Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City

If any of the players had any doubt that he wanted to try to win using his football philosophy whatever the situation they didn't after that game. It was proper audere et facere stuff. Mourinho would have shut up shop in case of an embarrassing defeat and then he would have blamed it on the players.

 

We played those games without Romero, VdV and Maddison though....that's more the reason we hit a bad patch.

 

And it was an embarrassing defeat that we got.

No player clearly learned anything either because as I said, we lost three of the following four games and our football has been extremely inconsistent since. So he’s arguably failing to instil his philosophy.

 

And the reason for the last 4-5 months?

 

The biggest gripe over Mourinho was his style of football, his struggles at United which showed he wasn't as invincible as everyone once believed, and his more than insulting comments about Spurs in the past.

But from where I sit, almost every fan I know was hugely critical of the fact that we hired a manager of his calibre and then handed him players like Rodon, Bergwijn, Hojbjerg and Doherty.

In fact, it didn't matter who was in the dugout the day after Poch got sacked. It could have been Alan Pardew. That person needed full and heavy backing as they would have inherited a broken squad in terminal decline with multiple players either crocked or wanting to leave.

Levy appointed Jose precisely because he wanted to take a cheap shortcut and avoid the expenditure we are still not fully seeing (although it has improved since Paratici and Lange were given more freedom to run the sporting side of things). The fool's hope was that Jose would squeeze a last few sparks from the dying embers of a once great group, and win us a trophy (any trophy).

The time to appoint Jose and give him nothing to work with would have been, ironically, the summer he joined United. Had he been given the 2016/17 team to work with, we would have won the league in our final season at the Lane, I'm convinced of it.

 

And then lost Son to South Korea for over a month.

 

Even at Utd though he won things and commented that finishing second with that team was a bigger achievement than was likely given credited for and he was probably right.

I said the exact same RE the 16/17 season though. Naturally we’d have been (or looked more for a better word) mad to have parted with Poch but right there and then, Jose would’ve certainly won us either the league or at least something.

 

As PS has said, the truth is there was a cocktail of reasons that all started to collide at the same time, resulting in a pretty worrying collapse into mid table form.

You cannot underestimate the loss of those key players and lack of proper cover in their place.

The run of games after that Chelsea defeat wasn't nearly as bad in reality as it was on paper. We were poor against Wolves but needed late, late goals to fall to defeat. We were actually really good against Villa and iirc they scored from their only two chances all game. Then we fought really bravely at City and again outplayed West Ham but fell to a couple of unlucky goals. Poor finishing let us down again as it did at Villa.

The timing of it all was terrible as we lost a host of key players just when PL opposition typically begins to work out new tactical systems. Normally, that extra bit of quality gets you over the line but we didn't have it, which gave teams more data to build on in terms of how to beat us, which eroded confidence further, and then just as those players were coming back from injury, we lost Son, Sarr and Bissouma to international duty and so the same issue remained in place essentially from November to mid February. Teams had that entire time to work us out, knowing we were short of quality to punish them.

And by the time the band was back together, confidence in the system had dropped quite a bit. I don't think it would have done at all had we not lost all those key players against Chelsea. The performances in subsequent games showed that the players still fully bought into the system. The reaction at the end of that game from the fans showed that they did too.

You've often criticised our form from 'mid November' but, respectfully, I think you're being way too harsh. For me, the only real collapse in form I could point to without any real defence began with the defeat at Fulham in mid-March.

 

He definitely over achieved at United but let's not forget, in 2016 the shadow of Fergie was still over the club and that ruthless winning mentality was still there, albeit fading.

De Gea, Mata, Carrick, Valencia, Zlatan and Rooney all either played under Fergie or had that monstrous winning mentality. Jose tapped into that and stretched them further than their ageing legs should have gone.

I'd argue that this is now United's greatest problem. They've totally lost that mentality and benchmark and so it doesn't really matter who they sign, the standard of what is deemed acceptable is so low.

 

Totally agree. And as for the last run of results, if we ever played Arsenal, Chelsea away, Liverpool away , Newcastle away and Man City in 6 matches we wouldn't have got many points in most seasons.

