This article is a pretty good assessment of where we are...
https://www.football365.com/news/jose-mourinho-tottenham-2-wolves-3-broken-opinion
"It shows a laudable spirit, also that these players are willing to extend themselves beyond their comfort zones, but it’s not conducive to any sort of rhythm. Nor any order.
It’s the opposite, in fact. It creates this overwhelming sense that catastrophe lurks around every corner. While properly structured teams need to be broken down over time, Mourinho’s Spurs can concede from any situation at any moment. From attacking corners, from phases of possession deep in the opposition half; they’re never safe.
It doesn’t mean that they don’t play well in patches. Tottenham did here, probably offering more of a threat than at any other point during the last month. It just means that those moves don’t result in any sort of momentum. It doesn’t matter how many runs are made or shots are taken, because there’s no way of containing that pressure, storing it up, and then using it any productive way.
Even the goals Spurs scored on Sunday seemed to be random acts of chance, the results of little more than ten seconds of briefly connected play which somehow just fell into place.
But the goals they conceded were descriptive, with each of them betraying a different type of incompetence. A missed clearance here, a missed tackle there. They were all well-taken and nicely constructed, but they faced so little resistance that that hardly seems the point. They weren’t scored against a team, rather a collection of players who only vaguely understand their roles and play as if they’re aware of their own glaring weaknesses.
Mourinho will pretend to think something or other, of course. He’ll profess himself happy with this, delighted with that, and enthused by something that – secretly – reflects well on him. On and on we go.
Whatever, though. The only real conclusion to reach is that nothing about Tottenham will matter until the season ends.
We're not a team anymore. Not under Pochettino and now, not under Mourinho. I doubt that a change of season will make that much of a difference, either. It's time for a full rebuild under a manager who is going to apply himself to the task over a period of years. As yet, we haven't found him.
**RANT INCOMING**
"Really, Mourinho is trying to construct something without any foundations, and with a known design flaw. They’re a car with square wheels, a tent without any pegs; an idea which is so compromised as to not require any further testing."
This is the part that worries me most. Looking back at Maureen's time in charge and there is mounting evidence that he doesn't really know the way forward for the team. I know I argued passionately in exactly the opposite direction after the Chelsea defeat, but today's performance - how we started so, so well but then totally collapsed when subjected to even the slightest bit of pressure - has knocked that argument for six.
This, more than anything, is what I want to see from players and manager right now. Couldn't give a toss if we lost every game between now and the end of the season if only I could sit back at the end of a game and say 'not only did the lads give their all, but the roots of a long-term strategy are clearly being laid in preparation for next season'. Right now, I can say neither. Our match day squad is a worrying mixture of players who don't care and players who do but don't seem to have even the smallest semblance of a plan, tactics or strategy to adhere to for the 90 mins. Our approach is literally hope for the best. There is no contingency plan for when the opposition is in possession, no variation to compensate for players struggling against their opponents, no changes of shape or personnel to keep the opposition guessing. It is all, well,
predictably unpredictable.
As others have said above, like it or not Maureen will be going into next season with the vast majority of the current squad still employees of THFC. To think we'll be able to clear out many more beyond the obvious candidates (Wanyama, Rose, KWP, Foyth etc.) stretches the boundaries of credulity.
Maybe we'll add the likes of Dier and Dele to that list. But those who are under the impression we'll then
also sell and improve on Aurier, Lamela, Lucas, Winks, Sissoko and Toby are dreaming. Simple as.
And so Maureen should by now have a rapidly solidifying picture of who he'd like to build the nucleus of next year's team around, and start implementing a plan which will help take them there. It isn't hard to imagine Kane and Son into any given system. Anyone who has followed football even casually for the past 5 years will know all about them and their styles of play. What
is difficult to imagine is how the likes of Dier, Toby, Jan, Dele are regarded as being a part of that nucleus.
So the article claims that Maureen is trying to construct something but lacks the foundations to do so. I'm wondering
what it is he is trying to construct, as aside from 20 mins against Leipzig and 20mins again today, I have seen scant evidence of that construction.
Compare us to Liverpool 4 years ago. Klopp had already settled on a system and, even though he lacked the attackers, CBs, CMs, and FBs to do that system justice, he stuck by it, made sure every single seemingly 'not good enough' player in his squad was fluent in that system, and then across 3 seasons added to it Mane, Salah, Robertson, VVD, Fabinho, Allison and TAA. Back then, we mocked them for not having a clear plan or strategy. But they did. We just couldn't see it because we don't watch every single Liverpool game. And so we failed to see last and this season coming. But the truth is it has been as inevitable as Thanos, ever since we beat them 4-1 in 2017.
What is our strategy? What is our system? What is our identity?
If the answer to all of those questions cannot be suggested until Kane and Son are back and fully fit, we might as well pack it all in and support another club as it means we will
always be a couple of injuries away from disaster. So the answer
cannot be that. We can't allow it to be that. Under AVB, the system/strategy/identity was to use lesser players to create enough space for Bale to wreak havoc. And so when Bale left, the whole edifice collapsed under its own weight. Our demise was as inevitable as the expectation we'd be able to construct an entirely new squad and system over a single summer was naive. And we are in grave danger of repeating the exact same mistake. Fans calling for a complete overhaul of the squad are playing a high-risk game. Firstly, because it won't happen. Not under ENIC. And secondly (more importantly), because it isn't possible. We've seen it fail miserably before.
Right now, fans need to be calling for a clearly defined identity and approach. And even if we lose more than we win trying to implement it, so be it. Maureen should stop focusing on the edifice and start concentrating on the foundations.
