So you don't have any examples of me using the current regime to justify saying that the rot set in when Harry pissed away a Champions League place, so you resort to petty insults and hitting the "dislike" button whenever somebody disagrees with you? Grow up, you're getting as bad as PISKIE.
We are clearly nowhere near as good on the field as we were under Redknapp but I still think its a bit of a stretch to be sure we'd have been better if he'd have stayed. The Redknapp years were a bit of an inverse perfect storm where two of our best ever signings (Modric and Bale) came together with some astute short-term signings by Harry who generally got them all to play with a lack of fear. But I saw no plan about how to deal with the loss of Modric and Bale and hardly any sign of trying to get the equivalent of them signed as youngsters. I'm very interested in your input though. When you say that AVB and Poch are 'out of their depth' what qualities do they lack, that Harry had?
Would be interesting to know how Harry would have dealt with Bale leaving, I'd love to know what players would have come in if he was still there?
I'd be more interested to hear from someone inside the club about what actually happened when he dropped the ball with regards to our CL misqualification and the way our form nosedived when the England job came around. What was the actual cause of that? So far its just speculation that it was Harry's fault. Did we just run out of steam due to a small(er) squad? Lack of rotation? (Harry's fault) etc etc. The fact is, that event started the problems we have now. Qualify then we have 2 consecutive years in the CL, board might allow a bit more investment (which Harry didn't get a great deal of, although as others have said he had a spectacular squad), we keep players, we keep Harry. Not to mention we keep one of the others out the CL at the same time.
Now that I've had a bit of time to calm down and reflect after watching that second half, I think that we need to approach things a little differently. We seem stuck between making complete changes for the cups and sticking with something more stable, so we're doing neither. Pick a sensible balanced side for the league and then do the same thing for the cups, but with none of the same personnel. Literally. Train for each game as if the other ones aren't happening and try to make as few changes as possible. We've got enough ties to pick entirely different teams, but we're making lots of switches for every game and nobody's settled. Have two sides that are used to playing together and have specific teams in mind when they're preparing. Every bloody player that we have at the moment seems to want to play in behind the striker, even the actual strikers. Lamela, Eriksen, Chadli, Townsend, Paulinho, Dembele and even bloody Vertonghen at times yesterday, all crowding into the same space and looking to take silly pot shots. No width, no creativity, no apparent plan and absolutely no balance. I felt really sorry for Ben Davies during large periods of the game, as he had nobody in front of him until Townsend switched over and nobody covering his runs. When he finally did get into decent positions to put the odd ball into the box, there was nobody in there to get on the receiving end and nobody trying to make a late move, either. As with Danny Rose in many of our fixtures this season, he was playing the whole side on his own, while everyone else dawdled about around the box. One of the things that Sherwood actually got right early on in his tenure was a switch back to simple, straightforward tactics. We need to do it again. Lamela wants to play up top? Fine, let's play him as a forward, alongside Adebayor in the cups. Our wingers need to start playing wide and staying wide and someone needs to link up the midfield with our attack. Townsend on the left and probably Chadli on the right in the league. Lennon on the right and I'd probably resort to slightly silly stuff and play Dembele on the left, if not Ceballos. Eriksen can play alongside Stambouli against Partizan and try to prove that he's worth his place. He's doing nothing at the moment, though he's being crowded by our cramped play. If I'd have said the following things towards the end of last season, which would've been the most outrageous: Ryan Mason will be one of the first names on the teamsheet every week and will be outplaying Christian Eriksen, pretty easily. Harry Kane will score 10 senior goals by early November and Hodgson will mention considering him for an England call-up. MK Dons will beat Man Utd 4-0.
Alright, you're laying it on a bit thick now, aren't you? It's right that Spurs do seem to have a number of players whose best position and/or role in the team is a mystery - Lamela, Chadli and Townsend, in particular. I think Liverpool have the same problem too - and Utd for that matter. There are players who are essentially wingers, who are being accomodated in this popular 4-2-3-1 system and it doesn't work. If you've got players who can beat defenders on the outside with pace and/or trickery, then play them as wingers, not inside forwards where their threat is often nulllified. Chelsea get away with it but Hazard is an exceptional talent and has licence to roam - which at times means hugging the touchline like an orthodox winger.
