Well, that is a whole other problem. It should have been done earlier. If we were Chelsea/City then i guess we could have thrown fees/wages at it and got Moutinho. I guess Levy thought he could get a better deal late on it was worth the risk. It was pretty frustrating for fans but i honestly believe Levy&co were working with the best interests of the club at heart. They know all the details and unfortunately we are just left speculating. I think Dembele (who i think will be a GREAT signing) was a backup plan. He apparently had a £15m release clause so surely we could have picked him up weeks ago if he was a main target. Similarly with Dempsey who was "on strike" for a while.
It appears that way, maybe if we had signed Moutinho we would not have gone in for him (Dembele) it may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
I think tots point is that every thread turns into a talk about tactics, avb and fans either saying "give him time" or "he is a clueless clown", we all been guilty of taking threads off topic and its getting boring!
It always get's like this when there is no football, we will have to wait for the Reading game to add fuel to our arguments. I hope it's a win otherwise we will have revisit the same arguments all over again. I'll get mine in now: It's only 4 GAMES FFS
It does seem that we were still working on Moutinho after Dembele and Dempsey signed so I'm not dure either was a backup plan. But there were also rumours that we were hoping to get Llorente so perhaps that affected the order we did things. To some extent I think Levy's hands are tied. If we had signed Dembele and Dempsey early on and then Moutinho and Llorente became available that would have looked very poor business. A richer cub like Chelsea could afford to do all four bit we really can't. Also I doubt our balance sheet looks strong enough to our bank or the selling club to allow us to spend >£20m on Moutinho before the Modric deal was done. I wish we had more money but I don't have any evidence that Levy does anything other than squeeze every penny we have to the club's best interest.
Quite right - we know from history that Levy will lose patience at 2 points from eight games - let's hope it doesn't come to that.
we should have one sticky called the tactics thread,and anyone who wants to dicuss tactics what line ups you would like to see etc,should go there.
Fair comments in the OP - and I accept the major point of the argument. I still think two DMs can work but it needs Adebayor playing and Bale back to something like his potential Problem for Reading is that Dempsey may not be ready, nor Parker, if they're not, then Sandro Siggy/Jake Dembele Lennon Ade Bale
Couldn't be more wrong. Against Utd at home last season, I was full of praise for the way we played, one of the best performances I've seen and yet we managed to lose 3-1... If I see the intent from the players to win and to play in an attack minded set up, which is what I believe is the right way to play, then win, lose, or draw the team has my respect.
I agree somewhat with the article, but not entirely. We were well aware of the problems that we were going to face in that position, so why didn't we prepare for them in the pre-season games? Jenas started all the bloody time and was then left out when it came to the real thing. What was the point in that? Wouldn't we have been better off either sticking with him (not my preferred option) or picking someone else in the earlier games? Why not get Huddlestone up to speed and full fitness or even select someone like Bentley or Carroll there? It's clear that we were lacking in creativity, so why not do something about it, rather than waiting for transfers that might never happen or would happen after the season had started? The same is true of Adebayor's signing and our lack of options in his position. The problem was more of Levy's creation than Villas-Boas', in my opinion, but it wasn't dealt with very well, regardless. You'd have thought that someone at the club would've remembered why we stumbled so badly last season and attempted to avoid using a similar set up this time.
But you're in favour of playing attacking players out of position and leaving ourselves more open. Against Norwich at home last season we played an attacking and open game, got outplayed and lost. You're picking a game against United where we did really well but that's not going to be guaranteed when you've got no choice but to let the match fit fully prepared players start, which VDV wasn't for the first game, Ade wasn't in either game and Dembele wasn't for his debut. That's the point being made, that there really wasn't any choice.
I don't give a toss,who play's,where they play,what tactic's they use,all i care is that we win the game,that's the point of it.
My feeling is that we should put 11 players on the pitch in Spurs shirts and see how they get on. If they don't score 11 goals by half time substitute them and try again. Once we have used all our players call it a day and concede the game. Next Saturday.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. provided we use those tics we should win.
