Take a step back....

[TheGreenLily]

Yes the loss of modric and vdv certainly didn't help but king rarely played and avb inherited a good squad lets stop making excuses for poor results and poor defending.

Really, I don't think our squad is good people think it is, as I believe we have to many players are over hyped just because they play for us.

 

[llamafarmer]

Do you think there are 7 better teams than us on paper? If so who are they? 4th's gettable, Arsenal are weaker than last year with no Van Persie, Everton a good starting XI then struggling a bit, Newcastle have gone right downhill(failed to strengthen and build on last years success) or do you think Liverpool are better than us cos everyone on here doesn't think so, there's even a 'Lets all laugh at Liverpool thread' and people saying they're a one man team. 4th's there for the taking, no one should pretend it isn't

Absolutely, we were 4th until an admittedly shit result against Wigan, then we had to go away to the fantasy football team and away again to probably our biggest rivals for 4th and play 70+ minutes with 10 men.

West Brom and Ham will fall away and I still think we'll fight it out for 4th with Arsenal and Everton and even if we end up 6th I still think that's a reasonable start for a new manager with the squad we have.

 

[sbrustad]

Yes the loss of modric and vdv certainly didn't help but king rarely played and avb inherited a good squad lets stop making excuses for poor results and poor defending.

You have to remember that the one (or two) world class midfielders we had in our team last year was extremely good at keeping possession, and they were also a safe outlet for the likes of Walker, Sandro or any other player you can name that are now struggling with pass completion. You can just see the team is lacking confidence and we're not playing well at all. I was hoping that as soon as Dembélé managed to gel with the other players we'd see a different Spurs side and we did.. For about two matches until he was injured.

AVB inherited a good team, but we sold our two best midfielders. Add to that our best central defender and left back got injured very early in the season. Dempsey and Sigurdsson have been disappointing and not even shadows of what they were last season for their respective teams. They are also hardly close to VDV in terms of ability. Dembélé looks promising, but 1: He's injured and 2: Lets be honest, Modric is/was a world class midfielder, Mousa isn't. He may become one, but at the moment it looks like we bought a 15 million sicknote.

Can't help but feel sorry for AVB. Yes, some of his decisions have been a bit strange, but don't tell me Redknapp didn't make a lot of strange "mistakes" in his time with us.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Do you think there are 7 better teams than us on paper? If so who are they? 4th's gettable, Arsenal are weaker than last year with no Van Persie, Everton a good starting XI then struggling a bit, Newcastle have gone right downhill(failed to strengthen and build on last years success) or do you think Liverpool are better than us cos everyone on here doesn't think so, there's even a 'Lets all laugh at Liverpool thread' and people saying they're a one man team. 4th's there for the taking, no one should pretend it isn't

I think it's a case of their being a bunch of teams for one reason or another (some stronger in some areas than others, some like us have injuries, some have better coaches than others etc etc) that can this season viably compete for 4th down to 9th or so. We are one of them. If we get players fit, maybe make a decent signing or two in Jan and AVB can start to coach something into them we could easily compete for 4th, if we continue with injuries, and AVB struggles to get performance from what he's left with, we could struggle.

There's a quantum difference between:

Freidel
walker Gallas Caulker Vert
---------Sandro----Hudd
Lennon-------Dempsey-----Bale
---------------Defoe

And

Lloris
Decent RB----Kaboul----vert----Ekotto
---Parker-------Sandro----Dembele
NewGoodPlayer-------Adebayor---------Bale


IMO.

 

[wishkah]

Really, I don't think our squad is good people think it is, as I believe we have to many players are over hyped just because they play for us.

we had an average squad, then Jenas went out on loan which upgraded us to good.

 

[SNAFU_Clarke]

Redknapp also finished mid table the first season (-8 games) he took over.

More importantly he also managed just 6 points from 9 games from the end of February to the end of April last season, and he had a full squad that included Modric, VDV, Parker, Adebayor, Saha, Pienaar, Kranjcar, King, Kaboul, Ekotto. None of those options AVB has had at his disposal.

