Oh no, he said it.
Thing is, none of us are football managers and there is a good reason for that so it doesn't matter squat what we think. Jose is a pro, one of the best in the business, and he'll set us up to get a result the way he thinks best. My money is that that will involve us being defensive/solid and, if it is, I'll go with that.
I heard Pat Nevin or someone say that Liverpool go out to bombard teams in the first 15-20 mins and if you give them a head start, you are f**ked coz they'll steamroll you. If that point of view holds water, and Pat Nevin knows more than me, you couldn't blame Jose for setting up to frustrate.
Yes , quite unbelievable they are moaning , have they seen his history with us !!!????
Its a common tactic they deploy, as they did before the CL final moaning the ref was biased against them and he would cost them the final , really pressured a weak , inexperienced ref ( at that level) and he caved.
Atkinson is the very worst ref possible for us, he's horrendous and I actually think he doesn't understand football and completely guesses most of his decisions, not least the Chelsea semi final goal , which has been proven that it was impossible for him to see the ball , so he guessed , he cheated!
Hate him with a passion !
Atkinson is one of the worst of a bad bunch... If it's a close game then I'm sure he'll cave in to a Mane or Salad Tom Daley impression..
That's one of my points of interest in this game, to see how many times those two throw themselves to the floor and how often Mane (he's not that sort of player) makes contact with player after the ball is played away.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...tottenham-wake-differing-transfer-strategies/
How Liverpool left Tottenham in their wake: The differing transfer strategies that sparked a rise and fall
'In the final months of Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham Hotspur reign, he would occasionally direct reporters back to the two line-ups when Jurgen Klopp took charge of his first Liverpool game at White Hart Lane in October 2015.
Of the names on Klopp’s first-ever Liverpool team-sheet, only James Milner, Adam Lallana, Divock Origi and Nathaniel Clyne are still at the club. None of those players would now start in the Reds’ strongest side.
Pochettino named a team that included Hugo Lloris, Danny Rose, Toby Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen, Erik Lamela, Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen and Harry Kane. Ben Davies and Harry Winks were among the substitutes.
Ultimately, Liverpool backed their manager while Daniel Levy eventually sacked his. But if the Tottenham chairman thought he had taken the more cost-effective option, by replacing the coach rather than the players, then the evidence would suggest otherwise.
A long-term hamstring injury to Kane has left Levy with little choice but to significantly dip into the cash reserves for a deputy or risk missing out on Champions League qualification and the associated riches.
Of the 10 players who were part of the goalless draw when Klopp first visited Tottenham, only Lloris has not yet played for Pochettino’s replacement, Jose Mourinho, and the Frenchman will return from injury as Tottenham’s first-choice goalkeeper and captain later this year.
Spurs finished that season in third place, 10 points ahead of Liverpool in eighth, but, heading into Saturday’s game between the two clubs, there has been a 38-point swing with Klopp’s Premier League leaders arriving in London 28 points ahead of the squad Mourinho has inherited.
The easy conclusion to jump to is that Liverpool have benefitted from spending considerably more money than Tottenham since Klopp’s first game in charge and, to a degree, that is true.
But the context tells a slightly different story and calls Levy’s transfer strategy, rather than his spending, into greater question.
In terms of first-team players, Liverpool spent roughly £125 million more than Tottenham before this current transfer window but that gap could narrow if Spurs decide to pay the £27m to turn Giovanni Lo Celso’s loan into a permanent move and shell out on a striker.
Even without the Lo Celso deal or an incoming striker, however, Tottenam’s net spend is actually higher than that of Liverpool. From the figures that have been disclosed and are available, Spurs have a net spend of around £90m over the course of the past nine transfer windows in comparison to the Reds’ £69m since Klopp’s arrival.
Put simply, Liverpool have traded better than Tottenham and one of the best examples of this was during Klopp’s first summer as manager in 2016, when the Anfield club beat Spurs to the signings of Sadio Mane from Southampton and Georginio Wijnaldum from Saudi Sportswashing Machine.
Mane was Pochettino’s No 1 target that summer and the Argentine is even said to have shown the forward around Tottenham’s impressive Enfield training ground.
Wijnaldum, who was targeted to boost the midfield, has gone on record to confirm that he spoke to Pochettino, but said: “I just felt Liverpool wanted to come to an agreement quickly.”
Mane’s £130,000-a-week salary did not fit in with Tottenham’s wage structure at the time, but the £34m Liverpool paid for the Senegalese international has proved to be one of the bargains of recent years.
Pochettino was clearly still sore at missing out to Liverpool shortly after the 1-1 draw between the two clubs at the start of the 2016/17 season, when he said: “We need someone who has characteristics like we saw from Liverpool, like Sadio Mane, the type of player that can break the defensive line.” That need has never properly been satisfied.
Just as galling for Tottenham supporters is the fact Moussa Sissoko eventually cost their club £5m more than the £25m Liverpool paid for Wijnaldum at the end of the same transfer window.
During the following summer of 2017, Tottenham spent more than Liverpool, as they broke their transfer record on Davinson Sanchez and also recruited Fernando Llorente, Serge Aurier and Juan Foyth for a combined £85m.
But the £77m Liverpool spent on Mohammed Salad, Andrew Robertson and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has proved to be far better value for money, before the January transfer window two years ago that proved to be a game-changer for the Reds.
Plenty of questions were asked about Liverpool’s ambition when they agreed to sell Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona for £142m in January 2018 and there were just as many doubts raised when they used just over half of that fee to sign Virgil van Dijk during the same month.
They were the type of brave decisions and risks that Pochettino claimed Tottenham needed to make at the end of the same season, but his club did not sign anybody over the next two transfer windows and, just as crucially, only sold midfielder Mousa Dembele last January.
Players who had been looking for a way out, such as Alderweireld, Eriksen and Rose, were all retained and, unsurprisingly, performances started to dip as Liverpool raced away on the back of their summer 2018 spending spree on Alisson Becker, Fabinho, Naby Keita and Xherdan Shaqiri.
Liverpool finished last season ahead of Tottenham for the first time in Klopp’s reign and beat Spurs in the final of the Champions League, which effectively acted as the beginning of the end for Pochettino.
Rather than undertaking the “painful rebuild” that Pochettino had recommended, Levy eventually took the decision to spend money on replacing the 47 year-old rather than overhauling the squad.
Whatever it ultimately costs Levy to have sacked Pochettino and bring in Mourinho will have been cheaper than selling the likes of Eriksen and Alderweireld and signing replacements.
Levy saved Tottenham money in the short-term by using Mourinho’s appointment to agree a new three-and-a-half-year contract with Alderweireld less than a fortnight before he could have started negotiating a free-transfer summer switch to a foreign club.
But Spurs have only won one of their five games since Alderweireld re-signed, losing to Chelsea and Southampton, and have lost Kane and Sissoko to long-term injuries - exposing all the long-standing squad deficiencies all over again and potentially hitting the balance sheet.
Given the financial restrictions Tottenham’s incredible new stadium has placed on their transfer budget, Levy may well have to finally bite the bullet and be brave enough to cash in on one of his stars to try to rebuild the squad. Otherwise, Liverpool and Klopp will continue to disappear over the horizon.'
On the other hand, we couldn't sell players.
Looking on the bright side, if the goons win their early kick off game our lads have plenty of time to work out how many we need to concede to let the arse go above us.