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Toby Alderweireld

That's the sort of arms race that turns football (well, what's left of it, anyway) from a sport into high geopolitics, though. The clubs would be delighted with that, no doubt - the less information about their internal processes they can give out to the world, the better, and they can get down to competing against their rivals as nations compete with one another, all realist power politics and misinformation maneuvers. Ultimately, the only people who suffer from that approach are the powerless fans, who are left with little to do but obediently come to the games, cheer and then go home, because you're b*ggered if you want to know anything else about your club beyond that it plays at a certain stadium, at a certain time.

It's why I'm utterly baffled by people like @Whiffler taking the mick out of fans who want to know about what goes on at the club - believe me, if they could get away with it, they'd be delighted with running like actual corporations, with all the secrecy and business-consumer relationships that entails. At that stage, you're really not watching a sport anymore, you're just watching quarterly reports being compiled every weekend. If that's okay by you, fine - but it isn't exactly unreasonable that fans feel more than a little uneasy at that prospect. And, incidentally, if you're fine with that, then, logically, you should also be perfectly happy with people booing the team, leaving early, not making any noise or demanding refunds after poor performances - after all, it's a business transaction, and the customers (formerly supporters) are simply exercising their right to express their dissatisfaction at the poor product offered by the club.



Didn't know about that, but if so, that's a damn shame, and reflects a bit poorly on what we apparently seem to think supporting a club entails.

I think this is a little bit dramatic. Not telling the world when a player is due back is the same as not telling anyone the starting XI until an hour before kickoff. Poch could probably tell us the starting XI day before a game, but why would we do that? Do we as fans suffer from not knowing? Ultimately, things can't be kept that secret because we get to see them play! ;)
 
I think this is a little bit dramatic. Not telling the world when a player is due back is the same as not telling anyone the starting XI until an hour before kickoff. Poch could probably tell us the starting XI day before a game, but why would we do that? Do we as fans suffer from not knowing? Ultimately, things can't be kept that secret because we get to see them play! ;)

It's true, it is a bit dramatic. :p Nonetheless, I think it does speak to the underlying issue at hand, which is that we as fans shouldn't necessarily always accept the club's desire to keep things secret, or poo-poo those who would like to know such stuff. It's not like anyone's asking for Levy to release details of ongoing negotiations or our transfer plans or anything - it's just a request for a general time-frame for Toby's return, which doesn't seem all that unreasonable to me.

On the whole, I tend to think that English supporters have been severely disempowered over the past few decades, and have far less input over the way their clubs do things than, for example, German supporters do. And that's a genuine shame, imo.
 
It's true, it is a bit dramatic. :p Nonetheless, I think it does speak to the underlying issue at hand, which is that we as fans shouldn't necessarily always accept the club's desire to keep things secret, or poo-poo those who would like to know such stuff.

We should, if it is good for the club or the team. And that is regarless if we understand it or not. And that is, as I see it, the heart of the matter. We just have to accept that the clubs knows better than we do in this matter.
 
That's the best news this week. If it actually means he just suffered a very painful knock and has no damage to his knee, then he could be back on his feet playing in a matter of weeks. No need to rush him back obviously, but simply having him fit for November would be a huge boost.

Hats off to all of you who predicted it could be just that, a painful knock.
 
I think this is a little bit dramatic. Not telling the world when a player is due back is the same as not telling anyone the starting XI until an hour before kickoff. Poch could probably tell us the starting XI day before a game, but why would we do that? Do we as fans suffer from not knowing? Ultimately, things can't be kept that secret because we get to see them play! ;)

It's not quite the same but I get what you are saying.

As Dubai said, requesting a general time-frame for when x player will likely return from injury to ease fears is not totally unreasonable, not like we're asking for the medical staff to be fired for not releasing information or wanting Poch sacked for the same reason. Sometimes football clubs have to feed information to the media/fans informing us that a player's recovery has encountered a setback and I don't think anyone would hold it against them for releasing such information, even it in conflicts with what the time-frame they initially suggested it would be.
 
It's not quite the same but I get what you are saying.

As Dubai said, requesting a general time-frame for when x player will likely return from injury to ease fears is not totally unreasonable, not like we're asking for the medical staff to be fired for not releasing information or wanting Poch sacked for the same reason. Sometimes football clubs have to feed information to the media/fans informing us that a player's recovery has encountered a setback and I don't think anyone would hold it against them for releasing such information, even it in conflicts with what the time-frame they initially suggested it would be.

In most of the cases, the kind of pepole that always wants information are also the ones taken the given information as a truth. And that is logical; the reason someone whats information is to be able to act/react to it. And it much easier act/react if you assume that the given information is true.

That have been tested many times during disasters (terror attacks, earthquakes, forrest fires, etc), when the society (police, emergency repsonse, etc) cannot really say what´s going on, there is always a bunch of people that complains that information are not given.Interesting enough, it is the same group of people that, when information is given, complains that the given information is not accurate enough from their perspetive.

So in principal: Take the consequences of every possible interpretation of your given word, or keep your mouth closed.
 
