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Match Thread – A Palace Of A Distraction But Spurs Have To Look To 2020/21

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It’s been a strange old season and it’s been a strange calendar year for Tottenham Hotspur. The highs of the Champions League Final and then the lows of seeing our form and usual performance levels fall through the floor – but Crystal Palace this Sunday is a final chance for some joy before we tick quickly into the 2020/21 season.

What kind of performance we see from Jose Mourinho’s charges is absolutely anyone’s guess, but the first half showing against Leicester City certainly gave some cheer and fans would welcome more of that, but there is also the Europa League question to answer and it will go down to the final day’s results with us currently sat in seventh place in the table and a point behind Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Whatever Sunday may bring, the curtain on 2019/20 comes down and we all know we need to strengthen further in the summer, we need a decent pre-season and we need to hit next year running, otherwise fears that the wheels have truly fallen off the Spurs bus will grow.

We can’t allow all that progress and a nice and bright shiny new stadium to fall away as our Champions League hopes did this season. The only question is, will we?

Until then, Palace and all three points, please!

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  • El Jefe says:

    Now technically all of Toby, Davy, Dier have played at LCB as recently as this season and Tanganga was even used as a LB also so we are not completely desperate for a LCB – but I think it would still make good sense to get one in especially to replace Vert’s long term! Then again we’re being strongly linked with Kim Min-jae and he’s right footed aswell like all the other’s so what do I know lol?! In the last 24 hours there’s been talk of Mings but it looks as if Villa are going to survive so think he’ll end up staying there tbh!

    I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens unfortunately lol!

  • wentworth says:

    Not very optimistic about next season with the present coach and mediocre squad. We need to sell off so many average players. Imho, we only have 3 top class foot ballers who are top 4 players. (Son, Lloris and Kane). We then have a few stalwarts… Toby, Dele and maybe Dier. The rest would not get anywhere near Liverpool, Man C., Man Utd or Chelsea.So we need two top full backs, a strong midfield general, a creative goalscoring midfielder who can pass and shoot with BOTH feet and after years and years a second striker a la Defoe/ Robie Keane. Ideally a young, forward attacking coach to compete with the top teams and provide some entertainment rather than yawns we have had lately.

  • Frank says:

    We need to be in Europe next season, yes the Europa League is a lot of extra games, but a big club needs European football. The problem maybe our lack of competitiveness due to failure to invest in both additional quality and squad depth. Our current league position strongly indicates that if wish to fully compete in the PL, and for any trophy success. we are short in several positions. Our objective has to be to get back into the CL. An impressive stadium is all very well but you need a team to grace it.

    • PompeyYid says:

      Glad to see your back Frank, have missed you, obviously fit and healthy as your post is as normal, keep up the writing mate. COYS

  • wentworth says:

    Welcome back Frank. We need your careful observations and constructive criticisms. We are no longer a top 4 club and have fallen behind with our current dismal performances exacerbated by a coach from yesteryear. Yes we have scrambled a few lucky results thanks to Lloris but it has been awful to watch. I am not prepared to play top dollar to be bored and frustrated at our lack of exciting, attacking play. The teams that win trophies score lots of goals. Sadly we have no youngsters of note and little chance of buying decent players.

    • Frank says:

      One wonders what promises were made to JM with regards to investment when he came, or was he just that desperate to get back, he took the job irrespective. One thing he has got is a ready made excuse if it all goes tits up next season, and without considerable expenditure it may well do. One thing no top club need worry about is FFP if the Man City farce is anything to go by.

  • Frank says:

    Does Ndombele represent the latest in a exhaustive list of high profile very expensive transfer errors. Has he been match fit for more than two consequetive days since he came. I think it might be time to cut our losses on him, and admit our mistake.

  • block 108 spurs says:

    Dier has done ok so far as CB. Pogba & co are awarded most number of penalty kicks in PL, some may allegedly say they are always looking for a dive or con the ref. Bruno’s penalty against villa, and his attempt against Dier are examples.

    Foyth should be given a chance at RB, he can play out from the back, and not reckless like aurier. Yes Foyth has made a couple of errors… but the guy was 19 rs old, so learning the game. Before he came to us he had played as DMF so has dual experience.

