Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Brighton & Hove Albion

Oh yes, believe me, I know this feeling all too well. My motivation dipped off a cliff even when I spoke frankly with my ex-boss about how things needed refreshing and how he wasn't being proactive enough. He told me he took on board what I'd said, did nothing and so I eventually left. When you put it like this, I guess I do have a lot more sympathy.

In that case, where do you stand on Pochettino's future?

 

Of course anyone who ignores how ENIC do things is in obvious denial. Their limits filter through to every aspect of the club without a doubt.

 

Bayern losing at home with 20 minutes to go. Laughable isn't it?

 

Not giving this as an excuse by any means as there are serious issues to address at our club currently, but we shouldn't underestimate the mental affect of seeing a teammate suffer a terrible injury on the pitch.
That rarely improves a teams performance in the best of circumstances, but with our confidence so low to start with it was almost inevitably going to lead to a half-assed game.

 

We are at the beginning of a rebuild, that is plain for all to see, the problem is, more of said rebuild should have been done over the last few windows.

Levy took his eye off the ball and let the squad stagnate, and this is the painful consequences of that mis management.

Changing the manager is not the answer long term, it may provide a short term fix but eventually the same will happen as did with Ole at United.

It has become clear the season is all but a write off and we should now be identifying 5 or 6 new players for January and next summer. The work should be ongoing to bring replacement players in with as little fuss as possible.

Personally, I`d rather the owners handed the reins to somebody with proper ambition, Enic are the root cause of all our problems with their penny pinching ways and refusal to go the extra mile. One paltry League Cup win in almost 20 years under their watch, pathetic.

 

As things stand right now, the squad can essentially be divided into three groups

Players who actually look like they care
Moussa Sissoko
Harry Winks
Tanguy Ndombele
Erik Lamela
Harry Kane
Son Heung-min
Lucas Moura
Serge Aurier, for all his brainfarts, and how sad is that?

Players who look like they can't be arsed
Christian Eriksen
Danny Rose
Victor Wanyama
Jan Vertonghen & Toby Alderweireld are also rapidly joining this group

Players who the jury is currently out on
Davinson Sanchez
Juan Foyth
Dele Alli
Eric Dier
Ben Davies
Oliver Skipp
Kyle Walker-Peters
Giovani Lo Celso*
Ryan Sessegnon*

When the majority of players who look like they can't be arsed happen to make up 2/3 of our starting back line, that is a problem as all it takes is one player not putting in the effort to cover their man and the work of the rest of the team is rapidly undone, which has been a specialty of Danny Rose this season, just as it was with Trippier last season - and that's the issue, because last season it was just Trippier who would fatally undermine the team at the worst times, but now we're seeing games where at least two of the back four are having a competition to show how little they can be bothered to do their job every game

It's also damning that the main reason the jury is out on so many players is less because of form and more because they're injured so there isn't enough data to go on

 

Jenas

"If they (the Tottenham board) had listened to him, they wouldn’t be in this position now. I’ve seen this at Tottenham before, it stinks of that at the minute.”

Since we are always told we don’t know what’s happening but are just speculating, here’s a bloke who’s played for us and been in the middle of ENIC’s house of cards

 

So which owner should come in? The only club who has actually improved their position more than Spurs under ENIC is Man City. And they were basically given their stadium.
Our previous owners thought that WHL was about the right size for our stadium. That was a lack of ambition. The ten years before ENIC gave us a mountain to climb. Now it's a failure to get right to the summit.

 

Somehow we may have some good news


Now all we have to hope for is that none of the Reddit/Twitter crowd start making ludicrous suggestions for our formation

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...well ****

 

I would've thought that you were mad if you'd have said this to me at the start of the calendar year, but I think he's done.
258 days without beating an English club away from home is relegation material. We've lost something like 15 games in that time, too.
His heart doesn't seem to be in it and the players aren't performing for him. I don't see how he can change that.

 

Glad we sacked you, you ****

 

Can we sack him again? ****er.

