When it comes to a change of manager and “dead wood”, I actually think we’ll be in a better position than we think. We’ve signed loads of players recently, so technically it’s not just all of Poch’s “has been’s”. - there’s plenty of fresh faces. IMO a new coach could get so much more out of this lot. On paper, we’re not that bad. It’s certainly a top 6 squad, at least. I still think that many of the players who have been here for years can still be valuable squad players, even if their game time is limited.
I don’t, I think all players have a use by date (barring a very select and elite few who finish on their terms) and unfortunately for Spurs a number of ours have had there’s yet still remain. Whether it be as first XI or squad players nowadays, too many just aren’t good enough for the aspirations this club has. From an XI perspective especially it’s painful seeing the decline from the team we had back in 2017, the new faces brought in since haven’t improved nor replaced those that have left and so overall I’d say that right now, we have just about a top six squad, not a top six squad at the least. That’s where criticism for Jose comes in because on current form it doesn’t look like we’ll finish top six and the style of football compounds matters too. We’ve also endured too many poor and embarrassing results under him. But ultimately if we end up sacking Jose and bringing Nagelsmann or anyone else for the matter in, yet give them most of this squad to work with, they will likely be sacked 18 or so months from their hire date. I’d be almost certain of it.
Need to win the league need to build a team to win the league...I haven’t seen us do that. ENIC don’t have the balls to take the next step and invest seriously in the squad in order to reap the financial rewards of becoming a trophy winning team.
I wouldn't as it goes...that's why they should be told to go. If players can't be arsed on the pitch cos they don't get on with they manager then they should not be at Spurs. They OWE us maximum effort as a minimum in EVERY game. I go to work and try my hardest every day no matter what. I expect them to do the same. And it ain't happening.
The squad rebuilding / investment should have started in 2017. That was the lost opportunity. That was the time that the club needed to move to the next level on the pitch. Trouble was that the club (Levy / ENIC) were distracted by the new stadium. And they hadn't learned the lessons of 2011/12, when they failed to take the next step up. Don't know whether they thought that somehow the lure of regular CL footie in new WHL would somehow transform a group of players from nearly-men into winners. (Saving £m's) And I guess that you could argue, but for a dodgy penalty 2 minutes into the CL Final it might have worked. (Of course, as Spurs fans we know it wouldn't). I guess that's what gets me. I've been a Spurs fan for 56 years and in that time I think we've had 4 teams (Inc. coaches) that raised any hopes of becoming a title-winning club. 71-73, 81-83, 09/11 and 15-18. And 2 of those are stretching the point.. . All were effectively undermined or left to rot on the shelf. It's such a waste of time, effort & fans emotions!
It did start in 2017: Sanchez, Foyth, and Aurier arrived while we moved out deadwood such as Fazio and N'Jie But don't let the facts get in the way...
Hardly the major step forward... a PSG-offload with baggage, not an improvement on what it replaced and 2 young might-be's. Not exactly the upward movement needed.
On Ndombele? Stupid? Yep. Reckless? Yep. But daring? In the same way as eating a whole, unfilleted blowfish while blindfolded? Maybe....
Let's look at this rebuild that apparently wasn't a rebuild Sanchez - broke our transfer record to sign him, which should satisfy the amBiSHuN crowd, and was clearly seen as a long-term member of the first team in part because he was young and had the attributes Poch looked for in a CB (comfortable playing out of the back, had the pace to allow us to play a higher line) which was also a wise move as we were expecting Toby to leave at that time Aurier - highly sought-after at the time, with him being strongly linked with Arsenal and at least one of the Manc clubs, and played the exact same game as Kyle Walker so would allow continuity down our right flank Foyth - signed as Verts' long-term replacement, with the idea that Verts would partner Sanchez for the first season while Foyth was dripfed into the team via low priority games in the first season before getting a more prominent role in the second and ultimately taking over alongside Sanchez When we sign two players to go straight into our back four and a third who will eventually replace one of the long-term members of our back four that is absolutely the beginning of a rebuild - and the only reason anyone says otherwise has nothing to do with anything that happened at the time and everything to do with hindsight
I think the squad issue stems from the "no transfer windows" in the 2018/19 season which was the made worse by : 1. The injuries of Wanyama and Dembele's decline and 2. not signing a striker while letting Llorente leave. I also think the is a culture in the club (which Pochettino fostered) of "favourites". Some got away with murder such as Rose, Eriksen, Dier, Alderweireld and Dele whereas others where simply ditched such as Trippier, Townsend, Llorente etc. I ain't saying those three should have remained but imho it leads to players believing they are untouchable and breeds arrogance of the worst kind. Rose demonstrated this in the Amazon documentary. And I say this as someone who liked Pochettino. Rose should have been told to go but he's remained for 4 years draining £70k per week out of the club while putting in turgid performances until 18 months ago. (That's a minimum of (£14.5m wasted) plus the loss of any transfer fee. Similar could be said of Dele for the past 2 years. I know I'm in a minority but he has shown more interest in modelling, fashion brands, gaming, social media and being a cock than football in that time. Since the CL final he has played maybe 4 or 5 