  • Niall D says:

    I have to laugh WW and Frank. If our players other than the 3 you mentioned are crap how come 1 is in the top national side as a RCB. And if we need (what?) 8 new first team players where do we get the 70 odd mil for each one that would be a rebuild of 600 Million. Get real both of you. Go and support Man City or Chelsea. For the rest of us in the real world we need a RB, CDM, LCB and back up striker. Feeeek

  • El Jefe says:

    Just reading up that Tanganga should be signing a new contract very soon – great news finally as regards him – been dragging on for month’s now so will be good to finally get him tied up long term properly.

    Also reading that CCV played a blinder at Luton this 2nd half of the season after a poor 1st half at Stoke – good news as should push up his value for the eventual sale this summer one would suspect!

    Amos also played over 30 games for QPR this season so should hopefully put him in good stead for a decent sale this summer aswell!

    ND – we are both 100% agreed as regards those 4 required signings. Personally for me DMC first, then probably RB next, back-up STR 3rd and finally if possible financially a LCB to replace Vert’s also who I assume is leaving next week!

    We cannot neglect these position’s anymore – Dembele and Wanyama left, Dier moved back to CB primarily and Skipp likely to go out on loan as required! KWP and even Aurier likely to go and should do so IMHO and we have already lost Walker and Trippier there recently also! Llorente and Janssen have gone and Parrott likely to go out on loan as required again! Finally Vert’s now highly likely to leave – so we really need to move on all 4 position’s surely!

    B108 -starting to agree on Foyth – still young at 22 and already a full regular international for Argentina at RB – deserves to be given a chance and the roughly £10m we’d get for selling him I reckon we can hopefully do without, indeed by selling for example KWP (roughly £10m) and Aurier (roughly £15m) who are our other RB’s. This would then pave the way to buy in the new RB we all crave on here pretty much both in terms of fee and wages but also space aswell! Tanganga can further pretty comfortably play RB from the looks of things and if we got desperate the likes of Toby, Dier and even Davy and Sissoko could cover there aswell!

    KWP and Aurier are very rigid in position compared to Foyth, Tanganga and Dier who are all very versatile and can play a number of position’s if truly required – Foyth (RB, CB, DMC), Tanganga (CB, RB, LB and maybe even DMC) and Dier (CB, DMC, RB) – this is exactly what any team should want to have and also JM loves from previous experience, even Poch did also!

    Would be nice if we could push another roughly £10m for Rose – after all last summer I think we rejected around £13-15m or so from Watford on deadline day – but we may well have to settle for just £5m as reported widely recently – I’m sure Levy will do his best as usual and that’s all we can ask for ultimately!

    I think KWP, Rose, CCV and Amos should be dead certs to go this summer and I’m happy with that especially as it helps to build the transfer kitty – would also like shot of Aurier myself but not a certainty by any stretch of the imagination at the moment – indeed hope we keep Foyth now instead quite frankly.

    As I’ve been saying regularly these last couple of days or so – let’s wait and see – it should all start unravelling as of Monday!

  • Geofspurs says:

    Frank …. Good to see you back, mate.

  • El Jefe says:

    As regards Rose I sincerely hope we didn’t turn down around £14m as I’ve just read again to now settle for only £5m aswell as having picked up his wages for the 1st half of the season (assuming Newcastle now paying them for the 2nd half of course naturally lol)!

    Dembele went for around £11m despite only being 31 at the time (he was vital for us though through-out his year’s and even played a decent part at the start of the 2018/19 campaign until he got injured in early November in which we picked up quite a few wins/points which ultimately proved crucial at the end of the season helping us cement 4th – so I guess can’t complain too much here especially as with having had a serious enough injury and with only 6 months left on his contract we still got said £11m, him having cost around £15m originally)!

    Wanyama apparently we got nothing for him in February despite last summer there being talk of Club Bruges willing to pay us upto £10-13m for him meaning we’d recoup the £11m we originally paid for him!

    Eriksen was another who we only got around £17m for (fair play he only cost around £11m BUT…..) which is pretty ridiculous given his talent and unlike Dembele he did not perform anywhere near standard for the 1st part of the season and was often left on the bench, etc – should have gone last summer already best case and got us atleast double what he did or maybe more tbh – you just never can be sure of course!

