The Daily ITK Discussion Thread - 4th July 2014

[sammy j]

Top six and to give the top four a run for their money , and some pride in the lillywhite , would be fine with me

 

[rabbikeane]

I have faith in us getting 4th at times, but we need to be realistic and understand it won't happen every season due to the money invested from owners at clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City crowding out the 4 Champions League spots in the Premier League. 4th will be a high point for us, shouldn't be a demand.
It's possible to be one of the 10 best clubs in the world, yet still not be 4th in the Premier League.

 

[Teddy Klinsmann]

Man Ure have brought in players without LVG holding a single training session, or being at a PL game last season. Poch has just come through a PL season where he has played Spurs twice and seen (possibly) seventy odd games last season, yet he cannot determine where Spurs need to strengthen without seeing a half fit side train some of whom were at the WC up to yesterday?

I would be sorely disappointed if this is the case.

But what makes you think Poch doesn't know and we aren't actively working behind the scenes to secure the required players. Still very early days, window open 4 days.

 

[Led's Zeppelin]

Man Ure have brought in players without LVG holding a single training session, or being at a PL game last season. Poch has just come through a PL season where he has played Spurs twice and seen (possibly) seventy odd games last season, yet he cannot determine where Spurs need to strengthen without seeing a half fit side train some of whom were at the WC up to yesterday?

I would be sorely disappointed if this is the case.

Maybe LVG has more money available to spend than our new manager has, and can afford to take more risks.

Maybe Pochettino isn't really going to wait 4 weeks before trying to bring anyone in.

Who knows?

 

[shelfboy68]

I look at what Dortmund have done in BL, at what AM did last season in La Liga and what the likes of Lille and Montpellier achieved in Lique 1 in recent seasons to show that despite bigger clubs with far more resources teams can still find success.
I wouldn't want to support a club that had no ambition, that simply chose not to try and strengthen and improve the team because they thought other clubs had more money. That is absolutely no way to go about gaining success because with that attitude you are beaten before you even start.
In recent seasons we have become a side that has become a serious CL challenger, now we need to become a regular CL qualifier and we won't do that sitting on our hands hoping that Danny Rose might become a left back or Kyle Naughton will become a right back. It doesn't mean we have to pay fortunes to get a top lb but it does mean we have to work hard scouting the players that can be the next top lb or rb. Porto and Dortmund have shown they can unearth some real talent without paying top prices and ones that are just looking for a bigger stage to show their talent. We have a good reputation of allowing players a platform to show they can be top players. Modric and Bale are a great advert for us, the PL is a great advert for us, London as a location is a great advert for us, our fans are a great advert for us, our training facility is a great advert for us. It's time we ignored the negatives and looked at the positives, stop accepting that teams will always be better than us, in recent seasons we have finished ahead of United, Chelsea, City and Liverpool high time we focussed on that and moved forward rather than crawl into a corner with out tail between our legs
I'm pretty sure if we weed out the poor placers and strengthen those areas with we will finish higher than we would if we ignore them, we can't worry about what others may or may not do, we need to focus on having a strong well balanced squad and playing the best we can. There's always an element of luck over a season, injuries, refs decisions, timing of fixtures, lucky goals against the run of play but first and foremost you have to build as much of your own luck as you can and failing to strengthen weaknesses or simply hoping that players who have consistently struggled are miraculously going to turn into good players is not the way to build that

You have made some good points but one of our problems is not that we cant finish above one of the Big teams if they have a bad season and we have a good one.
Its more that we cant stay there and maintain any form of challenge that would see the others take us seriously.

 

[Hoddle&Waddle]

THFCSPURS19 said: ↑
"If you relinquish your hope of us getting Top 4, like I and many others have done, life feels a lot better.

No reason to be negative next season. I'm just looking forward to some good football, further gelling of our squad and I'm hopeful of 6th place. Then, we can make strides forwards to trying to get into the CL. I would say that we are in a similar position Liverpool were in and look where they are now. And we have more positives than they did."

Hopeful of 6th suggests being happy with it imo

But thats not to say a few brilliant signings wouldnt change his mood I suspect. At the end of the day the club has to show us it wants to get top 4. But its early days in the window so lets hope...

 

[spursfan77]

From what I've seen elsewhere, Garay went for 12m
It does show how ridiculous it is to shop from Premier League clubs though,
Lovren 20m - Garay 12m.
And it is a good guideline as well to a possible asking price on Rojo

The price for lovren is just crazy. He's good but he's not worth that amount of money.

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

Maybe LVG has more money available to spend than our new manager has, and can afford to take more risks.

Maybe Pochettino isn't really going to wait 4 weeks before trying to bring anyone in.

Who knows?

Fact is LVG has acted swiftly, without the need of training sessions left, right and center. That's the sign of a confident manager.

 

[Barry Mead]

You have made some good points but one of our problems is not that we cant finish above one of the Big teams if they have a bad season and we have a good one.
Its more that we cant stay there and maintain any form of challenge that would see the others take us seriously.

