I seem to remember this time last year (and the year before) that Liverpool were going to win the league and we were terrible.Can’t remember back that far
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Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked
- Thread starter DubaiSpur
- Start date
Baleforce
Arthur Rowe
ShipOfTheseus
Clint Dempsey
Injudiciously spawning.
glorygloryeze
Tom Huddlestone
We generally are in no worse a situation regarding our players being involved in international tournaments than all other teams who are trying to compete near the top.
I'm sure if the rest of the squad were able to come in and do better they would have.
Nice red herring you're throwing there...unless you're opening up a debate as to whether Poch actually has the ability to manage a wider squad than he is currently (which could be a fair discussion - maybe one that Levy would sign up to the forum to join in on..)
DeanoAustin
Jimmy McCormick
There is no angst. Just an opinion. It’s a message board where people will naturally read into things and speculate how it’ll affect Spurs in the future.
glorygloryeze
Tom Huddlestone
Hmm...maybe a fair point..particularly the first bit...the second but: what if Alli got an injury like that battling on for us?
Baleforce
Arthur Rowe
Same thing, do it by the numbers, depends on the significance and timing of the game.
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parklane1
Tony Galvin
No mate get with the program, you have to throw shedloads of money on players every summer otherwise you/we are not being brave.
Baleforce
Arthur Rowe
I think he does, he showed his willingness to spread games around in his first season. I'd like him to get back to that, be "brave" with his selections.
glorygloryeze
Tom Huddlestone
Did he really? I'm not sure he did in the games of equivalent consequence given our position in the football foodchain at the time.
Maybe he isn't brave with his selections; perhaps he's:
a) doesn't get bought the options he'd like by the board or
b) hasn't been good overall at identifying the players for his system and hence doesn't play many of them when he can rotate (Sissoko, Llorente, GKN, Foyth etc)
90291Spur
Paul Walsh
Oh, I'd forgotten those.
Playing any international minutes whatsoever.
BrainOfLevy
Michael Carrick
I actually quite like that we had such a clarity of focus in our strategy that we didn't sign a player. For better or worse, it shows we have consistency in our thinking. E.g. we start from how we think we can be most successful and compete (a tight squad, everyone feeling like they have a fair shake, everyone knows the system, the club, the League, everyone knows each other and pushes each other and works well together), and we go from there. It would have been easy to sign someone, anyone, just to say that we did. There is clearly some money there. Even if it was an N'Koudou style gamble. I'm sure we could have gotten one first team player in for 30-40M perhaps. But we didn't. And that clarity is good. We really weighed up whether a new signing now vs in the future would improve us, and give us the best chance of success this season and longer term.
I have no doubt we identified 4 players that we wanted to sign. Not at all a coincidence that there were 4 players we were most keen to sell (Rose, Toby, Dembele, Wanyama) to make the space in the squad to make that happen? Let's say, for arguments sake, the players were Sessegnon, De Ligt, N'Dombele, and another DM. We aren't going to sign any of them if we don't have a space for them in the squad (for one, it takes away one of the reasons why a player would want to sign for us ahead of a club with more money - an easier route to first 11 playing time - and secondly, we don't want to bloat up positions in the squad to risk certain players getting alienated, losing focus, not buying into team ethic, not being focused on relentless improvement, not driving everyone else on etc).
So let's take the Rose example in isolation. He was given quotes this weekend saying he is surprised to be playing, because he thought he could have been sold. That's Poch's strong leadership and clarity of thinking at play. He knows that we compete best when players are engaged, focused, determined to improve, feeling like they have a space to compete but enough competition for their position etc, and that's what he did with Rose. I'm sure he isn't Rose's biggest fan after the Sun interview. I'm sure he was happy to sell him considering he's been out of form for 2 years and isn't getting any younger. But he remains. So what to do? Play him in some of the biggest games and show through your actions that he is a player that is going to get a fair shot this season. He is still a part of it. He's still got to be fully engaged. It's fantastic management.
We could have signed another left back, and either Rose or the new guy would feel disenfranchised. We could have signed another CB, on the likelihood that Toby was leaving. But then Toby stays because we didn't get a good offer, so again, what to do? Do we keep Toby because we need to sell for a fair price? Do we sell way below market value? Do we keep Toby but keep him benched, because we want to give the new guy a chance? Do we keep Toby, try and give him a chance, but also try and give the new guy a chance, and Sanchez, meaning none of them are able to pick up good form?
Again, great management. Poch did leave Toby out for most of last season. When he thought was going to be out the door. But he remained. So now Poch has to show through his actions that Toby has a fair shake. That he needs to be engaged in this team. If Poch tried to leave Toby out for the entirety of this season, it wouldn't work the same way. He would be a bad apple for the season, and it wouldn't serve anyone a purpose.
