Pace, creativity, clever feet

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Lewis Holtby in early. Makes me wonder if this has happened because of injuries to other players (Sandro out, Dembele always fitting to be fight) and a lack of true CM depth in the creative category (considering the deal was originally done for the summer). No doubt, everyone is going to go loopy with expectations once he dons a Lilywhite shirt. We've all been banging on about the lack of a player with subtle touch and disguised genius, so welcome to the Lane Lewis and get assisting please. In your own time mate.

I wrote this for the Metro in early January:

Now Lewis Holtby on the other hand is worth a little jig. A highly rated midfielder (German U-21 captain) with the potential to fulfil that much fabled ‘number 10′ role that we are in need for. Pace, creativity, clever feet. He’s not the finished article but has bags of delicious potential and will be part of the first team from the off. He’s coming over to England in July and thanks to his rejection of a new Schalke contract it means we sign him for absolutely  nothing. No transfer fee. Although at the time of writing Schalke have said for a fee of £1.6M we can sign him up now.

Even if Holtby is a true Andre Villas-Boas signing, I’m not sure we are looking to rush the deal. Also doubt Levy’s economics will see us wanting to spend £1.6M more than we have to. The player also fits into the profit philosophy that Levy has always embraced – young, cheap with a much higher sell-on margin (as witnessed with so many of our signings…well, apart from Jenas and Bentley and probably half a dozen others. Doesn’t always work).

Levy economics turned on its head.

Hopefully we'll have plenty of superlatives to share amongst ourselves in the coming weeks.

That's signing number seven (first team players) made by Levy for Andre Villas-Boas. Perception and expectancy will still mean plenty of nail biting as the clock ticks away through to deadline day as we await a mystical game-changing signing.