Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Brighton & Hove Albion

[KingHotspur]

Like Mourinho....and Conte. And our trophy cabinet remains a respiratory health concern!!

I know there will be comparisons with those two.

Conte was/is a top manager though. Look at Napoli. I fancy him to win something there before he has a meltdown after 2 years again.

 

[remembercolinlee]

14/15 was Poch’s first season though, this is Ange’s second, if we’re comparing the two then immediately it puts Ange on a downer because we should be better than another manager’s first year, especially as Ange has spent (even taking into account inflation differences) far more than Poch had spent. If we then compare it with Poch’s second season, we’ve lost 3 league games already in our first 7, it took us until the 21st game of 15/16 to lose our 3rd league game.

I’d also say that with Poch, we saw steady progression from his first season through to about season three and it’s what always kept fans happy as even in tough times there were signs of “something good was around the corner” with him. The first notable improvement was fitness. Then defensive cohesion and then general improvement in our play. For as much as Ange’s idea of football is great to get behind, this team at present is no better than last season, not even marginally. Defensively we’re still an absolute mess, today in fairness was probably the first time I’d blame the players more than the system for the defensive catastrophe but nonetheless it feels like a recurring theme of bemoaning about our defensive issues.

I don’t want Ange gone, far from it even if I don’t think he’s doing as good as he should be, but at the same time I know how this football club operates under this ownership, if European qualification is looking beyond reach around Feb/ March, the manager’s almost certainly gone.

The squad was very different in 2014-15.
Pochettino inherited lloris Walker, Davies, Vertongen, Bentaleb, Eriksen, Dembele, Kane, Mason and Lamela.
With the exception of Bentaleb and Mason they were all first team starters.

He did have to get rid of players like Adebayor, Capoue, Lennon, Soldado, Paulinio, Dawson, Liverpool, Kaboul, Naughton, yedalin and sandro but got money for them.
We also had squad players that were sellable such as Townsend, Holby, Stambouli and chiriches.

In his first 3 windows he made £101m from those sales.

Only Adebayor was released for free.

And no key players were lost.

Ange on the other hand lost Kane.
Lloris left on a free as did Moura, Ndombele, Sessengon, Tanganga and Peresic.
We got £100m for kane who was and is irreplaceable.
But he only got £68m in sales from 14 players going in his first 3 windows and the entire first team needed to be rebuilt.

That's why I compare us to spurs 2014-15

 

[bigsmithy9]

I'm surprised Spurs fans don't have melt downs! How does that song go? Something like...."They lead us on and then they let us down......."

 

[remembercolinlee]

Ultimately beating a second tier team, a team from Azerbaijan and the Hungarian champions is exactly what Spurs should be doing and certainly for me, it’s not an up to win against those sides.

Even the two league wins recently. Brentford at home is always a match you should expect to win and a win against a rotten Man Utd side, you have to say they were both very winnable games.

I didn’t see today but I knew today was a barometer of where Spurs are. They lost and now sit in 9th. Only the bottom three and Everton have lost more league games this season.

Even the manager has come out and said it’s the worse defeat since he’s been at Spurs.

Sorry but Brighton, Chelsea, Arsenal (last season), Fulham and Newcastle last season were all worse IMHO.

Guess we have to agree to disagree with the positives in our cup game

 

[Citizen Kane.]

We didn't lose for any of the reasons cited. The three goals were all due to individual errors...five between them and three from Udogie.
There is nothing that the manager can do about that during a match so it was quite reasonable to not make changes

James Maddison disagreed with this in his post match comments.

 

[Dier Hard]

The squad was very different in 2014-15.
Pochettino inherited lloris Walker, Davies, Vertongen, Bentaleb, Eriksen, Dembele, Kane, Mason and Lamela.
With the exception of Bentaleb and Mason they were all first team starters.

He did have to get rid of players like Adebayor, Capoue, Lennon, Soldado, Paulinio, Dawson, Liverpool, Kaboul, Naughton, yedalin and sandro but got money for them.
We also had squad players that were sellable such as Townsend, Holby, Stambouli and chiriches.

In his first 3 windows he made £101m from those sales.

Only Adebayor was released for free.

And no key players were lost.

Ange on the other hand lost Kane.
Lloris left on a free as did Moura, Ndombele, Sessengon, Tanganga and Peresic.
We got £100m for kane who was and is irreplaceable.
But he only got £68m in sales from 14 players going in his first 3 windows and the entire first team needed to be rebuilt.

