When I setup the Spurs News Facebook page with Polynesian Dan back in the day we did it after we had both been apart of another page as admins and although they did a good job they also enjoyed the more “bait” style of posting and so we decided we would do our own thing… back then our manager was a guy just appointed from Southampton and it was a real grind, inconsistent and largely poor but you could see every now and then what he wanted to do and if we could get on that track with the right signings we all kinda knew it would be good.
What that manager achieved with us in his second and third seasons especially was special as we had never seen a Tottenham team, in recent memory anyway, be that consistent in the league and genuinely seem to challenge for honours.
I have talked a lot about this but does everyone know that Pochettino was set to be fired by Spurs after about 15 games in charge? The club were looking for a temporary option as the inconsistency was driving people insane. The man himself talks about it in his book and how a free kick, massively deflected, from Harry Kane saved his job by them beating a poor Villa team but even then due to the board not being sure all of his primary transfer targets were not signed, instead, cheap alternatives were so the board could “back” the manager with the type of player he waned but not actually spend the money.
Who remembers Stambouli? Yeah that guy.
There is a reason I am walking us down memory lane, I will get to that point soon I promise but lets first remember that even without the signings requested we managed to do VERY well, missing out on league titles as drew to many games that should have been won – could Zaha have been the difference maker when instead we got N’Jie? N’Koudou? Would Wanyama signed a year earlier have helped the defense when instead we had to adapt young Eric Dier into a defensive midfielder?
These are questions we will never know the answer too. From my point of view I do believe it would have made a positive difference and we could well have gone into a rich period of success for the club. The counter argument from Daniel Levy is however… we are unlucky. Could that be true instead?
In that period under Pochettino we had the mad Leicester season in the league where teams really did bend over for them on the run in and everyone wanted to beat us; remember teams celebrating like THEY won the league just for taking points off us that season. It was insane – it was like we were not underdogs too.. and if it had been a different team, not the fairy tale Leicester who had no injuries that year (lucky) would we have had teams bend over for us? Maybe. So a league title.
We also played in a League Cup final, two FA Cup semi finals and a Champions League final. We also chased down Chelsea and finished second when they went on an insane run under Conte of like 15 games won in a row. If we had won the league the year before would we have had the belief and won it again the year later?
There are so many debates and arguments to be had but my point is I feel if our ownership has trusted the manager and signed the players he wanted we would have had a better chance. The old… “The harder I work, the luckier I get”.
The one thing Levy can point to during that time as a factor however is the stadium. We were moving from White Hart Lane to the new stadium and I can understand funds were probably restricted and it was a busy and stressful time for the club… the the stadium opened and COVID hit… something no one could have predicted HOWEVER as much as I am willing to acknowledge maybe we missed out back then due to the move… we have been in the new stadium a while now and I have seen no change in our transfer policy suggesting it was in fact just an excuse all along and that excuse has now gone away.
The financials for the new stadium are staggering with season one estimates of £1m earned income for the club from every home game being shattered in the latest accounts showing the figure is actually nearly £3m and on top of that you have events like music, rugby, NFL and other attractions like the F1 Go Kart track all at the stadium.
The plan from Levy & Co was a good one. Obtain funding to build the stadium and then pay for that stadium funding from events and other things meaning gate receipts from football could stay in the football club. This is them learning a lesson from Arsenal who built their ground and if you all remember then had to sell players almost every window to balance the books (normally to Man City back then).
So being a financial powerhouse we have had some power house managers come in since Pochettino was sacked. Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte.
These are two managers that have won major trophies in major leagues / competitions and have done so for some time and both have a solid reputation for getting teams over the line. BOTH failed and were sacked by Spurs.
Both have gone on and will win things elsewhere, well Jose already has won the Conference League but at Spurs … in that same competition we were knocked out by a manager who was in jail. Remember that or suppressed it?
Here are a couple of stats many might have forgotten. Under those two managers across 60 Premier League games in 20, so a third, we failed to register a single shot on target in the entire game and in half of those, so 10 out of 60 we failed to have a shot at all, even off target.
We conceded an average of 2 goals under Jose and just over 2 under Conte and yet both set us up so defensive we would bore teams (and fans) to death. Nuno was not much better in his very short stint in charge, in fact, it was his dreary football and awful results which saw him fired quickly.
So the history is what it is but here we are under Ange Postecoglou, deep into his second season and we are really struggling and the fans are starting to call for his head. Is that fair? Perhaps… do I think its a good idea to sack him? Hell no. Why? … well read every thing I have said above and now let me explain further.
Are we open at the back under Ange? Oh yes… Will we concede goals playing like this.. absolutely we will… but have all of you forgotten even when we defended our box with all ten outfield players behind the ball, failing to ever even have a shot we still conceded goals? We still lost games we should have won?
