The Power of Expectation

[Baleforce]

hopefully, but the jury is still out on a couple, I'd be interested to know more about the psych evaluations we run on players before signing them

I'd like to have seen us do a better job of bridging the gap, especially as we had the bale windfall

we obviously have the benefit of hindsight but Spurs employ a lot of people on a lot of money to plan these things out and make effective decisions

 

[billyiddo]

i agree, with hindsight it could, and should have been planned out much better than it was. seeings as the DoF had been employed for only a matter of weeks before the Bale money came in to our hands i think, looking back, we should have played it safe that summer with a view to reinvesting the following year - when everyone would have had a better idea of the squads strengths and weaknesses. OR we should have had the DoF in place at the same time we appointed AVB - by all accounts we approached Roma re Baldini at at that time but they wasn't interested in letting him go.

of course one can only imagine the fun which would have been had on here had we sold Bale for a world record fee and only reinvested a fraction of the proceeds in that window.:lol:

 

[Baleforce]

it's always fun on here anyway, we could sign ronaldo and messi and someone would find an angle to moan (probably me)

it's the way we've killed our momentum that really grates, I feel we've thrown away so much good work and it's now a bit of a do over

 

[billyiddo]

it kind of is a bit of a do over i guess. the irony being it is largely in part because of the most successful period we have had in the premier league (and the way we stopped buying certain types of players as already discussed) - it's a shame we couldn't find a way to work Redknapps transfer policy in tandem with our own existing transfer policy.

ultimately though i think there's logical reasoning behind the problems we currently face in the build up of our squad. scrimping on a few of Redknapps targets to bring in younger players who he may not have wanted could have cost us a player or two which helped get us in to the CL and 4th in the league twice - so i really don't think it's a case of blame as such (might be worth putting a note in here saying i don't blame Redkanpp for any of this - he had his targets and goals and it's not his concern what happens further down the line after he left) it could have been handled better, no question - but it was a difficult balancing act that would have caused problems one way or the other had we done things differently.

the important thing going forward is we continue to do the things which brought about the success in the first place and learn from our mistakes - make sure we sign players with potential in the hope they become the level of player to take us up a notch or two and also take on board that it was supplying Redknapp with the players he wanted for there and then which got us over the line - so we need to back whoever is the head coach at the time with regards to first team signings (within reason of course) whilst bringing in those potential stars.

im hopeful we will do just that.

 

[indianspur]

do you agree we're back on the track of signing potential top quality players who will develop here over a year or two?

I have a feeling that its going to be our academy players who will go onto be the top quality players in the years ahead and form the basis of whatever we achieve. This in fact will be quite wonderful

 

[billyiddo]

id like to think so, but id be more inclined to think that our academy players will supplement some top quality purchases (players that develop in to top quality) - that in itself would be a fantastic achievement.

that's not to say we won't produce some genuine top quality, but i don't think it'd be wise to use that as a base target. top quality, genuine top quality doesn't come through at a dependable rate - fingers crossed we do well on both fronts!

 

[sc25]

I dont "expect" poch to do much with this squad as I don't think it's very good, even Jose would struggle to get anything out of em.

I was told many times in here last winter that Sherwood had in fact inherited a 'very good squad'.

By the way galeforce, you have made some good points in this thread, well done.

 

[milo]

I was told many times in here last winter that Sherwood had in fact inherited a 'very good squad'.

Please can you give it a rest with bringing up Sherwood constantly. He's not our manager any more, he's not relevant to this thread and bringing up old arguments just takes threads off topic.

 

[Millsy_Yiddo]

when have I said we should?

my comment about our fixtures was a prediction of doom on how I expect things to get worse, it was partly a reply to the preceding post about Southampton

I dont "expect" poch to do much with this squad as I don't think it's very good, even Jose would struggle to get anything out of em

I expect the club going forward to start behaving like a proper football club and sort out the obvious recruitment issues (maybe baldini has done this already), I also hope that levy recognises the situation we are in and throws some money at it in January, that's very much not an expectation though as we've never really done that before

Your post was at the top of the page so I took it as a stand alone comment I.e 'Harry won these games so Poch should have too'. Apologies if I mis-interpreted.

I'm a bit lost as to what your point is now though. In your business example you said that management would be looked at if performance dropped and claimed that Soldado, Paulinho etc were signed as 'world class players' to replace Bale etc which suggested that you aren't happy with Poch.

You've then gone on to criticise our recruitment policy over the past few years which has nothing to do with Poch and say you don't expect him to do much because the squad is crap.

Are you criticising Poch or Levy?

What are your expectations for this season?

 

[NWND]

4 world class players are only part of it, we have recently moved on the likes of hudd, Livermore, Dempsey, siggy, Dawson, etc and replaced them with more expensive yet inferior players

as for the world class players, we got them cheap and aided their development, why wait till they leave to start again, have the next ones waiting in the wings

What are these players that are inferior?

Thudd Had major fitness issues
Sig wanted first team football. Eriksen is clearly superior
I think Chadli is better and younger than Dempsey
Livermore wouldn't get in the squad let alone XI
Dawson was replaced by Fazio who just captained his side to Europa victory and can play in Poch's system. Did you see Daws in pre season?

 

[Baleforce]

Your post was at the top of the page so I took it as a stand alone comment I.e 'Harry won these games so Poch should have too'. Apologies if I mis-interpreted.