decent games. He's been on around £100k per week... (£10.5m wasted in wages plus a decreasing transfer fee) Then there's Toby and Dier . Both playing poorly but demanding to leave then getting huge pay rises and still being ****. We panicked and badly managed the situation and have wasted well over £200 million as a result. Selling Rose would have got us £40m back in 2017 and saved £14.5m wages. Selling Dier in 2018 when he went full Billy big bollocks would have got us £50m and saved us £15m in wages . Selling Toby at the same would have done the same. Selling Eriksen when he refused the new contract would have raised around another £15-20m. Selling Dele in 2019 /20 would have raised at least £35-40m and saved around £8-10m in wages. And I ain't being all mouthy after the fact. I have said that they should have been sold at the time. If players are publicly mouthing of about wanting to leave then sell them. This culture has to change imo
fair enough mate. Whilst I agree that there’s definitely some past their sell by date, I still think there’s others who aren’t flourishing under Jose’s style, which makes me think that a Nagelsmann type would help us see a more positive improvement than we may believe. A “miraculous” improvement in attitude could suddenly come about if he was sacked IMO. And what a difference that would make in itself. Time will tell I guess
A lot of this can be attributed to the poor HG balance of our squad meaning we needed to sell to buy, not because we were broke but because having a bunch of unregistered players is a bad look (as demonstrated by Janssen being unregistered for half a season) A large part of this can be put to some poor choices for squad options in the summers of 2015 and 2016, namely N'Jie, N'Koudou and Janssen because between the three of them they set us back £35m coupled with a lot of hassle over the Janssen and N'koudou deals, and they were all bad calls I know I always bring up this comparison, but in the summer where we paid £9.4m for Nkoudou, Dortmund signed Ousmane Dembele for £7m, and is there anybody on earth who considers our choice the better one, up to and including Nkoudou's relatives? And that's the real issue: it took us two years to get GKN out the door (which seemed a miracle in itself, given his loans to Burnley and Monaco were both wastes of time) yet if we signed Dembele he'd either be in our first team right now or have funded an overhaul a season or two ago, while GKN left for half what we paid for him And that's one way to look at it, the other would be what if we looked at HG options to fill squad places, for example Everton signed Dominic Calvert Lewin for £1.5m in 2016 while we paid twelve times that for Janssen, while Connor Wickham would have probably cost us around the same as what we paid for Janssen, and in the latter case given Harry Kane went down with an injury early in the season (so we should sell him, obviously...) Wickham was experienced enough he could have done a job, yet instead Janssen was thrown in at the deep end and his confidence was obliterated in the space of a few short weeks - and, while it's true similar could have happened with Calvert-Lewin, he'd have had a much better ride as he was a low cost prospect from the Championship rather than a costly player from the Eredivisie so the fans would've cut him some slack in much the same way they did when Bobby Zamora was habitually **** for us
The culture you refer to started in the wake of our selling Modric and Bale without adequately replacing them, but also had its roots in selling Carrick and Berbatov to strengthen a PL rival and reached its culmination when Walker pissed off to Citeh. It resulted in a an admirable but ultimately pig-headed determination to only sell key players "on our own terms and never to a rival". The fatal flaw in this plan was that given the level most of those players reached put them out of the financial grasp of all but a dozen teams on the planet, the pledge to "sell players on our own terms and never to a rival" actually by default became "never sell key players full stop". Instead, we held on to some players for far too long until their value plummeted or tied them down undeservedly to bumper new contracts (which ironically only made it even harder to sell them at all), as you have highlighted. A month or so ago I posted a breakdown of our 'transfer cycle' over the past 10-15 years, mapping out the linkage between outgoings and incomings. There is no question about it: our recruitment produced far better results when we happily sold players at the first sign of discontent, even to a rival. It wasn't a popular policy with the fans but ultimately it cleared the changing room of any stink and gave us the funds we would need to make immediate improvements to the side. Carrick out, Berbatov in. Berbatov out, Modric in. Modric out, Lloris and Vertonghen in. The flow was disrupted when we sold Bale and we pretty much lost trust in it from then on.
2015-16 was the last year where I think the club made a number of positive signings. Son, Toby and Trippier all became important players for us in various spells whilst Wimmer proved a half decent option too. N'jie was our only flop that window. Wimmer and Tripps were also sold for very healthy profits, though in hindsight, Tripps probably went for too little at £20m. Then the poor transfers begin: 2016-17: Wanyama, Sissoko, Janssen and Nkdoudou. 2017-18: Sanchez, Gazzaniga, Foyth, Aurier, Llorente and Moura. 2018-19: The club went full ****** and decided they didn't need to strengthen. 2019-20: Ndombele, Lo Celso, Sessegnon, Clarke, Gedon (loan) and Bergwijn. 2020-21: Hojbjerg, Hart, Doherty, Reguilon, Bale (loan), Vinicius (loan) and Rodon. 23 signings in the last five years... How many can we say have not been flops? Very, very few. This is why for me, regardless of who comes in as manager should Jose be sacked soon, we really need to a) get rid of a number of the flops we have at the club and b) sort out our recruitment strategy because it's been far too poor for too long and we've lost a lot of ground because of it.
