Quite right, Paul. Was getting dragged into the (for me) endlessly fascinating riddle as to why some Spurs supporters don't think Harry Redknapp did a good job at our club. It's just weird. I can't imagine any fans from other clubs not thinking he did a good job. (Mind you they don't realise how used to success we are and that 4th is simply not good enough!). But my harking on about Harry says nothing about my feelings towards Pochettino. I have no idea if he will succeed - I obviously hope so though I realise that out of our last 15 or so appointments only two have approached the status of "success" (or one if you decide Harry was did nothing for Spurs). So the odds aren't good. But I sort of feel a bit strangely optimistic. I think our ambitions and expectations have had a reality check the last couple of seasons and, though I regret what's happened to the squad in many ways, I do think there is a lot of untapped potential there. If we do manage to beat the odds and find a good fit for the manager/coach position we then only have one thing to worry about - the fact that a little success will lead to the guy being sacked cos "He's taken us as far as he can" and "We need to move up to the next level". Please, Levy. Please learn from your mistakes now and again.
Yes, but I think what you're saying ignores the fact that Real Madrid came knocking for both Bale & Modric. A temptation that few players would resist, Harry or no Harry. Success or not. As to VDV, allegedly he left to try and save his marriage in Hamburg. But, who knows.
The team doesn't need more players. It needs someone to get the best, or close to the best, out of the team we have now. I certainly hope Pochettino will be the man. He was my choice, because I think a Bielsa-ish style, which he has to some extent, would be the right fit for Spurs. It's interesting to note how well Sherwood was doing by the end of last year--and even overall, really--especially if you don't rate him. You can argue that all he did was make a reasonably good choice of the talent available and let them play. He finished 4-1-1, with possibly the two best Spurs performances of the year in those six games. The only bad patch he had was when he went with what I felt was too high of a line--which may be a little worrying, considering Pochettino is known for playing one. Still, there's reason to be hopeful that the team as is can do very well under our new manager.
Hey Paul. It's miserable sod here. I hope to be proved wrong but my view on the current situation is that City and Chelsea are nailed on for top four. Man utd with no European football and Van gaal will finish in the top four. That Leaves the gooners, mousers, toffees and us. I'm being realistic and don't see us getting top four for a long time but absolutely hope to be proven wrong and would love to see a manager come along and move on from Redknapp. But I'll always have great memories of Redknapp and simply won't allow anyone to get away with trying to pass credit elsewhere and not credit Redknapp for the great job he done.
I think Real Madrid and Marca and the whole machine know that it's a lot easier to prise players away from non-CL teams than from CL teams. So not being in the CL highlights our players as targets more. Not saying that it's the deciding factor but it is a factor.
CL or not, Real still get the players they want. Utd won 3 PL titles and the champions league in 2008 and got to the final in 2009 and he still left.
"CL or not, Real still get the players they want." They might find Sugga Daddy FCs a completely different proposition. A team like Citeh could have left Modric and Bale to rot and not even blink.
"Why do so many posters assume that it will be years before we get back into the CL" Years !!?? I thought it was never going to happen again.
That may be true. But the allure of Real is just that - very real. If, as I suspect may happen, Suarez is lured away, then that shows that just about every side in Europe is vulnerable to their lure.
Players move to Madrid and Barca or Munich to win the CL as it's practically a given each year they will be in contention. That's why even with CL footy, you can't stop players wanting to move to Madrid for longer than a year. Even Man Utd had to let Ronaldo have his dream move. Dortmund win domestic titles, get to the CL final yet they also lose star players. But for us. CL football helps attract someone like Vdv or being top four contenders helps us attract players like Berba and Modric (before they outgrow us) so while I agree with Lenny about dealing with the present, we also need to be realistic as unless a player truly loves the club and wants to remain a club legend, they are virtually always going to move to bigger clubs when they come calling, even if we have CL footy. But Lenny is absolutely right in saying dealing with the present brings greater rewards as all these long term plans are usually flawed and result in everyone wasting their time hoping for this plan to click into place.
