Will he stay or will he go

Various reports yesterday that Burnley will demand a £10m fee for the transfer of Danny Ings to Spurs


Will he stay or will he go


There have been plenty of reports that Spurs will offer £5 million ($7.54m - €6.69m - AU$9.53m) this window but that seems highly unlikely if you look at the matter in the cold light of day.

Tottenham need to trim the wage bill and are trying to do deal for Aaron Lennon and Paulinho with Younes Kaboul as a hopeful departure. If that can happen and they are not swap deals then bringing in Ings could happen but I don't see the club adding to an already inflated wage bill. Remember we pay Benoit Assou-Ekotto £40,000-a-week ($60,352 - €53,542 - AU$76,208) to do nothing, many would argue we pay Adebayor £100,000-a-week ($150,880 - €133,855 - AU$190,520) to do nothing!

Ings himself has said he is not leaving Burnley until the summer he wants to try and ensure their survival and quite frankly getting Premier League experience with them each week will give him experience, this is his first season in the Premier League.

In the summer he is available on a free transfer and Burnley have also said they will not sell him this window even though they know he'll go for free in the summer, his goals are vital to keep them up. A pre-contract agreement would seem to be the best option for us, a fee of £10 million ($15.09m - €13.39m - AU$19.05m) is ludicrous for just a few months, as is the previously quoted £7 million ($10.56m - €9.37m - AU$13.34m).

We have three strikers at the moment and playing with only one up front we don't need four. As we can't sell the two who are not banging in the goals we just have to get them scoring which means playing to Adebayor's ego and keep playing Soldado whenever we can with fingers crossed. Fortunately he creates and has great movement, we have had two penalties in two games thanks to him.

TOTTENHAM SQUAD

25 max squad players (HG = Home grown)

1.   Adebayor, Emmanuel
2.   Bezerra Maciel Junior, Jose Paulo (Paulinho)
3.   Capoue, Etienne
4,   Ceballos, Cristian
5.   Chadli, Nacer
6.   Chiriches, Vlad Iulian
7.   Dembele, Moussa
8.   Eriksen, Christian
9,   Fazio, Federico
10. Friedel, Bradley Howard
11. Kaboul, Younes
12. Lamela, Erik
13. Lennon, Aaron (HG)
14. Lloris, Hugo
15. Mason, Ryan Glen (HG)
16. Rose, Daniel Lee (HG)
17. Soldado Rillo, Roberto
18. Stambouli, Benjamin
19. Townsend, Andros (HG)
20. Vertonghen, Jan
21. Vorm, Michel
22. Walker, Kyle Andrew (HG)

An Under 21 player is defined as one who is under the age of 21 on 1st January in the year in which the season commences so DeAndre Yedlin counts as under 21 but come the summer he doesn't. He will then join the full squad as anon-home grown player which means we will have to lose one we already have.

We can't therefore be filling our club up with yet more wages on top of what we have until we offload, Assou-Ekotto will go, Friedel will surely retire so that will free £90,000 ($135,792 - €120,469 - AU$171,468), but then Mason and Kane have had wage increases that have just pushed the bill up another £50,000-a-week ($75,440 - €66,927 - AU$95,260).

Goals are a problem yes, but so is conceding them and we allow too many shots at our own goal from too close range while we shoot from too long a range, that suggests the midfield is the area most in need of attention right now.