A major difference being Poch, Jose, Nuno and Conte all had Son in his prime and a certain greatest every striker Harry Kane. Do any of you doubt that under Ange, playing this style, Kane would not already be on 30 goals this season after smashing 40+ last season? I think we can all debate many things, its opinion but on that one I think we can agree that ironically under Ange Kane likely would have smashed that record of Alan Shearer’s in just two more seasons.
In the summer Ange had three targets that were key for him. He got one of them in Solanke. The other signings are all what Conte would call “club signings” and that is due to age. I have no doubt they all have amazing upsides to them in terms of development and ability but when losing many older players and experiences that should have been replaced with players experienced and able to play this style, not just spend all the money on teenagers – which is what we did.
These transfer decisions are Lange, Levy and Munn. Ange has said he will not sign anyone he does not approve of and I believe that to be true, the players signed are good but again are they good now or are they good in a season or two and if that is the case then what is the plan with Ange?
Big Ange has a very strong belief of how the game should be played, it is very much Audere Est Facere but yet despite him seemingly having Tottenham in his very DNA in the way he wants to do things… our own fans are turning on him in droves, even pointing to the job Nuno is doing at Nottingham Forest as we should have given him more time. Those same fans likely chanted “you dont know what your doing” to him the game before he was sacked.
I hate to bring up the mob up the road but Arsenal had a guy come in to try and get them back on track, I am not actually talking about Arteta right now – I am talking about Edu.
As much as it annoyed me he said clearly in an interview they needed to mirror what Tottenham did under Pochettino, allow a young manager with a style to come in and give him time to develop it, re-shape the squad but unlike Tottenham (his words) back him with the players he needs and learn from our neighbours mistakes.
They finished 8th in the Premier League two seasons in a row but kept working. Their fans were calling him a fraud, out of his depth and generally wanting him sacked from about half way through his first season and now here we are, he has signed a new deal, they love him and they are one of the best teams in Europe now – pushing Man City close for the title etc etc
As I write this we lost 1-0 to Nottingham Forest away. A ground many teams are losing at this season and the calls for Ange to be sacked have not been louder. In that game despite being injury ravaged we continued to play Ange ball and we created three VERY good chances against a very good defensive side. Those chances were fluffed by the players who the fell too and that means Ange should be sacked?
His system, despite injuries ripping the team apart, created goal scoring chances and also restricted the opposition to just one goal. A 3-1 win yesterday and people are still saying he is out of his depth? He does not have a joystick up the players asses and therefore I do not know how we can hold him responsible for Bentancur letting a guy run off him so easily and Udogie failing to keep up with the runner and them scoring anymore than we can blame Ange for the players missing their chances!
The reason I made the big deal at the start of this blog about the past is I want to wrap it up making two very clear points and the first of those is our owners / the board.
You, me.. we as fans let them off the hook all the time. It has to stop. When we fail Levy sacks the manager, gets a new one and we just start again. We have been a team in transition for how long? Other than a brief stint under Pochettino we have basically been in transition from one manager to the next since Levy and ENIC took charge of the club.
Enough is enough, it is time to get behind a manger, stick with him and support him. That has to start from the fans. If we turn on him the board will point to us and say “oh the fans wanted him gone” and off we go again, another new start, another new manager who wants to change the system, get his player in, get the ones he wants gone sold. We go back to the start AGAIN and rinse and repeat.
The system works. We create chances. The system works. We do concede but look at our goal difference, that Liverpool game aside which was a bad one we have not lost by more than a one goal margin and we typically win by smashing a team.
Why do so many people say it does not work then? Its down to us being inconsistent and its down to people not respecting Ange. If he was Italian, or Spanish and won his trophies in a European league then people would not be so quick to dig him out.
However the narratives now exist and the likes of Neville and Carragher as pundits are running the lines “he doesn’t change and that mad” and now I see that from our fans, some even calling him arrogant. He believes in himself and he believes in the system and the players clearly still do too as there has been no sign they have dropped tools and given up on him. Perhaps they know more than anyone just how good they could be if they could keep a squad fit.
The media narrative is set in now and they will talk and talk until he is gone if you all allow yourselves to be influenced by it. We must stick together and back him, we must tell the board we will not accept another manager being fired, actually back him and do it now!
Its the January transfer window and already the club are putting out stories about not doing much as not much business can be done in January and its absolute nonsense. Business can be done in January if you move early, pay the price and give teams the chance to replace the players you are signing.
If you have made it to the end thank you for reading, I hope you had a good Christmas despite the football results and I hope you have a happy and safe New Year.
-Admin SJ