I think the point to be made is, as I have said, certainly in the case of Bale & Modric, these are genuine world class talents. As such, it would be next to impossible to retain them unless you are a world class club. - we ain't!.. Any side would be lessened by he loss of players like these.
We all have great memories of Redknapp but that doesn't mean that his style of management is the blueprint that will take us forward. You don't drive well if you continuously look in the rear view mirror. When Redknapp was appointed we had a squad with huge potential which was being totally wasted by Ramos, Man City had not really appeared on the scene so there was a short term job to be done in getting us into the CL and Harry did it. The situation now is a bit different. We've got about the 5th or 6th best squad and we're finishing in about that place. Getting back into the CL is not going to happen unless we can continue to make things better. We've got a young squad and a lot of youth coming through - we need a manager who can get the best out of that and a bit of luck if we are going to move on
I know we all have great memories of the Redknapp years, even the posters on here who attempt to WUM and give the impression they didn't rate him, would at one point would have been calling him a great manager, or a special manager, no one even needs to tell me otherwise, plus one of the posters on here who appears to be Redknapps biggest critic said, for the first time they dared to believe we could win the title after Redknapp got us within 2 points of the mancs. All we hear is "Redknapp had VDV, Modric & Bale" but you don't hear them saying "Redknapp signed Crouch, Defoe, Kaboul, Bassong, created a great team spirit and got the best out of Huddlestone to get top four", Nor do you hear fans say "Redknapp identified Parker and Adebayor as two signings to compliment the squad in place and set up that team in his final year". This is why his ability to sign the right players gets overlooked as after Modric left (and VDV) I would have backed Redknapp to rebuild a team and he would have kept us in the top four. Some of the players he wanted to sign, such as Remy, Negredo & Carzola have all proved to be top premier league players. Thats why we have gone backwards, not just because other teams have got stronger, but because we went back to the Dof/coach system and we invested in the wrong players and had the wrong people at the club to sign players. And just to dispel one myth, that Redknapp overspends, in his career (overall) his transfer in's total 226 million, while the transfer outs total 230 million, which shows he isn't someone that can be blamed for clubs financial issues, when the facts shows otherwise. Although I agree we have a young squad and I like youngsters like Carroll, Bentaleb and Sherwood showed Kane could have a future but we don't sign players for the present, or if we do they aren't suited to our league (such as Soldado). All the other clubs are moving ahead of us while we had our chance to invest but wasted funds and Levy is desperately trying to find a manager (in Pochettino) to make him look like he invested the Bale money wisely.
Redknapp had a better team and finished higher. I don't think that is rocket science. What Redknapp did well was the quality of the football. We finished about where we should have, like we have last 2 seasons.
I'm hoping that Poch and Baldini can combine together to get the best out of our current squad and find some hidden gems for the future. The added value from finding players like Carrick, Berbatov, Modric and Bale while they are relatively cheap is to me more important than the larger numbers of more limited players we sign that contribute more to short-term success and failure. The DoF model should be judged on that not short term results as buying players cheap and selling them for more creates money out of nothing to reinvest in the team. I've got high hopes that one or two out of Eriksen, Holtby, Chadli and Lamela or possibly one or our home grown players like Townsend or Pritchard might be the next world class players in our squad. If that is true we've got a chance of CL and keeping them this time.
Redknapp never "had" a better team, he managed that team his way and signed players to get us top four, luckily posters like Lenny, SD & Spurcat (are capable of remembering) so I'll just leave it at that as even the gooners have more respect for Redknapp and his management then some of our fans. Bizarre!
Yes, this has gone on long enough. Whilst I respected what Redknapp came in and did for us, the fact remains that no team in the world could afford to lose two talents, such as Bale & Modric, and keep the same stature. Nobody, Redknapp included, could hope to replace players of their calibre with the resources that we have.
Credit to redknapp for the entertaining football, but the fact is he didn't get us overachieving (or underachieving). At that time our squad was 3rd or 4th best in the league.
