Based on this and last season's form, would you want Aurier, Dier, Sanchez, Alderweireld, Doherty, Reguilón or Davies in your defence? Or Winks, Sissoko, Bergwijn, Ndombele, Lamela lo Celso or Dele in your midfield. You'd take Kane, Son, possibly Bale, possibly Moura and I seriously struggle to think who else
On the bright side looks like we have avoided the Europa conference league - other than that what a ****ty night this has been, I even switched over to Italian cup final watched Atalanta dominate Juve for most of the 2nd half only to lose in the end! Guess who I was supporting!
Tbh I think the club will be OK about not having EL football...they dropped prices for EL group games to just £10 or £15 for adults and £5 for kids and still only got around 28,000 in the old WHL . The New WHL would look like a ghost town if that happens again.
Mark Wright on sky (the Towie not ex England) - claims to be a West Ham fan, tried to make a joke about the last time they were in europe being in the inter toto - forgetting they twice cocked up Europa league qualifying losing to the same side 2 years running.
We've won 17 premier league matches this season... 4 were against the other 9 teams currently in the top 10...4 wins in 18 games against top half opposition...the last being against Leeds on January 2nd 2021... Yep, we've gone 4 months, 2 weeks and 3 days with beating one of the current top 10 in the Premier League. 7 were against the bottom 4 teams.
I wouldn’t take most of your CBs or your right backs but ours aren’t exactly stellar either. We’re comparing **** with garbage Last season Reguilon was excellent for Sevilla - he won the Europa League and helped them get 4th. You guys were excited by him and he started the season well for you. He’s not just turned into a **** player over night. He’s still a good player. Ndombele is a very talented midfielder. I don’t know if he’s got the work rate or desire to succeed in this league, but he is quality. I was gutted when you signed him. Obviously it hasn’t worked out but that’s hindsight. Likewise with Lo Celso. I don’t know what’s happened to Dele but I think he still has some quality. I’d definitely take him in our squad ahead of Ceballos or Elneny. Rodon looks a good prospect. And wouldn’t mind Hojbjerg either. So you have some players who I think are good but have been let down by multifarious other factors. I think being in the right environment is important for a lot of these players and, for the most part, they haven’t been over the last 2.5 years.
Didn't included Rodon cos he rarely plays...mind boggling considering the ficking state of Dier ffs Reguilón is decent going forward but defensively is weak as. Hoejberg is limited in my opinion but in his defence he has been hugely over played so maybe I am being harsh on him. As for Lo Celso and Ndombele...can not remember them impressing except against EL and lower division clubs in the cups. Think both are unsuited to the league. One looks like he is always knackered (Ndombele) and the other looks like he is made of glass. Dele has gone backwards hugely in the past two years. Was crap in the last year under Pochettino apart from CL run.
My point is, RCL, a lot of Spurs fans were well chuffed with your summer transfer business and felt you’d added quality additions to a fairly strong squad. Now, obviously, you may say that fans are always going to be optimistic when they have an active transfer window. But some of these players you acquired were highly sought after across Europe - Reguilon, Bergwijn, Ndombele, Lo Celso - were all linked with some very good sides. You were able to get Bale on loan too, who has shown glimpses of what he’s capable of. Most of the things you’re saying now is with the benefit of hindsight. I still think these players haven’t just turned into ****. The environment, the poor tactics and squad management by Mourinho and the lack of identity that wasn’t instilled in your team is what has contributed to their failings. I’m confident most of these players could go to a more stable environment and a manager would optimise their abilities.
Sorry for the negativity...but did the players today against Villa think "if Harry's not interested any longer in the club,why should we. We all may be gone at season's end anyway!?"
p.s. The new stadium hasn't done a lot for us,has It? Great stadium,big ideas and some bloody awful footballers! Ready to buy your season tickets lads?
They were **** before Jose hopefully that penny drops for a few people eventually because it’s something that always needs to be pointed out time after time. Plus a fan is exactly that, we have the luxury of hindsight, we have the luxury of dissecting everything without consequence but how does that mean those running the club shouldn’t be much more thorough in their decision making and a lot more aggressive with their intent to improve the first team? You can’t expect a fan to not be optimistic because when you need to improve you hold onto hope that the signings will deliver, as a fan you can’t escape that emotion...none of that excuses those running the club from leaving us half baked.
Spurlock, I don’t know if you read my post properly mate. I’m not blaming the fans for anything, I did say in my post that fans are always going to be optimistic when they have a busy transfer window. But even when you dissect it further, a lot of Spurs fans that I knew felt that you’d covered most of the areas that were required to be strengthened - hence the cause for optimism. And I’m sure your board felt the same way, which is why they were happy with their transfer business too, especially during a Covid transfer window. Mourinho was the wrong man for you and Levy not reacting quicker to get rid of him/not hiring him in the first place definitely warrants criticism. However, a manager like Potter, Rodgers or Tuchel, for example, would have gotten more out of these players. I’m 100% convinced of that. You also can’t deny how much being in a positive environment contributes to having a motivated group of players.
I did read it, it’s why I said you can’t remove optimism from a fan and you have to factor it. For example Ndombele is living up to his lazy tag, he had previous, he had issues at other clubs...extensive research would have raised the red flag. Then it depends on your network...wether your people are smart enough to make the right call or do what fans do and hope the positives deliver. From my end I see a £55 million player incoming...that means a £55 million attitude and professionalism level is being expected...that part of a psyche is the clubs job to research. They’re not getting the right types in and these players show that under several managers now. We need a game changing CB...we chase a player who has been pivotal in an Inter team that won the league this season. Instead we got a youngster with potential. All I can do is hope but those that know the inside dealings should have known that the kid won’t be enough or won’t get a chance. We’re always blowing money on stupid purchases. Us fans can afford to be wrong but the club can’t so often and their decisions affect us, our utterings don’t.