 

Anybody who does not neglect our squad for 18 months and leave our excellent coach with a mish mash squad containing contract rebels, transfer listed players, players not up to it and loose cannons like Serge Aurier.

 

Everton's owners would tick all those boxes. Spent loads several seasons in a row. Perhaps it isn't as easy as you think....

 

The problem I find with this though is that we have reached five finals under ENIC, one of them being the biggest final in club football. Not to mention two failed title challenges.

Our team unfortunately has some mental block in big games, it doesn't matter who the manager or players are, we just buckle. Call it bottling, call it Spursy, call it unlucky or call it whatever, the team has been good enough to win all of those finals but ultimately we haven't. Is that really ENIC's fault? I don't think so. If we'd have won all those finals; four LCs and CL in 19 years would be seen as a pretty fantastic return for a club like us in my opinion, especially as for about 13 or the 19 seasons we've also been able to watch us in European competition.

I'm not saying ENIC are perfect but I really don't see too many clubs that are better run and have improved like we have. Realistically only FSG at Pool have done better than ENIC, although they haven't also been trying to build and pay for a new stadium like us. The only other clubs who've experienced significantly better improvements are City and Chelsea but if I'm being brutally honest, if anyone wants that type of ownership you may as well buy a Spurs shirt with "Plastic 1" printed on the back.

I think, as one or two have mentioned on here before, we need a DOF to take a lot of the footballing decisions off of Levy's shoulders and allow him to continue building this club's brand. Though from what I understand, Poch doesn't want one, so what can we do?

 

Latest Mick has called up Connolly.

 

Wow...just...****ing wow

 

I used to think he was just a self promoting twat of a failed manager who is a **** pundit...but have obviously missed his abilities in the odious prick department

 

He needs - and deserves - time. I do not and will not view sacking him as a solution to this mess. The same group of players will still want to leave, still be ageing just as rapidly, or still just won't be good enough. It doesn't matter who is in charge come the January window, this team needs major, major surgery. And that isn't Poch's fault. It is Levy's for allowing the stadium build to overwhelm us at every executive level. We could bring in Allegri tomorrow and we'd still need to get rid of Wanyama, Toby, Rose, Jan and Aurier in the immediate future. And then he'd face an uphill task getting Dele, Eriksen and Dier to up their games, commit to the club and find their form of old. And then he'd have to address the issue of a shedload of inexperienced youngsters who just haven't gained nearly enough game time to cope with the level we need. Foyth, KWP, Skipp, Marsh and Tanganga. And then add to this the growing possibility that the likes of Kane and Son won't put up with this **** for much longer. And so in the space of 8 months, we could well be facing a scenario that would scare Dante ****less, one too complicated for any manager to solve.

There is only one reliable solution to this. And it is going to hurt ENIC right in the wallet, but this is a problem almost entirely of their own making so tough ****. Across Jan and next summer's windows, we can expect barely £50m from player sales. We will need a gross spend of circa £200m to put this right. That is the cold harsh truth. ENIC have 5 possible paths ahead of them. Three of them could cause an uprising to match what Arsenal saw in Wenger's last days:
1) Sack Poch, replace with who-knows, don't invest, hope for the best. War.
2) Keep Poch, raise funds by selling Kane or Son. War.
3) Sack Poch, replace with who-knows, force who-knows to raise funds by selling Kane or Son. War.
4) Sack Poch, back the replacement heavily in the market. Bittersweet.
5) Keep Poch. Back him heavily in the market, making funds available for any target he identifies as priority.

Surely scenario 5 is the best and least risky of the lot? Sure, it'll mean enduring this nonsense for another 3 months minimum, but so what? What else is there to do?

And as i keep mentioning over and over, until I see the following team playing together - even once - I am reserving judgement:

Hugo
Foyth Dave Jan Davies
Sissoko Tanguy
Son Lo celso Sess
Kane

Come the other side of the int'l break, we'll have 8-9 of the 10 outfield players available. Time to roll that dice and actually begin the rebuilding process by starting some different fecking players.

 

OS has confirmed that Hugo dislocated his elbow. That's probably the end of the season for him tbh.