To be fair his time at Chelsea wasn’t really that bad. It was a terrible start but from January onwards they were the form team, only lost 3 league games from January and got to a final too. Looking back there were similarities of his first season with us, we finished 5th and got to the LC final, they finished 6th and got to the LC final, both having a distinctive brand of play by the end of the season and both having seen the birth of a superstar (Kane and Palmer). I think that’s what makes me “Ange Out”. We’re a year further in and everything about us has gotten worse. I can live with bad results for a while but bad results and bad performances are just a horrendous mix, there’s zero enjoyment. I also truly believe our squad is nowhere near as bad as it looks, so it’s doubly worse on the manager for failing so badly with it. Jose and Conte could at least fall back on the notion that they had to regularly utilise the likes of Dier, Sanchez, Doherty, Emerson, Sessegnon, Winks, Skipp, Ndombele, Lo Celso etc, the majority of our current bunch are considerably better players than they are.
I think what’s pushing me ever further into him not being the man is just how we’re playing. That’s even with the usual caveats around the squad and injuries and everything else. From everything I read/watched about Ange before he arrived it seems that he looks to create those quick 3/4 player combinations in wide areas, whether he’s building up (so the RCB, RB and 6 for example) or trying to get into dangerous areas in the final 3rd (where it would be RB, RW and one of the 8s). But we’re not seeing any of this. The players are too far apart too often, they’re not moving the ball quickly enough (there’s a lot of 3/4 touch when it should be 1/2) and players get isolated. There’s just no sense of structure, which was a lot of commentator’s worry about Ange when he arrived - if anything he was too structured! But we’re not seeing any of it. There are gaps in the squad and that has been made worse by injuries but his main failing IMO has been not properly imposing the basics. Someone mentioned Poch upthread and I think that’s a good example - there were teething problems but by the end of his first season there was a clearly identified style. I’m still not sure what Ange is trying to do. We see isolated examples but it’s not consistent enough to suggest he’s really training the structures and patterns.
I totally agree. The benefit of having a clearly defined style and formation is that from that point, it is relatively simple to build and improve - for relatively little money too. We showed that in the first year or two after Poch's first season. Adding Son, Toby and then Wanyama to the team was all we needed to go from top 5 to challenging for the title. I look at our team and almost no-one looks like they are fully comfortable where they play. Too many of them are shoe-horned into positions that simply don't suit them or their team mates. Looking through even our strongest team, I don't have confidence in anyone apart from Vicario, Micky (IF fit), Kulusevski, Spence and maybe Solanke to actually deliver within the system as it currently exists. Does this mean we need go into the market and upgrade Romero, Porro, Bentancur, Maddison and Johnson in order to be competitive? Is that what Ange needs, a war chest of circa £300m just to be competitive? The answer is almost certainly 'yes'.
I do also think there’s a lot of younger players who the next manager, whoever and whenever that is, will benefit from. Archie Gray is remarkably consistent for a man his age and just needs to play at 6 consistently now to keep settling. Bergvall is coming on leaps and bounds and is probably one of our best midfielders already. I also like Odobert but I know that’s not universal - I think think he’s technically excellent and like how he moves with the ball. But there’s too many square pegs at the moment.
The Ange equation seems to be : # sideways pass = 2 x ( # forward pass + # backward pass) Not the equation of an entertaining team IMHO.
@Spurf @SpursDisciple @PleaseNotPoll I kind of meant merge this thread with the new one I did so we had the new poll ... is that possible?
If it’s any consolation whenever we’re in search of a new manager I generally ask the mods to delete the poll on the manager/ dof watch thread so that I can then do a new one.
Obviously piggybacking, but pretty much confirms the slices of bread are being slid under the grill please log in to view this image
Iraola is at least a step in the right direction Silva feels like a sideways step, as last season he played a similar system to ours while this season he's dabbling with both 4231 and Conte's 3421 Frank certainly feels underwhelming, though
Yeah out of the three he’s the best pick but still a massive risk but could be a top manager. I’d take Frank over Silva but I do feel both aren’t the level of manager that could take Spurs forward (top 4 & trophies)
Can we just pick someone who will happily work within the club's structures and finances...? We're so far off being winners that the first task is to arrest the slide and start moving forwards...as a team and a club. I'll happily take a bit of that, rather than the last 7 years of ****ing nonsense. Get someone whose first priority is to work ****ing hard to improve players, the team and the squad...and drive the board to do the same. A man can hope, can't he?
We'd struggle to attract any better, especially without European football. Who in their right mind would come to us now after the debacle of the past six years? We're a manager's graveyard.
Decent wages and the chance (slim) of being that guy to end the trophy drought. Plus failing at Spurs won’t affect manager’s reputation because it’s Spurs.
