*** OMT TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR vs Fiorentina 2nd leg ***

[SteveAWOL]

Bale and Modric didn't lift a trophy and they left too, so what is your point? I enjoy seeing us win big games, and even if it is forgotten, how many on here remember that win in 2008 more vividly than the away game against Aston Villa from that season?

Perhaps they wouldn't have left had we qualified for the Champions League though, just as none of our star players jumped ship after the 2009/10 season even though Spurs didn't land any silverware.

Yes they did, and Berba ended up being a bit part player at Manure, not making the bench for their CL final and then playing for Fulham. And Keane ended up at the LA Galaxy after Pool, us, Celtic, Wet spam on loan (I think). They still both seemed pretty chuffed, as did the 40,000 or so Yids at the ground, that Tottenham Hotspur FC had won a trophy. As I asked Sandman, what's your point? When we beat Chelsea on Sunday will it feel the same to you as beating, for example, Stoke on a wet Tuesday night?

Nope, it will probably feel even more satisfying than when we beat Chavski in the Premier League last month as we get to pick up a trophy at the end of the game! I just wish it was a more prestigious one than the League Cup but the fact is that the FA Cup has become the preserve of Top 4 clubs for most of the past 2 decades whilst the Europa League is a very long slog and our squad clearly requires more strength in depth to be capable of competing on multiple fronts.

 

[Cochise]

I'm still of the opinion that we need European football, in any form. The squad bloat/poor squad players is not the fault of the Europa league campaign, although there are too many fixtures imho. Take out the Champions League dropouts and then you have a comp that looks to upset the status quo with a smaller team being given a shot at playing in the Champions League.

 

[Robspur12]

To win the big trophies IMO you have to start by winning the lesser ones. Our team needs to build a winning mentality. The psychological boost of being trophy winner is immense. When you win one it can instill a belief that you can win others. We saw George graham start his success with the goons by winning the 87 league cup, Mourinho too and Pellegrini last year. Ferguson started off by winning the FA cup. We need to win on Sunday because it can be a platform to bigger things.

 

[SteveAWOL]

To win the big trophies IMO you have to start by winning the lesser ones. Our team needs to build a winning mentality. The psychological boost of being trophy winner is immense. When you win one it can instill a belief that you can win others. We saw George graham start his success with the goons by winning the 87 league cup, Mourinho too and Pellegrini last year. Ferguson started off by winning the FA cup. We need to win on Sunday because it can be a platform to bigger things.

In theory yes but winning the League Cup was merely an appetiser for Mourinho and Pelligrini as they lead their very expensively assembled teams to the main prize of the Premier League title.

Our League Cup win in 1999 did not herald the start of another glorious era at Tottenham and over the past decade winning this cup has been a bit of a poisoned chalice if anything, apart from for the title challenging Manchester clubs.

2007 - Chelsea: Mourinho sacked that autumn.
2008 - Spurs: Ramos sacked after 2pts from 8 games.
2009 - Manchester Utd
2010 - Manchester Utd
2011 - Birmingham: McLeish leaves after getting them relegated.
2012 - Liverpool: Dalglish sacked after their lowest league placing in 18 years.
2013 - Swansea: Laudrup sacked after only 9 wins in next 38 games.
2014 - Emirates Marketing Project

 

[glasgowspur]

I agree. The fact we have failed to get past the 1/4 Final stages again suggests maybe that our league (or us in particular) are not as good as we think we are.

The hype about the BPL is incredible. Other than Chelsea and Man u who are two clubs far and away above almost all other clubs in Europe in terms of money the European records are poor over the 10 years. Take they two out of it and add in the English national team what's so great about British football?
All you hear every other league us crud. The entertainment may not be as good but the football is that much better.
The only thing the BPL is really good at is making money.

 

[Sandman]

Yes we are close to winning the league cup. I get your point on that. But we sacrificed the Europa cup to possibly win it. For me that was a mistake.

We may well win the league cup and I'll be happy. And it will be forgotten in no time. And another season of the early stages of the Europe league will come again.

But to have pushed on in the UEFA cup this season. To have maybe won that. Got European recognition and a champions league spot. Well that was worth more to me in terms of where it can take us as a team.

 

[Pirate55]

We do not have Emirates Marketing Project, Chelsea or even Arsenal's budget and I am not convinced that the last two ended the window with significantly improved squads.

If it was as easy to bring players in January as you are suggesting, I think that more clubs would have done it. This is why I am suggesting that naming players that moved clubs that we could have signed is more realistic than an untestable hypothesis that there must be better players that we could have signed

Virtually any striker would be an upgrade on Soldado and Ade at this stage. We are so underweight in this area it is unbelievable.

 

[Robspur12]

In theory yes but winning the League Cup was merely an appetiser for Mourinho and Pelligrini as they lead their very expensively assembled teams to the main prize of the Premier League title.

