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Tottenham Hotspur Links: Spurs Match Chelsea’s Bid to Groundshare Wembley Stadium

By Alexander Balano

By cottontimer from London, UK (IMG_2510) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
By cottontimer from London, UK (IMG_2510) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons /
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It’s a two-story edition of Tottenham Hotspur Links today.

Here are the two latest stories. Up first, Chelsea who wanted to have an exclusive deal with the English FA to use Wembley Stadium until their renovations of Stamford Bridge is complete will see that be threatened with Tottenham matching the offer for one season. The Blues had been working on a £15 million-a-season four-year deal to lease out Wembley. With Spurs matching one season only, Tottenham will pay £15 million as well.

Finally, French online publication, Onze believes the real reason for Nabil Bentaleb for not playing has to do with him disobeying Mauricio Pochettino and leaving for Algeria in the last international break to play in two World Cup qualifiers. This also coincided with the fact that Bentaleb was still recovering from an ankle injury and was nearing full fitness only to get re-injured in the same ankle, but not as serious. To the links below.

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The ongoing process of which London club will be able to call Wembley Stadium home continues with the latest news involving Tottenham matching Chelsea’s bid to have both teams groundshare.

Although Chelsea wants to have Wembley all to themselves, a possible groundshare would only be for one season during the 2017-18 campaign. So it’s not like it would be much of a problem if the English FA sets up both Tottenham and Chelsea’s schedules appropriately where they’re not playing home games on the same day unless it’s against each other.

European games is out of their hands but Premier League and domestic cup fixtures can always be rescheduled accordingly.

Matt Law of the Telegraph has reported that Chelsea’s bid for exclusivity of Wembley Stadium is thought to be £15 million-a-season on a four-year deal. Meaning, if Tottenham matches that for one season, Spurs would only spend £15 million for one year and then finally move into their new stadium afterwards.

Another thing to consider for the Football Association is that if both teams are sharing Wembley Stadium, they would pocket up to £75 million in total. And earning that kind of money might be enough to persuade the FA to house both London clubs in the end — seeing as how it is for one season.

Although one thing that could dampen this deal is the fact that Tottenham, while they have already plead their case to the FA about a possible groundshare with Chelsea, have yet to actually speak with the defending Premier League champions about their plans for unknown reasons.

Okay, so this is an interesting article from Onze in a bad kind of way.

First of all, let’s just bring up this quote by Mauricio Pochettino from The Guardian which Sport Witness did a great job in scouring through the Argentine’s previous interviews in the past couple of months.

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“If you see it, you will see that it was a very, very bad tackle,” Pochettino said. “It was to the same ankle that has kept him out this season. He was lucky and we were lucky that it’s not a big issue. Maybe for Qarabag or Chelsea, he will be available.”

“We feel sorry for Nabil because he was very close to being able to compete in the week that we played Arsenal before the international break. We agreed that it would be a good opportunity for him to compete again if he went away with his national team. This is one step back for him. It is difficult for him to be available for Sunday.”

Pochettino had no problems with Bentaleb playing with Algeria, so disobedience is a silly reason for being benched. Just look at Andros Townsend and Federico Fazio. Both players aren’t being benched for disobedience.

While Townsend hasn’t had many appearances prior to his incident with Nathan Gardiner, he already owned up to his mistakes, but would rather play in the Under-21s to get consistent minutes since he wasn’t offered them in the first place. It had nothing to do with Mauricio Pochettino telling the 24-year-old winger to train with the second team.

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Fazio, as good as he was last year, can’t replace either Toby Alderweireld or Jan Vertonghen in the first team setup due to both Belgian players featuring a strong partnership over the years — outside of being compatriots, they used to play together with Ajax.

So really, it’s down to having better players ahead of Nabil Bentaleb, Federico Fazio and Andros Townsend. Form also plays a part in things too, but for the most part, why would Eric Dier, Toby Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen and Érik Lamela be benched in the first place? They shouldn’t.