On harry...was sad that he was sacked but thought that it was inevitable as 1) as soon as he thanked Levy and the club for backing him his court case he heard of being favourite for the England job and refused to sign a new contract with us. 2) he spent 6 months flirting with the England job, denied he was taking his eye off needs of spurs on the pitch while we went completely of the boil and pissed 3rd spot up the wall. 3) he claimed that spurs players were not bothered about him not signing a contract and constantly said it didn't affect the team yet when England turn him down he campaigned for a new contract, claiming it would affect the team...he did this on live tv during Euro 2012 while Levy was attending his mothers funeral in American. These things (especially the third) made a parting of the ways inevitable to me (at the time and now). I wish it hadn't happened as he was football teams were exciting to watch and the good way out weighed the bad. I will always remember the Redknapp years fondly regardless of his mistakes
****ing bored of hearing about Redknapp this and Redknapp that as though he invented THFC. I'm not prepared to compare Poch to Redknapp in anyway shape or form. This Poch team is crying out for what Redknapp had when he was here and Poch would do a better job if he had Modric and Bale in his team anyway....and if we are going to always bang on about Redknapp then let's bang on about Jol too. In fact forget our current team, every time we **** up on the pitch let's all have a ****fest over what could have been with Redknapp.
only if Redknapp is your reference point in 8 out of 10 conversations you have on here every time the manager slips up. Lol.
Let's sack Poch then spend the whole season telling ourselves 'it's not the new gaffer's team anyway' so not his fault.....let's wait till he gets his own players in. Then a few posters can make a very relevant point that we are now in 'transition' don't forget to mention for the 18th year running Then a few more posters will start saying...well actually that Poch guy wasn't too bad, we need to get the new gaffer out of here and replaced by an even newer one..who shall we go for.....well so and so has just left Real Madrid, Bayern etc etc...we need to get someone in of that pedigree. This cycle should see me safely through my next 40 years of supporting the club.
To be honest you have just about summed up everything at spurs since Burkinshaw left when I was a teenager! It would be good to have a manager that lasts longer than I do in bed
For all the initial dominance, Stoke had clear cut chances, not to mention they were missing their spine from last season with Shawcross injured and both Begovic and N'Zonzi sold so I won't read much into the way we dominated as Stoke made it easy until their change. The home game against Everton will be a real test of how we can dominate as Everton are a counter attacking team with the leagues best attacking full back (coleman) and not to mention the ability and form of Barkley and Lukaku.
Sums it up perfectly. Certain posters need to find some other topics of discussion rather than turning everything into some sort of Redknapp bum licking orgy.
Somebody should probably tell the Grauniad what the word "toothless" actually means... adjective 1. lacking teeth. 2. without a serrated edge, as a saw. 3. lacking in force or sharpness; dull; ineffectual Joe Jordan was nowhere near the pitch so the first is certainly incorrect, footballers should not have serrated edges so the second doesn't count, and being 2-0 up at half time certainly says we weren't ineffectual or lacking in force. This is what is so insufferable about modern football journalism, it all has to fit a narrative they came up with before a ball had been kicked, even though the whole construct is regularly undermined by these pesky things known as "facts" that don't fit into said narrative. Yet even though the narrative has clearly fallen apart, they stick with it anyway. If they want to write about a toothless Spurs performance, dig out a video from the Santini era, that's where you'll see performances that are dull, ineffectual, lacking in force or sharpness - often at the same time.
"To be honest you have just about summed up everything at spurs since Burkinshaw left when I was a teenager!" Actually the period post Burky is the strongest argument that the quality of the squad is the key factor. I remember the worry in 1984 that Peter Shreeves would not be able to cut it, yet Spurs were pushing as title contenders right up to Spring (good to know the <standard> final third season slump is nothing new ) . A bad second season and he was gone, and Pleat in. The 1986-87 season of the 4-5-1 and Clive Allens' legendary goal-scoring feast. Pleat gone and El Tel in. Finish 3rd in 1990. So Shreeves picked up the Burky squad and did nothing different. Pleat picked up much of that squad, and had the 4-5-1 vision. El Tel had a starting XI with Gazza and Lineker. Three different managers, three not very different squads in terms of quality. Go figure.