That's why I compare us to spurs 2014-15

Kane wasn't a starter. Walker and Dembele had both struggled for form too, many fans wanted Walker out after two poor seasons, Dembele ended up being behind Mason and Bentaleb for a lot of that 14/15 season too.

A number of those he sold had value as he took quite a ballsy decision to drop a lot of them over the season in favour of starting the likes of Kane, Mason, Bentaleb and Townsend.

The onus on selling to buy also isn't as bad for Ange as it was for Poch though. It's why Ange was able to sign Solanke for £65m two years after the club paid £60m for Richarlison. Poch never really had that luxury (inflation relative of course, the £60m-£65m fees now would probably equate to about £35m-£40m in Poch's day). Of those Poch also sold, we probably never got to fully re-invest that money into the team like we now can with Ange due to funding the new stadium. We've currently spent around £300m on Ange's squad in just three windows. It's why I don't really think it's a solid comparison, especially as the squads are/ were at different stages of a year 1 vs year 2.

 

[KingHotspur]

Sorry but Brighton, Chelsea, Arsenal (last season), Fulham and Newcastle last season were all worse IMHO.

Guess we have to agree to disagree with the positives in our cup game

Yeah I think today’s defeat isn’t the worst defeat under Ange but maybe he’s on about the manner of it. Sounds it was a terrible second half

Winning cup games and games in Europe is never a bad thing but every opponent so far has been one you’d expect Spurs to beat.

The test for cup games starts with City and the likes of Roma and Galatasaray. Winning or losing them will be more of a barometer for me

 

[Dier Hard]

Yeah I think today’s defeat isn’t the worst defeat under Ange but maybe he’s on about the manner of it. Sounds it was a terrible second half

Put it like this, if even van de Ven was terrible, you can then imagine how bad things were.

 

[Dier Hard]

I think this is what goes through his head every second of the day to be honest.

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[remembercolinlee]

Kane wasn't a starter. Walker and Dembele had both struggled for form too, many fans wanted Walker out after two poor seasons, Dembele ended up being behind Mason and Bentaleb for a lot of that 14/15 season too.

A number of those he sold had value as he took quite a ballsy decision to drop a lot of them over the season in favour of starting the likes of Kane, Mason, Bentaleb and Townsend.

The onus on selling to buy also isn't as bad for Ange as it was for Poch though. It's why Ange was able to sign Solanke for £65m two years after the club paid £60m for Richarlison. Poch never really had that luxury (inflation relative of course, the £60m-£65m fees now would probably equate to about £35m-£40m in Poch's day). Of those Poch also sold, we probably never got to fully re-invest that money into the team like we now can with Ange due to funding the new stadium. We've currently spent around £300m on Ange's squad in just three windows. It's why I don't really think it's a solid comparison, especially as the squads are/ were at different stages of a year 1 vs year 2.

You make some good and fair points but I do think the rebuilding job for Ange is far bigger.
Pochettino had players that bought into what he was doing...so Walker, kane, Dembele etc didn't need replacing.
Ange only has Son, Richarlison, Romero, Bentencur and Kuluchevski.
Bentencur hasn't been injury free since last November, Richarlison would have been sold in the summer but he didn't wanna leave and Son is not the same force he was.
Plus we lost Kane.

Pochettino had Lloris and Vorm (who a very good number 2) Vertonghen, Walker, Rose, Dembele, Mason (who was 23 ish), kane (22 ish), prime Eriksen, Davies, Townsend, Lamela and Bentaleb.
All those were there and pochettino got the best out of them whereas others hadn't.

Pochettino didn't walk into an appalling team, nor did loss his best player and nor was the club in turmoil off the pitch. The bond between the fans and the team was not like it was in 2013.

Ange has had to deal with all of that

 

[Huddlejonny]

Were you tempted to make your subs earlier as the game was turning?

Yeah I could have. But... all these things... are totally irrelevant to me. Substitutions and all those kind of things. If you're not competitive, it doesn't matter what you do, you're not going to get rewards, you don't deserve to win. We didn't deserve on our second-half performance, irrespective of subs or anything else, to get something out of the game. But I think if you do get something out of the game, you're falsely rewarded and I don't want to get falsely rewarded.

This is a very worrying comment from Ange... If the players heads have dropped or some are not performing haul them off the pitch and bring on some players who will bloody perform.

I'm nowhere near the opinion of changing the manager but that little insight into his thinking during such a pathetic 2nd half performance is really troubling!

 

[KingHotspur]

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It’s weird stuff like this Ange says that has always made me sceptical of him. How can he say subs don’t make a difference and he wouldn’t want to get a draw or win when playing badly.

