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*** OMT Tottenham Hotspur v Aston Villa ***

Man of the match

  • Total voters
    22
  • Poll closed .
I think, sometimes, you need to take a step back and take a broader perspective.

...

So, with Bale, who was arguably one of the Top 5 players in the world a couple of years ago, Kane, who's arguably the best striker in the league and one of the Top 10 players in the world, and Lloris, who's a world champion, we couldn't beat Aston Villa, at home, in front of our fans after 14 months of playing in an empty stadium and - believe it or not - still with something to play for.

At this point, I think it's worth highlighting that sacking Mourinho had very little influence on our results. Apparently, the idea was to put the players in charge for the rest of the season and see what happens. I don't think Mason has been appointed because of his stellar references as a coach, at 29 years of age. So, it was all about restoring team spirit/morale. Well, at least, the situation should be clear for everyone now: it didn't change a thing. We had a tough time beating Southampton and any good/half decent team rolled over us. Mourinho or no Mourinho.

At some point, there has to be some sort of consquences. Our players underperformed under Pochettino and Mourinho but, when left to their own devices (more or less), they look just as poor so... maybe they're not as good as they and some people think they are?

It would be terribly sad to see Kane leave but if we can squeeze 150m out of someone's pockets and the owners aren't ready to invest that kind of money themselves, maybe we would be better off that way. We're lacking quality everywhere, we have no back-up options for our star players (because, as someone else mentioned, they're 'unsubable').

It's just my opinion but I think that whoever decided to spend more than a year without signing anyone should be immediatly appointed as chairman of Arsenal. It killed our momentum as a club by making the squad extremely stale. Now it's beyong that: it's past its sell-by date. It's been a long a depressing season and we need a lot of new faces in and a lot of old faces out. If we don't want to fall too far behind, we'll need to do it in difficult circumstances but that's what happens when you want to play it safe and fail to grasp an opportunity when it presents itself.

I really hope the board will learn their lesson and that we'll see a complete shake-up of the hierarchy, at least on the football side, but somehow, I'm not holding my breath...
 
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Mikey10 said:
Back to being a laughing stock on all media outlets this morning. It feels comfortable, like finding a pair of old slippers mislaid years ago.

Who’d have thought that just telling your (allegedly) top 4 level squad to go out and play attacking football wouldn’t solve all our problems? Hard to believe...
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It's not a matter of telling them to go out and play attacking football or defensive football or any other type of football, they have to be coached properly to do it.
They look far from a properly coached team, including fitness wise and patterns of attacking play as well as how to defend as a unit.
We need a proper coach in that can work on those things during the summer. Until that is done it doesn't matter who we sign, we'll still be less than the sum of our parts.
 
AdamB said:
Hard to get much lower than we are as a club at the moment

We'll need to get most things right this summer to have a chance of finishing top 6 next summer.

A dark couple seasons ahead....
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I said this a few months ago, that for a while it has felt like the end of an era, where we have consistently been fighting at the top of the table. I think it will be quite a while before we are serious top 4 contenders again, and we will probably have quite a few seasons now where we will finish anywhere between 6th and 12th. We need a total rebuild, and for us to get back into the mix we have to be both clever and lucky in the recruitment of both players and manager(s). We'll have some testing times in front of us!
 
Sobered up now. Not seen any tv replays.

thought Bergwijn had one of his better games for a while would have got my motm nom.
There were some nice patterns to our play but after the OG we went to pieces.
Reggie had a mate.
Winks is a non entity as a footballer.
Son seems to be immune from being substituted.
Absolutely gutted for Tanganga.

I saw my mate who I haven’t seen for over a year and someone I used to sit a row in front of at WHL but not seen since the last game there as was never on personal terms, plus I got to go to my regular pub after the game. Being brick in real life beats being brick on the telly.
 
Mr Gogolak said:
At this point, I think it's worth highlighting that sacking Mourinho had very little influence on our results. Apparently, the idea was to put the players in charge for the rest of the season and see what happens. I don't think Mason has been appointed because of his stellar references as a coach, at 29 years of age. So, it was all about restoring team spirit/morale. Well, at least, the situation should be clear for everyone now: it didn't change a thing. We had a tough time beating Southampton and any good/half decent team rolled over us. Mourinho or no Mourinho.

