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What was the trigger in our downward trend?

Gazza said:
No succession planning with Kane and Son. Instead of building a team around them we just let them carry us and paper over the cracks. Buying bang average players to replace the better ones.

Not investing and recruiting players correctly and certainly not getting managerial appointments correct after Pochettino.

The wage to revenue ratio just highlights that we are a full accountancy firm rather than an ambitious sports club.
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Its this and this alone for me. If you work with a player for 9-10 years as an "elite" club you better be planning for their departure be it retirement or selling them. We had a two year warning on Kane and we did nothing to replace him, now people can argue "how can you" but you at least try.

The issue at Spurs is across the board we have allowed the quality to diminish year on year and haven't planned for balance. Arguments on here this year that we didn't need a LB because Spence could play there, the absolute lack of a LW'er nearly the entire season (I say that in terms of quality, Tel and Odobert are not there) and selling one of your only 2 RW at the club and not replacing to put strain on Kudus was ridiculous.

Our lack of planning and squad management has been the biggest contributing factor to whey we are where we are now.

It all points to the club having no identity.
 
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We did win a European Trophy last season!

There are two key variables:

1. Losing attackers.

Injuries. Missing Kulu and Maddison for the whole season, and Solanke and Kudus (for half a season) following a season where attackers were expected to run marathons.

Compound was losing Son and Johnson. We lost all our goals and assists.

2. Sacking managers too frequently, and not letting a decent manager develop a settled team.
 
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How we responded to the Conte meltdown. People criticised Conte (and probably Jose) for only being able to work with elite players. Does that imply an acceptance that Managers who would be happy to work with lesser players, and those players themselves, would be more aligned with how the club would operate? If so it’s not really surprising there’s been a steady decline in performance.
 
Mr Gogolak said:
If you look at the broader picture, it certainly is the decision to freeze the squad and stop buying players, but we had plenty of chances to make up for that over the past years. If that's the perspective you want to take, I think our obsession with signing younger players with a good resale value prospect coupled with our complete lack of interest in their mentality was the real trigger.

You need a bit of everything in football, including experience. It's all about finding the right mix and we never tried to do that after the Champions League final.

However, on the short term, the decision to focus on the Europa League turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. At least, we've got a trophy to show for it, but Wigan have an FA Cup too... Most managers will tell you that breeding a winning a mentality comes from trying to win every game. It follows that throwing games away - VDV practically admitted as much - breeds a losing mentality.

That's something Frank and the club in general should have considered a lot more carefully when they started the season. Saying "I guarantee you we will lose games" to a squad that has been used to losing two out of three games was actually the worst thing Frank could have done.

The medical department should also have been audited after what happened last season. It's easy to put it all on Postecoglou's training methods - and I was the first to bite into that - but what's acceptable on a fans' message board isn't acceptable when you're running one of the richest and best clubs in the world.
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Genuine question, but which games would you consider that Ange thought he could ‘throw away’ that would have created such a negative environment that persisted into this season?

I will grant that the last 3 games in the league we were terrible. Palace at home just after going to Bodo, Villa away where we played Reguillon (the game before the final) and Brighton at home with a hungover squad.

Otherwise I look at the results and while not good, I don’t think fair to say we were throwing games or not caring. We drew away to West Ham, we conceded two early goals to a good Forest side at home but played really well for the rest of the game. We had losses away to Fulham, Chelsea, Liverpool, and at home to Emirates Marketing Project. These are results that often occur. Also to a better Wolves who were in form. We drew at home to a good Bournemouth with an admittedly bad performance.

I don’t think Ange was normalising losing. The circumstances meant that there was one opportunity to have success last season, and he prioritised it with team selection for sure. But I don’t think that action in and of itself created such a negative environment that persisted into this season. Not least because they actually became winners at the end of it.

I think the players were willing to give Frank a fair shake and then quickly realised that he wasn’t up to it, which then made them realise that last season was a complete waste. It has to be remembered the utterly shocking performances we turned in under Frank, particularly in possession at home. I’ve never seen anything like it. He bears way more responsibility for the issues this season, but ultimately the buck stops with the people that believed sacking the winner for him in the first place was a good idea.
 
There are many decisions and things you can point to as to why we declined from Poch’s peak. All have been mentioned here and are all valid.

But what we’ve seen last year and this is beyond normal decline. We’ve gone from top 5 to bottom 4. That’s unprecedented in my memory of the Premier League. I don’t put that down to Kane and Son. We were top 6 mainstays long before them and we got 5th without Kane and a photocopy of Son.

We are one of the biggest spenders on transfers in the league and have the 6th highest wage bill. What’s happened in the last two seasons is abnormal and I’m not 100% sure I understand how we’ve dropped so far so quickly. Maybe it’s just a perfect storm of brick decision making which absolutely includes the sacking of Levy.

If we go down, it’s going to be the biggest warning for other clubs on how not to do things. It’s a case study for the ages on gross incompetence in a sporting environment.

Let’s hope it doesn’t get that far.
 
billyiddo said:
Last season.

We lowered our floor to an unacceptable level, we normalised accepting poor results and performances over an extended period of time.
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Whilst I agree that last season was a new low, I don't think I can say that's the begining of the decline. Last season was just the chickens finally coming home to roost as a result of our terrible long term strategy. The decline in reality started the years when we bought no one and the squad began to decompose.
 
billyiddo said:
Last season.

We lowered our floor to an unacceptable level, we normalised accepting poor results and performances over an extended period of time.
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100%, and hilariously that can be translated into -> the moment the club chose not to fire a manager early when results started to go to brick. Which everyone outside the club still portrays as a bad thing (narrative that giving a manager time always equal a good thing).

While there was some downturn post CL final, the cycle dropped off a cliff last season
 
1) Not buying enough high quality forwards who were proven goalscorers.
2) Buying prospects not quality - we were complacent and got the balance horribly wrong.

No goals = no wins, simple as that....
 
lurker of old said:
1) Not buying enough high quality forwards who were proven goalscorers.
2) Buying prospects not quality - we were complacent and got the balance horribly wrong.

No goals = no wins, simple as that....
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Richarlison has always scored enough goals to keep Everton up. He plays for Brazil.

Solanke scored a lot of goals for Bournemouth. He’s an England player.

Kolo Muani had a good record at Juventus.

Granted they aren’t Kane and Son and are a big downgrade. But do they account for us going from top 6 to bottom 4?
 
DeanoAustin said:
Richarlison has always scored enough goals to keep Everton up. He plays for Brazil.

Solanke scored a lot of goals for Bournemouth. He’s an England player.

Kolo Muani had a good record at Juventus.

Granted they aren’t Kane and Son and are a big downgrade. But do they account for us going from top 6 to bottom 4?
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A sidenote though....is Richie and Solanke have to be on the field to score those goals
 
DeanoAustin said:
Richarlison has always scored enough goals to keep Everton up. He plays for Brazil.

Solanke scored a lot of goals for Bournemouth. He’s an England player.

Kolo Muani had a good record at Juventus.

Granted they aren’t Kane and Son and are a big downgrade. But do they account for us going from top 6 to bottom 4?
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Agreed, I’m sympathetic to the argument we might not any longer have a definitive top 6 squad, but it doesn’t explain the sheer drop off we have seen.

I really think it’s some combination of culture, confidence, connectedness, belief. Something is just totally off, and it means that when something could go wrong, it does go wrong.
 
Hiring Ange, who most of us had never heard of.

Him being the next pick after Conte and Jose was an underwhelming lowering of expectations.

I hope we never hire from such an obscure situation again.
 
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