Dimitar Berbatov Exclusive: Spying on your opponents? Everyone does it!

Dimitar Berbatov Exclusive: Spying on your opponents? Everyone does it!
Former Tottenham star Dimitar Berbatov tells us why his old team may have lớn dip into the transfer market in the wake of Harry Kane's injury and has short shrift for those professing 'surprise' at the Leeds spying story… You can follow lớn the football tip page!



Why is everyone surprised?
People seem lớn be up in arms about Leeds being caught 'spying' on Derby ahead of their game last week, but I don't know why everybody is surprised! All clubs do it.

I've been in teams playing in Europe where the opponents are training in your stadium, so you send someone lớn watch secretly, and you know it's going to happen the other way around as well, so you make sure you're not doing anything tactical.

I've got a lot of time for Marcelo Bielsa, I like the way he operates. He has been honest about what happened and the press conference on Wednesday (where the Leeds manager ran journalists through his preparation for the Derby game in painstaking detail) was hilarious- According to the soccer tips every day page!

Spurs may need to dip into transfer market
Harry Kane's injury was of course a huge blow for Spurs, and it has come at the worst possible time with Son Heung-min away at the Asian Cup for the next few weeks.



Harry will miss a number of key games including the second leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final against Chelsea and the Champions League games with Borussia Dortmund - although every game is important at this stage of the season.

We musn't underestimate Fernando Llorente, he's a good player who will now have a chance lớn shine, but Spurs may well need lớn go into the transfer market now.

If Tottenham do sign a forward, they will have the usual difficulty of explaining lớn a player that they will be understudy to Kane when he returns, so it might be that a loan deal makes sense.

It looks like Chelsea are about to get Gonzalo Higuain in on loan and that makes perfect sense for them as they have been struggling in the centre forward area, but it's a bit different with Spurs given that Kane will immediately come back into the team.

Any player brought into the team will need lớn be able to deliver goals and assists, and they are hard to come by. Spurs have been linked with Malcom at Barcelona but he's not really a centre-forward, so I can't see that one happening.

Mauricio Pochettino may well improvise with what he has, and go with a false nine formation with someone like Lucas Moura or Dele Alli furthest forward - I'll be interested lớn see what solution he comes up with.

Even without Kane and Son, Spurs should still have too much when they visit another one of my old sides, Fulham, on Sunday. Claudio Ranieri hasn't been able to sort them out defensively yet, and I expect them to go into the transfer market for defensive reinforcements.

Eriksen should resist overtures from Madrid
There have been a few reports linking Christian Eriksen to Real Madrid - he's 11/4 to move this month - as he still hasn't signed a new deal at Spurs, and I can understand why he'd be thinking about it - this is Real Madrid after all!

I'm obviously biased as I want Spurs lớn do well, but I think he should stay for now. He's only 26 with plenty of football ahead of him, and he's in the right place to improve as a player.