    Trippier was another who we only got around £20m for (again fair play he only cost £3.5m BUT…….) he was a pretty regular full England international and our 1st choice RB (indeed he started the CL final, not Aurier lol) so even after his worst season full of highly publicised mistakes/errors I still think he was allowed to go on the cheap and I know several if not many on here agree with this – indeed we paid £23m for Aurier who was an un-proven in the Prem, whereas a fully proven Prem RB and pretty regular England international going to Atletico Madrid no less we sell for only £20m?!

    Here on all of these – you really have to ask whether Levy’s eye was fully on the ball – perhaps the stadium re-build taking up too much of his bloody time, etc?! Of course you don’t know what goes on behind the scenes but I think we missed out quite heavily on the above myself – hope it does not continue – then again it’s just surpluses pretty much at the moment so how wrong can we really go in selling them?!

    I guess we did OK with regards to the likes of Janssen, NKoudou, etc and got some money back after both proved to be disasterous buys (but again the main point is we still lost heavily on these 2 – selling for much less than half what we paid for them), luckily not many more in the squad anymore – only Aurier for me and possibly Clarke last summer for around £10m (Rose cost only £1m and KWP, CCV and Amos are all academy products so technically with these 4 atleast we can’t lose money lol although as I stated above Rose for £14m is a darn sight better than for only £5m lol)!

    The rest of the squad thankfully are all vital to our needs so I’m relatively happy at the moment and looking forward to what the summer brings finally!

    Anyway mini rant over and I guess one shouldn’t dwell too much on the past but Rose is still part of the present which is what started me off lol!

  • El Jefe says:

    https://hotspurhq.com/2020/07/24/tottenham-pierre-emile-hojbjerg-spurs/

    Excellent read – like I said on the other thread – Southampton fans criticise him because of a lack of creativity and scoring goals, etc but as the article states they look to him to be a DMC but a playmaker also – that’s not at all fair surely lol?!

    For us he’d be exclusively expected to protect the back 4 and pretty much keep it simple for the other attacking players to thrive, etc as a traditional DMC should do – so for me he sounds like a very good signing especially given his tackling prowess all over the middle of the park (all the necessary stats in the article) especially in the last 2 season’s with regards to this specifically, etc indeed he’s been the best at it in the Prem this last season (as I described on the other thread in more detail)!

    Get him in I say – exactly what we need at DMC – end of lol! Could prove to be a bargain even at £25m! No wonder JM supposedly wants him as his main target so far!

  • jod says:

    Why is everyone obsessed with the RB position ? You don’t like Aurier, fine, but we’ve let in two goals in five games so these massive errors aren’t actually happening. If we end up in the europa the left side is actually far more concerning, Ben Davies is the only player we have, unless Jose suddenly decides to play Sessegnon at left back, and he won’t last long if he has to play twice a week continuously.

  • DoncasterHotspur says:

    Well Zaha is really quick so the only solution is to park the bus and hope Palace miss the chances they create. Then we can hope for some brilliance on the counter attack to help us win the game – that is if our forwards don’t get in each others way. Easy this management lark. COYS

  • DoncasterHotspur says:

    Welcome back Frank – good to have you back

  • DoncasterHotspur says:

    In all honesty, it will be interesting how Jose approaches the game, Palace are not a team who come at you. How will Jose set the team up, will he be adventurous and actually have a plan of how to unlock the Palace defence. I suspect it will be an absolute snooze fest of a game which could go either way.
    The real test will be next season when presumably the aim will be to compete with and get in the top four. Has Jose got anything in his locker other than to park the bus against these teams. I would say almost certainly not.

  • Hot Tottingham says:

    EJ, for you that article may be an excellent read but for me it’s mostly nonsense. The writers entire assessment of Hojbjerg is based on stats and nothing was about watching him play. But even so, whereby you have chosen to highlight what look to be impressive tackling stats when compared to Winks and Sissoko, you do fail to mention (for example), that Winks passing stats are far superior. In other words, Winks gives up possession to the opposition, much less than Hojbjerg does… And I bet somewhere right now there is a Saints fan praising Winks because of this but knocking their own player, for constantly giving the ball away. Having read the same or similar article.

