Match Day Thread General Match Thread

[Citizen Kane.]

I've found myself reflecting back on that game against City at the end of 23/24 that effectively removed Arsenal from the title race.

I got dog's abuse for saying I wanted us to win and push for top 4 even if that meant handing Arsenal the league.

I now feel entirely vindicated, not that it has cheered my up in the slightest.

The general sentiment toward that game and the desperation from many fans for us to chuck it simply exposed the broken mentality that has come to define this club, and now here we are picking through the wreckage of players who either don't care or can't cope.

A losing mentality breeds losers. It's really simply psychology.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

I've found myself reflecting back on that game against City at the end of 23/24 that effectively removed Arsenal from the title race.

I got dog's abuse for saying I wanted us to win and push for top 4 even if that meant handing Arsenal the league.

I now feel entirely vindicated, not that it has cheered my up in the slightest.

The general sentiment toward that game and the desperation from many fans for us to chuck it simply exposed the broken mentality that has come to define this club, and now here we are picking through the wreckage of players who either don't care or can't cope.

A losing mentality breeds losers. It's really simply psychology.

That's the issue with Ange de-emphasising the league last season: it created the mentality that league matches were of secondary importance, which did carry into this season considering we could get result in the CL yet somehow never seemed to carry any momentum into the league games which followed as you would have expected

(On a side note, Ange also bungled last season as he was stating to get results with the scratch xi he was putting together throughout late January into February, only to immediately drop those players when various first teamers were fit again and the results backslid)

It's similar to how Hoddle bet the farm on winning the League Cup in 2002 so rotated the squad so key players were kept fresh for the final...which we lost, so now we had a squad that had already been losing momentum due to key players being rotated out that was now demoralised, so the form dropped and continued dropping into the next season

 

[KingHotspur]

If there are two important 50:50 decisions per game then statistically most teams will get close to zero on average. But one or two teams will get 8 or more in their favour and another one or two will get eight or more against them. That's without any bias at all. So there's probably a twenty point swing between the best off and worst off teams. Given there's only two points between us and West Ham it is actually very likely that refereeing decisions have made the difference.
It's not a conspiracy but it could be one of the reasons we are in the bottom three.

Yeah I get that.

Like I’ve said multiple times, the refs are crap but I don’t believe there is a conspiracy.

Of course getting some debatable decisions in your favour can help the team but you can’t rely on it (I don’t think any team can)

 

[Citizen Kane.]

That's the issue with Ange de-emphasising the league last season: it created the mentality that league matches were of secondary importance, which did carry into this season considering we could get result in the CL yet somehow never seemed to carry any momentum into the league games which followed as you would have expected

(On a side note, Ange also bungled last season as he was stating to get results with the scratch xi he was putting together throughout late January into February, only to immediately drop those players when various first teamers were fit again and the results backslid)

It's similar to how Hoddle bet the farm on winning the League Cup in 2002 so rotated the squad so key players were kept fresh for the final...which we lost, so now we had a squad that had already been losing momentum due to key players being rotated out that was now demoralised, so the form dropped and continued dropping into the next season

Absolutely.

Ange was a complete fraud and hypocrite who very blatantly and brazenly moves the goalposts to make sure he always looks right.

The hypocrisy of his take on the City game compared to his take on last season is staggering and entirely self-serving.

Another of many horrendous managerial appointments.

 

[KingHotspur]

That's the issue with Ange de-emphasising the league last season: it created the mentality that league matches were of secondary importance, which did carry into this season considering we could get result in the CL yet somehow never seemed to carry any momentum into the league games which followed as you would have expected

(On a side note, Ange also bungled last season as he was stating to get results with the scratch xi he was putting together throughout late January into February, only to immediately drop those players when various first teamers were fit again and the results backslid)

It's similar to how Hoddle bet the farm on winning the League Cup in 2002 so rotated the squad so key players were kept fresh for the final...which we lost, so now we had a squad that had already been losing momentum due to key players being rotated out that was now demoralised, so the form dropped and continued dropping into the next season

Agree, last season and losing so many league games left a mental scar on players and it’s a big reason why the current form shows no signs of improving. These players are used to losing which is something hard to change.

 

[Citizen Kane.]

Agree, last season and losing so many league games left a mental scar on players and it’s a big reason why the current form shows no signs of improving. These players are used to losing which is something hard to change.

The whole structure is set up to feed a losing mentality.

For ages we've rewarded players with new contracts after a brief run of good games. Bentancur, Spence, Sarr, Bergvall...what have these guys actually accomplished to warrant a 5-6 year contract and pay rise?