We should, if it is good for the club or the team. And that is regarless if we understand it or not. And that is, as I see it, the heart of the matter. We just have to accept that the clubs knows better than we do in this matter.

And that is, as I see it, absolutely contrary to what being a supporter entails. Again, take the example of German clubs - all of them would be vastly improved by Sheikhs coming in and taking over majority stakes. They'd build great teams, great stadiums, great infrastructure. The clubs certainly want it, and so far they've only been held back by their fans refusing to surrender their 51% stakes.

So should German fans obligingly accept the proposed takeovers, because the club says it's for the good of the team and the good of the club? After all, the clubs know better than they do. Closer to home, should Blackpool fans accept being run the way they are by the Oystons, because they just 'don't understand' how their actions are good for the club? After all, the Oystons know better than they do. Should the Leeds/Coventry/Blackburn fans accept how their clubs are bring run, because those clubs assure them that it is for the good of the team and because the clubs 'know better' than they do?

This notion that the supporters should always be just mute outside spectators to the secret inner workings of proto-corporations that were once football clubs is bewildering to me. You're not even a fan at that stage, you're just an observer. To my mind, a fan is a part of a club, not an entity that exists outside of it - and from that point of view, he or she has a right to know what his or her club's doing, at least in areas where such information can be given away without severely compromising the long-term competitiveness of the club in what is, in the end, a sport, played for the enjoyment of the bloody fans who made it what it is today (however bastardised it's become by modern commercialism). Does that mean the fan should be given boardroom-level access to the club's workings? No, unless that fan is part of a supporters' trust that owns enough shares to ask for such representatiob. Does that mean he or she has a right to know at least something as fairly innocuous as the rough return date for an injured player, if the fan wants that information? Why not.

To my mind, supporters aren't supposed to be mute dolls to be stuffed in seats on matchdays and then booted out of club premises so the secret dealings of these corporate entities can resume. They are part of a club, and that doesn't entail a blind, willing acceptance of the club basically excising them out of itself. And, as always, it baffles me that fans are perfectly willing to become powerless outside observers of their own football clubs, while still insisting that that is what bring a real fan entails.
 
This was I thought about our club giving early or earlier player injury information.

Blackpool? Oystons ? German clubs and 51%.....I think we have have been hijacked - Inform the tower!
 
This was I thought about our club giving early or earlier player injury information.

Blackpool? Oystons ? German clubs and 51%.....I think we have have been hijacked - Inform the tower!

As you may have noticed, I do tend to get carried away sometimes. :p Still, it links to the larger point - personally, I don't really mind not knowing when Toby comes back, but I think fellow supporters who do want to know have a right to at least rough information on that score. Football supporters in England are perhaps the most disconnected from their clubs in comparison to countries in Europe - in places like Germany, they have full fan ownership, and even in places where that isn't the case (Italy, France, Spain and so on), the ultras of the clubs have very significant amounts of influence on the decisions their clubs make. In England, most clubs have anemic supporters' trusts that don't really have any input into substantive issues around the way clubs are run, and as a result fans aren't given as much information about what is ostensibly 'their' club as is the case elsewhere on the continent - thus, it's even more galling to me that we, as supporters, seem perfectly willing to cut our own feet off even further on that score.

Edit: And, before anyone gets the idea that this is exclusively a gripe against our own club, that really isn't the case. Note that I've not blamed the board or the chairman, or even THFC - to my eyes, the club's just following the trend that all other English clubs (save for AFC Wimbledon, perhaps) are going down. I absolutely don't blame the club for being unduly secretive, because everyone in England does it. I do, however, question why some fans round on others when they *do* express some discomfort with that situation. If we're going to remedy the situation around fans being excised from their own clubs, it'll have to be something that occurs across the country, at every major club - but we can do our bit by at least not unduly questioning fans who feel that they *do* have a right to know a bit more. At least when the information they're asking for is fairly innocuous, like the return date for Toby. :)
 
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carried away! Never;)

Seriously though, supporters come in many guises, some I wound not trust or let take my dog for a walk.

Sometimes though we do tend to wrongly marginalise fan opinion.

Trouble is some of our fans would have burned Levy at the stake for being financially prudent!
 
carried away! Never;)

Seriously though, supporters come in many guises, some I wound not trust or let take my dog for a walk.

Sometimes though we do tend to wrongly marginalise fan opinion.

Trouble is some of our fans would have burned Levy at the stake for being financially prudent!

Mea culpa. :p On the whole, I'd like to think I've always been of the opinion that we're all brothers and sisters in arms in the end - we all want the same thing, which is for Tottenham Hotspur to represent our hopes and dreams, and do it well. We have disagreements, sometimes severe ones, but a bit of solidarity between fans bound by a common cause never hurts; and, to my eyes, that includes both accommodating dissenting viewpoints (be it on Levy being tight or depressed fan reactions after games) and collectively realizing that we're more than just outside observers of the goings on at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club - we're a part of it, whether or not that's represented by actual fan ownership of the club (as it is in Germany). My long-term ideal is that we move towards gaining a bigger voice and share of ownership in the club, as the German fans have done - but I recognize that people might disagree with me on that. Still, that disagreement shouldn't preclude simple requests for the club to provide rough timelines on players returning from injury, which seems like the most innocuous thing to me.
 
