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***OMT Tottenham Hotspur v Aston Villa***, PL, Sat 19th Sept 2026

P.D. said:
Brentford and Brighton have stable setups with sporting directors that set the tone rather than a manager so the transfers, style of play etc should remain consistent if a manager or player moves on. Takes time to bed in that system and it's what most clubs strive for, also helps that both clubs know their top players will leave so their scouting caters for that with replacements lined up.

It's why it's strange that our rebuild didn't include a sporting director, I think when RDZ kept us up he had plenty of clout so was allowed to do what he liked transfer wise but a sporting director may well have said we have too many central midfielders that are all similar and stopped us signing one of them or something like that.
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It’s the owners and real leaders at those clubs
Brighton have gone through a lot of directors of football but have stuck with the model

Same at Brentford although they have had less directors of football

What they have is a commitment to what works for them

Richer ir bigger clubs are playing catch up with smaller ones because the sled made men who own them have had to be smarter than their richer peers

Not on uncommon theme
 
Bedfordspurs said:
That long ball that Van heck didn’t win was appalling. He couldn’t make up his mind whether to fight Jackson or attempt to head it so did neither
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It's not the first time this has happened this season. It's becoming a theme.

I was also critical of JPvH for the first goal. I think it's easy to see that Bents (acting centre half) got everything wrong. He didn't drop back in, mark his man and stay with his man who just tapped it in. JPvH just stood there marking nobody. He had his feet planted and just ball watched. He could have easily shifted over and put a block in.
 
Bishop said:
I know you wanted Solanke to play but please be honest, we had the ball, we created multiple chances Solanke was just never on the end of anything and the two times we found him in the penalty area he fudged it up without even getting a shot off twice. His lack of chances today was down entirely to himself.
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The whole we don't create chances for him as a defence is flawed, the bloke is never in the right place.

2 balls played into areas where he should be (along side his awfully controlled ones) and he is nowhere close to being on the end of them.
 
Legohamster said:
The whole we don't create chances for him as a defence is flawed, the bloke is never in the right place.

2 balls played into areas where he should be (along side his awfully controlled ones) and he is nowhere close to being on the end of them.
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Yeah I dislike the dishonest conversations. Have your preferences by all means but let's not lie and pretend Solanke's lack of shots yesterday was anything other than due to his own inadequacy.
 
Robspur12 said:
I agree with a lot of what you say but this is a new team pretty much. It's a very different team to which won the EL and arguably better than we had last season. So it's not the continuity that is killing us. It's the preparation, fitness and fitting square pegs in round holes. That's down to the manager and his choices.

No I don't think so. I generally like to give manager 's time. But those games should give us an idea of whether he can turn this around. He has some time to prepare now.

Somebody posted recently that if you keep flirting with relegation then eventually you'll get pulled in. So we need to turn this form around quickly.
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You have Kinsky, Porro, Gray, VDV, Bentancur, Kudus, Udogie, Maddison, Tel, Solanke, Gallagher, Bergvall and I’m sure others who have been around the brick show of the last two years to varying degrees. You have 60,000 match going fans who find it very difficult to be positive going to that stadium. Negativity and losing have become interwoven into the fabric of Tottenham Hotspur in a way I’ve never seen before even in the 90s. We’ve embedded a losing culture and that’s very hard to shift.

Your other points are fair and well made and are contributory factors too - agreed 100%. And RDZ has made and continues to make mistakes. I’m not loving some of his public comments. But I do believe he is worth sticking by and I do believe that things will turn for us under him. Obviously, we go much beyond November in this position, the stronger the case against him becomes because the scars of last season are still fresh. However, I’m still confident we’ll be in a better position by then.
 
Bishop said:
Yeah I dislike the dishonest conversations. Have your preferences by all means but let's not lie and pretend Solanke's lack of shots yesterday was anything other than due to his own inadequacy.
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I watched the game back
He had 2 chances
The one he fluffed completely and Savio got the shot off
And the header from the corner
What other oases to him should he have got shots off for?
The guy clearly isn’t fit but if you watch the gray shot yesterday you can see the difference between him and Marmoush
One runs in to get on the end of the cross
The other stands still on the the of the box
That’s why you need a CF on the pitch and Solanke is literally our only one thanks to our wonderful squad planning
 
Bedfordspurs said:
I watched the game back
He had 2 chances
The one he fluffed completely and Savio got the shot off
And the header from the corner
What other oases to him should he have got shots off for?
The guy clearly isn’t fit but if you watch the gray shot yesterday you can see the difference between him and Marmoush
One runs in to get on the end of the cross
The other stands still on the the of the box
That’s why you need a CF on the pitch and Solanke is literally our only one thanks to our wonderful squad planning
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Solanke did a lot of good number 9 play yesterday. He occupied the centre halves, he worked into the channels and he linked play together. There were definitely green shoots appearing in his game. His challenge is doing all of that AND getting into more goalscoring positions.

