Is it just me or does it feel like this end of March international break has gone on forever. Never fear though, there’s only a few sleeps left until Tottenham Hotspur make the trip up to St James’ Park to face Steve Bruce’s battling Newcastle United side.
Unless I’ve missed something during my little Vital Spurs hiatus as I’m not a huge international fan, short of maybe some tiredness I don’t believe any players will return worse for wear and that should give us a decent chance to make it back to back Premier League wins again after yet another recent wobble in our form and performance levels that also saw us booted out of the Europa League.
Manager Jose Mourinho will be unable to call on Ben Davies, but we’ll have to see what the later injury update says when it comes to Son Heung-Min, Matt Doherty and Sergio Reguilon. Erik Lamela will return following suspension.
17th placed Newcastle might not have won in their last five, but they are keeping their heads above the drain and have proven tricky for plenty of sides this year, even if they aren’t exactly potent or that threatening on the attack.
As ever though, this is the sort of side that on paper we know we are capable of blowing away, yet we all season long it’s the kind of game that has been our Achilles heel and we’ve struggled to perform in.
All eyes to Sunday as we can still end what was once a promising 2020/21 campaign on a high and with something to cheer about.
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I think your comments just about nailed there. Good post.
So Easter is over, we didn’t rise, and now we are all the more miserable Bunnies!
How long before the season is over? COYS
PY …. When this season is over, it’s only a few weeks until the next one begins. It’s a gift that keeps giving.
Happy days!
And if rumours are true Jose will be with us to further shape the squad in his own image. Oh joy. 🙁
I still believe that sacking JM is useless if it isn’t followed by a complete overhaul of the squad. Otherwise it would just be a case of “different manager, same problems”.
In fact, regardless of whether JM stays or goes, the rebuild is priority number one.
Wouldn’t disagree over the requirement of a rebuild BS, I think we have all seen the need for it for at least a couple of seasons now. The problem we have is we seem largely incapable of addressing the positions most in need or indeed have a scouting system that can find us the right personnel to fill them. I don’t just mean technical ability, we also need some with a stronger winning mentality. Let’s hope in the summer we can move out a good few and strengthen our defence and bring in a decent playmaker in the mould of a Fernandes or De Bruyne.
I have read a few Items today, re our squad.
One states a rebuild of our squad around 7 players, actually many of whom I named in a similar post.
Another where Simon Jordan more or less supported Mourinho and called Spurs (squad) perinnial losers.
Again another release which more or less called our squad average, and the purchase of Dybala would be a statement of intent. Alluding to us not buying marquis signings.
Not fantastic reading really 🙁
I believe that Jose is THE problem, not the players.
And to talk of a major squad rebuild at this time, is not at all realistic in my mind, anyway.
So, not a case of “Different manager, same problems” for me. But more like, different manager, major problem No.1, solved.
I think that even if the team became completely manager-less today, that it would instantaneously become a much better one tomorrow.
Hugo
Aurier Toby Sanchez/Dier Reguilon
Hojbjerg Ndombele
Bale Dele Son
Kane
This lot, with the combination of others, playing neat and controlled, positive football. Attack-minded, and on the front foot, with freedom, confidence and a new found spirit., Beats Man U and then goes on to finish in the PL top 4. Having already scared City in the C Cup final. win OR lose.
They will all instinctively know what they need to do to win matches, without the burden of Jose M the tyrant breathing down their necks and basically telling them they just aren’t good enough.
They are good enough!
Do the right thing Mr.Levy. Sooner, not later.
FIRE JOSE!
People saying that the squad we have now is so weak that a change of manager might not matter so much. So i thought it might be worth thinking about the squad in the season before Poch came to us and thinking of how long it took Poch to get us into a top four team consistently until his last few month when things did fall apart:
Kyle Naughton, Danny Rose, Vlad Chiriches, Younes Kaboul, Paulinho, Aaron Lennon, Christian Eriksen, Harry Kane, Emmanuel Adebayor, Brad Friedel, Milos Veljkovic, Zeki Fryers, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Sandro, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Andros Townsend, Nabil Bentaleb, Nabil Bentaleb.
