Three Defeats in a Row

[SUIYHA]

I've been so angry for the last two hours I couldn't even bring myself to watch the Liverpool game. How the hell did we lose tonight? We were in complete control until they equalised. Enough has been said about the substitutions etc in the other threads so I'm not going to get into that again. At the moment it feels like we can't do anything right, it feels like there's a long dark period coming and that the good times are over.

And then...I realised why it hurts so bad. This is the first time we've lost three in a row under Poch. And in fact, we used to lose three in a row at least once pretty much every season before Poch. I was wondering when the last time was, so I imagine some of you are. So here it is, back under Sherwood in 2014:

Chelsea 4-0 Tottenham
Tottenham 1-3 Benfica
Tottenham 0-1 Arsenal

Resultswise, he'd actually had a fairly good start to his Tottenham career, but this was where it all fell apart. That meltdown interview where he called the players out after the Chelsea game. His touchline shenanigans with Benfica's manager. And then the Arsenal defeat effectively had us out of the CL race.

Before that it also happened to AVB a year earlier:

Liverpool 3-2 Tottenham
Inter 4-1 Tottenham
Tottenham 0-1 Fulham

Similar set of teams to our current run. We'd been on a really good run of form going into this and were winning at Anfield before we made some horrendous defensive mistakes to let them take the points. You could argue that Inter wasn't a defeat as we won the game on aggregate, but it was a shocking performance and the fact that they took us to extra time when we had a three goal head start was awful. That extra time meant we flopped against Fulham, who of course beat us with Dimitar fucking Berbatov scoring against us at the Lane. Had we even drawn that match we'd have got Champions League football and AVB may have saved his job...

A year earlier, and guess what...it happened to Redknapp...

Tottenham 1-2 Norwich
Tottenham 1-5 Chelsea
QPR 1-0 Tottenham

These were arguably the most painful three. Watching Ledley get ripped to pieces by Grant Holt put it beyond all reasonable doubt that his career was over. Then that horrific capitulation against Chelsea that I don't even want to talk about. QPR looked like they were about to get relegated, surely we'd turn it around against them? Oh no, Adel Taraabt, that outcast we'd binned scored a free-kick against us and we lost. Again, we missed out on Champions League football by a single point and Redknapp also lost his job.


What's worrying is that there appears to be a clear trend here, when our managers lose three in a row they don't tend to stay in a job for much longer afterwards. Poch has never really had the kind of criticism he's having now because whenever we've lost a game we've usually turned it around in the next game or two. Here we appear to be in a prolonged run of bad form. It does concern me is that the only time he's been in a situation like this it ended up with him leaving Espanyol. I think we all hope he can turn things around, but for the first time since he's been here I've started to wonder what this might mean.

Maybe we just need to take a step back. To have gone four years without losing three in a row when it used to happen pretty much every year without fail means that perhaps we've been spoilt a bit lately. Still. It hurts. It fucking hurts.

Oh, and in case you're wondering. the last time we lost four in a row was in 2003 under Hoddle:

Man Utd 2-0 Tottenham
Middlesbrough 5-1 Tottenham
Tottenham 0-4 Blackburn
Birmingham 1-0 Tottenham

Needless to say, he didn't keep his job much longer after that.

Good night all. Hopefully we all feel better in the morning.

 

[yankspurs]

I've been so angry for the last two hours I couldn't even bring myself to watch the Liverpool game. How the hell did we lose tonight? We were in complete control until they equalised. Enough has been said about the substitutions etc in the other threads so I'm not going to get into that again. At the moment it feels like we can't do anything right, it feels like there's a long dark period coming and that the good times are over.

And then...I realised why it hurts so bad. This is the first time we've lost three in a row under Poch. And in fact, we used to lose three in a row at least once pretty much every season before Poch. I was wondering when the last time was, so I imagine some of you are. So here it is, back under Sherwood in 2014:

Chelsea 4-0 Tottenham
Tottenham 1-3 Benfica
Tottenham 0-1 Arsenal

Resultswise, he'd actually had a fairly good start to his Tottenham career, but this was where it all fell apart. That meltdown interview where he called the players out after the Chelsea game. His touchline shenanigans with Benfica's manager. And then the Arsenal defeat effectively had us out of the CL race.

