Given the turmoil at Tottenham Hotspur over the summer, few expected us to open up the 2021/22 campaign with such a flourish as we left Pep Guardiola crying into his Grecian 2000 (or is it Grealish £100million?) with a thoroughly well deserved victory on Sunday.
In the absence of Harry ‘will he, won’t he’ Kane, players stepped up and performed admirably against the reigning title holders and the ever reliable Son Hueng-Min secured us the win ten minutes into the second half.
It was a confidence booster and as we go into Thursday’s laughable Europa Conference League clash with Pacos de Ferreira, few will be expecting any difficulties as long as we again perform how we did on Sunday.
We might even have Kane back as he’s been named in the squad by manager Nuno Espirito Santo.
Two wins from two would set us up nicely for Nuno’s first return to Molineux at the weekend and it would certainly raise spirits with ongoing transfer sagas.
I’m beginning to think that Paratici is just going to be another mistake like Mourinho, he comes with a respected past record but currently looks like flopping spectacularly. Nearly everyone we are supposedly linked to is signing a new contract with their existing club, or in Vlahovic’s case being stalked by City just to piss us off and push the price up because levy won’t capitulate on the asking price for Kane.
TQ …. Not sure that your comment re Paratici is fair. His job is to identify prospects, not to negotiate and complete the deals. If he identifies good prospects he is doing his job. The way I see it is that if the deals do not go through, that is not his fault. How can he be blamed for a player in another club signing a new contract? That is beyond his control.
Geof…..it is my understanding that Paratici, as managing director of football operations, has been handed the complete recruitment operation along with Keith Hitchen. I’ve no doubt though that he will be operating within boundaries set by Levy in terms of available funds.
Hi TQ …. That’s what I was thinking. I would imagine that, as they concern huge sums of money, Levy would always have the final say in approving transfers.
Just to add, Milenkovic signed a contract extension with Fiorentina apparently reporting that he got frustrated by the lack of progress from clubs interested in him, one of which was claimed to be Spurs. He would have been an excellent buy at less than £20m before he signed the extension.
Fek me how things have turned in a few short days.
On Sunday we were singing were riding along on the crest of a wave now its going gang goolie.
As Geoff said in an earlier post, it was a chance to give a few players some minutes on the pitch.
The game and competition are of little importance, whilst I’d like to win it ain’t the end of the world, we can beat them at home.
There are a few who fail to impress, Winks yet again, Doh was awful.
Romero needs to pull his socks up a bit
Thought Gil and Sess did okay, but it was a team of strangers and youngsters in an away game in Europe.
Would be good to be rid of some of our dead wood by the end of the fortnight and get a couple of passionate players in tho…
Geofspurs – I don’t really buy that. Soldado didn’t perform poorly, he failed totally. Even a striker playing in a system he’s not comfortable with will get some goals if he’s any good, just not as many as if the system suited him better.
jod …. Yes, to a certain extent, but my point was that we continued to bring in the wrong sort of striker for the way we played.
I’m never going to be happy to lose but the silver lining if we do crash out of the ECL early is having a fresher squad for other competitions. Still time to turn it around as TQ2Spurs said, but I personally would not mind if we exited. And going by Nuno’s team selection, he doesn’t seem to value the ECL more than that either.
I’d much rather we have a bad game in the ECL than the PL. On to Wolves.
TQ2Spurs – I also think it’s far too early to have a final opinion on Paratici. As we have discussed many times before, other talented football men have found it difficult to work with the parameters imposed by our club’s board. That doesn’t make them any less talented.
Where I disagree with Geof is that Paratici should still be held responsible if a deal falls through. Merely identifying a promising player isn’t enough. His job is to identify players that are both good enough AND players that we have a good chance of signing. There is no point wasting time identifying players that are good but outside of our budget.
If they are within our budget and we are just not pulling the trigger, there is something very wrong with our recruiment process, as I have alluded to before. Either LEvy sets a budget/limit, but lets Paratici get on with his job as long as Paratici is operating within that budget, or Levy wants a final say in everything and is just never going to delegate, in which case I question why having a DoF even makes sense. It just seems like an empty shell of a job, in that case/
It was an awful performance fro Spurs. But when we play that badly, with a weakened team like that, away from home in a two-legged match, and the opposition don’t really trouble us for most of the match… Then it ain’t such a poor result that can’t easily be turned around at home.
They parked a bus after taking the lead and we failed to get around it or through it… Not good. But not the end of the world…
It shows how poor our squad is when not one player looked any good. Even the internationals were pathetic. Not one shot on goal against weak opposition is a disgrace. We need so many players gone and new recruits with passion bought.
It’s just one bad match Wentworth. We can’t read that much into it. We were playing a top tier Portuguese team, away from home. And not a bunch of amateurs. With had 3 new players, a 17 year old up top and a bunch of others that were obviously not match ready or fit.. A couple of them just getting back from injury. It was basically an exercise routine for them all, including the new boss, Nuno.
The same lot that played last night may well thrash them at home… But it’s not that important as far as the rest of the season goes. The first team will also have bad games this season… Which is just 1 PL game old. LOL!
