Cartilage Free Captain

Nearly a month of the summer transfer window has passed with very little news to get excited about if you’re a Tottenham Hotspur fan. But today, “PSR Deadline Day,” has brought some pretty interesting news! Earlier today we brought you a spicy rumor from David Ornstein that Tottenham were in negotiations with Leeds United for the transfer of teenage midfielder/defender Archie Gray after possibly hijacking Brentford’s bid for the player.

And now this from Alasdair Gold — according to the Football.London journalist, newly-promoted Premier League side Ipswich Town has apparently issued a “verbal offer” to purchase Spurs’ want-away central defender Joe Rodon.

Rodon, of course, spent the season on loan at Leeds where he was a key player for one of the Championship’s best sides... and that didn’t end up promoting to the Premier League. It’s interesting that two of the three promoted teams are showing interest in signing Rodon — he’s clearly a player good enough for a bottom-half Premier League team but he’s out of Ange Postecoglou’s plans and I don’t see a situation where he stays another season.

And frankly, having three teams interested in Rodon is good for Spurs. Ipswich and Leicester’s interest likely means Leeds are less likely to land him (Premier League >> Championship) but it could be that the competition might drive up the transfer fee. That’d be okay with me.

For what it’s worth, the deal doesn’t HAVE to get done today either. There are now suggestions that deals with paperwork submitted today can be completed in the next couple of days and still be considered part of the 2023-24 fiscal year for PSR purchases, so I’m not sure we’ll hear of any late night BOMBAs in the market. That said, it would be good to get Rodon — and a few others not expected to feature for Spurs this coming season — out the door as quickly as possible.

According to David Ornstein of The Athletic, Tottenham Hotspur are in negotiations to make their first new signing of the summer transfer window — 18-year old midfielder Archie Gray from Leeds United. That’s interesting! What’s even more interesting is that there’s a high probability Spurs have done this by hijacking Brentford’s deal for the same player.

In other words — we got a real Tottenham Hotspur GAZUMPING on our hands here! Red alert! All hands to battle stations!

This story takes a little time to explain and involves taking a dive into the deep lore of Leeds United ITK, so settle back and let’s dig in.

Archie Gray is a central midfielder who only turned 18 years old in March, but his football is well beyond his years. A product of Leeds’ academy, he had a breakout campaign last season, starting 47 out of his 52 appearances in all competitions and playing 3500 minutes for one of the best teams in the Championship. That’s seriously impressive. Had Leeds not lost to Southampton in the playoff finals, he’d be a Premier League player right now and there’s no way Leeds would consider parting with him, but the financial reality of missing promotion has apparently hit the club like a ton of bricks.

Yesterday there was plenty of chatter online that Leeds were reluctantly willing to sell Gray to raise funds, with Leeds demanding a transfer fee as high as £40m. That’s a LOT of money for an 18-year-old English kid with one year in the Championship, but it apparently didn’t put off teams like Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool, who were all supposedly tracking Gray as a player for the future.

However, a dip into Leeds ITK forums led to an account named — stay with me here — “Hairy Crackling” who was essentially the Leeds equivalent of someone like Paul O Keefe. Hairy Crackling dropped a bomb yesterday afternoon that Gray had agreed to make a move to Brentford this summer. That news was eventually reported by reputable journalists online, and it looked as though Gray had chosen regular playing time over a move to a high level Premier League club.

Or did it? There were also reports that Spurs were “hovering” over the Brentford/Gray deal, and this morning I woke up this morning to the news that Gray’s move to the Bees had collapsed, with Brentford rejecting a £35m transfer fee. Those same reports suggested Spurs were now in early but direct negotiations with Leeds for the transfer of Gray, and Gray would be interested in coming to Spurs if he leaves. There’s some pretty extensive circumstantial evidence that Spurs not only were waiting to see what happened with the Brentford deal, but might have actively hijacked it — a true England GAZUMPing, which is a beautiful and these days practically mythical beast in football.

So much for Hairy Crackling, huh?

Gray’s stat bars don’t pop when you look at FBRef, but Championship and youth watchers agree — he’s a superb talent, comfortable with the ball at his feet, adept at both carrying and passing, very good attacking instincts — a real player’s player. Last season, he was used as a bit of a utility player by Daniel Farke, playing both fullback positions, as a deep-lying six, an 8, and a more attacking 10. The defensive experience in particular could be useful for Tottenham as he would fit like a glove as an inverted fullback, though it’s not his best role. But what everyone seems to agree is that he’s a future England midfielder, and quite possibly a future Premier League star, which is why there have been plenty of top clubs — including Spurs — tracking him for months now.

