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Antonio Conte - officially NOT the coach of THFC

balesleftboot said:
It's in my opinion that the CL has been to the detriment of football in general. For now the only thing that seems to matter is finishing 4th so you can play in the CHAMPIONS League without ever having to be champions. It's taken the glory out of all the other tournaments including making the once great UEFA Cup a laughed at competition that's seen as embarrasing to be a part of.

I'm so glad it wasn't always like this or our great club wouldn't have the fantastic tradition that it does have. Imagine football had only ever been about finishing 4th and playing in the CHAMPIONS(?) League. Great moments like Ricky Villa's superb extra time winning goal in the 1981 FA Cup Final replay, Gazza's free kick as Wembley against them lot, Graham Roberts late equaliser in the UEFA Cup final before we went on to win on penalties ... imagine all that time that plodding over the line to finish 4th whilst watching dreadful uninspiring football had always been more important. I'm 40 so old enough to have just seen the end of the days before football got ruined yet not old enough to have lived through our real glory years yet I find modern football quite sad really.

So in answer to your question I don't really care what competition we take part in, I want the glory of watching us in finals and winning things again.
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I do care about the competition. And today the elite one happens to be the CL. So even if Real Betis win La Liga, or Stuttgart win the Bundesliga, or Leicester win the PL, you still get to play the likes of Real, Barca, Bayern, Dortmund, City, Liverpool in the CL. Are they champions? No. But they are the best teams in the world. Those are the teams you want to compete against. Having an issue with the fact the competition has the word "Champions" in it is basically splitting hairs. And we haven't done too shabby in the competition either. In the past 10 years we've been to the final as many times as City and Barca.

You harken back to the days of yore when winning an FA Cup had a special glamor that has since faded. When there used to be a UEFA cup and a European Cup, which were not that far apart in prestige. But times have changed and the old days are not coming back. You can compare them all you want, but we're talking about today's reality. And I'm not saying that it's necessarily better. Back then there was a more even playing field and the exclusively knockout format produced some lovely upsets. But right now the reality is the CL is at the top of the pyramid and the FA and EFL cups are quite a ways down.

Think of it this way: would you rather win your local track & field meet every year, or compete in the Olympics? I know what I would prefer.
 
alekaras said:
I do care about the competition. And today the elite one happens to be the CL. So even if Real Betis win La Liga, or Stuttgart win the Bundesliga, or Leicester win the PL, you still get to play the likes of Real, Barca, Bayern, Dortmund, City, Liverpool in the CL. Are they champions? No. But they are the best teams in the world. Those are the teams you want to compete against. Having an issue with the fact the competition has the word "Champions" in it is basically splitting hairs. And we haven't done too shabby in the competition either. In the past 10 years we've been to the final as many times as City and Barca.

You harken back to the days of yore when winning an FA Cup had a special glamor that has since faded. When there used to be a UEFA cup and a European Cup, which were not that far apart in prestige. But times have changed and the old days are not coming back. You can compare them all you want, but we're talking about today's reality. And I'm not saying that it's necessarily better. Back then there was a more even playing field and the exclusively knockout format produced some lovely upsets. But right now the reality is the CL is at the top of the pyramid and the FA and EFL cups are quite a ways down.

Think of it this way: would you rather win your local track & field meet every year, or compete in the Olympics? I know what I would prefer.
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First off i'd like to state i agree with you (people seem to think if i reply to a post i'm arguing against it).

My mate in the pub (arsenal fan) keeps saying champions league should be for champions only.

Ok. So you have the champions of the big 5 leagues. Then benfica, ajax, olympiacos... then we're running thin. Champions of malta? Luxembourg? Cyprus? The uefa cup would have more big teams and earn more money.

It's also why the esl could never work. We have 5 competitions in one for the prem. Title race, city and arsenal. Then the race for the champions league.spurs, liverpool, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, even brighton. Then the europa. Then the conference. Then the relegation battle. We're in march and every team has something to play for. The esl new proposal (meritocracy) seems to be 80 teams. Minimum 14 games. So that means 8 teams in a league. 10 leagues. Now they might go north south style with 2 leagues per division.

Now yes teams can qualify and get relegated. To the bottom divisions. Everyone else is safe.

So for domestic leagues it will be title challenge and relegation and maybe a place for an esl challenge.

Most teams wouldn't have anything to play for in their domestic leagues come march. They'd just concentrate on the esl if they're in it.

No domestic league would go for it.
 
Lilbaz said:
First off i'd like to state i agree with you (people seem to think if i reply to a post i'm arguing against it).

My mate in the pub (arsenal fan) keeps saying champions league should be for champions only.

Ok. So you have the champions of the big 5 leagues. Then benfica, ajax, olympiacos... then we're running thin. Champions of malta? Luxembourg? Cyprus? The uefa cup would have more big teams and earn more money.

