Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Fulham

[Citizen Kane.]

Actually I think the manager strategy is more logical than you do...as I've pointed out in other posts, for the sixth best squad to win something is very unlikely and the road to having anything better than the sixth best squad is very long given the financial strength of the competition. Most coaches seem to make very little difference and of the ones that do they are almost impossible to see in advance. So I have no difficulty in sacking managers who seem to be making no difference relatively quickly. Especially those like Mourinho and Conte who appeared to have some sort of edge but showed no evidence of it in practice. I think Jol and Poch were sacked too early but with hindsight neither has done anything special anywhere else since leaving us so perhaps it was the players we got lucky with, not either manager.
And it's not a culture, it's simply a fact of life. Coming 7th or even 9th is no different to 6th in practice but 3rd, 4th or higher makes a huge difference. So unless the coach is able to deliver 4th place with the 6th best resources then it's worth trying someone else.
I've only seen DoFs say that Levy gives them their head and delegates football matters to them...so I don't know where this claim that he goes off and buys rubbish comes from.

I find this very difficult to reconcile with your opinion that players need circa 200 games until you can tell for sure how good they are.

Holding on to crud players for years while chopping and changing managers is exactly what Levy's been doing for the past 6 years and is identical to your philosophy, which further reinforces my suspicion that you are in fact Daniel Levy.

 

[Citizen Kane.]

I can see what Ange is trying to do and he plays the risky style we need to maximise the chances of a high finish. Conte's actions were entirely inconsistent with his stated philosophy.

So can I.

The problem is, so can all of our opponents

 

[paulthewire]

I don't have any, hence the word 'supposed'.

He seured Van deVaart for a very reasonable fee

 

[PowerSpurs]

Ange has stated and doubled down on his claim to winning trophies in his second season.

By this measure, would you sack him if we fail to win a trophy this season?

Good question but probably not as I see that as an outcome, not a philosophy. If he switched to a 5-4-1 park the bus strategy I would sack him the next day.
However, Ange seems a very honest guy...so he might well resign if he doesn't deliver.

 

[PowerSpurs]

Conte's philosophy is all about winning and doing so by any means. He just simply ended up failing to win by any means here and it was clear weeks before he was sacked that players had had enough of his personality too.

Ange's philosophy is about only winning with style. We've had some excellent wins but I'd say the majority of our performances now are as dull as anything we've seen in the last few years. So what he may try do to or want to do is proving somewhat different to what he can do.

We are scoring two goals a game on average....how can that be dull?

 

[Dier Hard]

We are scoring two goals a game on average....how can that be dull?

We're not actually scoring two a game though are we?

We're going from extremes almost on a weekly basis as we'll batter one side then draw or lose the next with limp performances, the losses have been some absolute dreadful watches as bad as anything in recent years, Sunday's draw to Fulham wasn't much better either, they deserved to win.

 

[PowerSpurs]

I find this very difficult to reconcile with your opinion that players need circa 200 games until you can tell for sure how good they are.

Holding on to crud players for years while chopping and changing managers is exactly what Levy's been doing for the past 6 years and is identical to your philosophy, which further reinforces my suspicion that you are in fact Daniel Levy.

I'm flattered to be compared with him.
The difference between players and managers is that the former have very short careers and a lot of them an even shorter peak period which may come at any age. It's usually possible to identify the very best quite early but there are some big counter examples to that eg Salah and de Bruyne. But that's irrelevant to our current situation because there are at least ten clubs who have both the resources and the reputation to sign the very best players ahead of us. If I look at a group of players like Winks, Skipp, Bentancur, Bissouma, Lo Celso and Sarr then I don't think we even know now which is going to be the best or the worst over their whole career or whether any of them are good enough to help us improve. But someone at the club has decided to sell three of them and buy the other three at quite a large net cost in the hope of improving the team. It's that sort of expenditure that I think is very tricky to get right. Coaching two of the three we sold and buying a single more expensive player to really improve the squad might well work better.

 

[PowerSpurs]

We're not actually scoring two a game though are we?

We're going from extremes almost on a weekly basis as we'll batter one side then draw or lose the next with limp performances, the losses have been some absolute dreadful watches as bad as anything in recent years, Sunday's draw to Fulham wasn't much better either, they deserved to win.

