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Match Thread – Spurs Looking For 3 From 3 To End On A High With Villa Up Next

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With plenty of positives to take from our victory, and the performance, over Wolverhampton Wanderers at the weekend, it’s another quick turnaround for Tottenham Hotspur as we welcome Aston Villa to White Hart Lane on Wednesday for our penultimate Premier League clash of the 2020/21 campaign.

A campaign that started brightly, and faded rapidly as 2021 hit, however, a potential top five finish is on the cards but for that to happen, we have to absolutely take three points from Dean Smith’s side and form is on our side, even though both clubs have wobbled in the second half of the season.

Another big plus is Villa should be without Jack Grealish (cheers Levy), as since returning from injury he’s yet to even play 45 minutes, so hopefully at worst, he’ll only get introduced at the break.

With some confidence returning based on our last performance, you’d like to think we’d be comfortable long before their talisman hits the pitch, and with no fresh injury concerns, only Serge Aurier and Ben Davies should be missing again.

Can Ryan Mason really restore some momentum and get us three wins from three going into the summer?

Villa

Win

Draw

Lose


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German striker Jurgen Klinsmann spent two years at White Hart Lane in separate spells, but how many league goals did he contribute?

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  • Niall D says:

    Stan I find I must agree with your analysis, as I said, earlier in the thread, we have been the architects of our own demise, I don’t actually mean that we went out to lose, but unfortunate actions by us mistakes, unforced errors have seen us drop points, plus I think more than our fair share of bad luck.
    As I said against Palace around Christmas, their keeper was like a gymnast we had 7 shots on target 1 goal, a week later Liverpool had 6 shots 5 goals. Is there a Curse??? 🙁

  • Frank n example heinh says:

    So at last the inevitable has happened and Harry Kane has decided he can’t wait any longer for the opportunity to win anything at THFC particularly whilst ENIC retain their ownership with Levy’s stewardship. Yes he has overseen his and Joe Lewis’s vanity project the £800 M + emporium. They have obviously ignored the core purpose of a football club to win games, honours and trophies by targeted investment on the pitch in quality players to build a squad capable of success. An example of this approach is Leicester City who have won the PL and the FA Cup lately with their owners support. What makes things worse at Spurs, is that what little investment in players does take place, is with a few exceptions spent on the wrong players, who bomb on arrival, remember spending spree with the Bale money, a gang of substandard mediocrity. With Levy and Lewis controlling the purse strings, and without Kane and whoever else may follow him out, we will be an average mid table club playing in a wonderful but half empty stadium. It will be interesting to see whether they can persuade anybody of note to take on the coach/manager job, up till now nobody seems interested, but why would you want to work for Levy if you have an alternative option.

    • Stan Rosenthal says:

      And why are you supporting such a load of rubbish Frank if other clubs are doing so much better? Mind you such “support” we can do without.

  • TQ2Spurs says:

    Conflicting reports regarding Lloris and a new contract, some say he is going to sign while others say he has rejected an offer. Personally I think we should cash in while he still has some value, my reason for this is that we need to have a captain in the middle of the park, not in goal. With Kane likely going selling Lloris would allow us to appoint a new captain without creating upset internally. Hojbjerg would be my pick.

  • TK says:

    of course the gods have played a huge part in where we are not. the gods played a huge role in our being now.

    and the ancient greek gods invented athletic competition (at Olympus). The people learned that the gods are best avoided as they tend to treat us a play things, like gods pulling the wings off flies to watch them try to fly aimlessly in circles. The gods are always out to humiliate us. All we can do about it is to be true to ourselves and to be the kind of people who are less capricious than the gods. Therein lies our fate.

  • Frank says:

    I don’t know what happened to my by line on my last post. Regarding Harry Kane, we as a club should be indebted to him for his loyalty and patience, waiting on the off chance that the ownership might one day show some ambition for success on the pitch, but as we now know to no avail.

  • BelgianSpur says:

    TQ2Spurs – I have personally never understood how any fan could be convinced that the stadium was a statement of intent, not for anyone who had seen how DL operates.

    At the very best, it would have been a very premature assumption on how DL was tentatively going to run the club once the revenues increased. It was, and remains, wishful thinking at best.

