Now is not the time to trash the squad they are clearly confused by the management. Vinicius looking quite bright because presumably he has yet to experience the management on pitch to the extent of the others. If you keep telling them Kane is irreplaceable then the squad will in the end believe you.
A group of people trying to work out the value of a bunch of inanimate objects, nearly all of them passed their best or if little value whatsoever. and as for the Antiques Road Show...
I don't want to pile in on Bale as he always struck me as a decent lad - and that was why I supported him coming back on loan, despite the obvious issues. Trouble is, he's the top earner at the club and not performing. I can't help feeling that is going to start impacting on the squad. It's like a team of office cleaners get a new recruit, on twice the salary, who turns up only 2/5 evenings and when he does he forgets to bring his mop and bucket. Would certainly piss me off..
Is anyone really surprised by the toxicity of Mourinho. He’s had quite the PR job done since he joined us but it all comes back to his style on and off the pitch. The Dele, Aurier, N’Dombele situations. The whole Son/Lloris thing...encouraged as the new culture. The thing about Vini hardly ever playing but the favourites Dier playing as much as possible. It’s all divisive, slow erosion of that team spirit and togetherness in the name of being aggressive and ruthless (lol). The us vs. everyone mentality...the push to victory...it’s not going to work here and hasn’t and probably won’t with any modern day club. The players are paid so much, they don’t have that extra hunger / a lot of players from rival clubs are mates with the rise of social media etc. Different times, requires adaption. The likes of Doherty who looked ok at Wolves regressing to levels well below. Likewise with some other players really underperforming such as Bergwijn, where the **** is the coaching. We’ve been a top 4 club without any of this bs. Poch may have lost his way but the squad unity always seemed to be there. And great football for three to four seasons on the whole. What is Mourinho bringing...who is he going to blame. Just waiting for the ‘this club has never won anything or been title challengers’ so it’s ok where we end up and this is how it is. (A bit like his time at Man U - spent ridiculous amounts yet still excuses and what do you expect Man U aren’t challengers these days/public issues with Pogba/Shaw/Martial/and the continuous blame game with everyone else). The guys has been a phenomenal coach, one of the best and won it all. But now, it just doesn’t fit, new styles/coaching/theories/tactics are here, everything moves on. He’d really fit international football now. Just can’t bear to watch this crap, hear the excuses, fall further down the league, not win anything, squad disharmony, our star players will leave. We need a coach with a true project, a style/fit with the club ethos, and for the longer term 4/5 years. It was so obvious this is how it would be. We will have him in a years time...we’ve got a couple of world class players and will pick up wins etc and end up finishing 6/7. To expensive to fire, no fans able to kick off, and living off his past rep. So, during these times when some entertainment would be nice...we have this, to the point you’re wondering is it worth watching.
Mate it was that bad, by the end we were willing to put Ole in charge to get him out. I'm still letting that sink in.
The football is crap, we get dominated by every team we face, our players look confused and afraid to try anything risky for fear of the Dele treatment, Mourinho still does not know his best team and quality proven players have been ostracized for no good reason other than they can`t run back and defend for 90 mins. Our players don`t look fit enough, every team we face is quicker, hungrier and they out run us. We can`t string passes together and look bereft of ideas, all the attacking prowess we once had is slowly being coached out of them in favour of some of the worst football we have seen for many years. There is no sign of things improving, in fact it is getting progressively worse. Levy has sacked managers for far less. Hopefully Levy closes the door on his way out, it will be a never ending cycle of rinse and repeat until that day comes.
Being dominated - and that’s what we were - by Brighton is where the manager does definitely have to take responsibility. I’ve made no secret I can’t stand half of our squad but I’m still aware that they possess more quality than what Brighton have. To have been outplayed and outfought, it’s a sign of either the tactics/ selection are horribly wrong or the players aren’t playing for the manager, potentially a bit of both. We’re gonna be in for a long end to this season I think as I don’t see anyone being sacked, nor do I see us pulling off a worldie of a signing or two between now and 11pm tomorrow to help us push on. So if like me you can find enjoyment in other sports to watch (MMA baby!) or you can find a series or two to binge, to help take your mind off of football, I’d recommend really getting into them over the next five or six months, lol.