We had half our starters missing against Fulham. And it's better to be inconsistent as you get 3 points for a win. One of the reasons our players are not in the same class as Rodri and Salah is that they can't do it every week consistently so we have just to make the best of that.

 

[Bodinki]

I'm flattered to be compared with him.
The difference between players and managers is that the former have very short careers and a lot of them an even shorter peak period which may come at any age. It's usually possible to identify the very best quite early but there are some big counter examples to that eg Salah and de Bruyne. But that's irrelevant to our current situation because there are at least ten clubs who have both the resources and the reputation to sign the very best players ahead of us. If I look at a group of players like Winks, Skipp, Bentancur, Bissouma, Lo Celso and Sarr then I don't think we even know now which is going to be the best or the worst over their whole career or whether any of them are good enough to help us improve. But someone at the club has decided to sell three of them and buy the other three at quite a large net cost in the hope of improving the team. It's that sort of expenditure that I think is very tricky to get right. Coaching two of the three we sold and buying a single more expensive players to really improve the squad might well work better.

You seem like an Ange ride or die kinda guy PS.
Out of interest you say Spurs have the 6th best team in the league.....assuming out of the teams above you, four of those teams being Liverpool, City, Arsenal and Chelsea......that would put you 5th, so who is the other team with a better squad than Spurs, that puts you down in 6th place?
Because the other two teams above you are Brighton and Forest, and I assume you are not claiming they have better teams than Spurs?
Who is it then? Villa? Newcastle? Just curious

 

[PowerSpurs]

You seem like an Ange ride or die kinda guy PS.
Out of interest you say Spurs have the 6th best team in the league.....assuming out of the teams above you, four of those teams being Liverpool, City, Arsenal and Chelsea......that would put you 5th, so who is the other team with a better squad than Spurs, that puts you down in 6th place?
Because the other two teams above you are Brighton and Forest, and I assume you are not claiming they have better teams than Spurs?
Who is it then? Villa? Newcastle? Just curious

It's Man Utd...they have good players but have not used them well at all.

 

[Dier Hard]

We had half our starters missing against Fulham. And it's better to be inconsistent as you get 3 points for a win. One of the reasons our players are not in the same class as Rodri and Salah is that they can't do it every week consistently so we have just to make the best of that.

We didn't have half our starters missing vs Ipswich though. Nor Palace. Nor Toon. Nor the draw to Leicester. We also played against ten men for about ten minutes vs Fulham.

It's not better to be inconsistent at all, no good team has ever been inconsistent. Being consistent gets you multiple 3 points.

 

[PowerSpurs]

We didn't have half our starters missing vs Ipswich though. No Palace. Nor Toon. Nor the draw to Leicester.

It's not better to be inconsistent at all, no good team has ever been inconsistent. Being consistent gets you multiple 3 points.

Yes...I know but we don't have a good enough squad to come above sixth on merit so if we are going to get into the CL then we need to take more risk and put up with the inconsistency. 24 wins and 14 losses would get us top 4. 12 wins 24 draws and 2 losses would be much more consistent but leave us 8th or 9th

 

[Dier Hard]

Yes...I know but we don't have a good enough squad to come above sixth on merit so if we are going to get into the CL then we need to take more risk and put up with the inconsistency. 24 wins and 14 losses would get us top 4. 12 wins 24 draws and 2 losses would be much more consistent but leave us 8th or 9th

Winning 24 would put us on 4 more wins than last season and at this stage last season we were 6 points better off.

Though like last season, we are beginning to tire far too early and if that continues then our form is more likely to decline than improve.

 

[Citizen Kane.]

I'm flattered to be compared with him.
The difference between players and managers is that the former have very short careers and a lot of them an even shorter peak period which may come at any age. It's usually possible to identify the very best quite early but there are some big counter examples to that eg Salah and de Bruyne. But that's irrelevant to our current situation because there are at least ten clubs who have both the resources and the reputation to sign the very best players ahead of us. If I look at a group of players like Winks, Skipp, Bentancur, Bissouma, Lo Celso and Sarr then I don't think we even know now which is going to be the best or the worst over their whole career or whether any of them are good enough to help us improve. But someone at the club has decided to sell three of them and buy the other three at quite a large net cost in the hope of improving the team. It's that sort of expenditure that I think is very tricky to get right. Coaching two of the three we sold and buying a single more expensive player to really improve the squad might well work better.

