Having replaced former manager Jose Mourinho, Tottenham Hotspur’s caretaker gaffer, Ryan Mason, now heads into his fourth game in charge as we travel to Elland Road to face Leeds United in Saturday’s early Premier League kick off.
Mason’s plan against Manchester City in the EFL Cup Final didn’t quite work, but he does have victories over Southampton, and more recently, a heavy defeat of Sheffield United under his belt, so as we return to a bit more of an attacking intent, we know we will get chances against Marcelo Bielsa’s side.
Another good result puts us on the edge of being back in the battle for the top four/five places in the division and plenty of us had given up hope of that, and although their form over the last five games has tailed off, they are plucky and energetic battlers who keep running, so we’ll have to match the ugly stuff so our quality can show through.
Unless there are issues closer to the game, the only player listed as out currently continues to be Ben Davies, so all eyes to an on form Sonny, Harry and Garry.
Niall – He took over with PSG second, he went top, then had a bad wobble and PSG have been second since, unable to bridge the gap.
But even if he did win it, should PSG really be relying on a dodgy penalty on the ultimate match day to winthe league? They should be walking the league by 20 points every year.
Considering post of MP’s recent predecessors have won the league (that is the expected base line), it doesn’t look very good on MP.
I watched for about 20mins yesterday the Rennes v PSG, game, bloody hell the opinion I got from PSG was “we as a team do not really care and are just going through the motions” they were slow, slow and some more slow, but whilst watching I heard the commentator say! “that if PSG lose this game and get knocked out of the Cup next week, which there is a good chance they will” ” Poch will be sacked” bleedin hell after how long, no pressure then Poch lol!
Any way as I said I only watched 20mins so do not know what the final score was, mind I do not really care lol!
BS
I suppose its the phrase “Hill to climb”, I don’t see it that way, I agree that they should be well clear of anyone else. As I said I don’t know where they were when Poch took over.
Who knows if actually gets a full pre season with them.
He could be miles clear of the chasing pack, but I thought that about us with JM. 🙁
PY he’s been sacked by better teams than PSG 😉
Niall,
Obviously Spurs are the better team. THFC got Poch to the CL final, which PSG did not. 😜
….. Pompey? If Poch got sacked by PSG would Levy ask him back ? Would Poch want to come back ? Would Poch achieve better results with the squad we have now ? Would Kane stay if Poch came back ? Would getting Poch back take some of the heat off Levy and ENIC ? …. am I going to stay behind after the Villa game to stand on the shelf side and applaud the team as they walk around the stadium to say thank you to the Spurs supporters ? …..
Good morning OM, I cannot answer any of your questions, as I have no bloody idea, lol!
My post regards Poch at PSG, was not about him coming back to Spurs if he got sacked by them, I was just trying to show how precarious the job at some clubs can be, sorry if I was misunderstood. COYS
It’s really depressing reading the gossip columns, I know a lot of it is pure drivel but it still leaves you feeling really flat when your club is being linked to Jerome Boateng who has won nearly everything in the game but is almost 33 and ravaged by injury while Leicester are being linked to Boubacary Soumare at £21m which is a decent price for a highly rated 23 year old midfielder.
A fine morning to you TQ2S, having read all the pure drivel, cheer yourself up to realise 99% of the stuff the media writes about Spurs is pure “make believe bullshit!” as they have nout else to write about. COYS
Morning PY! 🙂
I spent yesterday in my bubble at my daughter and son-in-laws small farm in Somerset where they keep alpacas and rare breed sheep and pigs. It is a wonderful place to reflect on life in general and is a bit like a Dr. Doolittle experience. It was wonderful seeing the new life that has been created there with a number of new spring lambs, one of which arrived during my visit!
Anyway, I only tell you this because I wasn’t able to participate in the discussions here yesterday but caught up with the conversations late last night when I got home. I just want to say I very much enjoyed reading the various views and observations, the conversation was very open, honest, and in places heartfelt while also being respectful to other posters.
The one thing that kept cropping up during my reflective walks around the farm was the attitude displayed by our players in the game on Saturday, let’s face it, Leeds had nothing to play for other than pride while we still had an outside chance of making top 4 and CL qualification. As an impartial observer you would probably have thought it was the other way round! It’s easy to make all kinds of excuses but at the end of the day we let yet another opportunity pass us by. Why? I’m not really sure any more, surely the fact that CL qualification was still possible should have provided all the motivation we needed to fight for the 3 points?
