Few fans would’ve been disappointed with Tottenham Hotspur’s start to the 2021/22 Premier League campaign, but following defeat to Crystal Palace and that veritable ‘no show’ – it sadly wasn’t a one off looking at the overall performance against Rennes in midweek, albeit we took a point for our efforts.
The more optimistic in the fanbase will take the positives from the performance, particularly with a number of changes made again, but the more pessimistic will continue to have worries given how quickly the wheels have fallen off and we’ve become so open at the back.
This is hardly the perfect time to face high flying Chelsea, even with White Hart Lane advantage, as despite sitting only a point behind them in the early table, a repeat of the last two performances could see a very humbling scoreline on Sunday evening.
It doesn’t get easier when you consider Nuno Espirito Santo is without Japhet Tanganga (suspension), Giovani Lo Celso, Cristian Romero and Davinson Sanchez (still quarantine) and there are continuing doubts about Son Heung-Min and Eric Dier. That’s before we factor in the severity of injury suffered by Lucas Moura and Steven Bergwijn in the last game.
Let’s see what Nuno does…To Dare Is To Do after all.
Lots of talk about team selection but let’s not overlook the fact that Moura and Bergwijn could have played if they had been rested for that joke of a competition that the ECL is…
I agree with HT – if Nuno has had to deal with problems, lots of them are self-inflicted.
Having said all of that, it was always gonig to be a tough game against quality opposition.
As I said in previous threads, I thought many fans were far too quick to jump on the Nuno bandwagon. As we have seen more recently, I think there are plenty of reasons to doubt whether he really is an upgrade.
While I can take jod’s point that hiring and firing managers rarely leads to success, I just don’t see how Nuno is going to take the club forward in the long run and I see little value in persevering too long. Just my opinion.
Having said that, this would only make sense IF a better manager is out there, and if we are willing to back said manager. We already know Levy isn’t willing to back Conte, but maybe another opportunity will present itself next summer…
BelgianSpur – The problem is when people are criticising managers they never actually say who the manager should be, as with players its always a man with no name. The reality is Mourinho was the last candidate with a winning record. Going forward anyone we appoint is going to be a gamble. Personally I would have gone for Potter, I am impressed with what he is doing at Brighton on limited resources. But he would have been as much a gamble as Nuno. Given that it seems to me a rapid turnover in managers is just going to make things worse. Better to give the incumbent a couple of seasons to see what he can do before pulling the trigger.
As for backing managers, we spent £55m on N’Dombele, how has that worked out ? Rather than pretending we have unlimited funds and can keep signing failures it might be better to ask why we seem to sign the wrong players. I can remember Sam Allardyce once saying when looking at a potential signing he spent longer assessing a player’s character than his ability. If we did that I wonder if we would have signed N’Dombele (and a few others) in the first place.
A thoroughly depressing second half, the kind that makes you regret having a season ticket. What we will never know of course is what would have happened had we had Moura and Bergwijn available. Given how close the first half was I can’t help thinking it might have made it interesting. But since we chose to play them in Europe we’ve no one to blame but ourselves.
Hi BS …. The thing is that no matter who the manager is, he can only work with the players at his disposal. How should any other manager have set us up for the games we’ve played. Most seemed to think the team against Chelsea looked pretty good. Not sure what we do from here as we are stuck with the players and the manager. Let’s hope it all comes together. As HT said, we did play really well in the first half so, now, we need to play at that level with more consistency.
We are now on our umpteenth manager in the recent past, only one, Pochetino was relatively successful given the customary financial constraints in our club. He got us into several top 4 finishes and a CL final but was ultimately sacked and is now managing Europe’s richest club PSG. Under this selection of managers, coaches we have managed just one league Cup since in 2008 during the period when the only constant has been ENIC’s stewardship under the erstwhile Mr Levy. We are winning architectural awards but no football trophies, why. Answers on a postcard. Things will never change under the current ownership.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by the result against such a strong side as Chelsea. Despite knowing that we needed a serious re-build most, if not all of us, still had high expectations of what we all knew was a work in progress. Despite employing a reputed master of recruitment we still haven’t addressed two glaring issues, that of a back-up striker and the need for a creative midfield playmaker. There was never any chance of us achieving the re-build necessary in one transfer window so I guess we have to lower our expectations at least until we improve the squad sufficiently to give us a chance of competing with the big 4.
We should have pushed City and accepted £130m for Kane to give us a decent transfer fund, that said, we still have to persuade players to join us!
“The thing is that no matter who the manager is, he can only work with the players at his disposal.” Very true. We do not have the players to compete with the top 4. We may win one now and again but usually we will lose to these clubs with a whole team of exceptional players. That is reality. What is our mid-field? None of them wants to go forward let alone create chances for Kane and Son. Lloris was outstanding yesterday, and we fought hard in a good first half. But how many chances did we create? They should have scored more.
The thing is that no matter who the manager is, he can only work with the players at his disposal. NO the manager has a choice to keep play or sell these players, many on here have said, winks Davies dier etc are not good enough, yet managers keeps them on the books.
We have scored 3 goals in 5 games 1 was a pen. With attacking so called international talent we have is simply not good enough. Unable to create chances, must be down to the manager and tactics, also the players decision making etc. a defensive manager is not going to work, as we have seen with jose.
