Vital Spurs Debate Section

Match Thread – Spurs Roll The Dice Again Ahead Of Vitesse But You Wouldn’t Say Our Odds Have Improved

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With Tottenham Hotspur registering back to back losses once again in the Premier League with the frustrating 3-0 defeat to Manchester United at the weekend, news on Monday of Nuno Espirito Santo’s departure from the club probably didn’t come as a great surprise to anyone.

Wherever you sit on the Nuno debate, there were obvious flaws with his handling of the group and with the players just not stepping up for him, there was a sense of unavoidable inevitability about it.

This of course means we now head into preparations for our Group G clash with Vitesse managerless as the merry-go-round has once again begun, and after October’s slip up against them, we simply couldn’t stomach another defeat if we hope to try and top the table.

With speculation returning about talks being held with Antonio Conte, whether he (or a new face) will be in place by Thursday is open to debate but whoever it is has got a massive job on their hands.

What will be will be, as the ditty goes, we just have to hope our next gamble pays off because the decision makers aren’t going to sack themselves are they.

Vitesse

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Lose

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  • TK says:

    Fixing the typing error: moura seems always to lose the ball after making shifty and speedy moves to get past the midfield. Conte likes players who are in control. Can he help Moura not to give the ball away in the final attacking part of the pitch? If not, Moura might spend a lot of time sitting.

  • Love totty says:

    TK, the rot started months before the Sissoko incident, a dramatic collapse from contending at Xmas, yet fluking a way to the CL final.

  • Hot Tottingham says:

    Quite simply, THFC will spend what they can afford to spend in the January TW.

    I don’t know how much that is. But I’m sure that Conte will be more than aware…

    Spurs have the largest debt in the EPL. And yet in the last couple of transfer windows, and without any substantial income due to Covid, the club has spent a lot of money on some top talent.

    If Conte can’t work with what we already have and hopefully are about to get in, then I don’t know who can.

    First off, the players need to work. And work hard. Get some fitness, energy and spirit back into their bones. And relight the fire in their bellies.

    This won’t just be about spending loads of dosh. Conte is on a short, 18 month contract. And the work starts now. Not in January.

    But, Conte is renowned for his quick turnarounds in how players and teams improve with his tough training and incisive coaching methods. Also, his man-management skills and motivational passion.

    He needs to get stuck in right away… And he will…

    Then January will be about who he wants and who we can get. Within our THFC transfer budget.

    The club will spend what it can. No more, no less…

  • TK says:

    You may be right, LT, but the Sissoko moment was for me the moment when all the air went out of the balloon. I do have the sense that we play Liverpool even for the whole match and may have won if not for a clearly poor call. Winning the CL in that match might have led to a very different history thereafter. If that wasn’t the moment when the rot started–and perhaps it was at Christ’s mass–it surely was the symbolic movement in my eyes.

    I cannot peg the moment when I became an old man. It was a long processes. But I can point to the moment when I really perceived it. Someone else might point to an earlier moment.

    The team his been in a persistent state of decay and malaise since the 2018-19 season. Now’s the time–if ever there were such a time–to dig out of the far too long slump.

    By the way, a great cartoon in the Guardian with DL listening to the chants of the supporters “Levy Out” and saying “I hear you,” and then sacking Espirito Santo, or something of that sort.

    DL: the Marie Antoinette of N17. The new stadium and training grounds are the cake we are offered to eat as we starve for a decent display on the pitch.

    • BelgianSpur says:

      TK – to be fair, had it been a Liverpool player with his hands up in the box like that and the penalty not given, you’d have been fuming… It was a poor error of judgment from Sissoko more so than a poor error of judgment from the ref. In a lot of ways, it was symbolic, I agree, but symbolic of that fact that we had ridden our luck hard up until that point, and that luck finally ran out.

  • PompeyYid says:

    Welcome to the Velodrome Antonio, now go and kick some arse so we see a team playing like a team.

    “Happy days are here again” the adventure begins.

    Lets start with a convincing win on Thursday night…..COYS

  • 123spurs says:

    Not gonna get my hopes up, all looks good on paper, even the players we are linked to now. We have been down this road with jose. Hopefully he can get the best out of a rotten bunch.

  • BelgianSpur says:

    HT – Sure, the stadium has created a fairly sizeable amount of debt. But by all accounts, THFC refinanced that debt in 2019, over a very long period of time, at very attractive interest rates.

    From that point onwards, when mechanisms have been put in place to limit the impact of said debt on budgets, how much of a factor should that really be?

    I’m sure Levy ran the numbers and decided the stadium could be completed without relegating the club. He would have known how expensive running a PL club at a high level is, and proceeded knowingly. This invariably involves spending money in the transfer market, at a much bigger scale than we have been doing.

    Either Levy got his numbers wrong, which is a sackable offense, or there is money to spend but Levy just isn’t spending it out of overzealous conservatism.

