Yes Harry brought Ade to the club. And got some very good performances and plenty of goals out of him. I don't need to watch a YouTube video of Pav - I remember him well. A bitoif a donkey but he did score some good goals. Not in Ade's league when it comes to footballing quality. To bash Harry for not getting the best out of Pav?! Seriously - the guy just wasn't that good.
Um, Pav was 'super'. Highlights, extended, full game, English comms, 720p, BBC and Sky and BT suck: http://www.fullmatchesandshows.com/2015/08/15/tottenham-hotspur-vs-stoke-city-highlights-full-match/
Theoretical scenario Lenny: Harry stays on as manager for 12-13 season. Ledley retires due to injury, and Modric and VDV leave the club due to pressures beyond even Harry's man management skills to overcome. Now what? Because we lack the pull and cash to attract equal quality replacements, he is given Dembele in place of Modric, Vertonghen in place of Ledley, and Dempsey or Siggy in place of VDV. I mean honestly and no disrespect to those players but mentioning them in the same sentence as three greats of the game is just laughable. So Harry starts the 12-13 season with a Gareth Bale plaster covering three wounds in the shape of Ledley, Luka and Rafa with the replacement plasters all proving to be the ones made for children with balloons on the cover. What now? Imho, what now is that we're basically back to where we were under BMJ - a squad that cannot have a hope in hell of finishing top 4, but with one world class player who may just drag us there single handedly. It very nearly happened under AVB and probably very nearly would've happened under Harry. Don't get me wrong as I really didn't want Harry to get the sack. But at the same time I genuinely think he'd taken us as far as he could. Look at that disastrous run at the end of the season when key players picked up injures and decisions like playing Luka as a left winger exposed us for what we are and will be until the stadium is built; a decent squad that isn't quite good enough to break into the elite and essentially relies on the brilliance of one or two players to drag it to higher terrain. I see no difference now to what we were then, only that those 'one or two players' were once in a generation players who all happened to peak at the same time under the same manager and far better than the 'one or two players' we have now in Kane, Eriksen and Lloris. It beggars belief to argue that MP wouldn't be doing better with those players in his charge. The massive mistake was Levy thinking deludedly that it would be possible to take us higher than the Heights that Harry had reached. Forget AVB for a second - not a manager alive could've got that 12-13 team higher than the 4th place achieved the previous season. I dislike Levy for many reasons; but what is clear is that the most crucial thing for us at the moment is to stay 'thereabouts' within touching distance of the Sky 5 until the stadium is finished and we can push on without all the delusion to higher ground. As long as MP can do this, and provide exciting football along the way with respectable cup and Euro runs, I really don't see what else the man can do.
Ways to find out the Spurs result: i.) Watch the game ii.) Read the results iii.) Log into Not606 to see if the usual suspects have crawled out of the woodwork to have several dozen pops as per usual
I think that the range of opinions on here is pretty broad and I understand the flack that's being chucked around at the moment. Our start's been far from perfect, even though we're actually a point ahead of last season's identical fixtures (Man U A, Stoke H), which we lost. The result yesterday was very frustrating, despite the opening hour being incredibly comfortable. The disagreement about what lead to it has to be expected, as I think that the club's got quite a few things wrong at the start of this campaign. We need a win. Yesterday should've been it.
I'm disappointed because, apart from shirt numbers, it's exactly the same team as last year. Not even a superstar player is going to change the way we play (and crumble). Same old Spurs is getting tedious.
Cheers TCM. I too have my frustrations with MP, but sometimes I think that we fans get a bit carried away with ourselves and have unrealistic expectations for the club. The irony is that Levy apparently shares those expectations; an irony which has in turn led to those expectations becoming increasingly impossible to achieve
When I go to the Lane, I would quite like to be entertained by what I see. I don't think this is an unreasonable hope. Unfortunately, apart from about 3 or 4 occasions at the most, I have not been sufficiently entertained by our current managers tactics and style of play and I am quite comfortable about posting those sentiments on here. To use other posters words, this does not make me " way too negative" nor does it make me "coming out of the woodwork to have a pop". It is me being honest in my appraisal of this current unsatisfactory situation. Pochettino is not the right fit for this club, his set up is too rigid and any manager who fails to get the best out of the talent at his disposal will always be open to criticism. His style of play bores me and in my view he is another AVB who is content to suck the lifeblood out of a game of football in order to avoid defeat which seems to be his main intent.