At some point, there has to be some sort of consquences. Our players underperformed under Pochettino and Mourinho but, when left to their own deviced (more or less), they look just as poor so... maybe they're not as good as they and some people think they are?
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Agree 100%. It boggles my mind that so many fans, pundits and journos think our current problems started and ended with Mourinho. I don't know how much more evidence people need.... It is the players!
 
I hope we lose to Leicester, it will probably be the most embarrassing point getting knocked out of the Europa conference or what ever it is next season so not participating at all would be better.
 
Kandi1977 said:
I said this a few months ago, that for a while it has felt like the end of an era, where we have consistently been fighting at the top of the table. I think it will be quite a while before we are serious top 4 contenders again, and we will probably have quite a few seasons now where we will finish anywhere between 6th and 12th. We need a total rebuild, and for us to get back into the mix we have to be both clever and lucky in the recruitment of both players and manager(s). We'll have some testing times in front of us!
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Yes, for us to finish 5th(ish) next summer we'd the new CBs, CF and RW to come in and hit the ground running immediately, as well as the new manager bedding in a system quickly. Its not impossible, but it needs a lot to go right and those signings need to be really first-rate players. I question whether we can attract those players this summer given where we are.

I'd be disappointed if we had a finish below 10th, but from where we are and factoring in the risks and likely success of transfers, finishing say 7th/8th next year would be a good result.

Tough 2-4 years ahead
 
I always say you shouldn’t boo at HT. if you’re unhappy at the end then boo the result. Probably an indicator of the overall dissatisfaction with the club and the direction we’ve gone in as a whole in the last 2 years. I think the fans will be behind the team next year provided results don’t go horribly. Probably the biggest summer for the club in a long time.
 
For all the understandable doom and gloom, just remember that seven years ago we had gone from recent CL qualification and challenging for the title halfway through the season, to losing Bale / Modric / King and having Tim Sherwood as our manager. That was the most down I’d felt about Spurs in ages. But then we brought in Poch, and quickly had the best few years of my life as a Spurs fan. Let’s hope we can see the same sort of thing happen again.
 
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AdamB said:
Yes, for us to finish 5th(ish) next summer we'd the new CBs, CF and RW to come in and hit the ground running immediately, as well as the new manager bedding in a system quickly. Its not impossible, but it needs a lot to go right and those signings need to be really first-rate players. I question whether we can attract those players this summer given where we are.

I'd be disappointed if we had a finish below 10th, but from where we are and factoring in the risks and likely success of transfers, finishing say 7th/8th next year would be a good result.

Tough 2-4 years ahead
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I actually think it's the central midfield and CB we need to strengthen, not further forward. We have too few good options in CM. We need a Modric type player, someone who is equally good both defensively and offensively. That type of player would allow us to pair him with Højbjerg when we need to be strong defensively, and Ndombele or Lo Celso when we expect to be dominating.
 
Kandi1977 said:
I actually think it's the central midfield and CB we need to strengthen, not further forward. We have too few good options in CM. We need a Modric type player, someone who is equally good both defensively and offensively. That type of player would allow us to pair him with Højbjerg when we need to be strong defensively, and Ndombele or Lo Celso when we expect to be dominating.
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Currently in terms of forwards, our starting front 3 in August would be Moura-Son-Bergwijn with Lamela-Scarlett-Clarke as back-up

I think we need 2 CFs and a RW, assuming Kane leaves. TBD whether Bale is one of them
 
Finney Is Back said:
The problems start and end with the recruitment team at this club.
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I'd go a little further than that. Now that the season is almost over and with hindsight, I think the rumors about Dele's transfer are quite symptomatic of what's gone wrong. If Levy did veto the move (and, again, I don't know whether that's true), that means he thought the player was bigger - or more valuable - than the manager.

Regardless of what each of us think of Mourinho, I'd rather see the chairman back the manager, even when he's got it wrong.

