Im sure, alternatively, the least wealthiest clubs are hoping its not a blip. Spurs Spam ect please log in to view this image
Time will tell on that one. What IMHO is more significant is the effect a manager has on improving/maintaining/worsening what I have in the past called the 'latent PL points total' of a squad. You look at the top 5-6 clubs of the past 5-6 years and see what their managers have done. Clubs cannot rely on one star player to dig them out of a managerial hole, unless that player is CR7 or Messi.
Another sign of the changes is that clubs are able to pay the money to attract really good coaches. Ronald Koeman, Quique Sanchez Flores, Slaven Bilic, Guidolin and even Rafa Benitez at Newcastle. I can see other quality appointments being made. The time when mid-table teams will accept tired old football men wasting money on average to poor players is gone. When you are richer than AC Milan, Napoli, Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, Galatasary, etc. why would you?
Indeed. The only thing those clubs have in their favour is being shoo-ins for UEFA tournaments. Getting a CL/EL slot via a PL placing is a hard-fought thing nowadays, so you wouldn't get a Jose going to Stoke and trying to replicate what he did first time at Porto etc.
please log in to view this image How much for those 2 today? A great night at the Lane. Ossie hit a belter in a 3-0 win if I remember correctly. Ah, memories.
The player on the left is telling the player on the right : you remind me a lot of how I played when I was your age.
I recall a newspaper calling it the "handing over of the batton". Cruyff was good that night but Hoddle was amazing. England wasted Hoddle. I recall Platini saying any other nation would have given him 150 caps and built teams around him. Thank goodness other nations didn't deny the World Cup similar talents, such as Cruyff. As kids, we used to pretend to be him, Rensenbrink, Krol, Repp, etc.
TV money has done a tremendous amount to level the playing field. It's ironic that as football becomes more of a business off the pitch, it becomes less of a business on the pitch with extremely strong competition and no-one really dominating the marketplace of success. I don't think we'll ever see the likes of Man United's domination again in the PL era. RDBD has a good point though...the 'little' clubs (now all in the world top 30!) would do well to look at the oftentimes horrendous investment strategies of the 'big' clubs and realise that it is more important to invest wisely than it is to invest broadly. Some of this season's less successful clubs have massive net spends...Palace, Newcastle, West Brom. And relatively speaking, you should include Liverpool, City and United in that list. None of those teams have improved whatsoever on last season despite spending that much. The irony of not having the correct strategy and strategists in place is that they've actually not improved because they've spent that much. It's an extremely opportune time to be a Spurs supporter. No one does frugal, pragmatic spending quite like us (with the exception of Balegate). And, as TV revenue increases, I have faith in Levy and Poch that the money will be wisely invested. We might not appear to be the most ambitious in the league during transfer windows, but as the Manchester giants have demonstrated...there is a fine line between ambition and recklessness.
Blame Don "work-rate" Howe and the general England setup of the time (actually I wonder how Pochettino would have dealt with Hoddle ) . I recall Cloughie was strong on Hoddle being core to the England team (another thing that was not meant to be) .
If anything, the past few seasons have shown there is a fine line between a manager who has an all-conquering PL machine with little hands-on effort, and a manager who has a squad of over-paid disinterested prima-donnas behaving like a herd of cats.
It's where having a decent coach is imperative. I don't count Pardew, Pulis or McLaren amongst those. Take Guidolin at Swansea. They've brought in a goalscorer for very little from Italy (Paloschi) and have got themselves a coach who really knows how to set up a team (Italian in his 60's like Ranieri). Add a decent scouting network to that (Us, Southampton, West Ham and Leicester seem to be able to unearth very reasonably priced talent that can become stars in this league) and you are competing with the so-called big clubs. Southampton have been able to sell Arsenal, Liverpool and United most of their first team and nip out and buy replacements for a fraction of the cost and compete with 2 of the 3 and maintain it for a number of seasons.
I'd say that the likes of Pulis, Pardew, McClaren, Allardyce, etc. are exactly that: decent. That's it. They'll do a reasonably good job, but the football won't be much to watch and you probably won't win anything. Dull and uninspiring. Having watched Swansea a bit recently, I'm struggling to say anything positive about Guidolin. They beat Villa, but both teams were utter ****e and the Swans had a very wonky lineup, plus they picked the awful Gomis over Paloschi. One winger, two holding midfielders and two playmakers? What's that supposed to be? Nothing down the left of the midfield.
It's early days for Guido Fawkes at Swansea but agreed - so far I haven't seen anything from them to suggest they're on the right track. Besides which, as so many have mentioned previously, a huge degree of a manager's success is simply down to being in the right place at the right time. I still firmly believe that this was half the reason behind Redknapps's successes here. By the same token, Moyes was in the wrong place at the wrong time at United. The true mark of a manager's level is when the omens seem to point one way but results go the other. Pochettino took over a club that was the laughingstock of the PL with a diabolical defense and a squad bloated with dross. He was very much in the right place but at the wrong time. To have overhauled the squad in such a short period is a mark of his quality as a coach and judge of character. By contrast, Martinez at Everton is as close to the right place at the right time as possible, but has failed to deliver on that promise...the mark of an overrated manager.
I've just been reading the script of today's events in court and it is quite clear the Judge had nothing but total contempt for Adam Johnson. Now there's reports of some real obscene stuff being found on his laptop.
That makes sense, as on the face of it it seems a tough sentence for essentially a snog and a grope with an adult looking 15 year old. I thought it deserved a year or two.
Johnson has behaved like an arrogant tosspot throughout this whole sordid affair. As rcl has pointed out on the Prem board, he pleaded not guilty for a long time forcing the girl and her family to go through a long ordeal. He has tried to discredit the girl and her story. Even using his mates to help him. And finally, he has shown absolutely no remorse, and had openly shown contempt of the court and the proceedings. A long winded way of me saying, **** him!...!
