OK yesterday was awful a total abomination and the season has ended in a hugely disappointing with just 2 draws from our last 4 matches. But embarrassed? What for qualifying for the champions league? For scoring the most goals in the league and having the best GD? For having the golden boot winner in our team? For having the young player of the year? For finishing ahead of City, United, Chelsea and Liverpool with the youngest team in the league NO I am not embarrassed at all I am proud to be a Spurs fan, days like yesterday happen, we are still learning to be a top team , we have passed many tests this season and failed some too, these are all to be expected as you travel along the learning curve. We need to strengthen the squad with genuine competition for Harry, Deli and Mousa as the absolute minimum requirements. But I am wearing my shirt today with pride we finished 3rd our best ever premier league finish and that will do for now. Agreed it could have been better but maybe this is just the beginning.
Our players have to find that ruthless streak. Or maybe we have to find some new players who do have it! Champions don't take days off, don't take their foot off the pedal. They keep playing, keep pushing to the last minute. That's how they become champions.
Your season petered out when the chance of the title had gone. I don't think any teams are ruthless after their chance has gone. 2nd carries more kudos than 3rd, but it's not the same as battling for the title - or for a CL place. Spurs season effectively ended with the draw at Liverpool. The gap to Leicester was too big then unless they messed up - which they didn't. Bottling it would have been spurning any chance presented to win the title - but no chance was presented. The slump in form is a symptom of disappointment. Arsenal had overcome that diapppointment far sooner and ironically, had greater motivation at the end as a result.
Spot on Luke, psychology is underestimated. I think 80% of the game is psychological. Wether that is how you prepare yourself or how the opposition prepares itself.
We are all disappointed at the way our season ended because we had begun to believe that we could actually win the league. That's how we felt so imagine how our young players felt. It would probably have been easier for our minds if we had been chasing one of the usual top 4 but it was Leicester, who would surely crack once they realised where they were, wouldn't they! If we look at Leicester and Chelsea we can see the two sides of success. One a team of no consequence who would probably be relegated the other a team of champions who had shown they were too good not to win the league. But there is a little matter called 'application' without it you win nothing, with it you can defy the odds. Hopefully with Pochettino's guidance our young team will learn from their losses and come out next season all the stronger for it. A couple of older heads on the field could speed up the process.
Social media is also throwing up rumors, conspiracy theories and good old fashioned punditry analysis! In no particular order - 1. Poch's hard training regime is to blame for the poor end of season form. Our boys were just too knackered (16 points from the last 11 games, it's a Pochettino pattern apparently) 2. The Chelsea players really got to our guys in the run up to the Stamford Bridge game, we lost it completely and have not recovered. 3. Poch goes out for dinner with Fergie. Levy knows and gives his blessing. The players think Poch has clocked off for the season... So they do also. 4. Some of our lads were out on the lash the night before the game. I'm sure there will be some more
Embarrassed about what ?? Losing the club 1.4m odd on the last day of the season ?? I'm sure the club will get over it with the CL / increased sponsor money (no doubt AIA now have a Levy clause triggered with CL participation etc ) next season etc.
Funny how social media aren't telling Man Utd fans to be embarrassed due to their stadium security forgetting to clean up after them...
Why should the fans be embarrassed? We weren't the ones that played badly. Kane and Pochettino looked suitably pissed off and gutted in their post-match interviews. I suspect that they'll be passing that on in the dressing room. That level of performance and application is unacceptable.
So many of my mates and even my Southampton supporting boss asked me how I felt after witnessing an absolute capitulation. I did say that some of the players seemed disinterested, Poch I heard later agreed . Yes we had a lot to play for but a season I did not expect to see , and a change in the guard the Sky 4 is gone. Our season virtually ended when Alli and later Dembele got suspended - 2 key ingredients in our rise this season , and we didn't have the quality to replace them. Do we perhaps have a youngster who is ready to step up and be our next superstar .
Pritchard perhaps. What Dele Alli did this season I thought he might come close to, but injury (England again) stopped that.
Onomah could be a shout, I think the kid looks really good and there's something there that I think has him down as a potential England player in the future. He's got a good footballing brain on him and despite not scoring for the first team yet he does get into good positions, bit of work in training on his finishing and we'll be seeing a top, top player in the making. Sometimes a part of me wrongly tries comparing him to Alli but realistically, Alli is at a level that quite frankly he just shouldn't be at, it's scary how good he is at such a young age and I genuinely feel he's going to be a superstar, I'm talking England's answer to Messi, Ronaldo, Pogba, Suarez etc. I truly believe this kid is destined for greatness and I just hope we cling on to him long enough for him to take us to that next level in which we'll be able to make him realise his aspirations with us.
Time will tell. IMHO one of the good things about the Academy is the happy medium appears to have been found. Specifically the seniors are not so desperate for talent that the rush to prove themselves in a small time window is on, neither is the squad so full of overseas talent etc that it would take an utter injury plague before they got the remotest chance of a senior start. Was Alli playing at MK Dons anywhere near the level and regularity he has this season ?? If so, I am truly astonished that none of the usual suspects got a deal together for him.
Didn't really get to see much of his MK performances but statistically he's not far off what he's done for Spurs this season in that to his final year at MK, which is just astonishing when you consider the leap in class. This season he's had a hand in 19 goals in 33 league matches (10 goals, 9 assists) whereas last season for MK he had a hand in 25 goals in 39 league matches (16 goals, 9 assists). So considering he played 6 more for MK that season and the fact he's missed the last 3 here, he could well have been just 2 or 3 goals/ assists shy of a similar tally he achieved with MK. Unbelievable. From what I can remember, only us and Newcastle were properly linked with him while Liverpool held a slight interest, how the whole planet wasn't bidding for Dele I'll never know. At £5m, that's likely going to represent better value in the future than the £8m we paid for Bale.
Bollocks to what people say we should feel. If supporting a football club was meant to be about non-stop victory then we'd all support Bayern Munich. I've a number of Palace supporting friends. As they tell me, Palace have never won anything. What are you moaning about? They're right too! I hope you will all be cheering on Palace this Saturday? A good friend of mine died last winter. He was a life long Palace fan and was cremated in one of their coffins (yes, you can get them). He owned a tank or two and was famous for attending Wembley in them, painted red and blue, for play-off games and their one shot at glory in 1990. I shall be shouting myself bloody horse on his behalf. Please feel free to join me.
First time he took one to Wembley (1990) he stopped pretty close to the stadium. Okay, straight outside. "You can't park that there!" "It's broken down not parked, Officer." "Well, Bloody fix it!" "Of course, Officer. It needs a part though. I've ordered it." "How long's that going to bloody take, then?" "Should be here when the game's over. See you." "I'll ****ing have it towed!" Cue hysterical laughter. Happy days!
"It was the same impulse that drove the legendary Crystal Palace ‘Tango Man’ – dressed in a pair of pants and painted orange from his shaved head to his feet – to park a brightly painted armoured vehicle outside Wembley stadium before spending the afternoon running round the Palace end, evading stewards during the 1996 Play-off Final." - http://flashbak.com/london-tank-pro...-and-other-sights-to-gladden-the-heart-32552/ My mate's actually 2 seats to the left of Tango Man who accompanied us on the way up there. That's what football is about!
Like Rotherham, Wigan and Burton? It's nt Andrew but Andros by the way. When he's not playing for England or thinking about playing for England, the emphasis is mostly on the "dross."