 

Punishment of some kind is often the consequence.
That punishment will often be dealt out at work by your manager.
So you should be fearful of the punishment, not the person meting it out.

That professional football has very little material
consequence for a player to fear, other than getting
the hairdryer treatment, is a topic in itself.

 

You're right but it was the manner of the defeats that worried us. We were awful in all of those games apart from 25mins against Liverpool and the City game.

In a twist of irony, we probably played better in the first defeat to Chelsea than we did in the second, and we had 9 men and two injuries.

 

It's the same reason referees are so bad. There is very little accountability or transparency. And after a truly shocking display they'll be demoted to the Championship for a couple of weeks (itself a nonsense and an insult to the Championship, as if to say 'here, you can suffer our hand me downs', but then they're back in the PL a few weeks later as if nothing happened.

 

There’s been multiple posts, not just from me from way before March on where people had bemoaned performances. Most/ all were indeed sympathetic of the immediate aftermath of Chelsea but problems have maintained for months regardless of injuries.

Going over the fixture list right now, I’d say there’s been four genuinely good performances since Chelsea:

Newcastle 4-1 - where they had an injury list that made ours look like child’s play.
Utd 2-2 - we went to Old Trafford and largely dominated the game, one of their goals came by a freak moment too.
Villa 4-0 - no words needed, excellent display.
City 0-2 - the best we’ve looked since Villa. A performance that deserved more, even if a number of us didn’t actually want it.

We’ve naturally had a good portion of positive results during that period, some fortunate some just about deserved but the enjoyment in the actual football has certainly been lacking.

 

I would add the Villa and West Ham defeats to that list, the draw at City as well as the wins against Bmouth and Palace, which showed a real determination and refusal to drop points especially at home.

I just think standards have been set way too high. Even using your list as the watershed, if you'd said to me at the start of the season an hour after Kane left that under a new manager and without our best player we would notch up 14 superb performances, 11 good ones and 13 poor ones, I'd look back at the previous season of 6 superb performances and 32 poor ones and see very clear signs of progress.

 

We will see this on sunday.
If Spurs lose then it may cost the club at least 2m quid.

What do we think the manager will say on that fact, in public,
or behind closed doors to the squad, between now and then ??

 

The draw to City I’ll give you, for determination alone that was impressive. I think you’re being generous over Villa though, we played a decent 45 but then switched off and they took advantage. I can never also take any positives in a derby defeat at home though, even if there are truths in the performance, we lost all three home derbies this season too, failed to win any derby in fact, that’s disgraceful. They’re the games that matter most to fans.

Before the season I’d have absolutely bitten your hand off for a top six finish. One of the expectations I had this season though was to enjoy it again after about four years of misery and whilst this one got off like a house on fire, I can now add it to being a fifth year of where I’ve not enjoyed a whole season of the football we’ve dished out.

 

One can argue that expectations may have been
raised too high after the first 10 games, but I contend
not so high regarding finishing PL top 4.

 

Personally I don't see the point of analyzing the season too much game by game because we are not the finished article. My biggest criticism of Levy is his lack of patience with managers. He picks them so all these changes reflect on him more than the individual. Having said that I was excited by both Mourinho and Conte arriving and then bored to death with the style of play. The only one given time by Levy was Poch but then the stadium build got in the way of rebuilding the team. To get to the CL final and not do all you could to build and improve the team was one of the biggest mistakes Spurs have made in the last 60 years.
I always return to the Burkinshaw years because it was one of our most successful periods, but look how it started. Relegated in his first season and promotion the next. The next season the club supports him by the massive signings of Ardilles and Villas both having just won the world cup. This was unprecedented in the English game at that time. Once again Spurs led the way. Bukinshaw had been given time and backing and it paid off. You all know how Liverpool and Man United have at different points in their history THE MOST SUCCESSFUL PERIODS have given their managers time to succeed.
I hope Levy has learnt some lessons from his time at Spurs and gives Ange time and backs him. So far it looks good with some of our best signing in recent years and back to playing exciting football.
My hope is the fans too will be patient and not pressure Levy and his hair trigger.

 

Arsenal probably shouldn't have cheated their arses off against us, then.