It's also why the esl could never work. We have 5 competitions in one for the prem. Title race, city and arsenal. Then the race for the champions league.spurs, liverpool, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, even brighton. Then the europa. Then the conference. Then the relegation battle. We're in march and every team has something to play for. The esl new proposal (meritocracy) seems to be 80 teams. Minimum 14 games. So that means 8 teams in a league. 10 leagues. Now they might go north south style with 2 leagues per division.

Now yes teams can qualify and get relegated. To the bottom divisions. Everyone else is safe.

So for domestic leagues it will be title challenge and relegation and maybe a place for an esl challenge.

Most teams wouldn't have anything to play for in their domestic leagues come march. They'd just concentrate on the esl if they're in it.

No domestic league would go for it.
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I don't know about the ESL, but I think you hit the tickle my balls with a feather when you started outlining who would be in a Champions League that was only for champions. No one would even bother watching until the QFs. The EL (assuming it included the 2nd and 3rd place teams) would be much more appealing, which would be a bit counterintuitive. The bottom line is that anyone saying the CL is not true to its name because it doesn't include only the champions is just using this as a cop out to justify something else. Maybe they would be happier if it changed its name to Super Cup or something, but I'm sure they would have still come up with some reason to justify us not trying our best to participate in it every season.
 
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Have 2 premier European competitions

One essentially a conflated old skool European Cup & CWC - league and domestic cup winners only.

The other, X amount of teams from each nation dependant on Coefficients- essentially the CL as it is without the champions of each nation and cup winners, ironically

Then have a third competition for the likes of West Ham and Dinamo Network Solutions pr whoever
 
I don't know how much more tinkering with the current format of the CL we can do without making it either super elite, or watering it down a lot. But yeah, if you add the cup winners from each of the big 5 leagues (and the rest go into qualifying rounds), that would elevate the domestic cup competitions too and make some people happy (including yours truly).
 
elyid said:
Just saw this comment from Conte after the match:

"I don't understand the people that doesn't understand the importance of rotation. You have good players on the bench and then you can change the game.
"If you want to aspire to win trophies in the future, you have to count on about 16, 17, 18 players to make rotation and play game by game.

-
Surely he's the ONLY person who doesn't seem to have understood this?
Starting to tinkle me off with this flimflam, he plays pretty much the same team every week despite us largely being turgid now making out like he's some ration expert.
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Or is he trying to suggest he doesn't have 16 good players to use?
 
Here’s a thought, is our current squad better than Conte’s championship winning side at Inter and if so, would this squad have won Serie A that season?
 
balesleftboot said:
It's in my opinion that the CL has been to the detriment of football in general. For now the only thing that seems to matter is finishing 4th so you can play in the CHAMPIONS League without ever having to be champions. It's taken the glory out of all the other tournaments including making the once great UEFA Cup a laughed at competition that's seen as embarrasing to be a part of.

I'm so glad it wasn't always like this or our great club wouldn't have the fantastic tradition that it does have. Imagine football had only ever been about finishing 4th and playing in the CHAMPIONS(?) League. Great moments like Ricky Villa's superb extra time winning goal in the 1981 FA Cup Final replay, Gazza's free kick as Wembley against them lot, Graham Roberts late equaliser in the UEFA Cup final before we went on to win on penalties ... imagine all that time that plodding over the line to finish 4th whilst watching dreadful uninspiring football had always been more important. I'm 40 so old enough to have just seen the end of the days before football got ruined yet not old enough to have lived through our real glory years yet I find modern football quite sad really.

So in answer to your question I don't really care what competition we take part in, I want the glory of watching us in finals and winning things again.
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My guess is this is what exactly Levy is thinking. Invest just enough to milk the drama for the fight for fourth and celebrate like we are champions when we qualify.

If we win anything its a bonus. Returns on additional investments diminish quickly.
 
Like @Lilbaz commented a few days ago, its a shame as we are a few players away from Conte really making this work. Perhaps two more windows and you really would begin to see a productive Conte team.

For example as much as I love Royale, you can begin to see the difference with an attacking WB in Porro (we can still play Royale in games where we would have to be defending a lot more) and in the summer we will have Udogie who offers the same threat down the left. This in itself will transform our attacking threat. Add another quality CB or two and we really will be getting there, as I believe our CMs are well stocked and other than the Kane issue we are pretty good in attack, especially if Son can somehow get back to where he was.

However, if fans are just going to get on Conte's back whilst he tries to build things up (and yes I appreciate the football for large parts this season has been poor, and there is an element of chicken and egg here) and then might aswell just let him go in the summer as we are not going to be successful if we aren't generating a positive atmosphere in the ground. Its a big if, but if Conte in the summer commits his future here and the fans can accept this and provide a platform in the stadium for the team to push on then I have a feeling it could still work. If things are just going to turn toxic anytime we have a bad week, then we might aswell just let Conte go in the summer regardless.....
 
harr1984 said:
Like @Lilbaz commented a few days ago, its a shame as we are a few players away from Conte really making this work. Perhaps two more windows and you really would begin to see a productive Conte team.