We reward mediocrity handsomely. A trend that started when Levy made himself the highest earning chairman in the league despite having won one league cup in two decades. And it filtered down from there, poisoning the club's blood stream so that failure has no consequences and players just don't care.

And I hate to say it, but a section of the fan base feed this poison. The section who looks in the mirror and sees us still as an irrelevant mid table 90s team, and comes away reminding the rest of us how lucky we are that we have an average league finish of 8th over 26 years.

The same poison was there before that City game, and I see it now in the excitement some fans are showing to go to more games next season because they'll be cheaper.

No. It has to stop.

Stop putting money into the pockets of clowns who use and abuse you. Stop going to games. Stop buying overpriced **** shirts with overpaid **** players on the back. Not a penny more. Stop rewarding failure.

I want an empty stadium until the owners finally get the message and pack up.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

The whole structure is set up to feed a losing mentality.

For ages we've rewarded players with new contracts after a brief run of good games. Bentancur, Spence, Sarr, Bergvall...what have these guys actually accomplished to warrant a 5-6 year contract and pay rise?

We reward mediocrity handsomely. A trend that started when Levy made himself the highest earning chairman in the league despite having won one league cup in two decades. And it filtered down from there, poisoning the club's blood stream so that failure has no consequences and players just don't care.

And I hate to say it, but a section of the fan base feed this poison. The section who looks in the mirror and sees us still as an irrelevant mid table 90s team, and comes away reminding the rest of us how lucky we are that we have an average league finish of 8th over 26 years.

The same poison was there before that City game, and I see it now in the excitement some fans are showing to go to more games next season because they'll be cheaper.

No. It has to stop.

Stop putting money into the pockets of clowns who use and abuse you. Stop going to games. Stop buying overpriced **** shirts with overpaid **** players on the back. Not a penny more. Stop rewarding failure.

I want an empty stadium until the owners finally get the message and pack up.

If anything the issue is how it was an open secret the board had already decided to reroll in the summer by November yet thought that Frank could still muddle his way through to the end of the season, hence the rather obvious courting of Poch to come back after the World Cup

In the past when we've decided to fudge our way through half a season we've either had 30+ points banked (i.e. when Sherwood replaced Villas-Boas, or either time Mason stepped in), or the season where Pleat nudged Hoddle off the bench because Arnesen was coming in the summer and we wanted a caretaker

The obvious points is that, in all of those examples, a decision was made to clear the decks ahead of time so that the manager who was central to our poor form/morale/whatever was removed and replaced with somebody who at the very least could loosen up the players a bit - but this season we persisted with Frank way too long, as we should have been drawing up a succession plan by November and pulled the trigger after losing to Forest in December

Also has to be said Frank probably is to blame for how it often looked like our team was playing in two matches at once based on what came out about how he would meet with the leadership group daily but other players would go several days without so much as a word, so no wonder there's a disjointedness and players body language being so poor since some players simply had more of an idea what to do than others

 

["Thanks for that Brian"]

The whole structure is set up to feed a losing mentality.

For ages we've rewarded players with new contracts after a brief run of good games. Bentancur, Spence, Sarr, Bergvall...what have these guys actually accomplished to warrant a 5-6 year contract and pay rise?

We reward mediocrity handsomely. A trend that started when Levy made himself the highest earning chairman in the league despite having won one league cup in two decades. And it filtered down from there, poisoning the club's blood stream so that failure has no consequences and players just don't care.

And I hate to say it, but a section of the fan base feed this poison. The section who looks in the mirror and sees us still as an irrelevant mid table 90s team, and comes away reminding the rest of us how lucky we are that we have an average league finish of 8th over 26 years.

The same poison was there before that City game, and I see it now in the excitement some fans are showing to go to more games next season because they'll be cheaper.

No. It has to stop.

Stop putting money into the pockets of clowns who use and abuse you. Stop going to games. Stop buying overpriced **** shirts with overpaid **** players on the back. Not a penny more. Stop rewarding failure.

I want an empty stadium until the owners finally get the message and pack up.

I am amazed at how many people have continued to plough their 'hard eaned' into an enterprise that the owners can't be arsed to run properly.

It's not that we've been lacking in success, it's that the owners ****ing couldn't be bothered to scratch, claw and bite to win games and trophies. It was all too much trouble and would involve bringing in interests that would dilute the enormous profits made by ENIC and interfere with their ability to do exactly what and how they pleased.

Everyone (barring the fans) is rewarded for their mediocrity while the advertising banners proclaim 'The Game is about Glory' and 'To Dare is to Do'...

**** off!

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

Grains of salt at the ready...

