Poch needs to take a long hard look at himself.

[Archibald&Crooks]

Are you making a point of making an AVB comparison on a daily basis?

When he's totally wrong he does it big time

 

[Stamford]

Have to say I was looking forward to this season after the last one but so far I'm yet to be lifted by anything apart from the city win, we have been uninspiring and flat looks like another write off season.

We've only really got the fa cup to play for which is pretty depressing

 

[Hazardousman]

Going to repeat this in here

After sleeping on it I just feel like the reason we are regressing from last season is that our players just aren't putting the effort in they were last season, they don't seem to care as much quite frankly and the manager seems like he has gone soft or is looking to make excuses rather than fix things.

Also, I said last night the top teams are playing better so we have reverted to where we should be but I think after considering this more, it's not a valid excuse, Liverpool have finished behind us for years, even when we had Sherwood in charge and yet they are playing better than us now, it seems like we have regressed they have progressed.

It's all feeling a little AVB right now which means one of two things, Poch needs to axe the players not pulling their weight or call them up on it or he will be in the firing line.

He needs to be ruthless, if Eriksen and company aren't playing well they need dropping and bring youth in instead, at least we know they will work their arse off, that's what brought Poch success here in the first place, problem is, they aren't "youth" anymore, they all have their fancy contracts now and the workrate has dropped, that's the issue imo.

Poch has had many successes with youth here and putting his faith in them, notice how when winks comes on he doesn't stop running, it's non stop effort, that is what you get and I think it's something the other players aren't giving for the entirety of matches anymore and Poch is either blind to it or ignoring it hoping they will eventually pull their fingers out.

For the first half yesterday they turned up, I was impressed but then after conceding they just looked like they couldn't be bothered again, like they knew what the outcome was going to be so why bother.

Poch needs to sort it, drop some of his favourites and get some youth in so they aren't so comfortable with their places because we all know what will happen if it comes down to him or the players on the firing line, look what happened with AVB, even Mourinho wasn't safe at Chelsea, players hold the power.

 

[Hazardousman]

I think us and Utd are on a similar level, with those above us either having better squads, luck avoiding injuries or both. The Russians have fielded an unchanged team in the seven wins in a row they've posted, with no midweek exertions to deal with. We still don't know whether Bats was the one who got away or not.

If we get everyone back and firing and one of the four has a bad run fourth is still possible.

But as you say we rarely spend what's required to compete so when we do we've got to get it right. How many windows to give Kane some competition, and all we can manage is Janssen. Dembele at Celtic has shown much more, in the CL, I've been shocked by Sissoko, though, and it looks like we are stuck with him.

This is what I thought yesterday but then I was reminded of Liverpool and how many years we have finished ahead of them even with Sherwood in charge, yet they seem miles ahead of us this year.

 

[Japhet]

This is what I thought yesterday but then I was reminded of Liverpool and how many years we have finished ahead of them even with Sherwood in charge, yet they seem miles ahead of us this year.

Liverpool are on form and we're not. With both teams on form I don't think there's much to choose. They are quite capable of hitting a bad spot too.

 

[double0]

Can only speak for myself but I'm chilled just being realistic and realise that we cannot win the league for the foreseeable future nor expect to be CL regulars year in year out.
I understand people's frustrations with today's annual league defeat and the general form in all competitions since beating city has been shit in all honesty, the football has been uninspiring and flat and I find it staggering that we have only one narrow win against a poor West ham to show in that time.
Yes we have had injuries but we can't keep using this as an excuse when things don't run smoothly I get a bit annoyed with it, I'm sure at some point we might start putting a little run together which will keep the fan's happy.

You take 3-4 of a teams main players out and any team would struggle... all I'm really saying, it's not all bad.

Chins up...COYS!

 

[Monkey boy]

This is what I thought yesterday but then I was reminded of Liverpool and how many years we have finished ahead of them even with Sherwood in charge, yet they seem miles ahead of us this year.

the season we had dimmy in charge they finished 2nd and battered us home and away.

 

[WiganSpur]

Just saw this and as it's Twitter it may well be bollocks but. . .

Yidvids
@YidVids
Just read Spurs have had Alderweireld, Dembele and Kane on the pitch together at the same time for a total of 74 mins all season. #Spine

Add to that Lamela.

The cracks in the squad could have easily been exposed last season but we got quite lucky with injuries. Our poor recruitment hasn't fixed this potential weakness as expected and now the cracks are showing. We will improve for sure when all these players are back but we need to get the recruitment right next summer so that we have more quality in depth.

 

[austinfh]

You take 3-4 of a teams main players out and any team would struggle... all I'm really saying, it's not all bad.

Chins up...COYS!

yeah, if we struggle against swansea with all our players back, fair enough to be concerned. not worried atm

 

[Hazardousman]

the season we had dimmy in charge they finished 2nd and battered us home and away.

