Was 2018/2019 a season where Spurs played exciting football?

There seems to be a discussion about if:
-Mourinho inherited a team playing exciting football and he has turned that team into what we have seen these past couple of weeks
-Mourinho inherited something else

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Mourinho inherited a reasonable team shorn of confidence by Pochetinos last 6 months and now Mourinho has turned them into the leagues chopping boys and the most unwatchable team in the premiership and I include Norwich in that.I have always been of the assumption that spurs have a tradition of playing attacking football wherever they were in the league.I have seen us relegated and we still played the right way even with not very talented players.How can anybody accept being the first team to not have a shot on goal against Bournemouth in 186 games and there have been some really duff teams in the premiership in that time.I seem to be the only one giving this piece of information any credence.If you are happy with us being defensively solid but no attack then maybe you would accept Alladyce and complete boredom

 

JM inherited an absolute shambles of a team, devoid of all team spirit, ideas, balance and stock piled with bang average (on their best days) players.
It had stagnated so badly that we were being 'entertained' with 40 passes in our own box before 1 of our serial error specialists gave the ball away and immediately put us under pressure.
Bringing excellent and unforgettable displays such as losing 7-2 to Bayern, 0-3 to Brighton and being knocked out of the cup by Colchester.
And who could forget the scintillating entire calendar year without an away win in the league under the progressive, dynamic mastermind with his 6 year built squad that he took from 2nd to 14th in just under 2 n a half years.
If meaningless possession in our own half floats your boat and is what you'd call skilled/entertaining/joy to watch then Poch was the man.

Walker wanted out went, Dembele & Wanyama couldn't run anymore went, Rose/CE/Toby all wanted out, Rose n CE went, Jan looks shattered and wants out, Kane is broken, Alli is broken, we only have 2 incredibly poor full backs 1 for each flank, Winks is considered a first team player, Lamelas contract will see him to his 10th year with us a testimonial for 1 of the worst footballers we've ever had, sissokos running stats are boosted from chasing his 1st touch for 90minutes, the mime artist 'captain' in goal 3years past his best can't kick or catch......

This is just some but not exclusively all the problems with this absolute shower of a squad built in Poch & Levy's image, the Brave new era.

We are looking at years of more mediocrity now because the actual rebuild (not the 1 Poch kind of hinted at sometimes then hid from doing ever) is a mammoth task and needs massive investment focussed fully on what the team actually needs not potential and resale value.

I hope that's made my view point clear under 'other'

 

Well said.

I get your point about having zero shots on goal... anyone who had the misfortune to watch that game would know we created absolutely nothing clear cut. Shots on target can be a misleading stat though so I don't know if it gets that much credit as a metric. The closest you come to scoring without doing so is generally off the woodwork and that is considered 'off target'... conversely a weak attempt straight at the keeper is measured as 'on target'. Total shots is a better metric I would think though that can be misleading too... still the stat you gave epitomises our performance the other day perfectly I would think.

 

Sad but true Felon....all set to pay your 20% Monday.....mmm

 

JM certainly inherited a team that was in need of rejuvenation and confidence.
The squad was unbalanced and in desperate need of two FB’s and a CDM as well as a back up striker.
It also had players whose pace was starting to desert them.
That being said, it’s still a squad full of international level players who are capable of performing better than they had been, with defending as a unit being a key area for improvement.

Did he inherit a top 4 side, absolutely not...did he inherit a side that should be top half of the table then with his coaching changes should become a top 6 side, yes.

That for me is the problem. What he inherited has not been improved in the slightest and in actual fact is playing the worst football in the league now.

There’s also decisions like leaving our best CB on the bench and starting Dier and a complete lack of improvement of any kind for Sanchez, Aurier or CM around defensive positioning. Then to top it off, we now seem to like the long ball which is not only ineffective but terrible to watch.

Harp on about Levy and Poch all you like but the fact is the squad we do have available should be playing better than they are right now so whose to blame for that?

 

The current squad was playing worse under Poch , all the statistics back it up.
The players we have aren't good enough and most seem to have a massive problem.
Needs a proper clear out and start again to shake the hangover.

 

I don’t agree they were playing worse but I do agree with the rest

 

The stats all prove it

 

When Pochettino suggested before the Champions League final that winning that trophy might prompt him to leave the club, it caused some consternation.

And yet he might wish he had left whatever the result of that match, given how this season has unfolded.

It is not much of a stretch to suggest that their form during this calendar year has been that of relegation battlers. In fact, no Premier League side has lost more matches in all competitions than Pochettino's side (18).

With 25 points from their last 24 games, Tottenham have been in relegation-battling form for the last nine months.

Only three ever-present sides have taken fewer points in that time, while under-fire managers Marco Silva and Unai Emery have both taken at least 10 points more.

Spurs last lost more games in a calendar year in 2008, when they suffered 19 defeats during spells under Juande Ramos and Harry Redknapp.

At the heart of it all has been a dismal away record - their last away league win came in January when they scraped an injury-time victory against a Fulham side destined for relegation.

They have also lost more points from winning positions than any other Premier League side this season (12), bringing into question whether the players had the motivation to fight on their manager's behalf.

And, for a club with Champions League aspirations and one now settled into a world-class stadium, it is perhaps this final statistic that sealed Pochettino's fate. Tottenham's tally of 14 points is their lowest after 12 games of a Premier League season in 11 years.

