In the Observer last Sunday there was an article in which fans of each PL team gave their club a score out of ten for the season so far. Our fan gave us 3/10 which was the joint lowest of any score (Leicester were the other one). Really? If you compare us to the three clubs who have the closest budgets (Arsenal, Liverpool and Everton), two of whom have more expensive squads than us, then we are level on points with one and well ahead of the other two. We are also the only club of the three who are still in both the cup competitions they entered. Surely this is closer to 8/10 than 3/10? Various (most?) posters on here claim at least one of these as fact: We have an incompetent chairman who has presided over wasted money on players; Our players are a bunch of dross and there needs to be a massive clear out; Our manager is not up to the job. Let's analyse the facts: Arsenal's squad cost £255m and according to Transfermarkt is now worth £362m. Ours cost £192m and is now worth £234m. Liverpool's cost £264m and is worth £291m. Everton's cost £110m and is worth £148m. So our success in acquiring players who increase in value is second out of these four. And our manager had got them playing in a way that has got more points per pound spent than either Arsenal or Liverpool. As for the Bale money we were supposed to have wasted, Transfermart thinks the seven players we signed for £104m are now worth £90m. The difference is pretty much exactly what their estimated loss is on Soldado which in itself is partly accounted for from his value depreciating with age. I've no idea how Transfermarkt do their valuations but I can't see why they should be biased. So it looks to me that on most measures we are outperforming our nearest rivals and limited only by our budget. I know people have issues with the way we are playing but that seems to me to be inevitable with the new manager and so many new players. But we've got quite a young squad too (If Friedel wasn't in it it would be the youngest in the PL) and it seems to me that the future is bright. I don't think we should expect miracles but steady progress and I really think we are on target for this.
Depends what fan you ask, doesn't it. For him to be so negative you'd assume he was predicting us for guarunteed top 4 at the start of the year but I wouldn't be surprised if he was one of the many predicting ust to finish midtable. It's a weird one, position wise, 7th isn't good, 4 points off 4th is okay, being behind West Ham is awful but being level on points with Arsenal and 5 ahead of Liverpool is really good. I guess you can take your pick on which to focus on to suit how you want to feel about the club. There's also a fairly indifferent performance in the Europa League and a good League Cup run to take into account. I'd score it a 6/10 we're in a decent position considering we've gone through a period of adapting to the new manager's way of playing. If the recent upturn in form and performances isn't a flash in the pan then I expect us to be challenging for trophies and/or 4th come the end of the season.
1. 2010 and all that has raised supporter expectation. Spurs have consolidated to 6th in the PL over the past decade. The club is also 6th highest in terms of turnover and wage bill. Whether our 4-5th place finishes are under/over/expected achievement is difficult to measure. 2. The play over the past 1.5 seasons has not been great (compared to 2009-12) , so the supporters are naturally not going to be happy about that.
Are you really expecting Spurs fans to be positive? Some games all it takes is a couple of misplaced passes and there's people on here wailing and hand-wringing that it's not the same as when Harry Redknapp was in charge...
If we were 10 points clear at the top with 3 games to play there would still be a few moaners among our 'fans'. Some people are just never satisfied.
To be fair from what I've seen of most of the posters on here, many have been realistic with praise, criticism and expectations. There are only, from memory, 3 or 4 who seem to be overly negative and never satisfied even if we win or play well. Most of us believe that top 4 is a possibility, though 5th or 6th is more likely. I don't think that's being unrealistic, regardless of how much we or others spend, ultimately it comes down to the quality of the squad and the coaching staff. Something that should be taken into consideration however, is that Spurs charge a lot of money for tickets (think we're near the top, if not the top of ticket prices in the Prem) and so with that comes a lot of expectation, so you can argue that Spurs only have themselves to blame for the fans who have unrealistic expectations. But with that said, like I said in my first sentence, I haven't seen much unrealistic targets on here bar the odd few.
Good post. This. Most Spurs fans would consider some attractive football and a cup run a decent season i think. Certainly the ones i know off the forum would.
