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!
Palace...
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Geof… A good post there…But football supporters in my experience from young / teenage years onwards have a focused view / identification of their team’s performances, and get upset when they see underperformance scenarios. Be it by players, management, club owners. As supporting their local club becomes a part of their family life and bad defeats releases violent emotions. Perhaps this was graphically seen as bovver boys years ago, in certain clubs across the 92 clubs in UK professional leagues, and in clubs across Europe / S America, a tribal culture so to speak.
IMO…It will never be accepted, by fans to just go along with events at their club, either a run of losing games or mismanagement by saying oh well that’s the way it is, and go quietly back to their homes. We have seen many demonstrations by fans at various clubs over the years which prove this point. (recently Bury FC)
So this is why football has been a major part of all fans lives… on here we have senior members…yourself, me, PY TQ2 and others who have been lifelong fans of THFC, and the younger people I have seen at WHL and on VS are continuing this cycle of support.
On VS we have posters who are active when THFC have bad results, and remain mostly quiet when spurs are wining their games. But even then they have critical things to say. Which is their right to do, in a free speech society. COYS
block 108……..I think the younger generations probably view the game in a very different way to which the likes of you and I did, certainly from when we started following our club. Going back to the fifties and sixties footballers weren’t that highly paid in respect of the ratio of their wages to the average man in the street so we maybe were more tolerant if players didn’t give their all in every game. Youngsters today, well I suppose everyone really young and old, see the lifestyle afforded to top level players by wages that are such a huge multiple compared to their own that they/we are quicker to criticise players who don’t give 100% on the pitch……..and rightly so.
I don’t think that football hooliganism had much to do with the football itself. It was tribalism, hatred and violence etc. But it wasn’t based on whether your club was winning or losing, playing stylish football or dull football. It ran much deeper than that… Football rivalry was often the excuse but it was never really a problem caused by the football itself…
I went to school with guys that never talked football and yet travelled the length and breadth of the country for a rumble with “supporters” of other clubs. It was organised for goodness sake. Pre-arranged.
They went to the matches. But the football was secondary to their acts of vandalism and violence…
Morning HT, good post there regards hooliganism/tribalism, remember it very well, with clubs/gangs having set names, Inter- City-Crew or 657’s, just two examples there are very many more, leaving calling cards, for me it was tribalism using your club as the Tribe name, football rivalry was the excuse and agree it wasn’t caused by football itself, and yes football was secondary.
If any one is interested, way back when a certain Zoologist, I think, Desmond Morris wrote a book called the Football Tribe, a very good read.
Are we going to smash Palace today, yes! COYS
When supporters demonstrate to the clubs owners and chairman it’s for all kinds of reasons. And a lot of the time with the top PL clubs it is as much to do with the style of football played as it is to do with the results.
Why did Arsenal supporters start booing their team and wanting Wenger out after him guiding them to winning them 48 FA cups and all the rest? And, if Spurs fans are bored senseless by the football they see when they return to WHL. They will let the club, players and manager know it. And that could be for an entire season that then sees a cup win at the end of it all. But they won’t know that cup was to be won, until it is won…
For me the problem is that with Jose we will play ugly and get no where. The fact that we have won three games against largely mediocre/injury hit teams playing poor defensive football seems to have fooled some fans into believing that we are making progress. Just look back to those games against Sheff Utd, Everton and Leicester. Defensively we are no better. Having so many numbers behind the ball does not really equate to defensive solidity especially as we are still conceding way too many chances. We won’t always be rescued by Harry Kane wonder goals. Jose will have no clue when it comes to playing the better teams. This has already been shown this season when he has been out coached by novices such as Lampard, Solsjaer and Wilder. Interesting to see how he copes today against a Palace team who will sit back.
Jose next season will equate to top six at best and unbearable football.
Just read Levy might give JM £50-60m to spend aswell as player sales on top (now we all know that such aren’t going to amount to a great deal but every little helps especially at the moment)! Also widely being reported that we’re after a DMC, RB, STR and a CB – pretty much as ND and myself, etc have been calling for!
Decent news all things considered if true – let’s hope so!
https://www.spurs-web.com/spurs-news/report-claims-how-much-tottenham-will-spend-on-transfers-this-summer/
So Ej. Who should be in our line-up for today?
Hojberjg in for Winks? Ings up top with Harry? Aarons to step in for Serge? Ake in, Sanchez out? 😉
DH …. Three or four seasons ago we had the meanest defence in the league …. and that was playing possession/attacking football. Now we are playing defensive football with a very inconsistent defence. Go figure!
Also Geof, we were scoring more goals than most at that time.
The best football, sees the best of both worlds. Great defensive actions and great attacking options too… And, everything in between.
Don’t they say……the best form of defence is to attack? 🙂
Could this debate regards how we play to win, be down to the old saying… “there are many ways to peel an orange”.