Well we can say what we want about JM but if nothing else, he knew how to get Son and Kane to perform. Last year they both had statisitcally the best individual years of their careers.
Before people go crazy, I am not saying we were doing well under JM or that I regret his departure. I’m just saying that I fear we might, frighteningly, potentially be even worse off with Nuno.
How can you re build if you have the same players who are never going to improve. Which one of our attackers will get 10 + goals. So many excuses on here, but really these players lack the basics.
jod – no club in the PL gives an underperforming manager 2 seasons to prove himself. Why should we? You may rue that state of affairs, but this is the reality of PL football. It’s a cutthroat, results-driven environment where managers are thrown in at the deep end and sink or swim. There are no in-betweens.
Mourinho wasn’t the last candidate with a winning record – Conte was. By all accounts he was considered for the job in the summer but turned it down once it became clear Levy wasn’t going to back him.
We don’t have unlimited funds but we can afford more than we have spent, if the likes of Deloitte are to be believed. I know you like to defend how the club operates, and you don’t like for anyone to question whether we are in fact doing things right, but the proof is in the pudding.Nothing in 13 years and counting, the longest such winngless streak in club history since before WW2.
We can all point to a big-money signing failing but those happen at all clubs. One exception doesn’t make the rule. By all accounts, Liverpool, City and Chelsea have spent fortunes on players and I’ll let you guess which 3 clubs have won the most in England recently. Either that’s a coincidence or there is a strong correlation between winning and spending. It’s intellectually dishonest to suggest otherwise. Regardless of the price though, our recruitment team has failed many times and that’s a concern.
Geof – I am the first to say that if our aim is to compete for titles, the squad needs an injection of quality.
But let’s be honest: while we can always do better, our squad has enough talent that we should be performing better than we currently are. Sure, going up against the Chelseas of this world is always going to be a challenge but there really is no excuse to get battered by Crysal Palace – with all due respect to them.
If we lose that sort of game, it has nothing to do with lack of quality. It is a failure in coaching. We should be doing better than we have.
It’s the same old after every defeat, players get wheeled out and tell us that they have to learn from a chasening defeat as Skipp did last week, or they know they could and should do better as Dier did, or they weren’t happy with their own performance as Dele did, but they never respond as you would expect them to and we just see more average or below par performances. I would be ashamed to walk off with my £100k weekly pay packet if I hadn’t given 100% in a game.
Hi folks trust every one is keeping well.
As you know by my previous comments on Nuno, I wasn’t his greatest supporter initially, I’m still very much on the fence with this guy I did question why we signed a manager who got a team 3 places below us in the Premiership , however, I do feel, for better or worse that we need to give the guy a run of games.
In all fairness he hasn’t had the best of runs, no real preseason, those dammed internationals after only 3 weeks of the league starting.
Against Palace, we were sort of cobbled together, and they only scored (from a pen) when we were down to 10 men.
On Sunday we did have a decent first half, and I would argue that the 11 on Sunday would’ve beaten Palace, and if fielded, will beat Arsenal.
If we think on it its, really the first time Emerson and Romero have played together, N’Dombers just back, so (for me) we need to give this side a few weeks to see how things pan out.
With that said, I think as BS has said, TQ, 123, CC and others including myself, We have to a degree focused some of our spending in the wrong areas, we have a definately need for a Midfield dynamo/general/playmaker, what ever we call him, we need an Ericsson type, we also need a Kane back up, for me currently that’s a Wellbeck or even Llorente back until next season just as an extra something, alternative to put on with 15 mins to go to bag a winner.
Hi Niall……..even if we play the Chelsea starting eleven against the Gooners we can only win if we score more goals than they do, even if that’s only one, which is our sum total from open play in five PL games so far.
Enic need to go, we will never win anything with them
Spurs and Arseanal have only scored a combined 5 goals in 5 PL games so far, doesn’t fill you with inspiration for Sunday. Still, the defences are both pretty poor so we could get a goal fest! :- )
Hi TQ time will tell, but a week is a long time in football, get the actual squad together for a full 7 days, who knows?
Dunno about Nuno. From what I saw, we did not play to set up Kane, even in the first half. The team tactics should be to get the striker in a position to strike right ? Didn’t see it. I think Spurfect One is spot on with his comment. Looks to me Nuno is a good man manager but inept tactician.
Niall…..don’tforget we have an EFL Cup game at Wolves on Wednesday to disrupt the training!
Arky, that’s why Winks works so well, he’s good at passing backwards to find Kane around the centre circle. :- )
Niall – we can talk up the fact that we were hard to beat against Palace, and that it took a red card and a pen to concede, but there is no getting around the fact that however good we looked defensively, we were very poor going forward.
Maybe the scoreline is harsh but we were never deserving of a win, based on our (lack of) attacking play.
That’s a concern no matter how you look at it. We have the world’s best striker at the club, andanother world class attacker at our disposal. We should be scoring with ease, if nothing else.
BS, we were poor going forward because we were without Son against Palace and were set up defensively with only two outright attacking players.Nor did we bring on attacking players when we were a goal down with 10 men when we had nothing to lose. This was a case of poor team selection and management on the day in my opinion not of a performance indicating that we are just a mediocre mid table team as some here would like us to believe.
Enic needs to go , on the football field they have continuously let us down ,until they do nothing will change