The hope has to be that we have learned some lessons. For far too long, recruitment hasn't matched what the coach and team needs. Levy and Hitchen/Baldini/Commolli have just bought who they want or can afford under our austerity management. We've ended up with a load of players, who coaches hardly use and are patently not good enough for ENIC's stated aim of a return to CL football. We were still at it last summer. FFS! What was the ****ing point in buying young prospects like Gil and Sarr, when we had REALLY HUGE immediate problems in midfield. I didn't get it then and I don't understand it now. Conte's been rightly scathing about our transfer dealings, Gil included. This coach is our one remaining chance at salvation in the medium term. If Levy/Paratici are going to sign more Rodon's or Gil's, he'll rightly walk away. He has identified priority weaknesses and now Levy and Paratici have to go about signing the players Conte wants, who will cure the problems on the pitch. This change will cost significant money in transfer fees and wages. Conte will give not one toss about where it comes from. Levy said that he'd back him, so best he does. The time for Levy to deliver is at hand...there are no more excuses or end of season statements that will cut it.
Why do you highlight a couple of exceptions that don't account for most of our points? All teams have had wins they maybe weren't expecting. But apparently only we don't deserve that and should be 10th. You could just as easily highlight the large number of goals we've had disallowed (has any team had anywhere this number chalked off? Would a team in red have?), you could also mention the game against Arsenal that was disgracefully postponed that we had every chance of winning. Fact is that we are still in striking distance of the CL and I suspect a lot of us would have taken this position and points at this stage before the season started.
I'm actually quite positive...positive that the nonsense management that we've seen over the last 5 years is coming to an end...one way or another. Last summer, a gloss of optimism was applied to the appointment of Nuno, by many 'positive' supporters. I had members of my family telling me that he would be the right bloke to get the best out of our squad. Others that Gil was just what we need. It wasn't positive, it was delusional. I prefer to think that I, and the others you think are 'negative' on here, are realists. The decline since 2016/17 has been visible and unchecked. That's not negative, it's a fact. We've gone from the CL, to the EL, to the ECL. We've signed a succession of poor players for big money, gone through and sacked a slew of very decent, expensive coaches and continued to decline. If people are 'negative' or realistic in their view of the running of the club and state of this squad, they're not wrong. As much as many might not like the booing, without it, Levy would still be employing Mourinho or Nuno and planning to buy Joe Rodon's less talented brother and thinking about having another 'little chat' with Ndombele about possibly putting in a little more effort next season..
Exactly right. There are two big clubs in the PL who have access to dodgy money plus Man Utd who have huge turnover. Everyone else is playing catch up. We had a fabulously good run in the transfer market a few years back and supplanted Liverpool and Arsenal in the top 4. More recently Liverpool have regained their spot by brilliant signings. But transfer success isn't a sustainable edge. Only money is.
I think that we're better on the front foot and it suits the players that we've got. Conte doesn't even have to shift dramatically from what he's been doing. He went with the 3-5-2 against Liverpool and Leicester and we got results and created chances. Sitting back and trying to hit on the counter without a holding midfielder is ludicrous. Doing it when we're also missing our best organiser in the backline is suicidal. I'd prefer a back four, but it's simply not going to happen under this manager. He needs to sacrifice one of our front three and stick another midfielder in there, though. He was forced to do it against Wolves and we instantly started dominating possession.
Gil and Sarr are the exact kind of signings that we should be making. The problem is that we should also be strengthening the side now and that wasn't done. We're also not thinking about what our overall style of play is going to be and how new players fit into it. Bentancur and Kulusevski may be exceptions to that but I still don't see how our side is supposed to work.
It’s not easy to make good signings and I don’t mean to make it sound so. But the club constantly seem to be making mistake after mistake and never learning. There is glaring gaps but they seem to ignore that and stockpile in certain positions. I agree most of the squad will still be there next season and the hope is Conte can coach them to the best of their ability and the correct type of signings are made in the summer to compliment them.
Unless you’re City, Chelsea or Utd, it’s not easy to spend big on youngsters and also first team players though. Obviously you need to keep an eye on the future but you can’t neglect the present too.
