Matchday discussion

But Burnley and Sheffield Utd win games and our players are currently about the same standard?

Bith those clubs are doing ok because the manager employs a formation and tactics that gets the best out of what they have and exploits their opponents weaknesses

 

Before the lockdown this site was full of opinions for and against Mourinho now apart from a few regulars and the odd guest nobody seems to care to give an opinion either way even the redoubtable spurporter has become becalmed .Surely the absolutely appalling performances must engender some response or has every body become exhausted with the lack of direction and can’t be bothered.Having supported this club through thick and thin for over50 years I am heartbroken to see what is going on at the moment.How has the best striker in England 2years ago now become a shadow who does his best work at centre half.How long before Southgate removes him from the England team.I believe that him and son will want away next transfer window and we are definitely heading back to the relegation haunted years.Still we will have the best facilities in the championship so we should attract the better lower league players.Anybody who thinks this can’t happen is wearing the rose coloured ones

 

This is Pochettinos 6 year built squad , it's full of all the sh!t he acquired with his master (minus most of the quality it had)
A team can only be as good as the sum of its parts and we have at least 10 players that play regularly that shouldn't be anywhere near a so called 'big 6' club.
We can't defend, we don't have any talent/creation in the midfield and Kane n Son look spent.

This whole mess is on Poch the Puppet and Ming the Penniless.

This was so obviously gonna happen when you don't bolster from a strong position to challenge/support what you have.
It's steadily gone downhill since 16/17 and has now gone off a cliff.
All down to negligence from the board, compliance from the manager and the bed wetty happy clappers who supported not buying better players or a 2nd striker etc (you know who you are n you've all gone missing)

 

I am baffled by some of things that you say sometimes? A lot of what you say is bang on yet then you seem to come out with things like everyone is a Poch fan that doesn’t agree with you and are blaming “6 year built” squads for playing like they are at the moment.

1) Poch, like him or not, identified the squad needed re-building 18 months before his departure and wasn’t given the backing.
2) This same squad managed to get to the CL final not too long ago
3) We have more players than just Son and Kane
4) I have never read anyone on here saying that we shouldn’t sign another striker, fb’s, CM’s or CB’s
5) I haven’t read anyone happy clapping about anything so not sure who that’s aimed at

 

Never. Long shots at times were successful. Famous Dele's goal against CP comes to mind or Maison's drive. Eriksen in injury time or close to it was helpful from the distance often.

I don't find this draw particularly telling. Spurs looked like a team that lost Dembele, Eriksen, Son and Dele all at once. Out of Pochettino's front 5 only Kane left. He cannot be successful alone, whilst his new partners haven't established any partnership. Ndobele looks good, but he hardly knows his playmates. Same goes for the rest of front 5 Spurs had against Cherries. If you do not sign anyone for two windows, don't expect any team evolution even if later the new faces are there. Also. Mourinho have never known how to coach the attack, he has been a defencive guru, being neither Pep or Jurgen like. Well, we got clean sheet.

Current Spurs reminds me very much of MU of a few seasons ago, the team that needed a rebuild, but hired Mourinho. They won one domestic cup under him as well as Europa League. I would trade those trophies for Top4 finishes year in and year out.

 

Go back over this site , a few of us I especially got pelters from a load of pretentious how dare you question the regime/Poch/levy.
How enjoying the ride was what should be done, the young team didn't need anything, was only gonna get better under Poch, no players out there that could improve the club, can't buy second strikers to sit on bench etc there'll be plenty that can vouch on this.

 

First job..... get rid of.........
Sanchez, Aurier, Winks, Lamela, Dier, Moura, Foyth, Ndombele & Gedson.

most other teams have better footballers than them.
Players that know when and where to pass the ball. Players who know where they need to be on the pitch and which key areas to run into to effect the play.

We know Levy isn't going to spend money.... so our scouts need to earn their money and find some quality youngsters and/or championship players.
Or we play more of our own youth. They can't be worse than the above.

 

Prospect or past it is our market Felon! **** off Levy! **** off Enic! I'll give Mourinho one season with the players he can persuade to come for **** all wages (in comparison). After all, I know he's been in charge of great players, but no ordinary coach could bring all those ego's together and actually win a shed load. That's more than just having good players. Our lot have had it too cushty for far too long.

 

Pochettino is not completely absolved (he set the tone this season after all) but the overwhelming blame for the squad's decline obviously lies with the chairman. He is the one who painfully negotiates deals and then lets star players walk away for practically nothing. Pochettino was very diplomatic, an exemplary company man, but his frustration with the club's transfer policy was clearly evident numerous times. There is not a manager anywhere that does not wish to buy players... chairmen however are by nature the opposite.

Levy should have realised some time ago that forever attempting to beat the odds in the transfer market is not a sustainable policy. He got fortunate by picking up some good players like Alli and Alderweireld for next to nothing... and then smug for thinking he could do that on a whim. There was definitely some truth to the view that we could not have bought better (with our budget) than what we had a couple of seasons ago... but if you're not going to invest then you damn well better hold onto your own players. Instead he chose not to pay two of our best while another two stars met their premature ends through injury. Levy thought he had all the time but the window is closed now and no doubt much quicker than he anticipated.

Most would still agree though that the current squad is underperforming... win, lose or draw the football has been abject and very difficult to watch. Confidence and form is clearly very low but whether that is the players wishing they were elsewhere or something particular about Jose's management we'll find out soon enough.

 

we don't have many great or even enough good players. Most of ours are bang on average.

 

The past two years included both CL and EPL. The people who ignores one and only remembers one of them are only seeing haf of the picture. The EPL form was really bad for a long time. Getting to the CL final was mostly about luck, I did not see consistent good performances even in CL.

