Whether or not we manage to tick every box isn't a case of "leaving it late".
Every club's fans are glued to the final days of the window; that's just the nature of the beast.
What you're describing are just universal frustrations of most clubs and fans.
This isn't come Spurs-centric phenomena.
"No brainer", "Should have signed".... Call it what you will.
Well replace the phrase as you see fit... My sentiment remains the same.
Well he's on a reduced wage AND on a play-or-no-pay basis so that would suggest he was pretty keen to go there, yes......
Like I alluded to, his agent spoke at length about this and his motivations for doing so. The name Gerrard was constant and yet Villa were barely mentioned at all. Meanwhile we seemed to be linked; to the point that some sources claim that we have our names attached to his eventual option to buy clause in the summer; so we obviously didn't just sit back and watch him sign for Villa un-interested.
Regardless; it's funny how when it suits people want to cast Villa as some upcoming force to be feared; yet they're bums in the middle of nowhere when the script requires it.
Again, it's funny how when it suits we are a club with a small-time mentality; but trying to sign a higher callibre of player suddenly becomes a stick to beat us with when it suits.
Look, I have massive frustration with our scouting; but we've signed 19 players in the last 3 seasons..... We haven't just been sat on our hands idly watching the teams below us hoover up players that would obviously boost us back to being league challengers again..... And yeh, the whole "Spurs leave it late" IS a myth.
1 - If you run out of time to tick every box then yes it is a case of leaving it late, you've left it too late in fact...
2 - Yes, because until the window shuts any club could sign a player, you can include Man City in that (and even use their failure to sign Kane to say, look, all clubs swing and miss from time to time...) but they are currently top of the league and progressing in CL, their
need is much less than ours...
3 - I'm sorry, I'm not invested in this enough to go through the last few years of transfers for all mid table Prem clubs just to prove a point to you that they have signed good players that would have improved us at those times. You can do that yourself if you wish, it's bound to be subjective to an extent anyway, but if you come back to me and say that you wouldn't want any of those players then you'll be lying.
4 - They can be both (though mid-table prem isn't bums, it just happens to be below us, for now...) they are worse than us, and yet have shown improvement and made smart signings, if both clubs continue their trajectories then they will overtake us at some point.
5 - It's a stick to beat us with when we fail, it's great to be after signing the best players around, but if you don't actually seal the deal then it's all for nothing, and the amount of times we've missed the boat on someone because we've been sniffing after someone that was eventually signed by a top tier club makes me think we should probably realign our targets and go for the best
attainable from the off. I'm sure you'll ask me for specific examples and off the top of my head I can't give you a comprehensive list, and I'm not about to go and research it either, so if you want to discount my point based on that then fair enough, I will go out on a limb now and say their is absolutely zero chance that Frank Kessie signs for us this summer as an example, we will be linked heavily I'm sure, and ITK might even say it's practically done for a good few weeks, but he'll go to a Real, Barca, City etc. And in the meantime I'd wager plenty of perfectly good cm's will have been transferred for perfectly reasonable fees, whilst we're left 2 injuries away from the Winks/Hojbjerg axis of doom...
6 - We haven't no, but we've been doing a bad job at squad building for a number of years now, and I'm not after a summer of signings that immediately make us title challengers, I just want some players that improve us and make us vaguely bloody watchable again, I don't think that's too much to ask.
And finally, Spurs leave it late, you can disagree all you like but that's not going to change my mind, feel free to save this post and bring it back up on August 31st, I guarantee we will be sat at our screens desperately hoping for another 2 or 3, hopefully not 4 or 5, new signings still due to no back up striker, no creative midfielder, no new centre back yet. If I'm wrong then I'll be delighted.
