Match Threads Spurs vs Villa - Match Thread - Game 37 - KO 6:00pm

[Blackcanary]

I don't think their intention was to make fans wait. I got the feeling that either the players refused, or they were told not to go oit because the club hierarchy feared the negative PR of boos. When it became clear a large number of people were refusing to leave, and with the mood getting uglier and uglier, I believe that either a section of players said "screw you, we're going out", or the club ordered some to go out

Looking at those images I linked, I got the impression that the club shoved them out there in quite a hurry and with little notice - they're all wearing a random assortment of kits and training gear, and Bale appears to just have one sock on!

 

[Tiberius Gracchus]

Looking at those images I linked, I got the impression that the club shoved them out there in quite a hurry and with little notice - they're all wearing a random assortment of kits and training gear, and Bale appears to just have one sock on!

I wonder if in the coming days we'll get some ITK on what happened. I'm hoping the players who did come out, did so of their own volition. But the delay, and the fact so few came out, suggests a serious dressing room rift

 

[Blackcanary]

I wonder if in the coming days we'll get some ITK on what happened. I'm hoping the players who did come out, did so of their own volition. But the delay, and the fact so few came out, suggests a serious dressing room rift

Can I just clarify: when you talk about the ones who came out, do you mean for the delayed lap of honour? Because it does look like most of them came out for that. I know somebody mentioned earlier that a few of them (Kane, Son, Dele, Bale, etc.) were giving the fans a clap on a separate occasion...?

 

[Tiberius Gracchus]

Can I just clarify: when you talk about the ones who came out, do you mean for the delayed lap of honour? Because it does look like most of them came out for that. I know somebody mentioned earlier that a few of them (Kane, Son, Dele, Bale, etc.) were giving the fans a clap on a separate occasion...?

I mean the delayed lap. Immediately after the whistle, kane did a lap and so did hojberg. The delayed one only looked like about 10 of them to me but i'll have anothee look at the photos in the morning and try to do a count. From previous end of season laps I'm sure it's normal for the whole squad to do it

 

[sundanceyid10]

Agree but I think you mean overestimated.

Saw a graphic about our top ten record signings a few days ago, and you can only say 1 of those (Son) has been a real success.

Tanguay - €60m
Sanchez - €42m
Sissoko - €35m
GLC - €32m
Bergwijn - €30m
Lamella - €30m
Soldado - €30m
Reguillon - €30m
Son - €30m
Moura -€29m

These are rounded figures (before anyone haggles over the amounts) but that is an awful lot of money spent on poor recruitment (mostly in the recent past) and has a big part to play. Whenever we spend big we get it horribly wrong like no other.

Nailed it makes dreadful reading and someone asked me tonight why I’m not comfortable with the people in charge of recruitment.....

and why I’m fearful of the Kane money being wasted IF he goes. I think there is a high probability it will be wasted.

 

[fridgemagnet]

Our recruitment has been fucking shocking for years now. We have spent big money on players that haven’t even been capable of making much of an impact on the first team ... Sissoko, Sanchez, Bergwijn, Docherty for example. I like Rodon and think he will come good but he obviously wasn’t ready for first team duty and wasn’t what we needed to replace Verts.

Levy didn’t have the balls to go the extra few quid for the Bruno Fernandes, Jack Grealish, Dybalas and Skriniars of the world. Quality players but instead we get freebies and loan signings that never work out.

Then we get to the likes of Jansen, N’Koudou, N’Jie, Chiriches, Paulinho, Chadli. Total fucking punts. Buy cheap. Buy twice and all that.

To be fair, some signings have been relatively successful - Dele and Dier have had their good days but unfortunately they have both stunk the place out for a long time now and still Levy refuses to sell them as he knows what they could have been worth.

Plus we have a multi-billionaire owner who reckons he can run a top 6 PL club without spending a penny of his own wedge.

In general, it’s a total shambles. ENIC are clearly way out of their depth.

Some people really don't pay attention so allow me to help with some of the bits above, Grealish wasn't penny pinching it was Villa getting new owners and promising the fans of his new club that their star asset wouldn't be sold.

Dybala was entirely down to image rights, Juve were in a pickle so the transfer fee was doable but then the player/his agent/rights holders wanter Spurs to buy out the tangled web of his image rights; which would've taken a 60 million transfer up closer to 90 million and even then it still smelt like as soon as the image rights were haggled far bigger clubs than us would've then swooped in, long story short it smelt like we were being used.

Fernandes I'm not sure what happened there.

Skriniar would've gotten done but Inter kept playing silly buggers.

Jansen was a Poch pick, the N's were total punts from someones scouting book, Paulhinio no idea but he ended up at Barca as part of a money laundering scheme, Sissoko deservedly got voted as fans player of the year once but I've no idea who or why that transfer happened and certainly at that fee. Docherty was José first pick.