A squad cannot so easily be judged like that. Not when we see a whole new team from it and in just 1 match… Give another week at least! 🙂
jod – re Sissoko, it has nothing to do with “players with no names”.
We bought Sissoko in the summer of 2016. That same window, Liverpool bought Wijnaldum and City bought Gundogan for far cheaper transfer fees. Elsewhere, players like Axel Witsel were sold for 60% of what Sissoko cost. You wanted names? I’ve just listed 3 from that same window.
re Lamela, he may have had little control over his injuries but from a recruitment point of view, we obviously bought an injury-prone player, or at the very least, a player who has proven unable to cope with the physicality of the Premier League. Is this something which could have been detected with a better medical assessment? I’m not a doctor but it begs the question.
I watched the whole match on Premier Sports which can now change its name coz premier it wasn’t. I just hope the new boys Romero and Gil don’t lose confidence after this poor showing. Giving them minutes might be good for their fitness but we want them sharp mentally too. The kids will be fine, Winks and Doherty should be very worried about their futures.
HT. Winks and Lo Celso had a great chance to run the show but they were impotent. Doherty was shocking. These senior players should have stepped up as they are our normal squad members. As it was, thet showed how poor our overall squad is. We have a reasonable first eleven but nothing else.
I didn’t really mention the Pacos tactics. Apart from them defending in numbers in the 2nd half.
Their main tactic was to kick us at every chance. Disrupt our flow and rhythm and stop us playing. They succeeded. The ref helped them with this, no end. But we will learn from this. The young ones, I mean. No excuse for the more senior players….
We’ll probably see the same at home. They will kick us a lot! And we will need to be a lot more smart. Nuno will know this….
I agree Wentworth. But it’s still about a not match-fit team, almost full of strangers… With a new boss, playing away from home against an experienced and well organised Pacos team…
Likewise, I will say this. Even if the exact same bunch did thrash them next week. I still wouldn’t read much into it, as far as the rest of the season goes. In the other competitions, there will only be a few changes here and there, from Nuno’s first team. Not an entire squad which we saw last night. We had a bench full of kids! We won’t see that in the PL.
Do you think winks le celso Doh, felt like why were they the only senior players that were picked and felt a big degraded
If they did 123 (and who knows?), then they really shouldn’t have. They should be professional and setting an example to the younger, less experienced ones.
I also watched the game, basically our team played how I expected, it was very disjointed..
One example of many, a 17 year old striker, who incidentley wasn’t afraid of their big burly/bully boy CB’s, didn’t get any service or back up for the whole game.
HT’s discription of the way our opponents played, spot on, defend in numbers, spoiling, kicking us, these sort of games are for the nippers to learn from.
Also as Spurs putting out a “B” team, I think gave their manager the words of incentive to encourage his lot, maybe like this…
“we are an “A” team and they put out a “B” thus disrespecting us, so lets go out and show them” easy words if you get my drift!
My biggest problem with last nights team was with 4 seniors who all made bad decisions, blamed the nippers, not encourage them, basically just did not do their jobs, Doh!, Davies, he is no captain, Winks and LoCelso.
As for Carter Vickers, sorry got to go along with a few others.
But it is only 1 down, long way to go, lessons will be learnt, Nuno, the nippers, maybe even the senior pro’s, so am looking forward to the return fixture. COYS
HT same hymn sheet m8.
I don’t put much emphasis on this result, they put their best team out at home and as you’ve said they are in and around the top four in the Portuguese league.
We were a team of youngsters, strangers and half fit new signings. And in reality there was little in the result.
As you say at home with a decent ref, the same group could easily beat Pacos.
However I think we will strengthen slightly to get us over the line.
Re Doherty see Sissoko, for me very similar players, big units who only seem only able to run in a straight line, don’t ask em to turn or do anything skillful with the ball, I would say they would have difficulty controlling their bladder.
Re Winks forget it, I just don’t see anything from a player who, by his description should have run the centre of the field against a team like this, but yet again failed to turn up, sidey sidey backwards.
Would love to see some good business done in this window.
I was not greatly surprised by this result. We picked 3 of our worst senior pros together with a scratch team of young uns, new uns, showing a contempt and lack of respect for the only European competition we are good enough to play in. Of course we are so used to winning trophies, that we treat this opportunity with disdain. Regarding the performance of Pratici as DOF, he is working under the same constraint as former holders of his post, that is working for a chairman who is as tight as a ducks arse, and wishes to retain control over every function in the club. Unfortunately his lack of ambition to be the chair of a successful, winning football club, regularly comes to the fore.
What is the betting that we successfully postpone the sale of Harry Kane untill close to dead line day a la Dimitar Berbatov, to prevent the spending of the fee on a replacement, providing of course that we could find one, who is A willing to come to Spurs, or B is cheap enough to attract Mr Levy’s sanction, or like Campbell who came from Man Utd as part of the Berbatov deal is totally inadequate. In spite of Sundays result I am still preparing for a long, hard, and extremely frustrating season, finishing a long way short of a top 4 place and a return to a top European competition. Never mind, what ever happens on the pitch, we will have the prettyist ground in the league with “Levy’s legacy”.