I'm a bit lost as to what your point is now though. In your business example you said that management would be looked at if performance dropped and claimed that Soldado, Paulinho etc were signed as 'world class players' to replace Bale etc which suggested that you aren't happy with Poch.

You've then gone on to criticise our recruitment policy over the past few years which has nothing to do with Poch and say you don't expect him to do much because the squad is crap.

Are you criticising Poch or Levy?

What are your expectations for this season?

ENIC/levy

I've not aimed any criticism at poch other than for picking ade

I think we'll be back to mid table irrelevance, not what I was expecting back in June

 

[Baleforce]

What are these players that are inferior?

Thudd Had major fitness issues
Sig wanted first team football. Eriksen is clearly superior
I think Chadli is better and younger than Dempsey
Livermore wouldn't get in the squad let alone XI
Dawson was replaced by Fazio who just captained his side to Europa victory and can play in Poch's system. Did you see Daws in pre season?

it's down to opinions, interesting pairings there, yes huddlestone had fitness issues but he could move the ball around more effectively than dembele (also someone who misses games regularly) does, siggy offers a greater goal threat Imo than Eriksen/Lamela/chadli, Dempsey's attitude workrate and anticipation are superior to anyone in the squad, maybe I just overate Livermore but I don't think capoue is an upgrade, lastly daws, yep I saw pre season, have you seen kaboul since?

 

[Baleforce]

to clarify, this is a long term bugbear of mine, not just the most recent additions

we're flipping players rather than upgrading them

 

[NWND]

it's down to opinions, interesting pairings there, yes huddlestone had fitness issues but he could move the ball around more effectively than dembele (also someone who misses games regularly) does, siggy offers a greater goal threat Imo than Eriksen/Lamela/chadli, Dempsey's attitude workrate and anticipation are superior to anyone in the squad, maybe I just overate Livermore but I don't think capoue is an upgrade, lastly daws, yep I saw pre season, have you seen kaboul since?

Siggy is a goal threat, but hasn't been as big a goal threat as Chadli, for example, this season has been. Lamela has shown that when he is settled that he can be a goal threat (scored 15 for Roma in his last season there). I also think Eriksen is a pretty good goal threat when on form. Eriksen is clearly still finding his feet in Poch's system, but i would have thought he could still push double figures for goals this season. I almost think its nailed on that Chadli will get double figures and Lamela has been banging them in, in the cups. He probably just needs one in the league to take the pressure off and he'll be away.

Dempsey and Siggy were great pros and in many ways i was sad to see them leave. Similarly to Livermore and Daws. But lets not kid ourselves. I think their replacements have been either equal in quality but better in other respects (younger, lower wages), or superior in quality. I also think that while we've lost some youth products in Caulker and Livermore, we have players IMO who are superior coming through from the academy. Mason is clearly on a different level to Livermore for example. Kane, Townsend, Rose, Naughton are also in and around the squad under Poch. So we still have a lot of local talent in and around matters.

It's not the loss of the players you are talking about that has been the problem. It has been the loss of Bale, King, VDV & Modric that has been the problem!

 

[NWND]

to clarify, this is a long term bugbear of mine, not just the most recent additions

we're flipping players rather than upgrading them

That always happens though. You tend to flip academy products and squad players as there always comes a point where the club decides that they're not quite good enough for the first XI, but the player wants to move on to get regular first team football. Every club does this. There's a football food chain. Our such players end up at Sunderland, West Ham, QPR, Hull etc. Their such players end up at Leicester, Burnley, or Championship clubs and so on! We might get such players from the likes of clubs above us, such as Adebayor from City, Dos Santos from Barcelona and so on.

 

[Millsy_Yiddo]

ENIC/levy

I've not aimed any criticism at poch other than for picking ade

I think we'll be back to mid table irrelevance, not what I was expecting back in June

There can be a difference between what you think will happen and what your expectations are.

What were your expectations back in June? And when I say expectations I mean your vision of a season you would be satsified with rather than what you thought would happen.

 

[Baleforce]

my expectation was we would sort the goal scoring and leadership issues we had last year and put up a serious fight for a CL place

 

[Millsy_Yiddo]

my expectation was we would sort the goal scoring and leadership issues we had last year and put up a serious fight for a CL place

So if I'm understanding what you are saying it's this.

In June you expected us/wanted us to sign a goal scorer and a leader and challenge for CL. We didn't sign either, so you now expect us to finish mid table?

I think it was unrealistic to think that DL was going to go out and buy a goalscorer since he's paid 28m for Soldado and both Ade and HK looked good at the end of last season. Plus the fact that he came out when Poch took over and said there would be no major changes to the squad.

Added to that, you've said yourself in this thread that Hudd, Livermore etc are better than what we replaced them with. Hudd, Livermore, Sigg etc all ended up at mid table teams. So what you are saying is that a team full of worse than mid table players plus a proven goal scorer plus leader would put up a serious challenge for the champions league. That doesn't make sense.

To me, realistically, pretty much everyone should be taking this season as a start from scratch. Wherever we finish we finish and no one should put any emphasis or pressure on Poch based on that. Next season we need to see improvement and the start of some kind of indication that Poch really can take us forward. But, for now, I'm prepared to wait.

 

[Baleforce]

no, I expected we'd be more effective with the same players solely because we had got a proper head coach in

the mistake is mine, where I had assumed the problem was Sherwood it turns out it might actually be the players, hence my recent downgrading of expectation

 

[Baleforce]

and as I've said ad finitum, I have no issue with poch, this isn't his mess, he's not the target of my frustration