I think AVB has made mistakes, I am not overly impressed with everything I'm seeing, but there is a lot of important missing detail in your caveats. What a club achieved before a manager arrives is irrelevant if the following season you are playing most games with maybe 4/5 of those players (and most of them are the best ones from the previous year)

Redknapp was given about £100m+ in his first couple of windows. I don't think AVB has spent a single penny of his own choosing so far and has been lumbered with half the team Redknapp managed to win 4 of his last 13 games with.

personally i think you're on extremely dodgy ground bringing up redknapp's 8th place finish after taking over 8 games in with the team bottom of the league. do you feel that league finish reflected badly on him as a manager?

it's impossible to deny that the final part of last season was poor. thankfully the first part of the season was about as good as i can remember any spurs team playing so the overall finish of 4th, (our joint highest finish in 20 odd years, matched only by his own efforts two seasons prior), still had him considerably in credit.

i agree that injuries have not been kind to villas boas but in terms of the squad it has to be up to him in some measure to get the squad he wants. if he doesn't get that, because of levy or whatever, he still has a share of the blame for that. there is no point judging him before he gets a chance to work with some of our better players, i agree with that. hence my belief that 6-8th and progress in developing an identity on the pitch is acceptable. others believe we're nailed on for top 6.

which players make up the £100m+ you've mentioned? i'm not much cop at finding this information but alongside the £70m he apparently got in the first window that i can find no evidence for, i'm struggling to find much to support a £100m+ outlay no matter how you define 'few'. i'm sure you're not lying though so i'd be interested to see the figures because i am actually interested. levy has to back villas boas to at least the same extent he did redknapp to expect the same results.

i think the line about villas boas not spending a penny of his own choosing is a red herring. if he hasn't got it about him to impose his will in terms of players brought in then he is always going to be in big trouble. he has no excuses on this front in my opinion although i do understand others will view this issue differently.

 

[SNAFU_Clarke]

Do you think there are 7 better teams than us on paper? If so who are they? 4th's gettable, Arsenal are weaker than last year with no Van Persie, Everton a good starting XI then struggling a bit, Newcastle have gone right downhill(failed to strengthen and build on last years success) or do you think Liverpool are better than us cos everyone on here doesn't think so, there's even a 'Lets all laugh at Liverpool thread' and people saying they're a one man team. 4th's there for the taking, no one should pretend it isn't

firstly it's a cliche but it's true; football isn't played on paper. in this thread people have made reference to ramos' league cup winning side and i have pointed out that he got an 11th placed finish that season. that's in the record books. were there 10 better teams than us that season 'on paper'? maybe, maybe not. the point is that it doesn't matter. that's how good we were after we'd played everyone home and away.

it's a bit daft getting into naming the teams that i think could finish above us this season as we just get into an excerise of saying "what? xfc are rubbish. you know nothing." one thing i would say on that is that you're in trouble if you go around thinking you're better than other teams simply because of who you are and they are as a club. wigan beat us. are they better than us on paper? probably not, but they were better than us on the day.

i also think it's pretty daft to have a 'let's all laugh at liverpool' thread. i'd say they have made more progress than us so far this season. they have an identity and a gameplan. i wouldn't be at all surprised if we were less inclined to laugh at liverpool this time next season.

 

[SNAFU_Clarke]

which players make up the £100m+ you've mentioned? i'm not much cop at finding this information but alongside the £70m he apparently got in the first window that i can find no evidence for, i'm struggling to find much to support a £100m+ outlay no matter how you define 'few'.

:tumbleweed:

 

[LeSoupeKitchen]

Isn't the original post the exact opposite of taking a step back?

 

[ShelfSide18]

I think it's a case of their being a bunch of teams for one reason or another (some stronger in some areas than others, some like us have injuries, some have better coaches than others etc etc) that can this season viably compete for 4th down to 9th or so. We are one of them. If we get players fit, maybe make a decent signing or two in Jan and AVB can start to coach something into them we could easily compete for 4th, if we continue with injuries, and AVB struggles to get performance from what he's left with, we could struggle.

There's a quantum difference between:

Freidel
walker Gallas Caulker Vert
---------Sandro----Hudd
Lennon-------Defoe-----Bale


And

Lloris
Decent RB----Kaboul----vert----Ekotto
---Parker-------Sandro----Dembele
NewGoodPlayer-------Adebayor---------Bale


IMO.

One of those quantum differences is your first side has only 10 men, and Defoe, so technically 9 men and the way Walker has been playing recently lets make it 8.

I agree though, minus the facetiousness.

We need a good wide player no doubt, but I think more of a priority is a CM passer, obviously we were after Moutinho but I think that dream has gone. Our CM has looked so devoid of tempo this season it's been tragic - one very simple improvement would be to select the correct Tom in CM, Carroll not Hudd.

