Over the last two years we have rebuilt the team on the back of selling all our best players . A couple years ago we were short of just 2 players of a realistic challenge for the title but as normal we never went that extra mile. The Bale ,Modric and deadwood money has provided the cash for this team . Players like Dembele. Siggy just look average , no consistency , and remember the cart horse that was Dempsey. Really they have brought nothing to the quality of the team. Our recent new wave haven't justified the money spent on them and at the moment looks like it has been wasted . Our only success have been Lloris and the defenders but everything else is tits up. Who is responsible for such a bulls up . I am not sure if it is, Baldini, Levy,Sherwood, or AVB's pragmatic suffocating dull possession game or a combination ?
Surely Dempsey was just a stop gap. The attacking players we bought are generally very young and its much too early to say whether they were mess ups or not. I think we've got the best balanced central midfield quartet we've ever had, although none are as good as Modric. We are not going to be able to match City, United and Chelsea on budget in the near future so the only possible approach is to buy a lot of younger players of potential quality and hope that half of them turn out well
Dortmund are a good example of a team which has a fairly small squad but loses star players often. They lose Kagawa, they replace him with reus. They know they have to bring in players who not just have potential but can perform to the same level now. When we lose our stars we mainly go for potential or oddly we take a huge risk on Soldado who clearly doesn't suit our style of play. A manager like Jurgen Klopp would never say '' sure, go and spend 25 million on a striker who I will pick but not play to his strengths '' Avb on the other hand was probably too busy in the sports science department to think that far ahead.
I think your right Boss, really odd that a team that doesn't use the players strengths as a priority is somehow limiting it,s full potential. Your right Power Spurs that is to early to judge the new players but the system is so restrictive that anybody from midfield to the forwards will not flourish without a change of direction in style.
In my opinion the players we have are not the issue ... it is how they are used or in the case of lamela not used.
And, I know this is just speculation BUT not just the media, also from what lambert said it appeared we had great interest in Benteke. Compare benteke and soldado, completely different strikers, so if its the case we looked at both, that tells you there was no thought about the type of striker we should have, as if there was all of our targets would have been of the same style.
I think most judges think Spurs have bought well, but the players are mainly young and all lack PL experience. So it's another rebuilding phrase yet again for Spurs. 20 points from 11 games is not bad though in a season where only Arsenal have looked capable of stringing a few wins together. So I wouldn't rule out hope of a high finish even if the form and (to a lesser extent) results are patchy at present. I agree that the Spurs team of 2011-12 looked the real deal. What was needed was some strength in depth so that the likes of Bale, Lennon and vdV had understudies who could come in without the formation and tactics having to undergo a complete transformation. 'Arry knew his best team, best formation and best tactics and was able to get consistent results up to getting injuries and being distracted.
I wouldn't jump on our new signings too quickly. Modric took a year to settle in properly, Bale didn't realise his full potential for 3 years. Sandro took a year to establish himself in our first team. There were even doubts over Lloris this time last year.
My thoughts exactly. Lamela has shown the kind of thing he is capable of once settled. Paulinho (first touch aside) has looked pretty strong in midfield, and capable of the odd goal Verts is Awesome Chariches looks like he could be very good Soldado I think could be deadly if/once we can sort our service out Chadli....no comment Eriksen has shown flashes of form This time next year once they are more settled, the WC is out the way, they can speak English etc. we should really see their talent. (assuming our tic tacs arn't still holding us back) One thing I will say about them all (Chadli aside) is that they need to hit the gym and build some upper body muscle!
Spurs have a EPL top 4 squad. The question is, do we have a top 4 manager. At the moment he is showing a decided lack of experience.
Similar could be said for last season, as there was talk that AVB wanted Lewandowski...and we got Adebayor.
Given the delay in getting everything arranged, followed by Adebayor being injured for the early stages of the season and looking unfit and unmotivated until very late in the season, Levy probably wishes he went for the more expensive option now!
There are three squads which cost nearly twice ours and two others which cost about the same. So if you are sure we've got a top 4 squad you must rate AVB as he has signed half of the players.
Part of me thinks that Soldado was "the best of the rest" in our striker pursuit. I wouldn't beat at all surprised if we had others we were interested in, but levy was quoted £25m for those strikers. At which point he stuck 2 fingers up to those clubs. ....But then later realised that we would have to pay that sort of money. - Only problem being that by this point, those strikers had moved elsewhere or had signed new contracts. So as a result, we ended up with Soldado who was probably on our list, but about 5-6th on it. - Not only that, but we ended up getting our pants completely pulled down over the fee, as it was known across the world that "spurs need a striker". - We'd wasted so much time in getting one, Valencia knew we'd pay up as we were running out of options and time. (just my theory) That's not to say Soldado isn't a good striker. His record proves that. But I'm just saying I don't think he was top of our list when it came to realistic targets. Hopefully his fortunes will change, but I feel he's going to struggle unless things change around him on the pitch. best of luck to him. On a more positive note, Chiriches has really impressed me. He looks top drawer.
Soldado was top of my list at the beginning of the summer, genuinely, I still think he will do it for us in the long term. Agree on Chiriches, after a slightly dodgy first couple of games he has looked really, really solid. If Kaboul ever gets back to his best we will have quite the selection dilemma at the back.
Was he?! Really? IIRC, I thought that we'd never been linked to him until about 2 weeks before we signed him.... If I'm wrong, I'll take that back. But I could have sworn we'd been linked to many other names before Soldado was even thrown in.
I thought we were linked to Soldado early on but made a silly offer and we were told to frank bough, then it went quiet, then we were linked to Villa who also told us to frank bough so we went back in for the Soldier.