 

[KingHotspur]

Were you tempted to make your subs earlier as the game was turning?

Yeah I could have. But... all these things... are totally irrelevant to me. Substitutions and all those kind of things. If you're not competitive, it doesn't matter what you do, you're not going to get rewards, you don't deserve to win. We didn't deserve on our second-half performance, irrespective of subs or anything else, to get something out of the game. But I think if you do get something out of the game, you're falsely rewarded and I don't want to get falsely rewarded.

This is a very worrying comment from Ange... If the players heads have dropped or some are not performing haul them off the pitch and bring on some players who will bloody perform.

I'm nowhere near the opinion of changing the manager but that little insight into his thinking during such a pathetic 2nd half performance is really troubling!

Lol you posted exactly the same thing as me but you just beat me to it. It’s weird for a manager to say that isn’t it. Just one reason why I don’t rate him.

 

[Dier Hard]

You make some good and fair points but I do think the rebuilding job for Ange is far bigger.
Pochettino had players that bought into what he was doing...so Walker, kane, Dembele etc didn't need replacing.
Ange only has Son, Richarlison, Romero, Bentencur and Kuluchevski.
Bentencur hasn't been injury free since last November, Richarlison would have been sold in the summer but he didn't wanna leave and Son is not the same force he was.
Plus we lost Kane.

Pochettino had Lloris and Vorm (who a very good number 2) Vertonghen, Walker, Rose, Dembele, Mason (who was 23 ish), kane (22 ish), prime Eriksen, Davies, Townsend, Lamela and Bentaleb.
All those were there and pochettino got the best out of them whereas others hadn't.

Pochettino didn't walk into an appalling team, nor did loss his best player and nor was the club in turmoil off the pitch. The bond between the fans and the team was not like it was in 2013.

Ange has had to deal with all of that

I agree with that but Ange largely dealt with that in his first season, he wouldn't (or shouldn't) still be dealing with it in year two.

In year two, he's got Vicario, Porro, Romero, van de Ven, Udogie, Bentancur, Bissouma, Sarr, Maddison, Kulu, Son and Johnson as players who know his system, then the additions of Solanke, Gray and co who've been bought to slot into it.

What concerns me and where Poch far excelled (so far) over Ange is that we saw genuine progression in his teams for about three years running. Even halfway in year one there were signs of improvement with the fitness side of things. With Ange, I don't think we're a single percentage better than last season, there might even be arguments for us regressing, as our form over the last 14 league games is truly dismal for a club of our stature.

If Ange's team right now played his team from last season, it'd probably end in a draw or potentially even a loss. Poch's team in year 2 would've comfortbaly beaten Poch's team in year 1.

 

[Left on the Shelf]

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It’s weird stuff like this Ange says that has always made me sceptical of him. How can he say subs don’t make a difference and he wouldn’t want to get a draw or win when playing badly.

It's a bizarre statement... He's just made things worse for himself. I want him to succeed but this ain't helping!

 

[PowerSpurs]

Lol you posted exactly the same thing as me but you just beat me to it. It’s weird for a manager to say that isn’t it. Just one reason why I don’t rate him.

It's not weird, it's entirely accurate. Making substitutions doesn't reduce the chance of errors. Better to let those who made the errors play on.

 

[PowerSpurs]

One of the things I like about Ange is that he doesn't seem to believe the impossible things about football that most fans, players and managers seem to believe.
He also takes responsibility.

 

[KingHotspur]

One of the things I like about Ange is that he doesn't seem to believe the impossible things about football that most fans, players and managers seem to believe.
He also takes responsibility.

There's no doubt over his belief or confidence in himself.

The clear hard facts however speak for themselves.

 

[Diego]

I happen to think Ange is probably right, i have seen it too many times with my own team.
Once a team start giving up/stop trying then five subs don't turn that around, all that seems to happen is a five or ten minuet lift then the subs fall into the same behaviour.
Best thing you can try to do is stop the flow of the opposition and sort it for the next game. Attitude is contageous and hard to pull back during a game.

 

[Huddlejonny]

It's not weird, it's entirely accurate. Making substitutions doesn't reduce the chance of errors. Better to let those who made the errors play on.

Errors will happen regardless but to think in the 2nd half that any substitutions that he makes would be irrelevant is mind boggling.

This is school boy stuff, if a player is not competing and doing the business on the pitch then haul him off and give someone else the chance to make a difference. I would have loved to see Moore get way more than 5 mins when you consider the inability of Werner to pick a pass, after 5 minutes we all saw that.

This indifference to substitutions is an extremely narrow minded approach to football.