I think we can, I think the biggest mistake we made was not strengthening the year we made CL, we needed greater depth of quality but failed to strengthen and so instead of maintaining top four whilst competing in the CL itself we dropped back to fifth. Then of course when we made fourth again the next season we missed out because the Chavs won it, however again we failed to really add some depth of quality and so missed out on third place by the faintest of margins
I don't really care how seriously the others take us, in fact the less serious they take us the better, we have shown we are capable of making top four and repeating it we just need a decent quality manager and to be prepared to add some quality to give the squad that extra depth. I think our biggest problem has not been the competition so much as a propensity to shoot ourselves in the foot at the point we should be stepping up

 

[Barry Mead]

Re Garay Benfica only received 6 mill euros because they only owned 40 pc, Real Madrid had retained 50 pc and Benfica Stars fund held 10 pc that they paid Benfica over a million for at the time he moved from Real. So the overall fee paid was 15 mill euros overall plus supposedly Zenit paid the agent fees. Still a good price for a quality CB but a lot more than Benfica received

 

[shelfboy68]

I think we can, I think the biggest mistake we made was not strengthening the year we made CL, we needed greater depth of quality but failed to strengthen and so instead of maintaining top four whilst competing in the CL itself we dropped back to fifth. Then of course when we made fourth again the next season we missed out because the Chavs won it, however again we failed to really add some depth of quality and so missed out on third place by the faintest of margins
I don't really care how seriously the others take us, in fact the less serious they take us the better, we have shown we are capable of making top four and repeating it we just need a decent quality manager and to be prepared to add some quality to give the squad that extra depth. I think our biggest problem has not been the competition so much as a propensity to shoot ourselves in the foot at the point we should be stepping up

Absolutley we never really kicked on from fourth and it would be interesting to know why but again i make you right regarding our ability to self implode something i cant see changing nor the top four for that matter.

 

[Blake Griffin]

Fact is LVG has acted swiftly, without the need of training sessions left, right and center. That's the sign of a confident manager.

that is not a fact.

 

[Darrkespur]

Fact is LVG has acted swiftly, without the need of training sessions left, right and center. That's the sign of a confident manager.

I think it's a sign of Van Gaal's style as a manager - he buys the players he wants and then adapts the team to fit those players. Pochettino's method (seeing all the players training and playing in friendlies, then changing things once he's assessed how the squad performs) is different but I don't see it as necessarily inferior or less confident.

There are risks with what we're doing in that some players will have moved over the first part of the summer, but I have a lot of respect for Pochettino for doing his due diligence before committing to any signings.

 

[Gedson100]

Fact is LVG has acted swiftly, without the need of training sessions left, right and center. That's the sign of a confident manager.

van Gaal has done nothing. He's at the World Cup.

It makes every sense to me for Poch to do a couple of weeks training to see who of the players is prepared to 'buy in' to his methods. 25 fully committed players will go a lot further than 20 committed ones and 5 bad eggs & if he can islolate any potential problems early & get Levy to ship them out it makes a lot of sense.

We also have a huge squad, so finding out to his satisfaction whether he can get anything out of players like Carroll or Falque or similar has a lot of value. We're not Man. City, we'll never have 25 superstars, so we need to be super prudent with the playing staff we already have & put the money we do spend in the right places.

 

[EQP]

van Gaal has done nothing. He's at the World Cup.

It makes every sense to me for Poch to do a couple of weeks training to see who of the players is prepared to 'buy in' to his methods. 25 fully committed players will go a lot further than 20 committed ones and 5 bad eggs & if he can islolate any potential problems early & get Levy to ship them out it makes a lot of sense.

We also have a huge squad, so finding out to his satisfaction whether he can get anything out of players like Carroll or Falque or similar has a lot of value. We're not Man. City, we'll never have 25 superstars, so we need to be super prudent with the playing staff we already have & put the money we do spend in the right places.

This. We brought Poch in to maximise our current squad's potential and get the new players gelling in a proper system.

 

[spursfan77]

Fact is LVG has acted swiftly, without the need of training sessions left, right and center. That's the sign of a confident manager.

I would more likely say experienced. I doubt pochettino lacks in confidence.

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

van Gaal has done nothing. He's at the World Cup.

No shit Sherlock.................


Sorry, but your'e seriously saying that LVG had no say in the current players brought in by Man Ure?

None whatsoever?

 

[SpurSince57]

Man Ure have brought in players without LVG holding a single training session, or being at a PL game last season. Poch has just come through a PL season where he has played Spurs twice and seen (possibly) seventy odd games last season, yet he cannot determine where Spurs need to strengthen without seeing a half fit side train some of whom were at the WC up to yesterday?

I would be sorely disappointed if this is the case.

The difference is that everyone's known that the United squad has been in decline for at least two or three seasons now, and that Ferguson's ability to wring every last drop of performance and then some more out of his players has papered over the cracks. Ours probably under-achieved last season (although I strongly doubt that even playing to its full potential it would have got the 80 points needed to pip Arsenal to fourth), and no-one really knows if last summer's signings, Eriksen aside, will really cut the mustard—the arguments on here are evidence of that.

 

[Cornpattbuck]

Sorry, but your'e seriously saying that LVG had no say in the current players brought in by Man Ure?

None whatsoever?

Well considering they were trying to buy both of them under Moyes already, it's probably more a case of him not disagreeing with the signings.

 

[Gedson100]

No shit Sherlock.................


Sorry, but your'e seriously saying that LVG had no say in the current players brought in by Man Ure?

None whatsoever?

van Gaal has always been a coach who works with what he's given.
He's unlikely to have had very much input into the signing of the players (especially since Herrara's been on the cards for more than 12 months) but will quite obviously have no objection to the quality of the players' they've bought.