It's very interesting seeing the difference of opinions on here...I would have said I got an old school attitude compared to younger posters but there are some other old bastards who completely disagree with me so WTF do I know
Maybe at some level it reflects what each of us want to get out of football. I have a busy life. I work a full time job and a part time one on the side. I have a young family. Football for me is a brief moment each week where I can just switch off and hopefully enjoy something meaningless that I have been conditioned to arbitrarily attach too much emotion to. I've never been as enamoured by trophies as many fans I know. Sure I get excited and enjoy the moment, but my life is genuinely so busy that within a few days of it happening I've moved on. That's just the reality of it. So for me, having an oasis of enjoyment every week is what I'm looking for. Even better if I can share that weekly oasis with my boys and condition them to a lifetime of suffering just as my dad did to me and his dad to him and his dad to him. That said, 38 weeks of misery to the point where I either dreaded watching us but did so anyway, or found other things to do to avoid it, isn't so easily overlooked off the back of winning a trophy. Other fans live and breathe those big moments and I respect that even if I don't understand it. If I ever have enough money to retire at a decent age (sadly a fading dream for my generation), I suspect I'll change my view and just look forward to the big moments and the occasional trophy. Anyway, that's my tuppence.
Next season we would expect our young signings to improve a little, some more experienced players to arrive and fewer injuries. My expectation for our finishing position remains 6th.
Its just one season bro You was the other way round when we were finishing 2nd you said the trophies will come, they never did because you thought landing trophies was the next logical step for us, it didn’t happen. Just like that didn’t happen, I’m telling you nor will relegation after this season enjoy the trophy and guess what? Super cup final in September another trophy coming our way
For me football was an escape when I was a kid. I loved going and genuinely felt like I had something and somewhere to belong and to escape to. As I got older I was still a huge fan but could go to games due to a lack of money...the mid to late 1980s were tough for working class people under Thatcher!.. Went again from 89-93 but redundancy followed by crap jobs stopped that. In 1994 my son died at birth and over the course of 2 years I imploded. Only a good mate (Mrs RCL to be) stopped me burn my life to the ground. By time I was with Mrs RCL I was working 2 jobs and we had sod all money ... then came our kids. By time they were 6 and 1 yrs old I wasn't drinking, Mrs RCL got better paying jobs and we both quit smoking so we were able to take the girls 3-5 games a season which was something I dreamed about since my son passed. I made them scrapbooks every season when they were kids and they ask me every season to keep doing it even as adults in their own homes My girls have grown up and I felt really emotional being with my eldest (and my youngest being on facetime as we watched the final minutes) at WHL with 50,000 others. I've been lucky that my girls love football and want to still go with me. Also my partner really encouraged me to buy copies of programmes and scrapbooks I made as a kid which my arsehole mother and her **** husband destroyed. I do get that spurs mean different things to fans and apologise to you or anyone else if I've implied otherwise. I hate crowds (but love being at spurs) and generally find adults very difficult to understand or deal with. I avoid social **** like parties, get together and pubs etc. I have mates in work and I try to be very kind to them but only have 6 actual close friends and 3 of them I only see 3 or 4 times a year. I hate adults hugging me (barr Mrs RCL and the girls)/ shaking hands and **** and my mates know I have psych my self up to do this but am fine with it at footie. I loved Wednesday cos it made me feel so connected to my girls and spurs mates. It was like that explosion of joy that a goal gives but magnified a thousand times over for me. Football makes me hate the world a little less, gives me my only good memories of being a kid and has given me two matches with my son (two matches on his birthday where i went alone but was with him... i know right...they let me work with kids ) That's the long winded way of saying that I feel less weird at a football match than anywhere else (other than with Mrs RCL and my girls). Sorry if this was too much personal ****. Later all
That's a post that will keep me posting on here. Thanks for sharing that RCL. You see as Shankly said 'Football is not a matter of life and death; it's much more important than that.
Can we expect it though? Bergvall aside, I struggle to see where the significant game time will come for the likes of Gray and Odobert (and Moore and co) that will help them improve. We won’t be able to rotate heavily in the CL like in the EL and we also need to add experienced, quality players to this team to avoid an early CL exit which will further reduce playing time for youngsters. I actually think it could be a smart move to loan Odobert, Gray and Moore out. As for finishing position, far too early to guess. After last summer I predicted a season of struggle due to lack of good signings and the workload of Europa albeit I didn’t quite anticipate 17th (I think I said 8th or 9th). I’ll make a prediction once the window shuts after we see who arrives and who departs. We need 3-4 high pedigree players at the least and to also ensure Romero and co stay for us to be able to attack on multiple fronts.
The Ange-in camp are relying on too many ifs for my liking... If we avoid another injury plague If we invest properly in the summer If the youngsters massively step up after experiencing a year of awful football If Ange rotates his squad properly If Ange learns more than one tactic If pigs fly
Wow RCL , I am going through a lot at the moment with my wife's health and football to me is brief outlet and Wednesdays result was fantastic therapy for my son and me .
Colin and Alfie, I wish you both all the best and am glad that football is offering you both a release from issues. For me, I am lucky since by previously documented health issues I have taken a very live life to the full because we don't know what is around the corner attitude and I have taken my love of football to new levels in terms of attending matches. Season ticket at Gillingham, half a dozen away games (more next season with more local teams in the division), more trips to Spurs than for a while, England matches at Wembley, watching my boys play on Sundays and the occasional afternoon at Ashford United. But that does have downside watching Spurs has been a chore, (watching The Gills not much better), and much as I loved the win on Wednesday and actually wearing my shirts with pride ever since the season as a whole has been awful. Yes I have seen us win matches at the stadium v City, United and Liverpool (obvs all Carabao cup) which were great, but they were brief moments in what was otherwise a car crash of a season, and for Ange to come out yesterday and say that we have had an outstanding season is in my opinion taking the piss. So I am still fervantly Ange out - thanks mate for the trophy you will always be welcome at the club, but the league form is the bread and butter and cannot be ignored, keeping Ange is sleep walking towards the precipice of relegation and Levy must make the cool hard decision to say thanks and goodbye.
The correlation between the cost of the squad and finishing position is very strong. When it breaks down it often seems to be due to things like injuries. The effect of the coach is almost impossible to detect in the data (partly due to a fairly standard issue in competitive data which is that unsuccessful managers get sacked very early so the only ones with enough data to be statistically significant are those who win things at big clubs who should be winning anyway because of their financial advantages). We will remain the sixth most expensive squad so will most likely finish sixth. There are no ifs required. I am actually quite neutral on Ange now though because I now don't think it very likely that he will be one of the few coaches who will make a noticeable difference in the long term. But the odds are against any replacement doing so either. An ideal coach would improve the team through motivation, skills work and tactics. I think Ange gets a big tick for the first but is average at best for the other two.
6th with a Champions league campaign and the extra games and competition it will bring? less injuries? Based on what?
Exactly. If anything, we can expect more injuries. This year with 4 competitions was much worse than last year with 3. Next year the 4th competition will be much harder than this year's. QED more injuries.