As far as I am concerned CK has pretty much provided the definitive answer, I can't say I wasn't sorry to see Harry go because frankly I had had enough of his all encompassing ego, but apart from that CK pretty much spells out the reality of the Spurs situation. To use the game yesterday to hammer the team and the coach is in many ways an arrogance that we are ill placed to have. We drew the game as much because Stoke made things happen as any failings on Spurs part. Stoke are not some championship level side lucky to be in the premiership they are a fully fledged PL side with an experienced manager who on their day can beat anyone in the league. Some credit should be given to Ireland for a fantastic effort, he is a talented player who has been mistreated IMO at a couple of the clubs he has played for, yesterday he showed the quality that we should have seen more often over recent seasons. This is not some computer generated game it's reality with real humans, our level is largely dictated by finance (sadly) but it's still a high level with always the chance of a breakthrough and when the new stadium comes into use a new level may then be reached, until then enjoy the games, that's what it's all about is it not!
Plus some of us have had the same opinion from day one and there are some fans that don't watch the game yet still offer their views. Some of the **** I read regarding Redknapp is simply that, but they are entitled to offer them views.
I only saw the highlights, but it was suggested in a report I read that we worked our arses off in the first half. Closed Stoke down, harassed and harried them - dominated the game and were 2-0 ahead. And it could and should have been more. The report went on to say that we just seemed to run out of steam after about an hour. Yes, there were a couple of substitutions but the suggestion was that we had put so much into the first hour, that we had nothing left.
It's semantics though OS. It boils down to: are we playing at a lower level of quality because the manager is cut from a poorer cloth, or the players? I, and many others argue that it is the former. i.e. if MP's squad contained the likes of Bale, Modric, VDV and Ledley he'd have us playing the same flowing football as Harry. But due to the size and relative pull of our club the inevitable reality is that not a manger on earth short of SAF or Guardiola would've convinced Luka and Bale to stay. And again, due to the size and relative pull of the club, we never stood a hope of bringing in actual like-for-like replacements for those players because, as I highlighted in a previous post, we simply cannot afford the fees, wages or promise of trophies. As such, we are now left with a lower-grade of match winners and game changers in Harry, Hugo and Eriksen, and are consequently playing a lower grade of football. You, and equally as many others argue that it is the latter; that MP's set up isn't allowing us to maximise this squad's potential and that, as such, we are playing a lower quality game. Both sides are equally as logical but bloody hell what a debate! This is why I joined this site. As far as I'm concerned, there is no point moaning about who we do or don't bring in during the transfer window as we're only ever going to stumble upon an actual improvement to what we have through sheer luck or astute and discreet scouting. I like using the Joao Moutinho debacle as an example of this: we were quoted and exorbitant price for a player who basically had the pick of many big teams across Europe...and he has never and will never be as good as Luka Modric! What angers me beyond words is when we bring the players in. Our dallying and faffing every single transfer window is absolutely inexcusable and laughable. Granted, we won't get much better than the Dembele's, N'Jie's, Stambouli's of this world...but why the hell bring them in a month into the season to save a couple of quid?!
Lenny I know 100% that fans would have been against Adebayor at first but then walking around proud of the team when it turned out Adebayor was a Fantastic signing and we caught up with city and Utd. There are some fans on here that I remember calling Redknapp a special manager or praising him for the excitement he brought to the club, but turned against him over the England job, so it's best not to take their views that serious as I remember you said before most don't believe what they are saying when they discuss Redknapp, they simply find ways to have digs while ignoring the good work and the excitement he brought to the club.
Boss there's a world of difference between 'having a dig' and merely pointing out that Harry was very fortunate to inherit the squad when he did. Granted, he did a great job....but he had a superb squad that largely had nothing to do with him. There's every reason to suggest that MP also would've done a great job with those players. Remember - the plaudits he won at Soton were similarly down to him inheriting a very talented team of players beginning to hit their peaks. By the same token, there's every reason to suggest that Harry would struggle with the current squad. First and foremost because it is far too young and inexperienced to be told 'get out there and express yourself'. So much of football, both on the pitch and off the pitch, is about being in the right place at the right time, nothing more.
