I am a little too young to have watched the classic British comedy sketch show Not the Nine O'Clock News when it first aired back in the 1980s but was lucky enough to be given a best of compilation when I was a teenager. Some of the sketches are a little dated but the vast majority of it holds up very well. While lying in bed this morning pondering why it has taken Spurs the best part of 2 months to run around in ever-decreasing concentric circles to sign Lo Celso and Sessegnon I was reminded of this scene from the show starring a young Jim Broadbent and an even younger Rowan Atkinson.
Assuming that we do manage to close both deals today then I guess on the face it Spurs fans should be fairly happy with our summer's work. Ndombele looks a beast in midfield and has already shown in pre-season that he is an able replacement for Moussa Dembele. Of course, the real frustration for Spurs fans and the coaching staff must be that they haven't had Lo Celso or Sessegnon to work with over the last 6 weeks. Imagine if all 3 could hit the ground running like this guy........
Spurs are hardly renowned for making fast starts in the Premier League era and while that could be put down to a variety of factors I would also argue that dilly-dallying in the transfer market and not giving our new signings time to bed in before the season starts in earnest has played a significant part in that.
For Spurs, the need to have a fit and firing Lo Celso is further exaggerated by the fact that we are already looking at a short-term injury/suspension crisis in midfield. Dele Alli has been ruled out for at least the first couple of games while Son is suspended for the Villa and City matches. That leaves Poch with only Lucas Moura, Erik Lamela and Christian Eriksen to choose from in the attacking midfield/wide forward births and given that Eriksen spent most of last year and all of pre-season wandering around the pitch like a zombie I wouldn't put much faith in him being up for the fight of a Premier League encounter with a newly promoted side to be followed by the defending Champions.
There are reports that the Lo Celso deal will be a loan with an obligation to buy with the net result that the Argentine's former employers PSG will be left with a significantly smaller cut of the final fee. It's a great bit of business for both Spurs and Betis but it does beg the question why such a solution has only presented itself now? Levy is like the naughty schoolboy who has had all summer to do his assignment but choose to pull an all-nighter to get it done right on the deadline for submission.
Again Levy's refusal to just do a deal in a seller's market will cost Spurs on the footballing side of things while presumably not saving any money. He tried to offer the likes of Fulham the automatic bottle opener (with instruction manual), he dangled the possibility of use of the swivel chair in future negotiations and he even tempted them with his wife's recipe for ratatouille (I'd take that ahead of Josh Onomah if I was Scott Parker) but in the end it turned out that all these clubs were really interested in was
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