Before that it also happened to AVB a year earlier:

Liverpool 3-2 Tottenham
Inter 4-1 Tottenham
Tottenham 0-1 Fulham

Similar set of teams to our current run. We'd been on a really good run of form going into this and were winning at Anfield before we made some horrendous defensive mistakes to let them take the points. You could argue that Inter wasn't a defeat as we won the game on aggregate, but it was a shocking performance and the fact that they took us to extra time when we had a three goal head start was awful. That extra time meant we flopped against Fulham, who of course beat us with Dimitar fucking Berbatov scoring against us at the Lane. Had we even drawn that match we'd have got Champions League football and AVB may have saved his job...

A year earlier, and guess what...it happened to Redknapp...

Tottenham 1-2 Norwich
Tottenham 1-5 Chelsea
QPR 1-0 Tottenham

These were arguably the most painful three. Watching Ledley get ripped to pieces by Grant Holt put it beyond all reasonable doubt that his career was over. Then that horrific capitulation against Chelsea that I don't even want to talk about. QPR looked like they were about to get relegated, surely we'd turn it around against them? Oh no, Adel Taraabt, that outcast we'd binned scored a free-kick against us and we lost. Again, we missed out on Champions League football by a single point and Redknapp also lost his job.


What's worrying is that there appears to be a clear trend here, when our managers lose three in a row they don't tend to stay in a job for much longer afterwards. Poch has never really had the kind of criticism he's having now because whenever we've lost a game we've usually turned it around in the next game or two. Here we appear to be in a prolonged run of bad form. It does concern me is that the only time he's been in a situation like this it ended up with him leaving Espanyol. I think we all hope he can turn things around, but for the first time since he's been here I've started to wonder what this might mean.

Maybe we just need to take a step back. To have gone four years without losing three in a row when it used to happen pretty much every year without fail means that perhaps we've been spoilt a bit lately. Still. It hurts. It fucking hurts.

Oh, and in case you're wondering. the last time we lost four in a row was in 2003 under Hoddle:

Man Utd 2-0 Tottenham
Middlesbrough 5-1 Tottenham
Tottenham 0-4 Blackburn
Birmingham 1-0 Tottenham

Needless to say, he didn't keep his job much longer after that.

Good night all. Hopefully we all feel better in the morning.

Common denominator: Daniel Levy.

 

[spursfan1991]

Common denominator: Daniel Levy.

Exactly, he is a good chairmen if you want the business to perform well which Spurs have done since he has been at the helm. However, he has failed on the pitch. 1 league cup (not sure if sugar was in charge of sol and graham cup win) is unacceptable for the club of our size.

He has failed to back 2 of our most successful managers and sides at crucial times. He has constantly dealt on deadline day costing us cruical points and qualifications.

Its time for him to go but sadly i dont think there are many better than him which is really confusing and hurting my head right now :-(

 

[Phomesy]

Exactly, he is a good chairmen if you want the business to perform well which Spurs have done since he has been at the helm. However, he has failed on the pitch. 1 league cup (not sure if sugar was in charge of sol and graham cup win) is unacceptable for the club of our size.

He has failed to back 2 of our most successful managers and sides at crucial times. He has constantly dealt on deadline day costing us cruical points and qualifications.

Its time for him to go but sadly i dont think there are many better than him which is really confusing and hurting my head right now :-(

There is no one "better" unless you consider "better" to be a corrupt oil slaver using Spurs to pink-wash their regime is "a good thing".

I don't. But that's just me.

 

[mrlilywhite]

There is no one "better" unless you consider "better" to be a corrupt oil slaver using Spurs to pink-wash their regime is "a good thing".

I don't. But that's just me.

Depends how much morals you place on winning things - Right now I would take that. I might even go as far as to welcome Arabs who fund terrorist organisations as our owners (ok maybe too far). I will take oligarchs on board though. As the old saying goes - if you cant beat them, join them.

