Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Watford

Don't want to lose him over our current **** shows.

We need him

 

I appreciate what you’re saying Spurf, I do. And I’m not calling for Poch’s head right now, but this is painful to watch and I think we’re all at a bit of a loss as to how this will pan out. I don’t see us spending big in Jan and even if we did go after players it’s a difficult window to recruit top quality in. And you’re right that individual mistakes can’t be legislated for in tactics - sometimes your fullback is going to switch off, or your keeper will let one go at the near post. The solution to that is coaching and buying better players, not using a different formation.

Re. tactics and selection though you’re obviously right in so far as there will be a lot going on behind the scenes that we’re not aware of and that Poch & co. have experience playing and coaching professionally that we on here don’t have. ‘Twas ever thus, but we still have to talk about it otherwise forums like this wouldn’t exist!

I’m more going off what we all see. When we see a certain gameplan go wrong you can usually see the potential benefit if it’s executed correctly - playing a high defensive line for example, or pressing, or surrendering possession to play on the counter. We just seem to lack direction and purpose in our play right now and given that we had a pretty identifiable way of playing under Poch to start with, I don’t get why we’ve sunk into this directionless mess so easily.

 

Rose failed to cut out the diagonal ball out wide and Alderweireld failed to cut out the cross before the Watford player tapped in. Poor defensive play from 2 experienced players, but no coincidence both of them are heading out of the club.

 

Sorry for your loss DH - my condolences to your family x

I can understand why fans are frustrated with Poch at the moment (though can't for the life of me fathom why some people think Maureen would be a good replacement), and you are quite right to point out that Poch isn't doing much at all to help his position: confusing and/or downright depressing conferences, persisting with players he has publicly hung out to dry, bizarre selections and seemingly shielding perennial offenders after their latest abysmal performance...all of that riles me too, but...

I don't think it is fair to level the accusation against him that he isn't "cut out for managing a side with experienced players and higher expectations" when he has never been given the resources to do so. If anything, he has over delivered on expectations given the fact that our net spend was zero for 2 years running. What he managed to eke out of last season's squad was a minor miracle - and that is without taking into account the plague of injuries we had to contend with too.

Yes, our players are now experienced. But experienced at what? At being the best of the worst, the also-rans, the Pressure Trophy FC. It has been clear for 2-3 seasons that we needed an injection of real quality into the side. No more than 1 or 2 players. That injection never came. And so now we are left with a bunch of highly experienced failures who clearly and obviously believe themselves to be better than they actually are. Chris Waddle was 100% right the other week when he said this about Eriksen, Alli and Rose.

And the fact that expectations have been rising an an inversely proportionate relationship to investment is just further proof that Poch is the best possible option in the footballing world at the moment.

This mess is almost entirely of ENIC's making. The stadium build and delays meant Levy took his eye off the ball for 2 years and the end result is where we are today. It is now Levy's responsibility and indeed duty to stand by the manager who stood loyal to the 'project' and delivered the most commercially successful era in the club's history at precisely the time when we needed to be financially robust.

I have my doubts that he will do so, but the signs in the summer where generally positive. We massively overpaid for Sessegnon and stood firm to land Tanguy and Gio. All 3 were clearly on Poch's wishlist for years and we made sure he got them. The serious interest shown in Dybala and Bruno at the end of the window indicated that Levy was willing to gamble hugely on us selling Eriksen before the Euro windows closed. Just imagine for a minute if we'd sorted out those image rights in the nick of time...and then not sold Eriksen....we'd be looking at the top 4 players on our manager's wishlist and a net spend of £120m in a single window. If that doesn't show support for the boss, I don't know what does. We were also bending over backwards to move players on, sanctioning some staying behind during the summer tours. That we even picked up the phone to Baldiniwise the Dancing Clown when Roma were offering pocket money for Toby is another indication that we genuinely did everything we could to help Poch this summer, it just didn't work out the way we or he had hoped.

