What are your expectations for the season 21/22: The race for any position between 1st and 20th

[rossdapep]

Interestingly we've only conceded 17 goals in 13 games. That's not too bad considering the bad results we've had and the dreadful performances.

With Conte at the helm I don't expect that too worsen, so we really need to improve our goalscoring as 13 goals from 13 games is pathetic.

I expect him to continue making us not leak goals but also really improve that attack.

I think that would put us on par for 5th/6th. But with some additional firepower and another midfielder it may boost those chances.

 

[hellava_tough]

All of this is fair, but I’d suggest that Kane (not his brother), Son, Reguilón, Romero and Lloris all walk into the Manchester Utd side, and arguably Dier too.

What they definitely have over us is creativity. Depth I think is a bit thin at both clubs in tens of quality.

Now that you mention it, when you look at their squad it's a bit hard to judge the quality to be honest.

They've got a number of players who either used to be good, or were brought in on big money who have shown patches of good form.

I'm thinking:

Victor Lindelöf
Eric Bailly
Aaron Wan-Bissaka
Paul Pogba
Juan Mata
Jesse Lingard
Nemanja Matić
Anthony Martial
Marcus Rashford


Perhaps including Pogba is a bit harsh, but the rest of them fit that description.

There's talent and experience there, but recent coaches haven't been able to harness it.

 

[homer hotspur]

Now that you mention it, when you look at their squad it's a bit hard to judge the quality to be honest.

They've got a number of players who either used to be good, or were brought in on big money who have shown patches of good form.

I'm thinking:

Victor Lindelöf
Eric Bailly
Aaron Wan-Bissaka
Paul Pogba
Juan Mata
Jesse Lingard
Nemanja Matić
Anthony Martial
Marcus Rashford


Perhaps including Pogba is a bit harsh, but the rest of them fit that description.

There's talent and experience there, but recent coaches haven't been able to harness it.

They do have a lot more options than us though and that means rotation opportunities, something which we notably lack in key positions. I still shudder at the thought of serious injury to both Son and Kane with so many games coming up. What on earth would we do if faced with that for a prolonged period? The same could be said for Skipp and Hojberg to a large extent.
Finally, I dont think you can discount Leicester yet. They really do have a decent squad and are currently underperforming. Have a look at their list of midflders and attacking players and compare to us. Yet again, our reliance on Kane and Son is obvious.
The problem is so many of our players who we previously thought contributed to a great squad have gone backwards or AWOL; Dele, Winks, Doherty, Lo Celso , N'dombele, Bergwyn, Sessegnon, Rodon should all be in or around that first 11 discussion, rather than forced reluctant choices in an emergency.
I have to hope that Paratici has got a couple lined up to come in, EARLY January but I can't really see them being of the big signing variety , more likely experienced proven performers currently out of favour somewhere and quite likely loans. This not because of budget restrictions but just the reality of the mid- season market. At the very least, we have to get a second striker in. Of course, don't expect Man Utd, West Ham etc to simply stand still whilst we try to snap up players,
The other masssive issue is Europe. I think if we progress to the play off round and beyond it will seriously hamper our league position given that squad depth. If we get past West Ham in the League Cup, we will also be faced with a 2 leg semi final ,probably against a hugely rotated Chelsea or Liverpool. These are all factors still to be resolved/faced before a top 4 challenge can be seriously evaluated. As of this moment , I don't see it as that likely but Conte is giving us all a bit of hope I think.

 

[hellava_tough]

They do have a lot more options than us though and that means rotation opportunities, something which we notably lack in key positions. I still shudder at the thought of serious injury to both Son and Kane with so many games coming up. What on earth would we do if faced with that for a prolonged period? The same could be said for Skipp and Hojberg to a large extent.
Finally, I dont think you can discount Leicester yet. They really do have a decent squad and are currently underperforming. Have a look at their list of midflders and attacking players and compare to us. Yet again, our reliance on Kane and Son is obvious.
The problem is so many of our players who we previously thought contributed to a great squad have gone backwards or AWOL; Dele, Winks, Doherty, Lo Celso , N'dombele, Bergwyn, Sessegnon, Rodon should all be in or around that first 11 discussion, rather than forced reluctant choices in an emergency.
I have to hope that Paratici has got a couple lined up to come in, EARLY January but I can't really see them being of the big signing variety , more likely experienced proven performers currently out of favour somewhere and quite likely loans. This not because of budget restrictions but just the reality of the mid- season market. At the very least, we have to get a second striker in. Of course, don't expect Man Utd, West Ham etc to simply stand still whilst we try to snap up players,
The other masssive issue is Europe. I think if we progress to the play off round and beyond it will seriously hamper our league position given that squad depth. If we get past West Ham in the League Cup, we will also be faced with a 2 leg semi final ,probably against a hugely rotated Chelsea or Liverpool. These are all factors still to be resolved/faced before a top 4 challenge can be seriously evaluated. As of this moment , I don't see it as that likely but Conte is giving us all a bit of hope I think.

