Well I didn't mean like them specifically, just pointing out they weren't fans of the clubs before buying them. It's a valid point though, not many places around the world where billionaires haven't got links to something seriously immoral.
I have several questions about our strategy at the moment. 1. With the exception of Spence Spurs appear to have brought in players wanted by Conte (spending around £180m) and got rid of others without raising much at all. So how can anyone say conte hasn't been backed? 2. Why is Conte so wedded to playing players that are not delivering? Until this week Dier, Royal, Sessegnon, Son and Lloris were all guaranteed starters despite being hugely out of form. 3. Why do we start every game so poorly? If the players are not following Conte's instructions then why is he still playing them? If it is his plan, why does he deny it? 4. If the club want Conte long term how come they haven't sorted out a new contract by agreeing to what he wants? 5. Are we going to repeat the appalling mistake we made with JM? We knew he needed to go in January 2021 but did nothing about his turgid football until late April and had no one lined up to replace him which led to us taking 3 months to appoint Nuno in a panic. I don't care if we keep or sack Conte tbh as I can see merit in both options. However our replacement can not be Pochettino as he is not the way forward. My only wish is that we chose a strategy and act accordingly in the long term. 3 permanent managers since November 2019 is a farce imho.
I agree with your overall point, but Sessegnon has only started 8 league games this season. We also win far, far less often when he doesn't start. With: W: 7, D: 1, L: 3 in all competitions. Without: W: 5, D: 4, L: 4. 64% win rate v 38%. In addition to this, all 5 of Son's goals for us this season have come when Perisic isn't on the pitch. The Croatian started at right-wingback v Leicester and was subbed off after 55 minutes. Son came on after 59 minutes and scored a hat-trick, as I'm sure everyone remembers. Perisic was benched against Frankfurt and Son scored twice in the first half.
It is his plan and the players are following it, but I imagine he feels they're not doing it very well and that's more down to the quality... which is why he's probably banging on about wanting better players. Not saying he's right but that's how I think he sees it. Reminds me of us under Van Gaal - bloke thought there was nothing wrong with his style, it was the players not being good enough to deliver it. He was a fcking mug though.
I agree with all of this, and if we don't beat Palace on Wed Conte is on very thin ice which will crack when we lose to the goons on the 15th. Whilst I totally agree that Poch should not be the way forward if we do dispense with Conte, then I think we all know that he is the only game in town what with Potter now being at Chelsea. My choice currently would probably be Thomas Frank who is doing a great job at Brentford but has just signed a new contract and we probably won't pay to get him and whether he could replicate the job he has done up to now with us I don't know, but I don't think that the football would any worse than its been for most of the time since the Champions league final in 2019.
1 - they can’t, because he has. 2 - agree with all bar Lloris, the alternative just simply isn’t good enough as a starter, probably Lloris’ last season as first choice though. 3 - ****, boring and unadventurous tactics. He just won’t admit he’s getting it wrong. 4 - he probably isn’t committed to being here long term, wouldn’t be surprised if the club have question marks now too, **** show for us fans though really for having to endure this. 5 - we’re on track too judging by how we’re playing and it’s with a better squad than Jose’s, which makes it worse. I’m no longer against Poch returning, mainly because options are limited. Potter’s at Chelsea, Howe won’t leave Toon, Frank as TCM has said is on a long deal and we probably won’t pay it out, Zidane is who I’d like because he’s an attack minded manager who’ll have respect of players but he is also untested outside of managing an elite club and he probably wouldn’t come here either tbh. I trust in Paratici’s vision, I just no longer trust in Conte to be a part of that. Ruining what is a decent squad, sure it has weaknesses but many can be eradicated via either selection or change of tactical approach, which he’s too stubborn to do so. We’d be about 5-9 points better off if we started games on the front foot.
Swap deal with Chelsea? Todd boehly gets a glamour name and conte gets his open chequebook. We get potter who we probably should have brought in instead of Nuno. I don’t think his stock will fall if he’s sacked by Chelsea. Or could we be the ones to give Thomas frank a chance at a top job?