    There is perhaps a difference between what the club can actually afford and what Levy is willing to spend. In other words, presented with the same financials, would another chairman be bolder in our spending?

    We don’t have access to the club’s books, but we do know, through the likes of Deloitte, that we are spending a lot less than almost all of our peers in the PL, proportionally speaking. Food for thought.

    The way I see it, Levy was more than happy to bask in glory when the press were praising him for putting a financing in place which allowed Spurs to both build a stadium and invest in the squad. if he’s not living up to those claims now, it’s only fair for him to have to face questions from the fans.

    Having said that, I obviously take your point that there is plenty of room for improvement with the players we have, even before a single penny is spent in the transfer window. As you said, we all have to trust Conte to work his magic and as you also said, if he can’t do it, who can? Cautious optimism should be the word, here.

    But once Conte will have taken the current group of players as far as he could and money needs to be spent, I think the same logic applies: if you’re not going to back Conte, one of the top 5 managers in world football today, who are you going to back?

    And if you were never willing to back him in the first place, why appoint him at all?

  • TK says:

    lol. I had not idea nor intention of starting a discussion about whether the Sissoko call was the start of our despair. That is the symbolic moment in my memory, but I agree that the problems ran much deeper than this one play.

    by the way, i watched replays over and over of that play after that match and I thought it was a bad call. perhaps if Sissoko was wearing a Poo kit I would have seen it differently. We all see the world through out tribal lenses.

    I still think that if that call had not been made the outcome of the match would have been far different. And the next two years might have gone quite differently.

    The more interesting quesiton for me at the moment is which players will fall by the wayside with the arrival of Conte and which will surprise us by improving under his style of play. I’m curious what his eyes see in our current players. It may well be a different take than we’ve been seeing.

    I suspect that Oliver Skipp won’t be his cup of tea, but if i’m wrong aboutg that i’ll be delighted. I love to see a bit of passing brilliance unexpectedly brought out of him.

    I suspect that Reguilon and the Royalty Emerson might really flourish if freed by a back three.

    If HK doesn’t wake up he might sit like Bale did when José arrived.

    New managers always want to mark their stamp on the package.

    I we know anything about Conte, it’s that he wanted nothing more than to stamp his mark on the team and he doesn’t care about anyone else’s feelings when doing so.

    There could be lots of surprises about where he cuts and slashes and where and when he promotes.

  • TK says:

    Conte will want to spend lots to bring in new blood. If he isn’t allowed to do this, he’ll leave after 18 months. Not a man in need of staying where he doesn’t get what he want.

    The shelf life of a team generally is short. Players rarely stay on the top of their game for too long. individuals can, but not the whole group–without bringing in fresh blood.

  • Niall D says:

    Sorry Danny for the delay, thanks yet again for the thread, with all the furoe of sackings and appointments, I sort of lost the run of myself.
    TK I slightly differ from you about the rot setting in, for me it started with K Walker leaving for big bucks and Rose wanted them too but didn’t (couldn’t) get away, also the new, Stadium and failure to refresh the squad and contracts, then the CL final was sort of the straw which broke the camels back and turned us into donkeys 😉.
    As HT Says I feels its more about Conte working with who he has, kicking arse where necessary throwing a few egos (not under the bus) but out of the club, just like Poch did with the likes of Kabul and probably Benteleb.
    I would argue that we could get 5 out in exchange for 3 in and possibly a couple of loanees after all we can’t change the world in 1 TW.
    But Conte now has a range of unbroken fixtures to instill, discipline, tactics, thought process, raise expectations, potential, performances and hopefully attitudes.
    This will let him see whom exactly he wants /needs in /out, players should see this as a clean sheet.
    Re Paraticis signings I sort of feel a bit ‘good but could do better,”
    Emerson looks to be decent enough as is Romero, I haven’t seen enough of Gill yet, and the young French guy looks good in France but we’ve seen that before.
    But with Conte beside him our signings could become much more targeted for “now” not 2 years down the line.
    Oh yes
    The Samall matter of Vitesse, we’ll get a strong 11 on get a ref who doesn’t fall for their Dives and “best falls” 4 – 0 to “Anto and the Lillywhites”
    However with the players who need to go I feel another one who should leave is the guy “Hitchen” I don’t know what he brings to the club.

  • Allan says:

    Well who knows .
    Excellent track record but buys big .
    Is the person who is in charge of money and who ought to have been sacked going to give Conte enough dosh to buy the quality which we are obviously missing .
    I can’t see Conte improving Berwign , Moura ,Dembele and many others who give the ball away or just pump hopeful balls forward .
    I hope he can work some magic with the present squad but I feel that he will require quality in the next transfer window .
    Having said that he has taken the job knowing the shambles the playing side of the club is in so perhaps he sees some hope

    • Stan Rosenthal says:

      Allan, I don’t think most Spurs fans agree with you about Lucas. It was the boos that greeted his replacement by Bergwijn in the United game that helped Nuno on his way. Lucas always gives 100%, can at least make things happen and usually wins back ball he loses. And more than anything else he got us to a Championship final almost single handed.