My main gripe is boring football. If you are a Spurs fan you don't expect to win the league (although you hope) but you do expect to be entertained by some decent football. Many of us were worn down by the AVB and his 'plan' and now wonder about Pochettino and his 'plan' Too many plans and not enough free flowing football will cause me and many like me to moan. There are signs that Poch may win me around but not totally convinced yet. As for comparing us to other teams! There are no comparisons, we are SPURS we have our own standards and will continue to expect exciting performances and CUP WINNING!! Where are our CUPS?
I think before the CL we used to give up on the league after about 10 matches and concentrate on the cups so we had a reasonable chance of winning one of them since the standard was more uniform back then. Now being in the CL is the only thing that will transform our club and we've been in with a chance most of the way through most of the last few seasons. So we've downgraded the cups and don't win so many. Perhaps this season we have enough in the squad to cope. And I can put up with a few monotonous one-nil wins if that's what it takes to gets us into the CL and give us a chance of being one of the permanent top four clubs.
I'd echo the sentiments about the level of entertainment and the decline in our identity since Redknapp left. We may not have been challenging for the title during his tenure, but the boring games were few and far between. Some of the stuff that we've seen since has been pretty un-Spurs-ish, even when we've been winning.
You are largely talking about money the key to success in the PL. Getting into the CL every year is worth NO 1 nils IMO, not interested in this means to an end approach. IF we had a realistic chance of winning the league or the CL then fair enough lets be a Leeds or an old Arsenal for a bit BUT we do not have a realistic chance of winning either atm so therefore lets entertain and head for the cups. If we had won a few cups in recent years our stock would be higher and we would attract more players I have never been excited by coming 4th in anything and I am not going to start now on the basis of MONEY!
Definitely, I don't see why we can't win a trophy this season, on paper we should beat Sheff Utd and get to Wembley though I won't for one minute discredit Sheffield as they've gotten this far for a reason and we all know how giant killing in the cups can go. We're always one of the favourites for Europa too, most of the time our main problem lies with the teams that come down from the Champions League. It's bloody tempting! Though the Christmas spirit has put me in a good mood so I'll spare the bust ups... For now
If you take a look at the big picture then here's where we are at Christmas: 1. Capital One Cup Semi-Final 2. Europa League Knockout Stage (although we didn't win our group) 3. 7th in the league - 4 points off 4th and level with Arsenal Looking only at the above, you'd say that this is looking to be a decent season - the squad have withstood the schedule fairly well overall. However, dig a little deeper and the performances aren't there yet (though, granted, they are improving a bit) - given that this is Poch's first season with us (hell, it was just over a year ago that AVB got sacked), I'd say that the manner in which we win a game is even less important than it usually is for us Spur's fans at the moment. I'd rate us 6/10 at the moment - a difficult start to the season with a decent run going at the moment - plus signs that Poch's mentality is yielding positives. It's nice to see Kane breakthrough as well. Definite room for improvement though of course
I don't want the 1-0s to get the fourth place and the resulting money. I want it to get better players so we can keep in the top 4 and attract even better players. It's very hard to win anything when five clubs can spend more than 50% more than we can. When all the clubs had about the same budgets and ours was towards the top if anything it was much easier to win a cup.
By my normal argument, we ought to have a very good chance in the Europa since we've got the second most valuable squad in the competition, the only more expensive one being Liverpool. But the differences are not vast: there are five other clubs with squad values close to ours and since valuation is only a hazy equivalent to quality I think we essentially have a 50:50 chance if we come up against any of those and one is Fiorentina. So we could easily have 4 50:50 ties before we can win it which makes the chances quite low really.
Getting into CL is not about money (for me). It is an aim because I want to see Spurs playing Milan, Inter, Real. It was a real sense of excitement and pride lining up against them - though didn't last long against Real . If we meet them again maybe we should take on Charlie Adam after all?
The older fans compare us to the glory days. The newer ones have been through some extraordinarily bad breaks. I have trouble rating us now because I canât tell whether we are, as I hope, in a long term improving trend. If so, seven or eight. If not, five or six. I would also like to see attractive football, and while itâs been very patchy, the signs are mostly encouraging, and quite possibly very encouraging. If I forget about expectations and past disappointments, what I see is a very talented young team of emerging players that promises to be a lot of fun to follow. So I may as well focus on that.