Now VS is back to normal, it is back to great reading, esp for me as I can get away from my serious problems, and live in a fantasy that is Tottenham Hotspur FC, even if for only a short time, thanks to all VS members. COYS
Anyone here ever watched the classic – White Men Can’t Jump?! “Win first, look good second” end of – LOL!
All the best footballers look good when they are winning. But may well look a little like crap at the end of it all.
HT – very funny lol!
Wouldn’t mind all 4 coming into our squad tbh – good players and all with room still for improvement aswell – would all be pluses/positives in my book!
We’ll have to wait and see what JM and Levy, etc come up with but nothing wrong in discussing on here what we feel we need, don’t need, etc – indeed all part and parcel of this site and what makes/keeps it interesting, etc!
It’s a funny film, EJ. But who wins in this scenario? The street-ball players or the Harlem Globetrotters.
I don’t care but I know which team I would much prefer to watch in that match-up… 🙂
As regards today – why change a 3 game continuous winning side especially after a week’s rest on top?! I want Aurier gone for sure but today can lump him especially against Palace who have lost 7 in a row and have nothing really to play for – that said he’ll be up against Zaha but given his excellent fitness levels and considering that Tanganga and Foyth are recently back from long term injury and definitely not match fit – do we even really have a choice anyway?! Just hope he does not commit any silly dangerous foul’s or general errors/mistakes as usual – here’s hoping – hate to come on here later and have to call him up again! No real pleasure in doing so – wish he was the best RB in the world after all he’s ours and we paid good money for him on top!
HT – but when it comes to Spur’s we do bloody care lol and for example for me it’s not just my heart/head it’s my pocket also – I’m a share-holder aswell as a fan – I don’t just want them to win, in someways I need them to win also LOL!
Stocks and shares are always a gamblers punt. Billions made, billions lost. But who would buy shares in a product that no one likes to consume, for instance… Football as a sport unfortunately ain’t so predictable or as simplistic as some market trades…. But the greater the football, the greater the consumer interest and the greater the clubs profits too….
But give it 5-10 years from now and I bet your THFC gamble will eventually see great dividends for you……
But I am a football fan, not your financial advisor…
HT – they didn’t do a bad job of making street ballers look good though did they lol?!
Yes, but it was a movie. The Harlem Globetrotters are real. And real fun too…. And they made a lot of dosh! 🙂
Terrible memory of mine – I was there after all – Greece winning 2004 – no good players, crap all-out defensive football, constantly completely dominated by the opposition – still beat France, Czech Republic and us Portugal (the best attacking side in the tournament going on performances/results having knocked out Spain, England and Holland in 3 cracking matches) in the final and in the end that’s all that matters! We lost, they won – we can hang onto the memories of getting to the final and playing great dominating football which we had become quite famous for at the time but the disappointment of losing it was the lasting memory for me and for most other Portuguese aswell end of!
Luckily we came back and won it in 2016 but for example we drew our 3 group matches and scraped through, it was the same against Croatia and Poland and the only decent game for us was against Wales in the semi’s. Although not very entertaining and playing relatively poorly through-out the tournament we somehow won and that is all that matters – finally we had a trophy and a proper one at that end of!
At Euro 2004 we had the Uefa and CL winning Porto backbone of Ferreira, Carvalho, Valente, Costinha, Deco, etc and the world class attacking talent of the likes of Deco himself again, Rui Costa, Figo and even Ronaldo already, etc and playing top football we still lost yet at Euro 2016 and with only really Ronaldo as a world class attacking talent we managed to win culminated by beating a top class French team on their own turf in the final!
I’d rather watch the Euro 2004 team for sure, but the fact is my happiest memory is the 2016 team somehow managing to win end of!
But as an Englishman, I loved watching that Portugal team. I felt chuffed for the Greeks. Not because of the football they played but because it was against the odds. We all like an underdog. But the Greeks probably won’t win it again, anytime soon…
And if I had a choice, I’d rather be watching a Ronaldo or a Eusebio than a top scoring (but for one season only) Donkey!
Football is not just for the supporters of any one team playing. Football is for us all. Especially when watching a top International tournament. Even when the 1966 WC was underway, the interest for the England team only increased as the football got better. And that was the football as a whole not just because of the home nations improved performances and results.
Forgot to add Jorge Costa and how could I forget Maniche lol especially after that goal against Holland in the semi-final (bet I wouldn’t have forgot if it was the final though and we won eg Eder in France in 2016 LOL), even Andrade who had recently left Porto for Deportivo, etc – a plethora of top quality player’s (multiple winners in fact), playing top football, etc and still they lost to those crappy Greeks in the end unfortunately!
HT – on the share front – they’re currently worth atleast £2 although in the last year they’ve been as high as around £2.75 I believe if memory serves, my buy-in was around 80p again if memory serves – so very comfortably up but think there’s much more to give long term but naturally if we become winners that will only improve matters that much more indeed on the back of us challenging for the likes of the Prem and CL in the last 4-5 years or so has that rise been possible, etc although if we had actually won, etc I think it would have been even much more pronounced – everybody loves a winner especially when it comes to money lol!