Being a long way away.I see Spurs buying players for big money I've never heard of and them coming a croppa one way or another Makes me think they COULD save money (?) and keep track of the other English divisions players (if our scouts are doing this!). Bad results are bad enough but players looking forward to the beach is something else. We need hungry players that will give all for their club and fellow players. We Ain't got 'em!!!!
This is fair. What I will say is, as with most things in life, nothing is ever a guarantee. We signed Partey from Atletico Madrid for £45m and I was super excited. Genuinely thought he was going to transform our midfield. The reality has been further from the truth. He’s been pretty awful for the most part. But even though he’s been below average for us, that doesn’t mean he’s a below average player. He proved his worth at a top side in Spain. There are so many factors you need to account for why it’s going wrong here. Acclimatising to the league and country, how they fit into the manager’s plans, relationships with team mates, injuries, style of play, being utilised correctly... I totally agree that our clubs can’t afford to get these type of signings wrong, because there’s so much resting on it, and we can’t just write it off like Chelsea/City/Man Utd. But these things are never as easy as we think they are.
You make some good points here Brunel, and yes much of what we moan about is with hindsight. I don't think anyone could have predicted just how bad Doherty would be, nor that Ndombele and Lo Celso would regress rather than progress in their 2nd season with the club, nor that Bergwijn would lose every shred of confidence and go something like 41 matches without scoring until today. But there is an issue of failing to address obvious holes in the squad, spending the bulk of transfer windows on what I would call 'vanity signings' in the sense that we're either already over-stocked in those areas or the player has huge question marks over them (usually due to youth/inexperience). In Poch's last summer window, we urgently needed replacements for Trippier, Eriksen, Dembele and Wanyama, plus backup for Kane. That was it. Five players. We brought in Lo Celso and Tanguy to replace Eriksen and Dembele, but failed to bring in a DM, RB or a backup for Kane, and suffered greatly as a result. We went for two 'vanity signings' in Sessegnon and Clarke for a combined total of £40m. Neither of them were needed at the time and so time has proven - we've barely seen them in 2 whole years. That £40m would have been infinitely better served where we actually needed it most - at DM, RB and ST. By failing to address 3 urgent areas, we created a backlog of urgency leading into Maureen's reign... I know it is difficult to judge January windows, but Bergwijn's arrival in Maureen's first window was, in the grander scheme of things, utterly pointless. Yes, he has suitors across Europe and yes, there is probably a good player in there somewhere...but we didn't need him! AM is the one area of the squad we've been overloaded in for years! So we went into that Jan window still needing a RB, DM and ST and finished it with another AM to add to Lamela, Son, Lucas, Lo Celso, Clarke and Dele. Then came last summer. By now, the 'urgent' list has grown to include at least 1 CB, plus a LB. Our business went: DM - done LB - done RB - done ST - done CB - not done It was so nearly there. By focusing on bringing in a top CB instead of pissing about signing Bale and Hart before eventually settling on Rodon, something might have been salvaged of this season. As it is, we now have 8 (EIGHT) attacking midfielders on our books: Son, Bale, Lucas, Lamela, Bergwijn, Dele, Clarke, Lo Celso. Nine if you count Sessegnon. The overall lack of forward planning is deeply worrying. It is clear that the club knows which areas need urgent attention. It is entirely unclear as to why we ignore those issues across multiple windows, either hoping for the best (cf. Foyth and Tanganga playing as RBs for an entire season or Dele Alli playing as a lone striker) or attempting to fix them with last-minute cheap n cheerful solutions (cf. Rodon).
I think Brunel has some good points, and is looking in from the outside in a less emotional way. I understand the disappointment, I feel it too, but the players simply aren't as bad as they seem. The performance yesterday was truly horrible, but feelings run high just after a match and perhaps we need a bit more detachment before proper conclusions are drawn. Having said all that I just wanted to say something about extra time. Is there some kind of rule that there is nothing added during added time? At least it's a practice not a rule. It just seems to be that no matter what happens, injuries, time wasting, substitutions etc, there is nothing more. This is not a discussion on whether we deserved to get anything out of the match, we didn't, but teams get points they don't deserve all the time. And one of the ways they get those points is having the right amount of time to play. So don't say 'we could have played for half hour more and we wouldn't have scored'. Firstly I'm not sure that's true, but secondly as I said, unexpected goals happen all the time. One thing for certain is they won't if the time isn't given. So while six minutes added time seems a lot, I'm not sure it is with Tangaga's injury, the subs and the time wasting. It should have been more than six to start with. Then the whistle goes two seconds after six minutes - do me a favour, there was lots more to add on. The exception that proves the rule of course is "the team in red rule". This was demonstrated in the Pool v WBA match of course, where the maximum amount of time was allowed (and AFAIK they didn't have a serious injury included in their added time). Again another example of inconsistency. Maybe not for here, but my thought on substitutions is that one minute of time is automatically added on for each sub. It might be more if they piss around with it, but it cannot be less. So it's not down to some subjective (and prone to bias) measure by the ref. You make a sub it's a minute. That should take care of the time wasting subs.
Lo Celso and Ndombele were with us under Pochettino and have done nothing in two seasons. Bergwijn came in Jan 2020. Doherty was seen as a sound signing but ain't worked out I said at the time that I didn't want Bale as I thought it was a serious gamble. Don't disagree regarding JMs management.