    DL may surprise us all, but I find this very unlikely. The safe bet is that DL is going to continue running the club in a way he considers “prudent”, regardless of whether the stadium makes THFC one of the richest clubs in the world eventually. The extra revenue generated will either be reinvested in the club’s infrastructure, or pad the salaries of the board members – possibly both.

    For those who have harboured doubts about DL’s management of the club all along, there remains a very real worry that the new stadium is only going to make the club richer, but not necessarily better. Again, the only way DL can dispel those doubts is by proving people wrong. But as long as we continue to spend the lowest percentage of revenues, across the PL, on player wages, questions will continue to exist.

    In 2015, our revenues were 196 million (12th in world football, 6th in the PL). The percentage of our revenues dedicated to player wages was 55% (tied for 14th in the PL).

    In 2019, our revenues were 459 million (8th in world football, 4th in the PL). The percentage of our revenues dedicated to player wages was 39% (last in the PL).

    In other words, our revenues more than doubled in the space of 5 years, and we actually spent 16% less on player wages. In absolute numbers, our wage bill grew, but proportionally it drastically went down.

    This suggests that no matter how our revenues evolve once the stadium becomes the cash cow DL hopes it will be, there is no guarantee he intends to spend more aggressively to try to make the team better. This should be the assumption/baseline, rather than expecting DL to change his spots.

    • Geofspurs says:

      BS …. I fail to see how anyone could be convinced the new stadium is not a statement of intent.

      • BelgianSpur says:

        Unfortunately for your point of view, the proof is in the pudding.

        The stadium has been operatinal for 18 months, and we haven’t drastically changed the way we do business.

        At this stage, nobody can claim this was more than a money-grabbing exercise and/or a personal vanity project.

  • El Jefe says:

    Clearly some very intelligent top posters generally here – eg being able to think back a year ago+ (when I was around regularly – not to mention a good near 2 decades of membership and regular stints of coming in through-out) – TQ2 (Hi mate BTW) already was saying that we should be trying to pip Mings when Villa were looking like relegation fodder and he was and is clearly correct – my problem with Mings now (then it was his lack of Prem game-time in the whole that was my main sticking point as regards JM going for him but also did already think it was a decent shout as it was) is that now he would cost a fortune and no reason to leave a progressive Villa side – basically along the lines and slipstream of Grealish these days UNFORTUNATELY – £25m MR LEVY – well I never LOOOOOOL – COOOOOOOL!

    TQ2 as regards my Ake suggestion – you have to give it to the guy though – arguably the 2 best CB’s in the world AKA VVD and Laporte both play in his position – 1 for his country, 1 for his club – tough at the top – but the fact that I rate him as a quality player is exactly why I would want him and I reckon he’s more accessible both in terms of availability (not playing regularly if at all at City a la at Chelski and it must be starting to grate AGAIN – why not us try and take advantage if at all possible?) and in terms of cost (£40m or £41m LOL as opposed to £50-60m+) than Mings (whose now playing regularly and got the bit between his teeth and on top English, etc) and Ake is still also younger and with possibly a bigger point to prove/hungrier and still and quite importantly more experienced (which thus helps add to the argument of wanting it more – given his age/ability yet lack of game-time especially at a “big” club truly respecting his obvious talent and giving him a proper go – indeed Mings never been part of a Chelski/City or played relatively regularly for his country and he’s 2 years older and yet and thus still got less experience so more prone to being OK with his current situation at Villa, etc), etc, etc, etc, etc – only thing is Ake is smaller at 5ft11 v 6ft5 but can’t have absolutely everything (I did conveniently leave that point out this morning when rating him and singing his praises so positively LOL)! Don’t get me wrong, ideally I’d take both Ake and Mings and have them both fight it out in our squad as our 2 LCB’s – I’d be a very happy chappy indeed – fan and share-holder! If memory serves both cost around £20m (and both spent time at Bournemouth – maybe get Howe as a talent spotter if nothing else under Parker LOL) – perhaps a bit of a risk at the time – but where are our transfer “experts” and why were these guys not even looked at/recruited?! Obviously it must be because Bournemouth (twice) and Villa (eventually once) had more pulling power LOL – just another tip of the hat to those who rightly are questioning above and have also correctly for ages done so indeed – namely our transfer hierarchy – the guru’s they most certainly are (Hitchin/Hitchen is 1 specific and main name is it not) LOL/COL!

