Vital Spurs Debate Section

Match Thread – Will Spurs Get Back To Their Dinamo-ic Best For Zagreb

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After a deeply disappointing North London derby against Arsenal on Sunday afternoon, Tottenham Hotspur have another quick turnaround in the fixture list as we face Dinamo Zagreb on Thursday evening in the second leg of our Europa League Round of 16 clash.

Thanks to a brace of goals from Harry Kane in the White Hart Lane leg of the affair, to put it bluntly, we will have to be at our pragmatic and defensive best under manager Jose Mourinho to not increase the margin of victory and comfortably put ourselves through to the net round.

Jose...

In

Decide End Of Season

Out

The problem there being of course, just as we thought maybe the tide had turned and we would get our Premier League form back on a proper track, we continue to prove that we can be so inconsistent that I can’t be alone in fearing that home soil Dinamo will make up for their very unimpressive showing in the first clash.

Mourinho will again rotate for this one, but our pool of players shrinks as Eric Lamela serves the first of his two game ban, Giovani Lo Celso is still rated as doubtful for this one and even if Son Heung-Min does recover quite quickly from his muscle injury, you can’t see him even playing a part on the bench in midweek.

We’ll have to see if Mourinho has some unexpected good news when he gives his press conference later in the week.

Dinamo Zagreb

Win

Draw - Progress On Aggregate

Lose - Progress On Aggregate

Lose Outright

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  • Spurfect One says:

    In my opinion Jose over rated the squad when he first came, he thought it would be easier with players like Kane and Son to make us challenge. His weird ideology of trying to turn Dier into a prime John Terry whilst buying a RWB from Wolves and trying to convert him into a conventional RB is weird as Jose’s style is obviously based around being solid first and foremost.

  • Niall D says:

    So what happens now
    We’ll probably finish 7th or 8th
    We’ll lose the “Mickey Mouse Cup”
    Kane will be gone probably to Man C or Liverpool, so will Sonny, Bale won’t bother to extend his loan spell, Regs will return to Spain. Tobs will return to Belgium.
    Which leaves us with the mediocre 18 or so squad to mount a Premier league challange in the greatest stadium in the world. Yaaay.

  • TQ2Spurs says:

    There is no point in keeping Jose unless the club are prepared to spend about £300m on upgrading our squad, but then, if you spend that much buying 5 or 6 quality players you don’t need an expensive manager because the players are good enough on their own to win you games. That’s some dilemma!

  • TK says:

    This could lead to such a mediocre club that we could be facing relegation fights until DL decides to spend like a drunken Scotsman. No, wait, that doesn’t work, does it? We may well be fighting relegation for the next decade if Bale, Son, and the rest bail out.

    The Mourinho disaster could last a long time.

    Please convince me that i’m being foolish with such thoughts. Please.

  • tk says:

    I hadn’t the courage to include Kane in the last post

  • Geofspurs says:

    Oh, come on guys, it’s not that bad, look on the bright side …. Oops, sorry, there isn’t one. Bugger!!!

  • PompeyYid says:

    Simple, we are crap! one person to blame, JM, he is doing/has done the 70’s Status Quo record “Down Down”.

    MOANINIO GET THE FCUK OUT OF OUR CLUB!

    • Geofspurs says:

      PY …. I was going to correct your grammar, mate, before realising that kfuc is a really difficult word to spell! : – )

  • Geofspurs says:

    Could anyone explain to me why we are inviting more humiliation by wanting to play in the CL next season? Not, obviously, that we are trying very hard. There are far more important things for the club to address before winning anything at all can be achieved.

  • Geofspurs says:

    One thing I have to say is that Sanchez performed extremely well in the circumstances.

    • PompeyYid says:

      Geof, am in agreement with you there, considering he had 5 donkey’s, mean no offence to our animal friends there, all around him, lol! COYS

  • TK says:

    Geof, Sanchez may be the only one still playing at Spurs next season. The rest of the lot might imitate rats leaving a sinking ship.

    On the day DL announced the hiring of JM I said this was going to end in disaster. I apologize for having said that. Sometimes the truth is best left unsaid. Where is the time machine when we need one?

    The suffering caused by that poor excuse for a man will remain for some time after he is asked to naff off.

  • Allan says:

    If Mourinho is sacked who would wish to come to Spurs with Levy in charge . I presume he has factored in the cost of sacking JM and will then argue there is no transfer money !
    What ,as chairman , has he achieved in 20 years ? Yes a lovely stadium but with a team playing dreadful football and an excellent training facility which is not producing players considered good enough to play in the first team .
    Many of us didn’t want Mournho but were prepared to back him but now he must go . However we can’t expect to snap our fingers and expect to get someone at this time of the season . Who would wish to work for Levy ? Apparently Rogers didn’t want the job and I wonder why ?

  • Drdrums11 says:

    It’s so painful to watch Spurs consistently being second to the ball in the midfield. It really comes down to a lack of effort and desire. Mourinho has no offensive tactics and can’t get our players emotionally into it. We constantly give away goals down the right side which happened on all three of them in this match. Spurs have 15 – 20 times the budget of Zagreb yet they were able to control and create the entire second half and extra time. This season is as good as dead at this point.

  • 123spurs says:

    Yes we all know its not working under jose a d really time for him to go, cut our loses, we tried it failed time to move on.

    Players cant play to his tactics
    Jose can’t and do t play to players strengths.

    Back to the players, they are a disgrace execpt for a few, poor weak mentality, players like sanchez whay was he doing last night. Hoofing the ball away for no reason instead of playing smart.