Gray probably isn’t a lock-down starter for Spurs this coming season, but with Spurs in the Europa League there will be plenty of opportunities for him to play. Adding Gray to Pape Matar Sarr and Lucas Bergvall gives Spurs a pretty delicious and superbly talented young midfield core whose ability can scale along with Tottenham’s future ambitions. Signing Gray would be a bit of a lottery ticket, but if the club is building for the future he’s exactly the kind of player Spurs should be targeting. He’d also be both home grown and club trained by the time he turns 21.

It’s PSR Deadline Day, which means there’s a chance that some transfer moves across the league could happen. The fee hasn’t been disclosed, but it’s probably north of £35m which is a LOT for a kid who just legally became an adult three months ago, but also a potentially thrilling and savvy move. The talks between Spurs and Leeds are apparently in the early stages, but there’s a lot of excitement and optimism that they can get this across the line. Wouldn’t THAT be a great way to end the fiscal year?

And if you want more anecdotal evidence that this could happen faster than anyone anticipates, there’s this — Alasdair Gold has the day off today. Spurs have got this in the bag.

With the summer transfer window being open for two weeks now, Tottenham Hotspur have continued to do their due diligence in the market.

So far, no official moves have been completed outside of Timo Werner rejoining Spurs on another loan spell, but the north London club has been linked with several players as football.London’s Alasdair Gold wrote in his latest piece about an in-depth look at the players Spurs are gauging interest in.

Knowing the club has wanted to bolster up the midfield as potential outgoings of Denmark’s Pierre-Emile Højbjerg and Argentina’s Giovani Lo Celso are quite likely, Spurs want to add depth with the latest coming in Aston Villa’s Jacob Ramsey.

Playing in 107 games (74 starts) since making the first-team in the 2020-21 season, Ramsey has 22 goal contributions for his hometown club. However, the 23-year-old midfielder played in just 16 Premier League games for Villa in the 23/24 campaign as he battled an injury-riddled season.

Despite that, Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou and technical director Johan Lange really like the English talent as Lange spent a few years at Aston Villa and knows how Ramsey can play.

Earning a Champions League place, Villa still moved on from its talented midfielder Douglas Luis as a swap deal with Juventus is close to being finalized. With that knowledge, Villa could be prepared to let one of its own in Ramsey leave the club but for a hefty price tag of £40million to £50million.

Spurs remain interested in Chelsea captain Connor Gallagher — who holds a similar price tag — even if the west London side has announced its desire to keep Gallagher and work on a new contract extension as new manager Enzo Maresca bolsters up his midfield with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall joining him from Leicester City.

As for interest in Crystal Palace’s Eberechi Eze, things may seem a little more complicated as the south London side doesn’t want to lose Eze and Michael Olise in the same window.

Gold also added Spurs continue to hold interest in Rennes midfielder Desire Doue, an upcoming 19-year-old who has played all around the field for the Ligue 1 side.

There’s been a little bit of smoke over the last couple of days around U21 talent Jamie Donley’s future with Tottenham Hotspur, and we now have something a bit more concrete. Nizaar Kinsella, reporting for the BBC, has confirmed newly promoted Championship side Oxford United are in talks to take the young attacker on loan.

Donley has been one of the real bright spots to come through the Spurs youth setup in recent years, with the 19-year-old managing to even secure a limited amount of first team minutes last season. There’d been talk of interest from League 1 sides, but with 8 goals and 17 assists in 23 appearances for Spurs’ U21 side, it’s not exactly a surprise that a side a bit higher in the English football pyramid has come in for him. Though it could be a little too soon for the youngster to make a strong impression at Championship level, there’s also a decent chance Donley doesn’t look too out of place and returns to Spurs with valuable senior minutes under his belt.

As for Oxford United, they ostensibly play a 4-2-3-1 and scored a decent number of goals last season. Their starting XI though was relatively consistent, and though promotion often means changes, from what I can tell there isn’t a clear weak link in United’s midfield that would allow Donley to just waltz in and grab a starting spot. He’ll have to work for his minutes, and the concern here is that as a promoted side, Oxford could end up facing relegation. Sides with the threat of falling back down a league tend to not prioritize the development of young players, being risk averse, and from that perspective it’s not clear if this would be an ideal landing spot for Donley. With that said, it depends on the goal of the loan, which may not just be minutes but also maturity and development in other areas which a stint in the Championship could aid.