Poch turned things around pretty quickly, no? And I’m not at all sure that the players with us just before he arrived were any stronger than what we have now. Sandro, Lennon, were on a deep decline by then. Some players we shouldn’t have sold whom we did sell (Sigurdsson?). Real class from that group? Kane obviously, although none of recognized how much he was worth in so many ways. Eriksen was better than we realized. But I suspect that as a group we’ve got more quality now than we did then.
Poch showed how the right manager can turn around a fairly weak squad fairly rapidly. We’ve got a pretty decent foundation now and some really promising youth who appear ready to step up next season. several promising youth.
All things considered, I think there’s plenty in the present group on which to build something of the Poch era quality and it’s enough with a couple of additions in each of the next two years to have a consistent top four team.
but Mourinho the Miserable must go first. Por favor, vai embora, José. Go away. Let the quality we have flourish, and bring in someone a wee bit more positive as manager before we turn into complete misery.
Its a grim thought but we could be lumbered with Moanino for another season. Levy will want to recoup some of the dinosaur’s retirement benefit and hang on till things get worse. Worst scenario ……we keep him after Levy sends him on an F.A. Crash Course and we lose Kane and Son with a relegation battle looming. Best scenario….he goes and we appoint a decent modern coach, we keep Kane and Son, reinspire Dele and Bale, bring back Skipp, sort out the defence and sell some of the mediocre signings ( we have too many) who are clogging up the bench.
We may be in the gutter but at least we can be looking at the stars. Always in hope of returning to the glory glory days.
COYS.
The future exists in the present, as does the past. Look simultaneously in all three directions, the past, the specious present, and the future as we’d prefer to see it unfold. If there are things in the specious present that we don’t like, make sure they don’t follow us into the future. We might find the future is a beautiful time to be if we don’t bollox it now.
some prefer bollocks, and restrict it from being used as a verb. now that’s bollox. lol. spell it as we like, and use it as we like. now that’s neither bollocks nor bollox. Keeping Mourinho the Misearble, man, now that’s a way to make bollocks of the future.
As an old Arabic expression in insult had it, Let the bollocks of a thousand camels brush across your daughter’s brow as the caravan passes. Or something of that order. Cleanse us of this manager, and let our already decent squad be bettered under new management.
No More Bollox nor more Bollocks. that’s the man sitting with his arms crossed as things decay. Set us free by setting him free.
what is went worth? went is worth where it went. You’re right mate, let’s go the glory of days gone and days to come. And when the future is come and went, we will still march towards future glories that in turn will be went where they want.
Many thanks TK.
Wentworth is my middle name after my great grandfather’s surname. He was a busker by the way but put Professor of Music on his census form. He lived to be 101 years old so I have 26 to go. My grandchildren now have Wentworth as their middle name. I hated it at school but now am proud of my connection to the grand old busker.
Audere est facere.
Wow, Wentworth. When I was many decades younger than I am now–I’ll turn 75 later this year–and I was very poor having just gotten out of a prison where I was a political prisoner, I played music–not as well as I would have liked, indeed probably not well at all–on the streets and in the underground (where is was called the subway in local parlance). Literally had a hat on the ground where passersby would occasionally toss a few coins. I quit that to go around in a posher neighborhood knocking on doors at houses that could use a coat of paint and say I’d paint the house if the dwellers in them bought the paint and supplies. Held out this way for a few months until I found a proper job. Organized a labour union where I found that job and got fired for my efforts and sued them for illegally firing me for organizing a union. Finally settled with them and I got them to pay for me to go to university if I’d stay away from there business. The union ended up winning after I started the efforts and I got a formal education. Ended up with a PhD and ran a research laboratory and taught in a university for years. So your great grandfather and I both were professors who busked. It all started with busking. Lol. A truly noble way to keep from starvation.
It’s good to hear your story. I feel connected here more with passing time as we discover one another’s stories. I’ve yet to find a fellow human who isn’t interesting.
their business damn it
Great story TK.
The reality is that the lot HT listed above, “with the combination of others, playing neat and controlled, positive football. Attack-minded, and on the front foot, with freedom, confidence and spirit”, well that lot won absolutely nothing in 5 years, with a young, progressive coach in MP at the helm. Why should we expect it to be any different if we just go back to where we were under MP?
From an entertainment point of view, the football would likely get prettier. But pretty football, while entertaining, is no guarantee for success. The 5 years unde MP has taught us that, if nothing else.
