I've been really happy with the signings this window. We've strengthened two of the areas that needed to be strengthened while adding a great keeper to challenge Hugo. Lets not forget that of the 7 new lads from last summer, most of them will be out to prove themselves as not being a flop. We can't keep adding more and more talent (especially from abroad) then expecting it to just magically click. If say just two of the lads from last season can be the player we know they can be, we'd be witnessing a much improved side. There's enough talent throughout the squad to cover the ones that still under-perform but it'd be nice to have just 1 or 2 more stand up and be counted alongside the likes of Lloris, Eriksen and Ade (who'd have I'd be saying Ade amongst those, but like it or not the guy was pivotal to us when he came back in the side). Lamela I'm hoping will be one of them while Holtby - albeit nearly 18 months later - has finally looked the player we all wanted him to be, so if just one of Paulinho, Chadli or Capoue can replicate their former club's form, we'll be in a position to really challenge for our season's targets.
Lamela and Soldado are the ones we really want to prove aren't flops. That would be a major improvement to the side
None of our players have really performed out of their skins because of the two flops as coaches we've had. AVB was and always will be from now on a flop and so too Tim Sherwood. With the right coach both Bobby and Erik will perform. SOS, you're totally right in your post.
Ask Poch and Levy Though my personal opinion would be top 4 or giving top 4 a good push and coming home with a trophy while playing a brand of football that fans are happy paying to watch. That's what I'd hope for from this squad anyway.
If we relying on Lamela and Soldado to perform to a standard good enough to help us secure top four, and /or win the Europa league then may as well put a red X through both boxes. Although both players should do better then last year but we paid over the odds to start with and neither are likely to be as good as their initial fee and reputation suggested so they may be better then average, yet we need them to be outstanding.
Given our lack of big signings this window I thought it would be interesting to look at the net spend of all premier league over the last 5 years to see how it would be affected by this transfer window. Going into the window we were in 17th place with Arsenal, Everton and Newcastle below us. Arsenal and Everton have both spent a lot of money and have definitely moved above us now. I would guess that only Newcastle and perhaps Southampton have a lower net spend than us (although Southampton were a long way ahead of us and it will depend on if they reinvest more of the money thay have made on sales). A positive way of looking at it is that we are clearly a very well run club and hopefully when the new stadium is built we won't have years and years to pay it off as we already have a lot of money saved up. If I were Joe Lewis with all his money I would pay for the stadium outright and make it my legacy. I mean the guy is worth 4.8 billion! What's a few hundred million quid to him? You would hardly notice!
As I see it our large squad is full of talent that so far has not been organised properly. I agree with SoS on the strengthing of the defence, that in itself shows an improvement of management over the last two seasons, where we saw our defence weakened both by injury and personality clash. The famous 7 signings have been judged by many to be a flop with the exception of Erikson. That is a premature judgement in my view. This will be the season that shows the value, or not, of these signings. There is a tendency to rush to judgement on players because I suppose this is a forum for opinion therefore people express one. The stand out is probably Adebayor who many have wanted to see out for at least 3 seasons because of a perceived personality trait. Easily our best striker and not so easy to replace as we have seen with the long line of flops we have spent good money on like Redrov, Postiga, Bent, Mido, Pavluchenko, and so on. This squad has enough quality, with good management and a bit of luck it can exceed expectations IMO.
"If I were Joe Lewis with all his money I would pay for the stadium outright and make it my legacy. I mean the guy is worth 4.8 billion! What's a few hundred million quid to him? You would hardly notice!" If this was Trading Places, then Levy/Lewis would be the Duke bros and THFC would be the Mr Valentine they have made their $1 wager on.
Yeah, but then we'd be a rich man's plaything, like Man City and Chelsea. I'd been thinking this is an odd year: maybe our best squad from top to bottom, but the first time in years when fourth isn't a realistic hope. We could very well play genuinely good football, break our all-time record for PL points, and finish seventh (though I grant you, sixth or fifth would be likelier in that case). I found an article that summed up this POV: http://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2014/8/11/5990325/everton-tottenham-hotspur-premier-league-no-pressure Above all, I want us to play good football and score goals. I'd also like to see a young player or two besides Eriksen emerge, and for Eriksen to become a star. We certainly could exceed expectations. That may be more a matter of belief than anything else. But teams do have a way of not diverging much from their expected finishes in three cases out of four.
Good find that article rwaeb. Find myself nodding in agreement with it. Hopefully the club hierarchy realises its points as well but if Poch was really correct in saying that he hadn't been set any specific performance targets then we might just see some stability, assuming Poch is the right man for us as we improve under him, which I think he is and we will.
Yeah, I want to see good football. Give me that and I'll be satisfied. If we start to win a few games, and find ourselves challenging for a CL spot, well, we'll drive off that bridge when we come to it. Amidst all the debates about Levy, the clear failure at Spurs is to get the right man to coach, and stick with him, and build the kind of stability that some of our rivals have. The best outcome for the season could be Poch firmly entrenched as the man for the forseeable...
For me, I expected this transfer window to be a relatively quiet one for us. Added to spending some £100 mil last summer, we also have a new manager. Obviously, we and the hierarchy of the club, hope he is the right manager at last. But, of course, only time will tell. I feel that the board have maybe accepted that this next season is a see how we develop one. I also feel that, if Pochettino proves to be the right man, that substantial funds could be made available to him next summer. Having said all that, I still feel we need a proven, reliable striker to add to the three we have.
That is true but of course it's true of managers everywhere. The difference with football is that all your decisions are made in the full glare of thousand upon thousands of eyes. For the first 16 years of my working life I worked for other people only once IMO did I have a manager that comanded my full respect, most of them were, again IMO, causing more problems than they were solving. Companies spend fortunes on management training and for the most part (Yes IMO it's all my opinions FFS, take it as read.) it dosen't work. The art of management like the art of selling is a character triat which you either have or don't have. Of the recent managers at Spurs only Jol impressed me as having this natural ability. So far my limited view of Poch leads to believe he might be a natural. Yes, in my opinion!
Unfortunately, I still work for other people. I got the following feedback from a yearly review-- (God help us all. In the early days of us being a tiny organization, nobody reviewed how I made a multimillion dollar bleeding edge system work. They were too busy trying to coaxe along their own crotchety nightmares. Besides, people figured I'd be sufficiently motivated, as I and everyone else would be out a job if the system didn't perform reasonably well.) --well, you do well when you're doing what someone else wants, and you do really well when you lead, but you're not so great at collaboration. (I couldn't quite find the words to say: look, if I follow well and lead well, but my collaborations don't go so well, maybe the problem is with my collaborators...) The best manager I ever had was the guy at the top in the early days. When I met him he was pushing a broom, to help tidy up for a demo. That's the tip I'd give to anyone if I ever wrote one of those obnoxious be-a-better-manager books. "Show you're willing to do the least prestigious job in your organization and people will be willing to put their own pride aside and work together a lot better." Another good one was a Michigan State professor who was a PI of an archaeology site (in an earlier career). Time was short, so he set himself to work by appointing himself as my helper and putting himself under my direction, since I'd been excavating and he hadn't. The funny thing was, about the first thing that happened after he did that was that we found a piece of a human skeleton. But I seem to have wandered off topic...