100% with you. In fact BMJ doesn't get nearly enough credit for what he achieved here, Couldn't agree more. For a club our size only 2 things can severely derail us: 1) A bizarrely awful managerial appointment 2) Forces completely out of our control Unfortunately (or rather: typically) for us, both of these things happened simultaneously at the worst possible time; just as the Premier League beast was stretching its legs and the gold began to flow in earnest; a disastrous season under Ossie coupled with the financial mess left at the club by Scholar and subsequent FA fines left a superb squad performing well below its level of expectation without the financial power to replace its best players. Thus we entered the 'vicious cycle' era of mid table obscurity, which was also replete with bizarre managerial appointments such as Gross and Santini that severely impacted the success of the club. I think we've only recently began to return to the level that you're talking about RDBD (albeit I'm too young to remember most of your example); where it doesn't really make that much of a difference who manages us because our financial power is restored to a very healthy position, and enough has been invested into coaching and youth development to ensure that a steady stream of talent will find its way onto the pitch either via the market or via the academy. The real trick now is taking all of this up to the next level, the level of a team who have such power and clout that it again doesn't really matter who manages them; they'll always have the muscle to bully their way back to the very top. This is done either through a bottomless pot of cash such as Chelsea or City, or via a continued steady and stable growth of a club such as Liverpool and Arsenal. I see Man Utd as a bit of both to be honest. The problem with the latter approach is that choice of manager is still absolutely crucial in order to keep pace.
Mason's not who I'd have taken off but, and I might be wrong, hadn't he missed our whole preseason? I wouldn't be surprised if he'd have been running on fumes if he'd stayed on the pitch until the end. Edit: Nevermind, you've already added to this.
A good thing which I hope will be more lasting than the result was Eriksen looking at his best, and getting a little help from his friends. Last year everybody took turns faffing up great chances Eriksen provided. Great to see Dier using his head, if not his eyes, to make the most of an early one... ...though it was soon followed by an epically bad first touch by Chadli on a gorgeous through ball, though of course he knocked one in later.
Yeah I remember that bit, so unlike Chadli too as I'd say he has the best first touch out of our whole squad, so many times me and my cousin have spoken of his ball control and yet at a moment he needed it most he fluffs it! Agree about Eriksen too, looking very sharp. Things will eventually click, I really believe that, add N'Jie's pace too plus any other additions and we'll have a decent season.
It's no surprise that some players look to be lacking sharpness, given the farce that was our pre-season: long flights to Malaysia and Australia just days after the season ended, another long haul to the US in July, and then two games in two days for the Audi Cup - that's not going to help preparations because the players are spending as much time in the departure lounge as they are on the training ground.
I think you've described very accurately the issues that Levy has partly fixed. The problem is what to do next of course. We really are not going to overtake the five clubs who are still much richer than us by taking the same approach as them. If we sign experienced players and an experienced manager we are likely to have the 6th best squad and the 6th best manager and will likely finish 6th. Going back to what worked and gave us players like King, Modric and Bale while appointing untried managers is more likely to fail but does at least have some chance of success. The three most successful managers in the PL era have been Ferguson, Wenger and Mourinho. None had PL experience (or indeed experience at any 'top' club before being appointed). We have to hope that Poch is one of those. He will be more likely to turn into one if he has all fans' support.
Nothing fails like failure. Who knows what disasters lurk if we don’t win this week? But the damn thing is the team I saw the first two games looks better than the one I watched for 38 games last year. Before it got discombobulated it looked coherent, effective, and able to create the better chances, which was simply not true, for the most part, of last year’s team.
