I cannot wait to see your huge list of quotes from people here who have said such this season. As it is, looks like another case of "projection" to me ...
I think that we were addressing this in the same way that Chelsea have, but it's gone missing this season. The likes of Winks, Onomah, Carter-Vickers and some others are very talented prospects. They'd learn a lot more by playing regular football though, in my opinion. Bringing in experienced competition for our first XI and loaning out the prospects would've been ideal, for me. Finding the right clubs is tough, but it's something that we need to work on, if we're going to challenge and compete. Even keeping those that we already had seems preferable to what we've done, in terms of talent. Is Sissoko more valuable to our squad than Mason, Bentaleb, Townsend and Pritchard put together? Seems unlikely, to me.
100% agreed. This is the first season in a heck of a long time where we haven't sent numerous prospects out on loan. Only Fazio and Bentaleb I believe? The former is as good as irrelevant whilst the latter is as good as gone. So why bother? Even if the player doesn't return at the level of a Kane, they can only gain from the experience and we can only gain from subsequent hike in price. Is there any way Pritchard and Townsend would've fetched a combined total of almost £25m without impressing on loan? I doubt it.
The "anomaly" for Spurs was being the last team capable of finishing above the eventual champions. The 70 pts tally etc was entirely consistent with the PL performance since 2009.
The problem is that we look like we are undoing the progress made, just like we did when under AVB. Firstly, we sold Townsend, who was inconsistent as hell, for £13m (approx)and went and spent double that on Sissoko. Serious question Spurf...do you know anyone who ghought that was going to work? I have no issue with a manager selling players he doesn't want or who are demanding a move but I do have an issue with our buying policy. We bought 2 wingers on the last day of the window at a cost of £42m and neither are an improvement on what we had. We need 2 new strikers so we buy 1 unproven in the premier league. We knew injuries were likely , cos every team gets them yet our depth of squad has proven to be shallow. No one to adequately cover for Eriksen, Lamela, Kane, Walker and Toby, let alone challenge them for their place. It is this that frustrates fans because without those players on good form we are tedious to watch. There is no daring in our players, no risk taking and no speed. I do not expect to win trophies but I expect to be entertained. I watch football to see good football and this season we have played 1 great match, several very good halves and very little else. We fielded weakened teams in the league cup (the only trophy we have won in 25 years) and in the CL on Tuesday (which makes you wonder why we bothered to qualify for it if we couldn't be arsed to field a full strength team) to concentrate on the league. Throwing both those matches gained us a total of 1 point. Therefore they were **** decisions. Everyone on the playing and management side of the club need to pull their finger out imho cos I am sick of watching games boring football this season
Can somebody ITK confirm that Pochettino gives the hairdryer treatment at HT/FT ?? My current blood lust needs to be sated ASAP.
True. Which is why I said at the time that last season really wasn't as big a deal as everyone made it out to be. Our head-to-head record against the big clubs was meh with the exception of City. 2 draws against Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton and Chelsea, a draw and defeat against the eventual champions and a defeat and victory against United. Nothing to write home about. We simply became better at being flat-track bullies like Arsenal. This season was always going to reveal the true extent of the 'progress' made last season. So far, there are still more questions than answers. But I am hopeful that with key players back, things will pick up. My worry is that too much damage has already been done to rectify the situation.
Some of the football has been very AVB 2013-14. However, none of the so-called "small clubs" have done smash and grabs on Spurs, and similarly none of the usual suspects have been able to obliterate Spurs. My concern is now mainly about management. Dodgy formations : the manager takes the blame for those. But poor performances when the proven/known formation is played ?? IMHO that is about players having the fear of God of the consequences of putting in a bad performance. I see no evidence that the squad has that fear.
