End of Season review thread

[stewartd]

Lots of positives.
Youngest team in the league can only improve.
Manager did well to overcome woeful seasons by his captain and vice captain and other seasoned players such as , Capoue and
Chiriches and Saldado
Compensated for the abysmal form of the two great English hopes Walker and Townsend.
Kept the faith with Lamela who is at last shoeing the form he is capable of.
Gave Kane Mason Dier and Bentaleb their heads to show what fine player they are and how bright our future is with them being the mainstays of our teams for the next few seasons.
Started to instil
a system of play into them that was alien but is the way to go.
So all in all with limited resources he has done well.
Therefore this is a better then expected season ,fifth place and a cup final appearance under these circumstance cant be bad.
However the test will be next season . Can he bring these youngsters on a further step?
Will he be given the players he thinks he needs to strengthen the squad. ?
Will we keep Lloris ?
If the answers to the above are all in the affirmative, then the future is bright and at last we might actually challenge for honours instead of being on the periphery.
Lets hope the board give him the support he deserves.

 

[Everlasting Seconds]

@davidmatzdorf
Spurs ended 5th this season. (Well done, by the way). If Spurs, in some alternative dimension, "beat them selves" with 1 point, and achieved 65 points rather than 64, you argue that Spurs would have ended 4th. But we would still have been 5th. Ergo, your entire argument that you need 5th + 1 point to end 4th is at best only valid in a very hypothetical thought process. It doesn't really stick in the real world.

 

[NEVILLEB]

This was always going to be a transitional season after 2 managers in a year, the last commenting adversly on the squad. So compared with the last 10 seasons :

2005/06 - 5th (Jol)
2006/07 - 5th (Jol)
2007/08 - 11th (Ramos)
2008/09 - 8th (HR)
2009/10 - 4th (HR)
2010/11 - 5th (HR)
2011/12 - 4th (HR)
2012/13 - 5th (AVB)
2013/14 - 6th (AVB/TS)
2014/15 - 5th (Poch)

So that's 5th or higher in 7 of the last 10 seasons - so finishing 5th in a transitional season is better than expected.

But I think its the squad building for the future which is better than the results :

Lloris - looks to stay, one of the best in the world in his position
The youth now in the squad :
Kane - A genuine 30 goals a season striker forced his way into the starting lineup in his first full season
Rose - Looked like one of the best LB's we've had for a long time
Mason and Bentaleb - A midfield duo will always be under pressure, a first full season for both, plenty to build on
Dier - Looks like a steal, future CB (or RB) for years with luck
Eriksen - Looked jaded in the second half of the season due to the amount of ground hge covers and minutes played (next seaason hope to see Pritchard sharing that load)
Vertonghen - Not his best season, but still a good CB
Chadli - Until his father dying semed to badly affect him, he was scoring for fun. Still ended in double figures - Spurs are one of only 2 PL teams to have 3 players in double figures for goalscoring.

Hopefully WAlker next season, after a year out with injuries/back but still acclimatising/injured again, will have a good pre-season and be back to his young POTY standard again, and if Lamela stays he should kick on again to become a decent consistent player, and thee's a few other squad options who could be mentioned including Vorm and Davies

The youth set up continues to look as if it will continue to deliver 2 players who can be of PL quality every season - for the forseeable future (something Liverpool fans can only dream of).

Obviously a few negatives too. Our goals against figure obvioiusly. Playing a CM2 is always putting an emphasis on our attack, yet despite scoring more goals than anyone outside the top 4, we seem to leak chances to the opposition from the 3 AM's losing the ball leading to opposition attacks. So we need to balance up attack and defence a bit better, plus possibly bring in a commanding CB who can help organise defence.

So we've got a platform to build on, most crucial of all is to sell as many of the players who don't fit as possible (maybe up to 10) and get in maybe 4 or 5 players who want to play for Spurs and fit Poch's system. If we do that we should kick on !

Looking at the league positions during that period it's clear that it doesn't really matter who the Manager is.

The crucial aspect is the player recruitment and balance of the squad.

 

[jurgen]

5th and a cup final, with the youngest team in the league is pretty good in the end. If we then consider we played more games than anyone else, then it looks very good. Of course, performances have been inconsistent, the defence is ropey and we've had to play with one functioning striker in the squad really. So luckily there is room for improvement, we can't say this is the best we can play over 38 games - which is good.

And then when you consider how our rivals for the best-of-the-rest usually fail to deal with the Europa league, our consistency over the last 6 seasons, despite the pressures of that competition every year, have actually been rather impressive. If we can just be tighter and more precise in our recruitment, and really match players to the manager we have in place - I think we have a good foundation to go forward with.

Now can that baldy missile head smash through the glass ceiling?

 

[TheHoddleWaddle]

@davidmatzdorf
Spurs ended 5th this season. (Well done, by the way). If Spurs, in some alternative dimension, "beat them selves" with 1 point, and achieved 65 points rather than 64, you argue that Spurs would have ended 4th. But we would still have been 5th. Ergo, your entire argument that you need 5th + 1 point to end 4th is at best only valid in a very hypothetical thought process. It doesn't really stick in the real world.

My brain hurts!

