And with the announcement by Klopp today I really feel this season may be a "carpe diem" moment for Levy and Spurs.
Dan KP says we're in talks for a post-season friendly in Melbourne, with May 22nd the date that's being penciled in - which is three days after our final match of the season
Rumoured that he's been tapped-up by the Chavs Because what better guy to have on your payroll than the bloke who spent five years not securing naming rights for a stadium?
President of Toulouse, who beat Liverpool in the Europa League earlier in the season. Lead to various obvious puns about their name and losing. He joined in 2020 when they were in Ligue 2. Got promoted, won their first silverware.
The thing is that Poch isn't someone who signs star players, but makes them - which is why his stint at PSG always looked bizarre The key part is Hugo mentioning we progressed faster than anticipated, as being in the title race after Poch was here for a year or two meant the only way to build on it would be to sell - but the one time we did that only caused the foundations to crack as we lacked either the infrastructure to have someone to say "Here's someone who'll play at Kyle Walker's level within eighteen months, buy him while we can" or someone willing to cede control of the squad to do bring In players who fit the system - or the third option: both
It's not rocket science....any team should be improved by adding a couple of star players. But we couldn't afford to until the extra income from the stadium came in. Then we bought Ndombele, Lo Celso and Sessegnon...
I think his point was we could have won stuff with a couple of star players, not just be improved. He is pointing out how close we were.
I don't think we would have had much more chance of winning things if we had signed Ndombele and Lo Celso two years earlier....
I get that, but as has been discussed infinitum, I think we needed that influx a year earlier. Yes, it would have taken a risk, with the revenue stream not in place, but with hindsight - a wonderful thing - we addressed the problems too late - and with the wrong targets at stupid prices.
I feel a bit vindicated in that Hugo says almost word for word what many of us on here said throughout that period: The timing of it all just sucked. When we moved to Wembley, we were at least 2-3 years ahead of schedule. That was partly down to how good we were, but it was also in a large part due to how unexpectedly weak the other big teams were at that time. A slight shift in PL chemistry was enough to march City and Pool right back to the top and that happened at precisely the time we couldn't keep up with them financially. The other part that was typically Spursy was the unanticipated injuries to Rose, Wanyama and Dembele that effectively ended their careers at an elite level and years earlier than anyone would have predicted. This stripped us of 3 crucial players who were among the best in the division and here's that problem again: It happened at a time that we couldn't afford to replace them. By the time we'd restored financial health, City and Pool were specks on the horizon and our team had declined to such an alarmingly low level that tbh no amount of money could've fixed it. Which is why my main critique of Levy during this period has been the constant chopping and changing, making things up as he went along and hoping on a wing and a prayer that with managers antithetical to the club's philosophy, we'd somehow shortcut our way to success and bypass the painful reality that the whole edifice was crumbling. It took 8th place, three managers, open fan rebellion and Kane leaving to knock some sense into him, but we finally have what looks like a long term plan.
The West Ham and Newcastle games are on the same dates that they were originally assigned to. Forest was on the Saturday. The later games in April are still subject to change, too.