I'm OK with Dom as long as the trend is in a good direction. I think it is.
 
Muttley said:
Solanke did a lot of good number 9 play yesterday. He occupied the centre halves, he worked into the channels and he linked play together. There were definitely green shoots appearing in his game. His challenge is doing all of that AND getting into more goalscoring positions.

I'm OK with Dom as long as the trend is in a good direction. I think it is.
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I'm in two minds about him. Think it's absolutely right those who have criticised, he hasn't been good for a long time bar a period under Ange. I don't think he is good enough either way, but he's here for his season and would like to see if he can get to the Ange period levels because he was getting in positions then to finish off moves so I don't know why that has disappeared from his game - it's not like there hasn't been some decent opportunities for him to get into he danger zone at times.

Even factoring in injury I don't think that's enough of an excuse. Hopefully he is really working hard with RDZ and the attackers in these coming weeks and he can add something quantifiable as I do think he is at the very least an average level PL CF who should get double figures.....
 
Muttley said:
Solanke did a lot of good number 9 play yesterday. He occupied the centre halves, he worked into the channels and he linked play together. There were definitely green shoots appearing in his game. His challenge is doing all of that AND getting into more goalscoring positions.

I'm OK with Dom as long as the trend is in a good direction. I think it is.
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But he does look unfit
What I don’t get is where are all these chances people think we’re missing
Our xG is appalling when you look at the volum of shots
 
P.D. said:
Brentford and Brighton have stable setups with sporting directors that set the tone rather than a manager so the transfers, style of play etc should remain consistent if a manager or player moves on. Takes time to bed in that system and it's what most clubs strive for, also helps that both clubs know their top players will leave so their scouting caters for that with replacements lined up.

It's why it's strange that our rebuild didn't include a sporting director, I think when RDZ kept us up he had plenty of clout so was allowed to do what he liked transfer wise but a sporting director may well have said we have too many central midfielders that are all similar and stopped us signing one of them or something like that.
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I agree, but I think the biggest strength of teams like Brentford, Brighton and Bournemouth is that they already know the profile of their next manager before their current one is picked off by another club. And they stick by it. The club is setup to serve a particular style of manager, hence the players suit and why managers that go through those clubs have often struggled when they move on.

At Spurs, we bounce between manager styles at just about every opportunity. It’s always trying to correct something but going way too far in the other direction. There’s actually a deliberateness to our approach that ultimately means it will happen again and again. And we’re likely only a few months away from the next iteration.
 
Bedfordspurs said:
But he does look unfit
What I don’t get is where are all these chances people think we’re missing
Our xG is appalling when you look at the volum of shots
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I don't think you understand xG. It tells you how good your finishing is not how good your chances are. Which is why yesterday we had both a higher culmative xG than Villa and a higher per shot xG yet scored fewer goals. That not an issue of chances, that's an issue of finishing. When Jackson had a difficult chance he buried it in the corner, when Solanke got the ball in the box he couldn't even control it. 🤣

I'm not claiming Solanke must score from that situation but for him to not even be able to control the ball and get a shot off, very much explains the issue yesterday versus what Villa were able achieve with their few chances. When their moments came they took them, when ours came we sometimes didn't even get a shot off.
 
Bedfordspurs said:
But he does look unfit
What I don’t get is where are all these chances people think we’re missing
Our xG is appalling when you look at the volum of shots
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Solanke has been littered with injuries for some time. It's perfectly natural that he hasn't either got to 100% or felt the confidence in his body after what he's been through.

As for xG, I'm no expert but it takes 2 to tango. If the striker is doing striker things then the assisters will iprove the xG in my mind. I'm not certain yet that both parties are helping this xG stat.
 
Robspur12 said:
The 48 game run where we have failed to win a game when going behind started in 2024 under Ange. It’s then continued under 3 subsequent managers. But it is just one of those strange stats because not only have managers come and gone but also the players are very different now than they were at the start of this run. But it does show this continued mental weakness that needs to be addressed.
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My tongue was in my cheek a bit…but I do think there’s at least something to it.

