Squad Balance

• How will you ensure the balance between young academy players and experienced players? Also how can you ensure we do not make the same mistakes as before? Thanks

  3 · Like · Reply · May 29 at 8:04am
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  Tottenham Hotspur Mauricio: We need to get the balance in the squad through our knowledge, the way we see the squad and what we want from them to deliver the style. You put this all together then you can decide which profile of player you need to fit the style, and this is how you get the right balance in the squad. It is a process, it's not about a mix of youth with experience.

  9 · Like · May 29 at 10:27am

Mauricio Pochettino makes a point often overlooked by fans who want designer label purchases, someone with a name and a big price tag for the glamour. The perception is that if you buy a star they are guaranteed to perform which sadly is not the case.

Transfer fees have gone skywards, £30 million (US$45.75m - AUS$59.85m - €41.05m) for Luke Shaw is just plain stupid and the prices you hear quoted are nuts. The Italians when they buy seem to be rather more sensible about things, but then they have less money. When a large Premier League club come calling though the price goes up millions. Erik Lamela is not a £30 million footballer but that's what we paid for him.

We have an unbalanced squad, too many different managers have bought players for different styles and each manager required different characteristics in a player. A manager/head coach does not have a feel for the club, too him results are the only thing that matter as that determines his employment usually. Therefore if he knows he is not guaranteed to be at a club for a number of years, and in today's football landscape few have that luxury, then keeping a club core is a luxury.

In those circumstances he will sell players like Michael Dawson and buy money mercenaries in the hope they perform for the club, unfortunately with quite a few purchases they haven't.

I have been writing for two years that we need to become world class in the transfer buying field. We need to have an edge, a unique selling proposition to attract players to our club of a quality who would not normally come to Tottenham. With the mental side of professional sport being so important and it being in it's infancy in football we have an opportunity to become world leaders, an opportunity we should take.

With our current transfer policy of buy young and improve their value it's essential we improve the mentality of players so they will continue to improve and not think they have made it and go through the motions.

Experience is not just about football experience, it's about club experience as well. If you sell all the Michael Dawson's of this world then your club loses it's identity. At Tottenham we are having to reinvent ourselves as a club that produces our own, we have had to latch on to Harry Kane as the figurehead for the club as there is nobody else, nobody that is that has a Tottenham history.

Aaron Lennon is our longest serving player and he will be out the door next. You generally think of a long serving player as meaning longest time playing for the first team rather than in the youth ranks, Danny Rose is a case in point. You wouldn't consider him one of our longest serving players yet we bought him in May 2007 from Leeds United for £1 million (US$1.52m - AUS$2m - €1.37m).

The best purchase is not the most experienced or the most expensive, it's the one that fits the team the best, the one that can produce the goods regularly within the system. Mauricio Pochettino decides the type of player he wants, Paul Mitchell finds them, Rob Mackenzie in charge of buying them, although obviously others have to be involved when you are dealing with chairman and vice-presidents, they like to talk to their equals.

Franco Baldini and Daniel Levy have been accused of buying players the head coaches don't want but it is the head coaches who decide the type of player they want and have always said yes or no to a purchase. We must remember not every purchase will be a success, Benjamin Stambouli is the type of player Pochettino wanted but he hasn't been a success yet, although I think he can be yet.

Some fans have derided the signing of Kevin Wimmer because it is cheaper, it isn't an exciting household name, but if he fits and plays better than Paulinho or Capoue or Soldado then he is a brilliant buy. Spurs rate him very highly and think he is a future star, we'll see.

Getting the right squad balance can only be achieved if Mauricio Pochettino is staying around and I have been convinced from signing him that Daniel Levy will keep him in place while the stadium is built and the early years of moving there. All the players he doesn't want can over time go and all the ones he does want can be put together, a bit like a jigsaw. Then we will have a balanced squad, then it is just adjustments, then we may be able to talk about having some experience within the club.

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