When did we re-hire Poch and fire him again? I thought I'd remember something like that... please log in to view this image It's from the Express, for anyone morbidly curious
Another sign of the club investing in proper management and better performance of specialist functions. Step by step, we're losing that 'amateur hour' look and investing some thought, time and money in creating a set up for sustained improvement on the pitch. It's long overdue but very welcome.
That gives me another excuse to mention that Comolli has repeatedly slagged off our scouting team from when he was DoF, apparently failing to realise that overhauling the scouting system is part of a DoF's remit...
Here's an example of people reading what they want into a comment, rather than what the comment says Plenty of people on Twitter, not least in the replies to this very tweet, are using it as a stick to beat Nuno with for not speaking Portuguese in training to help him Yet if they actually read the damn thing, they would see that Emerson actually praises Nuno for not using Portuguese in training, which he states helped him improve his grasp of English that much faster
I really like the sound of Fabio reforming/ restructuring the recruitment. It's been something I've been wanting for a while and feel pretty passionate about. Youth recruitment and development has seemingly done 'OK' the last few years with the likes of Parrott, Etete and Devine all joining, Scarlett and Markanday exciting the fanbase plus the likes of Edwards, Madueke and Binks all doing well after having left us but if we can level that all up it'll be great, especially by ensuring those we do sell actually make us considerable sums, as the main three that have left did so for peanuts. Ideally I'd want Spurs to try and get on to Chelsea's level with youth recruitment and development, they're probably top of the pile right now in England. There's tonnes of their academy players playing top flight football at the moment; Mount, James, Odoi, Loftus-Cheek and Chalobah all play for their first team in some capacity but then there's Abraham, Tomori, Guehi, Lamptey and Livramento all playing top flight football elsewhere whilst Gallagher's out on loan at Palace doing very well. The amount of money that saves and makes a club from such little investment footballing wise is huge. I'd imagine just one of Abraham/ Tomori's sales would've funded youth development and recruitment at the club for a solid 5-10 years at least, whilst Mount and James are amongst some of the best in their positions in the league and that has saved Chelsea paying £40m+ each for players in their positions, so if we can produce just say one or two players each year that can either go on into the first team or be sold to top flight clubs, it'd be huge. As for general recruitment of the first team, I've often felt that Spurs haven't done badly at all at spotting the right talent but what we've gotten wrong especially over the last 5 or so years is seemingly making the wrong choices on who to actually sign (very scattergun-esque with no clear vision or plan). There's a number of players in the Prem at present who were on our radar for various amounts of time that we never pursued and had we done so, we'd likely be much better off for it, both from a starting XI and squad perspective. Making just one better decision per window can benefit the club massively and with Fabio I think we can possibly expect to make more than just one as he does seem very good at his job when it comes to spotting and buying talent, it's early days but Emerson and Romero already seem like they can become great signings whilst I'd say the fanbase are excited at Gil's potential, we'll just mark his first managerial appointment as a nervous blip at the start of his career though... But in general if Fabio can improve our overall recruitment and development of players at all levels to match the likes of Dortmund/ Ajax/ Chelsea etc then it'll serve Spurs well in years to come.
Now Daniel, all targets to be identified by the end of November and signed by 2nd January please. Then take a well earned break,