After a bad result a lot of frustration and anger is expressed on the match thread which usually revolves around; A) The lack of transfers in the past two windows. B) Having a set of players who are not good enough for a top 4 club. C) Levy not backing Pochettino. I do not pretend to know the answers but think that as we have a few weeks until our next match we could do with a place to have a debate about what needs to change or, if that's all too twee a place to slag each other off
The lack of signings is what’s hurt us. Ultimately we’ve become stale. We came into this season with the same side (whom many were jaded from the WC) and expected equal or better results than last season. It made zero sense. That has - or will have - a negative knock-on effect. One being: The lack of ambition from a playing perspective will make players think twice about whether they want to be here. Another being: It now means that there’s a greater onus and greater pressure on this summer to strengthen multiple areas. Had we strengthened just CM last summer and no other position, it would’ve hopefully been one less position to worry about this summer. But seeing as we’ve had problems at both left and right back, not forgetting the likelihood of needing to replace Eriksen in AM and Toby at CB as well as still requiring a CM or two, there are now arguably five positions that are going to need sorting out and what makes it worse is that we’ll need the signings to be more or less an instant success. Yet we all know that too much chopping and changing results in added time needed for players to gel (see “magnificent seven” post Bale). So we’ve left ourselves in a real ****ter. I’m excited to be moving into the new stadium but I can’t hide the fact that I do genuinely fear for our immediate future on the pitch, more so if we end up missing out on the top four.
1 Like many other clubs, including Liverpool and ManU and even l'arse, we have been the victims of FFP not being enforced properly, Citeh and Chavski have got where the are by cheating. Hopefully this is about to change. 2 Lack of transfer activity. We needed to clear out dead-wood and freshen. Not so much big Neymar type signings, young wannabee's like Sancho would have been fine. 3 The captain needs to be an experienced outfield enforcer type player, not the keeper. 4 Occasionally, particularly when we are in front, defend a little deeper to reduce the space in behind. When we are forced to do it, we defend well, as v dortmund. When we do not respect the opposition and consider them inferior, thinking that we will walk them; Burnley, Southampton, Wolves, Arsenal away, we come unstuck because of the space that we leave.
Recent form is down to a combination of things. In my view they are: 1) World Cup Year - we can't ignore that a large bulk of our squad played at the WC and went to the latter stages of the competition. Asking a squad this thin to perform for an entire season straight after a summer with little rest was always going to backfire on us. The way we have played this season, limping and scrapping through games playing some of the most drab and hard to stomach football I've seen from Spurs surely is a product of that. Now we have ran out of gas and mental strength and the cracks are starting to widen. 2) Lack of Signings - going into this season, every fan could see where our shortcomings were, yet we didn't address them or work hard enough or take enough chances to get what was required in 2 transfer windows! Like other posters, I'm not expecting Ronaldo to walk through the doors at Spurs but we needed 2, even 3 good quality additions to give us some fresh blood, new ideas, creativity and above all, leadership on the field. 3) Complacency - we've developed this habit of becoming complacent and nervous at precisely the wrong times during the season, whether it's the domestic cups or against so-called lesser opposition or our closest rivals in the PL. Watford, Wolves, Arsenal, Palace (in the Cup), United at home, Chelsea away, Burnley, Arsenal at home (which was a pen save away from another defeat) and now Saints. Again, lack of leadership and mental strength. 4) Lack of Belief - not always, but when the chips were down at crucial points in the season when opportunity knocked, we didn't seem to have that ability to lift ourselves and really fight. We went into our shells and always never grabbed opportunities when they were there. This could come from the fact the players know our squad options are wafer thin or the fact the "project" as it is always referred to as, is not really convincing all the players all the time anymore. 5) Predictability - most teams know the Spurs way of playing now and with our squad being established and "as is" for some time now, we can no longer spring any surprises. Ironically, when Kane was injured, we were forced to play a different way and then went on a great run of wins, playing some good football. As much as I love Kane, he's like a funnel. Everything has to go through him and we need to stop this as it's hindering us and making the job of the opposition far easier to nullify our attacks. That is down to Poch to find ways to make Kane stop trying to do so much and stick to what he's best at. 6) Inconsistent Back Four - the back four changes far too often for me. We all know the RB position has been a problem since we lost Walker to City. But chopping and changing the centre back pairings is making us wobbly and nervous. From one game to the next, we can never predict who will play there. During the season when we had the best defence in the PL, we had a consistent back line. Not anymore. 7) Lack of Leadership - never liked keepers being captains and still don't. They can't influence the game sat back in the 18 yard box, it's impossible. Lloris for me is not captain material. Shouting "away" each time a cross comes into the ball is just a way of telling the back four it's your ball to deal with. That's not leadership. What we need is a general out there. My god, I've been banging on about this for years now and we still don't have one. Someone with real pedigree, experience and past silverware the young players can learn from and look up to. Having a youthful team is great to mould them to your way of playing but when things go bad, they need someone out there to pick them up. Jan is the closest thing we have to that. He should be captain for now but I still want someone in the middle of the park to run the show in every sense of the word. 8) Players going AWOL - heads have been turned and we know it's highly likely Eriksen and Toby will be leaving this summer. If we don't make top 4 this season, that is almost certainly guaranteed. I think this has led Eriksen especially, to coast through this season when we needed his influence. He went missing in all the crunch combative games against the teams that scrap and battle. He's also been poor against the top 6 this season. 9) Wembley - without doubt playing nearly a full 2nd seasons away hasn't helped us and has added to the air of uncertainty. Still, I don't subscribe to the belief the new stadium will cure all our troubles as some seem to suggest. There's much wider problems to solve and I think any lift at the new ground will be temporary. Our issue is now our away form now which has gone from the best in Europe to utter cack. 10) Fear - you can see that old adversary rear its ugly head from time to time. Again, this is a mentality thing but we look like a team that is now worried about United, Chelsea and even Arsenal catching us. There's been many games this season when teams have had a real go at us and we looked nervous and scared. A couple of seasons ago we looked assured and confident but that seems to be ebbing away. Why? Poch has got his work cut out these next three weeks. I hope that trip overseas with the players gives them a fresh start and we can go again. COYS.
