The way forward for THFC ??

I agree with this, but it shows the lack of balance and continuity in the squad.
We've got no holding midfielders or playmakers of virtually any description.

I think I'd happily play any of our midfielders next to a Kante or a Casemiro.
Play them together though and we lacking in balance and numbers.

 

We can go even further and chuck most disappointing chairman, board members and coaches too!

**** it, just do the whole club.

 

Based on what?

Forgive the cynicism and don't get me wrong - I love Skipp and want him to succeed at the highest level. But how was this 'promotion' earned?

This is a player who is yet to complete a full PL season as a regular first team player, who has been pretty disappointing since coming into the team this season and certainly hasn't showed signs of progress. And yes, I fully appreciate the fact that in many ways he is a victim of circumstance, but still...

Based on what?

We have to put an end to rewarding mediocrity and stop confusing loyalty with leadership or quality. The two are absolutely not synonymous, and that is true in any industry or business

 

Yes, but we are bound to have quite a few mediocre players while so many other clubs are more attractive than us. He might still be the best leader in the current squad. I don't much evidence that Kane, Son, Højbjerg, Lloris or Dier are leaders.

 

I agree with that observation

Kane, Hoj, Lloris n Dier are not exactly leaders but they are our leaders

says a lot about the quality of our leadership

 

Based on what? He has been the only outfield player looking as though he wanted to take the fight to the opposition in a number of games this season. We certainly need a strong leader but Skipp is very young and his authority will not be easily recognised by older players. Given recognition by the club is a good move IMO. No one has achieved much with this club in recent times because the team has been misfiring so judging Skipp on that basis is unfair. From outside it's difficult to make judgements on players personal qualities. We saw in the Amazon films, for example, that Lloris was not the quiet captain he appeared to be on the field.

So let's encourage young Skipp in his (to me) obvious leadership potential and hopefully he can develop into a strong captain, something this team badly needs.

 

I see very little point in elevating a player to a position of leadership or authority if chances are that player won't be a first team regular. He's only in the team currently due to injuries.

I also don't think it is deserved. We need proper leaders who inspire confidence and for those around them to up their games to a higher level. Dier has always been praised for his "leadership qualities" and is apparently a member of the committee Skipp is set to join. If that isn't a cautionary tale, I don't know what is. Does Dier inspire confidence in his team mates? Does he by example encourage them to raise their performance levels? In struggling to think of someone who does these as badly as him tbh.

For me its just symptomatic of always settling for second best because we can't be arsed to do things properly.

Love Skipp to bits but until like Kane, Son or Bentancur he is one of the first names on the team sheet, this accolade is vastly premature.

He has a lot to prove as a footballer before he can prove himself as a leader. That's the mistake we made with Dier and it has harmed us immensely. A good leader who isn't a good enough footballer belongs in the dugout with the coaching staff, not on the pitch. Very simple.

 

I think at Spurs we have many players who lead by example but no actual leaders.

Can’t fault too many for their professionalism and how they carry themselves but I don’t see players on the pitch who can rally the team in any capacity. Whenever things turn bad many of our players just got into a shell, equally whenever things are on a knife edge there isn’t anyone to keep the team focused.

You don’t just have to be a shouty type of warrior (Dawson) or someone with a big personality capable of a motivational speech (Keano), there are players over the years who’ve provided calming influences (King) all of whom have helped elevate/ calm/ motivate those around them but right now we lack any of the sort.

 

The simple answer is because he's been dishing out some bollockings in the dressing room when several players had their heads down, most obviously at half time of the Newcastle match

On a side note, Spurs Express are rapidly getting to SpursWeb levels of prematurely ****ting on everyone and everything to retain rage engagement (engagement?) from their incredibly tiresome followers

 

I don't see it has to follow that Skipp becomes a first choice or not, it's a pathway. Skipp will either rise to the challenge or not being in a leadership group does not guarantee anything surely. What we clearly need is a pathway for young players to graduate otherwise there is little point in developing them. You seem to see the move as a cast in stone I just see it as part of Skipp's journey which may or may not mean success at Spurs.

 

What we need is leaders on the pitch. That's something we've lacked for years. Our captain is respected but not vocal enough and also prone to making huge gaffes in big games (he does it for France as well so it isn't 'us'). Our vice captain is too nice and is also near on deified by his team mates he's so so far clear of them in terms of quality. The distance between leader and followers can't be that unfathomable.

I see the same issue in the suggestion that Hojbjerg should be captain after Hugo leaves. Why? Based on what? His effort levels? His passion? Don't get me wrong these are sterling qualities to possess but by awarding those qualities and those qualities alone, we are granting an automatic spot in the first team to a player who simply isn't good enough to be there on a regular basis. So why make him captain? Because it's the easy option and saves us spending a fortune on a player (perhaps a CB) who isnt just passionate and hard working, but also inspires confidence in those around them and through their ability inspires others to raise their own game.

There are far simpler ways to forge paths forward for young players. Using them instead of washed-out failures like Lucas or Richarlison would be a tremendous place to start.

 

If that is the simple answer, he should consider a career as a coach and perhaps join the coaching staff as soon as others have returned from injury and he drops out of the first team again.