You're right, there is some ebb and flow. These players will need to be replaced eventually. But if it happens next summer, in the grand scheme of things it won't make that much of a difference. The alternatives - selling below fair market value (which is something we cannot do considering we need all the financial prudence we can get to compete with wealthier clubs) or signing a new player anyway (not the best strategy for attracting good players without giving them a clear opportunity at the first 11, and risking alienated an experienced player who hasn't left and now has to face an entire season out of the team) were not necessarily going to leave us in a better position this season. When you really consider what our strategy is, where we are as a club, and what the options were, I really like it. Not signing someone required clarity of thought and of purpose around our strategy.
It would have been easy to sign someone just to say that we did, but I think being the first club not to do so in 300 windows is actually a positive, not a negative. We have people at the club that think clearly, that know their strategy, know their place against other clubs, and act accordingly. It wasn't a fudge up, it was by design, given the cards that were dealt. And I think Poch was as much a driver of it as Levy - because his actions with the players that have remained have been very smart. So it's less for me about the manager being left in a difficult position by a bad Chairman. We're in good shape, and I have confidence in our football and business leaders given how they've navigated a tough time.
thfcsteff
George Hunt
It was their wage demands mate.
Not sure whether Rose was ever seriously courted, but Toby and Mousa...and the whole point is that Poch does not want a large bloated squad, especially with potential senior malcontents, thus that line would never have worked. And they are pretty decent players to have to reintegrate!
They were on the sidelines largely because they were hurt.
Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
Jurgen the German
Erik Thorstvedt
I always thought the prospect of selling Toby and Rose (especially in the same window) was a faux pas. Now they have both been reintegrated back into the side, hey presto, most people who said we should sell them have instantly changed their minds and think they're brilliant again.
Dembele is a different kettle of fish. Normally we have an excellent track record of getting rid of players at the right time or cashing in on assets and maximising profit. With Dembele, it looks like we have held on to him for a season too long. Not to mention Wanyama and Winks's injury problems. It's the one position we need to upgrade on. Other than that, we really don't need much, just 1-2 players to gift the squad a lift and provide competition for places.
I don't think the window was a disaster, but I also don't think we need to pretend it was a success either. I don't recall many posters saying we would sign no one before the window closed so there seems to be some rewriting of history as the second the window closed, posters claimed they were pleased we didn't sign anyone as the most important thing was keeping our players. It's not like we had clubs knocking at our door for Toby, Rose and Dembele either, did anyone ever actually make an official bid for any of those players? Also bare in mind that Toby is still to sign a new contract so his situation is far from resolved.
I get that this is a Spurs board and a pro Levy/ENIC board in general, nothing wrong with that at all but sometimes people just need to call it how it is. Not saying everyone has to agree on everything all the time but it can't always be other clubs/chairmans faults for "moving the goalposts" or the greedy, insubordinate players for refusing to sign contracts. I look forward to similar stories about Eriksen and Vertonghen when the time comes for them to sit down and renegotiate their contracts.
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DeanoAustin
Jimmy McCormick
I like your posts because they are always well thought out. But there are a boatload of assumptions in there.
Firstly, let me kill a couple of the ones that get recited every time someone makes an argument like mine about the window. I didn't want signings for the sake of it. I didn't want a shiny new toy. I didn't want another GKN or Janssen. I wanted genuine quality to improve our squad.
Secondly, I don't think Poch's been f**ked over by bad chairman Levy. Levy is and has been a great chairman for us. I just think he got this summer badly wrong.
You've named 4 players we wanted to sell there and assumed that if we were after 4, it was to replace them. You could put Sissoko and Llorente in there too because there was a lot of talk of selling them. Now the 4 into 4 isn't quite as convenient. Keane also didn't say "Levy didn't sign them because he couldn't offload his deadwood". He quite clearly said that Levy didn't sign anyone on the list because the asking price was too high.
There is another interpretation on keeping Rose and Toby (as 2 examples). Pochettino has had to reintegrate two players who quite clearly wanted to leave. He's a man who is always about the collective and ensuring the squad is pulling in the same direction. A shared vision. Now, because Levy wanted his Levy-tax and wouldn't take the market rate, he's stuck with Rose and Toby and has to play them. Which players have really dipped in form since last season? Davies and Sanchez have been mentioned a bit around this board as being in poor runs of form. Are they tinkled that they've been model squad-members up to now and then these two mercenary misfits have strolled back into the first team after embarrassing the club last season? What's the effect on team morale?
You're also assuming that we got offers below the fair market value for the lads we wanted to move on. That's a massive assumption. Given what we know about Levy and his history in the market, it's just as likely that we got what most people would consider to be fair offers and he wanted to squeeze the buying clubs for more. Only now they know Levy is in a bad place and aren't going to pay the premium.
We looked stale at the end of last season. Very stale. We've looked the same this season so far. We are asking Pochettino to work miracles by continually finishing in the top 4 (don't think there won't be a supporter backlash if we finish 5th or 6th this year) with the same players. He can't keep doing it. Levy should have helped his manager out in the window by giving him some of what he wanted. He didn't because, in my opinion, he was being overly cautious with funds in an attempt to minimise what we have to borrow for the stadium. In my view, that was penny wise and pound foolish. I believe it was absolutely the wrong thing to do.