One thing I have seen suggested is that Kendall & Shiv are getting all their feedback from those sat in the executive boxes

While that would fit with why there was a very public push for Frank to play more aesthetically pleasing football in spite his system not being set up for it and the squad being ill-prepared to switch to tiki-taka, that does ignore that similar mandates were passed down to Villas-Boas and Nuno so it does need to be answered whether Joe Lewis was still lurking in the boxes in either of those periods

At the very least this does seem to track with being more concerned with a small minority of the paying punter's concerns about aesthetics over actually looking at the pitch and seeing the dysfunction plain to see by our FA Cup match with Villa

 

[KingHotspur]

I am amazed at how many people have continued to plough their 'hard eaned' into an enterprise that the owners can't be arsed to run properly.

It's not that we've been lacking in success, it's that the owners ****ing couldn't be bothered to scratch, claw and bite to win games and trophies. It was all too much trouble and would involve bringing in interests that would dilute the enormous profits made by ENIC and interfere with their ability to do exactly what and how they pleased.

Everyone (barring the fans) is rewarded for their mediocrity while the advertising banners proclaim 'The Game is about Glory' and 'To Dare is to Do'...

**** off!

Exactly that. It’s why I’ve said on numerous occasions I wouldn’t go to Spurs even if tickets were free. The owners don’t care enough imo and as long as the crowds are there’s they won’t change.

 

[KingHotspur]

Going back 20 years and AvB era now @humanbeingincroydon?

Let it go bro

 

[KingHotspur]

hence the rather obvious courting of Poch to come back after the World Cup

Also has to be said Frank probably is to blame for how it often looked like our team was playing in two matches at once based on what came out about how he would meet with the leadership group daily but other players would go several days without so much as a word, so no wonder there's a disjointedness and players body language being so poor since some players simply had more of an idea what to do than others

I don’t think the club wanted Poch. If they did then why go for De Zerbi and give him a 5 year deal even if the threat of relegation was huge?

Frank was sacked two months ago, Spurs weren’t in the relegation zone then and things have got drastically worse since. He’s played his part but not the main culprit and tbh after the winter window, he was let down massively,

 

[KingHotspur]

The board definitely saw Poch as a magic elixir, which also goes a long way to going all-out to sign Gallagher in January because Poch wanted to build his Chelsea team around him

The issue with Frank is that, outside his tactics being figured out way earlier than expected, there was certainly something deeply wrong with squad morale considering how many flare up between players and fans there were over a short space of time. One or two in a season can be expected, as there's always going to be one dickhead in the stands who crosses a line at some point, but we had three or four in a very short space of time between November-January and there's no way every last one of those was down to somebody forgetting they weren't posting on 4chan

No evidence of that. And if Spurs purely signed CG for Poch then the club is in even worse trouble than I feared.

Frank went in mid February, two months later and Spurs haven’t won a league game. Forget about Frank and focus on the now.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

No evidence of that. And if Spurs purely signed CG for Poch then the club is in even worse trouble than I feared.

Frank went in mid February, two months later and Spurs haven’t won a league game. Forget about Frank and focus on the now.

Forget about a large part of the reason squad morale is so bad?

It's been obvious that morale is poor for months and a lot of that does stem from Frank, in terms of results and how obvious it was that there were things going bad behind the scenes, given some players looked terrified of making mistakes so (of course) made mistakes as well as the various flare up with the crowd

The issue there is fixing that is multifaceted: actually winning matches seems like that's all that would be needed, but given how Frank had us winning European games midweek but our momentum reset to 0 in time for kickoff of our league game at the weekend that pins far more of the issue on coaching lacking anyone who could raise confidence either by putting an arm around underperforming players to get their spirits up or anyone who the squad would be deathly afraid of incurring the wrath of, and given the description of Frank and his team being closer to having a substitute teacher in charge than nay variant of Good Cop/Bad Cop that's why confidence has been sapped

This is also why the board needed to sweep the decks sooner, because going into a January window with a manager that they had decided won't be there come July is going to create the thought process of only giving them players they need rather than the players they want as they won't be around for long, which wouldn't be happening if there had been a refresh ahead of the window

Of course, there's a certain irony that if we sacked Frank a day or two later we may have gone straight into negotiations with De Zerbi as he'd left Marseille, instead we were already negotiating with Tudor when De Zerbi was clearing his desk

 

[KingHotspur]

Frank was sacked on 11th February, two months (and more) on, nothing has improved.

Agree the board should have sacked him as soon as they didn’t want him long term but is there any evidence that they were planning to dump in the summer regardless of what happened from Dec-May? Or is that just you assuming?

