What Spurs are getting in Xavi Simons

Hello and welcome to the Friday grab bag, which kicks off with a transfer I’m very excited about.

Following a series of embarrassing faceplants, Tottenham Hotspur finally have the attacking midfielder they’ve spent the summer chasing. Xavi Simons has signed a 5-year contract + additional option years with Spurs, making a €60m move from RB Leipzig. If you are unfamiliar with Simons, please enjoy the sizzle reel.

How and why Tottenham ordered their AM targets for this summer, I’ll never understand. The order in which they pursued the players they attempted to sign — Morgan Gibbs-White, Eberechi Eze, Nico Paz, and finally Simons — is the exact inverse of how I’d have ordered them if I worked in Tottenham’s recruitment department. Johan Lange and Co. have stumbled ass backwards into a massive W.

Simons, like the rest of the Leipzig team, had a statistical down year. Blame it on a change in the drinks formula over at Sugar Water FC. This did not scare me off for a few reasons:

1. He was still really good

2. He dropped off less than his teammates

3. Holy cow look at his previous season.

The open play assists map is very pretty.

Simons also had a pretty ridiculous 133 successful carries into the final third in the 2023-24 season.

I was pretty shocked that Simons did not have a huge market last summer, and I think Paris Saint-Germain were too. His loan back to Leipzig, and subsequent purchase with only a 2.5 year contract, always felt extremely strange. But now he’s got the 5+ year contract from a Premier League team that he should have got last year, and Tottenham have their star playmaker.

Simons’ detractors will say that his attitude is inconsistent and he’s too small for the Premier League. I don’t have enough determination about the former to make a call either way, and I genuinely do not care about the latter. He’s elite at turning out of pressure and I don’t think his small frame is going to be a significant hinderance. His dribbling and passing ability more than make up for any deficiencies. I really think Spurs got an absolute gem of a player.

The FPL corner

The big FPL topic of the week seems to be what to do about the injuries to Cole Palmer and Bukayo Saka, with many managers opting to sell these players, buy a cheaper one, and either upgrade another position or wait for more information on those players’ fitness next week. The three popular replacements are Mohamed Kudus, Ismaila Sarr and Antoine Semenyo.

Kudus is one you have to take on faith. His numbers were a lot worse than the other two last year, and either you think they’ll improve significantly because he’s on a better team now, or you think he’s the worst of the three. Sarr and Semenyo are a bit easier to compare, and I’m not sure which I’d rather have.

Semenyo has more shot volume, but Sarr takes better shots. Semenyo is off to the hotter start and his team’s attack looks better, but I’m not sure if that overcomes the big gap between the two in xG assisted, and Sarr arguably has the better fixture this week.

“I don’t know” is not very good advice, and possibly unhelpful. Sorry! Hopefully this information helps you towards making your own decision, though.

Games we’re watching

HSV vs. St. Pauli — One for the atmosphere, not quality of football. Two likely Bundesliga relegation battlers, but also fierce rivals, so the stadium should be bumping.

Real Betis vs. Athletic Bilbao — Consistently my favorite teams to watch in La Liga outside of the big two. They were both a bit blah last week though, hopefully this one’s a bit more fun.

Pisa vs. Roma — Gasperini Rule. If there’s no marquee matchup in Italy, the one worth watching is the Gasperini game.

Monaco vs. Strasbourg — Monaco had a bad one last week, and the Fightin’ BlueCos are off to a hot start.

Liverpool vs. Arsenal — With Saka and Odegaard probably unavailable, we’re probably in for an all-time bus parking. High probability that this game is a boring 0-0. But it’s Liverpool-Arsenal, so we’re watching.

Stuff we’re reading

Jonathan Liew at The Guardian comments on Ruben Amorim valiantly struggling against the non-football club that is Manchester United.

Ed Maylon and Matt Hughes at FootBiz go into detail about how bad things have gotten at the club.

Josh Bland at Against The Run Of Play has a positive story on the rise of Grimsby Town, to avoid making this very cool cupset entirely about the bigger team’s failures.

Josh Williams at Distance Covered profiles Liverpool’s new young defender Giovanni Leoni, who is extremely large and strong.

Jake Entwhistle at Scouted rounds up some rising teenagers who will soon take over the world.

Gillian Kasirye at Total Football Analysis breaks down James McAtee’s game and what he brings to Forest.

Ali Tweedale at Opta Analyst ran the numbers on which teams drew the easiest and hardest fixtures in the UEFA Champions League.

Kieron O’Connor at Swiss Ramble digs into Premier League clubs’ debt.

Paul Tenorio at The Athletic interviewed Son Heung-Min and wrote about how big of an impact he’s already making at LAFC.

Gabriele Marcotti at ESPN has 7 truths you should know about the transfer market.

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