As I’ve alluded to in posts over some considerable time now…..I don’t think this squad of players has the self belief needed to get over the final hurdle and a complete squad overhaul is the only way I see us ridding ourselves of this weakness. I’m sorry guys but if you think Skipp and Sessegnon are going to be part of the answer I think you are going to continue to be disappointed.
We need to start by finding a manager with good technical and motivational skills who can build a new squad while instilling a ‘can do’ attitude to replace the ‘oh well, we did our best’ attitude that we seem to have had for some time now. Talk of Scott Parker is laughable, but I did like him as a player!
Hi TQ …. Happy to hear you had a good break yesterday, sounded wonderful.
I’m not sure if it’s down to a lack of belief, desire, or motivation. Probably a bit of each? But at this level most of the blame for any of these ‘lacks’ has to be laid at the door of the players. A manager can only instill (or try to instill) a degree of what he thinks a player lacks, personally.
By the time a player has reached this level (PL), they should have desire and motivation in spades, if not, it probably ain’t gonna happen. Maybe?
Brendan Rogers – “I’ve got a set of players that give me their heart and soul every single day and also I can see a future here in terms of the development of the squad. I’ve got a really strong relationship with the board. We work very closely together.
We need a manager who can make the same claim!
MP could have probably said the same at some point, yet it produced nothing in the end…
Talk of Poch being re-hired by DL. Can you imagine the amount of crow eating would be involved in such a move by DL? That would be a humiliating admission of error on DL’s part and highly unlikely. He’d as soon bring Harry Redknapp back.
Of course, my writing this elevates the possibility of Poch coming back soon.
Another story making the rounds: JM wants Roma to buy Hojbjorg and Dier, but DL adamant about keeping both. Please, please, pretty please, DL, pay Roma to take Dier. (After saying this, who knows, moving Dier back into a MF position might make a star out of him.)
TQ2Spurs – you nailed it 100% with your last post. As long as Levy is running the show, it really won’t matter who we appoint as manager.
DH….it was really the first part of the quote I was alluding to as it related well to my longer post. That said, there would need to be a common purpose that both the board and the manager agreed on to move forward with purpose.
TK…………DL re-hiring Poch if it happened would be an admission he laid the blame at the wrong door and it was the players to blame all along. The only problem would be that DL would have to back him monetarily to build a new squad if this were the case otherwise what would be the point of him coming back.
Isn’t there an upcoming match vs some wandering wolves? Why can I not find myself looking forward to it? I’m getting like the players. I just want this season to end. I don’t remember having such a feeling before. Hope I never have it again.
I know how you feel TK, we really need to get the next managerial appointment right, I really don’t think I could stand another false dawn!
TQ, we signed False Dawn many years ago, we cannot seem to get rid of him. COYS
LOL. I just saw the Sunday match vs wandering wolves will be live on TV in NYC. I’ll set the damned alarm and watch it, fool that I am. If they play the same disinterested way they have so often recently, I’ll be really depressed. If they play with passion and show interest in what the are doing, I also be depressed, wondering why they waited until the time for that had already passed by. I really don’t remember another time when I wished for no Spurs football to watch. How can I disinfect my tv after using it to watch them play like that? Noting is less forgivable for a football player than putting in no effort. Oh well, we’ll rise to glory next season. Or maybe the one after that. God, I’m really feeling down about this lot.
TK….there are a number of us here that are running out of opportunities to see our beloved club achieve some kind of success again before we pop our clogs. I wish the players were a bit more appreciative of this and showed a bit more effort.
How dare you TQ, using words such as appreciative and effort when your talking Spurs lol! COYS
haha…….yes, I guess most of the players wouldn’t know what I was talking about if they read this! 🙂
popped clogs is a depressing expression at my age. lol.
I prefer pawn my spurs. at least I can go back to the pawn shop to retrieve my life.
I’ve sent two emails in my life to DL. Both were requests that he fire a manager. In both cases the manager was fired within a week. This could go t a man’s head. I promise I shall use my super power rarely.
TK….do you think you might have the same influence to get get some of the players sacked? 🙂