So, with PS’s data comments in mind, and what you’re saying here about not being able to compete with certain clubs (which PS has also alluded to, saying we simply just need more money), is it not fair to say that we’re making poor decisions compared to those clubs you mention (Newcastle, villa, Brighton) are at our level? That’s the 6th, 8th and 9th placed teams (respectively) in the league who currently look miles better than us. The worst of those 3 (Brighton) has 10 points more than us, constantly loses players to bigger clubs, and has had a few managerial changes in recent times.
Surely it can’t be down to luck, and, for us, it’s got to be down to recruitment choices which stem from the top? Ange definitely has to take some of the blame, but surely levy has to take most of it? - Brighton are forever finding talent for next to nothing, where as we don’t know whether to sack our manager or buy players in a transfer window.
It’s this sort of thing that absolutely reeks of us not ever having a real plan.
Levy has to take the blame for not strengthening when we were in a position of unexpected strength.
I get that the stadium build was a major distraction, but where PS and I fully agree (a rarity) is that the team we assembled under peak Poch had no business playing for Tottenham Hotspur. When you compare what we spent to assemble that team and then imagine we sold all of them at the end of the 2017 season, the gap between cost and worth would have been utterly ridiculous. We're talking £600-700m profit comfortably.
Levy should have been prescient enough to realise that this minor miracle wouldn't last forever, and moved heaven and earth to give Poch whatever he needed to keep that group fresh and competitive.
We didn't do that. Instead, we failed to invest at all in 2018-19, hang on to players well past their sell by date and allowed others to run their contracts down. And then when Poch was finally given solid money to spend, he got three months to make chapter two work.
Some of us, iirc it was myself, Brian, DH and Spurlock, predicted then what we are seeing now:
Having allowed a good thing to slip through our fingers, the chances of lightning striking twice would be slim to impossible, and our average level of quality would decline steadily.
This was clearly our hope with Ange, that he would be another BMJ/Poch relatively unknown repeat of lightning in a bottle, but it hasn't worked out. In fact he's probably more of a polar opposite to Poch than even Jose or Conte were because of his lack of tactical nous and the fact that the senior players are not responding to his methods. Jose and Conte at the very least got the best out of their best players.
And so now we're stuck in the catch 22 I described above. It can be partly fixed by not making simple mistakes like signing players we don't really need, blatantly overpaying for some players and carrying underwhelming players for years hoping they'll come good. If we stop doing these three things we are at worst on par with Villa, Brighton and Newcastle and our relatively higher wage ceiling and size should (should) give us access to better players than them.
But there is a long and precarious road ahead of us and the margins for error are shrinking every year. There is every chance we could be permanently outflanked by the likes of Villa, Brighton, and Newcastle. Add them to the usual 4/5 teams who almost always finish above us, and we are officially a mid table side.
