Things ARE toxic.
We've imploded on the pitch...
(1 win in the last 6 games)
(27 points in the last 22 games)
Results may not have been better if we had sacked him but the football would have been, cos we would not be playing turgid, defensive ****e with nonsensical team selections.
A team set up to attack would have had a chance to beat Arsenal and Newcastle...an extra 5 points puts us in the top 4.
IMHO Levy is negligent if he did not have a plan B, even for the short term.
This has been coming from mid December.
If it has been clear as day on here then why couldn't Levy see it?
From December the match days have been either...
1. Start off ok
2. Take a lead
3. Play defensive turgid football and concede.
Or
1. Start badly
2. Get worse in the middle
3. The less said about the end the better
EVERY game bar Leeds, Palace (home), West Brom and Villa has followed one of those patterns.
I ain't interested in romantic appointments, I am interested in wanting to enjoy watching spurs play but that has only happened 4 or 5 times this season cos we are managed by a dinosaur who should NEVER have been appointed.
Not winning trophies don't annoy me, like wise with not qualifying for CL football but us being unwatchable is completely unacceptable and as Levy thinks this is OK or was too negligent to make a plan B he should be removed from all football matters.
Things are toxic, but that doesn't mean we're at peak toxicity
As I said to Brian, imagine if we sacked the ubermensch without arrangements in place for a long-term plan and ended up with Eddie Howe at the helm next season, that would be toxic as by that point fans would be trickling back in and letting their opinions known about how an unwanted manager has replaced an unpopular one
Also, and this has to be pointed out, teams set up to attack wouldn't have won against Arsenal or Newcastle - teams set up properly would have: we lost the NLD because we willingly gave up midfield (while, in comparison, in the NLD late last year we won because we actively attacked midfield to choke the life out of them) while Newcastle was dropped points because it never occurred to us that a team might attack us down the left and when they did we were powerless to stop it due to the lack of left-sided subs. Attacking in either game wouldn't have actually won us the points, as in both games there was a weakness that could have been exploited if we were offensive or defensive
Which does lead us to an issue that plenty of us have mentioned ever since the West Scam game last September: we've got this weird fixation on our right flank being weak which dominates our tactics, for example for several of the games we threw away points in December it was a regular sign to see Sissoko and Toby drifting wide while Aurier was bombing down the flank meaning we were stretching ourselves before the opponents even had the ball, more recently it's the deployment of either Lo Celso or Lamela on the right to add some combative presence to cover the RB, or we play 3ATB so that there's somebody available to cover if and when Aurier bollockses up possession
And there's a reason why I highlight this: it isn't a defensive mindset doing this, it's one so fixated on an issue opposition managers can't ignore it - and this is why simply booting one manager won't work as the players have had it drilled into them for over six months that there's a weakness in the team (and appropriate scapegoats to blame for it) and we need somebody to knock that thinking out of them PDQ because players who are told there's a weakness will think there's a weakness, which is why I say Sacramento or Ledders shuffling up the bench is liable to backfire at this point because what would their first teamtalk be? "Yeah, pretend I wasn't here when you were told for six months that our right flank is cancer"? They'd be undermined from the outset, to the point Ryan Mason would likely stand a better chance as he hasn't been tainted by association
This is why I say we absolutely need to have the long-term replacement in place for when we pull the trigger, because the faster we get the ubermensch's influence scrubbed not just from the club but also the players' minds the better, because there's a reason I called him an energy vampire in my previous post and if we can focus the club on who will be in place come June 1st it would be a healthier place - and we can't do that if we sack him with uncertainty
I'm not arguing better the devil you know, far from it - I'm arguing that knowing something other than the devil is what we need
we're gonna win the points dropped league, we're gonna win the points dropped league 