Perisic has definitely been underwhelming and that’s a shame for me personally as I’ve been a huge fan of his throughout his career. With Udogie arriving in the summer though, assuming our manager (if still here) actually plays him instead of giving us the bollocks nonsense about being young then Perisic can take more of a squad role and replace Danjuma/ Lucas/ Richarlison in the pecking order for wide roles. As for Richarlison, he’s an average player, always has been and likely always will be, the most fancy thing about him is his name. It’s not early to write him off when it was almost a guarantee from the start he wouldn’t live up to the price tag. The best thing we can hope for us is the player himself wants out in the summer and we can take advantage of any potential interest whilst his stock may still be relatively decent after his goals at the World Cup.
Aurier, Sanchez, Clarke, Janssen, Ndombele and Lo Celso were all top targets for Pochettino. He himself made that clear. You know more than I do about the Sissoko deal but bizarrely enough he was probably the most successful of the signings I listed! You could also add Pochettino's refusal to drop Dele in 2019 when he was in terrible form and the the continual playing of Danny Rose from 2018 onwards when he was terrible week in week out. I liked what Pochettino did and apart from the last 9 months loved most of the football we played but I genuinely think 4 years of disappointing results and some turgid football has made people forget that he did a lot wrong and player choice was a weakness...a very big one.
To be fair most of the one’s Col listed weren’t Pochettino signings. Ndombele and Lo Celso were his only known picks. The rest were club signings and that was apparent by how few chances Poch gave most of them.
No disrespect intended here Col but there’s a few things that you weren’t correct on with regards to some of those signings. Clarke was absolutely not a Poch signing, that was a Levy one. Nor was Aurier, as Poch was rumoured to really want Ricardo Pereira. Stambouli was 100% a club signing, hence why he almost never played for Poch and I think Poch actually hinted in an interview he never wanted him. Sissoko was a Levy signing, he’d been on the club’s radar for ages, even before Poch arrived IIRC. N’jie and Nkoudou were club signings. At best, you could possibly make a case for Sanchez being someone he may have asked for or at least agreed on. Rightly or wrongly, Poch really didn’t have a huge say on transfers in general for the first few years. It was just that when he did get full backing, he got it horrendously wrong with Ndombele and Lo Celso, I’m not even sure Sessegnon was 100% his choice either as the club had been monitoring him for some while too but I do think he was open to him due to Rose’s decline.
He’s a good lad Dier. Was one one of the only ones tonight trying to get the team going for it. He’d be a top squad player but short of being good enough for a club going for more than top 4.
I don’t think Dier would stay as a squad player to be honest. He has England aspirations and I think he feels he’s better than what he is too. Good bloke and for a few years was a great player but if the club has to decide between giving him a new deal or selling him, we should be leaning towards the latter, albeit it’s likely to be the former. Only problem though is that there’s genuinely about 10 players we should be looking to sell this summer and that also includes one or two recent summer signings… with no idea about the DoF situation, no idea about the manager situation and no idea about the Kane situation, I think we’re gonna be watching the window as if we were watching a horror movie with one hand covering an eye. Pretty grim.
We are all disappointed because of the nothing performance. This is not new or confined to this Management and I agree it's a mentality thing. Part of it looks to me like a distaste for playing physical teams. We tend to struggle against teams that use physique rather than skill to play their football. Even during the good periods with Redknapp and Poch we still showed a healthy dislike for Pulis's Stoke for example. We look for technical ability when we sign players and these are usually just a few million below top notch. Compare our players to say Chelsea (Not right now) They have technical players but they also have strong physical presence. In effect it's too easy to bully Spurs with a few hard tackles. I am not blaming our defenders last night but the lack of decisiveness going forward. Players like Son need space to play in and that space has to be created, Kane does that but he can't be expected to do it all on his own. We also miss Bentancur badly because he IS a player who can both fight and create space.
We didn't generally lose those matches because of those players though. Look at the highlights on YouTube. It was mostly because of our attack misfiring. Hojbjerg made mistakes that directly led to three of the goals we conceded.
Yeah that’s true also just like last night attack and mid were found wanting players come and go, new, old, young, winners of big trophies we still stay around about here…no upward trajectory imo on the pitch Get knocked out just before we can really start dreaming and fight tooth n nail to scrape 4th every year. A few exceptions here n there to this observation, of course. i guess the whole club needs a blood transfusion…maybe the body will get more life and desire into it then
Hojbjerg is a major weakness for me, he is technically ordinary, has a poor range of passing and not mobile enough to play in a 2 man midfield. He gets a free ride from many fans because he has a great attitude (most of the time), was a relatively cheap signing and pops up with the odd goal and assist. I have seen him make mistakes or fail to close down shots leading to goals on several occasions, he is a decent squad player and no more, we need better if we want to kick on.
We do have a slight upward trajectory in league position measured over the medium term, but we still have a problem in that our squad isn't as deep as Man City, Chelsea and Man Utd so when we rest key players for domestic cups the ones replacing them are a bit lightweight. We could maximise our chances of winning a domestic cup by playing stronger teams but keeping in the CL is more important in attracting better players.
I completely agree. I actually think he is the worst of our current five midfielders and no better than Winks or Lo Celso. Should be vying with Bissouma to replace Bentancur when injured with Skipp and Sarr alternating as the other midfielder.
This circle you have described…I don’t disagree with your observation but it’s not why I fell in love with the game so I won’t ever be happy with it and will forever complain tbh.