I'm mentioning this episode because it's consistent with what has happened over the last few years: the lack of new signings, hiring Mourinho to help this squad finally win something, playing Kane and Son for every minute of every game... when, in reality, it was falling apart at the seams. If I had to make a guess, I'd say that Levy, the board, whoever calls the shots at Spurs believe(d) they had assembled the best possible squad and this squad of players has grown bigger and more important than anything else at this club, even when said players have been underperforming for a while.

Unfortunately, the way things have been done show a deep lack of understanding of group dynamics. By the way, that's, among other things, why you appoint a manager in the first place: they know about these things, if only from experience. It's proving to be a massive mistake now, one that almost gets us back to square one. Hopefully, the new stadium will help us get back on track quicker but some people at the club should have a long, hard look at themselves and stay away from the footballing side from now on.
 
Mr Gogolak said:
I'd go a little further than that. Now that the season is almost over and with hindsight, I think the rumors about Dele's transfer are quite symptomatic of what's gone wrong. If Levy did veto the move (and, again, I don't know whether that's true), that means he thought the player was bigger - or more valuable - than the manager.

Regardless of what each of us think of Mourinho, I'd rather see the chairman back the manager, even when he's got it wrong.

I'm mentioning this episode because it's consistent with what has happened over the last few years: the lack of new signings, hiring Mourinho to help this squad finally win something, playing Kane and Son for every minute of every game... when, in reality, it was falling apart at the seams. If I had to make a guess, I'd say that Levy, the board, whoever calls the shots at Spurs believe(d) they had assembled the best possible squad and this squad of players has grown bigger and more important than anything else at this club, even when said players have been underperforming for a while.

Unfortunately, the way things have been done show a deep lack of understanding of group dynamics. By the way, that's, among other things, why you appoint a manager in the first place: they know about these things, if only from experience. It's proving to be a massive mistake now, one that almost gets us back to square one. Hopefully, the new stadium will help us get back on track quicker but some people at the club should have a long, hard look at themselves and stay away from the footballing side from now on.
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Although I wouldn't want to see dele leave I agree.
The manager has to listened to.
Although by then I suspect Levy had already twigged it wasn't going to work with Jose.
 
Great posts Mr Gogolak, hard to disagree with any of it, but I am pretty sure that Levy realises that he has fecked up spectacularly, and will look to put a better structure in place. And he needs to do it QUICKLY if we are to stabilise things next season and not go even further backwards.
So I suspect you will get your wish: some people at the club should have a long, hard look at themselves and stay away from the footballing side from now on.
 
AdamB said:
Hard to get much lower than we are as a club at the moment

We'll need to get most things right this summer to have a chance of finishing top 6 next summer.

A dark couple seasons ahead....
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It's not actually that hard.... If we continue with the exsiting set up above whoever the new manager is then I think we might see just how easily we can get even lower...
 
lurker of old said:
Great posts Mr Gogolak, hard to disagree with any of it, but I am pretty sure that Levy realises that he has fecked up spectacularly, and will look to put a better structure in place. And he needs to do it QUICKLY if we are to stabilise things next season and not go even further backwards.
So I suspect you will get your wish: some people at the club should have a long, hard look at themselves and stay away from the footballing side from now on.
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Appointing a DoF would be a wise move, if only to divert some of the heat and vitriol that is bound to be our bread and butter next season.

Getting back to where we were isn't impossible; we did it once so we can do it again but things need to change. Ironically, for two years, there have been countless arguments on this board about Pochettino's and Mourinho's merits when, at the end of the day, we proved that the cheapest option (changing the manager rather than the players) isn't necessarily the best one...
 
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elltrev said:
For all the understandable doom and gloom, just remember that seven years ago we had gone from recent CL qualification and challenging for the title halfway through the season, to losing Bale / Modric / King and having Tim Sherwood as our manager. That was the most down I’d felt about Spurs in ages. But then we brought in Poch, and quickly had the best few years of my life as a Spurs fan. Let’s hope we can see the same sort of thing happen again.
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Going from Harry to AVB was a far bigger movement from elation to despair. Sherwood improved things after the AVB debacle.
 
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