Agree on the first point. On investment: Harry is the only manager of the last four with a net positive spend. Perhaps that is also part of the issue with current performance
I think in 4231 all the front middle three should roam! But that requires a lot of practice to make sure that the team is not exposed if the ball is lost. If one is out wide another has to drop back etc.
Yeah, but there were a couple of windows where the club should have spent more and didn't, both under Harry. Thats more what i mean. We didn't invest when we got CL the first time, we should have. Then in january when we were still in the title race we strengthened with Saha and Nelson, if my memory serves. Not really good enough
I think if you play 3 behind the 1 you have to give them artistic licence if they've got the ability, which i believe Lamela and Eriksen have. When you shoehorn them into a rigid system it nullifies them, not the act of putting them in a certain position as you point out with Hazard.
M.Ali.Now that took me back.I have a photo on my basement wall of Ali unconscious on the ropes with "Our 'Enery" bending over him.He had taken a liberty with Henry and got "'Enery's "Ammer "(uppercut. However the bell rang,they carted Ali to his corner,cut his glove to give him time to wake up while they got new gloves. Then the fight restarted with Ali keeping a good distance as he opened "Enery's" eyebrows and they stopped the fight in Ali's favour. Just think what would have happened if that bell hadn't rung at that time.They would have knighted Henry Cooper much earlier.......
I'd like to know who decided that. Harry had no DoF so presumably he had to argue for a transfer budget. People are quick to assume that Levy rationed the cash but for all we know Harry didn't justify a spend.
The problems started on the last day of the January transfer window, as our small squad got smaller thanks to several defensive options being loaned out: Naughton being loaned to Norwich for the season made sense as he needed to prove himself, but come January we loaned out Corluka (whose head was apparently messed up after his girlfriend left him) and Bassong while bringing in Nelsen, and as soon as Dawson got crocked in the Stevenage replay - a game we only played due to Harry's mystifying tactics in the first game that saw us perform as badly as we did in the second half last night - that left us drastically short of options at the back in the business end of the season. Similarly, it was hard to rotate players because Harry loaned out numerous youngsters in January, notably Kane, Townsend, Mason and Carroll. Given how well Kane and Townsend did on their respective loans at Millwall and Birmingham, if we kept hold of them they could have been an useful option from the bench. If we didn't completely mess up the end of the season and hold on to third, the very least that can be said is the club would not have hired AVB. There's a hypothetical situation where we could have kept Modric, but I'll counter that by saying he'd have been spirited away regardless of where we finished if Factitious were going to bid - the key difference being if we qualified for the CL we would have been better placed to bring in a replacement...or, you know, actually bring in a direct replacement for him, which we have yet to do in the past two and a half years.
Well Real Madrid want De Gea now so we might keep Lloris. I've been reading a certain "John Grace" on NewsNow and he's damning about Spurs and our football saying we're back to the mediocrity of the late nineties, I have to agree. Last eight of the LC and a win last night have just flattered to deceive. We've been lucky is what he's been saying, that we are directionless and he can offer no remedies. He states that Stoke have been the marginally better team this season and a dull boring 1-1 can be expected. I'll say if we can win 2-0 we'll be on the way to recovery.
Thank you UEFA's Homegrown quotas! One problem we seem to have is that we need a shock to the system to make the players get stuck in with the defensive side of the game, such as the red cards for Lloris and Fazio in the Asteras games. That's an issue, as we should be switched on at all times.
Don't mean to excuse the form of the team at that time but I always say that two massive things need to be borne in when considering that season: 1) To lose a comfortable 3rd spot you need to have earned that comfortable 3rd spot in the first place. We did so by being one of the best, most entertaining teams in the country and displaying near-title-winning form. I look forward to the next time a Spurs manager ever gets the chance of just losing out on 3rd place. Wont happen for a long while, I suspect. 2) We still finished 4th - the one and only time in history that a team will finish in the CL-qualifying places and not get in. This rule was so obviously unjust that the very first time it happened (to us) the rules were swiftly changed. Too late to help us, though.
"If we didn't completely mess up the end of the season and hold on to third, the very least that can be said is the club would not have hired AVB. There's a hypothetical situation where we could have kept Modric, but I'll counter that by saying he'd have been spirited away regardless of where we finished if Factitious were going to bid" At least it would have killed the 'leaving for CL football' argument.
