it, Bats will come.

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"'What's wrong?' I yelled. 'We can't stop here. This is bat country!'"

- Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Is it me, or has it felt strangely quiet following the signing of Archie Gray? Well, never fear - Bat Country is here, and we still have an absolute hodgepodge of players you’ve never heard of to talk about. Leave your cares and worries behind and instead dare to dream - Audere est facere and all that. We all know the club had Bat Country in mind when they came up with that.

Here we cover all those rumors on which we normally wouldn’t report. The fringe cases. The names that spring up from untold lands, off the beaten path. We’ll discuss mostly incomings and try and focus on names we haven’t already talked about elsewhere on the site. Each name will be accompanied by a Guano Meter: a ranking out of 5 that instead of rating how likely we think it is to happen, it instead is the complete opposite. For example, a Guano Meter of 5/5 would be something like... Ryan Mason deciding to return to playing and suiting up as one of Ange’s attacking 8’s next season. I admit, I’d be intrigued (and terrified).

Check out some of the previous editions here, as well as Nathan Bartel’s excellent piece that was the genesis of this series here.

Youssef En-Nesyri

Are you someone who thinks the real loss from Harry Kane leaving is his heading on defensive set pieces? Then boy, do I have a player for you

En-Nesyri is a beast of a striker, with great holdup play and aerial ability... not to mention a fair few goals over the last few seasons for Sevilla

With that said... he’s been a player who’s always been a bit hot and cold when it comes to goals, with multiple double figure seasons surrounding seasons where he’s struggled to put the ball in the net

He’s struggled with injury at times as well, and at 27, that’s not likely to be getting any better

With one year left on his contract, he’s looking for a new club, with his agent obviously shopping him around a bit; Sevilla want him off the books too, to help balance their books

With that in mind, he’s been linked with a long laundry list of clubs: West Ham, Fenerbahce, Bologna, with Roma now seemingly favorites for his signature

Which brings us to Spurs - from what I can find, Tottenham were mentioned off-hand by a Sevilla radio station. It’s a quality piece of sourcing

Guano Meter: 5/5 - There’s been multiple leaks around Spurs’ targets at striker over the last few months, and En-Nesyri has never once been mentioned. This is just agent talk... at best.

Chris Fuhrich

Able to play across the front line, and even in midfield, but mostly deployed at left wing, Fuhrich has just come off an excellent season for Stuttgart

Maybe I’m being culturally ignorant (read: probably) but does a German footballer with the first name ‘Chris’ strike anybody else as funny? It would be like a Dutch midfielder having the name Nigel de Jong

Moniker aside, Fuhrich loves a dribble, and he’s aggressive with his passing as well - he could be a good fit in an Ange Postecoglou side

That said, it feels like he may have been an option we looked at before signing Timo Werner? I dunno, I’m not sure we’re still in for him, and the links have quietened as of late

There were a few days there last month though where his name came out of nowhere and seemed everywhere... Christian Falk at Bild seemed to be the original source, and even Fabrizio Romano picked it up

Alasdair Gold then poo-poo’d the links, albeit with an odd choice of wording, saying the club were “distancing themselves from reports linking them” to Fuhrich; but that doesn’t mean Spurs aren’t interested, per se

Guano Meter: 3/5 - Probably one of a few names on a list; and I’d say at this point not particularly high on it. Release clauses are at play here, so it’s possibly one to keep in the back of your mind.

Viktor Tsyhankov

Oh God another Slavic-language name which has about ten different spellings when translated to English. Do I use the Transfermarkt spelling, or the fbref spelling?

Big Vik, as I’m going to call him (totally ironically at 5’9”) is a Ukrainian national currently at Girona, heading to Spain from Dynamo Kyiv for... some reason or other

He’s another winger (playing mostly on the right), but is also comfortable in attacking midfield roles as well, and has occasionally played as a wingback

He’s probably not quite as an effective dribbler as Fuhrich above, but he’s aggressive with his passing and his end product has been not too shabby in La Liga: 11 goals and 13 assists in 43 starts

There’s a release clause at play here: apparently £25.5 million could secure you Big Vik’s signature

There’s all sorts of links with various clubs to Big Vik if you look around the internet, which smells like agent talk... and Spurs’ sole link is from the Daily Mail

Guano Meter: 5/5 - I mean, it could be The Sun, right? But even it not being the Sun isn’t enough to pull this one up to a 4.

Andreas Pereira

Here’s a name that may be familiar to a few: Pereira is a Brazilian - or Belgian? Let’s go with Belgilian - attacking midfielder who came through Manchester United’s youth system, arguably failed there on a number of occasions, before landing at Fulham

Do you honestly want to hold somebody not quite working out at this United team against them, though?