There’s additional interest in Tottenham’s youth cadre as well with Jude Soonsup-Bell also linked with a loan away. Coming from Chelsea’s youth system, the youngster has been somewhat of a forgotten man with the U21’s, with the likes of Donley, Yago Santiago, and Will Lankshear earning the lion’s share of the plaudits. His numbers, however, have been nothing to sniff at, with Soonsup-Bell scoring 12 and assisting 8 in 26 appearances, a decent chunk of those from the bench. With other attackers coming through from the other youth sides, and minutes potentially being hard to come by with the U21’s, a loan makes sense as a next step for the 20-year-old to help him develop into a player that could perhaps contribute to the first team.

It’s encouraging to see such interest in Spurs’ youth players, but it’s hardly unsurprising as they swept all before them last season. This is likely the first of many links over the summer, so watch this space.

good morning!

I’m sure I was like many of you, and millions of people out there, who stayed up late last night to watch the most compelling piece of television this year. It’s something all of us have waited for.

I’m obviously talking about The Bear, which made its return to TV.

And what a start it made.

I won’t get into the spoilers of it all. (Nor do I think this hoddle contains any spoilers unless you really know your Top Chef history. If you wanna be on the extremely safe side, then just scroll down)

But I will say it did not take long for me to say my first “Whoa!” over a particular sighting.

And it wasn’t long after until I realised there was a particular seabass dish that the cheftestants from Season 3 of Top Chef had to make. I won’t spoil the co-originators, though!

Overall, it was a very tense episode.

It reminded me of Promises, a record Floating Points produced with Pharoah Sanders, where the motif repeated every seven seconds.

Of course the story moves throughout the duration of its run-length, but you’re never quite able to breathe through it.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Rudie Can’t Fail, by The Clash

And now for your links:

Jay Harris ($$): Euros giving Radu Dragusin a chance to showcase himself

Alasdair Gold on the different styles of Fabio Paratici and Johan Lange

What have we learned from the Euros group stage? The BBC looks for answers

Last week we brought you news that former Tottenham Hotspur midfielder and academy graduate Nabil Bentaleb had been hospitalized with an undisclosed illness on June 18. Today, French outlet RMC confirms what Bentaleb had suffered was indeed a heart attack, and that his football career may be over.

RMC reports that Bentaleb suffered an incident in a five-a-side match, though it’s not clear where it took place. He was treated with a cardiac defibrillator along with “cardiac massage” and was taken to Lille Hospital for further treatment and recovery. Shortly afterwards he underwent surgery to have a pacemaker installed and should be released from the hospital soon.

The report also states that this could be the end of his playing career. Bentaleb is 29 — very young for a heart attack, but at the age where he’d be entering into the last few years of his career if he were healthy. The French FA Medical Commission is expected to weigh in with a recommendation, but the decision is ultimately Nabil’s.

This is, of course, an absolutely awful thing to happen. I’m extremely glad that Bentaleb is still alive and that his life was saved by the fast responses and actions of those at the five-a-side match and the healthcare providers summoned to the scene. Bentaleb’s football career may be at the brink of ending, but he still has his life. And thank goodness for that.

We’ve been complaining about the lack of serious transfer rumors, but yesterday fresh reports emerged that Tottenham Hotspur had a player-plus-cash proposal for midfielder Jacob Ramsey beaten back by Aston Villa a few weeks ago. Both Dan Kilpatrick in the Standard and Alasdair Gold in Football.London now write today that Spurs are considering a fresh approach for the 23-year old midfielder as they look to add homegrown midfield talent to their roster.

Both report that Spurs approached Villa about Ramsey a few weeks ago when Villa were reportedly still considering their financial options while under a PSR crunch. One apparently mooted proposal involved a bid — since £20m + Giovani Lo Celso, but Villa rejected the proposal as they were not interested in selling Ramsey who has three years left on his Villa contract. Villa manager Unai Emery calling him “a big, big player” and important to Villa’s future. Also since Villa are playing in the Champions League next season and Tottenham are not, it’s also not clear whether Ramsey would be at all interested in this move.

The interest in Ramsey is supposedly driven by Tottenham’s recruitment director Johan Lange, who worked at Villa before taking the Spurs job. Ramsey is considered an exciting young English player with a bright future and who can play across the midfield line, but he’s coming off of an injury-plagued season where he only played 853 league minutes. Ramsey was a key player for Villa in the previous two seasons, scoring six goals in 2021-22 and 2022-23, and adding seven assists in the latter season while playing primarily on the wing.

According to Gold, Spurs’ approach for Ramsey was likely driven not just by Lange’s admiration for the player but by the assumption that Villa would need to sell players in order to comply with the Premier League’s PSR financial regulations. Villa (and Chelsea) appear to be attempting other moves involving youth players or Douglas Luiz to Juventus in order to get around those rules and exploit some loopholes in the system.

