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A Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links May 23, 2016

The problem of context...

Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

Good morning!

I wish I had a cheery Monday morning message, but I don't. Spurs offseason has started and, like all years, it's a kind of waiting game to see who we buy and who we sell. People will talk about these moves over the next 12 weeks like there are objective truths: Player A must be sold and Player B must be purchased. The fate of the club is at stake!

What we tend to forget, however, is that none of these purchases happen in a vacuum. What looks good "on paper" has to also look good to a team's actual finances and starting XI, no matter who is doing the selling and who is doing the buying.

It would be great for all of the clubs we deal with this offseason to realize that we are in the Champions League and be in as much of a hurry to finalize deals, but the opposite will most likely be true. They'll want us to pay a premium for our position and timeline, which outside of looking of actual pay sheets may not seem such a big deal. Consider this, though. Overpaying by "only" one million here, or two million there, creates actual holes in the budget that have to be filled somehow. And to oversimplify the issue further, creating holes in the budget when there's a big stadium to pay for is bad practice.

So what am I saying? I'm saying it's complex. What may seem like objective truths when analyzing a transfer are actually a set of subjective truths about where a club is,/what they need plus player value in conjunction with their remaining contract.

With great success comes great expectation. Let's not let our eyes and hearts completely overwhelm our brains this transfer window.

And now for the "news":

MIchy still being scouted by Tottenham| Mercato 365

And just to prove that all points of view are not the same in the most on the nose fashion, I present an article in French.

Today in "numbers don't always explain everything"; Spurs property area has biggest growth| Introducer Today

That seems to be due to the depressed starting values, but don't let me ruin a good headline.

Jamie Redknapp says Man Utd should bid for Dele Alli and Harry Kane| Squawka

I think they'd have to literally bid 160 million pounds to get the conversation started, but then again, I've never sat in Ed Woodward's chair. And only he knows what the world looks like from that point of view.

Lukaku has made up his mind and is being very cryptic about doing so| NBC Sports

I love how Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are being linked in with Man Utd and Chelsea. The proof that these are professionals and they play for money should not be necessary at this point, but sometimes we all need a wake-up call.