Personally, I want Ange to stay. Not because I believe that he has it in him to succeed at Spurs, more that I've had it with replacing coaches mid-season because they're no more able to meet the club's aims, on the budget allocated, than the last bloke, or the 3 before him. My view is that he could go next week. If, against Chelsea, we get the thrashing that currently looks likely, I foresee a reaction similar to the one that did for Nuno. I can see the crowd getting stuck into the coach and Levy. If it's stick with a coach and bear the calls for Levy/the board/ENIC to go, or sack another chump, get in a replacement and relieve the pressure, we've seen it all before. Ange mate, you can pack your tucker bag with swag and go walkabout. It will only serve to relieve the pressure on the authors of the last few years of this story. Nothing will meaningfully change...apart from the skyline, as the luxury hotel goes up.
Totally agree. January window (if he's still in charge by then) will be the yardstick. Ryan Nelsen on loan will mean he's a dead man walking and we're just waiting for an excuse to pull the trigger. Splash the cash and I'd say it's more likely we'll emulate Arsenal and stick with him for quite a few more years.
I certainly hope it's the latter, like most have said it's ****ing tiresome changing managers just to see another let down by those above but it's hard not to feel that we know what will happen in about 6-8 weeks. I suppsoe on the flip side Ange does has to take some blame for signings too, he's made it clear he wants players only keen to join Spurs and not just wanting out of their clubs and maybe that's why Solanke was our top target and not someone like Osimhen, Vlahovic, Martinez etc, along with getting Vicario instead of Raya and so on. But even then, give Ange more Solanke's if need be, 3-4 Solanke's would've made a positive difference this season, 1 Solanke definitely hasn't - and unfortunately I was able to spot that a mile away before a ball was kicked.
I think there is a myth around Ange, created largely by himself, and that is his Spurs are gung ho and don't think about defence. It would help if anyone has seen his teams playing in his previous roles. Australia, Japan and Scotland. I haven't, but I suspect he might be moving away himself from the way he has coached before. This is all speculation on my part, but I beleive I have seen him changing his methods through last season and this as he comes to term with the hypa competitivness of the PL. This season we are watching an even more competative league than normal. Our close competition, Newcastle, Villa, United, are also inconsitent. Even City have lost their rock like presence. I would be surprised if Ange has experienced a league like the PL before. My perception is that he has gone from an ultra high line to a halfway house between that and counter attacking football. What he says and what he does are often different but I don't think our defence is poor because of tactics so much as coaching. Do we have defensive coaches? I imagine we must have, but if Ange has played before in the way he and the pundits describe then he may well be naive about defending anyway. If any of what I am saying bears any relation to the truth then we have a siuation where Ange is learning on the job and if that is the case giving him time could well pay off. Maybe some of our Australian posters may have seen his teams playing?
For me the biggest issue is none of our DMs are DMs, they're more like deep-lying CMs While modern football has more or less moved away from Sandro-like wrecking balls who sit deep and tackle anything that gets near them, there's no denying that if we had a Parker or a Carrick at the base o our midfield we'd have the best of both worlds as there would be somebody who could initiate our attacking moves when they receive the ball - but could also initiate them higher up the pitch by winning the ball
Without Bentancur our midfield lacks authority. Then we rely on Madison for that role and he is just not suited to that IMO.
He's a huge miss and I've found it a little odd at some of the criticism he's received this season, been nowhere near as bad as some comments have suggested. Still yet to get to the same level he was at pre-injury but I think it was coming, so naturally he had to get that lengthy ban when he did...
The other bee in my bonnet is Johnson. How can you be a winger and be afraid to take on a player? Yes he scores some lovely goals and seems to have an instinct for it, but he is more likely to pass back and destroy our forward momentum than push the ball past a defender or take him on.
I said it a week or two ago that I'd like to see him play CF/ ST. He's a far bigger goal threat than Solanke and right now with our iffy performances, we simply need players to slot it away to get through this rough patch. I reckon he scores the chance Solanke ****ed in the first half and probably would've finished a few of the other chances Solanke's ballsed up since joining.
Is he strong enough or bold enough to play in the centre? His goals seem to be when he comes in from the wing in an almost Martin Peters like stealthy way. If he played centrally I think we would still need a Solanki type for the hard graft, or even your mate Richarlison if he was ever fit.
I think his off the ball movement is genuinely excellent which is why he always finds space between defenders, dare I say it but it has an air of Dele Alli about it with how he just finds space easily. Solanke spends half the time trying to win tackles in midfield and when he is up top he's missing too many chances. I'd rather our central striking presence focuses on scoring goals instead of making tackles. Johnson won't have much hold up play but I do think if given some half chances he has a better chance of finishing them than Solanke. I'd go as far saying that I reckon Johnson would outscore either of our strikers by about 30-50% if he had the same amount of chances they did. That in itself could've been the difference between drawing or beating Leicester, losing or drawing to Arsenal, losing or drawing to Ipswich and now losing or drawing to Bournemouth. Doesn't matter how much many may want to deny it, neither Richarlison or Solanke are good enough goal scorers... despite essentially meaning to be the club's main goal outlets. Failing that, I think it was almost criminal Ange didn't bring on Lankshear yesterday and needs to give him a go soon. Solanke was dropped for Fulham due to an illness so almost certainly wasn't 100% yesterday anyway, we've got the PL2 player of the year and top scorer sitting on the bench... use him!
Your assesments of players often come early but you have a good record of getting them right but I still think Solanki is doing ok. He misses chances but all strikers do but on the other hand many of the chances he misses he has himself created. Without a player like him Johnson (who I suspect defenders don't take seriously) would not be able to slip into the spaces because they would not be there.
I think ok is about right but I don't think Spurs should be settling for ok, especially from a club record signing (not that that's his fault), what he's doing is basically what we'd get if we stuck Pape Sarr up front. Pape's work rate is brilliant and will chase everything down, doesn't mean he'll score enough goals though and that's the case with Solanke. I don't think Solanke has played that much impact in Johnson's goals either to be honest, Johnson's all round game is shocking but one thing he's excellent at his perfectly timed runs and crips finishing and that's on his own doing, I don't think Solanke would've finished some of the chances Johnson has but Johnson would've likely finished some of the chances Solanke has missed. In terms of judging players early, I think you can roughly judge with about a 75% certainty within about 10-15 games how a senior player may or may not fare, youngsters are far harder to predict but I'd stand by a lot of judgements for senior players. In Solanke's case though, we've had years to judge him, just as we did Richarlison. Neither player has shown they're good enough to be playing for a side with top four/ six aspirations and I think it shows. Their strike rates are that of midtable/ bottom half strikers... which is where we signed them from.
You amateur. The alarm bells were already ringing after the NLD to the Man Utd game. And going "by the numbers" from then, every predictive measure and measure of performance I am using, is coming to pass.
whole heartedly agree with this. You need players to make space and receive the ball. Playing with Johnson up top would be like playing with 10 men.
Yeah seen him say as such before. I'd say 200 games will give you a full on assessment. 10-15 games can give you a fairly accurate prediction.
I think that was in the context of which of two players was better. The 10-15 games quoted by @Dier Hard is only going to be relevant if the player is a major outlier like Messi or Gilberto
Yeah some people you can judge early. Lo Celso was one for me, early doors I could see he wasn’t the answer. I feel the same about Dragusin, he’s just not suited to Ange’s style at all. In his defence though, he’s still young so there could be a good player in there.
