That entire back 5 has no business being at a club with aspirations of top 4 and major trophies, that is the painful truth of the matter. Talk of making Lenglet's move permanent is almost as laughable as the talk of Dier getting a new contract. We have one top-4 standard defender in the entire squad and he is an ill-disciplined hothead . That entire department from GK onwards needs a complete overhaul this summer. Huge money needs to be thrown at it, not penny pinching for the next Joe Rodon.
But he should be elevated to a position of leadership, right? Pull the other one. The lad is years away from being ready for that.
There's another aspect people overlook: Harry Kane isn’t the high-pressing striker he was between 2014-17 because time (and let's be honest, five years of Poch's tactics) have taken that out of his legs, so we can't play high-energy football like we could during Poch's peak because the top of the team can't play that way effectively over a full season That does play a part in the switch to counter-attacking coaches (fun fact: autocorrect offered "counterintuitive") as that is putting the onus on preserving his legs for a whole season as counter-attacking football is the route one way to reduce H's workload while keeping him as a potent threat, but that is undermined by having a midfield lacking the DM to make counter-attacking football workable, hence the fact we have habitually seen our midfield getting overrun for the past 2-3 years and our backline exposed This does leave the obvious question, though: why is it always counter-attacking coaches who we look at as a way to get the most out of H without running him into the ground? Surely a possession-based coach could offer similar by putting the workrate on the midfield to retain and control possession? Considering the players we have, even with the patchwork nature of the squad, having a Spanish-style coach would have offered another option compared to the Portuguese or Italian methodology
Perhaps we should rebrand and discuss cars or flower arranging. We're a good bunch with a disappointing subject matter.
If we want to win the league we need to spend £750m on 8 or 9 players. The only way we can afford that sort of money is if we can get at least 500m in new investment into the club either from ENIC (very unlikely) or someone else.
I think you can argue that our best debates follow a loss, although this season there have been too many of those. We are all lossed out. New management will give us renewed hope, again, and the transfer window will gather posts like confetti, with about as much substance. This season has been perhaps the most disappointing I can remember, although I expect that's because of selective memory and pushing the worst times out of mind.
I think we were talking about him joining a 'leadership group' that sounds like a process more than a position. Plus leadership qualities, in this context, are not a measure of ability to play football. Top players are often not leaders and it's not unusual for them to be the opposite Gazza, Best, and maybe Lampard and Gerrard. Top leaders like Mourinho, Fergusson, Shankly, Clough, and Klopp were not top players of their day (Clough might have been but for injury) One does not follow the other. Skipp may one day be a great leader without ever reaching the heights playing. I never said he should be elevated to anything, but recognising that he may have good leadership traits could be worth encouraging, That could well improve his confidence and get the most out of his abilities to play football.
I think it’ll only give renewed hope if the playing squad gets a real makeover too. Otherwise I think it’ll just be a little boost followed by a likely collapse after another year or so and another manager will have soured their reputation with us. Whether it be Nagelsmann, Slot or RCL’s favourite, Brenda, if they’re having to utilise the likes of Dier, Sessegnon, Sanchez etc in the lineup/ squad next season then we might as well just forget even having a manager, lol.
No-one is expecting us to win the league next season though. Nor the season after that. An optimistic estimate is that we're at least 5-6 years away from potentially winning the league, which is why I argued months ago that the new manager should start building a team on the assumption that major trophies will only be attainable after Kane and Son have left, retired or stepped down to become bit-part players at best. £750m over 5-6 years should be easily doable for a club with our wealth. That's a net spend of £75m per window over appx 10 windows. If that can't be done, we might as well pack it in now. Signing 8 or 9 players in one window is rarely wise. Chelsea proved that this season, we proved it too to a lesser extent, and certainly did after we sold Bale. But adding 2-3 really good players per year (2 in the summer, 1 in January) is a huge leap forward from where we are currently, and sets us on a trajectory to genuinely challenge for the biggest prizes 5-6 years down the line. I don't think this vision is at all outrageous. We may have to stretch it to 3 players this summer (4 if Kane leaves) - GK, CB, CM, but adding those three already upgrades the overall team from what it currently is (mid table) to challenging for top 6 again. Next step is top 4 regulars. I estimate that will be 2-3 years down the line although it could be sooner if we bring in a coach who is able to fast-track the progress of the youngsters we have.
I don't think that will work though. We are currently miles behind Liverpool, Man Utd, Man City and Chelsea in terms of squad quality and at least three of those can continue to outstanding us. Signing three players for £80m each in the summer plus getting a top goalkeeper would still leave us only the competitive around 4th to 5th place and I think we will get stuck there at best. Now we have the stadium it is the time to take risks and show new arrivals we really mean business. If we spent 700m this summer we could have the following starting eleven New GK Romero Bastoni Guardiol Porro Rice Bellingham Udogie Maddison Kane Son
That's straight out of the Football Manager "edit finances" textbook. I used to do that back in the day to sign the likes of Ronaldinho, Kaka and Maldini.
I think your view is fairly conservative but of course in theory it will become harder to even stay top 6 with the increased competition from Newcastle and a reborn Villa even Burnley will have access to new wealth. I would add to your list another CB. The price we will pay for not addressing our defensive weakness is already obvious. We had the chance to prepare once we knew we were losing Toby and Verts. It's of little use setting your sights high on the likes of Bastoni and then complaining how difficult it is. There are any number of defenders at places like Brentford and Brighton that would have been very happy to join Spurs. Maybe not so much now.
The difference is that it's now quite plausible. If the club is currently worth £3b then it's worth £4b after someone buys 25% of it for £1b. If an extra £1b comes in it doesn't make sense not to spend it
It'll never happen, no one's spending £700m in a window let alone Tottenham, regardless of whether £1bn gets raised through share sales. Many of the players in your team wouldn't be interested in joining us either, Maddison would be the only one. Besides with our track record, even if we did spend £700m, at least £400m would likely be wasted on crap.
The reason we look as if we are wasting money is because we compare our players to the best but we've never actually signed a player coveted by the really top clubs. I agree that getting those players is unrealistic but I can't see a better option than trying.
It's not through comparing our players with the best that we perceive to be wasting money, we're wasting money because we're signing mediocre players for world class prices, our record signing is the pure epitome of that, in fact roughly five of our six record signings epitomise it.
No But it does mean PowerSpurs has to expand his data set to four decades in order to prove that we've made progress under ENIC.
The reason we look as though we're wasting money is cos we sign some utter dross and some pretty mediocre players and very few good ones in recent years. Since June 2019 we signed Ndombele, Lo Celso, Sessengon, Royal, Richarlison, Reguilon, Doherty, Rodon, Clarke and Bergwyn cost the better part of £280m. We have also signed Gil and Sarr who cost another £40m (plus Lamela) as well as Spence for £15m. That's £335m in just 4 years on players that were either criminally underused or were crap. That's not just hindsight either. Lots of us seriously questioned the Sessengon and Richarlison signings (a total of £95m). But it is also a seriously weird thing to let a manager buy players and then sack the manager just a few months later. We have repeated this lunacy 3 times in the past 4 years. On top of this we also signed Joe Hart, Forster, Bale, Fernandes, Vinicius, Gollini, leglet and Danjuma on loan. Forster and leglet have underwhelmed imho and the others were (again) criminally under used. By any standards that amounts to a serious waste of money
If the prem are entitled to 4 CL spaces and 3 EL places (5th, fa cup and league cup) and 1 ECL place what happens to the FA Cup and league Cup place if those are won by top 4 clubs as will happen this season?
