The sliding doors moment

[southlondonyiddo]

Sissoko handball 20 seconds into the Champions League Final. Had we won that game we would always have that triumph to look back on that even Levy couldn’t take away with subsequent financial buffoonery. But it’s gone. And here we are.

I actually think if we’d beaten Chelsea in the FA Cup semi final where Walker was dropped was a huge moment for us

It was the beginning of the end for that group

 

[skiba]

Summer 2018. We had got through the season at Wembley (or so we thought) and we didn’t sign a single fucking player. That year away from WHL was always going to be tricky but to get through it with champions league football in the bag it was time to go again with Poch.

We did nothing and told the whole footballing world the extent of our ambition and we’ve been paying for it ever since.

 

[T-Bone]

The sliding doors moment was abramovich buying chelsea and not us

 

[cjbyid]

Loosing the champion's league final.

Although we all saw cracks appearing in Pochs last season.

Special shout-out for Daniel levy and the worst managerial search I've ever come across when we hired Nuno. That whole period was embarrassing.

 

[Oscar22]

Whilst everyone is reminiscing whilst considering this question, just thought I’d give you something to smile about…

 

[Neon_Knight_]

OP has gone back to a year before the infamous 2018 summer transfer window. With hindsight (but definitely not at the time) I'm tempted to go back another year earlier, to spring 2016 when Poch's job title was changed and he started to have more say in transfers. We signed Wanyama that window (a Poch signing at Southampton) and reportedly attempted to sign Mane (likely to have been scouted by Southampton before we poached Poch). Wanyama was a great signing, but the rest of our business was disappointing (Sissoko, Nkoudou & Janssen).

None of our signings the following year lived up to expectations and then we went 18 months without signing anyone - apparently because Poch couldn't have his primary targets and wouldn't settle for anyone else.

Then we spaffed big money on Ndombele, Lo Celso & Sessegnon...all of which falied to live up to expectations (like every other signing of the past 3 years)...and we all know what happened next.

Had we appointed a decent DoF, instead of letting Poch dictate our transfer targets, things could have been very different.

 

[Joe Bjorn Hotspur]

Most of the previous points are spot on. For me they’d be categorised as sliding doors off the pitch: not signing a single player in 2018/19 which I think coincided with Paul Mitchell, head of recruitment leaving. This to me was huge, since then our recruitment has been woeful. Under Mitchell’s watch Deli, Son, Trippier, Toby were signed up.

On the pitch the knock on effect with the above decline which started to show through when we couldn’t win away from home in the league for nearly a year: the Champions League final year (this mentality seeped into the final).

Never having squad depth and quality to challenge those who were in that squad for a number of years which highlighted the fragility of the team and club‘s mentality: this has marinated for years and now we don’t have an identity. People going round in circles, we’ve all fallen for the winner project in Jose & Conte and realised that the board will not back these types of win now managers. It’s got to a stage of a never ending sense of Deja vu. I want the club to go back to the strategy under 2016-2018 Poch period and admit that they’ve got it completely wrong with footballing matters and be honest with us all and say we will always be a club for a project manager who seeks to put an attacking style of play first, this time do it don’t just say it and then hire another Nuno.

 

[rossdapep]

The lack of direction was clear for me when we went from Jose to Nuno.
I get why Levy hired Jose because he thought we had winners but not the winning manager.
it’s been somewhat of a downward slide since we signed no players in that summer for poch, although we got the CL final in that season the slide had somewhat started.

Yeah, that is true. Ten Hag, Potter etc quite a few there who we could have really pushed for.

I think when you stick to the same kind of coach, as Poch, you're not deviating too far from the strategy/style of play/players recruited etc.

Jose was a massive deviation. But when FP came in, the signings returned back towards the former, yet we brought in Nuno who isnt that kind of coach.

But truthfully, I think we backed ourselves into that corner

 

[rossdapep]

Sissoko handball 20 seconds into the Champions League Final. Had we won that game we would always have that triumph to look back on that even Levy couldn’t take away with subsequent financial buffoonery. But it’s gone. And here we are.

Yeah I think that would certainly have meant we wouldnt have needed to down the Jose or Conte route.

There's also no chance he fires Poch even with poor form or even hires Jose. Jose was thirsting for the job but a CL win would end that.

Poch gets the season, if he left I think he'd have left of his own accord and noone would have been on board going for Jose cause there'd be no reason to appoint him as the "we need to win a trophy" argument would have been dead in the water.

Not sure where we'd have gone after that mind

 

[Ghost Hardware]

Loosing the champion's league final.

Although we all saw cracks appearing in Pochs last season.

Special shout-out for Daniel levy and the worst managerial search I've ever come across when we hired Nuno. That whole period was embarrassing.

