I do not think that is true on either count. 1. Spurs supporters know that finishing top 4 when not being there for some period of time correlates with good football played all season. Not via Portu-ball. As it was in 2009-10, so it was in 2015-16 and 2021-22. And I contend it will so be the next time (whenever that is) . 2. Similarly, stagnation or slight decline can be tolerated by Levy when the bar was set high (Pochettino in the two seasons after 2016-17) . I said weeks ago that the margins of error are fine for a Spurs manager. Ange has made them thinner, with a really brutal two months incoming. We are led to believe that a good/strong manager can take such pressure in their stride. Is Ange that person ?? Time will tell soon enough ...
Finishing 4th is only important because it gets champions league money and football, alone it means nothing. So 8th and winning europa would trump that by some considerable distance for me. Unfortunately I don’t see Spurs getting past the last 8 of Europa this season.
You make a strong argument, but I do share many of DH's worries. I think the board were betting the house that Ange would be another BMJ/Poch in that he would take relatively unknown youngsters and turn them into superstars. That just isn't happening. In fact, I'd argue that we're not seeing much if any improvement from our so-called experienced players either. Ultimately there are only two ways to raise the quality of a team. Either you coach it to a higher level, or you buy better players. Poch was incredible at the first way but when he ran out of runway and needed the board to step up and deliver on the second way, they let him down badly. I've said it before, I think Ange is a more entertaining version of Jose or Conte, in that he will rely on the second way much more than the first. And i don't think the board was banking on appointing a manager who would need that level of financial backing. Our market strategy proves this. We've gone and signed a load of prospects who - with top notch coaching - will flourish into phenomenal talents. But is Ange the coach the board thought he was to deliver on that? I'm not convinced.
I think Spurs are just inconsistent. And there are many possible reasons for that. The main one is that if you look at every individual player, their performances fluctuate. Nobody is a consistent 8/10. To get consistent results, you need 7 or 8 players being an 8/10. Liverpool have this at present. Arsenal do for the most part. Everyone else (including the Rodri-less City) are striving to find it. Spurs on form, with the team playing Angeball well, are very destructive and can beat most teams, even at their best. You have to accept that it’s a work in progress and it will take time for every player to be consistently performing. Experience and getting used to the system are factors. There are a significant number who are young and/or have limited experience of PL football. P.S Utd have a different problem. It’s as if someone has opened a few packs of Panini stickers and said make this lot work.
I was against Ange getting the job from day one, I saw a lot of his Celtic side and didn’t (still don’t) think he can replicate that with Spurs for many different reasons. At his age and with his experience I just felt it was the wrong appointment for him and the club (although I don’t blame him for taking it) That said, I think he has to stay until the end of the season before a serious appraisal is done. Yes he could do better and get more from certain players and maybe be a more flexible with playing style but I don’t think there is a manager out there at the moment who could come in and get Spurs playing well and winning. Also under the current ownership Spurs are never gonna spend £100million on a player or pay £400,000 a week to anyone so you’re asking a manager to overachieve to get top 4. Poch did it multiple times and Conte did it once but for me anyone that’s available now wouldn’t be able to.
I’m pretty sure this guy sits quite near me at games as I’ve seen him in the concourse a few times so I reckon he’s probably reacting to similar of what I was hearing at times especially throughout the second half with regards to fans turning on the manager but I make him right and it’s essentially what I’ve been getting at too. Make no mistake Ange is far from perfect, if anything I think he’s an average/ below par manager but whoever is in our dugout needs the tools in order to make something here. The Pochettino’s of the world are extremely rare m and so to progress and earn success (and money) you need to spend it - on quality. I can sort of envisage Levy saying something like we’ve spent loads and technically he’s not wrong, the issue is he’s been spending loads on largely average players that the likes of West Ham, Brentford etc would’ve been able to attract. Said it before but since moving to the new stadium, we’ve yet to sign a single big money player that instantly makes you sort of salivate before they’ve even kicked a ball for us. Bale and Perisic are the closest we’ve had to them, yet both were past their best and both essentially cost nothing in fees.
I see we're back to pretending that people weren't salivating at the thought of Ndombele before he kicked a ball for us That was before he started salivating when the team bus passed Chick King
I think fans were excited for signing a good young player but the reality is no one knew much about him other than YouTube comps. Pretty sure I could even find posts where I would’ve talked about going for Grealish and Tielemans as a pair rather than going all out on Ndombele.
The problem is in Levy's tiny footballing brain, the likes of Richarlison, Ndombele, Lo Celso and Solanke are the massive marquee signings you're talking about. And in that same tiny brain, our success rate with those is abysmal. So he got his fingers burnt from what he thought was spending 'big money on big players', and as a result actioned a complete U-turn in strategy (another of his really inexplicable traits, how he veers from one extreme to the other at the first sign of difficulty) and we are now basically behaving in the market like we did circa 2006-2016, albeit we are paying through the nose for many of those players as we are a much wealthier club.
It’s pretty telling that Richarlison and Solanke’s rumoured wages are around £90k a week here. Genuine £60m calibre players would be after double that, if not even more.
Levy seems happy to spend the budget on whoever the DoF or the coach wants as far as I can see. In the case of the DoF I think that is sensible delegation but it was a massive mistake to back Pochettino so heavily.
Pretty sure he signed Richarlison and Spence off his own back. Initial reports claimed Conte wanted pigeon boy but within a couple months it was then contested that Levy actually pushed for it because he supposedly thought Richarlison for £60m was a great deal due to apparently valuing him north of £90m and was therefore exploiting Everton’s financial situation. When you consider Conte barely used either and those two deals took a while to get done, whilst most of Paratici’s targets were done seemingly within days, it’s very hard not to believe the Levy rumours. Especially as Perisic, Bentancur and Kulu were practically straight into Conte’s first XI after joining too, all of whom were wanted by Conte/ Paratici.
Richarlison was just a back up for Kane and Son though so was never going to start much. The sudden change to buying mostly young players seems to be driven by the new DoF. The facts are entirely consistent with Levy delegating signings to the footballing staff which is exactly what he should be doing.
Not entirely consistent though if he’s signing players like Richarlison and Spence. Both of whom have been utterly pointless signings for varying reasons too.
Richarlison actually said that Conte persuaded him to come didn't he? I know Conte called Spence a "club signing" but I took that to mean by Paratici. Anyway I would have sacked Conte on the spot for such a comment. https://telegrafi.com/en/richarliso...ut-it-was-decisive-for-me-to-go-to-tottenham/