 

[Tott66]

Well of course if you take away the only positives there's only negatives. It's a good start for what was meant to be a season of transition and rebuilding, and we still managed finish within the top 6 (even scraping 5th which most wouldn't have predicted) and our first cup final in 6 yrs. So I'm pretty content with that, so long as Poch now gets the backing he needs to strengthen for the new campaign

So basically you agreed with my sentiments of my brief summary.
Rose has come on we rely on eriksens creativity too much and if we get it right in the window dier,chadli,mason and bentaleb and lamela would not be starters in our first choice full strength line up.
Much work to be done.

 

[spursLA]

Despite another transition season we finished higher in the league, got to a cup final, had a young home grown striker have the best goal scoring season for a Spurs player in over 20 years and saw at least two other (and up to five) young players have break through seasons. We also have at least one possible fIrst team player have a great season out on loan. Off the pitch we finally got the new stadium underway, signed a very highly regarded head of recruitment and, for the first time in forever, no one is talking about us firing our manager. This was a very good season - I'd be happy with an exact replay next year.

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

I'm not sure what you base that on, given that 65 was enough to finish 4th this season (one more than us).

Because after a summer of spending by Man Ure and Arsenal they will be at least three wins better off in my estimation. You only have to extrapolate the seasons points gained by both of them since Christmas to see that out points haul this season will be nowhere near enough.

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

Fifth place with one striker on the books. What's not to like?

Our defending.

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

If you take the points required (not achieved), 65 points would have been enough to finish 4th this season, beating the 5th placed club (us) by a point. I'm not sure how many times the 5th placed club has gained 74 points but i'm willing to bet it isn't many at all……….so saying 75 is required is pretty much plucking a figure out of thin air.

Pretty much didn't

The average fourth place points total over the past five years is 72 points.

So as i said "i reckon" that we will need a minimum 75 to be assured of reaching the promised land come next season. Unless you think that Man Ure and Arsenal will not invest this off season then perhaps we won't need to find another three wins, and some to make the top four.

 

[Matthew Wyatt]

We're the winning side in two out of The Guardian's five matches of the season -- the best performers in the best matches. I'm taking that as a feather in our cap.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/may/25/premier-league-2014-15-match-of-season

 

[willy white wonka]

Whichever way you look at it there are many positives from Poch's first season. One not mentioned (not only due to Poch) is how we can consistently finish top 6 DESPITE the massive ball and chain that is the EL. Just ask all the other English clubs that have recently competed in that marathon and stamina sapping competition, I'd like to see arse compete in the EL and get top 4 too. We're up a place in the league in a transitional season, stuffed the boring racists and took 4 points off the arse - what's not to like?

 

[muppetman]

Watch it and enjoy you bunch of miserable old bastards!

 

[scat1620]

@davidmatzdorf
Spurs ended 5th this season. (Well done, by the way). If Spurs, in some alternative dimension, "beat them selves" with 1 point, and achieved 65 points rather than 64, you argue that Spurs would have ended 4th. But we would still have been 5th. Ergo, your entire argument that you need 5th + 1 point to end 4th is at best only valid in a very hypothetical thought process. It doesn't really stick in the real world.

 

[worcestersauce]

I really expected very little this season, I didn't expect even 6th or 7th and would have been ok with lower as long as I could see progress, I've seen progress and we got 5th so got to be happy.
Improvement in team and the way we play, it took some time but not as long as I thought it would, there were bound to be hiccups along the way but got to be happy overall..
Improvements in individual players right across the board, got to be happy with that.
Bust ups in the dressing room lanced a festering boil and left the club in a much healthier state with a better team spirit, got to be happy with that.
Manager settled in apparently with the faith of the board so I'm happy with that.

Looking forward to next season with improved squad and all our rivals involved in Europe.

 

[Strikeb4ck]

Big worry for me is we've found our best striker in who knows how long and yet we play much worse football and finished with less points. The only reason we are 5th is that the league is the worst it has been in a long time.

For me the big thing is I don't think we've improved from last season, and for that I say below expectations. I expected more entertaining football and certainly a better defense. This is more like the latter half of the AVB era.

Hopefully the summer brings some changes.

 

[davidmatzdorf]

Because after a summer of spending by Man Ure and Arsenal they will be at least three wins better off in my estimation. You only have to extrapolate the seasons points gained by both of them since Christmas to see that out points haul this season will be nowhere near enough.

The balanced schedule means that the Premiership doesn't work like that.There is great consistency over the years in the points required to finish in any given position. Points gained by one contending team wil be points lost by another. The highest finishing total (not "points required", which is different, as I posted) ever for 5th was our own record of 72.

 

[Lilbaz]

I'd want over 70 points next season. Or winning the europa.

 

[nightgoat]

I can't believe we finished higher in the league than we did last season, played more games with fewer and younger players as the core of the squad and reached a cup final yet some people are STILL pining for a manager who just about scraped keeping his new team up. Beggars belief.

 

[Lilbaz]

I can't believe we finished higher in the league than we did last season, played more games with fewer and younger players as the core of the squad and reached a cup final yet some people are STILL pining for a manager who just about scraped keeping his new team up. Beggars belief.

You talking about Tim?