Welcome to a new weekly-ish blog piece for TLE, covering Tottenham Hotspur.
As the new stadium on Tottenham High Road continues to take shape, Tottenham are over in sunny Orlando taking part in the prestigious pre-season International Champions Cup. A tournament taking place across three locations (the US, China and Singapore) and featuring 17 teams in total, of which only five are actually champions. Sigh. Spurs get their tournament underway on Saturday, taking on PSG – although if you want to catch the game here in the UK, you’ll have to pony up for a sports channel nobody has ever heard of and stay up until 1am. I shouldn’t complain, I suppose. It makes a change to pre-season friendlies against Brentford. The price of success (or, second place). And it’ll be nice for what appears to be a growing contingent of Tottenham supporters stateside. When Spurs take on Man City on July 29th, an estimated 60,000 will attend the Nissan Stadium in Nashville, figures which it is said will bolster the city’s bid to set up an MLS franchise in Nashville.
Spurs have now sold all available season tickets and one-season Wembley Passes for the upcoming season. If you’re a bronze member, you can currently pick up a three-game ticket multi-pack that will get you in to see us take on Chelsea, Burnley and Swansea. If you’re not a member, don’t worry. There’s no chance we’ll sell out 90,000 seats to Burnley or Swansea and I’m confident that you’ll be able to grab a ticket for Chelsea as well. Me? Well, I bought a season ticket because there was no way I’m missing out on getting into the new Nike (unconfirmed) Hart Lane next season.
In transfer news: there is no transfer news. Spurs have been linked with a number of players this summer, including Ross Barkley, Mateo Kovacic, Juan Foyth and Riyad Mahrez, to name a few. The usual sticking points apply: we have a rigid salary cap of £100,000 a week and Daniel Levy is a dick to deal with, not to mention keen to keep that salary cap in place lest he find himself with a squad full of lads suddenly asking for pay rises. Levy is not at all keen for that given the in-progress stadium build, nor is he keen to hurt the club’s continued success in the Net Transfer Spend Cup.
Who’s the 2017 version of Roman Pavlyuchenko? Whoever it is, I bet we sign him on deadline day. I know who the 2016 version of Roman Pavlyuchenko is – Moussa Sissoko. Who, by the way, has not made the trip to Orlando after contracting a “virus.” Reports that he’d been suffering from this virus – a particularly rare strain of Notverygooditus – all last season have yet to be confirmed. There have been joyous rumblings about Sissoko being sold, at a loss, with Spurs still potentially picking up part of his salary. Fuck me. He’s a shit Adebayor now?
There was some positive news out of Hotspur Way this week as Kieran Trippier signed a new five-year deal (the terms of which were agreed in June.)
“I’m delighted with the new deal, it’s a great achievement for myself. I’m delighted to get it signed,” said (£50m!) Kyle Walker’s former understudy who is now, by process of elimination, our first choice right back. Don’t get me wrong, I like Trippier. He is a better crosser of the ball than Walker, but the club announced this with almost as much fanfare as they’d announce a brand-new signing. Plus, I’m a Spurs fan. I’m a natural cynic. Still, at least he’s signed.
Just a shame it took them a month to find the pen.
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