Need Chiriches out to bring centre-back in

Desperate times call for desperate measures and our central defence is in a desperate state. Vlad Chiriches is poor, his game doesn't suit the Premier League, Younes Kaboul is living of the memory of 3 seasons ago, Michael Dawson is getting slower day by day and Jan Vertonghen will give us one more year to buck our ideas up.

Vlad Chiriches Spurs flop


A crisis now, a crisis looming, reinforcements and upgrades are desperately needed. 21-year-old Zeki Fryers has played both his games at centre-back on the 2014 Tottenham USA & Canada Pre-season Tour. I do wonder therefore whether Mauricio Pochettino agrees with Tim Sherwood that that is where his long term future lies rather than left-back, well see.

I believe we have agreed terms with a young central defender but need to offload players before we bring any in. Buying players giving you too many on your books puts you in a very weak position to sell players. Clubs simply offer low fees and or will wait to the last minute when we'll take anything to get them off the books rather than keep them but be unable to name them in the Premier League squad of 25 and therefore play them.

The defender concerned is believed to be 20 year-old Jamaal Lescelles of Nottingham Forest. We are also on the search for an experienced centre-back, 26-year-old Héctor Moreno of La Liga side Espanyol broke his leg at the World Cup and 25-year-old Dejan Lovren of Southampton appears to have chosen Liverpool.

Thus we have had to turn our attention elsewhere with 29-year-old Ron Vlar said to be interesting us. He sounds a bit long in the tooth, in February he will hit 30 so at best would be a stop gap while we wait for Moreno to recover from his broken leg.

We had looked at 23-year-old Stefan Savić of Fiorentina who were interested in both Younès Kaboul and Vlad Chiriches, however nothing has come of that. Fiorentina offered Kaboul are healthy salary to go and we tried a swap deal with Chiriches, neither have happened.

The latest stories surround 24-year-old Vlad Chiriches who couldn't adapt to the unique demands of the Premier League and grew worse as the season wore on. His agent has admitted he didn't adapt, that he is better suited to Italy and doubts he will play for Tottenham again, however he is still here. We are told he has a back injury, which he has had for months now, although passport problems were first rumoured for his non appearance o the pre-season tour.

I wonder whether its because we don't want him getting injured so we can ensure we sell him. Both he and the other player the subject of intense transfer speculation, Sandro, both missed the tour. If Schneiderlin come in then a central defensive midfielder has to leave. One for the conspiracy theorists.

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Roma are said to be interested in him and we are prepared to let him go for just £7.5 million (€9.46m). Reports differ about how much we paid for him from £7 million (€8.83m)to £8.5 million (€10.72m) but the higher figure would include add-ans. Obviously those add-ons are not going to be activated so we will have nearer the lower £7 million figure (€8.83m) which we are looking to recoup.

Teams however seem unwilling to match even that valuation so it's a nervous wait to see if the situation gets solved. We can't go into the season as we are, improving the centre of defence was agreed by Daniel Levy, Franco Baldini and Mauricio Pochettino, in their initial meeting after the Argentinians appointment, as a priority.

We have addressed the left-back situation and have been fortunate enough to pick up a number two goalkeeper along the way. We have designs on a ball playing defensive midfielder because we have issues getting the ball from defence to attack quickly enough and a wide left attacking midfielder who can defend. It's the centre-back area that really concerns though and a Champions League challenge with the current incumbents looks unlikely.

Sky Sports reporter Graeme Bailey has tweeted that Chiriches is not in Pochettino's plans and that it is being reported in both Romania and Italy that Franco Baldini is trying to sell him.

Tottenham need to offload him to a mainland European club and quick, he game may well suit the slower pace of football, it certainly doesn't suit the Premier League.