The thing about gamechangers is they can work both ways The issue there is trying to root around for another example honestly felt like I was being unnecessarily mean to Richy, because for example whenever we saw Sissoko warming up during the ubermensch's tenure we knew that a gamechanger was coming on as we had settled on trying to grind out a narrow win from the 60th minute (and usually failed, of course...) That's why it feels unnecessarily mean to make a like-for-like comparison between Richy and examples such as that - but it has to be said Richy, through no fault of his own, has been a gamechanger as Conte has dropped our main creative outlet in Deki to accommodate him in the starting xi, and that's before bringing up how Perisic is a WB who seems to have been signed entirely to play with Richy and not Kane or Son
Conte was swapping them around as far back as September, as Deki was on the bench and Richy the RW against Marseille, Sporting and Fulham What is interesting, though, is how Deki was subbed on in each of those matches - Against Fulham he was subbed on for Harry Kane after 78 minutes when we were cruising to a 2-0 win, with Richy moving up as the CF - Against Marseille he replaced Emerson as RWB after 61 minutes when the score was still 0-0 before we won 2-0 - Against Sporting he replaced Sonny in the 72nd minute when the score was still 0-0, before we did the opposite of the Marseille match What really sticks out is that for our first few games, from Southampton to West Scam, we were playing the 3421 from the second half of last season - but the Fulham and Marseille games are when 343 became our default formation, with the occasional dalliance with starting as a 352 as we did against Brighton or Man Utd
He has been backed. What remains to be seen is if he continues to be backed. The problem that nobody likes to talk about is that players have to be sold/loaned out before other come in, not just for finances, but for the size of the squad. If nobody want to buy what the club are selling, what happens? I imagine his concern is that the alternatives will deliver even less, plus many of his alternatives have been recovering from injury. Dunno why Spence can't get a start, I imagine if other positions were solid, he'd be more prepared to risk. I don't know. Having said that, many called for Gil to start and are now lambasting the guy and writing him off. I agree. **** knows. I am pretty sure it is not his plan to start ****. I imagine that he has no choice but to play who is available, regardless of how well, or poorly, they are adapting to his ideas. See answer no 2. I imagine they have tried, but I imagine he has many reasons to wait until the end of the season to even think about committing. I don't think it's just down to finances. His family live in Italy. He came out of a break of sorts to take this job. He's trying to work in a way that he never has before, and people, including fans, expect miracles that can't reliably be achieved in one season. I bloody hope not. Personally I hope we do what we should have done with both JM and MP. Back him. I don't think we are at the point of complete failure yet. The World Cup also injured and fatigued many of our players. Conte lost a game without his three most prominent signings in Kulu, Bentancur and Richarlison. As much as it was a ****show. I don't think the situation is that bad. We are still in he CL. We are currently 5 or so points, and a couple of positions, better off than we were this time last season. The window is now open. Let's see what happens this month. Sacking Conte now would just be a continuation of the farce imho. I think the strategy has been chosen. What is required is patience. Conte himself said it. He is trying to help the club and he is happy here at this point in time. The club needs to help him by making the right moves in the window if possible, he is aware of how tricky it is and I'm sure that Levy understands how **** the situation that Conte inherited was. I won't pass serious judgement until Tanguy and Lo Celso are officially gone, and whatever income that free is reinvested in the squad, or not. Nobody was complaining about turgid football when we claimed 4th last season, and if we managed to win the game despite playing like ****, which wasn't beyond the realm of possibility, there would be much fewer complaints.
Also, has anyone set up a GoFundMe for the r/coys mods yet? They might need it, they're working overtime removing the Lunatic Fringe bilge which is washing up on their shores every 10-15 minutes right now
Interesting answers. Like I said re Conte staying or being sacked I have said I rather he stay (you put it really well) but I can see why others want him gone. His take on yesterday's game...that he was happy with the performance ... defies logic tbh. On the last point from March onwards our performances were dynamic and exciting. I really enjoyed most of the games tbh. Up until mid late December I thought we'd played some decent football (arsenal game excluded) but from the man utd game onwards it has been very poor on the whole. I went to the Leeds game and thought we were really attacking (poor defensively mind) so the last two games have been even more disappointing.
I think your view of a game changer is a world apart from my view of one. Yours seems to be more about a tactical switch in which a player’s introduction changes the style of play, mine is about a player elevating those around him and boosting their club to another level. Hence why I definitely don’t view Richarlison as a game changer.