Sanchez showed promise and had attributes you'd look for in a CB, sadly there's something lacking and after Verts went the entire back line stopped communicating.

You say Levy refuses to sell players, the truth is the players we're in the market to shop from don't wish to move on to a club in a "lesser" league or to one not competing at the upper end of the league, for all the Levy is cheap narrative well it can't be too bad if players aren't wanting to move for less wages, plus players tend to either love or loath London making it even harder to shift them.

Does he value some of them too high at the expense of understanding the need to move them out of the squad on occasions? Yes but then he'd get pelters for selling too cheap!

I'm on record as saying I want Levy to move away from the football side of things as that's not his strength (certainly not since they grew the club to the size it is now)

There's a repetitive narrative that Levy didn't back Poch when it's an open secret that Poch wanted De Jong, De Ligt (and someone I forget) and Spurs couldn't compete with Barca or Juve on fee, wages or being more attractive options to the player, you can also add in part FIFA and UEFA being piss weak in handing down transfer bans and FFP; Levy and co found gettable alternatives who weren't total punts who have since proven to be thoroughly decent and Poch turned them down.

Agree but I think you mean overestimated.

Saw a graphic about our top ten record signings a few days ago, and you can only say 1 of those (Son) has been a real success.

Tanguay - €60m
Sanchez - €42m
Sissoko - €35m
GLC - €32m
Bergwijn - €30m
Lamella - €30m
Soldado - €30m
Reguillon - €30m
Son - €30m
Moura -€29m

These are rounded figures (before anyone haggles over the amounts) but that is an awful lot of money spent on poor recruitment (mostly in the recent past) and has a big part to play. Whenever we spend big we get it horribly wrong like no other.

I agree partly, we do better building stars than buying them mostly, same with managers going big name or flavour of the month rarely works out.

Tanguay - €60m Anybody watching him would have said that fee was fair and he should be a big hit. Needs a pre-season.
Sanchez - €42m Had a lot of the attributes required and his first season most would say that fee was going to be a bargain.
Sissoko - €35m Never made sense especially at that fee, the only time he was worth that was the year he got player of the year.
GLC - €32m I hadn't seen enough of him, when he's been fit & on form he's been worth the fee; badly needs a trouble free pre-season.
Bergwijn - €30m Needs a run of games and a boost of confidence, badly needs a trouble free pre-season.
Lamella - €30m Total enigma, lot of bad luck, has been poor value for money.
Soldado - €30m Poor bastard, price tag got to him and ate him alive, the fee wasn't bad for what we thought we were getting.
Reguillon - €30m He'll come good if we play 3 at the back with wing backs, needs to calm down and a pre-season.
Son - €30m Apart from going walk-about at key stages of the season, no complaints.
Moura -€29m Has never had a position nailed down for as long as I've known about him, nice guy but a signing from football manager.

 

[ackie]

Levy can’t directly be blamed for that performance tonight...

Seriously?!
Who sacked JM at the wrong time?
Who chose Mason as the coach?
Who refuses to sell these players and invest properly in the squad?

He has to be blamed...
He is responsible.

It's all about money...

 

[ackie]

Some people really don't pay attention so allow me to help with some of the bits above, Grealish wasn't penny pinching it was Villa getting new owners and promising the fans of his new club that their star asset wouldn't be sold.

Dybala was entirely down to image rights, Juve were in a pickle so the transfer fee was doable but then the player/his agent/rights holders wanter Spurs to buy out the tangled web of his image rights; which would've taken a 60 million transfer up closer to 90 million and even then it still smelt like as soon as the image rights were haggled far bigger clubs than us would've then swooped in, long story short it smelt like we were being used.

Fernandes I'm not sure what happened there.

Skriniar would've gotten done but Inter kept playing silly buggers.

Jansen was a Poch pick, the N's were total punts from someones scouting book, Paulhinio no idea but he ended up at Barca as part of a money laundering scheme, Sissoko deservedly got voted as fans player of the year once but I've no idea who or why that transfer happened and certainly at that fee. Docherty was José first pick.

Sanchez showed promise and had attributes you'd look for in a CB, sadly there's something lacking and after Verts went the entire back line stopped communicating.

You say Levy refuses to sell players, the truth is the players we're in the market to shop from don't wish to move on to a club in a "lesser" league or to one not competing at the upper end of the league, for all the Levy is cheap narrative well it can't be too bad if players aren't wanting to move for less wages, plus players tend to either love or loath London making it even harder to shift them.

Does he value some of them too high at the expense of understanding the need to move them out of the squad on occasions? Yes but then he'd get pelters for selling too cheap!

