Well if this team is SO much better then I guess that the bad old days of spectacular collapses which lead to us finishing 4th are WAY behind us. I guess that since we are SO much better we'll be finishing 2nd despite spectacular collapses. Or perhaps we can finish 5th to prove that we are SO much better. Yeah - that should do it, apparently. Fingers crossed we can also witness some turgid football! Oooh! Check out that closing down! We'll be watching that on YouTube in five years' time!
"Well if this team is SO much better then I guess that the bad old days of spectacular collapses which lead to us finishing 4th are WAY behind us." Perhaps if you asked for the attacking play of 2011-12 with the oppressive MF of AVBs' Spurs, I could take the ranting more seriously.
Harry encouraged flair which made the football easy on the eyes. AVB likes a regimental style of football, not so easy on eyes. The answer is probably the balance, a bit of both. One thing is for sure, AVB has to win things because the average Spurs fan will get pissed off with his style quickly without success. Some may even get pissed with success, but success will buy him time. I always said that you had to give AVB 3 years to build his own team and I still think that. We are not the finished article yet but we're holding our own in the prem and not doing badly in Europe. We were unfortunate against the goons, we were the better side and perhaps we should have put the chavs to bed before they scored. Rome wasn't built in a day.
2009 lost 3 nil after 90 minutes away to burnley then in championship in 2nd leg of league cup semi final 2009 lost away to wigan 2009 lost 3 nil away to arsenal 2010 drew nil nil at home to hull who were relegated 2010 lost 4 1 at home to arsenal 2010 lost to pompey in fa cup semi final...awful performance 2010 Wigan...lost 1 nil at home when they were being battered by everyone else 2011 lost 5 1 at home to city 2011 failed to get out of group stage of uefa cup 2011 lost to blackpool away 2011 drew with blackpool home ... blackpool relegated 2012 lost 5 2 to arsenal after being 2 up 2012 lost 5 1 at wembley in semi final of fa cup 2012 blew a 10 point lead for 3rd place I liked harry but people forgot the countless mistakes ... they also forget his lack of rotation ... remember the rantings about always playing crouch and vdv and leaving defoe out...or never playing nico k or charlie? The football was good at times...but not all the time...
Sorry - that did come over as a bit ranty, didn't it? Well maybe it was but not at your comment (which is fair enough) but at the point you were defending (the "...SO much better..." craziness). Yes it would be nice to have the pacey wingers, the creative middle with two top attacking players there as well as the solid MF but I think you'd have to have a team of 13 or so players. You just can't have the solidness of AVB's midfield AND the attacking flair, openness and pace of Harry's team.
I certainly don't forget Harry's mistakes and only intended to question the "...SO much better..." line which seems to have very little substance to it. Didn't mean to start a whole backs-to-the-wall defence of Harry's team/record. Suffice to say that the football last year was far worse than under Harry. But then again the personnel was not as good either. And the overall result was as high or lower than under Harry. So no - no improvement I don't think. Certainly not an improvement which is SO massive. That's 100% sure. Also - if, over the course of three years, there are only that many bullet-points as above for the low-points of AVB's tenure I'll call that a success. Agree though that AVB should be given at least three years. I think he'll build a solid team which could get top 4. My major concern, for all of last season and this season so far too, is the emphasis on the word "solid".
My post was about the whole set up and not the comparison with the coaches. We will get out of group K, we have an excellent director of football and a good squad. Lloris is better than Gomes for example and we all feel safer with him between the sticks than we did with Gomes. Miserly defence and third in the table where we could go top at any time. Best young coach in the PL. Everything else has already been posted.
Why would you even post that? does that show Arry in a different light? shall we reply with a list of countless positives? all managers have made countless mistakes so picking and choosing what you like to remember never tells the true picture. As for blowing a 10 point lead, as it ever occurred to you that the reason we was in that position was down to Redknapp, you like to remember if it wasnt for Redknapp setting the standard and showing we can achieve champions league football, then we certainly wouldn't be in such a healthy position. Also I noticed you never posted our wins over Arsenal, best not remember the positive results. Not qualifying past the europa league stage but qualifying past the champions league stages, this just proves what YV said about fans putting spin on what they choose to remember but the facts are Redknapp is the only spurs manager since the premier league started to get spurs a top four finish, into the champions league and past the group stages, but what would you rather remember, the countless mistakes? or the countless positives? The defeat against Wigan or the 9 goal rout of Wigan!? The lack of rotation or the great tactial setup away to AC Milan. I could go on but the positive points outweigh the negatives and that isn't even up for discussion.
