We are in the worst position to be in when it comes to where we are as a football club it feels...not quite rich/brave enough to win some serious stuff and not quite **** enough to never harbour hope very frustrating
top 2/3 earners should be useless to you and me if it does not result in us having a top 2/3 team in Europe. You’re right, success isnt guaranteed but we know how things work due to having watched football for decades and decades. We can see how clubs who win things operate and clubs who don’t win things operate off the field to be able to give us an idea as to the philosophies of our owners. We can tell what type of owner is spending money, which one isn’t and which one is trying to be smart arse too much...we all see it.
But you are comparing our spending and results when we were not even in the top ten earners in Europe with those who were already there. Anyone who watches football can see that trophies follow from having more money. The trouble is that having more money is reinforced by winning trophies which is why it is so hard to break into the highest earning clubs.
The thing is we were successful under Poch. Consistent top 4 finishes and cup runs. With a severe lack of resources, playing away from home. All whilst playing attractive football which is key. Yes we want trophies, but to win an EPL or CL when City, Utd, Chelsea etc have many more resources - it is incredibly difficult. Get the first pick of world class players, with wages and fees they can pay. That leaves an FA Cup or League Cup. If we’d won one of those under Poch we would have considered him our best manager in decades. But knock out football, sometimes it happens but we just came up short. Almost did it with CL, but fine margins...one game and we came up short. The ones who usually win these again are the ones that spend the most. But combine it all together, that was success for a club with our resources. I always felt this is as good as it gets unless we spent big and reinforced the squad. With the football and consistency with Top 4 we punched above our weight. I didn’t see who was going to take us to the next level when we fired Poch. Which is what - Winning the league, a CL, or one of the cups. Poch was in the mix for those along with the football. Why not let him do the refresh and give him the resources to do so. That’s where we went wrong, not going in heavy in with the £. That’s what makes the winners...buying £70m players or three, breaking transfer fees. City, Utd, Chelsea all do it. Look at pool with their defender and goalie. We just don’t do that. Sold we really expect to win stuff when there are four to five clubs with more resources then us. Yes, we should be having a go and we did. To take the final step we need to spend £40/50/60/70/80m players in the squad like these guys. Another young progressive coach would have been the next best bet but I think at best it would be similar to what Poch had achieved. Great football, but very slim chance of winning the league. And getting those same of sort of cup runs and having that bit of luck to go all the way. All those CL nights and famous wins in the EPL in that period...knew that was good as it was going to get for a very long time. The team was exceptional. So now we have three to five year cycle of just getting back to that level I would imagine. Shame. Bottom line though with JM now. Could give him £500m to spend, we’ll still play ****. And still be struggling to get 1st place because of the competition. So I’m saying unless we spend similar amounts we can compete, even then as we know not guaranteed. But please give us attacking football and being in the top 4 mix and some cup runs. It’s all we need and one day it would have come off. At best I thought JM would just about match MP but with **** football and that would always be unacceptable unless he actually won something. But to play **** and go backwards in the league and win nothing (which is what I thought would happen based on his recent history). Lol.
And long term projects...before you know it a decade or two passes and we’re here talking about the same old ****. Coming up short against the biggest spenders...unless we start spend big too. But regardless of wether we do or not spend a ****ing attacking/pressing minded manager is a ****ing minimum.
Do me a favour, FFP rules are obviously so easy to work around, just look at the money that other clubs have spent and continue to spend, there is many a slip between a cup and a lip. More of the same for ENIC is record profits and insufficient investment in the team, they could remain rational and also show some proper ambition to take us up a level at the same, but they won`t, our multi billionaire tax exile owner is only interested in profits.
But Spurs have bought a couple of £50-60m players. Spurs are up there in the mix with expenditure on transfers these past few years. This isn't the problem. Leicester won without spending big. It's about spending smart. Almost pulled it off with the Hoffmeister last summer. I've long said there is something fundamentally wrong at the club. And I think it's Levy interfering and micromanaging. I wonder if Levy is pulling the strings a little and suggesting to the managers what they should be doing with regards to the team and selection matters. Levy is a businessmen, a fantastic one at the helm of the club. We don't want to lose him. But he needs to step back from football matters!
Tanguy Ndombele is the clubs most expensive signing. Let that sink in. A guy who, among very occasional flashes of brilliance, can't tackle, can't head and generally can't seem be arsed.. That's not his fault and he wasn't alone in his abject performance tonight, but who ever thought 'yes, this is the one we'll break the bank for'. FFS!
