Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Everton

[Citizen Kane.]

Mourinho has been successful with big money clubs. I give him credit for managing the pressures and expectations there and achieving what he was employed to do.

He punched above his weight in the CL with Porto and to a lesser extent Inter, which showed he had something more about him.

But it is clear now that he was a spent force at Utd because he was incapable of doing the rebuilding required and only had some success because big money players were able to turn it on often enough in knockout cups to just about prevail.

His tenure at Spurs has shown him incapable of adapting. He is still relying on star players digging him out of a hole rather than building a team. The difference is that he doesn’t have as many stars now and those he has are stifled by the set up he chooses. To succeed at Spurs, he has needed to be the manager he was at Porto- but he’s proved to be too arrogant and stubborn to do that. He must have had man management skills in the past, but there’s not much evidence that he does now.

SAF adapted to keep up the younger managers who challenged him. At the end, even he realised the game had changed and he was too old to keep up. Mourinho won’t face up to that reality.

I'll give him Porto. Not Inter.

Average age of 29. Defenders including Zanetti, Lucio, Maicon (before Bale retired him), Chivu, Samuel and Materazzi. Plus defensive midfielders Cambiasso and Thiago Motta under the mentorship of Patrick Viera. Throw in a couple of world class attackers like Eto'o, Milito and Sneijder and you've got all the ingredients you need for a Mourinho masterclass.

He came in to a group that had already won the title 3 times in a row under Mancini but couldn't make things click in Europe. He fixed that by spending a fortune on the 3 strikers I mentioned above, then he buggered off.

Master of short-term success and long-term decay.

 

[PowerSpurs]

I'll give him Porto. Not Inter.

Average age of 29. Defenders including Zanetti, Lucio, Maicon (before Bale retired him), Chivu, Samuel and Materazzi. Plus defensive midfielders Cambiasso and Thiago Motta under the mentorship of Patrick Viera. Throw in a couple of world class attackers like Eto'o, Milito and Sneijder and you've got all the ingredients you need for a Mourinho masterclass.

He came in to a group that had already won the title 3 times in a row under Mancini but couldn't make things click in Europe. He fixed that by spending a fortune on the 3 strikers I mentioned above, then he buggered off.

Master of short-term success and long-term decay.

Which is presumably why Levy hired him. Win a trophy or two, get Kane and Son locked in and then sack him before he does any real damage.

 

[Citizen Kane.]

Which is presumably why Levy hired him. Win a trophy or two, get Kane and Son locked in and then sack him before he does any real damage.

Then he needs his head checked as we lacked the 3 most important ingredients for a Mourinho casserole:
1) Already successful bar one competition.
2) Open cheque book to sign any missing pieces.
3) World class defensive platform.

There is only one PL team that might have looked at him and that was City, to fix Pep's ongoing inability to win the CL.

 

["Thanks for that Brian"]

Which is presumably why Levy hired him. Win a trophy or two, get Kane and Son locked in and then sack him before he does any real damage.

We gave the bloke a contract that ran across 4 season. FOUR.

We're paying him £15m a season and can't even afford to sack him now he has us playing in consistent relegation form.

He never resigns and in his last 3 jobs, he left on dreadful terms with the majority of the players.

There never was going to be a 'no real damage' ending. It was inevitable that we'd be worse off by hiring him.

Levy hired him because he's a star struck idiot and believed the sweet talk. Mourinho took his pants down in negotiations and now, we're going to get ****ed in the arse with his compensation payments and someone will have try to sort out the mess the pair of them have made of the bed.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

I understand what you are writing...I just happen to fundamentally disagree with it.

What if our preferred candidate(s) are in jobs already and aren't willing to consider committing until the end of this season?

What if they want to see whether our best players want to move after Mourinho's qualified us for EL II?

What if Levy's panicking and we don't know what to do?

Certainty is a lovely thing but not always achievable in times of crisis...and this is a time of crisis.

Clubs bigger or more successful than us have sacked Mourinho mid-season (one club did it twice) and subsequently worried about what to do about replacing him...because he's cancerous. You get him out when he starts becoming destructive, no matter what.

I once again refer you to Marco Rose: he won't be leaving A German Team until the end of the season, but that did not prevent Dortmund having an agreement in place for him to take over at the end of the season since February, so there is no reason whatsoever for us to not be getting a replacement lined up in advance of giving the ubermensch the boot - and it's hardly unheard of at the club, after all it has been widely reported that we were in talks with the ubermensch a good 2-3 weeks before Poch was sacked, just as club officials were accidentally bumping into Juande Ramos several weeks before we removed Jol in the most undignified manner

On the other hand, look at what happened when we sacked Hoddle: after he was sacked it was reported that we were looking to bring in some bloke from Porto who had won the UEFA Cup the previous season, and I vaguely recall headlines about us being linked after Porto knocked Man Utd out of the Champions League, but we didn't make an approach then and we ended up with Santini while the bloke we were looking at wound up at some team from Fulham

