Wednesday Hoddle of Coffee, Soccer News and Notes, August 16, 2017

Later today we’ll have the second set of play-in first legs for this years Champions League group stage. Two matches in particular will be of special interest to Spurs fans:

• First, Napoli hosts French side Nice.
• Second, Emmanuel Adebayor’s Istanbul Basaksehir will host Sevilla.

If Nice and Basaksehir both pull off surprise upsets, Spurs will bump up into Pot 2 of the draw and our odds of ending up in a group of death will be far smaller. If either Napoli or Sevilla advance to the group stage, we will be locked into Pot 3.

In other news:

• Roma has given up on signing Riyad Mahrez. (They definitely should have held out for a higher fee for Mo Salah.)
• After scoring twice in his league debut, Romelu Lukaku seems to be settling into Man United. He also has already developed a strong friendship with Marcus Rashford. (For what it’s worth, I thought in pre-season that this United squad was the most likely to pip City to the title.)
• Juve has been rebuffed so far in their attempts to sign Balde Keita with the Italian giants offering €15m plus €5m in bonuses and Lazio holding out for €30m. This is one to watch as Keita has also been linked with Tottenham.