I'm on record as saying I want Levy to move away from the football side of things as that's not his strength (certainly not since they grew the club to the size it is now)

There's a repetitive narrative that Levy didn't back Poch when it's an open secret that Poch wanted De Jong, De Ligt (and someone I forget) and Spurs couldn't compete with Barca or Juve on fee, wages or being more attractive options to the player, you can also add in part FIFA and UEFA being piss weak in handing down transfer bans and FFP; Levy and co found gettable alternatives who weren't total punts who have since proven to be thoroughly decent and Poch turned them down.



I agree partly, we do better building stars than buying them mostly, same with managers going big name or flavour of the month rarely works out.

Tanguay - €60m Anybody watching him would have said that fee was fair and he should be a big hit. Needs a pre-season.
Sanchez - €42m Had a lot of the attributes required and his first season most would say that fee was going to be a bargain.
Sissoko - €35m Never made sense especially at that fee, the only time he was worth that was the year he got player of the year.
GLC - €32m I hadn't seen enough of him, when he's been fit & on form he's been worth the fee; badly needs a trouble free pre-season.
Bergwijn - €30m Needs a run of games and a boost of confidence, badly needs a trouble free pre-season.
Lamella - €30m Total enigma, lot of bad luck, has been poor value for money.
Soldado - €30m Poor bastard, price tag got to him and ate him alive, the fee wasn't bad for what we thought we were getting.
Reguillon - €30m He'll come good if we play 3 at the back with wing backs, needs to calm down and a pre-season.
Son - €30m Apart from going walk-about at key stages of the season, no complaints.
Moura -€29m Has never had a position nailed down for as long as I've known about him, nice guy but a signing from football manager.

You make sense i admit.
But who chose the scouts?
We were better under a DOF at signing up and coming players...
We've wasted money on some of these players.
BTW Eriksen was a good investment and so too was walker. Both have moved on and won things.
I sincerely believe a DOF is vital dor progression now.

 

[cabinfever]

This team has no shame!

 

[Dougal]

Levy can’t directly be blamed for that performance tonight...

He’s like a one man wrecking ball at the moment as far as the football is concerned. It’s almost like he’s doing it on purpose. Surprised the team didn’t come to ‘Springtime for Hitler’ such is the level of self sabotage right now.

 

[Fredo]

 

[Stamford]

Van Der Vaart said "the problem is they (the players) think they're better than they are"

Spot on.

 

[Dougal]

Van Der Vaart said "the problem is they they (the players) think their better than they are"

Spot on.

Do they not watch the games back?

 

[Grapo2001]

Even our pints are shit

 

[Russ1201]

I know i still feel very upset about yet another terrible performance. I honestly think tbis is the worst spurs squad i have seen in 30 years of supporting them. I know we had had some average teams ovee the year, but the difference is atleast the players showed fight and passion. I can just about take a defeat but i can't take no passion or effort ! Disgusted

 

[Matthew]

I'm so sick of dele, Dier, winks being given multiple chances under different managers. Enough now.

thing is too, aren't these the three who have been running to the press all season? how do we repay them by doing this? play them every game! and watch each of them put in their shitty 2/10 performances - dier, not so much because you can tell he tries, it's just, well he's not very good! but dele and winks can fuck right off.

 

[Matthew]

Well if you wanted everything to make the Board and Mr Levy have a rethink - I think we have found the perfect storm.

no chance, he don't give a flying fuck.

 

[rez9000]

I know i still feel very upset about yet another terrible performance. I honestly think tbis is the worst spurs squad i have seen in 30 years of supporting them. I know we had had some average teams ovee the year, but the difference is atleast the players showed fight and passion. I can just about take a defeat but i can't take no passion or effort ! Disgusted

Agreed. It's not so much ability that's the problem - it's that now-almost-cliched term: mentality.

Whatever one wants to call it - attitude, fight, passion, whatever. This has been fundamentally eroded over the last four years or so.

Mark Twain said, "find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” Most football players love playing football (there are odd exceptions, but not many), so what is it that makes this group so limp, so quick to capitulate, so obviously not enjoying the job you'd expect them to love?

 

[Russ1201]

Agreed. It's not so much ability that's the problem - it's that now-almost-cliched term: mentality.

Whatever one wants to call it - attitude, fight, passion, whatever. This has been fundamentally eroded over the last four years or so.

Mark Twain said, "find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” Most football players love playing football (there are odd exceptions, but not many), so what is it that makes this group so limp, so quick to capitulate, so obviously not enjoying the job you'd expect them to love?

So true mate very well said, probably a bit of an extreme view but i wish levy stopped their pay after that game, im still reeling. Players don't care something deeply wrong throughout the club. Dreading next season without Kane.

 

[Jamturk]

Oh and by the way the omission of Lucas Moura by Mason is borderline criminal.