The problem I have is...

...that we've tried lots of things to improve this season without succeeding in any of them:

- Inverted wingers - successful for a couple of games then teams found us out
- A move back to 4-4-2 - not successful at all (although only tried today)
- Continuous changes to the team (e.g. Sandro/Paulinho, Sandro/Dembele, Dembele/Paulinho, Holtby/Defoe, Holtby/Soldado, Eriksen/Defoe, Eriksen/Soldado)

All have resulted in, up till today, a reasonable defence and no cutting edge up front - at all.

Watching the game today, I got that horrible feeling that we just didn't know what to do to fix our issues. The squad is set till January (and let's face it, not a lot could happen in Jan after our Summer) so really - this is it for the season now.

I hate saying that a manager should go but I just can't see how we can improve without drastic changes to the way we train and play.

 

I hate to say it as well, but we've been getting unsteadily worse when we could reasonably expect to be improving. I think two things have to happen: a strong response from an awful game, and a faster buildup in general. We can't go on walking and trotting forward, and passing sideways and backward, while the other team's defenders get set. It's been completely ineffective, and it's very fan-unfriendly.

 

The reasons Spurs fans are currently up in arms and in many cases, wanting a change in management already is pretty simple.

1) Down the years, Spurs fans expect a certain style of play such as:
•*playing with flair - not being delivered
• scoring lots of goals - not being delivered
•*to be entertained, especially at home games - not being delivered
•*to play a system that places the emphasis on attack - not being delivered

2) In recent years we have been knocking at the door of the top 4 and thus we expect to:
• continue progressing forward as a team - not being delivered
•*continue progressing forward as a club - arguably happening with the new stadium plans, sponsorship and partnership deals
• consistently challenge for the top 4 after considerable investment - sometimes delivered, sometimes falling just short

3) This year we have gone 'all in' with AVB; backed him with over £100m in new players, with admittedly some of our best leaving to fund the rebuild. But we still have the right to expect:
• progress and signs of improvement as a squad/team - not being delivered
•*playing exciting football that the signings should live up to - not being delivered
• a serious top 4 challenge - looks very unrealistic at this stage!

…I could go on for hours so you get the picture. Whether for not you agree AVB has been fully backed as we sold arguably our best player in a generation, we have still spent big this year and clearly AVB has no idea what his best team is, his best system or how to get this team working and playing 'the Tottenham way'.

I simply cannot get excited about watching this team and for the first time in many years, I could happily spend my weekends doing other things than following a Spurs side that bores me to tears. When things don't work, AVB sticks to the same formations, the same tactics and the same mentality. In Einsteins views, that is the definition of insanity! You cannot continue to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. The man is clearly out of his depth and he has now been exposed for the fraud he is. Bale saved his sorry arse too many times last season to mention but this year, he can't rely on a 90th minute wonder goal to save him. He'll be gone soon I am certain. Hopefully Levy with him as we need new leadership across the board as Levy will just find the next whipping boy or possibly get lucky again, only to fire him in two years just when things are looking good again. Enough is enough… it's time for 'real' change. Not just a new bloke to lead the dressing room.

 

It was bad enough when we were just boring. We didn't score many goals, but at least we had a solid defence. Now, we are leaking goals like a sieve.

As I put on another thread, it looks to me as if the players have lost all confidence, all sense of direction, have lost faith in their manager and what he is asking from them. These guys are pro's - supposedly top, top players - They soon recognise when their leader doesn't really know what he is doing or what to do next. Once confidence in a manager has been lost, it's next to impossible to regain it!...I think the inevitable is coming!...fairly soon.

 

The best post ever.
This problem is far bigger than AVB.
Insanity, egotism, is running the club.

 

While point 1) is true we've not challenged seriously for the title for many years - we should have been challengers as over a lot of that period we were one of the best resourced clubs. So using Einstein's mantra we needed to change something as the way the Club was set up wasn't delivering success. Since ENIC have been in charge we've had our second best run of league finishes with only the early sixties being better. I'm fed up with watching flair which never wins us anything!

On point 2) we have to be more realistic: there are three clubs in the league with massively more resources than us and two more with a fair bit more. So why are we entitled to expect to be top 4? What has actually happened is that by very good management and making a profit out of selling good players we have acquired cheaply we've gradually clawed our way into being competitive. Levy could have been satisfied with that and stuck with Redknapp, but he saw the opportunity of doing better and took the risk of going with AVB. Essentially being just outside the CL places is no better than being a long way outside, so taking this risk is a good plan because if AVB is a better manager than Redknapp it could be the last heave that gets us into the CL and if not then nothing is really lost.

On point 3) AVB has changed just about everything over two years (probably because he knows your Einstein quote). I think we now have a system of playing which is more likely to bring us success and a squad which is completely suited to it. What we've not got is a squad capable of playing 442 successfully, but we've tried that for years without a trophy. The risky part of this plan is the first two years when we've had wholesale player changes and system changes and should expect to struggle a bit, especially when five other teams are strengthening too. Despite this AVB has had the best start in terms of points of any modern Spurs manager. People say that this was down to Bale but who decided to give Bale a free role (and was at first heavily criticised for it on here - AVB).

The reason AVB is not changing his plan is because it is working! A major transition of the system and players without a season or more in mid-table is a really good achievement.