 

[PowerSpurs]

The whole structure is set up to feed a losing mentality.

For ages we've rewarded players with new contracts after a brief run of good games. Bentancur, Spence, Sarr, Bergvall...what have these guys actually accomplished to warrant a 5-6 year contract and pay rise?

We reward mediocrity handsomely. A trend that started when Levy made himself the highest earning chairman in the league despite having won one league cup in two decades. And it filtered down from there, poisoning the club's blood stream so that failure has no consequences and players just don't care.

And I hate to say it, but a section of the fan base feed this poison. The section who looks in the mirror and sees us still as an irrelevant mid table 90s team, and comes away reminding the rest of us how lucky we are that we have an average league finish of 8th over 26 years.

The same poison was there before that City game, and I see it now in the excitement some fans are showing to go to more games next season because they'll be cheaper.

No. It has to stop.

Stop putting money into the pockets of clowns who use and abuse you. Stop going to games. Stop buying overpriced **** shirts with overpaid **** players on the back. Not a penny more. Stop rewarding failure.

I want an empty stadium until the owners finally get the message and pack up.

Good reasoning but you overlook the crucial point which makes your answer wrong: the only way to get a lasting edge in modern football is to have more money. Everything Levy did was to increase income. He was quite successful at that which is why he was handsomely rewarded. The reason we give players pay rises and longer contracts is to maximise their value. Stopping going to matches just reduces income and makes us less likely to be successful. We need to stop being negative at matches and stop pointless chanting against the owners and support the team.
How do people think getting Levy out has actually helped? Instead we've got people in charge who don't communicate with fans or misleading them with fatuous capital injections which we can't spend on players.

 

[Dier Hard]

We need to stop being negative at matches and stop pointless chanting against the owners and support the team.

We tried that though and got thumped 3-0 by a relegation rival at home.

I‘ve often felt atmosphere plays very little, if at all in regards to a team’s performance. If it did, City would be midtable and Chelsea would already be relegated.

It’s just typical media nonsense when players say “couldn’t have done it without the fans, they were electric”. It’s a point scoring statement to make fans love them.

 

[Citizen Kane.]

Good reasoning but you overlook the crucial point which makes your answer wrong: the only way to get a lasting edge in modern football is to have more money. Everything Levy did was to increase income. He was quite successful at that which is why he was handsomely rewarded. The reason we give players pay rises and longer contracts is to maximise their value. Stopping going to matches just reduces income and makes us less likely to be successful. We need to stop being negative at matches and stop pointless chanting against the owners and support the team.
How do people think getting Levy out has actually helped? Instead we've got people in charge who don't communicate with fans or misleading them with fatuous capital injections which we can't spend on players.

It doesn't increase players' value though, it makes them impossible to sell.

You can give a turd a tuxedo and a horse drawn carriage, it's still a turd.

Apart from Kane, when was the last time we actually cashed in on the unrealised value you refer to?

Kyle Walker?

Anyone else in the past decade?

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

Frank was sacked on 11th February, two months (and more) on, nothing has improved.

Agree the board should have sacked him as soon as they didn’t want him long term but is there any evidence that they were planning to dump in the summer regardless of what happened from Dec-May? Or is that just you assuming?

There was some very open briefing about summer plans, which fits with the board's track record of soft launching sackings several weeks before they pull the trigger

Some of the stuff which came out within a couple of hours of Frank's sacking certainly suggested that the soft launch had already been under way, given Alasdair Gold got the story about Frank only talking with the leadership group daily while other squad members would go days without word from him, while Matt Law got the (surely bollocks) story about Frank talking about Arsenal all the time in team talks pissing off the squad no end

Other examples? Well...
- Poch no longer taking training sessions himself but watching them on monitors came out a couple of weeks before he went
- Mourinho & Sacramento being seen as Bad Cop/Even Worse Cop by the squad was a week or two before he went
- Ramos' ketchup ban definitely got reported close to the end of his run
- Santini refusing to play Carrick as a CM definitely got coverage, though he jumped before he was pushed

 

[vimhawk]

So responsible for Spurs current predicament are the Lewis Kids, Boris Johnson, Frank Arnasen, AvB, Thomas Frank and vocal fans on social media?

But not Levy at all

Indeed. But you are forgetting the metric system, the illuminati, the weather, the beers that fill up from the bottom, the dandy highwayman, skippy the bush kangaroo, trains that don't run on time, rap music, the druids (no one knows what they were doing), soylent green, VW emissions, the weeping angels, legs & co (except Sue of course), the drumming gorilla, Ernie the fastest milkman in the west and any renaissance painters with a shell.