Pathetic

I'd have taken top 4 n CL final come the first game of the season I'm not ashamed to admit that.. However its clear this team is now at the end of a cycle not in the middle of one. It needs a massive rebuild and I don't mean the usual suspects to be allowed to leave vorm llorente janssen lamela GKN etc. It's more than that Jan and Toby are both the wrong side of 30. Wanyama and dier can also go after two injury ravaged and poor seasons. Maybe both alli and eriksen. In fairness to alli he has proven that when given a run of games in the no 10 he can produce the goods regularly. Since being deployed at a no8 his goals and form have dried up. Had he played there this season I'd bk him to have scored one of his chances Saturday. Fans turning on Kane are embarrassing though. Suggestions he shouldn't play and not the same player of old wow. Really wow. The big mistake was leaving moura out not the selection of Kane. Both could and should have played. I'd have dropped eriksen... A contract rebel who picks n chooses his games a flat track bully and strolled round since Xmas at goodison. Big name powerful quick additions necessary as we lack pace and legs in centre mid. Doucoure ndombele whoever it maybe. Wan bissaka, pepe jovic to name a few.

 

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm certainly not 'turning on' Kane; I just feel that he's not the player of a couple of years ago, and I don't think it's a co-incidence that his personal loss of form and fitness, and the team's falling away from the heights of 2016/17, have been simultaneous. So far as I'm concerned, the 'transformation' that Pochettino is routinely credited with is largely, perhaps wholly, due to Kane's emergence as a top-class striker, and our two best years in the five-year 'project' were when Kane was the PL Golden Boot holder (wearer?), the past two seasons having seen him hampered by injury, and our aspirations being reduced from semi-serious title contenders to top four hopefuls (only achieved by the skin of our teeth this year).
Nothing would please me more than for Harry Kane 2017 to re-emerge along with thirty-odd PL goals per season, but the examples of goal machines who tailed-off are legion; for every Shearer, there's an Owen, a Fowler, a Torres, for whom the well inexplicably dried-up, and I'm afraid Kane may well be another, though I honestly hope not.

 

No doubt Kane was crucial , a top class goal scorer is priceless but it's certainly unfair on the rest of the team to suggest this was the only reason we were as good as we were . Have you forgotten how good we were defensively .. We were the best in the League for a couple of seasons . For me that's the basis for everything .. We weren't as good last year and were filtering between average and chronic all this season ....

 

Two best full bks in league and alli best goal tally to boot.

 

Not sure where you are getting anything to back up your opinion that the well may have dried up for kane. He scored 17 goals this season at a conversion rate per minute better than Salah who scored the most. Plus in less games he provided more assists than Salah

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/premier-league/top-scorers

 

Totally agree with Benderfisher. Yes, Saturday was a huge disappointment but the team that in the previous two rounds has refused to give up until the final whistle has not suddenly become a bunch of unmotivated

Given the absence of signings we (especially Poch) have massively overachieved. Now let’s see what we can do with a decent budget & world-class facilities.

One is there thought:Our squad has too many north Europeans who aren’t used to playing on a hot June day in Madrid.

 

Lack of signings was self imposed ?
It's not a valid excuse.

 

No it’s not an excuse

Because we don’t need an excuse as to why we got to the champions league final and finished in the top 4, we need a big well done! And now let’s recruit and move onwards

 

In the league we have gone backwards in every stat no matter how you want to dress it up, Points, Position, Goals scored/conceded, Losses etc.
You can kid yourself all you want but the facts remain that we clung to top 4 by the skin of our teeth and was helped massively by the ineptitude of Scum and Utd, we even were overtaken by Chavs who were dreadful for the most part.

Glossing over this like it's some sort of major achievement is being disingenuous to the reality.

Pat's on the back all round because we weren't quite as bad as 2 clubs in major transition?

The CL was a complete anomaly

Played 13
Won 6
Lost 5
Drew 2

Somehow that scraped us through to the final where we then had possibly a once in a lifetime chance of winning it , only to put in the most flattest performance possible synonymous with the majority of our ever regressing, slowing , less imaginative , sloppy , disjointed football.

We have had major fortune this season the likes we don't ever seem to have , considering our world class training facility that delivers more injuries than world class players , a self imposed transfer ban , 13 losses in the league , flat football , a patched up team running on fumes most of the season.

This is not a major success , it was getting away with it.
To find yourself in 4th and a CL final is a lot different from earning it.
There was no over achievement just fortunate external circumstances.

But that 'performance' Saturday was absolutely Pathetic to make out it wasn't and that our 4th place was justified is just delusional.

 

A thoughtful and balanced perspective if I might say so YiddoN.....COYS

 

A couple of things Felon.

Firstly we all know the stats, the losses, the poor 2nd half, but can we stop this constant flagellation, beating ourselves up constantly and beating up everybody who dares to question views that may not align with your own.

Secondly you say "There was no over achievement, just fortunate external circumstances". Really. Turning over Dortmund at Wembley, beating Inter, City, the Moura inspired comeback in Amsterdam. These were great Spurs performances, period.

All of the above are the known. What we don't really know if what real effect the injuries, the Wembley play away, the Stadium sucking much needed funds away from player refreshes, really had on the Club - players, manager, DL. In all my years as a fan, having been born in South Tottenham nearly 72 years ago, I can honestly say that, in my view, this wasn't an under achieving season at all. Given all that has been thrown at them, the Lads Dun Great. COYS.