I’m torn on Spurs’ interest in Ramsey. Tottenham are absolutely in the market for another central midfielder and are clearly looking to bolster their homegrown ranks so they can maximize their squad in the Europa League last season, but Villa are said to value Ramsey at £40m-50m and that feels like money that could be spent more wisely. It’s never a bad idea to look at players who are both young and English — it’s worked well for Spurs in the past. But Tottenham need upgrades in those areas, not squad players, and I’m not certain whether Ramsey’s promise is enough to make him a priority at this time.

good morning!

Welcome to another edition of “Where are they now?” where your hoddler-in-chief takes a look at Tottenham players past, and where they are now.

Today - Alex Morgan.

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This might be one of the more timely editions to come out of this series. New USWNT manager dropped Alex Morgan from the women’s olympics squad (which kinda spoils the whole “where are they now” bit, I know).

I don’t think Morgan haddest the biggest on-the-pitch contributions during her tenure at Spurs, but I felt she made a huge impact off it.

First, her transfer in 2020 was huge for the club. She was a major star at the time. I’d go so far as to say it was a higher-profile signing than bringing Gareth Bale back to the men’s squad.

This blog covered one of the big changes made during Morgan’s brief tenure, which was bringing the women’s squad to train at Hotspur Way.

Morgan was a huge, huge star at the time (still is). She was probably at or near the peak of her popularity in women’s football, and leveraged that to get the women’s squad to train at better training grounds.

Morgan’s loan at Spurs was brief and, unfortunately, marred by injruey. She scored two goals in four appearances. In December 2020 she returned to the US to be closer to her family.

Where is Alex Morgan now?

Well, she won’t be going to Paris.

“Today, I’m disappointed about not having the opportunity to represent our country on the Olympic stage. This will always be a tournament that is close to my heart and I take immense pride any time I put on the crest,” she posted on X.

Morgan was left off the US Women’s National Team squad for this year’s summer olympics by new manager Emma Hayes. A cruel reminder of the sporting cycle and how no woman or man can beat time.

It would be a sad end to an illustrious international career that resulted in 123 goals in 224 appearances.

She was part of the 2015 and 2019 World Cup winning teams, and won the gold medal in 2012 (among many other international and club awards).

Fitzie’s track of the day: So Tired, by Bobby Timmons

And now for your links:

What Tottenham players can expect from Nick Montgomery in training

When The Guardian said Alex Morgan is the Tottenham signing that is ‘bigger than the club’

Now we’re talkin’. Our good buddy Gianluca DiMarzio has a report out — actually more like a sentence, more of an offhand mention at the bottom of an article about an entirely different player — that states that Tottenham made a Richarlison-plus-cash offer to Newcastle for striker Alexander Isak. It was rejected.

...Wait, that’s it? Yep. That’s all we get. Just Richy and an undisclosed amount of money for one of the in-form young strikers in the Premier League last season. Isak was phenomenal, scoring 21 league goals last season and two more in the Champions League. He’s a player Spurs reportedly had an eye on a couple of years ago before Saudi Arabia swooped in to get all sportswashy Tyneside.

Isak would be a fantastic addition to Tottenham’s offense, but you can pretty much understand why Newcastle dismissed it out of hand — they reportedly quoted Chelsea a £200m transfer fee a while back and as much as I love Richy I don’t think offering an aging striker who struggled with injury last season as a makeweight is going to move the needle all that much (though I suppose it depends on the size of the pile of cash).

It’s also not entirely clear why DiMarzio would have the scoop on a potential transfer involving a Swede and a Brazilian between two English teams, though I guess he’s connected enough that maybe that’s a thing now. Whatever.

A signing! A real Tottenham Hotspur signing! Okay, it was more or less expected to happen, but it’s still good — Tottenham Hotspur Women announced today that they have permanently signed Swedish international fullback Amanda Nildén from Juventus through the 2026-27 season.

Nildén arrived from Juventus in January, initially on a loan but with a purchase option, which Spurs have now exercised. The transfer fee was not disclosed. Nildén instantly walked into Robert Vilahamn’s starting lineup, starting every one of the ten WSL matches she was available, and playing a key role in Spurs’ march to the FA Cup final this spring. She’s a fantastic player, which makes her signing a no-brainer. That’s a significant transfer, too — a three year deal is relatively unusual in the WSL, so it’s a real commitment to Amanda from the club.

As little news as we’ve heard from the men’s team with regards to transfers, we’ve heard even less from the women’s team. That’s not really a surprise — while there’s more news these days than in past years, there are only a couple of reporters in England that cover WSL woso transfers. But this one feels good. Now we just need to send a helicopter to Manchester to kidnap Grace Clinton and smuggle her back to Hotspur Way.