The recruitment under/with Poch was not good enough. The integration of the bought players into the team was too slow. 18 months before his departure was about 12 months too late.

 

I find it strange that people still question Felon because I remember him warning that Pochetino was bringing the club down because he wouldn’t stand up and be counted and his player recruitment was poor..At that time I agreed wholeheartedly with him and we both received Pelters as idiot trouble makers and their were many who came on here to criticise us and said wait and see how wrong you were.Where are you now or can’t you still accept the truth .You know who you are.Ican accept making a mistake and still post as I was all for Mourinho but now accept that I was totally wrong.Lets hear from the Poch lovers and see if you can still justify his tenure

 

I can't help but think back to Wenger.... The team he inherited had steel and determination, he added flair. When they had both steel and flair then they were good. The steel slowly disappeared and they became what they are now.
Man U under Mourinho had steel, then they got OGS who might well have been fired due to a year of poor performances but they stuck with him and one right player coming in appear to have lifted the team.

The team was lacking in both flair and steel, it looked so bad that I feared relegation. Steel appears to have been prioritised over flair. I believe that priority was the right one. Flair without steel get teams relegated.

 

Sorry jesper but this lot don’t have skill or steel and without new players we will be relegation fodder next year.How can you justify a performance when we became the only team that Bournemouth has stopped having a shot on goal in 186 games.what good is steel without a shot on goal.Give me flair any day at least it’s watchable not the rubbish we are now getting

 

But isn’t the point that it’s not about Poch? It’s about JM at the moment? I for one am by no means a Poch lover however I would prefer Poch to JM. I still don’t buy it that the squad we have can’t perform better as a group against any of the teams outside of the top 6.

I also can’t believe that there are people that are not grateful for the time that Poch was with us....we consistently challenged the top 4 and played football that was, generally admired. He did have a dodgy last 12 months but at the same time he was calling out the need for a re-build. Also, how can anyone blame him for player recruitment? As was clearly stated, he was head coach...players were recruited via DoF and Levy.

I’m not criticising anyone’s opinion (and agree with lots being said by everyone on here) but I am saying we should be careful what we wish for because JM has without a doubt proved that reputation or previous experience don’t mean a lot unless it makes a difference on the pitch.

 

Yep, you are right. It should be about JM and the players he has available.

We probably agree that JM has a history of winning, part of winning is about not conceding easily and the other part is about scoring. Defend/attack. When he came then he came to a team that was conceding easily and was bad in attack. Both needed fixing, two things cannot be top priority so of the two then he (probably) gave top priority to improving the defending. That does not (probably) mean that he is not working on improving the attack, it just means that more effort is being put into improving the defending.

The defending and the mentality in the defending has in my opinion improved. Maybe not a lot, and in fact a little less than I wanted but I see some improvements.
The attacking....
On the right side then Trippier used to be a good weapon, he's gone. Other than him then it is a long time since I remember good attacking players on the right side. Aurier has more assists than I expected, maybe less than would be liked but still.
On the left side then Rose is gone and I don't even consider him to be more than an acceptable loss, someone who could be replaced without it being a worldclass player. Davies can cross but it seems that the instructions are to use the right side for attacking. Son is a winger like Sane or Salah, finishing is his strength rather than crossing.
Centrally then I believe that there are too many players competing for the same spot. Ndombele is probably the best midfielder at Tottenham for attacking.

JM has his style of man-management. It is not suited for all but no style is suited for all people. Saying to someone that he's great improves some.
Saying to someone that he needs to improve does improve some.
JM might be the type who more often tells people they need to improve rather than telling them that they are great. Ndombele needed to improve and was publicly told he needed to improve. I do not know what else was said or done before and after. Time will tell if he'll be destroyed or if he'll become one of the greats.

The recruitment strategy and the impact of the manager....
Possibly players were bought without asking the manager: "If I buy this player will you play him?"
Possibly that question was asked and the previous manager didn't say "No do not buy him because he is not good enough to play" until we had the year without signings. After that year then possibly there was an ultimatum from the manager and big money was spent and possibly that money was spent too late and possibly could have been spent better. I am just guessing, I have no idea and no way of knowing what happened.

Next transfer window then I'd like to see transfers in and the players coming in and starting matches. JM has had one transfer window. JM is in my opinion so far doing about as well as can be expected.

 

Agree. Didn't make my point very well. I'm saying that Mourinho must be given one whole season to introduce his own type of player, albeit on a minuscule budget, for us to judge him fairly. The point is, although recently he's failed as a coach, he must have something because of his incredible past. I'm a big critic at the moment of our lack of any discernible style of play, but at the end of the day, when players cross the white line, they have to accept much of the responsibility.

 

I just don't think JM will be backed in the transfer market... in terms of the players he will want to buy. On the money they will want.
He will want world class players that DL will not stump up the money for.

We will be in the market battling for signings with the clubs between 8th and 17th rather than between 1st and 7th.

So Mourinho will have to sell..... and in my opinion we have a lot of dross we should try and get rid of.

I wouild be fine with going young and building rather than signing players like NDumb for £50m+ who aren't fit the lace up the boots of our great players from the past.

 

That is a valid point, IMO. It is the season to forget. I disagree Spurs players are below EPL average. SHU are, see where they got at. We can do much better with available material. We simply do not yet have a team.

 

If you preach a counter attacking football, no wingers are needed to be an extraordinary. You hit through center, going directly behind the opposition CBs. No crosses, no headers needed, really. All that important is an ability to send the ball pass the keeper on target.
Current rules are bad for such method, since the ramifications of tripping the counter-attacker are really weak currently. Yellow card is not enough to deter that way of playing, so attacking teams have an unfair advantage. Straight red cards could fix those cynical fouls rather quickly, but I do not expect that any time soon to happen.