Same can be said with Nagelsmann: Bayern are reportedly sniffing around now that Hansi Flick is headed for Die Mannschaft, which wouldn't have been a factor if we sent out feelers to Nagelsmann's representatives as soon as Dynamo Zagreb's third goal went in because if we'd done that we'd either have moved negotiations along a fair deal before Joachim Low announced he'd be stepping down after the Euros or we'd have learned he had no interest and could look elsewhere

This is why we need the replacement in place now, because if we sack the ubermensch and have no plan to replace him things won't magically get better, and I'm going to keep telling you that things won't magically get better until it dawns on you that there's a reason I keep saying this: because they won't, as shorttermism never improves anything

 

[Spurlock]

Wishful thinking that Levy has got his eye on the ball when it comes to on field stuff. It’s laughable to suggest he has the capability and nouse to plan for the summer, in April...he’s not smart enough.

 

["Thanks for that Brian"]

....and I'm going to keep telling you that things won't magically get better until it dawns on you that there's a reason I keep saying this: because they won't, as shorttermism never improves anything

You do it as often as suits you.

If I cease to respond, it's because there's nothing left to say.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

You do it as often as suits you.

If I cease to respond, it's because there's nothing left to say.

It doesn't suit me, though, it suits the club to have a plan in place rather than some short-term move with no thought to anything that happens after handing out the P45

 

[The Huddlefro]

It doesn't suit me, though, it suits the club to have a plan in place rather than some short-term move with no thought to anything that happens after handing out the P45

How do you know they don’t already have a plan in place? Sure it’s nice for the fans to be aware of everything in advance but not so good for everyone in football to be aware of what’s going on behind the scenes.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

How do you know they don’t already have a plan in place? Sure it’s nice for the fans to be aware of everything in advance but not so good for everyone in football to be aware of what’s going on behind the scenes.

The fact that in the space of two weeks the headlines about Nagelsmann have gone from "Nagelsmann has fans in the Spurs hierarchy" to "Bayern want to make Nagelsmann their next coach" is evidence that there certainly isn't a plan in place for him, because if there was Bild would've mentioned that Bayern weren't the only team with designs on him

It does have to be said that Levy being seen in the stands at Goodison indicates that the wheels of sacking the ubermensch could be in motion, the problem being that they should have been as soon as our Europa campaign crashed and burned

 

[bigsmithy9]

It's all such a mess now.Every fan can see it.I wonder if the powers that be at the club see it?What's the answer?New manager?New players?We did that.Hasn't worked for us.New players are either injured or,seemingly,disinterested.Defeats seem to be accepted.I really would like a captain playing in the field not in goal....and a lot of yelling at each other when they screw up.I think the word coming to mind is "passion",for their club,each other,hating to lose! We don't appear to have it at the Lane
My first season watching Spurs was 1953-4 watching a team that had got old together. It seems,at my age,I may leave looking at the same conditions.I much prefer watching the 1953-4 team. This one is suicidal!
Sorry!!!!! Let's hope a Spurs "team" will turn out against City and make us proud for once!!!!

 

[The Huddlefro]

The fact that in the space of two weeks the headlines about Nagelsmann have gone from "Nagelsmann has fans in the Spurs hierarchy" to "Bayern want to make Nagelsmann their next coach" is evidence that there certainly isn't a plan in place for him, because if there was Bild would've mentioned that Bayern weren't the only team with designs on him

It does have to be said that Levy being seen in the stands at Goodison indicates that the wheels of sacking the ubermensch could be in motion, the problem being that they should have been as soon as our Europa campaign crashed and burned

I have no doubt that Levy’s presence is ominous but I don’t read too much into the Nagelsmann stuff - of course he’s going to choose Bayern now the job is available whether we have been talking to him or not.

I’m sure (and I hope) there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes than we know of because putting all our eggs in the Nagelsmann basket when it was always a strong possibility that Low would be leaving Germany this summer and the potential ramifications of that, would be remarkably short sighted, even for us.

 

[humanbeingincroydon]

I have no doubt that Levy’s presence is ominous but I don’t read too much into the Nagelsmann stuff - of course he’s going to choose Bayern now the job is available whether we have been talking to him or not.

I’m sure (and I hope) there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes than we know of because putting all our eggs in the Nagelsmann basket when it was always a strong possibility that Low would be leaving Germany this summer and the potential ramifications of that, would be remarkably short sighted, even for us.

And, right on cue, Bild start reporting that Monster Energy Dusseldorf are more interested in our offer for Nagelsmann than Bayern's for reasons which are obvious

Apparently they never bothered to ask what Nagelsmann wants

It does have to say the club seem to have quietly told some people in the press to prepare the fanbase for the ubermensch's departure lately, when you consider Alasdair Gold's 180 on keeping or sacking in the past couple of weeks or how Dan KP made so much out of when Toby and Aurier did or didn't return from international duty, but realistically there's no need since most of the fanbase on this side of the Atlantic have been prepared since January