Wouldn't logic dictate here that the players Poch has reintegrated back in to side have shown the required commitment off the field to warrant their inclusion rather than Pochettino suddenly having no option but to abandon his standards with regards to squad harmony?
DeanoAustin
Jimmy McCormick
I’d like to know how they did that given that the two of them were away for almost the entire summer. The common perception of Poch is also that once you let him down, you’re done. Toby and Rose let him down big time, particularly Rose. And now they are back in and pretty much have been since the start of the season.
BrainOfLevy
Michael Carrick
Ok - I think it comes down to what we choose to believe as the key issue is whether Levy asked for too much for players we wanted to sell, or whether those available players had offers to move but didn't get the wages that they wanted / didn't have offers from teams as good as us.
I'm going by sources I consider to be decent - those journos well connected to the club, and others connected. I can never prove to you that it all went the way I said, but that is what I believe. I think if we could have gotten a fair price to sell the players we wanted out, we would have taken it. I think Levy has actually shown more willingness to sell quickly under Poch than under previous managers (I'm thinking we took a loss on N'Jie, even though he was a young player, which I thought was very un-Levy like at the time). I also think in previous windows we could have decided to force a player out through harsher means and get them to take the wages offered (if we had accepted bids) but this time around (and this is something Poch has influence in), we didn't decide to be forceful with them.
I remember Crouch telling the story of how we sold him to Stoke. Levy said if you don't go you'll be stuck in the reserves for rest of your contract. We wanted him out and he went. But that was under Harry, under a manager that cares less about a unified team and harmony as much as Poch does. He's shown with Janssen that he's happy to exclude him, because he wants him out, but for someone like Rose, who still has influence over the squad, I'm pretty sure Poch weighed up the value of getting Rose back to form vs the value of forcing Rose out, and bringing a new player in to replace him and getting him up to speed (at a point when Rose's market value was low after 2 poor seasons). And he chose to stick rather than twist, and wait until next summer for the grand rebuilding.
Ultimately, I don't think it is Levy not giving Poch what he wanted, because Poch would want a balanced squad where everyone has a fair shake, enough competition to be on their toes but enough genuine opportunity to play. Any signing we needed to make would be contingent on moving players out. And it's whether Levy demanded too high a price for those players, or whether they refused to go. I think in Toby's case, it was way more complicated because of next summer's clause, so there was always a chance he might stay. Rose and Dembele had options, but didn't take them. Wanyama was likely viewed as crocked and no one would pay decent money for him until he'd proven himself back. I think we needed those players out in order to bring new signings in, because they are experienced, and we weren't willing to go to war with them given their influence over the squad and the fact that they could still be valuable anyway.
And this is where it comes to for me - when we talk about the bigger picture and the longer term. The next step is competing consistently with Emirates Marketing Project. We clearly need a step change in finances to make that happen. We clearly need to rebuild the squad slightly to make that happen. Poch clearly wanted it to happen this summer to give him the tools to do it. But if it was going to be easy, we would have done it. Unfortunately, the rest of the market doesn't just fall in to line with when Tottenham wants to do their rebuilding plans, so we had to put it off. And when we've weighed everything up, rather than go to war with good players that are actually incentivised to get back to form in order to get better moves (which will benefit us in transfer fee), we decided to keep them on, and put off the rebuilding for a year. I think it will happen, its just this summer was a difficult one. But to not make a signing, and to be able to weigh everything up as we did and make the decisions that we made, I think showed great clarity of thought. Its the kind of thing that maintains us on a good level to improve when we can, rather than getting into a negative spiral.
I don't think my assumptions are way off base, but it starts from a belief that Poch and Levy are aligned and made good decisions and did what they can. Ultimately if you believe Levy was charging too much for the players we wanted sold, I can't change your mind and I can't prove to you otherwise.
BrainOfLevy
Michael Carrick
To me this shows why Poch is a great leader. He's always had his principles and its something that's served him well, but the thing that tips him over the edge from being someone that gets lucky with one system and one club dynamic at one time (let's say AVB at Porto for example) is that he adapts depending on the situation at hand.
Yes, once you cross him, you are done. But selling them at their lowest value wouldn't have actually benefited the club this summer. Reintegrating them well would. Telling the whole squad that everyone starts from zero is his way of asserting authority. Playing Rose and Toby in big games is his way of regaining their loyalty.
These are the kind of problems big clubs have to deal with when they are home to massive egos and when its no longer a constant upswing, and when there is no pressure because we'll probably finish 5th or 6th and that will be ok, and if we lose players we will just start again. We're now at the point where to sign players to improve us is actually a tough ask given how good we are right now, so its less easy to be super principled, or to just give the academy players a chance. Poch has to now keep us up there because we want to be at the point where the next step for us is to be a consistent title challenger. So being overly principled is something that would hold him back. But he is a great leader, and recognises the need to adapt. He reasserts his authority and regains loyalty, but in a different way.