You answered your own question there. By the end of this window we'll have (hopefully) brought in 6 players total (assuming 2 more in by the end). From the gossip I've read, we're looking at Berahino for 15m but WBA want 20m+. That's a 5m difference. Apply similar differences to the rest of our signings and you could be looking at 20m extra spent for the same players. The debate is whether that 20m extra is worth the earlier time that they arrive. If it gets us into the CL then obviously it does. However, it wouldn't be nailed on by any means that we would get in had we bought the players in earlier. If we don't get top 4 then that extra 20m looks bad.
I think differences of £5m+ are the exception rather than the norm Moorph. Adebayor (twice), Dembele, N'jie, Parker, Dempsey all came in after the season had kicked off IIRC, and none of them would've been anything near the £5m you're talking about, even taking wage disputes into account as only Adebayor out of that list would've been earning more before he came here. And when we're talking of margins as small as a handful of points between CL and no CL for the majority of seasons in the past 6-7 years I'd say it's worth every penny of the roughly £10m expense per window (based on more realistic margins) to go for it. Yesterday was a case in point: if we'd had a striker to bring on for Kane we probably would've won the game.
Citizen Kane, I read your views earlier and I appreciate you never wanted Redknapp gone and dead against AVB arriving, two views I share and I'm not disagreeing with Redknapp being fortunate to have them players, yet why no mention of the players he signed to help us to top four? Why not discuss the level he had Hudd playing to? or the way he managed Kings injury? Many laughed at signing Crouch but without that lanky genuis we wouldn't have finished top four, not to mention he played his part in that exciting champions league run. So yes Redknapp was lucky to have a talented squad, but there are many positives (down to Redknapp as a manager) that it seems (to me) that some fans prefer to find ways to have digs, rather then praise the guy at all. You're entitled to say Pochettino would do a great job with Redknapps squad and Redknapp would struggle with the current squad, yet that to me is just another way of having a dig at Redknapp, suggesting he can't work with young players but ignoring the fact some of the concerns we have are lack of support for the striker protection for the back four lack of variety in attacks lack of experience no leaders dull football All points, are points that Redknapp would fix, plus don't forget he worked with young players at west ham and took them to 5th, so there are many reasons as to why harry could work with the current squad, but as we know, just opinions and at least it provides a good debate!
I think some of us just fundamentally disagree on what boring football is. The game yesterday was surely entertaining? It was infuriating and there wasn't much quality at times but it was fast paced, with chances and goals at either end. At what point was it boring? Does Pochettino have us playing boring football? Not for me, my criticisms of his teams are that they're not showing enough quality and we frequently veer into the ridiculous when it comes to defending. Generally we just lack character too often. Last season there was one moment that really bothered me and that was when we had a close range freekick and no one was disrupting the wall or trying to block the 'keepers sight. Surely someone should've stepped up and snapped at them to get into place? This season what has bothered me was seeing Lloris after the penalty. The ball was next to him and he just let Arnautovic pick it up and run back to the halfway line. He's our captain and he showed absolutely nothing, he wasn't shouting at our players, or geeing them up, he wasn't trying to frustrate Stoke by stopping them when they want to kick off quickly to build momentum. He just looked defeated. Too often we're seeing this defeated mentality and had we been the ones to go 2-0 down at half time, would we have pulled it back, would our players even believed we could? Yeah we had a run where we were able to comeback from 1-0 down but they haven't showed that fight ever since. I wanted Lloris to be captain but he and others need to start stepping up as no one on the pitch is guiding the team currently, they're all just there for 90 minutes work and that's it. You can criticise Poch's tactics or substitutions but the players were on the pitch. We weren't a man down, we weren't short of players capable of defending out there, there was nothing on paper that indicated we were at risk of a collapse but neither were their 2 goals out of the blue, they'd been coming.The players just didn't sense the danger, they didn't see the pressure building and they didn't do anything to stop it. Someone needs to be out there on the pitch with a voice, organising the team, if we don't have that then we're always going to be at risk of this happening again.