I would think a season like this,league wise, could make Harry think "I need to leave this lot.The sooner the better!"
Yeah I’ve long thought that. Unless there’s a massive turnaround and we finish the season strongly having won a cup too, I think he’ll be off if someone stumps up the cash.
What a mare. Sissoko is played out of position. 3 CBs against a team that hasn't won at home. I lost count of the number of wingers in the game. Our wingers are crap except for Son, who is actually playing crap at the moment. I've stuck up for Jose ever since he joined us and I do like him but something is definitely wrong. I'm not sure it's all his fault though. You could see Spurs pushing hard in the second half. Some of the players surely must take the blame. Perhaps there is some dissent in the changing rooms, Aurier is a case in point. Spurs over the years have enjoyed a good within the squad but there's little evidence of this at the moment. I'm not convinced this is all Jose though. There has to be more to this and it could be linked to the downfall of Poch when he lost the dressing room. There are so many unhappy players (Rose, Dele, Aurier, even Lloris and Son had a bust up last season and so forth). The spirit and harmony have gone and has been for sometime, even before Jose arrived. Rose wanted out, Eriksen wanted out, others have lost their mojos. What did we not see in the Amazon documentary that was hidden?
Think him and Son are gone in the summer. Covid must be damaging us. Not only are we losing 60,000 ticket sales for 19 league games, 2 league Cup games and at least 5 EL games (plus all the food, drink and merchandise sales) we have lost 2 NFL matches, a boxing match and a concert. With no CL next season they'll want out and we may be forced to sell. I am resigned to that tbh. But we recovered after Carrick, Barbados, Keane, Madrid and Bale so football will go on. Hopefully in a more watchable style
Levy will create a sequel to the Tottenham Riots if he sells both in the same window. Our recruitment in recent years as I’ve highlighted in the Pool thread is also dreadful, so replacing them will be fun.
I think selling one if not both is the only way to fix this mess of a squad. We don't have the funds to do it otherwise and seldom other sell-able assets. As you've said - COVID has knocked everything for six. No-one saw it coming, but I'd bet when we went into the summer window the hope was that things would be on the road 'back to normal', especially after the brief few weeks in Oct/Nov with 2000 fans allowed in stadiums, and that January would be a 'normal' window. The reality has proven anything but. I don't accept the loss of revenue as as an excuse as ultimately every team on earth is in the same barrel. Perhaps the difference unique to us is that Covid hit at precisely the time when we needed...time. And now we don't got it anymore. It definitely impacted our ability to shift the piles of deadwood at the club both in the summer and now, as there are far fewer clubs out there who can afford to take a risk on a potentially finished PL washout, let alone match their wages. It also impacted our ability to spend big in the summer and as a result we went shopping in the bargain basement and ended up with precisely what we paid for. In essence, Covid has severely delayed our ability to shift the colossal amount of work left by years of under-investment or poor recruitment. And that delay has likely eaten up what little was left on the clock in terms of Kane/Son staying. I think DH is right - there'll be hell to pay if they leave in the same window - but then again Son's 'done and dusted' new contract has gone VERY quiet in recent weeks. Unless Levy is saving it for an appeasement announcement at 11pm tomorrow, it is worrying that the Korean hasn't put pen to paper still. It may well be that we are entering a phase similar to the AVB era. Those 24 months or so were characterised by the rapid loss of the core of a phenomenal team. Modric, Bale, VDV, King, Parker, Defoe, Charlie all gone in quick succession and replaced with dross and a terrible brand of football. Yet I sympathised with AVB; he was an inexperienced manager who landed in a perfect storm with his hands tied by a buffoon of a DOF and no world class players to rely on. Jose has NONE of those excuses. He has vast experience, no DOF, 2 world class players and a higher wage ceiling than has ever existed at this club. The pattern now is the same as the core of that 16/17 team has declined or departed - Dembele, Wanyama, Walker, Rose, Eriksen, Dele, Jan, Toby - and been replaced by vastly inferior players. It may well be that the time is approaching to just press 'reset', much as we did when Poch took over. Brace ourselves to sell Kane and Son in the summer, appoint a young, exciting manager and give them those funds to rebuild properly - not the half-arsed, clueless approach we're currently seeing thanks to Covid and a defunct manager.