They also had Suarez.

 

[RicOfPeace]

I'll be honest watching our atrocious football lately I think Darryls torture in the cell in the walking dead is a piece of piss I'd prefer to sit in a cell with easy street playing over watching spurs counters of side passing and back passing letting every one of the opposition back into position.
We've went from the great entertainers to a poor man's Jose Mourinho side.

 

[cozzo]

I'll be honest watching our atrocious football lately I think Darryls torture in the cell in the walking dead is a piece of piss I'd prefer to sit in a cell with easy street playing over watching spurs counters of side passing and back passing letting every one of the opposition back into position.
We've went from the great entertainers to a poor man's Jose Mourinho side.

I think the games against Arsenal away and Chelsea away shows that we can compete.

 

[E.L.Strict]

I think people are giving last season's performances too much credit. We only did as well as we did because other teams didn't turn up, not because we were much better than before, imo.

The season before last, Danny Rose was our mom in basically every game. Why? Because we had no creativity or guile in attack and the only people on the pitch with space were the full backs. Rose and Walker looked England's best players in the summer for this same reason, imo. Our defense has made decent progress and looks almost invincible in the league right now, but the performances in Europe have kind of undermined this, because it's been a shambles. Is our defense actually tactically astute and well drilled, or is Alder just on another level?

As for our attack, Eriksen is our ONLY player with a relevant level of technical ability, and he barely ever performs anymore. Aguero, Silva, De Bruyne, Hazard, Pedro, Sanchez, Ozil, are all on a whole other level to him. Liverpool have Coutinho who imo is only marginally ahead of Eriksen, but their attacking play is on a whole other level to ours. We don't really have any discernible attacking strategy at all.

From how things look to be panning out, I don't think there is a single reason why we should expect to finish higher than 5th this year. Last season was an anomaly, and this season looks to be a return to to normality. Odds on us and Arsenal battling for 4th place? The danger is that our title challenge last year makes us think we are much better than we are. Of the teams above us right now in the league, who do people think we are better than and why?

Any higher than 5th and I think we should be really happy, and hope to build on that with some quality signings. When it comes to Poch, Liverpool represent the real threat to his position, imo. They're the closest to us in terms of personnel, and if Klopp continues to improve Liverpool and they leave us behind, then I think that makes Poch look bad.

If we are in any kind of title race this year I will be stunned.

 

[HildoSpur]

I think people are giving last season's performances too much credit. We only did as well as we did because other teams didn't turn up, not because we were much better than before, imo.

The season before last, Danny Rose was our mom in basically every game. Why? Because we had no creativity or guile in attack and the only people on the pitch with space were the full backs. Rose and Walker looked England's best players in the summer for this same reason, imo. Our defense has made decent progress and looks almost invincible in the league right now, but the performances in Europe have kind of undermined this, because it's been a shambles. Is our defense actually tactically astute and well drilled, or is Alder just on another level?

As for our attack, Eriksen is our ONLY player with a relevant level of technical ability, and he barely ever performs anymore. Aguero, Silva, De Bruyne, Hazard, Pedro, Sanchez, Ozil, are all on a whole other level to him. Liverpool have Coutinho who imo is only marginally ahead of Eriksen, but their attacking play is on a whole other level to ours. We don't really have any discernible attacking strategy at all.

From how things look to be panning out, I don't think there is a single reason why we should expect to finish higher than 5th this year. Last season was an anomaly, and this season looks to be a return to to normality. Odds on us and Arsenal battling for 4th place? The danger is that our title challenge last year makes us think we are much better than we are. Of the teams above us right now in the league, who do people think we are better than and why?

Any higher than 5th and I think we should be really happy, and hope to build on that with some quality signings. When it comes to Poch, Liverpool represent the real threat to his position, imo. They're the closest to us in terms of personnel, and if Klopp continues to improve Liverpool and they leave us behind, then I think that makes Poch look bad.

If we are in any kind of title race this year I will be stunned.

I totally agree with this - we are nowhere near good enough to be able to push for the title and last year I fear has led to some people expecting far too much from this team. The likes of Chelsea, City and to a lesser extent Liverpool and Man Utd have all strengthened on the field and off it and all of them have considerably more resources than we do and as a result mostly have a vastly superior strength in depth. We have suffered with injuries but to be sitting 5th right now is about right.

 

[mattie g]

Add to that Lamela.

The cracks in the squad could have easily been exposed last season but we got quite lucky with injuries. Our poor recruitment hasn't fixed this potential weakness as expected and now the cracks are showing. We will improve for sure when all these players are back but we need to get the recruitment right next summer so that we have more quality in depth.

