" In all of them, bar this season, 72 would have been plenty enough for a CL place. This year is exceptional and explained by Arsenal's late surge of form alone. Small margins nonetheless." Then Spurs must progress to being ahead by non-small margins at the end, rather than behind by small ones. With the Levy target being a CL slot, it makes no difference whether tis lost by 1 pt or 11. All I see for the past 3 season is a slump of varying durations at key points in the final third, that cost Spurs a CL slot. I am reminded of the Confucian analect that states if a man after making the same mistake twice still does not learn from the mistake, it can be said there is no hope for him.
Questioning Chelsea's gains is surely meaningless when they spent another £50m+ on their midfield in the Summer.
When I've been banging on the state of the league (getting weaker etc) it's not been to "WUM" as notso would say, but it's been to measure roughly what you need to do to meet targets. Spurs have achieved their PL record for points which is great but... Arsenal have achieved their highest points tally since the Invincibles, is anyone going to seriously suggest Arsenal haven't had better teams between now and then? Chelsea have achieved their highest points tally since the Double Winning side, again...same question applies. All of the current top 7 would have had enough points to come 4th, 8 years ago. The fact is, the table does not lie. The gap between 7th and everybody else is huge and the gap is widening due to the competition outside that 7 being weaker (I'll give Swansea and WBA a break, they are decent sides). The result of everybody outside the top 7 being weaker is that it will require more points being won to achieve objectives. In a season like 10/11 where the league is strong it will take less points to achieve targets because 12th place Newcastle would be realistically capable of holding 4th place Arsenal or 17th placed Wolves capable of turning over 1st place United, 2nd place Chelsea and 3rd place City. I think even Blackpool turned over Liverpool home and away with West Ham (20th) beating Spurs (5th). That season was one of the strongest ever. The better the competition is, the better it is for everybody. Spurs have won more games, but the competition hasn't been as strong so there are other ways you have to measure improvement.
P.S Before anyone drags out individual results I'm aware we lost to QPR and Spurs lost to Wigan but if you look at the bigger picture you'll see where I'm coming from.
I am gutted, but in the past we have always made the same mistakes season after season. I sense real progress this year. Our squad is light of top players, a striker or two short, we all know that. But we are no longer fragile and we now keep driving forward until the 94th minute, not the 80th. We have steel and we have had it without Sandro or Kaboul, our main sources of it last season. And you know what? I feel like we have a plan. At last we have a plan. Let the goonies have their moment in the sun. Their run-in form WAS phenomenal. But to see the staff and players celebrating like they had actually won the Champions League tells you all you need to know about their ambition. 15 years of Champions League money and all that extra income from the Arsene Wenger's Career Memorial Stadium and they can only finish a point in front of us after 38 games? What happens when we have a new stadium? Or when they cut AW loose? It doesn't look too good from here. A mostly good season with some real lows, but you can't argue with the points total. If we strengthen and keep Bale, look out. COYS
Exactly! All this talk of a record points tally is meaningless. The league is clearly weaker so more games were won by the top tier. The fact is we have finished a position lower than we did last season. So have we improved? No. Have we progressed? No. Should a record points total represent some form of success? No.
Chelsea had a net spend of £60m this summer, plus whatever the younger Hazard cost. We had a net profit of around £3m.
Net spend is for the accountants. Football wise, we allowed the new manager just short of £60 m to spend.
Sorry SC, but that makes no sense. Buying players is not the same as buying replacements for your best ones who are leaving. If Liverpool sold Suarez for £30m and replaced him with some £500k player from League 1, I wouldn't say that they've gone out and splashed the cash.
Can't agree more mate. Points tallies are clutching at straws, only stat that really matters is league position. Best example I can give is the Chelsea back-to-back title team. We had a lower points tally in the 2nd season but were a much better team (IMO) with more balance. But the league was stronger. The whole point of being in a league is measuring yourself against everybody else in it, what's the point in comparing yourself with... yourself. You are spot on flaspur
So by your example, if the manager spends the £500k on a complete donkey, it doesn't really matter too much because he's in profit overall ? The point is, that AVB has been trusted to spend just short of £60m and if he fails, then his net spend becomes an irrelevance when it comes to judging him.