The more time that passes the more absolutely farcical the appointment of Nuno, and that entire manager search in general, was. The length of time we had to pick the perfect replacement, one that would be a step back towards the classic attacking Spurs ethos and after months of deliberation we decide Nuno was that man… and that was only after we almost appointed Guttoso. I mean how lost can a club be. We literally had months to find the right man, ETH for example would have come here 100%. He was such an obvious pick to the majority of fans. The only reason we ended up with Conte is because Levy panicked after making one of the worst appointments in the club’s history even tho he had all the time in the world.

Our clubs lack of forward planning never ceases to amaze me.

 

[gavspur]

Selling Gazza
Selling Carrick
Selling Berbatov (who would have been in the same team as Carrick had we not sold him)
Son at LWB FA Cup semi

and that’s just a few. There are plenty more.

 

[mpickard2087]

As I’ve said many times before, what went wrong is what we did without the football. But unfortunately very few – managers, players, club management, even fans – realise it, prioritise it, and have done anything about it.

It’s always said that the ones with the most money win at football, that might be true, but if you look back over history very very often these winning teams had extremely high standards for their off the ball/defensive/work rate, if not setting new standards and defensive/pressing concepts altogether.

Poch’s outfit took Spurs to new heights (PL era at least) not because it was clearly the most talented – Redknapp’s team would want to battle for that accolade – it was because for once you had a Tottenham side that could roll it’s sleeves up and run hard and work and battle and put in a shift with such intensity that opponents week after week after week couldn’t live with. The football, and tempo of it, was played off the back of that.

Individually there were no shirkers. Kane ran through brick walls for the cause back then. Alli would press – usually badly, but at least keenly. Eriksen, contrary to the narrative, was, having been educated at Ajax, actually quite good for a long time at getting a toe in and/or blocking passing lanes and quietly covering a ton of ground doing it. Lamela would run around like a madman kicking people. In midfield, we started with two raw bundles of aggression and energy in Mason and Bentaleb as building blocks, and refined it to the unique brickwall uber-presence of Dembele and Wanyama’s ball winning capabilities as his partner. On the flanks you had Rose and Walker, neither could cross a ball to save their lives but they were two ultra aggressive little fuckers with jet engines strapped to them who dominated both sides of the pitch. At the back Toby and Jan had zero pace for a high line, didn’t matter though because we pressed, and compressed, so well that teams rarely, if ever, could exploit that.

We had about two - two and a half years, from Autumn 2014 to the end of 16/17 where the standards were put in place and we worked our bollocks off every single week (and could be quite nasty at times, remember the endless complaints about our tactical fouling from other fans?). But I remember even towards the end of that 16/17 campaign, the one most would say we peaked, I was writing about warning signs and starting to see things I didn’t like from the team and individuals regarding the press etc. (usually to disagreeing ratings, or replies of “u wot m8” or “just enjoy us winning ffs”). But at that time the team as an entity was flying and in such a groove and opponents so scared of us that it didn’t matter. But the signs were there.

After that, it was just downhill in these facets and to me it’s no surprise results/performances followed. But was this ever realised and taken into account? I don’t see much evidence of that. For the way we played frequent refreshing of the players was needed tbh, the core components as much as anyone. When we talk about “painful rebuild” what the criteria really should have been, under PochBall, is who couldn’t reach those high high standards anymore, and this very much included the star names, and no one had the bollocks to do it – Poch as much as anyone, despite what the narrative of him being let down claims. Signings hardly fitted the mould in terms of aggression and athleticism either, you either got players who didn’t offer this or in the case of someone like Sissoko absurdly off the scale in bringing this as to forsake any footballing nous or ability. So all in all it’s no surprise the team declined and fell apart.

I don’t think this ever changes. Fans, understandably, focus pretty much totally on what the team does with the ball. But it is what you do without it for me that wins you football matches consistently and determines the level that you can reach. I mean even now under Conte our best performances (and results) almost always come about when we’re good without the ball – every individual working hard, organised disciplined shape, compact, reduce time/space, etc.

Until we hit those highest of standards, and are more consistent in it, to our approach when we don’t have the ball - whoever is the owner, manager, or players – then we’ll continue to be looking back and wondering where it all went wrong and if/when we’ll ever get back there…….

 

[Trent Crimm]

Levy thinking Poch was the problem and thinking that another manager could extract more out of the same limited squad. Downhill from there.

 

[cjbyid]

The more time that passes the more absolutely farcical the appointment of Nuno, and that entire manager search in general, was. The length of time we had to pick the perfect replacement, one that would be a step back towards the classic attacking Spurs ethos and after months of deliberation we decide Nuno was that man… and that was only after we almost appointed Guttoso. I mean how lost can a club be. We literally had months to find the right man, ETH for example would have come here 100%. He was such an obvious pick to the majority of fans. The only reason we ended up with Conte is because Levy panicked after making one of the worst appointments in the club’s history even tho he had all the time in the world.

Our clubs lack of forward planning never ceases to amaze me.

It was baffling.

I'm pretty sure at one stage conte was close to joining that summer but we were put off by his demands.

