Hugo boss
Spurs News 24/7'It's a statement to retain the player. It's Tottenham Hotspur to sell him'. Concluding words from my last blog and it turns out that Spurs and Daniel Levy have opted for the former rather than the latter, with Hugo Lloris accepting a new five year contract. Great news. It's a statement for sure considering how the knee-jerk culture in football would have the disaster of last season play out like Armageddon where all our best players desert the barren wastelands of N17. The reality is that the only wasteland is the building site where the new ground redevelopment has yet to begin.
As I've cited a few times, Spurs are back where they were at the start of last season, except with plenty of lessons learnt. The only way to accept the calamity of what happened during and after Andre Villas-Boas reign and Tim Sherwood's football management test drive is to accept the whole experience as one pretty horrific stagnation that will make us stronger. I'm stretching it a little to pull a positive out of all the pessimism that engulfed us last time out, but what else can we possibly do?
The fact is, we've been rebooted with the appointment of Mauricio Pochettino and although the desire is to see us heavily involved in the transfer market, we probably don't need to do as much business as others. Doing so will invalidate last seasons signings, some of which started to bed in towards the end of it. The bulk of the new players had to play through some chaotic mismanagement and tactical dizziness. That's where I'm pulling the positive out of the pessimism. I don't envisage radical confusion from Pochettino.
AVB infamously lost his way and Sherwood was a sat nav short of a road trip. Pochettino strikes me as someone that has control over his methodologies. I'm going on what I saw of Southampton last season and his success with youth implementation into the first team. Southampton were not perfect but the quality at Spurs should allow for improvements to some of the strategic mishaps encountered prior. At least, that's the hope.
Lloris is world class and the only one we have that is consistently at that level. Captain material. You'd give him the armband simply as a way of apology for the dysfunctional back four he had to marshal for most of last season. The statement is; we're keeping our best players.
What happens next is pivotal to retaining this sense of togetherness.
Levy must back Pochettino to get the very best out of the acquisitions made last season. We have to do the same. Patience*. There's an unavoidable transition with training preparation to first team action. We have an abundance of central midfielders. There will be a sacrifice or two. We're still waiting on that fabled new left-back.
The five year contract might cynically be insurance for Levy to guarantee a huge fee next summer but for now, we must echo the sentiments of Hugo's enthusiasm for the future.
via Club Metro
