Tottenham transfer news

IT feels as disorientating as watching Tony Adams in sequins on Strictly Come Dancing.But on Saturday, we’ll witness a North London derby between two teams with genuine ambitions of challenging for the title.
Mikel Areta’s Arsenal face Antonio Conte’s Spurs in the North London this SaturdayCredit: Getty
Arsenal legend Tony Adams raised eyebrows with his appearance on StrictlyCredit: PA
This is a rivalry so intense that 47,000 watched their Women’s Super League clash at the weekend.
But for the first time in six years, Arsenal v Tottenham is a truly elite Premier League fixture, rather than a local squabble of little interest north of Watford.
Last year’s derbies were two of the most one-sided home wins you’ll ever see — when Nuno Espirito Santo’s Spurs were demolished at the Emirates and Arsenal choked with Champions League football up for grabs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in May.
This one promises to be different with Arsenal top, and unbeaten Spurs in third, after both clubs kicked a deeply ingrained habit by nailing the summer transfer window.
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Nobody could have seen this coming a year ago, during Nuno’s disastrous Spurs reign, following a laughable 76-day search for Jose Mourinho’s successor and with Arsenal still floundering under Mikel Arteta.
Yet the appointment of Antonio Conte was a game-changer at Spurs, enabling them to seize fourth spot — before the summer signings of Richarlison, Yves Bissouma, Ivan Perisic and Clement Lenglet added experience and quality to significantly bolster the squad.
And after blowing a return to the Champions League, Arsenal bought in two multiple Manchester City title-winners in Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko, who, along with returning loanee William Saliba, have improved Arteta’s team immeasurably.
Both managers have enjoyed the authority to make tough decisions which have gone against the grain — and, crucially, both are sharing a hymn sheet with their sporting directors: Edu at Arsenal and Fabio Paratici at Spurs.
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When Arteta bombed out his captain Pierre-Emerick Aubemeyang, some of Arsenal’s more excitable supporters demanded the Spaniard’s sacking.
But that move was a logical extension of Arsenal’s policies of prioritising squad unity and promoting youth — an approach which reached hallucinatory extremes when 15-year-old midfielder Ethan Nwaneri made his first-team debut at Brentford.
Conte has also been able to challenge his club’s culture — though in a different direction to Arsenal.
Spurs bought early and added experience this summer, rather than their usual obsession with late bargains and resale value.
Tottenham have not been swashbuckling this season and, under Conte, they probably won’t be as thrilling as Mauricio Pochettino’s peak side, nor the under-rated Harry Redknapp team which included Gareth Bale, Luka Modric and Rafael van der Vaart.
But the ability to grind out results is what Spurs have too often lacked.
Richarlison is already proving to be a big hit at TottenhamCredit: Rex
And in Richarlison they have a player who is all kinds of everything. A great individual talent, yet also a team player who gives them the ability to rotate their attack without a drop in quality.
He is a crowd-pleaser, flair player and a cynical irritant, loathed by opposing players and fans.
And having scored twice for Brazil against Ghana last Friday, there’s a decent chance Richarlison will be a World Cup winner by Christmas.
Especially when you consider that Brazil are strong enough to have left Arsenal striker Jesus out of their latest squad.
Jesus didn’t look such an obvious hit when Arsenal signed him from Manchester City.
Pep Guardiola was unsure of his abilities as a top-class, out-and-out centre-forward.
But Arteta had no doubts — and he’s being proved right.
Both North London managers know what it takes to win the Premier League.
Conte did it himself at Chelsea, while Arteta assisted Guardiola in back-to-back title-winning campaigns at the Etihad.
Can either of them finish above City this season? It’s highly doubtful.
But if there is a winner on Saturday, in a fixture which feels unusually significant so early in the campaign, then they must fancy their chances of at least being part of the title argument.
And that would be as unfamiliar as watching Adams do the paso doble.
SALUTE SARDAR
I’M not sure how many armbands Harry Kane could fit around his bicep at the World Cup.
The rainbow ‘One Love’ effort, which he will wear to promote LGBTQ+ equality, is a well-intentioned if largely meaningless, gesture against Qatari state homophobia.
But England kick off their campaign against Iran, whose Islamic-extremist government subjugates women to a barbaric extent.
Iran’s Bayer Leverkusen forward Sardar Azmoun bravely spoke out in favour of women’s-rights campaigners, claiming he ‘doesn’t care’ if it costs him his place at the World Cup.
Now that is a protest of genuine meaning.