It's just depressing that last season we had Modric and VDV, now we're back to watching Huddlestone and Dempsey.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

One of those quantum differences is your first side has only 10 men, and Defoe, so technically 9 men and the way Walker has been playing recently lets make it 8.

I agree though, minus the facetiousness.

We need a good wide player no doubt, but I think more of a priority is a CM passer, obviously we were after Moutinho but I think that dream has gone. Our CM has looked so devoid of tempo this season it's been tragic - one very simple improvement would be to select the correct Tom in CM, Carroll not Hudd.

It's just depressing that last season we had Modric and VDV, now we're back to watching Huddlestone and Dempsey.

Oops, edited. Still bad as not sure Dempsey counts.

 

[worcestersauce]

Who has he fallen out with and refused to pick?

Just started reading this thread and I thought exactly this! I've now read through all four pages and nobody has answered it yet.
Unless of course, he fell out with Kaboul, Parker and BAE?
The whole premise of the opening post is flawed.

 

[JAYSTAR]

AVB is doing a good job with the cards he's been dealt IMO - unfortunately he didn't have pre-season to 'try things out' and seems to have been doing that during the actual season. If I was manager, I'd probably do the same.
I might not leave it so long to drop Friedel, but I'd definitely want to work out if Ade and Defoe should play together or if 4 3 3 will work. And all the time I'd be wanting to test out the up and coming youth players.
Given all the injuries and AVB's slight blind spot about Hudds and Gallas - we've got to give the man a break.

If we do manage to bring in Willian - who can play no. 10 (my preferred choice) or if Dembele ends up there, he can supercede Lennon and just put pressure on Bale to pull his finger out and work harder) we'll have a pretty ridiculously good team with tried out youth players ready to fill in as cover and half decent players on the bench (Although we could do with another winger as cover):

LLoris (Friedel)
Walker (needs to be next to Kaboul and is covered by Naughton)
Kaboul (Caulker)
Verts (Gallas or Dawson)
BAE (Rose or Naughton)
Sandro (Parker)
Dembele (Carroll or Parker)
Willian (Falque or Dembele if Willian plays wide and Parker plays)
Lennon (Willian or Townsend?)
Ade (Defoe or Dempsey?!)
Bale (Willian, Rose or Sigurdson)

 

[JimmyG2]

Don't do the press's job for them.
Watch the games, enjoy the good: pick the on-field bad to pieces on here.
kick the cat ,swear at the missis or vica versa if that's your thing
and leave all the behind the scenes stuff alone.
We don't really know what's going on and it doesn't really matter.

 

[mrlilywhite]

What people seem to miss is that Avb inherited a team that was already on the down-turn, He also lost two world class players with at least one of those being the ideal playmaker that his system needs to help flourish. I believe that Avb is fully aware of just how big a rebuild job needs doing at Spurs to make our team an Avb team. It is unfair to turn around and say that Avb has ruined us and does not have a clue after less than half a season. My personal belief from watching most of our games under Avb is that he really is not comfortable playing away from his system and beliefs and tbh you could say that about any manager who starts at a new club.

Avb obviously tried to shoe-horn our team into his system, Not because he thought it would work, more to do with highlighting the positions he needs to evaluate to make his style work. He can see that he does not have the quality of player(s) to fulfil what he needs for the way he likes his team to play, So has now started to revert to a system that on the whole is more of a fit for the players we need. Avb`s teams always play a high line to compliment the pressing nature of his system, but how can you expect Dawson, Gallas or Caulker to play so high if they don`t have what is required, I am not sure if Vertonghen can play that high either.

Whether or not he makes us a success depends very much largely on how much support he is given, He needs the board to back him with the funds to bring the players in and this needs to be a certain quality and that certain quality will cost us a fair bit of money. We can only judge Avb on the players he chooses, because those will be the ones that he thinks can play "His" way, Until then we must give him time. It is very hard to look at the positives when the Scum are turning us over or we ain`t won a game for x amount of time but right now it is what it is. If Levy and co don`t back him then we will see just how good he really is or not. I have said before, Is he a one trick pony or is he the real deal? At the moment I am sitting on the fence, though you have to ask yourself, What has he achieved with-out his fabled style? We will only know this answer if we give him time.

Just out of curiosity, How well would Harry have coped with our team as it is in it`s current state? Remember you can only judge how good someone is when they have all the tools at their disposal.