Agreed. We need to add more goals across the team. Season before last looked promising with Sonny on fire and Kulu making an impact but the one just gone was disappointing from everyone bar Kane. Hopefully under Ange it improves. I think he has more of an emphasis on wingers getting to the back post and getting the 8s into the box so with the likes of Maddison now here, Bentancur when he’s back fit after showing some signs of goalscoring last season, maybe even a dark horse like Lo Celso, hopefully we can spread things out more beyond just the front 3 too. Son and whoever plays on the right need to hit their stride though.
I think your last sentence is partly where my worries come from. We essentially need Son to regain his old form and two other players to hit figures they’ve not reached before to essentially replace the loss of Kane, and that’s outside of Kane’s general influence on the pitch as a player.
Indeed. I have more confidence of that happening under Ange than previously thought. You could not unreasonably expect, based on their histories, Kane, Son and Maddison to hit double figures if they have half decent seasons, and that’s not mentioning whoever plays on the right and the other 8. We are creating a lot of chances in pre-season.
Oh I’ve definitely renewed some optimism under Ange but I’m equally aware of the calibre of player we’re potentially losing under him too which I think will affect any manager’s plans. The fact I also don’t rate one of the players we’ll need to (significantly) step up too makes me more concerned than you on the issue.
you need to apologise to son for all your critiscm last year https://www.football.london/tottenham-hotspur-fc/players/son-heung-min-contes-rant-27387933
The best way to add goals to the team is from midfield, which has been a bit of an achilles heel in recent years If we get at least 15 goals shared between Maddison, Bissouma and Bentancur that will lessen our reliance on the forward line To underline what an issue this has been, here's a list of the number of midfielders who have scored 5 league goals in recent seasons 2022-3: Bentancur 2021-2: N/A 2020-1: N/A 2019-20: Dele 2018-19: Lucas, Eriksen, Dele 2017-18: Eriksen, Dele 2016-17: Dele, Eriksen 2015-16: Dele, Eriksen, Lamela 2014-15: Eriksen, Chadli, Townsend 2013-14: Eriksen, Paulinho, [REDACTED]
Strikers are obviously valuable because of their ability to take goal chances, but teams create those chances. Kane is very special because he creates as well as scores and if he goes he will be missed of course. Our last 3 managers have relied on a solid defence and counter attacking football. This has placed a greater burden on the forwards to take the, arguably, less opportunities available. It's early days but Ange seems to favour a much more attacking style which will probably create more scoring opportunities, this should go some way to compensating for the loss of ace striker Kane. With Kane in the team it's a priority of the team to get the ball to him in as much as possible. Without Kane other players will receive the ball more often and although their strike rate will undoubtedly be lower, more attacks will go some way to compensate. Having a player like Kane is ideal but having a much better midfield now with some creativity (Maddison) will produce a better team performance. We just need a defence which with the Ange style will be even more important. It will be insanely stupid if we don't address this in this window.
My heart wants HK to stay but my head says sell him and let the manager build his side , I want to see Toby and Jan mk 2 , I want to see a spurs side that has an exciting midfield/ wings but most of all I want an end to the last 3 years of sitting back and inviting teams to pick holes in our piss poor defence , During those years we have played brilliant breakaway football but all to often we have seen teams come to the lane and sit back while our players run head down along blind allyways with no plan B I want to see youth given a chance , I want to look forward to watching Spurs play and lets make the lane a place where apart from Citeh teams will not like coming here
No we don't, he was piss poor most of the time and he should have had the balls to come out with the truth , Conte and our medical team deserve a big kick in the nuts for allowing Son to play injured, this did Son no favours physically or mentally
I think that he wanted to risk not having the surgery to go to the World Cup. It backfired horribly and his form was poor for the entire season, including that cup.
How many players did we have playing inured last season? Son, Romero, Lloris and Dier all immediately come to mind as they or the club admitted this was the case, and I'm sure I've missed off a couple of notable ones
I don't like sounding negative or pessimistic, which is one of the trivial reasons I haven't commented in god knows how many months. But I think in the case of Spurs the usual way of looking at a club, which is how to improve over the short term, is a proven failure. Over the last decade, Levy/ENIC stumbled by process of elimination onto the way that they could compete for big trophies. Commit to youth, get an appropriate manager, and hope that optimizing the squad for one young age group will result in a squad as strong as that fielded by much bigger spenders. It took advantage of Spurs' natural strength, which is that they make a great penultimate destination for the world's best players. The experience perversely enough taught Levy/ENIC never to do that again, while teaching Spurs' rivals to do exactly that. The result is that Spurs' rivals have committed to that process and are, indeed, at least threatening to compete for big trophies in the nearish future, while Spurs are mired in mediocrity with a manager-killing squad of disgruntled malcontents. So Spurs have turned the tables on themselves in the last decade to their own disadvantage. Spurs need a large scale, near-total clear out of nearly everyone beginning at the top, and then a Pochettino-style rebuild. Anything short is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It may make things look a bit better for a while, but it won't affect the overall trajectory.
Good to see you back RWAEB if in a trifle pessimistic mood. I think some of our 'chairs' are good especially those at the front and middle. The problem is the creaky chairs hidden at the back. Burn the back row, stop looking in IKEA and get some well built models with strong legs.
Its quite hard to gauge how this season will pan out right now, at the moment we still have Kane and the same defence, but who knows if that will still be case in 2 weeks when we open our season at one of the toughest places to go in the league. If Kane is still here and we add no more players it's hard to see us getting back into Europe in any shape or form or being competitive for trophies (the defence will just still concede too many goals), though it must be said that most of our cup wins have come in seasons where our league form has been patchy at best. If Kane leaves and nobody else arrives then a long hard season is in prospect and a return to a bottom half finish is very likely. If we sell Kane and reinvest wisely then maybe we can be on the periphery of the European places hoping that the additional games for Brighton and Villa take there toll. There is a 4th scenario where Kane stays, Anges new system hits the ground running and we sign some better defenders and have a good season competitive on all fronts, but that's the flying pig scenario lets be honest. Kane holds the key one way or another and I don't want him to leave (but I think he will) but it must be sorted before we play next weekend.
I have my usual expectations. We should finish between 3rd and 8th and put up a decent challenge in one of the cups. Could do better if Ange is actually a good coach and/or our signings turn out well.
Spencer, Sarr, Bissouma, Gil and Udogie could make a massive difference. All have/had a good reputation but were never given a proper chance due to managerial ego, manager stubborness, managerial changes or injuries. Son has had his operation (outrageous that it was not done last season), Madison has been signed and son we should have Bentencur back by October (I think). Kate is gone IMHO. He ain't signing and clearly wants to leave so the club could well be looking at another forward. What worries me (like everyone else on here) is the lack of a new centre back with just 13 days until the season kicks off. A top 6 finish and a cup would be a great season. Top 4 is not a possibility IMHO.
Say Kane inevitably leaves and we do seriously persist with Richarlison as our first choice striker, how many goals (league or total comps) do you think he’d net?
A dozen at best, in order to replace Kanes 30 from last season, in addition to these 12 we would require Sonny on golden boot form (I assume he will take pens), 10 from Maddison and 7/8 from Kulu. Maddison might make us more productive from dead balls around the box the one area Harry hasn't contributed.
I'm expecting the Leevee owt braintrust r/coys to present increasingly laughable arguments and wonder why nobody takes them seriously Case in point, today's whine we "only" have four pre-season fixtures...which is the exact same number as Brighton or The Sheikh Mansour Team, and was supposed to be five - the exact same number as Saltypool and Chelsea - but the Leicester match was rained off