Under owners who allow a club to eat its cake and have it too, I might agree (although, we've never been particularly good at developing young foreign talent)...but that's not ENIC right now. It was some time ago but we can all remember buying Rose and Walker and bringing them through into the first team, after loans to other sides. Supposedly, we're going back to that model and are actively scouting for such players once again, but if it's to be at the expense of first team recruitment, there was no point in recruiting Conte. ENIC have to decide what sort of club we want to be and do it as well as can be managed.
This. 2019 Spurs made the champions league final but it was clear to see that run was papering over the cracks and big issues lay ahead. Any criticism by us ‘negative’ was sneered at and we were told to be grateful the team made the final. Since then, things have just got more and more messed up and the club keep making mistake after mistake. I mean appointing Nuno was ridiculous and to this day I still can’t believe they did it.
You're just pointing out the problem, though. These are the teams we're competing with. If we neglect the future, then we're screwed. The same applies to the present. We also can't go toe-to-toe with them on transfers, as we'll lose. As I've said a million times in the past, we have to be smarter about it than we have been. The Ajax and Dortmund approach is a start but it's tough to even emulate what they're doing. They can guarantee first team football and Champions League matches for young, promising players. We can't do either, as one will probably negate the other. We're in a position where we're competing with two massive teams and two blood money sides. I don't think that any other league has that obvious issue for clubs. Then you add the Woolwich, Newcastle and various FFP avoiders and we're a bit ****ed. The only way to compete is with a long-term vision for the team and I don't think we have that. The club, certainly, but not the team.
You miss my point. You mentioned some things and said that we could be 10th if they hadn't gone in our favour. So I mentioned a few things that didn't go in our favour. I suspect that if they had we might comfortably be in 4th. I don't see how negative things are any more valid.
This is also true. If Dier and Skipp had played in the games against Southampton and Wolves then i don’t think it would have been two defeats so you could say Spurs have been unlucky with the timing of their injuries.
...or have a squad that's just not up to it? Losing a 21 year old in his first PL season and a central defender who's been in and out of the team for seasons, shouldn't have affected us to the extent that it has.
I agree with this. The footballing side of the club has smacked of short-termism and a lack of planning and strategy for years, going back to allowing the squad to stagnate under Poch. I understand the financial constraints we were under but you have to strengthen from a position of strength or this is what happens. It gets raised every time but United under Ferguson are the classic example. Again, different clubs and different circumstances but we didn’t do the right thing. It’s easy to say with hindsight because there would have been a lot of dissent if we’d done it, but what if we’d sold Dele, or Eriksen, or Toby at their peaks and sensibly reinvested? It’s almost as if we had a good run of recruitment and then lost trust in our ability to continue it - which looking at some of the singing since, perhaps was a sensible point of view. Again, easy to say in hindsight, I guess. The process of replacing Jose is perhaps the best example of short-termism. We sat on our hands waiting to fire him only to do so right before a cup final against a team he had a good record against, went for Mason as an interim who did just about ok, appointed Paratici seemingly out of the blue and in doing so changed the entire footballing structure of the club, then signed a manager who was quite good at coaching 3atb, asked him to play a 4atb and recruited for that system, then sacked him and appointed a much better manager but one who wants to play a back 3. It’s lunacy. It’s hoped that Paratici will be the fix for this if he’s here for the long term but while our January signings are good players, it’s concerning to me that he had to go back to his old club to get any deals done. I worry that his network of contacts is more limited than Levy thought. We’ll know a lot more after this summer and into next season as Conte gets into it for a full season as to whether Fabio is actually going to work out.
I was pointing out the fine margins that apply to our current position, why that might be AND what we might do to address them and improve our chances of moving up he table. I'm not sure that contenting ourselves that we've been unlucky or screwed over by officials helps in that regard. In fact, if anyone employed by the club thinks that is a reason, they're in the wrong job. We need to be aspiring to playing to a level where bad decisions or bad luck don't blow us off course. That's about working hard, as Conte says. '
If it's a given, you have to overcome it by doing other things better...or we'll all end up sounding like Liverpool fans.