GREA-T DINING
AFTER Jack Grealish claimed that Graeme Souness has a ‘problem’ with him, the great Scotsman invited Manchester City’s £100million man for a night out together.
The player has apparently accepted and he should go because sharing a meal with Souness is an enriching experience.
Grealish should expect to find a warm, decent, fascinating bloke — with far greater depth than his TV pundit persona — but also someone who genuinely feels angry when he believes a footballer is not fulfilling his potential.
He should also expect to foot the bill. And for there to be some pricey champagne on it… 
STORMING IT
YOU might consider Jose Mourinho an outdated coach.
But the fact the Portuguese appears on a new track, and video, by the rapper Stormzy — and it actually works — is testament to his enduring charisma.
No other football manager could pull that off.
JOE OVER AJ?
WHILE Tyson Fury v Anthony Joshua would undoubtedly be the ‘biggest’ fight in British boxing history, would it currently be a contest between Britain’s best two heavyweights?
After witnessing AJ’s recent struggles and Joe Joyce’s impressive KO of Joseph Parker, it’s tempting to rate Joyce as our second-best big man.
Joe Joyce produced a stunning knockout to Joseph Parker on SaturdayCredit: Getty
CHEAT STORM
THERE was uproar at Lord’s when India’s women won a one-day international by virtue of Deepti Sharma executing a ‘Mankad’ run-out of England’s Charlie Dean at the non-striker’s end.
This caused a predictable outcry of the ‘it’s just not cricket’ variety by those who falsely claim the game has ever been a haven for fair play.
Sharma acted within cricket’s laws.
And whenever elite women’s sport proves that it’s not all a bit too ‘nicey-nicey’ — as with the ultra-physical Euros football final between England and Germany — it’s a welcome slap round the chops for the misogynists who want to do it down. 
HORNETS NEST
GOOD luck to the new Watford boss Slaven Bilic.
After the end of Rob Edwards’ 11-match reign, the average life span  of the last seven permanent Watford bosses — Edwards, Roy Hodgson, Claudio Ranieri, Xisco Munoz, Vladimir Ivic, Nigel Pearson and Quique Sanchez Flores — is 19 games.
At that rate, Bilic can expect to be sacked on January 28.
MIT THE JACKPOT
ALEKSANDAR MITROVIC hit a hat-trick for Serbia against Sweden and it takes the Fulham striker’s tally to 47 goals in his last 57 internationals.
That comes on top of the 49 he has scored in his last 50 league games.
Yet most bookies are offering 66-1 against Mitrovic winning the World Cup Golden Boot — get in quick.
ON THE MARK
THE appointment of Mark Noble as West Ham’s sporting director just four months after he finished playing caused some predictable sniggering.
But the long-serving former club captain has completed a Harvard Business degree and a deep knowledge of West Ham’s academy and senior squad.
If Noble wasn’t a working-class bloke from Canning Town, there wouldn’t be nearly so much sneering. More

RYAN SESSEGNON has explained how Antonio Conte is turning Tottenham’s players into powerhouses – with the help of his “killer” fitness coach.The England Under-21 starlet believes he and his Spurs team-mates were not fit enough before Conte’s arrival in November.
Antonio Conte has been whipping Tottenham into shape since taking overCredit: EPA
Ryan Sessegnon is currently with the England Under-21sCredit: Getty
But that is certainly not the case now thanks to Conte whipping the group into shape, which has led to an unbeaten start to the Premier League season.
Sessegnon, 22, said: “The other managers I’ve had at Spurs have been a bit more chilled with training.
“With this gaffer, even if we’re doing tactical stuff, it’s still physically hard.
“The longer runs, the hard distances – eight or nine km runs in training three days before games. It’s hard but your body adapts.
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“Then when you’re on the pitch it benefits you. I feel the whole team is stronger, can go stronger than other teams.”
Sessegnon was crocked when Conte first arrived but still got a sense of how he needed to up his physical game when watching on from the sitting on the sidelines.
He explained: “He makes the injured players watch the tactical sessions and I was the first to sit aside and watch the way he wants us to play.
“Then you go and do your physical stuff. They are long days.
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“As a team, I don’t think we were really fit and he made us run a lot. I knew when I came back that I had to be ready for the levels.”
Sessegnon has had a history of hamstring problems which he knew he had to do something about if he was to thrive in Conte’s side.
That was why he spent three weeks during the off-season doing strength training out in Portugal with a personal trainer, as exclusively detailed earlier this month by SunSport.
That prepared him for the hellish end-of-session runs during pre-season put on by Spurs fitness coach Gian Piero Ventrone, known as “The Marine”.
Tottenham’s fitness coach Gian Piero Ventrone with Harry KaneCredit: Getty
Ventrone’s methods left Harry Kane throwing up and Son Heung-min collapsing after 42 gruelling laps of the pitch in front of 6,000 fans during open training in South Korea in July.
Yet it appears to have helped Sessegnon and his team-mates flourish this term – as has Conte’s detailed tactical instructions.
Sessegnon added: “Obviously, (Ventrone) is very good. But he’s a killer, seriously. Very intense. The more physical players, where he knows he can push you, he will be on you.
“My work in the off-season was to make my body more robust.
Carsley’s outside-the-box thinking – on the boxLEE CARSLEY has been creatively using the TVs in the England Under-21 canteen to get his tactical message across.
The Young Lions boss did not enjoy dry classroom lectures as a player and with time limited with his squad, he has been thinking up alternatives.
One of those includes playing loops of the opposition’s build-up play on the televisions where the players eat at our National Football Centre, St George’s Park.
It means the team can absorb the information on how to press without even thinking about it – in the hope that it will pay off on the pitch.
That has already been the case for England’s opener in their vital 2-1 qualifying win in the Czech Republic in June, when Emile Smith Rowe finished off a counter-attack that Carsley and his coaching staff had pre-planned.
Speaking at St George’s Park on Tuesday, ahead of Thursday’s friendly against Italy in Pescara, the Young Lions boss explained: “We do a lot of preparation and we’ve got a lot of information.
“If you went into the canteen now, there’s a loop on of Italy where you can see what they’re building. It shows the build-up, the way they play through, the way they press, their set-pieces.
“It’s getting an understanding of how players that we’ve got learn best. Some players we need to show on the training ground, some are happy getting the game plan on the WhatsApp and taking it in in their own time.
“It’s something we’ve always done. We’ve got such a short amount of time.
“I was never a fan as a player of being in a classroom and being sat there and having a manager shouting at us saying, ‘Watch this, this is going to happen’. I didn’t learn like that.
“Finding what the players’ best learning style is has been key for us. We need to get them on our page quite quickly. We’ve found it’s worked.”
Wing-back Ryan Sessegnon added: “Lee is very good. He doesn’t bombard us with too much information.
“We have clever players in the team anyway. We have a game plan but make our own decisions on the pitch.”

