Frank has his work cut out for him. We also have to bear in mind the fact that for two years these players were atrociously coached. Picked up endless bad habits and a nonsense philosophy from a coach who was woefully out of his depth. That will take a while to unravel, I just hope the fans have the patience to see it through.
These games mean nothing one way or the other. Fans need to be realistic. The top 4 will most likely be Liverpool, arsenal Chelsea and city. Newcastle could be in for a rough start with the isak issue but are way ahead of us as are villa and Brighton. A realistic hope is 6th to 8th but I suspect that the fans will turn on Frank if we start badly. 3 months months ago we won our first trophy in 17 yrs. You wouldn't know it judging by comments on SM.
Some of the bad habits definitely seem to have already been coached out of them The fact our throw ins aren't a convoluted system of getting the ball to our opponents is the most obvious one Of course, one bad habit he has no say over is having a friendly against one of Europe's top teams just three days after returning from a pair of matches in the Far East - which I buy over the theory half the team was saving energy for PSG
I agree that friendlies are irrelevant and I do want to be positive...really I do, but I fear your optimism is misplaced. Without significant incomings, I fear that 10-12 would be more realistic. It's all just 'rinse/repeat' and the season-long absence of Maddison has just compounded matters.
This result means about as much as beating Arsenal does as to how the season’s going to go. We’ve improved in some places but obviously we still need a couple more in which I’m sure will come. Frank can continue to formulate his ideas the more he sees these players. Plenty to be optimistic about. The top 4 have all massively strengthens but if you look at probably our direct rivals, Villa haven’t improved and may lose Watkins, Newcastle will be going backwards if they lose isak. United have strengthened up top but they still need about 6 or 7 players. I think we’ll finish in the European places, last 16 of the champions league and you’ve always got a chance at one of the domestic cups.
I agree that pre seasons results can’t be judged as a barometer for how the actual season will go. I think the heavy defeat along with key players being injured, Son leaving and lack of a rebuild that the squad needs has left many worried about the coming season. I think Spurs will be better domestically this season simply because Frank will be more pragmatic with his style. I just hope the fans don’t moan that it’s boring or dull. I also think at least 2 more players will be brought in before the end of the window which will add some needed experience and creativity
Frank will turn some of last seasons defeats to draws/wins, I’m sure, even if the style of football has to suffer (which wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest). But I think 6th-8th is very optimistic bearing in mind how many goals we’ve lost from the team, how many injuries there are, and the lack of signings. As things stand, I think 10th-13th is realistic. I can’t quite believe the lack of transfers to be honest. In recent years the sound bite used to be “It’s very hard to find players that are available that will improve us”. But that’s just not true anymore, yet there still little activity in the market.
This isn’t reactionary at all, PNP. It’s spot on. It constantly feels like there isn’t a plan, and if there is, we continue to fail to execute it. With regards to Frank, “onto the next chump”, as Brian would say.
I must confess that I looked at the squad last night and thought wow Thomas Frank has really got his work cut out to make this team competitive. The league is unforgiving these days and I think he will be doing very well to get a top 10 finish and into the last 32 of the champions league. We are not only terrible at identifying new players, but we are equally bad at get rid of the dead wood that is taking up valuable squad places, with the exception of the beloved Sonny we have not managed to move on a single player that is under contract (and Son was only because he chose to sign an extension and not leave for free). Solomon was surely an easy deal to do he had a great season with Leeds and they apparently wanted to keep him but no we couldn't even do that! I would rather we looked to the future and played some of the kids who have been sent on loan than persist with the likes of Richarlison and Bissouma for another year. They should be told they are leaving and made available and I know the club can't just throw away money, but we seem to let the players decide when they need to ushered out, told they may not be given a squad place and replaced. I fear it will be a very long season because I don't think anyone is leaving and as such incomings will probably will be a maximum of 2 who will probably be no better than what we already have, hopefully Franks reputation as a coach who gets the best out of average players is true because he has plenty of those at his disposal.
It's far too soon to worry about how Spurs will perform this season. Pre-season friendlies do not set the standard heading into the new season. However, we know that we need new signings and that our squad quality is below par and off-balanced and it's quite frustrating seeing other clubs spend £ms whilst we are lagging behind. I really hope Spurs are not seriously considering Nicholas Jackson though! But it's also worrying that Richarlison is still here with no rumours of his leaving.
I refuse to be too down beat on my birthday weekend break away, but after watching that last night it's hard!!! Yes, it's a pre season game, but that squad looks so devoid of any creativity and flair at the moment it's frightening. I do so hope the fanbase also does not go toxic too early on in the season, as I can only see a poor start for the first half. I always ignore ANYTHING on social media. See, this is what this team does to you. I am normally totally optimistic at the start of every season and the pessimism only usually creeps in after Christmas.... COYS.
I think the worry stems from the fact that we've seen this so many times before under Levy. The pattern is so familiar. Dither and dally for the bulk of the window, get totally distracted by one big deal going wrong, fail to strengthen before the season, stumble around like a punter at last rounds as the window closes throwing money and hope at anything that moves, fail to move unwanted players on, play catch up for the rest of the season. You could probably just summarise that as the Levy Playbook. We had a brief respite from it for a few seasons under Ange but we have very much reverted to type. I was reflecting last night on just how bad we are at getting rid of players. Apart from Kane and Walker, we haven't sold a single player for more than £30m in the past decade, which is absurd considering how much movement we've had in general in the market in that time. Our rivals seem to have no problem offloading their ballast and often at hugely inflated prices. Nunez to Saudi for £46m is a joke. We couldn't sell Richarlison for a tenner if we begged. Why? Why are we so incompetent in the market?
You only have to read the posts on here about Grealish to get the answer to your last two questions. Clubs pay more for players who have won multiple league or CL trophies irrespective of their actual contribution. Because winners are valuable apparently. If Richarlison had played for Liverpool, Chelsea or Man City he would be sold for the Nunez fee. Note that Arsenal and Man Utd have similar issues to us in moving on players they don"t want...it's due to the lack of winning things.
The main problem we have at the moment is that Chelsea and the Mansourites are offloading their youth players for tidy sums and have a hefty sell-on clause attached to them, meaning they have an alternate cash flow ready to go (especially as there's a degree of collusion between those two, Villa and Newcastle to shuttle those players among themselves to try and cheat the PSR system for another year) We on the other hand have had great difficulty selling our youngsters for a few years, much of which stemmed from their lack of game time as they didn't play many (if any) games for us yet also didn't get loans to beef up their potential sale value, meaning the only potential assets we have on the board at the moment are Troy Parrott and Josh Keeley
On a separate issue the Spurs DoFs who have spoken publicly say that Levy doesn't interfere in who gets signed, he just sets the budget. If you look at the state of our finances then we've literally spent every penny we could in every season since we moved into the new stadium. We remain the 6th highest spenders though and our expected finishing position remains 6th. There is only real one outlier on that expectation and that is last season. There is no reason why we shouldn't expect sixth again. I think we have around £100m more to spend. I assume we are waiting until the new manager has come to a view on the squad.