The 'arrogance' and 'complacency' Poch has spoken about recently is a devil of his own making. The hunger we saw in his first 3 seasons has all but gone from this team. Even yesterday, seeing Kane spurn 3 or 4 glorious chances to increase our lead and then just smiling afterwards really riled me. He should be berating himself but he doesn't. None of them do. There are only so many times you can hear that it is impossible to improve on your position without breaking the club's transfer record and wage ceiling before you start to believe in the myth of your own legend. The arrogance comes right from the top and, as much as I love Poch and believe in him leading us for years to come, until he fends off more successful sides to win a trophy- any trophy - that arrogance is totally baseless.
Great post - Can't really add anything to that Alternatively - Maybe it's time to sell our best players and sack the manager - see if we can appoint a trophy winning manager because I would love to return to the trophy winning sides of Juande Ramos or the man in the raincoat
I know you're joking but no, it's time to truly back this manager and give him the resources he deserves. And he does deserve it. He's performed miracles to date but even he can only do so much.
I think the anger comes from the fact that this is the first season under Poch that you can really say we’re regressing. It should have been such a positive year, with the new stadium, but instead it’s becoming a bit of a miserable one. Fans are really feeling that. Look, there’s been some really good moments this year - the CL great escape, the Dortmund games, some of the league games this year. I mean we’re still on for top 4 and going well in the CL, if we get too 4 and continue to give a good account of ourselves in Europe then that’s hardly a bad season. But we’ve also stagnated and many of us have seen this coming since Walker was sold and that team broke up as key players got long term injuries or were sold, or just generally became a bit ****. We’ve lost a lot of aggression and bite and other teams are doing it to us now. Burnley and Southampton and Arsenal all have this season and there could be more by the end of the season. The squad seem too comfortable and hopefully new signings might help with that over the summer. But Poch needs to work on the mentality of the squad and also his own tactics and decision making, which has been very off too many times this year.
Perhaps this is the wake up call that was needed, all the New Stadium stuff has hidden some major issues. However, If we regress by winning the CL, I for one won't be complaining.
We have had pretty much a perfect storm against us this season. So many players tired coming back from the World Cup. Playing at a half full Wembley. Many injuries to crucial players. New stadium delay losing us money. Getting through all that and ending up in next year’s CL and in the new stadium would actually be a good outcome. What we can do now to make that more likely is a bit difficult to see. Hopefully the new stadium will lift the team.
One issue is (for me) is that the team is making avoidable mistakes in most games. Chelsea, Arsenaĺ and yesterday saw us gift goals. Man Utd, Palace, Fulham, Watford are others off the top of my head. Then there is the implosion we have regularly seen. Watford away, Wolves home and away, Arsenal away, Southampton away, Inter away ... where we were ahead but conceded quick goals to lose or nearly throw away a 3 goal lead in the case of wolves away. This suggests mental fatigue and or a mentality issue to me. Son, Kane, Dele, Trippier, Dier, Lloris, Toby and Vertonghen have not had a break in nearly 2 years and injuries apart are guaranteed starters. It's a bit reminiscent of the 2011-12 season.
This season was always I’ll fated for us. Starting from half our squad being forced to start the new season still knackered from the exertions of the last. We can go through this time and time again, but lack of investment in the squad is at the core of our problems.
A slightly sharper team could have scored five more goals and conceded five fewer. We’ve not been at our best at either end of the field. That could have got us 10 more points or the Carabao cup.
The last sentence is a non sequitur. We wouldn’t solve the problem of the better players being tired by swapping out the weaker ones.
D) Pochettino not managing his squad properly. E) Players who think fronting up, or giving a 90 min performance, is reserved for a couple of games per season (CL in particular) .
Our squad desperately needs a Roy Keane type on the pitch, to give the others a severe kick up the aris during a game when focus and intensity starts to wane. It only takes a couple to get complacent and it can spread through the rest of the team.
This has long been for me the missing piece. The issue is whether a team can tolerate such leaders if their actual on-pitch technical ability is not up to the required levels (getting the likes of a Danny or Dave in MF nowadays is a rare feat for a club).
