What will you have to say if Tottenham win the cup this season, get into the CL, invest heavily in the team in the summer, and challenge for the league next season? I know, wishful thinking, but it's look more of a possibility, all be it distant, by the day. I'm just curious to know. a) At what specific set of circumstances would you be satisfied Levy's performance? b) Who would you rather be the owner/chairman of the club? I think us Tottenham fans love moaning, so much that we are not sure how to not moan. Me included. I think from where we are though, Levy probably has the best chance of achieving success than anybody else I could name. He has gotten us very close, and he's moving in the right direction. To speak of the man like he is the virus that held us back is weird. Nope he is not perfect. He as made some terrible errors, but he is clearly improving.
I'm sorry, but there's no evidence to support this. After the predictable car crash that was the appointment of Mourinho, we had the most laughable managerial search in the history of forever...to be followed by the appointment of Mourinho's less talented tribute act, Nuno. Nobody thought that this was a good idea, probably not even Levy himself, but he went ahead with it and three months into the season, we were employing the fourth coach to enter into a contract to run the team during 2021/22. Yes, since then, the club appointed Conte and had previously appointed Paratici...but neither of these were Levy's preferred options. As Ally Gold made clear a few months ago, Paratici was only appointed when it became clear that Levy wasn't getting Nagelsmann, Flick, Rodgers, etc. and he had no clue what to do next. Also, in June of last year, he ****ed Conte off to the point where the Italian said... “I look for the projects instead and I am ready to stay at home if something is not convincing me. It has to do with vision, honesty and principles." Any 'improvements' have been driven by very short term considerations, accompanied by a good deal of desperation and rumours that Joe Lewis' daughter has significantly shortened his leash and restricted his influence over sporting matters. Such improvements as there have been, will be as dust, if Conte's not backed adequately from here on. If Levy or the club doesn't do that, I expect Levy to resign or be removed as Chairman by the Lewis family. Over the last 5 years, it will have been well earned.
If getting Conte in is not an improvement to you, then we'll agree to disagree. Same with Paratici, getting someone else in to deal with player acquisition on his behalf is a major improvement. Also, cutting loses of players not loved by the manager, big improvement. If Levy and the club do back Conte, which we are already seeing evidence of with Kulusevski and Bentancur, would that not be counted as an improvement? Frankly, I don't care what drives them, as long as they happen. If Levy pulls of a return to the Champions League, a lot of bitter Tottenham fans are not going to know what to do with themselves.
Conversely, what happens if Tottenham do not get into the CL, Conte decides to walk because he doesn't feel like he's getting backed, at this point does Daniel and his entourage get turned upon?
The Conte/Paratici appointments are only improvements IF THEY ARE BACKED. If the summer brings the departure of one or both, we've not moved forward at all. Until the club put up adequate funds to make sense of those appointments, I'm keeping my powder dry and my pitchfork in the shed...but if the squad isn't radically overhauled, at significant cost in wages and transfer fees, we'll soon be looking for our 5th manager in 3 years...and we will have made ourselves an even less attractive proposition than last summer, when numerous managers rightly rejected us.
Football.london are claiming that Conte threatened the players after the Burnley game. If they didn't beat Leeds, then they'd all have to live at the lodge until the Boro match. This doesn't fill me with confidence, as I don't think I've seen any lack of effort from the squad. They also looked knackered at the Riverside and faded badly in the 2nd half.
Shall I set my watch to see when somebody posts that ESPN clip of Poch saying we needed to sign players, which requires the person posting it to hope nobody remembers that Poch turned down Tielemans when Hitchen brought his availability to him...? Same can be said of the AS article that pinned the other night's nonformance entirely on Emerson, you know, the 81st minute sub...