The only alternative at this point is a richer billionaire and hiring someone like Hiddink to succeed by throwing money around. That gives us the risk of doing a Portsmouth.

 

When I posted something similar a few weeks ago I was shot down for being too negative.
Agreed they look totally demoralised and so lacking in confidence that defeat was inevitable.
It is totally out of line for AVB to say they should be ashamed, so BLOODY should he,it was his team selections,tactics and formation that invited City- more gaps than swiss cheese.
I have a mouser mate who usually never makes fun of Spurs out of respect for me, but today he couldn't resist!

 

Since AVB's silly comments about Arsenal going down a spiral last season after the 2-1 loss at WHL, Arsenal and Spurs have played 22 league games.

Arsenal have scored 43, conceded 15 and gained 54 points.

Spurs have scored 26, conceded 25 and gained 38 points.

Your squad is filled with a lot of good players, a couple of very good players and one or two that have the potential to be brilliant. Let's face it, no-one thought Bale or Ronaldo would ever be as good as they turned out to be, so Lamela and Eriksen may well turn out like that.

The problem you've got from my perspective is AVB, with his most detracting feature being his stubbornness. It's like he thinks he's got this secret grand plan that only he understands and that, at some point in the future, everything will click and people will congratulate him for sticking with his 'plan' as Spurs win the title.

It won't take a lot to make Spurs start playing great football and thrash a load of teams. You've got the players already to dominate possession. All you need is Lamela, Lennon and/or Townsend to offer some width, tell Eriksen that he's the main man so he plays every game and gets confidence and experience and you should start raining the goals in. But I just can't see AVB changing his system because he's too stubborn. Even more so than Wenger it appears.

Oh yeah, and your other problem is Soldado. He's rubbish

Imagine how much more potent you'd look with an Adebayor who actually gave a s**t, or someone like Negredo (who's movement and linkup play is very promising).

 

Well said PowerSpurs!

Better to read your comments than Mr negative Sidney Fiddler.

 

What does that even mean?


Anyway, the Einstein quote Fla and others have been using doesn't work for many reasons, not least because there are variables changing every week.

My problem with AVB, and it's a big problem, is if you look at our starting line up we had 6 players who weren't on international duty. 3 of them were attacking players yet there was no progression in how we attacked, a great ball still went begging across the 6 yard box with no one near it and we failed to put together any kind of meaningful attack down the left. It's really starting to look like the job of intergrating all these new players is too big for AVB and there should be huge pressure on him now to beat United. I know some weren't happy with him last season but even the stuff he got right then has disappeared, we're not doing well in big games like we were before and we're not showing the fight that was getting us back into games when we went a goal down.

 

was never keen on us signing Soldado,what a waste of money,Remy was my choice,and he is scoring regularly at Newcastle

 

Precisely my point YV… time and time again (in a Scottish Alan Hansen accent) we fail to see where we are clearly making the same mistakes. It's painstakingly obvious sometimes so I can't bring myself to watch this drivel every week. It's agony!

Yes, because the man is clearly out of his depth!

The fight has gone because our talisman has gone. There's no belief and no leadership on that field anymore. And AVB certainly ain't delivering it either, sorry!

 

Hmm sorry Power don't agree with that mate.

9th after 12 games, 9 goals scored, -3 goal difference, losses at home to West Ham and NUFC, relying on penalties to beat Palace, Swans and Hull and recently coming off the back of a trouncing by City isn't something I'd say is working.

We don't need a billionaire to hire a new manager to chuck more money around, just a manager that can get the best out of what we have and utilise the players to their capabilities, not use the players in a system that they are so far clearly inept at understanding.

 

So despite all the new faces (and having lost a few vital team members), despite the general consensus in football that patience seems to be a really good idea, apparently most people here are not prepared to be patient for more than 12 games?

 

If there were signs of progression then not a problem.

But there isn't, we've regressed.

 

All will be forgotten IF we stuff United next Sunday...

 

Then you should have been calling for Harry to be sacked in May 2011 when we were complete **** for 3 months. Or does the impatience only apply to AVB?

If 20 points from 12 games or two defeats in a row is enough to get the manager sacked we are going to need five or six a season

 

We were **** for 3 months under Harry, we've been **** for 18 under AVB. Bale's heroics just papered over the poor performances.

20 points from 12 games would sound decent if that was all you looked at. But 20 points from 12 games, scoring just 9 goals, 3 of them being penalties in 1-0 wins, losing home games to West Ham and Newcastle and recently being spanked 6-0 by Man City in the process while having spent £100m in the summer is a poor return, especially when the team have got worse since the start of the season.

 

For what it's worth, I think sacking AVB would be premature, though I also think talking about it in a vacuum probably is not a good idea. The question would be better, IMO, replace him with whom?

I do think AVB needs to get the team moving the ball forward more quickly and more often, as in the second half versus Newcastle. It may be that that a faster buildup will continue not to produce any goals. I think that's unlikely. It would in any event address the problem of dull football. ATM, though I'm hardly the best analyst in the world, trading a certain amount of possession for a much faster buildup looks like the way to go. It's telling to me that using a slower buildup didn't keep Man City at bay.

 

"It's telling to me that using a slower buildup didn't keep Man City at bay."

More telling was that faster approach play (when it happened) cut through them.
The apparent fear of failure is paralysing rhe build-up and end product.