    Another tip of the hat and something HT wanted from JM (who was supposed to be a master of such) was to bring the players together, make them work/fight for each other, unity, structure, team-work, well drilled as well as obviously being well skilled (we are Spurs after all and our players do tend to be technically gifted generally – just shame about other attributes in the whole), etc, etc, etc – basically what Poch lost and wanted replacing that CL final disappointment summer/what JM alluded to quite a few times during his tenure especially towards the end – classic 1 being “same coach, different players” – yet as usual we’re still a bunch of individual’s thrown together and relying on sparks of genius – unfortunately at the back though NO – Walker, Trippier who have gone, so has Vert’s and Lloris and Toby and Rose are all past it, very past it even, not forgetting Dembele that powerhouse in CM and even Wanyama also helping in a very similar mould, etc (fair play HOJ – but again as TQ2 points out – can’t do it all on his own) and as I’ve just stated – 1 of a rare breed at Spurs – who gives everything physically, etc (as PompeyYid – hey mate) – was calling for last summer – “eat your granny” type(s), etc LOL – too far and inbetween at Spurs for many a year now unfortunately – even if not 1000% technically perfect – GOD forbid LOL/COL ……………………!

    TQ2 – agreed – Hoj and even Bale if he comes back (which he should) for captain/vice-captain, etc – hopefully under Parker maybe and I stand by my other suggestions as well anyway. If by some miracle HK10 stays (all fine by me for sure 1000% meaning he becomes capitan no.1), all the others on my list still ripe for leaving and maybe we need to find some money and invest properly at long last but in this case no point nor could we get Ings and Dybala but then with HK10 staying – not really needed anywhere near as much and Bale could and should still come and if we could meet his wages this last season – then this coming season with everything opening up hopefully (safely as best possible of course) then even more so can we do then and also now when maybe he might be able to get somewhere near back to his best after this last pre-cursor of a season!

    Parker for Mero-Mero, but I still want Areola, Aarons, Andersen (relatively obvious for me – perfectly attainable, won’t cost a fortune and no prima donna tags) but then show some investment balls at last and try and get an Ake, Mings, Pau Torres (a proper rare breed quality LCB) even if paying top dollar (they do appear to be worth it LOL) – indeed if we have to let Foyth go and basically for relative peanuts based on his apparent improvement and general fee standards and that bloody auto clause we thought we were so clever installing, etc at the time (I’ll confess at the time I thought it was actually quite clever but then we all thought similar at getting Doherty for £13m from Wolves and that thus letting Foyth go was all the more OK and with a “decent” protective clause and a new contract to protect all as well, etc!!!!!) – at least do all possible to get Pau in return (Niall – “easy bruv” – me and you agreeing on something again as usual as regards as you called him “Froyth” LOL) and like I say bring Bale back also to his spiritual home no less (as I already stated here and also this morning in more detail, etc).

    BS – indeed – Lloro and Toby past their best for sure, Toby probably by quite a bit and the degradation will just come quicker and quicker especially as he never had much turn of pace as it was, hence why Vert’s was let go last season (a legend of the club especially in defensive terms and being a LCB on top ……………..) – Dele agreed – could be 1 of the best no.10’s in the world still, etc but he’s nowhere near the player he was when he started for us those 1st 3 “teen” yrs – but still only just turned 25 like he said – so plenty of time, opportunity and skill/class to do so for sure but 100% agreed ATM he simply ain’t top grade – needs to re-find it most certainly and Skippy – clearly a top even massive prospect but let’s see him do it consistently in the Prem and then we can truly laud properly – but certainly very encouraging no doubt but not really likely to be that explosive already next year and never going to depose Hoj or N’Dom/Lo Celso properly for a good while if at all – (his main rival and position is that of Hoj after all) – but hopefully can be great cover at a minimum (hence why for me Sissoko can finally go and we can still get some decent money for him at 32 and also get those last 2 year’s of a relatively large contract no doubt – off the wage bill also – same as Toby, Lloris, Lamela, Aurier, etc – especially)!