Told you all years back but no one wanted to listen All seriousness even as his biggest critic, I won't solely blame him for the stats listed because there's so many variables involved as to why we've won/ lost games but as I've said a few times (just a few), he stuck out like a sore thumb for years in his early days, a few decent performances seemed to remain stronger in the memories of many than the tens of bad ones. Nowadays though he doesn't really stick out so much because we've now got about 6-7 other players in our team/ squad who are of similar calibre to him. It's why this club's gone from top three, to top four, to top six, to top seven to now fighting to get sixth/ seventh in the last five years. Too many poor players have found their way into this squad and we're suffering for it. More often than not, we seemingly need to rely solely on the brilliance of Kane and Son to get us through matches as well as Lloris keeping the opposition at bay. There's been very few games since the final year or so of Poch where we as a whole team have been brilliant. I'd say probably 10 or less games since the beginning of 2019 have we seen Spurs as a team be great for a full 90 minutes where every player in our shirt has dropped at least a 7 or 8 out of 10 performance. In the prime Poch years we were probably hitting about 15 games a season at least where everyone massively contributed, huge difference and decline. It's gutting to be honest, we used to be such a great team to watch, nowadays it feels like a chore having to go to WHL or put the TV on. I can only hope that Conte does stay in the summer and he and Paratici can bring in more signings like Kulusevski and Bentancur (minus the injuries, please!) and begin to get us back on track, that's also hoping Kane stays too, because if he goes... dread to think what will happen.
I don't want to even begin to imagine selling Kane but honestly if I had full confidence we'd spend the money wisely (which I don't think we will so my point is entirely imaginary), I'd consider doing it. I think he (and we) have come as far as we can together. He is a role model but not a leader and absolutely does not have the winning mentality Conte so desperately craves. Think back to how many times Bale literally carried the team and with one moment of magic turned the course of the game. He was doing it as young as 21 at the San Siro against the best team in Europe and down to 10 men. Kane rarely does that and sadly all too often disappears from view in the truly big games. Casting my mind back to every final or semi-final we've played since he became a regular - don't think he's even scored a goal in any of them iirc. Usually completely anonymous. I say with a heavy heart that this season I feel that the problem is mutual. We are holding him back but in a sense, he is holding us back. So yes, if we could do what Liverpool did when they sold Coutinho and bring in genuine quality and leadership, I'd be open to selling him. I don't see him signing a new contract and as he approaches the wrong side of 30, his value will start to plummet. I'd say the same thing about Son too at a push. Has without question gone as far as he possibly can with us, and us with him. Still has purple patches when he is unplayable followed by runs of games where he is awful and I don't see that changing before he too hits the wrong side of 30 and starts to decline. Like it or not, Kane and Son are to a lesser extent than others still symptomatic of our see-saw form and complete inability to cope with pressure and/or perform in the big games. We need to move on, I just don't think Conte is the man to do it as he isn't a 'project' man and I also don't think whoever oversees recruitment will do more than blow the money on a bunch of players whose surname begins with the letter N.
I think it's quite a huge a disservice to Kane to say that he's not carried us like Bale did in big games, I think there's been plenty of times he's "pulled a Bale". He also managed doing in shorter time too because it took Bale around 4 or so years to begin truly excelling, Kane hit 31 goals in all comps in his first full season as a first team player. Our inability to score goals in finals is a team issue more so than a Kane one, our whole team freezes and Kane is often left isolated with zero service, I don't recall him ever having any legitimate chances supplied to him in the finals that's he's scuppered. If Kane joined City last summer he'd almost certainly have finished top scorer and a league champion this season at the least, just like how Bale won nothing with us then picked up CLs and other trophies when he joined a much better side. Not only do I have no faith in spending his potential fee wisely but I also don't see us being in the same situation as Pool were when selling Coutinho. Kane is focal to everything good in this side, Coutinho was already being outshone by Salah in the first half of the season and they also had Mane, Firmino, Henderson and Robertson in that squad, they were building the foundations of a good team and his influence on Pool was waning in comparison to previous seasons, then in January they got the massively inflated fee from Barca and brought in van Dijk with some of that money, who's been one of the most transformative signings in recent memory. We won't get an inflated fee for Kane as that would be around £250m which is never happening, it's likely to be between £100m-£150m and with that it wouldn't really be enough to truly replace Kane (especially if on the lower end of that valuation), as it isn't just the goals that'd need replacing. When we've sold key players in the past there's still been slight optimism of being able to eventually progress, this time around I don't have that feeling, I honestly think we're royally ****ed the day Kane leaves and the club could be in massive trouble. Not relegation worthy, I'm not going that extreme but I think we could be a bottom half side as there is just a sparse amount of genuine quality in this squad. Based on how good he's been and for how long, I think there's a very strong argument to say Kane's the best player we've had in the Premier League, Modric always held that title for me with Bale a close second but I feel like it's becoming almost impossible to ignore just how exceptional Kane's been. To lose this level of player would be crushing in my opinion and I think club would find it incredibly hard to recover from it.