Our League Cup win in 1999 did not herald the start of another glorious era at Tottenham and over the past decade winning this cup has been a bit of a poisoned chalice if anything, apart from for the title challenging Manchester clubs.

2007 - Chelsea: Mourinho sacked that autumn.
2008 - Spurs: Ramos sacked after 2pts from 8 games.
2009 - Manchester Utd
2010 - Manchester Utd
2011 - Birmingham: McLeish leaves after getting them relegated.
2012 - Liverpool: Dalglish sacked after their lowest league placing in 18 years.
2013 - Swansea: Laudrup sacked after only 9 wins in next 38 games.
2014 - Emirates Marketing Project

Previous Spurs wins in the league cups were not built upon, unlike the other teams I mentioned. In both 1999 and 2008 our teams were dismantled after the win so neither provided the catalyst they could have done. Now we have a young team who are growing together that's why I believe this COC represents a bigger opportunity than our other 2 recent wins.

 

[Sandman]

We could have had Defoe. Yes he has his limits. But plays his heart out and can hit the target. Better than Soldado and age Adebayor.

 

[Daisuk]

I'm not too bothered. Didn't think we were that poor either, to be honest. Two individual mistakes cost us. We didn't create enough good chances, mind you, but we dominated the game in the first half, and should've taken the lead, too bad Soldado just isn't going to get his confidence back playing for us.

 

[sc25]

I'm still of the opinion that we need European football, in any form. The squad bloat/poor squad players is not the fault of the Europa league campaign, although there are too many fixtures imho. Take out the Champions League dropouts and then you have a comp that looks to upset the status quo with a smaller team being given a shot at playing in the Champions League.

Me too. I have some issues with the format of Europa, as do others, however it is what it is and so not much point whining about it. If that is whats there for us, then we should partake. Plus, I do think the fixture congestion thing is overstated. One of the best ways for a squad to improve is to play games. Thats why you play the game. Players love playing games, or at least they should. Plus, clubs know well in advance that they are in Europa and can/should plan accordingly. I assume that last summers window was conducted with this in mind. Just because we got knocked out, it doesn't mean that we didn't improve from being in it, or shouldn't want to be in it.

 

[Pirate55]

Yes we are close to winning the league cup. I get your point on that. But we sacrificed the Europa cup to possibly win it. For me that was a mistake.

We may well win the league cup and I'll be happy. And it will be forgotten in no time. And another season of the early stages of the Europe league will come again.

But to have pushed on in the UEFA cup this season. To have maybe won that. Got European recognition and a champions league spot. Well that was worth more to me in terms of where it can take us as a team.

Let me be blunt. There was simply virtually zero chance of us winning the Europa at this stage of the teams development. To think otherwise is living in a fools paradise. We may as well think we could win the EPL. The plain facts are that there are many teams in both competitions that are better than we are at the moment.

We are able to generate the occasional good performance and result through a high energy, high pressing, raw enthusiasm game. This is not sustainable. As our results have shown, both in Europe and the EPL, we simply have far too many mediocre performances and results to be considered serious contenders. We have a decent batch of youngsters but outside these little quality. In my view, we should be aiming at a few quality players supplemented by our youngsters and not, as it appears now, our youngsters providing the quality and the others largely found wanting.

 

[SteveAWOL]

Previous Spurs wins in the league cups were not built upon, unlike the other teams I mentioned. In both 1999 and 2008 our teams were dismantled after the win so neither provided the catalyst they could have done. Now we have a young team who are growing together that's why I believe this COC represents a bigger opportunity than our other 2 recent wins.

Imho the League Cup wins for Cit€h and Chel$ea were merely incidental as their squads were full of players with winning mentalities, Chel$ea were already 9 points clear at the top the Premier League when Mourinho won it in 2005 whilst Cit€h had games in hand to go top last season which they ultimately did.

Winning the FA Cup was probably a watershed moment for Fergie, as it would be for Poch if he could end Spurs' quarter century wait for that glorious trophy next season.

Hopefully a League Cup win this week might be a stepping stone for our youngsters like you say and herald a return to the glory days (like the 60s and 80s) to Spurs.

 

[Modric THFC]

The hype about the BPL is incredible. Other than Chelsea and Man u who are two clubs far and away above almost all other clubs in Europe in terms of money the European records are poor over the 10 years. Take they two out of it and add in the English national team what's so great about British football?
All you hear every other league us crud. The entertainment may not be as good but the football is that much better.
The only thing the BPL is really good at is making money.

Its competitive. The style of football played in the league is more exciting to watch than any other.

 

[spurspinter1]

Well that was flimflam.

As has probably been said, not the worst performances in the world over two legs, but mistakes at key moments. Soldado's two on one situation and both CB's had complete fudge ups.

Also it's not great how we're at such an important stage of the season and there's not one player in the 3 behind the striker that I'd say is in good form, Chadli, Eriksen, Lamela and Townsend have been painful to watch recently and Dembele reverted to type against West Ham as well...