I'm not sure how our recruitment has been poor. We brought in a striker who probably wasn't going to get a ton of starting minutes before Kane was injured (i.e. he could have been slowly brought into the side); we have a wide player with pace and trickery (GKN); we have two great options at DM now that Wanyama is in the squad; and we are looking like we bought poorly in Sissoko (though I'm willing to give it more time). We shored up areas where we needed depth - it's going to take *at least* half a season to fully assess how those new players are fitting in.

If you take that many key players out of a side, you are bound to struggle unless you have gobs of money to keep players of the utmost quality on the bench. And it doesn't help when your best player (Toby) is injured while one of your standout defenders (Rose) is suspended and his backup (Davies) is injured, so you have to put out a relatively makeshift back line away against one of the form teams in the league.

Did we get lucky in regards to injury last season? Yeah...perhaps a bit, and we'd have been worse off last season than this season if we had suffered the same injuries that we have so far this fall. We've been terribly unlucky so far this season in that many key players have been injured, and it's unlikely we will be able to bring in much more quality in depth than we currently have.

 

[SpursDave88]

I'm not sure how our recruitment has been poor. We brought in a striker who probably wasn't going to get a ton of starting minutes before Kane was injured (i.e. he could have been slowly brought into the side); we have a wide player with pace and trickery (GKN); we have two great options at DM now that Wanyama is in the squad; and we are looking like we bought poorly in Sissoko (though I'm willing to give it more time). We shored up areas where we needed depth - it's going to take *at least* half a season to fully assess how those new players are fitting in.

If you take that many key players out of a side, you are bound to struggle unless you have gobs of money to keep players of the utmost quality on the bench. And it doesn't help when your best player (Toby) is injured while one of your standout defenders (Rose) is suspended and his backup (Davies) is injured, so you have to put out a relatively makeshift back line away against one of the form teams in the league.

Did we get lucky in regards to injury last season? Yeah...perhaps a bit, and we'd have been worse off last season than this season if we had suffered the same injuries that we have so far this fall. We've been terribly unlucky so far this season in that many key players have been injured, and it's unlikely we will be able to bring in much more quality in depth than we currently have.

Jansen and N'Koudou have easily been as bad as Sissoko. At the end of the day if you are relying on Harry Winks to turn round an away game at Chelsea you are in big trouble. Out of the four players we signed this summer for a combined 80 odd million, one looks capable of getting into the side, the other three have been absolute trash. On the flipside I will say that having spoken to Southampton and Chelsea fans respectively over the past week or so, neither Batshuyi, nor Boufal have been any better really, which kind of begs the question as to who we could have bought who would have done better at this stage...only Mane comes to mind. In fact we would have been better of signing Mane rather than Sissoko and Jansen, so we would have save money on fees and wages. Perhaps we could have also kept Chadli rather than signing N'Koudou.

 

[WiganSpur]

I'm not sure how our recruitment has been poor. We brought in a striker who probably wasn't going to get a ton of starting minutes before Kane was injured (i.e. he could have been slowly brought into the side); we have a wide player with pace and trickery (GKN); we have two great options at DM now that Wanyama is in the squad; and we are looking like we bought poorly in Sissoko (though I'm willing to give it more time). We shored up areas where we needed depth - it's going to take *at least* half a season to fully assess how those new players are fitting in.

If you take that many key players out of a side, you are bound to struggle unless you have gobs of money to keep players of the utmost quality on the bench. And it doesn't help when your best player (Toby) is injured while one of your standout defenders (Rose) is suspended and his backup (Davies) is injured, so you have to put out a relatively makeshift back line away against one of the form teams in the league.

Did we get lucky in regards to injury last season? Yeah...perhaps a bit, and we'd have been worse off last season than this season if we had suffered the same injuries that we have so far this fall. We've been terribly unlucky so far this season in that many key players have been injured, and it's unlikely we will be able to bring in much more quality in depth than we currently have.

I'm willing to give Janssen time but I think we were all hoping that he would be quicker in adapting. I think Wanyama has looked like the only real good signing so far. Sissoko just isn't what we need on the right.

 

[double0]

Calm down peps. We've played 3 London derbies, played the current top 4 (as the league stands as of 28th Nov 16) we've been riddled with niggling injuries to our main player but still within touching distance of the league leaders....I am hoping soon our summer recruits can add something they can't be any worse once they fully integrate.

 

[SpursDave88]

Calm down peps. We've played 3 London derbies, played the current top 4 (as the league stands as of 28th Nov 16) we've been riddled with niggling injuries to our main player but still within touching distance of the league leaders....I am hoping soon our summer recruits can add something they can't be any worse once they fully integrate.

7 points behind is not really within touching distance though, I'd say we are already falling off the pace.

 

[double0]

7 points behind is not really within touching distance though, I'd say we are already falling off the pace.

Ok lets be negative.