  • 123spurs says:

    Conte has worked with the ready made players, right now spurs players are ready made for the bin.

  • TK says:

    lol, Niall. my comments weren’t really about when the rot set in. The loss of the CL final acted as the symbolic marker for me of our fall from the heights. My comments were, in my mind at least, about what needs to be done about it now that Conte is arriving. Which players might be resurrectec under his managment. Which will not fit into his way of thinking and evaluations. There are players who have been playing and will not be now. there are those who have not been playing and now will be. Etc.

    But for me the symbolic turning point was the loss to Pool in the CL final. Until then we had a chance to rise to the top, at least for that season. After that, it’s all been down the tunnel into Hades. We’ve steadly gone to hell.

    Can Conte raise us to the heights with which we flirted when Pokemon was with us? Can he pass those heights by? Can we escape from the fall that was all too clear after we lost the real chance to win the CL?

    When did the rot really set in first? Chrismas 2018? Walker jumping ship? Rose complaining in public? Poch not getting the cash to rebuild and thus losing his own faith in us?

    the combination of them all, I suspect, all outcomes of DL’s stubborn inability to pay the bills that needed to be paid if we were to stay competitive.

    Perhaps if we continue pleading DL out, the response will be for Conte to be sacked as he’s got us preparing for the next CL final.

  • jod says:

    BelgianSpur – “Levy got his numbers wrong” I suppose you could say that in the sense that he didn’t foresee Covid and the stadium being locked down. Mind you I don’t know anyone who did see that coming. It cost the club £150m which can’t be recovered. The debt is long term but still has to be repaid. Over time the loss will be absorbed, when you go to the stadium now the crowds are back you can see its back to being the cash cow it was designed to be. But you don’t take a financial hit like the lockdown and just keep going as if nothing had happened unless you have oil money and it genuinely doesn’t matter how much you lose.

  • jod says:

    TK – Why is it people like you are so eager to complain about not spending money while never being willing to explain where that money comes from ? If you do know how to match the spending of oil states I’d love to hear it, I suspect Levy would to. But in reality its “let’s pretend we’ve got lots and lots of money”, isn’t it ?

    • Hot Tottingham says:

      Jod, the big contradiction in what TK is saying; is that he despises the oil rich tycoons like Abramovich and the Saudis. He is adamant that THFC shouldn’t go that way. On higher moral grounds, no less.

      And yet here he is calling for Levy to be ‘OUT” because Spurs won’t spend money it doesn’t have.

      The irony being, that those, who like TK, also complain about the new stadium build being detrimental to building the squad, seem blissfully unaware that it is now the new stadium and the money it is making and will make (post-covid lockdowns), is what puts us in a stronger position in the coming TW, than most other clubs, worldwide. If of course we ignore the likes of City etc…

      Levy has worked financial wonders for the club in the recent circumstances of these pandemic proportions. And yet here we are with the usual nonsense and fantasy football bollox, about how badly run the club is because it still can’t quite compete at the very highest level.

      Oh what a delusional and moaning, sad old bunch of football fans we are… And yet when we do do well. CL final or 2nd in the PL for example, It’s only ever (apparently) by luck. Or, it’s called a fluke! Jesus!

  • Stan Rosenthal says:

    Saturday could have been the best defeat we have ever had. If we had won we would have been still lumbered with Nuno and Conte would have gone to United.

  • TK says:

    jod,
    why are people like you so eager to complain that other people are eager to complain? by the way, where did I write anything about the spending of oil state money or say that we should match it? What are you on about? do you not read the comment of others before complaining about them? What are you on about? People like me, as you put it, don’t get people like you. The biggest complainer on this site and you call others complainers.

    If I was complaining about DL not spending money I don’t remember it. I do remembern writing that Conte always likes to spend a lot of dosh to buy lots of new players.

    jod–the man who doesn’t look in the mirror. complains about everyone elseand calls them complainers. The Emperor of Unrecognized Irony

  • TK says:

    jod,
    I also wrote that poch wanted to spend to refresh a squad that was worn thin.
    maybe your complain should be with Poch and Conte.

    if you’d read my comments over the years they always tend towards saying that i’d rather spend less and try to develop young players. I’ve been quite consistent in this. I’ve consistenly argued against big spending to bring in big stars.

    As I said, what are you on about?

  • block 108 spurs says:

    At last Levy has been forced to realise he can’t have a top quality football team spending minimal money, and not listening to those who are experts (poch etc.) Conte will put a fire under these spurs players, an exit door to those who are not deemed good enough.

    I also think spurs players were going off the ball from easter 2019 and their mental resolve was missing in losing cup finals since

  • TK says:

    careful 108, jod will be all over you for complaining that DL won’t spend money. Whether you complained or not.

    other will complain that you mention the CL final as important in the collapse of the club. lol.

    the problems, as we all know, are in the stars, not in ourselves.

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