Edit: Hogwash? Really? fudge is bad enough...clam Bastard Motherfudger

 

[DubaiSpur]

Its competitive. The style of football played in the league is more exciting to watch than any other.

End to end, quick, physical, relentless. However, I don't think it's particularly a) technically skilled, b) tactically refined, or c) conducive to game management in the same way that other leagues are. It's a ginormous discussion to be had in and of itself, but there's definitely a case to be made for the BPL just being exciting, as opposed to other leagues which are more technical, more prone to the development of complicated tactics, and more 'managed', in the sense that a) teams approach games differently (employing strategies based on the likelihood of winning or losing that differ significantly from each other, as opposed to the more muted changes in approach that BPL teams employ), and b) teams 'give up' when facing adversity more often, because it's beyond the ability of their tactical approaches to rectify (as opposed to the blood-and-thunder 'not one step back' approach BPL teams employ).

Conte talked about it when he was at Hotspur Way recently. And I feel it's a factor in the 'English' quotient of teams in the final four of the CL/EL diminishing in recent times, even as notable exceptions (Chelsea) got either ludicrously lucky or adapted their tactics (Rafa) to succeed. For better or worse, the foreign sides seems to have figured out the relentless blood-and-thunder approach pretty well now.

 

[Hemant]

Yes we are close to winning the league cup. I get your point on that. But we sacrificed the Europa cup to possibly win it. For me that was a mistake.

We may well win the league cup and I'll be happy. And it will be forgotten in no time. And another season of the early stages of the Europe league will come again.

But to have pushed on in the UEFA cup this season. To have maybe won that. Got European recognition and a champions league spot. Well that was worth more to me in terms of where it can take us as a team.

Totally agree.
Our aspiration for a number of seasons has been to get into CL. Managers have been sacked for not achieving this.
Prior to this season and during it the message from the Club was we have a big squad to compete on all fronts. So I don't understand why we are ready to accept us going limply out of the EL, in favour of a Cup which will not get into the CL.
In terms of probability, we have just halved our opportunity to get into the CL, our main goal for the season.

 

[alekaras]

At least Liverscum are heading for extra time. For now.

Unfortunately they're out too. The EL distraction would have been in our favor, but now they can focus on league too. This is going to make it more difficult for us.

 

[Spurs7891]

It is always annoying when we get knocked out of any Cup competition. Even more so, when we don't play to our best ability. Felt so annoyed when I found out Kane was not starting. Got so demotivated that didn't want to watch the 1st half. When I did watch the 2nd half, we were already a goal down. Feel so annoyed with Pochettino for not starting Kane. We badly needed to score, yet he chose to rest our only decent striker. Having a League Cup final 3 days later, shouldn't have been an excuse to rest our best striker in an important European match. The only way Pochettino can make up for this blunder is by winning the League Cup now.

Really thought we would go on to win the EL this season somehow. It would have been sweet since winning the EL means qualifying to the CL next season. Instead, very disappointed we chose not to take it seriously. I think Pochettino's decision not to start Kane in both legs must have influenced the players. We just couldn't lift our game to overcome Fiorentina. What do you expect since Kane is our only striker who can score the goals. Soldado did well to score in the first leg but he only scores once in a blue moon. It was no logic to expect him to score 2nd match in a row. He is badly out of luck and confidence as shown by his failure to score the one-on-one chance.

Disappointingly, Eriksen seems to be out of form as he couldn't come up with the crucial goals that he scored earlier in the season. Felt his freekicks and shots didn't have the normal killer instincts in this match. Was disappointed he wasted both the freekicks he got by hitting it straight at the wall. Even his shot late in the match couldn't beat the goalie. In contrast, Kane didn't have much time to make an impact. He did score late in the second half but it was ruled offside. Lamela too couldn't lift his game to help our attacks.

Our defence's failure to keep a clean sheet has cost us badly. Both their goals were due to poor defending from us. Vertonghen's mistake killed off any chance to come back. Don't know what he was thinking. He should have just cleared the ball instead of trying to pass back to Lloris. But thought it was a mistake by Pochettino to replace Vertonghen immediately. He looked down when he came out. It could affect his confidence in the League Cup final. Hope Vertonghen and the defence will do something to improve their defending against Chelsea.

What a terrible way to prepare for the League Cup final like this ! We are now winless in 4 matches since beating Arsenal. But hope we will get back to winning ways in the most sweetest way possible by beating Chelsea and winning the League Cup.

 

[thfcsteff]

Yeah, no argument there, but it isn't an intrinsically strong team by itself, was my point. If you put those players under Harry, you'd likely have a train wreck given his preference for proven talent over raw potential.

And why is Chadli out of favour all of a sudden? He wasn't doing badly when he was dropped, and was one of our most dangerous players today (although that isn't saying much). Curious.

His Dad died and he hasn't quite been the same I don't think...