You have to fill a 25 man squad with somebody and given the three major loan departures and one permanent sale earlier this week, perhaps it’s no surprise at some of the names being included by Spurs this week.
In addition to those departures, Tom Carroll and John Bostock also went out to Derby and Sheffield Wednesday respectively so are David Bentley, Bongani Khumalo and Simon Dawkins literally there to ‘make up the numbers?’
The inclusion of Khumalo is logical in the sense that Bassong and Corluka were sent out on loan with only Ryan Nelsen coming in. With Spurs desperately short of cover at the back, the South African could be needed but after failing to impress at Reading, this could be his last chance.
As for David Bentley, even when injuries have shorn the team of right sided players there always seems to have been someone in to cover so he is still likely to be some way behind Parker, Lennon, Sandro and Jake Livermore.
The case of Dawkins however is an interesting one and although he could also provide last choice cover in his relevant area – the front line, is he the best candidate? He has been quoted as a ‘good prospect’ for some time now but at 24, it may be time to start moving beyond that status.
Overall, each player seems to be last ditch cover in defence, midfield and up front so maybe it isn’t such a shock after all?
Fingers crossed we don’t end up resorting to any of them (with no disrespect to the players) but it does seem like we’ve gotten rid of unhappy players who were agitating about their lack of first-team football and replaced them with those who presumably expect and will be happy with a shortage of it. The changes seem to have been about improving dressing room harmony as much as anything else.
I think to 99.9% of fans, our business in the window has weakened our squad not strengthened as Kevin Bond as stated.
Could you see Fergie selling Berbatov and loaning out Fabio, Evans and Anderson, whislt bringing in Saha and Nelson as replacements… Never in a million years.
Redknapp is paid a fortune (PAYE) to manage unhappy players. His answer to the problem is sell or loan out, which might bite us all on the arse come May.
Great comment Andy. Pav is of the same quality as Berbatov. Not sure who you have been watching?
Andy K,
would you really rather have Bassong than Nelson?
And Pav than Saha?
At worst they’re like-for-like, but Saha for free and selling Pav for 7.5m seems like good business.
Also, Nelson has looked impressive before — not what I’d want for a starter, but, replacing Bassong, he’ll be sitting on the bench just offering cover. His age won’t affect that.
Nothing great, but a (very slight) increase. Definitely not worse, though.
However, this summer we had better invest fairly heavily in a couple of areas (goal, striker, CB, possibly RM) or we probably won’t be competing at the top for long. Also, I hope we move early in the summer (or even before) so the team will have time to gel instead of waiting until 4 weeks after the season starts like we’ve done in the past…