Its simple really, if clubs made a statement that player (a) will be back in two weeks and for what ever reason that does not happen guess what will happen. Some fans will slag of the club for getting it wrong ( and probably in some cases) it will be the same fans who are moaning that the club are not keeping us informed.
 
Its simple really, if clubs made a statement that player (a) will be back in two weeks and for what ever reason that does not happen guess what will happen. Some fans will slag of the club for getting it wrong ( and probably in some cases) it will be the same fans who are moaning that the club are not keeping us informed.

And if the club made a statement that said 'player (a) will be back in two to three weeks, subject to no unforeseen circumstances delaying his recovery - however, as we remind our fans and onlookers, delays often can occur with sports injuries', then the fans castigating the club for 'getting it wrong' will be rightly called unjustified, don't you think?

If something this simple is to be avoided on the grounds that it might rile up the fans when it goes awry, lord knows how the club functions at all - are they hesitant to release dates and times for Prem games because Sky might reschedule them, thus causing this same mysterious group of moaning fans to castigate the club for 'getting it wrong'? :p
 
Its simple really, if clubs made a statement that player (a) will be back in two weeks and for what ever reason that does not happen guess what will happen. Some fans will slag of the club for getting it wrong ( and probably in some cases) it will be the same fans who are moaning that the club are not keeping us informed.

Ala Arsenal

They always get slated for that by their fans... Wheelchair has a minor knock and will be out for about a month ... 6 months later the wheels have well and truly fallen off and the fans are not happy as they were "miss informed"

Then you get that Dutch taco of a fitness coach that coincidentally no one wants to employ pipe up and blame the manager for working them too hard
 
And if the club made a statement that said 'player (a) will be back in two to three weeks, subject to no unforeseen circumstances delaying his recovery - however, as we remind our fans and onlookers, delays often can occur with sports injuries', then the fans castigating the club for 'getting it wrong' will be rightly called unjustified, don't you think?

If something this simple is to be avoided on the grounds that it might rile up the fans when it goes awry, lord knows how the club functions at all - are they hesitant to release dates and times for Prem games because Sky might reschedule them, thus causing this same mysterious group of moaning fans to castigate the club for 'getting it wrong'? :p

Well next time i see Danny boy i will have a word about it, and tell him they are a couple of fans who are not happy with the ways he is running things. To be honest if he was to do that do YOU honestly think it will stop the moaners. :D
 
Ala Arsenal

They always get slated for that by their fans... Wheelchair has a minor knock and will be out for about a month ... 6 months later the wheels have well and truly fallen off and the fans are not happy as they were "miss informed"

Then you get that Dutch taco of a fitness coach that coincidentally no one wants to employ pipe up and blame the manager for working them too hard


Indeed.
 
Well next time i see Danny boy i will have a word about it, and tell him they are a couple of fans who are not happy with the ways he is running things. To be honest if he was to do that do YOU honestly think it will stop the moaners. :D

That's the thing, though - from a Spurs context, I don't think I've ever seen 'moaners' who castigate the club for 'predicting' injury return dates wrong. Even in the Arsenal example @Bedfordspurs used, I see the fans more concerned about the number of injuries they keep picking up and the recurrence of such injuries (which is definitely something Arsenal seem to go through more than comparable clubs), instead of being concerned that the club misled them or anything. They blame their physios for being sh*te in general, I think, not for providing erroneous estimates. :p

Do tell Danny next time you see him - to me, it seems like a simple enough thing to do if a significant number of fans are in favour, and I trust them not to take any estimates at face value if they're provided. :p
 
That's the thing, though - from a Spurs context, I don't think I've ever seen 'moaners' who castigate the club for 'predicting' injury return dates wrong. Even in the Arsenal example @Bedfordspurs used, I see the fans more concerned about the number of injuries they keep picking up and the recurrence of such injuries (which is definitely something Arsenal seem to go through more than comparable clubs), instead of being concerned that the club misled them or anything. They blame their physios for being sh*te in general, I think, not for providing erroneous estimates. :p

Do tell Danny next time you see him - to me, it seems like a simple enough thing to do if a significant number of fans are in favour, and I trust them not to take any estimates at face value if they're provided. :p

That's because under Pooch we have not made a habit of announcing return dates.
 
That's because under Pooch we have not made a habit of announcing return dates.

No, I mean, ever. At least as far back as Jol. I've seen plenty of griping about undue time spent away from action because of injuries, I've seen griping about injury crises in general - but I don't think I've yet encountered a Spurs fan who gets upset that the club got the rough prediction wrong, the times when it ventures to make one. :p I think it's a symptom of following Ledley's knees so much over the mid-2000's and early 2010's - we as a club have (I'm guessing) learned that strange injuries can set players back in ways that can't be predicted, so we don't get these strange moaners on this issue.
 
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