The way forward

EXACTLY MY POINT , a man who said himself that he found the winter transfer window difficult , what does he do all day , sit in his office playing Fortnight!!!

 

To answer my own question it appears to me that he is suggesting that the squad is the problem, not him. Is this not the same squad he said he was very happy with?

 

Winter transfer windows are difficult, though. Clubs aren't willing to sell, short of players in the last six months of their contracts, or players they were hoping to cash in on the previous summer but didn't, hence most moves are loans

Look at Saltypool in January. They needed a CB and, in theory, you would think they'd have been able to sort that out, yet they were only able to loan Kabak

Seriously, how many January transfers have we made in the past 20 years that have changed the team? Off the top of my head, Defoe, Palacios and Dele are the only ones

 

If we do not get max points from the next 3 games Burnly,Fulham and Palace I hope JM will be on his way as we have the Arse for the 4th at their dung heap , so pissed to see our club in this situation after the promising start to the season , I forgave the Jose ball tactics against the rivals but when we played that dross against the likes of Fulham, Palace, Brighton Newcastle there is something wrong from the top down
I am fearful of losing the likes of Son and Kane and to a certain extent Dele in the summer because JM has poisened the club with his mind games and ego

 

Point taken , just frustraiton at our constant poor performance in the transfer markets

 

Oh joy, the Reddit crowd are saying "real fans" support the ubermensch, unlike the "crybabies" who don't

What're the odds that our team talks go the exact same way?

 

Liverpool were on a par with us from 2010 -2018. Their managers...
Roy Evans
Gerrard Houlier
Rafa
Hodgson
Dalglish
Rodgers
Klopp

5 successes and 2 failures in 20 years.

 

It’s true there’s no guaranteed way to hire the perfect manager but this is why a lot of fans want the club to start putting a clear plan and vision/ philosophy in place. I’ve said before but we should take inspiration from other clubs, ones like Ajax, Dortmund, Salzburg etc. These clubs tend to have strong levels of success in terms of playing good football, a transfer ethos that works well both in terms of helping the club to win a lot of games/ occasional trophies as well as making the club profit when selling them on and they often hire managers who generally fit their their vision too, each manager has their own tactical tweaks and ideas but clubs like those tend to play a particular brand that appeals to supporters, both their own and from rivals/ neutrals.

I’d like for Spurs to go down that route.

Bin Hitchen off for a start. Hire a DoF ideally with some sort of proven pedigree or finding someone who’s worked under a top DoF that would be interested in taking a promotion (people that have worked under say the likes of Zorc, Monchi, Campos etc). Give that person a lot of the footballing responsibility, removing Levy from it, they can then plan who the right manager and staff are for their relationship to flourish and who can meet the clubs’ expectations in terms of playing style, management structure, youth structure etc and work together with the aims of producing a successful club.

Right now no one seems to truly know what our vision/ plan is. Hitchen seems like he hates his job nor has he done well enough, Jose doesn’t seem to have a clue what he’s doing at the moment, Levy’s tried papering over a rebuild by hiring a manager on a huge contract as if that’d fix things in the long run and right now the club’s an absolute mess. Poor DoF, poor chairman, poor manager, poor squad and a pissed off and disillusioned fanbase. So much for the whole “future is bright” thing we were led to believe.

Major changes are needed from top to bottom, otherwise we’ll start being left behind by our rivals whilst Leicester muscle their way in above us too.

 

If ever a tweet summed up Mourinho...

 

"The players are great, I want £350m worth of new ones"

 

I think Leicester are there, they have the stadium, the backers, and the manager, we can only expect them to get better with that set up. Everton are on their with way with a top manager and a new stadium on the cards. Villa are another with all the building blocks ready to be there. Now West Ham are looking to include themselves in the elite that makes a top 10 all with aspirations and realistic chances to challenge at the top.
This season is unique but the top 10 is materialising before our eyes and they are not planning to go away.

 

Gonna be a little pedantic here but that sum isn't really quite accurate in my opinion, circa £42m of that should be wiped off as that's what Lo Celso (loan and perm fees combined) cost us and he was a Pochettino summer signing that was made permanent in the January window under Jose, we were always going to make that deal permanent though regardless.

With that said, he's still brought in 9 of his own players and the reality is, based on how he's utilised some of those, I'm not overly confident of the club giving him another 9 or so anytime soon.

 

zzzzzzzzzz

****ing boring agendas

 

Leicester are definitely a problem, they certainly won't be going away anytime soon. They're doing some similar things we did such as investing in the infrastructure and developing a transfer strategy that sees them sign good young players who if sold will make them a very healthy profit to reinvest, plus, like him or loathe him, Rodgers is a good manager who's been a perfect fit thus far for Leicester's needs. They have a better team than us right now in my opinion and we need to get our act together to get back above them.

Villa and West Ham though I don't fear too much. I don't think they have better teams than us but due to our poor selections and tactics, they're capitalising on us, as well as Arsenal, Chelsea and Pool all being poor this season. Villa are a Grealish transfer/ long term injury away from being average, similar of West Ham with Rice and Soucek, we all know West Ham are like Southampton in that they always sell their top stars eventually too.

 

I wouldn't write Leeds off either. Give them a couple of seasons to establish themselves as a PL regular again, and the infrastructure both in terms of stadium, history and fanbase is there for them to quite quickly start banging on the top 10's door.

 

Yes forgot them, Leeds are potentially a very strong contender.

 

Sure but TV money and world wide investors changes the ball game literally. There are Abramoviches all around the world and they can all watch PL now. Squads can be improved, stadia are more difficult but this will probably stop Southampton getting there although their production of footballers is second to none. The top 10 or 11 have that stadiium in place or in the pipeline and this is a major factor for a potential investor.

 

Not really, it's just textbook Mourinho behaviour.

I've also made no secret of the fact I find him thoroughly dislikeable and revel in his failures.

 

There's only two Abramovic's in the league though so to speak right now. Unless 5-6 smaller teams than Spurs get similar takeovers there shouldn't be too much for us to worry about so long as our club gets it arse back in gear.

We still have a higher ceiling than anyone outside of the big six but our poor decision making over the last 2-3 years is what's held us back and allowed clubs like Leicester to overtake us whilst clubs like Villa and West Ham are now currently performing better.

In the long term though I don't fear clubs like Villa, West Ham, Leeds etc. We have the building blocks in place to do well, very well in fact, we just need the right people to ensure that, which currently we don't have but I have to hope that in time we will.

 

This is the weird thing with certain *cough*Reddit*cough* sections of our fanbase: the second they hear of any other club potentially being taken over, they assume we're moving one step back in the pecking order in spite the wealth of evidence of clubs being taken over by American, Russian, Asian etc owners that haven't stepped ahead of us - and usually end up going backwards and/or downwards

I'm amazed that there isn't someone assuming that Michael Eisner's takeover of Portsmouth doesn't mean they'll be ahead of us in five years, as opposed to Fratton Park having to replace one of its stands with Space Mountain in a bid to try and get people through the gates as happened the last time Eisner invested in anything European