The way forward

I'm simply looking at the way the chairmen of vastly more successful clubs than us conduct themselves, and it is vastly different to our own. I'm not suggesting Levy becomes a cold distant bastard, but there is a happy medium between that and the players thinking they can chat multi million pound decisions with you over a croissant, or sitting down with you for a little 'pep talk' about your future.

I don't think the way he came across in the documentary is healthy, not least because my gut tells me Levy does a lot of what he does because deep down he is just like any of us - a fan fulfilling a childhood dream. Do players or staff have a healthy dose of professional fear for him? Do they feel the grip of accountability around their necks when performances are poor? Or do they see Levy as a kindly old uncle who they can pop into for a chat at any moment?

 

Yes I thought the same as you at the time. I had been going on about Redknapp and his mouth for a long time. There were many aspects I didn't like and probably still wouldn't but Harry has proved over and over again is that he knows how to sort a misfiring team out. He's done it. at Portsmouth (twice) Southampton, West Ham and Spurs. He is not going to be long term but sorting out the current team would prove that we have a decent squad for the next permanent manager to take over.

 

We don’t really have a decent squad, we just have a large one that lacks sufficient quality outside of about 5 or 6 players.

 

But don't forget that there is

That's where I disagree with you.

 

Two good managers have had most of these players for the last two-three seasons. Two good managers have suffered badly with them. There’s obviously other aspects involved but there’s also a common denominator.

We no longer have a top four quality squad of players. So if by decent you mean they’re Premier League standard, sure I guess they’re decent enough as we won’t get relegated but we won’t be a problem up top either, though if you mean decent as in top four quality then with respect I think you’re severely mistaken.

 

Two managers have done a bunch of weird **** and made strange selections with this group.
There are clearly areas where we could improve dramatically, but I don't see any sort of let off for those choices.
The squad needs balancing and some key signings are desperately needed, but neither manager got the best out of it in the last couple of seasons.

 

I'm on tenterhooks

 

That’s the thing though, if two managers who have different styles and philosophies can’t get a regular tune out of them then something has to be wrong. I agree both have made bizarre and wrong decisions at times but there’s just a real lack of quality here for the most part, we’ve progressively gotten worse over the last three seasons due to the lack of quality. I think if we compared man for man our players with those of teams looking to challenge for top six places we’d likely see too many of our players outdone by theirs.

 

Pochettino did get a tune out of them, then he lost it and had a year of making weird choices and getting poor results.
We're unsuited to playing the Mourinho way, as we simply don't have the players to defend for 90 minutes.

 

Not from the beginning of 2019 he didn’t. Whilst he needs to take some blame, ultimately the squad declined, no fresh signings were made, then further declined, added players under both him and Jose, most of who also haven’t been good enough and we’re now left with essentially a cesspit full of dross. A good number of our players would struggle to make Prem XIs.

I agree Jose’s football has made things worse as we can’t play his system effectively enough but I don’t think we’re good enough be like prime Poch press either. The quality just isn’t there.

 

I disagree. We've got two of the best attacking players in the division, for a start. We just don't get the ball to them now.

Our signings have been fine this season, for the most part, though we needed more of a clear-out.
Reguilon, Hojbjerg and Rodon are all good players and Devine's a very promising youth player.
Doherty's basically been a disaster, so that's one in four senior signings that hasn't worked out.
Even that is something that I'd suggest has been down to poor choices, where he's never used as a wingback.

 

You know full with I’m not saying Kane and Son are poor though.

We’ve got 5 players good enough in terms of top four standard:

Kane, Son, Reguilon, Hojbjerg and Ndombele.

Rodon, Tanganga, Devine, Sessegnon, Skipp and Scarlett are all promising young players. Two of these aren’t at the club at the moment though and two are a bit too young to be pinning much hope in her.

Pretty much the rest of the squad isn’t good enough.

 

You're right but at the same time we still aren't getting the most out of the group we have.

On paper, the current top 5 have better and more balanced squads than we do. Add a fully fit Lo Celso and Reguilon into the mix and the gap between us and Leicester and United narrows. But can anyone look at West Ham, Everton and Villa and claim with a straight face that they have superior squads?

The fact that Poch achieved top 4 and a CL final with a group even worse than the one we have now has to be regarded as one of the greatest miracles in modern football history. His single biggest mistake was signing 4 prospects for the future when we needed a minimum 3 players to slot straight into the first team from day one. The Sess/Tanguy/Lo Celso/Clarke window was nothing short of a disgrace. Swap those for Dybala/Fernandes/Zakaria/Diop and the 19/20 season probably pans out very differently.

 

You could easily go to virtually any other team in the division, apart from City and say the same thing, though.
Utd have loads of players that fall into the same category as those you've written off at Spurs, for example.
So do Leicester, Liverpool, Chelsea and anyone else you'd care to mention. Is nobody finishing in the top 6 this season?

 

I agree we’re not playing at full capacity and that comes down to poor tactics/ management from Jose but we’re also nowhere near where we need/ want/ expect to be in terms of player quality.

I also agree that in hindsight the 19/20 window was a poor one. I’ve mentioned that our recruitment in recent years has gone down the pan and it’s partly why we are where we are. Hence why I want a good DoF with a proven track record and particular philosophy to come in and help with the rebuild.

 

Those teams have better first XIs than us and rightly ahead of us in the league at present. Leicester’s recruitment in recent years is something I’ve already highlighted as being great. They’ve done what we used to do in terms of signing players with the idea their quality and value will rise in time.

 

Villa and West Ham are ahead of us. People are negative about the players because the team is playing ****.
Mourinho went far too defensive after the draw with the Spam and we've gone to **** since then.

 

LOL Sorry something cropped up I'll finish it later

 

And that’s on the manager for sure, he’s definitely making things worse and he’ll likely be sacked at some point, rightly so too. But those currently in the top 5 have better teams than us, on paper anyway I’d say.

The players in their XIs are quite nicely balanced in quality. Whilst some are superstars, the others are still good or “ok” players for the most part. With us, we have 2 superstars, 3 really good players but then about 4 or 5 who are really poor and 1 or 2 who are so so. The balance just isn’t there, it goes from great to ****. Others go from great to good/ ok.

 

This squad will finish where it deserves to.

I see it’s more or less the same people that were telling me the trophies were going to come year 5 of Poch’s dynasty are the same ones who are saying these players are still good enough to achieve more than the hit and miss performances we get.

I refuse to allow the same set of fans to set the next agenda like it’s only their club and we have some sort of strong tradition that is being blasphemed against.

There’s no Tottenham way without anyone harping back to the 60’s. 70’s we were ****, 80’s was our most successful decade in the modern world and then after that it was as depressing as Ive heard most of you when you reminisce about it.

We got a bit of joy from Jol and everyone thinks it’s some kind of Tottenham way. What’s the Brighton way? What we see now or what they were in the lower leagues for decades?

There’s an agenda at work here and it’s clear as day when folk think the bulk of this squad is fine and it’s just the management. Sorry guise I’m not up for you all deciding that we need another 5 year project to begin so that most of you can say it will end in Utopia but when we get to the 4/5 year stage everyone ****s the bed and can’t backup their earlier claims or admit they got it wrong.

No more 5 year projects with our heads in the clouds about how great we really are bar the odd missing ingredient.

I don’t get the logic that a new manager solves everything. He will get the typical new manager bounce then the players will hit their talent ceiling again.
Changing a manager to one who knocks it about a little bit more but we still **** up at the same junctures is not a step forward.