No, by my example it's clear that the manager's squad has been undermined dramatically by a lack of spending. Expecting someone to keep pace with a side that spent about £140m more this season on wages and transfers is a tall order. It's hardly surprising that Chelsea have leapfrogged us.
In fairness, I think the bulk of the 'spend' was at the discretion of our Chairman so our shortfall of quality when it was desperately needed falls on his shoulders, not AVBs. We all knew who AVB wanted last summer but he didn't get backed. Same old story! And it will continue again this summer as long as Levy remains in charge... and when we fail again next season, another manager will be sacked and replaced by another manager who'll be given unrealistic targets i.e top four finished with a wafer thin squad. And the story continues....
It's not just a matter of what you spend, but what you spend it on. I really can't decide about AVB. in one way he's done well. We definitely have a weaker squad than last year. Any side would feel the loss of players like Modric & VDV. Plus, we've had the injuries to key players such as Sandro & Kaboul. Looking at it that way, AVB has done bloody well to get us within a whisker of 4th place. Having said all that, I still have this nagging feeling that he's been lucky as much as anything else. Some of his team selections, and his substitutions have been baffling. And, I can't get this sense of how many times the brilliance of Bale has gotten us a result we never would have achieved any other way, out of my head. I suppose we'll have to wait and see what the summer brings. Next season should then hopefully give us a better idea of if he's the right man or not.
Congratulations you were superb and deserved the win. Definitely penalty for Bale as well. I'm proud of the way our makeshift team put their bodies on the line for the cause. Hearing Di Canio speaking, I'm hopeful we won't have to go through another season like today. I think you might struggle to hold on to 5th place next season, as I expect Liverpool to improve next season. Good luck and you need to keep monkey boy.
Sorry but I also don't agree with this. Spending 50m after losing 40m-worth of talent (who are central to the team) just is different to adding 50m-worth of players to a squad. As for today: my head was telling me we had a 50-60% chance of getting fourth but my heart was only 10-20%. This is Spurs, after all. And I just did not think Arsenal would mess up. Gutted at the moment. But we did well to come so close, given all the changes over the summer. I never wanted rid of Harry and I never wanted AVB but he's done enough, IMO, to warrant being backed and being given more creativity and firepower in the squad. The performances have not been all that for a fair chunk of the season but how much is that AVB's fault when the players at his disposal just aren't quite of the quality of those they've replaced (though Verts and Lloris are exceptions to that)? I don't know 100%. Regarding the weaker league argument: I think there are some good points but even if you accept that it's the case that it's easier for the top teams to get points we still just missed out by one point. That's comparing us not to us but to a team who until recently were title-challengers, always manage to get top-four and who (most importantly) went on an incredible run. And only three and six points behind the two teams with absolutely crazy money to spend. So if the league is weaker we only exploited that weakness a little bit less than some very considerable opponents. If we can keep Bale, if we can add another truly dangerous player or two, if Sandro can hit the ground running when he gets back, if some of the other teams have transitional years...Oh God - I hate having to dream about next season. Over to the transfer thread I go then.
Looking at these comments and I think it's true to say that posters have just stuck to their respective positions when the Redknapp AVB change took place. There is little new in the complaints, we have heard them all season and in the same way the more positive posters have stuck to their guns. Having taken no pro or anti stance on AVB I can say that he has not done badly over the season nor has he been a blinding success. What we have seen is more resolution from Spurs than we have seen for many years and I agree very much with Chirpy's comment that we appear to have a plan. 1 point either way is too small to draw any other conclusion than there is no gap between us and Arsenal, it could have gone either way. Spurs have maintained a top 5 position for some years now and are not far off pushing further. We will see what happens but as usual I am optimistic and can not see any real reason for a major grumble.