  • Hot Tottingham says:

    Allan. I think plenty of Spurs supporters said exactly the same about Mourinho. Why would he come to Spurs? (I suppose £15m a year might have helped him with his decision)!

    I think that a lot of supporters let their own dissatisfaction with Levy get in the way of the reality of the football world.

    Levy has moved Spurs into the 21st century. And I don’t think we should underestimate the value to THFC that the new stadium has brought, along with the fantastic training facilities we now have.

    Players, managers and coaches will definitely be swayed by Tottenhams (Levy’s) ambitions when they look from the outside in. Much more so than if we had just won a cup or two. And I’m more than certain that when a young talent of the future looks at what Spurs have to offer him, he will be more than impressed when looking at the many other options. And much more so than from before Levy and ENIC took over the show….

    Rogers, back in 2012-13, not long after joining Liverpool, said he had looked at Spurs and was not impressed with our high manager turnover. He said that he had wanted to go to a club that he would be given good time at, to build his team. (Isn’t that what all managers want wherever they go)? But he was still a young and inexperienced manager, and pretty naive I would say. And, soon after he joined Liverpool he said that he was impressed with them because they had not given into the pressure of selling their star player, Suarez. And made the comparison to Spurs having just sold their star player, Bale.

    Half a year later and Pool had sold Suarez. A year after that (After 3 1/2 seasons) they then fired Rogers. But during this time Levy had hired Pochettino. Who then of course was given good time to build his team at Spurs. And was of course, given a longer time than Rogers was given at Liverpool..

    I’m not saying that Rogers will want to leave the Foxes for Spurs. I don’t know. But what he gave as a reason for avoiding us 9 years ago may well not be the case right now… Anyhow, I’d rather he didn’t come anyway. 🙂

    …. But let’s say Jose was fired today. It wouldn’t have to mean that we get an immediate replacement for him… But if Levy really isn’t happy with Jose, he won’t waste time watching the situation get worse than it currently looks to us the supporters. He will take action to stop any rot. And he will have contingency plans. Just as Pool did when they fired Rogers part way through the season. With Klopp walking straight into the job.

    Is Sherwood free? Pleat? Pullis?!

  • Hot Tottingham says:

    When I wrote that “Players, managers and coaches will definitely be swayed by Tottenhams (Levy’s) ambitions when they look from the outside in”. I should have added that big money sponsors will also be swayed.

    And this is the reality of the football world. And it has been for a long time now. Big money rules, ok! And that means big fancy stadiums. Fancy managers and star players! We have this and we will have many more in the years to come…

    And as much as I loved and now miss the old WHL, we really did need to move on and head into the future. The long term future. And WHL was very old and way past its time.

    Unfortunately, football is not just about the football. And not winning cups for the past 20 years has nothing to do with the how the next 20, 30, 50, 100 years of THFC will look…

  • TQ2Spurs says:

    Morning guys and gals, how are we all on the morning after the night before?

    I’ve been reading through some of the post match reports this morning and I was struck by what Hugo said in his interview, I’m not going to give you my analysis of his words so read between the lines yourself about the state of the squad behind the scenes. The following is an excerpt:

    “If you follow the team only when you are in the starting XI, that can be a big problem and today is the consequence of that. We had great moments in the past because we could trust the togetherness in the team. Today I am not sure about that.”

    Seems to me Jose has created disharmony in the dressing room by marginalising players as is his usual MO.

    • Stan Rosenthal says:

      That mentality of players left out of the side can equally be down to them. But hey, who wants to think about such a possibility when the other one provides another stick to beat up Jose with.

  • Hot Tottingham says:

    And I’d honestly rather not be saying this… But I really do believe that Jose needs to be gone before this season is over… Like yesterday!

    It will only get worse, regardless of where we finish in the PL .And in the unlikely event that we do beat City in the Carabao cup, it will still get worse. Like I said before Jose even arrived. With him you pay the sacrifice. The pay-off being discontented and unmotivated players. And the frustrated and angry supporters… Disappointed owners and Chairman too… And that is even after the man has won a cup or two! LOL! For crying out loud!

  • block 108 spurs says:

    A bad game last night, back to… Spursy… form. I don’t know if it was jose instructions, players complacency… tiredness… more like all 3. .But they need to accept the blame 50/50 as they allowed dinamo to attack very effectively 2 v good goals, poor defending by aurier sanchez sisoko etc.) and we did not score with 1 shot on goal in first half, and 3 or 4 saved on the line by goalie / defenders in 2nd half / extra time. Giving away goals late in the game is lack of concentration, and throwing away a 2 goal lead is not what a top team does.. yet spurs have done this many times, west ham at WHL for one example.

    Levy has to step up and work with uncle joe / board directors to put some remedial action plans for summer TW. This is overdue now… players out manager very likely as he looks to failed his brief on CL / Cup wins. But as we are spurs fans (who eternally hope) that are desperate for success in arriving….there is a turnaround again ! Another rebuild will see HK10 leave, sonny as well, reggie to RM,Bale as well, Lloris, defenders mf all need looking at..

    Remember poch had 13 players leave when he arrived, so any new young manager, (naglesman) could do the same. So perhaps a season out of europe will be a good thing for spurs as playing once a week will allow new players / manager to settle in and the fans back in the stadium to support them. COYS

  • TQ2Spurs says:

    block….as per my previous post regarding Hugo’s post match comments, I don’t believe the poor performance is down to the three things you suggest, if you look at what Hugo said it is clear that Jose has created disunity in the squad which is clearly resulting in a lack of motivation on the pitch.

  • TQ2Spurs says:

    Great discussion on TS right now with Jim White and guests.

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