 

I'm just a few years younger than Bazza, which means that the club's truly great days in the early '60s are only very faint memories, and perhaps not truly remembering or appreciating that success has left me impatient for more before the last of my marbles falls down the drain. Why can't we win anything? Even Arsenal in apparent decline managed three FA Cups, and Chelsea's seemingly permanent managerial crisis produces a trophy every couple of years - what is it with Spurs? Saturday night's performance was for me an embarrassment, not a source of pride, and Ajax and City fans must have been watching in disbelief - how did they lose to an unimaginative, punchless shower like Spurs? I'm totally with Felon - dressing up failure as success will get us nowhere, and some very drastic action (involving the chequebook, Mr Levy) is needed if the 'project' isn't to end with a half-empty billion pound stadium hanging round our necks for the forseeable future.

 

Bazza I've not said it's an under achievement I'm arguing the position it was a massive Over achievement.
This constant little club syndrome that exists in our fan base where we supposedly punch above our weight despite having gone from being credible title contenders to being 20 odd points off the top and scrambling for 4th , this is a very similar model to you know who.

If the fan base continue to dress things up and gloss over things then the club , manager and players get away with sub standard performances.

Are you telling me that other than a handful of performances our actual football has been anything but turgid and error prone?

We've gone backwards period.

If Utd & Scum had such poor seasons (also Chelsea) and we apparently did so well then why was there just a point in it from Scum, 5 in it from Utd and Chavs not only finished above us but Knocked us out the LG cup finished above us and won a European trophy?
What is it they're having a mare but we're doing brilliantly?
We've flirted with being back to square 1 with may I add a 5 year built project settled squad and Manager , while others are in transition.

If this doesn't worry people or have alarm bells ringing then it's almost ignorant bliss.

I'm not knocking some of the better performances , and the drama of comebacks etc that lets be honest were really mostly self inflicted through doing our best to blow great positions or throw games.

But come on Bazza did you really think that that display on Saturday was a team 'going for it' because all I saw was team devoid of any ideas , leadership , desire etc.
And I'd of taken the loss and given credit if they'd put in a performance deserving of such an opportunity but it was as I say Pathetic.

Looking into the 6th year of this project....

Are we serious title contenders?
Do we have a Trophy winning mentality?
Do we have Depth in our squad?
Are we gonna attract next level players?
Does Pochettino have the credentials to move this any further forward?

For me this project nearly did full circle but for a bit of fortune.

 

Saturday night - in truth I don't know what to make of it. Three weeks off didn't help, the early pen didn't help, the wrong starting 11 didn't help, no big players performances didn't help, the lack of subs at the right time didn't help, even the stifling Madrid heat didn't help. We have a team that lacks the fresh faces and fresh legs, for sure. Perhaps it's as one of the earlier messages said, perhaps we're just not good enough. We all know that 2016-17 was the peak for them, we all know that. Now it's time to set aside the habits of a lifetime and invest £100-150m in new blood and weed and feed throughout the squad. We wish.....

 

The thing is Cheshuntboy I too agree we were shite on the night, and were not in all the key CL games up until then. How do you explain that our three worst players were Eriksen, Dele and Kane, and their three best the keeper, Robertson and VvD. It was a bitter pill to swallow, it was there for the taking. Big games need big performances and we had none of them. The papers only show the winners. I don't know why we always finish second best. But my schizo mind also speaks to me and says "Baz would you have settled for top 4 and CL final" and I know the answer to that. We're still Spursy, but we still love them all. COYS.

 

What's a final if you don't win though?

Some sort of nice try prestige...

Top 4 is basically a minimum requirement of a big club , a domestic Trophy is the minimum requirement of a big club , the Title and CL Trophies are the markers of being a big club.

We managed just the minimum requirement of top 4 that's it.

And the trend is 2nd 3rd 4th.....

 

This is not the first time you've come up with this kind of nonsense . But when it's pointed out to you , you never come back with a reply . You just ignore it and continue with the next one , and the next , regurgitating the same old tripe over and over . I.m.o it really makes it difficult for your opinion to be respected and it's probably time for the ignore button when it comes to you .....

 

That Kane hasn't been scoring as freely in the last eighteen months as he was previously is simple fact, and the one-man demolition jobs that used to be his hallmark have just about vanished - when did he last turn-in a match-winning performance of the type that were ten-a-penny in 2016/17? As for my endlessly-repeated opinions, the posts that I'm usually responding-to rarely stray far from 'Levy/ENIC saved us from 'doing a Leeds', 'Pochettino is the Messiah', 'We're getting better and better' and, above all, 'We're punching above our weight' - if such mindless expressions of blind faith are fine, my statements of dissent will continue to be made, and you're very welcome to ignore them.

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/foot...served-kicking/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

I spose Pirlo doesn't know what he's talking about either

 

We conceded 35 goals in 38 games during the 15/16 season , joint best defence with Man Utd , and if I remember correctly 5 were conceded in the last game against Newcastle when we were flattened after chasing for so long and our goose was cooked ....

We conceded 26 goals the following season , best in the League that year , unbeaten in W.H.L where we only dropped 4 points all season .

All this with a defence containing ,Walker , Rose and Vertonghen , 3 players who weren't deemed good enough by the majority of fans before Poch became manager ..

How has Harry Kane managed to do that , why can't you see this for yourself and if you can then why would you suggest the nonsense you suggested in the opening paragraph ..

There's no doubing what Harry brought to us at the other end of the pitch though .. That's been priceless but every team that has a top quality goal scorer would suffer in a big way if they weren't there . Do you think Zidane would have won 3 European Cups without Ronaldo .. Would Pep have been as successful with Barca without Messi . Would Dalgleish have won a title with Blackburn without Shearer ..

Also this " Pochettino is the Messiah " nonsense is something yourself and others like to throw around at supporters who don't concur with your way of thinking . I don't know of anyone that thinks he's the " Messiah " bar the media sensationalists . He has his faults like everyone else but plenty of us recognise what he's achieved under restrictions no other manager in the top 6 has been under over the last 5 years ...