And so I reiterate: patience is of the essence now. We need to dare to do in January and again in the summer. Poch was screwed for 3 windows running, it's time to give him those 3 windows back. If by this time next season we have seen solid investment but little or no improvement in performances, I will join the #pochout bandwagon. But no earlier. And if that investment doesn't manifest itself over the next 2 windows, then by the end of Aug 2020 I will firmly be in the #EnicOut camp.

W

 

He is literally the only player at the club who looks like he gives a **** at the moment. Love him so much.

 

That just sounds like going back to year one of Poch’s reign.

 

I think it's an approach that we need to take regardless, to be honest.
We can't compete with a lot of the clubs around us financially and we got in this position by buying quality youngsters.
We need to get ahead of the game and build an overall plan, though. We're reacting instead of anticipating right now.

 

Was in the North stand...(paxton) and there were no boos around us.
There were digs at Winks from some like I mentioned yesterday though.

 

Cheers mate.

I think the mess is both Poch and ENIC’s fault. As I’ve pointed out a number of times, Levy told the THST members that there was money to spend last season, why that money wasn’t spent is something we can only guess but I don’t agree that Poch was screwed or had his hands tied.

Ultimately I think things have run their course, it feels all too similar now as it did when Jol was manager. Love the guy but appreciate a change is needed - just hopefully if Poch is sacked, it’s not respectfully and not while he’s managing a game!

 

I’m not against signing young players but that shouldn’t be the first priority. If we just sign a bulk of young players then we’ll likely be in this sort of situation again in another 4-5 years.

Financially I think we're bridging a gap. We can’t go to City/ Utd levels but we can certainly pay fees that represent what a big club would pay.

We need to be signing Dybala’s or Fernandes’s and not more Clarke’s in my opinion (nothing against Clarke btw).

 

People finally realising Winks belongs in the Championship?! Yes!!!

Edit:

I’m the opposite end but the boos seemed very loud to me, surprised you didn’t hear any

 

100%.

We would be fools to think that we don't need 2-3 players coming in at the peak of their game in the very near future. One FB flank, CB, AM all need serious investment - not a stab in the dark hoping we sign the next Bale. And even he took 2 years to really get going. We don't have anything like that amount of time to play around with.

 

Good reply

 

As has been said numerous times by now, we hit our limit of non-HG players last summer so needed to offload one before bringing one in, hence Janssen wasn't included in our squad until we moved on Dembele in January

The lack of serious interest in Janssen or GKN, coupled with Dembele picking up an injury so he couldn't be sold in the summer, meant the only course of action available was to focus on HG players...and then we bungled our approach for Grealish something fierce

Similar can be said for this summer: Wanyama and Rose were set to leave, but both baulked at the wages offered (contrary to what the Twitter/Reddit dickheads will claim) so we've got them until we somehow convince Nice that an Aurier/Atal swap deal is a worthwhile option, and something tells me that won't be happening in January...

 

Proves we've got one player who cares!

 

As someone has just mentioned,we have a very good center forward (put on the left wing!) and a small winger (playing center forward) and two full backs that shouldn't be playing at all.Not at the Lane anyway. Who's fault is that,one wonders?
I can remember our team playing 3 games in a week with the same players. Today,the team gets messed about every week.Result? Spurs seem to be strangers to each other. Man C and Liverpool pretty much pick themselves.We wonder what surprises are in store for us on match days!
Are our players so worn out after training they can't finish a game or play two.

 

DH. I honestly hope you are about 60 y.o. at least! and got to have your nan almost forever. I lost mine when I was 9 and I never got a chance to "speak" to her about her life.I did hear later that the poor thing had a very hard life with a hard drinking husband. But I do remember sitting with her by the fire and making her laugh with my silliness......and she always looked after me when I was sick.Wonderful memories and I'm sure you have the same!

 

I cannot for the life of me understand how booing your own players is going to improve their performance especially if their confidence is already low! I have far more time for the fans who sing their hearts out and encourage, especially when we are losing. You would think we were in danger of relegation (which I experienced in the '70s) with all the doom & gloom! Chill out folks, have some patience & tolerance & COYS.

 

Hear, hear!