The Current State of Spurs (and some sympathy for Thomas Frank)

[veryoldspur]

I disagree with you slightly here. Palhinha isn’t really the type of player those who wanted a DM were advocating for. Pal is very much a pure destroyer, whereas many wanted a deep passer/controller hybrid or an energetic harrier/harasser with good on-the-ball abilities. So you’re thinking more a Wharton, Caicedo, Rice, Gomes — hell, even Xhaka — type, I'll even whisper a Bissouma with his head screwed on.

I’m not surprised that Palhinha creates as many problems as he solves due to his very specific skill set. To play someone like him in a progressive side, or at least one attempting to be this, you have to overcompensate with the on-the-ball abilities of whoever is near him. We haven’t done that, so we are suffering largely from his limitations. A really obvious statement to make, I know, but it’s the reason it didn’t work out for him at Bayern: they needed more than a pure destroyer, and thus it's why he got fewer and fewer minutes once his limitations became obvious.

I think in a backs-to-the-wall, consistently deep-blocked setup, paired with a rangy long passer and direct countering pace on the wings, he’d look fine and in his element. But as we’re clearly not that kind of side, it just doesn’t work.

Palhinha is only beneficial if he plays by the side of a Maddison type player, but unfortunately we will have to wait to next season to see it

 

[Mrs Vert]

If you mean relative to our standing they are great signings then I still kind don't agree. We've signed bigger names before, we've signed more talented players before, we've even signed players more on the cusp of greatness before. So again I can understand why you're so disappointed because you think they are better than they actually are.

I keep saying a different manager could in all likelyhood get us playing more attractive football, Ange just did that, so I have no disagreement there. What I disagree with is that we can play significantly better successful football.

For me I don't care who the manager is, Poch, Pep, Klopp (well maybe Klopp actually ), this side is average. It has no stand out talents. I think at its best with a Poch esque over performance it could be top 6 but again that's searching for the Messiah manager. It's far easier to just improve on the playing pool then it is finding the mythic manager who gets 100% out of every player.

And that wont happen, cos it would mean losing too much cash. So let's just sack manager, even with pay off. Still cheaper to just stick with the dross we got. And hope Tel, Oderbert and Rich and Solanke all turn into Son and Kane.

Even if 3 of them managed to score 11 and a few assists now would help. And only one who could look to get 11 is Rich (if he stays healthy)
Seriously hope the "new Lewis" know what they are doing. And if it all rests on Lange when Pat goes......then my hope has just dimmed that little bit more

 

[Bishop]

Now you're just running up the metric pole. Of COURSE we've signed 'bigger names' before than the ones I highlit.

First off, no. Not 'relative to our standing', relative to our signing policy/recruitment policy over the years. That has little to do with standing and everything to do with how we chose to go about our transfer business (I am not saying whether I agree or not BTW). We never went big on wages to beat others to signings, and we never went toe-to-toe in term of transfer fee muscle either. I mean come on, we squeezed 100 mill out of Real Madrid for Bale and spent it on 7 players rather than one or two huge replacements. We should be grateful Eriksen came through, otherwise wow...

As for 'cusp of greatness', I gave you Modric, Berbatov and Dele (Bale too of course) so yes. So not earth-shattering stuff. However, your apparent enthusiasm to write off talent such as VdV, Romero, Udogie and Kulusevski is (for me) now becoming stubbornness. As for Gray and Bergvall, let's hope they stay at this club and get coached by a top talent sooner than later, otherwise you will see them in bigger sides doing very, very well because they are potentially great players. That's not 'emotional-positive-hyperbole', it's the truth. That we had to accelrate their development through poor squad planning and desperation last season is both a curse and a blessing.

As I see it, you're beating the drum of how I am 'overrating everything' on the playing side of our club. That's fine. Again, we'll have to agree to disagree.

You talk about 'successful' football. What is 'success' to you? What are you expecting? Title after title? Every fudging time we've got ourselves in a situation to build on some good architecture, we fudge it up by never buying blue-chip materials to go the extra mile. So essentially, you're beating a drum which EVERYONE on this forum knows; we do not buy the ready-baked, elite players. We speculate on a combination of bargains and talented youth. With respects, I think anyone who has followed this club for even a modicum of time knows this; you are hardly introducing a 'wild view' on matters in that regard.

Where I think perhaps you're getting wired crossed so far as my views are that I do believe we have BETTER players than you do, and I do believe we should doing BETTER with them. Again (and this is a very important point to re-emphasize) I do not think this side can go and win the Premier League, and I am not even sure this squad (if fully fit) could grab 4th or 5th spot (albeit I DO believe it's possible with the right set-up). However the same glaring holes exist in terms of squad depth (left-hand side) and quality/type (playmaker, passer, hey - even two of them!).