Then literally 3 months later after sacking Nuno we appointed him?

It was hilariously bad and still is!

 

[rossdapep]

Probably outside the club. Chelsea getting bought by Abramovich and City getting bought by AD. We would have won titles without them coming in the league and gotten players like Eden Hazard.

I mostly meant in the Poch era. I should have defined that but yeah that's a big one but mostly for the landscape of football.

 

[rossdapep]

The more time that passes the more absolutely farcical the appointment of Nuno, and that entire manager search in general, was. The length of time we had to pick the perfect replacement, one that would be a step back towards the classic attacking Spurs ethos and after months of deliberation we decide Nuno was that man… and that was only after we almost appointed Guttoso. I mean how lost can a club be. We literally had months to find the right man, ETH for example would have come here 100%. He was such an obvious pick to the majority of fans. The only reason we ended up with Conte is because Levy panicked after making one of the worst appointments in the club’s history even tho he had all the time in the world.

Our clubs lack of forward planning never ceases to amaze me.

Yeah it really was a colossal disaster.

I remember spending that entire summer expecting the club to realise ETH was actually the right call or at the very least appoint someone like Valverde, Inzaghi or a coach who played more expansive football even if it wasnt a coach we were in board with.

When Nuno's name popped up earlier in the window and my mate said he thinks it will be Nuno and then Simon Jordan said "thats the one" when Jim White read off a list of potentials, I was like NO CHANCE!

I kinda let FP off with it because he had just walked through the door and Levy had clearly already exhausted a list. But still, that should have been discussed at the time of FPs appointment and that the club needed a positive appointment after the sobering prior years.

We had just been in the CL final, we had Kane and Son, we are a relatively big club...I refuse to believe ambitious progressive coaches were rejecting us or not interested.

 

[Darrenh61]

Missing out on mane in the summer of 2016 as levy wouldnt meet his wage demands. He would have potentially turned some runners up positions to first in my view. Many a time I feel he would have opened up games for us with his pace.
i also agree with earlier message re Saha and nelson windows and zero in/zero out windows.
i dont understand levy/tavistock, they go 75/80% of the way and never finish the job, so frustrating.

 

[rossdapep]

I dont think there has been a sliding doors moment. Our aspirations as a club imo is to be a top 4 club and if we're lucky we steal a pot here and there, which we've been close to doing on a few occasions but never got over the line.

But dont you think there was a window where we could have cemented ourselves and stayed up there a little longer?

Also a trophy or 2 probably would have led to more

 

[TheChosenOne]

Sissoko handball 20 seconds into the Champions League Final. Had we won that game we would always have that triumph to look back on that even Levy couldn’t take away with subsequent financial buffoonery. But it’s gone. And here we are.

An absolute lifetime’s worth of bragging rights shot down in seconds.
Everything since that night has been nothing but a going through the motions purgatory for the fans who almost 4 years later having lived through the abject misery of Covid-19 now watch other teams who have got their acts together and actually bought players to win trophies.
But Tottenham Hotscrooge won’t spend wisely.

 

[rossdapep]

I agree with the sentiment about summer 2017, I think there have been lots since then and it seems like with hindsight every time we have made the wrong choice.

I actually think the next few months have the potential to be even bigger. We will likely have to deal with a new manager, new DOF, making a decision regarding our star player(s), moving on numerous squad players all whilst seemingly negotiating potential investment.

I know we have said it about previous manager searches, transfer windows etc. But, I cannot think of a more important period regarding the decision making at the club in recent years. Every decision will have to be spot on, we cannot afford any mistakes. I don't trust or expect the board to get all these decisions right and honestly even if their track record was better I would find it difficult to believe they would get everything right as there is so much change needed at the club.

I have a horrible feeling we will look back in years to come and ask, why did they not part ways with Conte to allow the new manager to analyse the squad? Why didn't they replace Paratici earlier? Why did/didn't they bring back Poch? Why did they sell Kane to a rival or why did they let him leave on a free transfer when they could have got £X for him?

I've long given up any expectation that we will compete at the very top regularly. I hope we can be around the top of the league with the occasional good season where we challenge or win a cup. I do worry if we get these decisions wrong we could fall way behind the state owned/financially doped clubs.

Some great questions there and some real valid concerns.

Its very easy to sit here and say that everything will improve if we have a new DOF, who fits this club, and he gets a coach that also fits the mould with a more aligned strategy.

But if we get both of those installed in July (like we did with FP and Nuno) then we leave ourselves little time to get the right plagers and the coach gets little prep time.

We will find out FPs fate later this month I think, so if he is a goner, id bet Conte will be too in the summer.

If FP is staying he needs to get some commitment from Conte, if not he needs to start a process of identifying the next coach so the button can be pressed 1st June.

If FP is out, get the new DOF in as soon as possible and have them start the process.

Of course, that new DOF is likely to be in a job until June, so we would likely need to sell it more and have the performance director get to work on that too.