The result yesterday isn't really the problem. Had we put away WBA and Leicester, who were there for the taking, we would still be in touch with the top 4. We failed to add goals to our team in the summer. There's no evidence to show that Lamela, Eriksen, Son and Sissoko are going to provide enough goals to get us across the line in tight games like those. It's the reason we drew so many games last season. That puts a major burden on Kane and Alli. If they're not fit and scoring, then we're struggling. In the summer, we needed to invest in some pace and goal threat. I think the major disappointment with the Sissoko purchase was that we paid so much money for a player who isn't going to bang in 10-15 goals a season even when he's in his best form. At his absolute best he might get 5 - 8 which is what the existing players would supply. At the moment he doesn't look likely to get on the pitch let alone score. I see why we went for GKN and Janssen. They fit our modus operandi for previous success. Young players at an affordable price that we could improve. Sissoko was priced as a 'ready to go' player at the top end of the PL. None of us thought that he was worth the fee and that he is now behind Harry Winks in priority says all that is needed about his impact so far. So far, he is the ultimate 'Spursy' player. I still believe that MP and the players can turn this around but it needs a return to the basics of hard work and doing what we do best - press high and try and get the ball forward faster. I don't know what our tactics have been this season, apart from not good enough to win games we've dominated. I would like a moratorium on players giving interviews with the press and for some hard graft to go into preparing to put this season to rights. Reading Sissoko saying we want to play games at WHL rather than Wembley is ****ing ridiculous. He's probably played there more for Newcastle than us. If we win our next game and the one after that, then we could still challenge for top 4. However, it's back to basics for the rest of the season
Spurf, I like your positivism. We seem to be split on here between those that still believe in this team and manager and those who have their doubts. I'd like to compare Spurs to Andy Murray a few years back when he found it near impossible to break into the top 3 with such players around like Nadal, Federer and Djokovic. But eventually he did-maybe because the first two were older than him -maybe our youthful team will eventually do it. We are still fifth in the table- something we have been happy about in recent years. There are 5 teams that have in recent years been very strong and it is very difficult to break them up. ( last year was a fluke and I don't even want to go there). People are saying that we haven't a deep enough squad but even with our injuries to key players we are fifth. I'd like this season to really concentrate on winning a cup. We might not be strong enough for a whole season but we have seen that in one off games we can challenge the best. This season I want to see our strongest team even in the Europa- we have a great chance and that might be our best chance for CL next season. The teams above us at present are very strong and United will improve- they spent loads and will spend loads more in January.
If you put your heart and soul into every game like Andy Murray success will follow. If you don't..............
I was going to say something like this, but Spurf already has. Did anyone notice our underperforming crap team full of underperforming crap players completely outplay Chelski in the first half? Yes we were poor in the second but the way we are being portrayed is as if we are the Spurs of years ago without a hope against the so-called top teams. In fact we can give any of them a game, which is not what we have been able to say for years. Are Chelski (or any of the teams above us) really that much better than us?
My concern is that this season could be like 2013-14, in that the points total needed for 4th is higher than the usual 70 odd. Those points do not have to come against the usual suspects as such, but from the other clubs. This is where the Goons repeatedly make hay, but where this season we have been drawing.
These are my thoughts, exactly. In that first 40 minutes, we looked something like the team we were last year, and if we'd managed to see out the last 5 minutes of that half, and put the same effort in for the second half, we'd have won. The two major disappointments for me were (1) the lapse of concentration in the last 5 minutes that led to the equaliser, and (2) the lapse of concentration in the first 6 minutes of the second half that led to Chelsea's winner. I was disappointed, because this is how Spurs used to be in the bad old days before Harry; and, also, because it was all so predictable. I knew that we always had it in us to do something like that - why didn't Poch see it? However, putting aside the disappointment, Poch needs to use this loss to his advantage in kicking all of the players up the arse, and getting them to knuckle down to stamping out their silly mistakes. I'm not going to let my disappointment over this one loss lead me to condemn either the players or the manager just yet. There are still a lot of games to play. What I want to see over the rest of the season is evidence that lessons have been learned.
Disagree...no one is comparing us to years ago...people are frustrated because of the clear drop off in performance to last season. The issue is that we have put in just 3 or4 complete good performances over 90 mins all season. Everton ... poor 1st half, good 2nd Palace ... OK 1st, good 2nd Liverpool ... poor ish 1st , good 2nd Stoke...good for 90 mins Sunderland...OK first half , good second Boro...good 1st, ok 2nd City ... very good for 90 mins WBA ...good for 90 mins Bournemouth...Good first , ok 2nd Leicester...good 1st , ok 2nd Arsenal ... good for 90 mins West ham... poor first half and apart from first 10 mins and last 5 mins poor 2nd half Chelsea ... very good 1st , poor 2nd. I could do the same for the CL matches and I would argue that we have not had a good 90 mins performance in the CL. There is no excuse for that imo. It suggests that the tactics aren't right to start with in some matches and that when the opposition change tactics when we are on top that we do not respond. The positives are that we are only 2 points down game by game on last season while we are not playing well. But we could be cut adrift of top 4 if we do not get our act together.
Part of the problem, as I saw the match, came about as a result of having Dier at RB. A few times, Walker came across from the left to make the saving clearance on that side of the pitch, which was just as well, because Dier was absolutely no where to be seen. Perhaps that really was the best set up that Poch could muster, given our injuries, but I think it cost us dear, because Walker - as big an engine as he undoubtedly has - simply could not be expected to protect both sides of defence.
Ah, my bad. The team sheet I saw before the match was wrong. That would explain why Walker was mostly playing on the right!