 

[yankspurs]

Exactly, he is a good chairmen if you want the business to perform well which Spurs have done since he has been at the helm. However, he has failed on the pitch. 1 league cup (not sure if sugar was in charge of sol and graham cup win) is unacceptable for the club of our size.

He has failed to back 2 of our most successful managers and sides at crucial times. He has constantly dealt on deadline day costing us cruical points and qualifications.

Its time for him to go but sadly i dont think there are many better than him which is really confusing and hurting my head right now :-(

Bring me oil money. At least then we might have some investment in the squad

 

[spursfan1991]

Bring me oil money. At least then we might have some investment in the squad

I wish it was that simple, i just cant imagine there are many out there that are willing to do what the owners at psg, city and chelsea have done.

I think the frustrating thing is, under Redknapp and now poch, we had excellent sides. It didnt need billions pouring in. Just a few tweaks and it never happened. So sad.

 

[tttcowan]

I hope Poch can build a siege mentality off the back of this.
I hope the players take the abuse from everyone, some of our own fans included and use it for fuel.
I hope we wake up and start fighting again.
I hope we stick 5 past Brighton.

But Jesus Christ spurs. Dish out the biggest home defeat of Mourinhos career. And then pull this crap. It's impressive even by our standards.

 

[Phomesy]

Depends how much morals you place on winning things - Right now I would take that. I might even go as far as to welcome Arabs who fund terrorist organisations as our owners (ok maybe too far). I will take oligarchs on board though. As the old saying goes - if you cant beat them, join them.

The moment we become a whore for some oil slaver is the moment I give this club up forever.

And football.

 

[scat1620]

The moment we become a whore for some oil slaver is the moment I give this club up forever.

And football.

Don't agree with you - in fact, I'd go so far as to say that I would love us to get a Man City-esque cash injection - but respect your opinion and that that's your own line in the sand.

 

[mrlilywhite]

The moment we become a whore for some oil slaver is the moment I give this club up forever.

And football.

The minute money became the biggest factor in football, all morals and dignity went out the window. I remember Man City & Chelsea being clubs of mediocrity at their best, with their best days far behind them & watching them cling on to the threads of their history like we do now. Now they have an arrogance of belief that they should be realistically challenging for every top honour year in, year out - All we have is hope that they have an off season and we nick a CL place. Would I swap their finances for ours regardless? Yep without hesitation.

 

[Phomesy]

Don't agree with you - in fact, I'd go so far as to say that I would love us to get a Man City-esque cash injection - but respect your opinion and that that's your own line in the sand.

Yeah no worries. I'm an ex-pat Aussie coming from an Aussie rules background and the very idea of being able to leap frog competition simply by injecting funds from dodgy sources is complete anathema to me.

 

[JCRD]

Yeah no worries. I'm an ex-pat Aussie coming from an Aussie rules background and the very idea of being able to leap frog competition simply by injecting funds from dodgy sources is complete anathema to me.

Ill be honest, I had to google it - I fuckin love that word man. Im going to use it from now on.

 

[Everlasting Seconds]

The problem isn't money or cash injections or lack thereof. Tottenham is probably the richest club in the world of all clubs on the level just below the exclusive tier of corrupt, money laundering, tax cheating mega rich clubs. The club got cash, and is in a very solid financial state.

 

[guiltyparty]

Oh, and in case you're wondering. the last time we lost four in a row was in 2003 under Hoddle:

Man Utd 2-0 Tottenham
Middlesbrough 5-1 Tottenham
Tottenham 0-4 Blackburn
Birmingham 1-0 Tottenham

Needless to say, he didn't keep his job much longer after that.

Good night all. Hopefully we all feel better in the morning.

Interesting stats, and I agree with your overall findings - tho that isn’t the last time we lost 4 in a row. Also that 4 game run is the last 3 of the 02/03 season and the first game of the 03/04 season which isn’t really the same, as they’re different campaigns.

