And Breathe!

Tottenham's transfer business was perhaps less exciting than some hoped for, but still sets Conte up for success in the tail end of the season | Spurs Women are bounced out of the FA Cup in extra time

Let's start by saying: thank god the transfer window is closed. The toxicity of the fanbase was becoming nearly unbearable in those last few days. Personally, I don't think Spurs' transfer business was a cut-and-dry case of being either a success or a failure, but rather something in between. I'll share my thoughts on why later on, but first, let's recap the ingoings and outgoings for both of our Spurs teams.

Men's Team

In:

Dejan Kulusevski (Juventus, 18-month loan)

Rodrigo Bentancur (Juventus, permanent)

Out:

Giovani Lo Celso (Villareal, loan)

Tanguy Ndombele (Olympique Lyonnais, loan)

Bryan Gil (Valencia, loan)

Dele (Everton, permanent)

Jack Clarke (Sunderland, loan)

Nile John (Charlton, loan)

Dilan Markanday (Blackburn Rovers, permanent)

Women's Team

In:

Eveliina Sumannen (Kristianstads DFF, permanent)

Viktoria Schnaderbeck (Arsenal, loan)

Out:

Esther Morgan (Leicester City, loan)

If I had to give our transfer window a grade, I would probably put it somewhere between a 6 or 7, taking into account the Men's and Women's transfers.

With the Men's team, Parataci did well to remove most of the negative dressing room influences (Ndombele, Lo Celso), move on a player whose time at Spurs had clearly come to a close (Dele), and secure a loan for the young players who need more development (Gil, John, Clarke). I pretty much only watch Juventus in the Champions League or when they're playing Venezia (come on you winged lions!), so I don't know much about either of our incoming transfers, but they both seem like useful players from what I've heard, and Conte will surely get the best out of them. Overall, I think it was more important for the club to transfer out the players that Conte did not feel like he could use in his squad and bring in a couple of young, promising players than it was for the club to break the bank on the kind of signing that is very difficult to achieve in the January window. (Still, let's all pour one out for our dashed dreams of Vlahovic.)

As for the Women's team, I think it's good that we brought in an attacking midfielder (Sumannen) to replace the injured Kit Graham for the time being, and it can't hurt to have some more defensive depth with Schnaderbeck, who can also play in defensive midfield. My only concern is that we really could have used a striker. We need to score more goals, period. But it's difficult to say if there was even a reasonable prospect on the January transfer market in that position. We will just have to hope that Williams continues to score consistently and that our wingers find a run of form. All signs have been pointing that way, despite the unfortunate results in recent weeks. It's also worth noting that Tang Jiali will be returning to the team with a lot of confidence after scoring a few goals in the Women's Asian Cup (China play again on Thursday in the semi-final against Japan). The one outgoing transfer, Esther Morgan's loan, is a smart move; she needs more regular game time and will surely get it at Leicester City. Look out for her to be challenging for a starting spot next season!

So overall, not a bad January window at all for Tottenham Hotspur. Do I still wish we could have started our transfer business earlier in the window and saved ourselves a lot of anxiety? Definitely. Almost all of the Men's transfers were done on deadline day, and the Women's team also cut it close with Schnaderbeck's loan (the Women's window closed a few days earlier than the Men's). I was quite envious of teams like Aston Villa that acted early and decisively to strengthen their teams--and okay, I'm mostly just jealous that they got Coutinho and Digne. And it's not just important to bring in players as soon as possible; it's also important to move out players that weren't going to feature in the manager's plans. Could we have been a more attractive prospect to players if we had cleared out those negative dressing room influences early in the window? And this is my admitted Bundesliga bias showing, but I often wonder why we seem to limit ourselves to only considering players from the same couple of leagues. There is plenty of under-the-radar talent to be found across the continent.

I do think we're still in a good position to continue strengthening in the summer window, for both teams. The Men's team is very likely to secure top 4 (our rivals for the fourth spot certainly didn't improve their chances with their respective transfer business), and we can only assume that Conte will definitely stick around in that case. Champions League qualification plus a world-class manager will signal to prospective signings that Tottenham is acting ambitiously again. I am glad that we didn't break the bank this window since we really just needed a couple of smart signings. Ndombele and Lo Celso should both serve as cautionary tales about splashing a lot of cash on a player more because they are available than because they are actually a good fit for the team. It can be frustrating that Spurs have to grow organically rather than immediately creating a super team à la City or PSG, but it will be more satisfying when we do achieve our targets because that success will have been earned, not built. The Women's team is in a similar situation, sometimes struggling to compete with the more financially-backed teams in the WSL, but still making a name for ourselves this season thanks to some smart signings in the summer and the continued tactical improvement under Rehanne Skinner. We just have to keep building and keep believing. There's plenty of reason for optimism!

Finally, let's say farewell to Dele. Some of the magic had been lost towards the end of his time at Spurs, but we'll always have the memories.

More cup action to come

Spurs Women are up first with the Conti Cup semi-final at Manchester City on Thursday. There's no getting around the fact that we are the underdogs in this match, despite beating City on the second matchday of the WSL season. The circumstances were quite different then, with City missing a lot of key players due to injuries (including one that happened during the match), and we also had luck go our way with a missed handball leading to our second goal. This will be a much tougher test.

Unfortunately, we were knocked out of the FA Cup on Sunday by Leicester City, in a game that nobody got to watch (well, unless you were at the match, of course). The game was in our control but once again, a 1-0 lead was not enough and Leicester were able to equalize and force extra time. From all accounts, we still created some decent chances in extra time, but ended up losing 3-1. We can only hope the squad is able to brush off this disappointing loss and rally for the City match.

If we do manage to get the upset win, we will face Chelsea in the final. They defeated Manchester United 3-1 in the other semi-final. United were without Toone, and also saw their keeper sent off in the second half, which made it very unlikely that they would be able to overcome the two-goal deficit at that time.

On Saturday, the Men face Brighton in the FA Cup in a home match. I can't imagine Bentancur will be ready to make an appearance since he just wrapped up a victory with Uruguay on Wednesday night (in which he scored in the first 50 seconds of the match!) and is still awaiting his work permit, but perhaps Kulusevski will have been integrated by then and at least feature from the bench. Reports suggest that Son will be available to play, finally. Romero is also back in full training after an even longer absence. It's going to be so refreshing to see our full-strength lineup back in place. I'm fully backing Spurs to win this match and move on to the next round.

Then on Sunday, Spurs Women will be back in WSL action against... also Brighton! Brighton's recent results don't reflect how well they've actually been playing, so this isn't a match to take lightly by any means. It's a fairly quick turnaround for us after the Conti Cup semi-final, so fatigue could certainly play a factor, with our squad still a little thin. Simon's Australia were already knocked out of the Asian Cup, but Cho's South Korea and Tang's China are both playing on Thursday, so I wouldn't count on either of them being available for Sunday, regardless of whether they get knocked out in the semi-finals or not (and South Korea are very unlikely to lose to the Philippines).

I'll be back with a recap of all three upcoming matches after the WSL match on Sunday... unless an emergency post is deemed necessary after the Conti Cup semi-final 😉.

COYS