We are recognising the right qualities with the wrong rewards. It's all well and good dishing out Braveheart speeches at half time, if the player doing it isn't good or experienced enough to then go out for the second half and actually change things, we might as well bring Steffen Freund back to be a cheerleader.

 

As should be obvious by now I don't subscribe to the theory that there is something bad happening at the club.
As far as I can see the quality of the players we have and our league performance are both, on average, at or slightly above where they should be based on our relative wealth. We've tried a few things to overcome the lack of wealth and none quite worked. The long term answer is more commercial growth which ENIC are quite good at. The shortcut is for the club to sell more shares to some random billionaire for close to a billion and spend the lot on new players.

 

We have to deal with the realities. What are you suggesting? We should ignore the potential that has got Skipp into the first team? We can't just hang around waiting for a new wonderful leader to appear we have to develop what we have and try to improve. We can all see how difficult it is to sign players that improve the team. I don't see that you can move forward by trashing what is there you have to build on it.

 

So when does a player become experienced enough to become a leading voice in the dressing room?

The reality is that the likes of Steve Gerrard and Mark Noble to name but two were leading voices in their respective dressing rooms from a very early point in their careers, and I don't recall Liverpool or West Scam fans complaining that they weren't allowed to have that role until their 27th birthday

Also, on your argument about seeing little point in keeping players with leadership qualities around if they might not be a first team regular, again reality does not bear that out considering numerous teams have players in their squads who have leadership qualities but aren't nailed on starters, for example Man Utd kept Denis Irwin around for a good few years even though Phil Neville was the established starter entirely because of his leadership qualities, while more recently we had Ledders who couldn't start every game but when he did start you noticed

 

Injuries got Skipp into the first team, not potential. That is the sad truth. His development has hit a bit of a wall due to a combination of his own injury problems, absymal coaching and a poor standard around him to learn from. Bentancur and Bissouma are by a distance superior players and I expect both will be selected ahead of him when fully fit.

It isn't 'trashing' someone to choose not to promote them to a position of leadership. Trashing someone, especially a young player who is eager to impress, is making them sit and freeze on the bench while Lucas Moura comes on and wins the game for the opposition. Which is why Bryan Gil wants to stay at Sevilla and Romaine Mundle is leaving the club.

And you're right, we shouldn't just hang around. We should identify that one signing who stands out as a leader AND as a footballer, and move heaven and earth to sign them.

I don't mean this personally but I am staggered at how low our collective standards have dropped over the last four years.

Talk of Hojbjerg as captain and Skipp as a leader is symptomatic of this.

 

You've misunderstood my point. It isn't about experience or I'd be fine with Eric Dier apparently having a seat on a select committee. It's about the right combination of leadership skills and actual ability. Right now we only have Hugo and Kane who possess both to a satisfactory level. Dier possess zilch in the latter. Son for example possess zilch in the former.

I've no idea if Noble or Irwin sat in a similarly influential group even though they weren't playing regularly. No one said anything about selling Skipp just because he isn't first choice. The question is if rewarding him with what is rumoured to be Hugo's seat on this player committee we have is a good idea. I don't think it is.

The only player in the current group who deserves more than a passing thought for promotion is Bentancur.

 

This is the weird thing about Dier: you often see him organising our defence for set pieces, rather than Hugo or any of our CBs, so saying he has zero leadership skills is patently false

The issue is that people assume he has no leadership skills due to his individual errors or because they've been conditioned to "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" the second they see his name on the teamsheet, which is also happening with Hojbjerg to the point people are posting videos of him playing like any CM when looking to cut out runners when defending in a low block as evidence he's "****e"

In terms of Noble, he was the third most-senior voice at the club after Matthew Upson and Scott Parker by the time he was 21-2, so it's certainly possible for players to get senior roles in the dressing room early in their career

It's the weird thing about leadership: fans assume who does and does not have leadership qualities, and all too often they couldn't be more wrong. For example, did anybody think that Sissoko would have had any leadership qualities whatsoever? Because that's exactly what the ubermensch said he was one of the most prominent voices in the dressing room shortly after he arrived, which certainly wrongfooted a certain section of our fanbase whose online identities mainly revolved around bashing Sissoko every chance they got

 

You're just not reading my posts accurately. If I haven't written them clearly, the fault is mine.

Dier does possess an abundance of leadership skills. The 'zilch' refers to the latter: actual footballing ability. Which means the bottom line is making him a leader so that he (justifiably) expects regular game time is to the detriment of the team. And when he does play, it's well and good that he can organise a corner, but he clearly doesn't inspire confidence in anyone around him and clearly doesn't inspire others to raise their standards. `

SIssoko is another excellent example of this paradox and I'm glad you've mentioned him. Cannot fault the bloke for effort, commitment and leadership. But why do we overlook how atrocious he is as a footballer because of this? For all his qualities, it was to the detriment of the team that he started playing regularly and was a massive downgrade on both Dembele and Wanyama - neither of whom possessed much in leadership skills at all, they were simply superior footballers in every aspect.

We have to break this absurd cycle of thinking that leadership, commitment, loyalty and effort are all signs of ability. Ability is a sign of ability.

Hojbjerg isn't good enough to be made captain. Skipp isn't (yet) good enough to join an influential committee. It's very, very simple.

 

Surely the players decide on the committee members?