We're now less than 24 hours from the the opening of the January transfer window! Yesterday, I took a quick look at what the other teams at the top of the English Premier League need. Today, I'll switch gears and examine what may be ahead for Tottenham Hotspur during the window.
Spurs manager Harry Redknapp has said on several occasions that players will not be sold and he doesn't expect anyone to be coming in. Recently, Harry has softened his stance on the later claiming that the club would only buy a player that could take them to the next level, a real star. Those players are few and far between and with the strength of this squad I don't expect much if any activity in terms of players coming in. Players going out will be another matter entirely.
Tottenham have already begun to loan out young players. Harry Kane and Ryan Mason will join Millwall on January 1. Other plays we could see going on loan include Ryan Fredericks, Andros Townsend,Tom Carroll, John Bostock, Cristian Ceballos, Massimo Luongo, and a few others. It will be most interesting to see what if anything the club do with the likes of Jake Livermore and Danny Rose.
In terms of sales, I know that Harry Redknapp may not be too keen on letting some of his fringe players depart, but chairman Daniel Levy may want to trim the wage bill a litte. If a sufficient offer come in we will almost certainly see the departure of Giovani Dos Santos. The same is probably true of Roman Pavlyuchenko and Heurelho Gomes. It will also be interesting to see what kind of interest there is in Niko Kranjcar. Several Italian teams tabled bids, allegedly, for the midfielder over the summer. Niko's been hurt for most of the season and hasn't featured much so his price has surely gone down.Another area of interest is what Tottenham decide to do with some of the players they have in the squad on loan from other clubs. Namely, Yago Falque and Emmanuel Adebayor. Will this January window be the time when Tottenham opt to exercise their options to buy on either player? I think Tottenham will probably look to keep Falque permanently, but Adebayor will be tricky because of his wages.
Tottenham have a solid squad in many regards without any real weaknesses. If the team doesn't spend in January I won't be too broken up about it. However, if we sell Roman Pavlyuchenko then we must make a striker signing. We could also probably use cover at left back (I'm still not sold on Danny Rose) and right midfield. I'm not counting on Spurs bring in any stars, but maybe a couple of decent young players to provide cover would be good.
What do you see happening for Spurs in the transfer window? Will we pull any surprises or will the squad remain largely intact?