For example as much as I love Royale, you can begin to see the difference with an attacking WB in Porro (we can still play Royale in games where we would have to be defending a lot more) and in the summer we will have Udogie who offers the same threat down the left. This in itself will transform our attacking threat. Add another quality CB or two and we really will be getting there, as I believe our CMs are well stocked and other than the Kane issue we are pretty good in attack, especially if Son can somehow get back to where he was.

However, if fans are just going to get on Conte's back whilst he tries to build things up (and yes I appreciate the football for large parts this season has been poor, and there is an element of chicken and egg here) and then might aswell just let him go in the summer as we are not going to be successful if we aren't generating a positive atmosphere in the ground. Its a big if, but if Conte in the summer commits his future here and the fans can accept this and provide a platform in the stadium for the team to push on then I have a feeling it could still work. If things are just going to turn toxic anytime we have a bad week, then we might aswell just let Conte go in the summer regardless.....
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Can I ask do you watch a lot of the games - either at the ground or on TV?

Conte's approach is doing two things to Spurs - its starving us of enjoyable football, and its turning top class forwards into shadows of themselves. Son, Kulu, Lucas, Richie, have all struggled this season (Lucas more down to injury I grant you):


upload_2023-3-14_10-10-44.png

Eric Dier has more goals than Kulu and Richie - without Kane this season we would be relegation fodder.

"Get the ball to Kane and hope" is not a strategy.
 
harr1984 said:
Like @Lilbaz commented a few days ago, its a shame as we are a few players away from Conte really making this work. Perhaps two more windows and you really would begin to see a productive Conte team.

For example as much as I love Royale, you can begin to see the difference with an attacking WB in Porro (we can still play Royale in games where we would have to be defending a lot more) and in the summer we will have Udogie who offers the same threat down the left. This in itself will transform our attacking threat. Add another quality CB or two and we really will be getting there, as I believe our CMs are well stocked and other than the Kane issue we are pretty good in attack, especially if Son can somehow get back to where he was.

However, if fans are just going to get on Conte's back whilst he tries to build things up (and yes I appreciate the football for large parts this season has been poor, and there is an element of chicken and egg here) and then might aswell just let him go in the summer as we are not going to be successful if we aren't generating a positive atmosphere in the ground. Its a big if, but if Conte in the summer commits his future here and the fans can accept this and provide a platform in the stadium for the team to push on then I have a feeling it could still work. If things are just going to turn toxic anytime we have a bad week, then we might aswell just let Conte go in the summer regardless.....
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What have you seen to suggest his system will ever work? Even with a top LCB and Udogie, we'll still have zero creativity and a huge hole between our back 7 and front 3

Conte is a 14 month manager in his 16th month. Things are only going to get worse as players get more bored, frustrated and marginalised.
 
Surfless said:
Can I ask do you watch a lot of the games - either at the ground or on TV?

Conte's approach is doing two things to Spurs - its starving us of enjoyable football, and its turning top class forwards into shadows of themselves. Son, Kulu, Lucas, Richie, have all struggled this season (Lucas more down to injury I grant you):


View attachment 15286

Eric Dier has more goals than Kulu and Richie - without Kane this season we would be relegation fodder.

"Get the ball to Kane and hope" is not a strategy.
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Yes I do watch plenty and go to games although not as often as many here. If you think Conte's tactic is just get the ball to Kane and hope for the best, then there is no discussion to be had. Son won the Golden boot under Conte last season, Kulu was in great form under Conte but when they are out of form of course its Conte's fault!

I look forward to getting Poch back, our players being in great form and then when they are out of form it being Poch's fault for his tactics - Oh no, we like Poch so it will of course go back to the players being brick again:D....
 
harr1984 said:
Like @Lilbaz commented a few days ago, its a shame as we are a few players away from Conte really making this work. Perhaps two more windows and you really would begin to see a productive Conte team.

For example as much as I love Royale, you can begin to see the difference with an attacking WB in Porro (we can still play Royale in games where we would have to be defending a lot more) and in the summer we will have Udogie who offers the same threat down the left. This in itself will transform our attacking threat. Add another quality CB or two and we really will be getting there, as I believe our CMs are well stocked and other than the Kane issue we are pretty good in attack, especially if Son can somehow get back to where he was.

However, if fans are just going to get on Conte's back whilst he tries to build things up (and yes I appreciate the football for large parts this season has been poor, and there is an element of chicken and egg here) and then might aswell just let him go in the summer as we are not going to be successful if we aren't generating a positive atmosphere in the ground. Its a big if, but if Conte in the summer commits his future here and the fans can accept this and provide a platform in the stadium for the team to push on then I have a feeling it could still work. If things are just going to turn toxic anytime we have a bad week, then we might aswell just let Conte go in the summer regardless.....
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I think the fans might have jumped on the Conte bandwagon, if Conte had jumped on the Spurs bandwagon and committed to the project. But to say "we need a few more windows and we need patience" when he is not giving any indication that he has the patience to be around for a few more windows is a bit disingenuous.
 
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