For a sustained period we played suicidal football which other PL managers quickly combatted; teams came expecting to take points; if the words of Ange himself are to be believed, there was no focus on the PL; and the stadium is now a place where our fans arrive on edge, something which quickly translates to the players.

Some of us on here were saying at the time that the team was having bad habits embedded, and so it’s proved - and even new managers and players are finding that culture, once in place, is highly difficult to change.

Is it all Ange’s fault? No. But he did imo start us on a downward spiral in the PL which we’re now two and a half years into, and finding it incredibly hard to turn around.
 
think the management team is a disaster; last season we brought in Tudor, then De Zerbi—even though he didn't want to come the first time around. We ended up signing him in a panic, rolling out the red carpet for him in every respect.
I repeat: this club lacks character, much like Atlético Madrid did a few years back.
Back then, Atlético was seen as a club of losers in Spain, despite having a superb youth academy that produced excellent players—a bit like us.

Then one day, the president put his faith in a former player—a man of character and a strong will: Diego Simeone.

You know the rest of the story: Atlético transformed into one of the most feared clubs in Spain and Europe.
A club that combines technical skill with grit, courage, and tenacity in its play.

As for us, the further we go, the more mistakes we make—even selling off our best young talents.
PSG used its millions to buy up all the biggest football stars.
But the chemistry just wasn't there.
They put their trust in Luis Enrique, who started looking at the big picture.
But the arrival of the mastermind—sporting director Luis Campos—made the real difference.
He overhauled everything and executed transfers that truly changed the game—players like Vitinha, Mendes, Neves, and so on.

And look at the difference now.
The Enrique-Campos partnership is the heart of PSG.

That is exactly what we are missing.
 
My friends, players with real character don't hold a grudge against the club—period.

Just look at the last transfer window: Palhinha wasn't signed, Romero was sold, Vušković wanted to play but was sold, and Spence was offloaded for peanuts.
Personally, though, I would have preferred a central defense pairing of Romero and Vušković—real defenders who would have struck fear into opposing teams.
Now, the team doesn't scare anyone—absolutely no one.
Every team comes to our place with a smile on their face.
We don't intimidate anyone; who would have told me seven years ago that Brighton, Brentford, and Bournemouth would come here and kick our asses on our own turf?

Let's not kid ourselves: I get the feeling that Tottenham Hotspur FC has become a business more than a football club...
 
djp82 said:
We’ve circled the drain for two seasons now.Will it be this season we go. I’m worried.

Yes there’s positives but how the club have not added a striker is negligent. City have had our pants down with Marmoush and Savio. Their end product is atrocious.

Solanke, I was against this when it first popped up. Awful awful striker. Offers nothing.

Jan window is difficult to add real quality. So RDZ needs to figure it out lively.

Also the business we done with Brighton looks poor. Lad we offloaded looks better than what we have currently.

As for mentality we were so poor for 15 odd after our disallowed goal. Like we had tossed it off .

RDZ gone by Xmas Is a very real possibility.
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In the senior management space of business people are paid to make decisions regularly. Usually, most good leaders will make more good than bad, and they can look back and be happy with their work at the end of each year.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that every single big decision these clowns make is wrong.

Frank
Tudor
NZ/Oz tour
Richy
No striker signed
Mudryk
Lankshear
Vuskovic
180m in midfield

I could add others like Spence but I’m told that is defendable as he wanted out.

If you were looking to defend VV/JL and co, what would be the good things they have done? Like, they should be able to get to the end of a year and say, “yeah we did well there” (on something!?)
 
MartyFunkhouser said:
Savio is not a 75m player even in modern "worlds gone crazy" period of fees

That deal with City looks more mad the more I look at it. We paid 75m for a player they didn't want, who basically failed there, so they could then get another player we wanted for 60m who we also wanted, who is massively better. There is being a serious club and there is being ridiculous

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Players are worth what others are willing to pay for them. The problem is because we paid £75m which apart from the other signings this summer would have made him a club record we have higher expectations of them but that's not the players fault.

He's delivering close to what we can expect from him imo, we need movement from the rest of the midfield and a striker who can get in the right positions to convert chances and we'd look a lot better.

I think one issue we have with Savio is that he's likely a fair weather player who plays well in a settled team or when the team is playing well. I don't see him as someone who's going to seize the game, inspire others and make everyone else look better. But players like Tonali and Fernandes should absolutely be doing that.
 
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