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Saints To Play Hardball With Spurs Thursday, 21st Aug 2014 08:08
Saints are believed to be playing hardball with Spurs and that means that Morgan Schneiderlin will not form any part of the negotiations for any possible deal for Andros Townsend.
Saints are still keen on signing Tottenham & England winger Andros Townsend but they are not interested in trading Morgan Schneiderlin as part of the deal, although this is what every Saints fan wants to hear, the reality of the situation is that this is likely to mean that the chances of landing Townsend are greatly reduced.
Ex Saints manager Mauricio Pochettino has already been rebuffed by Saints with regard to Schneiderlin and still remains keen, but the problem is that with their failure to play hardball with at least two of the players who have left already in the summer, Les Reed backed the club into a corner meaning that even if they wanted to sell Schneiderlin now, it would be very hard to do so without incurring the wrath of the fans not to mention destroying the supporters faith in Ralph Krueger and the board.
That doesn't make it right however and Saints find themselves in a difficult situation in that Spurs have a player they want but are likely to indulge in a tit for tat spat unless Saints cave in and sell them Schneiderlin.
In the middle is Andros Townsend, he is one of the fringe players at Spurs now and is likely to be surplus to requirements as Spurs look to develop Pochettino's distinctive style he employed at Saints, that would not suit the likes of Townsend and with Pochetinoo famously very tunnel visioned in the way he plays the winger and indeed half a dozen or more of Spurs stars are likely to find themselves frozen out with little game time in the Premier League this season
In fact this is the only ray of hope for Saints, Spurs need to drastically trim a squad that is already overweight and they need to free up space for more players that can play the Pochettino way, although it is yet to be seen how the Argentinian will be able to cope with a large squad, usually preferring to stick to his core of 15/16 players and play them to distraction, injuries permitting.
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I'd prefer we didn't do any business with them. Surely we can identify some targets from elsewhere? Yes we need a winger but clearly there is an ongoing problem with levy and pooch. They want J Rod and Morgan and we don't need to sell nor should want to. If we miss out this window, hopefully we can get someone suitable in January.
We could do with someone providing width down the right. We looked very lop-sided on Sunday until Clyne pushed further forward in the second half. I agree with BarnetSaint though, we should steer clear of Spuds. There's bad blood between the two clubs and Levy is a notoriously hard man to deal with and will only try and skin us if we do agree a fee. There must be other wingers we could look at?
I'm guessing the two players we "failed to play hardball" with are Lallana and Lovren. Is it not relevant that the fees for those two were £20m each, whereas Spuds have offered a mere £10m for Spider. The only was they'll get us to talk business is to double their offer to something approaching the true value of one the Premier League's best midfielders.
Its just a matter of principle now. Spurs will try to use Townsend as the leaver to drive through a deal for Schneiderlin, but if we fall into that trap we shall all be sitting here again come January or the summer wondering why JayRod or whoever wants to jump ship next !
As I and many others have said, Townsend is no good. If he was, he would be playing regular for Spurs and they wouldn't even be thinking of selling him. Schneiderlin should not be sold because A) He's a very good player that we don't need to sell & B) We said he was not for sale, and will look like right mugs to the league, players, agents and fans if we go back on our word. It will do irreparable damage to our image.
Just to let him know how we feel, I sent Ben Kingsley over last night to tell Ronald how we feel:
As plenty of people said yesterday: No we can't sell MS, whether it is for footballing reasons or for the fact that having eventually drawn a line in the sand we can't now go back on it. I am suspicious at these contacts we are having with Spurs - I thought that the club might try the 'RoKo has over-ruled RK and wants to sell' in order to get round the MS nos sale commitment but the 'Spurs would only agree if we threw in MS' might now be used. If that is the case, and I hope it isnt, then the problem is none of the Spurs players being mentioned are worth it.
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