The club’s in a mess from top to bottom at the moment. Just about everyone with the exception of Harry Kane (who was poor tonight with the rest) and possibly Son despite his inconsistency has completely ballsed up over the last 3-4 years. Levy has massively taken his eye off the ball from a footballing perspective. He absolutely has to shoulder a large part of the blame for the state we’re in. We can all talk about the visions and future plans but the present is always the most important thing and right now we couldn’t be any further away from being one of the best and/ or biggest clubs in England and Europe, so talking about a bright future is pointless when all we’re doing is heading downwards. Jose unfortunately hasn’t delivered, he’s proven he’s a manager who just basically needs either the best team or the biggest chequebook to win things, to me that doesn’t make you a great manager, more just a fortunate one and the same applies to Pep in that regard, though Pep does play a brand of football you can’t help but admire. I do now firmly believe Jose should go but I also know it won’t happen, at least until the end of the season anyway. Players, we’ve go so much dross at this club it genuinely annoys me, the regression since 2017 is astonishing. I hate the fact that I hate a large number of my own players, a fan should never be like that but I just can’t stand some of them, their demeanour and just simplistic ability grinds on me. What makes things worse is some will likely prove too hard to shift and bloody hell do we need to shift a bunch. Transfers... This has been the biggest disappointment for me, we have royally ****ed it with just about every signing of the last 5 years with perhaps Reguilon aside, who himself still needs to improve despite being a big improvement on our current LB options. How is it even possible we’ve gotten so bad? Doesn’t matter what we’ve spent either, some say we need to spend big - Sanchez, Ndombele, Lo Celso... all huge money signings, all flops. Spend smart? Doherty, atrocious player. Middle range? Lucas, blows hot and cold, mainly cold. Sissoko was at one point a joint club record signing, let that sink in. We just cannot seem to catch a break and sign a player or two who we all think “wow, bargain”. I’d say our last great signing was Son... He joined in 2015. At a time where you can’t go out and see your mates or family it’d be nice for your club to give you a bit of relief but these useless ****s just seem to amplify the frustration and boredom. It’s a good job I also love MMA as well as football, at least that rarely lets me down, lol.
This is a brutally honest interview and it really seems that something is rotten in the club. Clearly the atmosphere in the dressing room is off and it sounds like Hugo is implying that the basics and fundamentals just aren’t happening in training, which would tally with rumours we’ve heard for a few months now. No squad is going to be completely without a disgruntled player or two but if Jose cannot motivate what sounds like a not insignificant portion of the players and get them bought into his vision then it’s damning on him. One of the key jobs of a manager in any walk of life is to motivate their team. It feels like Jose is on borrowed time.
Poch taught us that divided clubs are ****ed and to move forward, everyone needs to be moving in the same direction. Mourinho specialises in conflict and we've got a bunch of players who don't respond to that kind of approach. Either Levy sacks Mourinho or buys him a new team costing £0.5m...which is how this was always going to end. He isn't and never could be a Spurs manager for ENIC. The surprising thing is that Levy just didn't see it...when to many of us, it was bloody obvious.
"We are a club with full ambition, but the team at the moment is just a reflection of what's going on in the club." I'm not a huge fan of Hugo, but when your club captain and a player who has been with the club for almost a decade says something like that, you have to pull the trigger.
"Now we go back to the league to fight again to be back in this competition." That level of aspiration can go **** right off back to 1998 where it belongs. Rotten to the core. And it starts at the very top.
It is the sum-total of almost totally alienating all but a select 13-14 members of the squad, and then taking that group and making them play football they hate. The players he has cast into irrelevancy have zero confidence or desire left, the players he over-relies on detest him.
Poch's handling of his final transfer window was the sole reason I supported his departure. With a very heavy heart. I wanted him to have January too and see out his final season, but ultimately we signed 4 players that summer and to a man they are all currently a colossal waste of circa £130m. Add to that the fact that Trippier was the only departure of note, and you arrive at a conclusion that his last window was unacceptably atrocious. But what of Jose? He has overseen the arrivals of Bergwijn, Hart, Bale, Doherty, Rodon and Vinicius - all of whom have barely been seen or heard from all season. @Dier Hard is correct - our transfer strategy is fundamentally broken. From Wanyama to Reguilon, 7 windows passed without us adding a single player who instantly slotted into the side and improved it. And some may argue that Reguilon - with Real's buy-back clause - doesn't count as a proper signing. Which makes it 9 transfer windows since we managed to improve the team. Shambolic.
Jose has to go, ideally now but if not then the end of the season. But Spurs problems go back 2-3 years. Too many windows passed without players being signed/sold and now the club seem to be signing dud after dud even when spending the big bucks and struggling to get rid of players they no longer want.
It just sums up what many of us have thought for some time. I expect that many players weren’t keen from day 1, some weren’t after a few weeks/months, and likely all of them have had enough now. You only have to take situations like dele being axed for months to see what this not only does to him, but perhaps others who are close to him on a personal level. - Dier for example. Take a few examples like that, and there’s your lack of squad harmony. As Hugo is alluding to, there is nothing left. It’s in tatters behind the scenes. The players have clearly got together to ensure he’s shown the door. It’s a matter of time before Levy acts. Edit: apparently Joe Hart posted this before deleting it 2 minutes later. Oh Dear.
What also concerns me is that we’ve still got 10 premier league games left. That’s enough for someone to come in and rescue us, perhaps getting Europa qualification in the process. They aren’t playing for Mourinho, and if he stays we’re going to see more of the same. We have to start thinking toward next season right now. That means sacking him by the weekend. It’s not too late to salvage something positive (See Chelsea and Tuchel) , and who knows, maybe a new face can pull off something against city in the cup final?
Saw this on Twitter yesterday.... mourinho since leaving Porto: C - Chelsea I - inter R - Real Madrid C - Chelsea U - United S - Spurs.