Hoddle was sacked September ‘03 having lost another 3 in a row:
Spurs 0-3 Fulham
Chelsea 4-2 Spurs
Spurs 1-3 Southampton

Pleat then came in as caretaker and lost 4 games in a row twice that season. TWICE!

Starting with a fiver - what a December this was:
Newcastle 4-0 Spurs
Spurs 1-1 Middlesbrough (LC, lost on pens)
Spurs 1-2 Man Utd
Portsmouth 2-0 Spurs
Spurs 0-1 Charlton

Then a terrible spring:
Man Utd 3-0 Spurs
Southampton 1-0 Spurs
Spurs 0-1 Chelsea
Everton 3-1 Spurs

(We lost 21 games that season and didn’t even have Europe. In case anyone is a bit too “end of days” about our current predicament)

However more recent than that, we lost 6 league games in a row under Santini/Jol:
Portsmouth 1-0 Spurs
Spurs 1-2 Bolton
Fulham 2-0 Spurs
Spurs 2-3 Charlton
Spurs 4-5 Arsenal
Villa 1-0 Spurs

With an extra-time league cup win over Bolton breaking them up. Point being that there was a 4-game losing run there too. Santini left after 3 straight league defeats and Jol lost his first 3 games during the general changeover chaos but then never lost 3 in a row again.

(Jol was finally offed having won once in 3 months in the league - so while he didn’t lose 3 in a row, he did lose 6 in 11 and took 7 points from a possible 33.)

Bonus fun fact: Ramos before Redknapp was also fired after losing 3 in a row:
Portsmouth 2-0 Spurs
Spurs 0-1 Hull
Stoke 2-1 Spurs

The last Spurs manager to survive losing 3 in a row before Jol’s specific circumstances was Hoddle, who lost 3 in a row FOUR times in 2002/03 season.
Burnley 2-1 Spurs (FAC)
Sunderland 2-0 Spurs
Arsenal 3-0 Spurs
&
Newcastle 2-1 Spurs
Southampton 1-0 Spurs
Southampton 4-0 Spurs (LC)
&
West Ham 2-0 Spurs
Spurs 2-3 Liverpool
Bolton 1-0 Spurs
&
Spurs 0-2 Man Utd
Middlesbrough 5-1 Spurs
Spurs 0-4 Blackburn

He’d lost 3 in a row twice the previous season too (including one 4 in a row) and was finally sacked a month into the next season.

So the only Spurs manager in last 15 years who has lasted till next season after losing 3 games in a row was Jol under double secret probation. Every other manager since Hoddle, Levy’s first hire, who has lost 3 in a row? Gone - by choice or not.

Circumstances a bit different now but it highlights just how bad a run this is.

 

[spurs mental]

Poch isn't getting the sack.

Grow a pair.

This is the worst run we've had for 4 years. Thank God it's come at the early stage of the season not the business end.

We've got time to put it right.

Signs last night in the second half that we were getting back to somewhere where we need our team to be. Only signs but it's the first positive in 3 games.

 

[guiltyparty]

Poch isn't getting the sack.

Grow a pair.

This is the worst run we've had for 4 years. Thank God it's come at the early stage of the season not the business end.

We've got time to put it right.

Signs last night in the second half that we were getting back to somewhere where we need our team to be. Only signs but it's the first positive in 3 games.

No one said he’s getting sacked. Santini wasn’t sacked, he walked.

But yeah, unfiltered emotion usually wins out over pragmatic data analysis I find ?

 

[guiltyparty]

Ill be honest, I had to google it - I fuckin love that word man. Im going to use it from now on.

Well it doesn’t matter as it’s all epidemic now anyway

 

[Metalhead]

There is no one "better" unless you consider "better" to be a corrupt oil slaver using Spurs to pink-wash their regime is "a good thing".

I don't. But that's just me.

That's not an accusation that you could throw at the Liverpool owners though so it's not as binary as saying it's a choice between Levy/ENIC or corrupt foreign investor. That said, we can call for Levy to go until the cows come home but ENIC will only sell when they are ready to.

 

[Hakkz]

This season has gone to shit much quicker than I thought after the TW closed...