Top 4, Good run in the league cups and i believe EUROPA is a real possibility for you lot this season
Fair enough for thinking that, but the day i start hoping to come 3rd loser for the benefit of cash-flow and for the players rather than winning a trophy for some glory for the fans is the day i quit football
which domestic cup competition is now more prestigious than the FA then? Don't say the whatever-its-name-is-Spanish one.
I hate the fact the FA cup has lost some of its sparkle and winning the Europa league doesn't have the same meaning as the uefa cup, its sad the champions league has caused such a divide in how players view certain competitions. Also if we won the FA Cup or Europa League I know the players would be happy, jeez we would be happy if we won a pre season tournament! some of these players get happy if they get added on twitter... (they are easily pleased ), but I'm sure Levy broke our transfer record twice because he wants CL footy, thats our sole ambition, anything else would be deemed as a failure by the club, which makes our defensive mess even more of a shambles.
Ahhh, if Levy was on here i'd bet his success would be CL. I'm not Levy though. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but nobody will convince me that winning a trophy is not better that 4th. Heck, i could get hit by a bus next summer (or any time, i'm really bad at crossing the road but we'll go with next summer as it fits my point) so any chance of any trophy i want Spurs to go for. GLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORY! Thats it. Much less prestigious than FA Oh, and one more point, players come and go, we should all remember that. We might get 4th and lose Bale next summer anyway. But as my work mug shows the honours board remains
We have to be better than 5th this season otherwise we have not progressed. It's reasonable to expect AVB to do better, he has settled in, has some significant new players and the squad knows him now and what he expects. The only mitigating factor he has is the increased competition from the rivals. SO FAR Man U has to recover from the loss of SAF and Moyes has to settle in, as with Man C & Chelsea both with new managers. On the face of it Chelsea should be stronger and look well placed to go for the title. The Manchesters are a little unknown IMO. SO FAR because the window has not played out and nobody has kicked a ball in earnest. At the very least I would hope to see a better all round team performance from Spurs and you have to expect that Paulinho & Soldado will make a difference. When the issues surrounding the defence are settled and Bale puts on the Spurs shirt again we could look like serious contenders. The Spurs sports car has some shiny new extras and a bit of a polish, but we don't want to get smashed in the rear end, and if we lose our super charger the edge will have gone from our performance. Sunshine & showers expected, as always when you put the top down.
Hi Barney, no thanks I'm quite happy with where I've placed the bar I think it's over thirty years since we last won a trophy and finished top 4, so placing the bar too high is liable to lead to disappointment. To me if we finished 6th and won the the Lge Cup that would be progress, if we finished 6th and won the EL that would be major progress. PS I just checked - the last time we won finished top 4 and won a trophy was 1982, in the days of the great Glenn. THIRTY ONE long years ago. So asking us to overturn that milestone/millstone is one hell of a task, and I won't be asking that much from us. I'd love it to happen of course, but all that's happened so far this window, points to us failing to match that 82 side again. (We also got to the lge cup final that season, only to lose it in extra time to Pool, and made the ECWC semi-final before Barcelona kicked us all over the park in an absolutely disgraceful display)
I completely get where you're coming from Spurm. I just can't be bothered to get involved in the "4th or a cup?" discussion again! 4th is very important. It's currently the be all and end all in football. But you've got to win trophies. if you look back at 2012/2013 in 10 years time, we won't be in the records for finishing 5th, 1 point behind arsenal or what ever it was (I've forgotten already). We also wont be mentioned for our tough battles against Lyon and Basel, where we were eventually knocked out the EL. But Swansea will be listed for winning the Carling cup that year. Whilst our recent trophy cabinet is adopting the minimalistic look.
Even while we were still in the hunt for 4th i was jealous of Swansea last season. Although, it couldn't have happened to a better club (other than us) imo
But isn't that what being a Spurs supporter is all about...?! To me success is not necessarily our historical performances - it's about how ENIC and Levy will measure success too. At the very least they will want CL qualification. Anything beyond that would be a bonus. But to allude to others, an FA Cup win is a far more memorable achievement than finishing in the top 4. But for me, I just want to replicate the success Spurs enjoyed when I first started supporting them from the late 1970s. I just want that "feel good" factor from being a Spurs supporter which I briefly felt when Bale scored the hat-trick against Inter Milan!
To grow as a club we have to be in CL next season. Keeping the players that will make us title challengers will depend on it. No cup is very important to me, it's about getting into a position where we are in with a shout of winning the big one (the EPL) and for that we need to offer Paulinho, Vertonghen, Soldado, Sandro, hopefully Bale CL football and the possibility of league honours.
Is that a thing now? Because it bloody well should be. Anyway to those saying we, and the players, won't remember finishing 4th in 10 years time but we'll remember a trophy - I completely agree with you BUT at the same time there is clearly a project underway at this club and, as has been pointed out it has been quite a while since we last finished top 4 and won a trophy and although I'm all in favour of breaking such hoodoos...its a big ask for us. It might be necessary to forgo short-term success for a few years and then (hopefully) let the good times roll! However it can't be forgotten that this year may well be one of huge potential for us, if we keep Bale then we have had relative stability and investment compared to Chelsea, Utd, Arsenal and City (so far at any rate) and there may be more opportunities than ever to make gains in the league at this time. There are many unknowns at the top of the table this year and we need to take advantage of ANY slip-ups from out top 4 rivals. We all want success for Spurs obviously. Winning cups is a great feeling for the players and the fans. But I don't think that winning a cup every 5 years or so is going to help us keep our best players, and to reach further success we have to do that, and attract new top talent to go along with what we can develop ourselves. And in my opinion there is a process to be undertaken, which we are currently in the early stages of, of moving up a level from a so called 'cup team' as we have been in my lifetime to being a team that can challenge for the top league places AND win cups at the same time. In my opinion again Arsenal have become stuck in limbo in this sense - they qualify for the top 4 every season but, barring the League Cup final a couple of years ago haven't really made big waves in a cup competition for a while. We have to avoid this state of affairs as that can limit you to also-rans in terms of silverware. Let me state again that I LOVE WINNING TROPHIES (obviously) and I hate sounding this dismissive of the cups I truly enjoy, but if we want the club to look towards sustained CL football and possibly at wining the league in the future then we may have to lower our expectations in terms of cup runs for a few years because to achieve the long-term aim cup football aspirations have to be put on the back burner when you are talking about a club of our resources.
I will always remember Bale's hat-trick against Inter, the Crouchie goal against Milan (Lennon's brilliant run to set him up), Bale's dismantling of Maicon at WHL, the relief at coming back against Young Boys, lining up against Real Madrid (forget the matches though ) and that theme blasting out at WHL. Also Crouchie's goal against City, Bale scoring with his right foot against Chelsea, surviving an onslaught from Arsenal, Van Persie et al) to make all this possible. So top 4 is priority for me.