What you are asking for is an investment of (I would think in current prices plus wages) of somewhere in the region of 6-700 million pounds on players to lift the squad to 'title challenge calibre' (which of course will make minimal difference if the manager is lost on how to deploy them). I do not think the Lewis Family will do that. We're seeing 150 million touted as a 'warchest' and it is a fairy large sum of money, don't get me wrong, but truthfully it is this era's 90-100 million whereby we'll get the 'next tier down' player. I suppose we need to see what happens, but I am not holding my breath thinking we're going gangbusters this January. Truth be told, I think it'd be wiser to only buy essential depth and wait for the summer to see what direction we take (sticking with Frank or going elsewhere).

I absolutely disagree with you when it comes to manager. IMO you should very much care who the manager is. They set the tone in terms of personality and intent. The manager selects the players he wants based on the style he wants to play. So it is VERY important.

An area I think we need to seriously consider upgrading is Director of Football. Lange has never fully convinced me, Paratici was always a smooth operating plaster with an agenda who delivered for us but also cost us at times, and it is my belief that IF we pin our long-term hopes on Lange as the driver of our footballing operations, we will be drifting for some time. That being said, in the short-term, we should be doing MUCH better than we are and we can play significantly better football IMO.

I'm not writing those players off, I actually rate them. What I'm disagreeing with on is you calling them "great" right now. Wtf have they done to be called "great" if those guys are great what does that make Kane, or Son or Bale or Ginola? Great +1?

Let's see these players actually perform, win games, turn key moments, actually achieve something great before we call them "great."

In regards to player recruitment you've actually got me all wrong. I've been one of those arguing for smart under the rader signings ever since I first joined this board, so for me it's not about spending £600m but it is about spending wisely. So the players you mention are exactly the type of players we should sign but I'm not going to pretend that because we signed some players with reasonable talents that they are already great just because they are here and that's what you're doing. Your scaling of appreciation is wild.

What would you actually call Kulu if he had a 20 goals and 20 assist season? Great, great +3?

With your hyperbole you're setting your expectations too high and giving those players no room to grow.

 

[Bishop]

I absolutely disagree with you when it comes to manager. IMO you should very much care who the manager is. They set the tone in terms of personality and intent. The manager selects the players he wants based on the style he wants to play. So it is VERY important.

An area I think we need to seriously consider upgrading is Director of Football. Lange has never fully convinced me, Paratici was always a smooth operating plaster with an agenda who delivered for us but also cost us at times, and it is my belief that IF we pin our long-term hopes on Lange as the driver of our footballing operations, we will be drifting for some time. That being said, in the short-term, we should be doing MUCH better than we are and we can play significantly better football IMO.

For nigh on a decade Chelsea won competition after competition sometimes even in spite of whoever the manager was because the sheer quality of their squad and it's internal leadership and resourcefulness. Whoever the manager was at the time added 20% to the package, but the baulk of the work came from the group of players themselves.

Chelsea have had good managers since but not achieved anywhere near the same success, largely because of the quality of their squad has regressed. Give Maresca a squad equivalent to Chelsea 04-12 and he likely wins the league last season and this one. It's player quality that actually makes the difference, a manager is the icing on the cake.

Give a great chef great poor ingredients and he might make a mediocre meal, give a poor chef great ingredients the meal they make might be I different but it will have some standout flavours. Give a great chef great ingredients and you:be got a fantastic meal. A lot of this fan base are mistakenly convinced that we already have great ingredients and we just need the exceptionally chef to cook it all up. It doesn't work that way. We need the ingredients more than we need the chef.

 

[harr1984]

For nigh on a decade Chelsea won competition after competition sometimes even in spite of whoever the manager was because the sheer quality of their squad and it's internal leadership and resourcefulness. Whoever the manager was at the time added 20% to the package, but the baulk of the work came from the group of players themselves.

Chelsea have had good managers since but not achieved anywhere near the same success, largely because of the quality of their squad has regressed. Give Maresca a squad equivalent to Chelsea 04-12 and he likely wins the league last season and this one. It's player quality that actually makes the difference, a manager is the icing on the cake.

Give a great chef great poor ingredients and he might make a mediocre meal, give a poor chef great ingredients the meal they make might be I different but it will have some standout flavours. Give a great chef great ingredients and you:be got a fantastic meal. A lot of this fan base are mistakenly convinced that we already have great ingredients and we just need the exceptionally chef to cook it all up. It doesn't work that way. We need the ingredients more than we need the chef.

This is fair, but we aren't ever going to acquire the players of a Chelsea/City. I still think in two seasons time we will see the fruits of our labour with Vuskovic, Gray, Bergvall, Tel and Odobert. I've been in agreement with you for a couple of years about the level of our squad, but it's not going to dramatically improve until at least two or three of those I've mentioned naturally go up a couple of levels.

I keep seeing this comment from various people about how our fan base think we have a great squad or inflated expectations but I don't see these comments? All I ever see is people saying a squad of our ability is top 6-8 and that we are underperforming on the pitch and positionally in the league - I barely see anything suggesting more than that and I struggle to see how that can be argued. Posts at the end of the transfer window were littered with how good a transfer window we had, followed by what a great coach we have after about 3 games. Didnt see anyone then suggesting we had a bottom half squad? Then all of a sudden the honeymoon period finishes and the narrative changes (not from you of course, you've said the same all along).....