    Stats can back up an argument but need some context too. And not having watched the Saints week in and week out as I do Tottenham, then those stats on Hojbjerg mean absolutely nothing to me. For now I’m happy with the player that we have in Harry Winks but not because of any stats but, simply by watching him play on a regular basis. I can’t possibly say whether or not Hojbjerg is the better player just based on stats. But from what I have seen of him, I’d stick with Winks. If that is even the choice. Meanwhile, the gossip means nothing at all to me. As I have said, it’s nearly all bull anyway.

    And when Spurs play Palace on Sunday it’ll be Winks that we’ll probably be seeing in our line-up and most definitely not the Dane from down South…

    So… C’mon Harry Winks! He may not be a Saint but he ain’t no Sinner. And… He is a Spur!

  • El Jefe says:

    HT – I’m in agreement with ND and others – I just don’t see Wink’s as the answer at DMC – not at all and he has hardly covered himself in glory playing there for us IMHO, to be fair nobody has though hence why I feel we need one desperately.

    On the other hand I’m loving the tackling and turnover stats of Hojbjerg for example – exactly what we could do with in the middle of the park to compliment the ball players such as Winks, N’Dombele even, Lo Celso, Dele, etc and then our other natural forward’s also. Also like the fact he’s 6ft1 whereas Wink’s is only 5ft10 – that extra bit of height added to that big tackling bite could work wonders for us in central midfield – an imposing presence to properly protect the back 4. We don’t need him to be spreading the passes and be a playmaker as such, that’s what all the other’s mentioned are for!

    Just my humble opinion of course and I am happy to keep Wink’s like I stated on here last weekend when he was linked away because of the potential Hoj signing. I’d be happy to have both in our CM and even have them partner each other in the double pivot as I again said yesterday that I thought Winks could actually benefit and not necessarily lose with the Hoj signing as it would release him in the centre of midfield and allow him to be much more involved in transition – which I also think he would like given the nature of his game as you point out – his main strength – passing!

  • Hot Tottingham says:

    When it comes to our RB position. Aurier or Tanganga or KWP or as yet, unknown?

    I remember that both Walker and Trippier often used to get called liabilities. KWP as well. And now it’s Auriers’ turn. And for very similar reasons. (Same for many of our left-sided players).

    I have my opinions on why this is so and I’ve expressed them many times on here. Especially with regard to Walker and Trippier.

    But does anyone else have an answer. I want to know why they have have all so often been called; “mistakes waiting to happen”? And it’s been regardless of who has been coaching and managing them.

    Is it perhaps because, quite simply, that mistakes do and will always, happen?

  • jod says:

    I see Frank hasn’t changed, club has just lost £200m so lets go out and spend lots and lots of money.

  • El Jefe says:

    Jod those 2 goals you mention as I’ve already stated several times are blatantly down to mistakes/errors from your’s truly Aurier – I might add there have been other’s lately which luckily have gone un-punished and his crossing in that time has been very poor also! This is just a quick critique of his recent form BTW LOL! The majority on here want a new RB – there must be a reason for it surely?! Even if he and KWP go – we should still have Tanganga (who you yourself said when thrown into the deep end this season actually swam) and also Foyth who is a regular at RB for Argentina these days. Add a new good solid RB and we’re sorted, not to mention most of our CB’s have experience playing at RB if necessary anyway (although for me that would be in a desperate situation which hopefully won’t arise again next season – more bloody luck with injuries)!

    I do share some of your concerns at LB – partly why I wanted to keep Vert’s for another season! That said I’ll trust JM on this as with everything else (not that there’s anything else I can do or any of us for that matter either LOL but still….)! Davies, Sessegnon and young Cirkin coming through and if desperate put maybe Tanganga out there again and let’s see if we sign a left- footed CB who might also be able to cover there further ( you wanted Ake who could almost certainly cover there if necessary not that Ake is going to happen but you can get my jist)! I’ll give it to you that Sessegnon is indeed a big conundrum at the moment, not like N’Dombele but still a concern nonetheless – let’s wait and see what JM has planned for him as there’s even been rumour’s of a loaning out but that would surely mean another LB being brought in or possibly Rose getting a reprieve lol?! Stranger things have happened!

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