Poch himself said that the squad was in need of a painful rebuild. Even if some don’t rate JM and his opinions, that’s something they seemed to agree on.
Unfortunately, the only thing this group of players has proven is that they are good enough to be a nearly team. If that’s what we want to get back to, then by all means, this group is potentially good enough to do that. But if we are expecting different results all the while doing the same thing over and over – Einstein once said what he thought of that.
Personally, I think that’s grossly disregarding the fact that several players in that group, who were in their prime a few years ago, are now past their prime and are not suddenly going to get better with time. It’s also disregarding the fact that other players, despite still having time on their side, have failed to realise the potential they once had. We need to assess this group of players based on what they are today, not what fans would hope them to be.
TK says MP inherited an average squad and turned it around quickly enough. What’s quickly enough? 2 years?
MP arrived in May 2014 and it took him 2 full seasons to get in the top 4 (famously finishing 3rd in a two-horse race, as the saying went when Leicester won the title in 2016). He had 2 summer windows to mould his squad, and we finally saw promising returns after 24 months in charge.
JM has been there for a shorter time, has only had one summer/preseason with the players, and we are still in a position to achieve more than MP had achieved, in less time. When JM has been backed in the past, at other clubs, he has delivered everywhere he’s been, even if it’s a very short period of success.
I don’t know whether it’s going to work out for JM at Spurs. It’s not looking a certainty at the moment. But I personally believe in judging performances fairly and comparing apples with apples. If we believe that turning around a team around in 2 years is quickly enough, I find it strange that fans would judge results sooner than that.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I would just find it reasonable that the same measuring stick would be used to assess the performance of different managers. That’sreally just a question of intellectual honesty.
BS, at my age 2 years is pretty quick for a turnaround. lol
Of course i’d like to see us win every cup and the league every year, but it matters to me just as much how we play while doing it. I don’t accept lots of losing and I don’t accept lousy play. I’m greedy. I want both wins and beauty.
But if I can have only one, it’s doing things the right way that I want more than just winning. I use two measuring sticks and I hold managers to them equally. Was Poch perfect? I think he did pretty damned well with the budget he had to work with. But hold Poch and Mourinho to the same standard I use, I’d toss Mourinho in a witches moment. In less time than it takes to make the most simple incantation, I’d toss out the tosser.
There you go. that’s my take on things, and I’m likely to stick to it. I’m holding these two managers to my same standards and one comes out looking far worse than the other. As a man.
Not all apples should be held to the same standards, by the way. Some kinds are better for making apple pies and other better for eating fresh off the tree. some are sweeter and some more tangy. Not all people are equal at all things. some can be great musicians and others great mathematicians and other are best at sleeping. Depends on what you value when you are evaluating. I knew enough about Mourinho to be unhappy at his signing hour is was announced. With Mauricio, I didn’t know enough for a year. Such it is.
HT /BS
Yet again I find myself on the fence with your last posts, HT I’m afraid that some your listed names for me don’t meet the mark, Aurier, Sanchez, and Dier I’m afraid for me have been given enough chances and been found wanting there are just too many mistakes, Toby whilst still good, is on the downward slide, looking at Deles’body language he has already left Spurs, I feel a new challange would be better for him. I would throw Lo Ceslo into your list and build round those players.
BS whilst I agree with almost everything you have posted, I am unsure even with the time constraints, that Mourinho has, and can progress our team and do we trust him to take us forward.
I just feel that he was just the wrong fit for our club, much like he was wrong for Man U.
Whilst I agree that given the task he had, given that our defensive backbone was decimated and our creative midfield laid waste, it is little wonder we are in the position we are in.
However, I do expect to see some progress in a year, and to date I have seen very little.
On many occasions we have been second best and have been totally reactionary to the opposing sides tactics, there have been far too many defensive errors from supposedly, solid international players.
On too many occasions we have been lack lustre, pedestrian, disinterested, passionless, lazy, unprofessional in our approach.
Harry Kane is largely carrying the team and I do think the strain is showing.
If I could even see a glimmer of what we could be, but it’s like two steps forward four steps back, every week our back 4/5 changes every week one of feks it up.
Around 6/7 players need to go and bring 4 or 5 in in the right positions, condense our squad make it more compact but with better more reliable players.
Back in those Poch days I knew man for man we were as good as any of the top teams, not anymore.