I agree with your last point but that's what's so frustrating - we haven't done it.

I am tired of watching us spend middling money on middling players who either barely improve us or actually take us backwards.

Much more sensible would be to sign one top player and develop the rest in-house or from smaller leagues. But we don't seem to have the ambition (or is it clout?) to do that.

 

[Dier Hard]

I agree with your last point but that's what's so frustrating - we haven't done it.

I am tired of watching us spend middling money on middling players who either barely improve us or actually take us backwards.

Much more sensible would be to sign one top player and develop the rest in-house or from smaller leagues. But we don't seem to have the ambition (or is it clout?) to do that.

This then reverts back to the point of who the club are deeming as top players.

Of the current biggest spends; Richarlison, Johnson and Solanke would at best in Johnson and Solanke's case be classed as "decent" players, in Richarlison, he is genuinely of the calibre of a bottom half striker and even that feels kind. None are near being considered a top player.

£175m spent on the trio, that sort of money should be getting us at least one player of genuine pedigree.

 

[KingHotspur]

This then reverts back to the point of who the club are deeming as top players.

Of the current biggest spends; Richarlison, Johnson and Solanke would at best in Johnson and Solanke's case be classed as "decent" players, in Richarlison, he is genuinely of the calibre of a bottom half striker and even that feels kind. None are near being considered a top player.

£175m spent on the trio, that sort of money should be getting us at least one player of genuine pedigree.

Completely agree but evidence shows Spurs would rather buy 2-3 ‘decent’ players and spread wages than 1 top top player. That’s assuming a top top player would join anyway.

 

[Bodinki]

This then reverts back to the point of who the club are deeming as top players.

Of the current biggest spends; Richarlison, Johnson and Solanke would at best in Johnson and Solanke's case be classed as "decent" players, in Richarlison, he is genuinely of the calibre of a bottom half striker and even that feels kind. None are near being considered a top player.

£175m spent on the trio, that sort of money should be getting us at least one player of genuine pedigree.

Richarlison was never an out and out goal scorer, his figures show that.
Solanke I think you overpaid for him dreadfully. Nearly £60m! Yeah he is English but the guy aint even a full international.
His price tag seemed to be completely determined by that one season with Bournemouth where he grabbed 19 goals.
I never saw anything at Senior level that would make me think Solanke is worth that kind of money.

 

[KingHotspur]

Richarlison was never an out and out goal scorer, his figures show that.
Solanke I think you overpaid for him dreadfully. Nearly £60m! Yeah he is English but the guy aint even a full international.
His price tag seemed to be completely determined by that one season with Bournemouth where he grabbed 19 goals.
I never saw anything at Senior level that would make me think Solanke is worth that kind of money.

Both horrific signings, all the top clubs have wasted big fees on average players though tbf. Just feels like Spurs have less room for error than other teams though.

Spurs wage bill has been dramatically lowered in recent years. Ultimately it has to dramatically rise to get in better calibre of player

 

[Citizen Kane.]

Richarlison was never an out and out goal scorer, his figures show that.
Solanke I think you overpaid for him dreadfully. Nearly £60m! Yeah he is English but the guy aint even a full international.
His price tag seemed to be completely determined by that one season with Bournemouth where he grabbed 19 goals.
I never saw anything at Senior level that would make me think Solanke is worth that kind of money.

He's definitely not worth what we paid for him, but then again it isn't his fault we were stupid enough to do so.

A club like Spurs can only afford one 'mega money' (which isn't even that 'mega' anymore, largely thanks to the cretins running your scummy little club) per year, so to have wasted two of the past three on Richarlison and Solanke is painful, to say the least.

Fwiw, he's a significantly better player than Richarlison.

 

[Citizen Kane.]

Completely agree but evidence shows Spurs would rather buy 2-3 ‘decent’ players and spread wages than 1 top top player. That’s assuming a top top player would join anyway.

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

Most genuinely top players don't see us as a top club, simply because we are not.

And those who would be open to join can't because signing them would mean destroying our wage structure.

So we're stuck pretending to sign top players instead.