Have you ever heard the expression "The proof of the pudding is in the eating?". So how about we calm down with judgements about how amazing Baldini is until we've seen the success of all the new faces he's brought in? Anything around a 50% success rate or above and I'll call him a success too. And we'll only know if those players have been a success in a year or so's time. Unless you want to judge them now in which case the outcome won't look too favourable for Baldini. Same goes for your assertion "best young coach in the PL". On what criteria? He's had a crappy half-season with Chelsea and an OK one with us so far. Is the competition for "best young coach in the PL" so weak? Our miserly defence has kept clean sheets, in the PL, against Crystal Palace, Swansea, Norwich and Cardiff. Not that much to write home about there. Oh and some clean sheets against League One-level opposition and Aston Villa's youth team. Our miserly defence have conceded in both of our games against decent opposition this season. I'm not wanting to slate this team or anything but to over-state their achievements so far is silly. This team is nowhere near the level it was a couple of years ago but it is just a work in progress at this point. The jury is out on Baldini, AVB and half of the squad right now.
Okay lenny then I'm silly. He was 5th with Chelsea and I'd hardly call that crappy seeing as what he took on. But ok.
Boss, if I couldn't take the rough with the smooth I wouldn't have started it. We can all have our opinions and I won't get angry just because somebody disagrees.
He took on a club that had just finished 2nd and could afford signings like 20m for Mata here, 20m for Lukaku there... I do not think that many Chelsea fans would see 5th as not crappy. Not saying it's 100% his fault that they under-achieved but he certainly doesn't get credit from me, or anyone else I suspect, for getting sacked half-way through getting Chelsea 5th.
Harry has more than one MoM award...for some reason! I also recall some 'best defensive home record' periods, one when Leds was fairly regular...for him anyway, so it wasn't all gung-ho. Thought that was worth a mention to balance the current clean sheets.
Oh dear. I don't recall Harry having us in this position at this time of the season. I'm talking about at the moment not next May because May hasn't happened yet. We are better now than under Harry. City's defence leaked three against Cardiff, ours didn't and Norwich won away last week but they didn't against us so lenny I'm looking at the positives. Our forwards misfired under Harry and they are still doing so to a degree but when Bobby starts we'll be top.
I do. In 2009-2010 we were 4th at the end of September P 7 Pts 15. Compared to now 3rd P 6 Pts 13. But I don't want to argue about it any more. I remember seeing some bloody good football (better than now or last year) and having some great results under Harry. Basically your assertion that today's team is SO much better seems unfounded to me. Certainly so far. But obviously I very much hope that you'll be able to come back to this post come Sunday and say "See - now we're P 7 Pts 16 - better than Harry's team ever did". And I hope in a year's time I'll be able to come to the conclusions you've formed once this team has started playing really well and winning things/qualifying for overblown tournaments that bring in cash. I'm glad there are blind optimists like you around. Gives all the rest of us more to moan about.
Wow lenny, you really are a Harry supporter aren't you? For goodness sake calm down, my post wasn't meant to provoke anybody but I don't want to argue anymore also. I made the claim that we have the best young coach in the PL, well I'm just wondering how many of the other coaches in the league would interest the top European teams anywhere near as much as AVB does. Anyone imagine Martinez at PSG or Barcelona etc? But hey I'm at peace, merely observations NOT wum attempts. We've been getting praise from other quarters haven't we? I suppose a team's own supporters are more critical than anybody else. Peace brothers peace.
Sorry - re-reading that it sounds really snarky which I didn't meant it to be. It was meant to be a more sort of "good luck to you" sort of statement. Sort of vaguely self-deprecating. But instead it just sounded pissy. Basically I'll be very, very happy if/when this team's better than it was two or so years ago. Hmm...don't feel that happy. Must mean it can't have happened yet.