Chairman Daniel Levy said results had been "extremely disappointing". The manager paid the price.

 

Brilliant assessment felon. Bit harsh on lamela think he's a good squad player when fit but that's a side issue. Some folk have seemed to erased from the memory how poor we had become at the end of pochs tenure. I went City start of season and watched the entire game thru my fingers it was embarrassing watching us play from the back and get pressed off the ball. Lloris in particular. Remember Danny ings goal too??
This rot started long before Jose and with a modest investment and full control over the dressing room and transfers I'd back him to get us back into the top 3.
Pep and klopp are undoubtedly a level above the rest. I still think Jose the very top of the next bracket with poch somewhere in the middle of that tier.
Can harp on about tactics, negative tactics all you like but no manager says to his players go out today and whatever you do is "make sure you cannot find another team mates feet as much as you can. Make sure you move the ball backwards and sideways as slow as you can. If you see a team mate in a good position completely ignore that run."...
We have had 3 clean sheets in 5 and conceded 1 v free scoring man utd. Sheff utd aside he's built a platform for the front 4 or 5 to counter with aurier been given no defensive responsibility either. The numbers to attack are there. Aurier makes so many good runs and he's found very easily but attacks constantly break down through his final ball. Under hit or over hit. Who signed him then? If we had TAA in the last 5 games how many assists would he have. How many more goals points wins would we have..
The main issue here is quality.

 

I've been having a look back at our PL record for last season, and the number of snatched late wins (Newcastle, Watford, Brighton and Fulham, within a few weeks of each other, plus the last minute Arsenal penalty miss that ultimately saved our top four spot) are what stand-out for me, along with the usual dearth of good results against the Big Boys.
No one can possible dispute that we were rapidly accelerating towards this season's freefall, but there still seems to be an irrational belief that somehow Pochettino could have turned it round, despite the clear evidence that the seeds were sown under his management, and that the current toxic mood had engulfed the team by the time of our pathetic CL Final surrender to Liverpool.
I'm as disappointed by our play under Mourinho as anyone, but I don't blame him for the state of the club, because he inherited a mess from Pochettino that can't be fixed without far more money than we'll get for Kane and Son, let alone the perennial deadwood like Lamela, and I can't see us getting a CL spot (let alone a serious title challenge) in the next few/several/many years, whoever's the manager. A new owner, on the other hand, might just make all the difference - I can still dream, can't I?

 

Aurier has pretty much the same number of assists in general play as TAA this season has and in fewer games... and with worse forwards. Serge’s problem is not in the final third.

Jose thinks Aurier is one of the best right backs in England and with his guidance can be one of the best in Europe. I’d be surprised if Serge leaves anytime soon.

 

To answer the poll question... which needs a further option or two to be honest.

Spurs were good in the first half of the 2018/19 season... ~2.06 points/game all comps.
Tailed off in the second... ~1.52 points/game... though still capable of the occasional dominant outing.
The 2019/20 season under Pochettino was abysmal both results and performance wise... ~1.29 points/game.
Mourinho has fared better results wise... ~1.48 points/game... though performance still remains low.

We lost Trippier in the offseason and you could say Eriksen as well. Dembele left mid 2018/19. Is the sharp decline from the first half of 18/19 a case of these losses in personnel? Or does it have something to do with the fallout of losing a very winnable Champions League final... a game these players know in all likelihood they will never see again (it destroyed Pochettino that is for sure). Then again maybe it has something to do with the reality TV show that Amazon has been filming this year.

Whatever I'm looking forward to next season... I don't think it can't get much worse.

 

Anyone else feel there was an element of sabotage from Pochettino in the end?

 

His final ball is absolutely woeful. Should have doubled his tally of assists with the amount of opportunity we create for him and is given zero defensive responsibility almost. TAA is expected to get up and down and how the assists come about are irrelevant really.

 

Yes, I could have made a poll with four options instead of the two, in 2018/2019 was the football attractive and a joy to watch:
-almost always
-more often than not
-less often than not
-almost never
but since people are for some reason unwilling, even when provoked, to vote then why bother?

Part of the reason for the few options was to get people to register. As is the people who counts (are counted in the poll ) has made it clear what Spurs-fans what thinks, the unregistered does not count

The vote gave a clear result, 100% of Spurs fans believe that the football hasn't gotten worse since Mourinho took over. Accept it or vote against or maybe even create a poll that shows otherwise.

 

I always had Pochettino down as a sulker, a man-child, who showed his feelings all too clearly when things didn't go his way, but I suppose deliberate undermining of the team isn't out of the question, when you consider how much he had to lose financially if he'd shown the courage and integrity his fans usually credit him with, and walked when the wheels came off last year. It could explain his persistent use of Eriksen and Rose, long after both had made it clear they wanted-out, but it might simply be that he was just not that great a manager (as some of us always thought). Perhaps we'd best leave conspiracy theories alone, before the men in white coats appear.

 

That would have been a good poll... and who knows may have encouraged more of the votes you were seeking. I did at least answer your poll question.

But you know, Spurs not being a 'joy to watch' in 18/19 doesn't equate to the football being no worse this season under Jose. That is flawed logic. The football has been deplorable... and that certainly appears to be the consensus from what I've read here and elsewhere.

 

Why don't you create a better poll?