West Ham might have smoothed the way for the exit of one of Tottenham’s fringe players.
The Hammers have agreed a £20m fee with Swansea for Andre Ayew, which will give the Swans the funds to make a move for Nacer Chadli.
Chadli has been heavily linked with a move to Swansea in recent weeks and as a goalscoring winger, would be a like-for-like replacement for Ayew.
Spurs have valued Chadli at £15m, which would still leave Swansea with some change from the sale of Ayew.
Chadli looks certain to leave the club before the end of the transfer window after his lacklustre performances in Australia were followed by him being dropped for the match against Inter Milan in Oslo.
With Federico Fazio and Alex Pritchard having left White Hart Lane in the last week, Tottenham are now clearing out the unwanted members of the squad. Swansea now look in pole position to add Chadli to that list.
Chadli never ever really looked like a Tottenham player. For a winger, he was desperately slow, and
while a languid disposition can often disguise ruthless finishing or the making of killer passes, that was
never the case with our Chad. Even most of his goals were rarely crucial. He won’t be missed.
I guess, for Far East support, it’s worth giving Son another chance, but I really doubt that he has a football
brain. All energy and running, but little thought and imagination and, like Chad, he’s hardly ever been
a game changer when one is needed. I’ve looked closely at Bentaleb over the past 3 seasons and, despite his unlucky injuries, I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Never a great passer, he could win a ball in midfield but, unlike Dier, couldn’t distribute or progress the game. Energetic and imposing but too safe, at times, with crablike short sideways passing, and sometimes overly aggressive actions, albeit in a negative way. Mason should remain as good cover for Dier and Wanyama but he’s more of a central midfielder rather than defensive one. Shame we couldn’t loan out Pritchard for just one more season to see how he develops (again unlucky with injury) but we do seem to have other excellent young players coming through. All in all, the squad looks good. With the kid coming in from Marseilles and Nyje moving the other way, I guess that’s it. Part of me still wishes we had a midfield general (ala Modric) ..a playmaker pulling all the strings ..but there is no doubt that if Poch can utilise and develop all these players further then this could be a great season.
Relying on a playmaker doesn’t seem like Poch’s style, but I do 100% agree with all your other comments, maybe cover for Dembele would be nice, are we thinking Rafa Silva fits the bill?
Don’t necessarily agree with your assessment of son but you’d spot on with chadli he never looked comfortable here so I think he will oh jus think it will be for more than the 8 to 10 mill being reported my guess is that’s y it’s not gotten done yet he has some ability and a nose around the goal and can help some teams but I don’t think levy lets him go for less than 12
Chadli never had the pace for the premiership but if he did he would be on the same level as bale,hence why they signed him as replacement,quite excited by winks thou who seems like the ball player where missing,
Good, Rafa can replace him, goodbye Nacer, you’re a good chafacter & all, but you just can’t cut it at WHL