I think the trouble with Kane is that if you sell him you either have to find a player who can do what he does or find a 20 goal a season striker AND creative player and change the system to accommodate that. He’s obviously a key player for Conte because he’s probably our most creative passer as well as (in theory) our most lethal finisher and he’s shown signs of getting into the box more, rather than dropping off 100% of the time as he’s been guilty of in recent times. He’s a very difficult player to replace given the system Conte wants to use, and the simple reality that players who can be realistically expected to score 20+ Premier league goals a season don’t grow on trees.
I think he's almost impossible to directly replace because there isn't another striker like him in Europe. A playmaker-striker is a seemingly hybrid role that he's made of his own doing. So it would require two very, very good players to do so. I'd actually go as far as saying you need three players to replace him because whilst a high scoring striker and playmaker is obvious, I'd say another general goal scorer is also needed because for about 50% of Kane's seasons he's hit 30+ goals in all comps, so essentially I'd say a second striker is needed, one who ideally grabs the 20+ in the Prem and the other who can chip in in cups and Europe (if we're even in it). There seems a sparse amount of top strikers available too at the moment, Vlahovic has just been snapped up, we have zero chance of Haaland and beyond that all other elite strikers are at clubs better/ bigger than Spurs. It's crazy just how good Kane is and I think like Modric and Bale, the only time the whole world will truly accept it is if he does join a City/ Bayern/ Madrid etc.
Agreed which is why I raised my points in theory only. But Conte showed at both Chelsea and Inter that he can do great things with teams containing plenty of players nowhere near Kane's level of ability, as long as they fit his system and have a winning mentality. He had lots of the former at Inter and lots of the latter at Chelsea, having inherited a squad that despite its divisions was already more than 15 years into a period of almost constant success and contained many genuine leaders. So yes, if I could gaze into a crystal ball and see that with the money made selling Kane we could pick up a 20-goal a season striker and a midfielder with genuine leadership skills and a winning mentality, I'd take the money and run. Simple as that. I would even argue that having a goal machine is nowhere near as important as having a cohesive system and a balanced squad - currently we have the former but lack the latter. Taking Conte's Chelsea as an example again, they beat us comfortably to the title in what was by a country mile our best PL season ever. Here's the rub: Our top 3 scorers (Kane - 29, Alli - 18 and Son - 14) beat theirs by a distance (Costa - 20, Hazard - 16, Pedro - 9). We scored more overall and conceded significantly fewer, yet we still missed out on the title by 7 points. Kane won the golden boot last season. We finished 7th. In his best ever season (30 goals), we finished 3rd.
One thing worth mentioning, which goes over a lot of heads, is this run of form mainly coincides with the Winks/Hojbjerg pivot starting games And the thing with that pairing is that blaming Winks on his own is simply wrong, because the issue with that pivot is both players move the ball in the exact same way, as they both look to play short, quick passes - which more often than not means the ball is either going sideways or to somebody positioned in front of them, as opposed to breaking in front of them. And the issue with this is that both players are both playing the ball in front of opponents instead of through, yet also occupy the middle third and never break through In comparison, neither Skipp nor Bentancur move the ball like this, as Skipp takes the ball forward so not only either draws out or pushes back an opposition midfielder/defender but also allows a second or two more for a teammate to get into a threatening position, while Bentancur is looking to pass from deep to switch the opponents from screening to reacting This is why we don't have similar infographics for the Hojbjerg/Skipp pairing because they compliment one another (and I still maintain a Winks/Skipp pairing could work) which is also why Bentancur/Winks didn't work particularly well, as both were looking to pick the ball up in similar areas so our pivot was routinely dropping deeper than it should have been This also underlines the biggest issue with our midfield pairing: it's effectively Skipp +1 at the moment, which may seem harsh on Bentancur but it's fair to say he needs a little bedding in time, and as Skipp's still out that means we're trying to make a working pivot out of the three +1 players