The thing is there are also players who can drag players around them down when introduced to a game Sometimes it's merely bad luck as a guy is subbed on but ****s the bed so badly the opponents are roused by their bedshitting, but mainly it's players whose introduction sap energy and belief from players and fans alike either because they know that their introduction means the team have given up actually trying to play on the front for for 10-15-20 minutes which was Sissoko's role both for us and the France NT in 2020-21 or that the tactics are going back to Wimbledon circa 1987 which was always the feeling when we pushed Gary Doherty upfront But sometimes the negative gamechanger is a player brought on for tactical reasons but winds up negatively impacting the team, for example that FA Cup match against Chelsea the best part of twenty years ago where we were 3-1 up at half time and 3-2 up up with fifteen minutes to go so subbed off Aaron Lennon for Steed Malbranque and doing that let Chelsea off the hook, because after 70-odd minutes of Lennon wreaking havoc down our left flank instead of continuing to push them back we made the tactical switch and gave them room to breathe down their right flank and, naturally, they equalised late and won the replay handily And that's where Richy has unfortunately found himself: from a tactical standpoint he makes perfect sense to be on the pitch, but in practise his playing instead of Deki has mainly been more of a benefit to our opponents as were removing a creative outlet (or, to be more accurate, the creative outlet of our team) making him a gamechanger in the opposite sense of what it should be
I take comfort in the fact that there is a lot of football left to play this season. We are less than half way through the league games and I feel like I’m right in saying that we came back from further behind last season. The squad obviously needs some summer surgery but if we can sort a couple of the glaring problems in terms of effective depth at winger and a starting RWB, the CB situation can probably wait. We need multiple players across the back 3 and I doubt any of our reported targets are available this winter. But if we got a top level CB and the other two positions as well this January, that would be an excellent window of incomings. Sorting a RWB and forward is the bare minimum of what is acceptable if we want to recover this season. The fact it’s Arsenal at the top of the league and Newcastle have crashed the top 4 party so quickly probably compounds the misery for us Spurs fans a lot. But we’re only 4 points off Newcastle in 3rd (who have played as many league games as us) having weathered a mad pre-WC schedule and some serious injury issues to the forward group. We played Perisic and Kane as a front 2 at one point. That’s bad. Conte needs to show his mettle as a manager because we’re miles off the required intensity, that we showed in the run-in last season. This group have it in them to grind through the poor form and pick up for the second half of the season. I do believe there are broader structural and identity issues that need to be addressed at the club but in the immediate sense, we have to recruit well this month and need players to have the same kind of impact that Kulu and Bentancur had last season. I think things are bad and there’s clearly a lot of disconnect behind the scenes at Tottenham. But, and maybe I’ve just spent too much time of football Twitter today, some of the misery feels a little OTT given where we’re at in the season. Let’s see what January brings and then we can re-evaluate what the rest of the season might look like.
I take the opposite view to this. For the first time probably since Poch had us challenging for the title, there are teams right at the top who granted have spent a lot to get there, but nowhere near the likes of United, Chelsea and City, and yet there they are - and they've played largely wonderful football in the process. It's a comforting thought that we can also be there without spending the "£200-300m a season" our manager seems to think it is necessary to spend to get there, and I'm quoting him verbatim on that.
I might be alone in thinking this, but personally I don't think Lenglet or Bissouma were wanted by him either. His comments about Lenglet the other day certainly implied that, while the fact that Ally Gold and others have confirmed we are still looking at multiple CM's despite already having a billion of them, suggests that we only bought Bissouma because he was available and relatively cheap. But I have no qualms with this. As I said after the game yesterday, our transfer strategy since Paratici took over largely makes sense and is both balanced and cohesive, while a supposed 'elite' level manager should be capable of getting the most out of the tools available to him. It is slightly damning that Mourinho in his own way showed far more tactical flexibility in order to get more out of a total pig's ear of a squad than Conte is from a squad that is one of the strongest we've had in the PL era.
I've been keeping my powder dry since that debacle on Sunday Being overseas means I have to wait until the early hours or next day to watch a match and believe me after the crappy year I've said goodbye to watching Spurs is my outlet. However no matter how everyone is painting it that was a bloody awful watch, Conte is having us on if he is happy with any of that! There's a saying "you can't win anything with kids", we have some of the most talented young players currently around, but Conte says no to them regularly, imo these experienced highly paid internationals need to have a hard look at themselves because they aren't producing. Spence ,Sarr , Gil Skippy etc must be really wondering why they bother, they are treated as last resorts and I'm sorry but I still can't see what made us bring in Bissouma, every game I see he makes a huge error that results in the opposition scoring. If I kept giving performances like that at my work I'd be unemployed . Today I read what I consider is a thoroughly p-----d off article from Ali Gold. He writes for a website, but this was from his Tottenham supporting heart. He sees and hears things we don't so for him to completely lambast the club and Conte this must have been boiling for some time, if any of you have watched his youtube vids he has been holding his frustrations in, but after Sunday I think he couldn't take any more. Levy must have heard what was being aimed at him, its time to put up or leave. I've been a loyal Spurs fan for most of my 50+ years but its really testing me, no wonder people desert and go watch lower leagues or non-league its easier on the health!