After a mixed time while at United, and being loaned out to any manner of club and country, he’s been solid (though unspectacular) since moving to Fulham at the start of the 22/23 season

Pereira almost profiles as a pure #10, and they don’t really exist anymore in modern football, which is kind of why his numbers can look quite funny...

Low defensive actions, high output for a midfielder but low for a winger, key pass numbers interesting... it’s a strange profile, but there’s seemingly talent there

However, he’s 28 - is this a player we really want to be gambling on?

Well, Spurs probably aren’t - because the solitary link comes from Globo in Brazil, and just positively reeks of agent talk: Spurs, along with a number of other Premier League clubs slightly higher on the Premier League ladder than Fulham, have “expressed interest” in Pereira. Sure thing, Andy. Can I call you Andy?

Guano Meter: 5/5 - Come on, did you expect anything different?

Lutsharel Geertruida

Winning the Eredivisie in 22/23, and runners-up last season, Feyenoord have had some pretty decent players in recent years; Geertruida is one of them

Geertruida is nominally a right back, and one who likes to get forward and have a crack from distance; oddly though, he’s also pretty comfortable at CB

Spurs have been looking at hybrid FB/CB options; is it possible they may prioritize a left-sided player though, with the signing of Archie Gray, as well as Dragusin’s ability to cover RCB?

I packed Geertruida a couple years back in FIFA Ultimate Team, and he was awesome. That doesn’t mean we should sign him, but also we should definitely sign him

Impressive fbref without context (well, some context, Eredivisie numbers, bad league comparisons, yada yada):

Seriously, though - he’d be pretty damn good at the inverted role, especially with his ability on the ball

Would he come to Spurs to be a backup, though? And would Feyenoord, who have been losing a few players after the departure of Arne Slot to Liverpool, even sanction a sale at this point?

Maybe not; the links have gone pretty quiet over the last few weeks

There was a LOT of smoke before that, however, with pretty solid Dutch sources saying Spurs were interested (which of course then made its way around a number of tabloids)

He also visited Tottenham Hotspur Stadium back in April...

Guano Meter: 3/5 - Things have gone a bit quiet on this one, with Spurs perhaps choosing to focus elsewhere.

Bastien Meupiyou

A player with a name that immediately screams self-confidence and superiority to opposition players, Meupiyou is a young French center back who has come through the youth system at FC Nantes

He has a solitary appearance for the senior team, playing 8 minutes last season

With a low number of minutes like that, you’d expect him to have come on as a substitute. Nope, he started, and was sent off almost immediately - which you can see here. Dumb challenge, but dude went down easier than... well, I’m sure you can think of some sort of lurid idiom here

Look, there’s just not much to go on here because Meupiyou just hasn’t played much senior football. Interestingly, though, he’s played quite a bit as a defensive midfielder at youth level

This one comes from L’Equipe, who don’t tend to publish stuff that is on the level of tabloids, and is backed up by a couple of other French outlets

It’s just interest at this point though, with nothing beyond that being reported

Guano Meter: 4/5 - Maybe he’s one for the future? I just don’t know.

That’s it for this installment. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a winged mammal, dummy. Welcome to Bat Country.

Tottenham Hotspur cruised past Cambridge United 7-2 in the first preseason friendly match of the 2024-25 preseason on Saturday afternoon. The match was a behind-closed-doors friendly game that was not open to the public, nor was it televised or screened.

According to the Evening Standard, Brennan Johnson scored a hat trick and Son Heung-Min had an additional brace in the first half as Spurs led 5-0 at the break. The second half featured a full rotationand ended 2-2 for the final score; Mikey Moore was reported to be one of the second-half scorers, and there was participation from academy players Jamie Donley, Tyrese Hall, George Abbott, and Luca Gunter.

The reports state Spurs started a strong lineup in the first half, with Johnson and Sonny supported by numerous first-team players such as Pedro Porro, Dejan Kulusevski, Yves Bissouma, and Manor Solomon. New signings Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall played in the second half, with Gray at right back and Bergvall in a creative role in central midfield. Timo Werner also played in the second half according to Football.London along with Oliver Skipp, Emerson Royal, and James Maddison.

It’s tough to write a review article for a match nobody could see, and there’s probably not much point in looking too deeply into this one. Spurs are without a number of first team players including Cuti Romero and Giovani Lo Celso (away at Copa America), while almost all of the players who participated in the EUROs are still on vacation, so this was certainly an opportunity to give notable youngsters and players like Solomon coming back from long term injuries a chance to get some minutes in their legs.