    Geoff – (again Hi mate – cheers for the mention BTW), Doncaster, Stan, 123, Frank and many others, etc (memory failing a bit as been a while) – top, top intelligent posters – shame not had a chance to be reading and popping in regularly and contributing this current season but to be honest – given how it’s gone – probably been best LOL/COL!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Anyway – mite come back later with a bit more …………………………….!

  • El Jefe says:

    Hmm – Leicester up to old tricks I’m reading LOL – what ever happened to good old fashioned cheating via copying (OK stealing in this case better stated really and truly LOL but so what ………………..), etc?!

    Hazard and Willian 2 fine examples as I’m sure Harry Redknapp remembers so “fondly”, not to mention our danglings with the likes of Fernandes (and even Grealish – despite still being at Villa but now courted by so many whereas back then we were the only main and serious contenders of note) in recent past to mention 2 further massive success stories, etc ………………….!

    Back to those cunning FOXES LOL – Soumare for as little as 25m Euros and I’ve seen it reported for less and Edouard for maybe £15-20m with Bertrand on a free – OK an easy pass on Bertrand (given Reguilon, Davies, Sessegnon, Cirkin, etc) but the other 2 at those kind of prices???!!! We need a 2nd STR and it ain’t going to be Vinny from the looks of things as it is and as for Soumare – well I’ve already said Sissoko can go and I was interested in seeing Skippy supporting HOJ, etc but this guy Soumare was/is very highly rated (similar maybe to a point to N’Dom 2-3 years ago) and to get him for about a 1/3 of what he cost us???!!!

    Hmm, I might thus be willing to change my mind and let Skippy join Norwich for another season they are so desperate to get him for (we’d naturally have to find a way to get the Aarons deal sorted finally in reverse also) and see him play regularly in the Prem and see how he goes and bring in Soumare for a “bargain” and have him fight it out with HOJ and adapting to Prem/London, etc all the way – still got Winksy as well and again as TQ2 said – HOJ can’t do it all himself – hence his reduced effect in somes games this season from obvious burn-out – brilliant against Wolves on Sunday but then not so brilliant against Villa on Wednesday and that’s just 1 example of several this season as it is already (and given his game is so much about physicality naturally on top, etc)!!!

    Respect to Leicester and Rogers quite frankly indeed they already poached guys like Maddison, Tielemans and Castagne off us before and look at them now – here potentially come a couple more – it’s not as if we weren’t linked [even heavily as well with some of these] to all 5 in our recent past – showing once again how it can and indeed should be done!!!

    As for HK10 – as I have actually at last read and basically been mulling anyway in the last 24 hours or so – 200m Euros is about the right price so roughly £170m – which fits in with what I was saying this morning with regards to getting as close to £150m with Ake thrown in – all depends on Ake’s valuation – but a fair compromise is probably £130m + Ake and if HK wants out – I’d probably have to accept that as decent business especially in the current climate, the ability to rebuild heavily ATM with that money on top of Ake coming in (proper LCB LOL), HK’s going to be 28 and there’s always concern over his ankles and is he another Rooney who bows out of the top stage around 32 (now that would be a BIG SHAME) but I can see a possibility – but where is red nose and his gene scientists LOOOL (fair play to the old Scot – LEGEND as well end of)?! Not to mention in City it’s not exactly to a direct rival which is also a massive bonus at the end of the day as well!

    Happy to keep him most obviously 100% – but can still see plus sides if we get the deal right on his sale and then do the same when it comes to using the proceeds for our own recruitment drive – added to the sales of all those mentioned this morning and big savings on wages – especially that little lot – because fair play to the LEGEND that is HK10 especially in this respect – as he’s worth every single penny of his salary and then more-some for sure (guy has surely to be on £500K minimum for me wherever he ends up – problem for 1 is we cannot afford that – but that is the correct wage for him like I say bare minimum) – indeed arguably the best player in the world ATM (thus why even in the current climate – 200m Euros has to be on the cards for me quite frankly) – only maybe Lewandowski, Haaland, Mbappe, Salah and the obvious Messi and Ronny can compare – would not even bring the likes of De Bruyne or Fernandes or Neymar (Sonny, Bale LOL) to name a quick 3 (5) into the equation which says quite a bit already!

    Very interesting times ahead for sure and given all this in/out and money talk – Levy can once again look to shine properly in his field of expertise (not that 2013 is great on his record at least in terms of spending a fortune, etc ……………….)!

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