“My body can handle it a bit more when I’m fatigued now. That was mainly the reason I went away, to build that core strength around the body.
“From a fitness point of view, I am where I want to be, Touch wood it (stays) all good. I feel good in my body. With my performances, I’m doing well but still have a few more gears.
“The gaffer is very detailed, we have a lot of tactical meetings and sessions.
“He is very clear on what he wants. It’s probably the first time in my Spurs career that I know what to do with and without the ball in a situation where the formation is clear.”
With 18 Under-21 caps, Sessegnon is one of the elder statesmen of Lee Carsley’s current crop who take on Italy in a friendly in Pescara on Thursday.
Though unlikely, it is not beyond the realms of possibility a strong couple of months with Spurs could land Sessegnon a shock inclusion in Gareth Southgate’s World Cup squad, with the left-back berth looking wide open.
Yet Sessegnon has already seen enough in his career to not go counting any chickens, from being tipped to make the Russia World Cup squad four years ago by then club manager Slavisa Jokanovic when lighting up the Championship at Fulham, to the injury setbacks he has suffered with Tottenham.
Sessegnon added: “Everyone was saying these good things when I was 16-17 but I always stayed grounded because of the people around me.
“It was the way I was brought up. I’m not silly. Stay level-headed when things go well because football is a rollercoaster – you can be a 10 one day and then a one the next.
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“I don’t really think about it (England). I have a job at Tottenham and with the Under 21s. If the opportunity comes then I’ll be delighted but it’s not a pressure I’m putting on myself.”
England Under-21 likely line-up: Bursik; Aarons, Harwood-Bellis, Colwill, Sessegnon; Skipp, Gallagher, Ramsey; Elliott, Balogun, Gordon. More

ANTONIO CONTE is being linked with a sensational return to Juventus.The Tottenham boss is “open” to the move if Juve sack under-pressure manager Max Allegri, according to reports in Italy.
Italian Antonio Conte could reportedly be tempted back if Juventus come in for the Tottenham managerCredit: AFP
Allegri has notched just two wins in seven Serie A games this season.
And the Italian giants are thought to be encouraged by the fact Conte has yet to extend his Spurs deal beyond next summer.
But the 53-year-old has guided Tottenham to third place in the Premier League this term after qualifying for the Champions League.
And in August the Italian insisted he was content at Spurs – and willing to stay for the long term if their solid progress continues.
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Conte said: “I didn’t need to sign contracts for one, two or three years.
“I’m happy. We’re working really well together. It’s not that one year on the contract more or less can change the situation.

“For sure we want to continue to improve, to build something important for this club.
“If the idea continues to be in this way, there will be zero problems to continue my life in Tottenham because I stay well and I like this group of players and I have a good relationship with [managing director, Fabio] Paratici and with [chairman] Daniel Levy.”
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Nonetheless, Italian publication Il Bianco Nero claims Conte would not rule out going back to Juventus, where he won three titles from 2011-14.
He has also been spotted in Turin, relaxing during the international break. More