Good assessment of things

 

[cookiemonster]

So currently we're in a battle for 4th place with Man Utd, Arsenal and West Ham.

I'd say we've got the best manager out of that lot.

I'd also say that Man Utd have got the better squad.

But if we win our game in hand (easier said than done) we'll have a 4pt head start on Man Utd.

I think it's going to come down to how good Conte is tbh; how much he can get out of an inferior squad.

PS A couple of signings in January would certainly help!!

Manure have a lot of easy games coming up

 

[djhotspur]

They do have a lot more options than us though and that means rotation opportunities, something which we notably lack in key positions. I still shudder at the thought of serious injury to both Son and Kane with so many games coming up. What on earth would we do if faced with that for a prolonged period? The same could be said for Skipp and Hojberg to a large extent.
Finally, I dont think you can discount Leicester yet. They really do have a decent squad and are currently underperforming. Have a look at their list of midflders and attacking players and compare to us. Yet again, our reliance on Kane and Son is obvious.
The problem is so many of our players who we previously thought contributed to a great squad have gone backwards or AWOL; Dele, Winks, Doherty, Lo Celso , N'dombele, Bergwyn, Sessegnon, Rodon should all be in or around that first 11 discussion, rather than forced reluctant choices in an emergency.
I have to hope that Paratici has got a couple lined up to come in, EARLY January but I can't really see them being of the big signing variety , more likely experienced proven performers currently out of favour somewhere and quite likely loans. This not because of budget restrictions but just the reality of the mid- season market. At the very least, we have to get a second striker in. Of course, don't expect Man Utd, West Ham etc to simply stand still whilst we try to snap up players,
The other masssive issue is Europe. I think if we progress to the play off round and beyond it will seriously hamper our league position given that squad depth. If we get past West Ham in the League Cup, we will also be faced with a 2 leg semi final ,probably against a hugely rotated Chelsea or Liverpool. These are all factors still to be resolved/faced before a top 4 challenge can be seriously evaluated. As of this moment , I don't see it as that likely but Conte is giving us all a bit of hope I think.

Yup. I really want us out of Europe I just think it’s a huge hinderence. As you said, we don’t have the squad to get through the games sadly and we need to keep the first 11 fit as we can for the league.
We need 3 in minimum which will be very tough, our guys seems confident of this. I think vlahovic in is key to help with the burden. Plus we could change formation and play them both us top some games I reckon. Or even Kane at 10 maybe.

 

[hellava_tough]

Thought I'd bump this after Arsenal lose to Everton.

Starting to shape into a 3-way battle royale between us, West Ham and Utd for 4th spot.

 

[Doctor Dinkey]

Thought I'd bump this after Arsenal lose to Everton.

Starting to shape into a 3-way battle royale between us, West Ham and Utd for 4th spot.

Conte has had a very gentle start. IMO we are still likely to struggle against top half sides until we improve our personnel. It will become clearer when we play Liverpool. I would say that Man Utd are better equipped, especially with a new manager, to finish CL, and they always have a sniff against the top teams, which we don't. WHU, despite their stellar start, will drop off I reckon and the Gooners will be up and down all season. We've got a great chance of fifth but IMO 4th is a bridge too far for Spurs currently.

 

[carpediem991]

We are definitley in the mix for fourth but we will know more were we will end up the lates end of January when we face Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, West Ham or Leicester under Conte. Especially how we can perform away from home will be important, we are actually first in the Home table.

I have a lot of faith in Conte though.

 

[Tucker]

Thought I'd bump this after Arsenal lose to Everton.

Starting to shape into a 3-way battle royale between us, West Ham and Utd for 4th spot.

While I have reservations that Arsenal will be consistent enough to get fourth, I’m not going to rule anyone out in early December. There’s a lot of football to be played yet. It’s a long season.

We just need to keep getting results and hope we are in the mix come April.

 

[djhotspur]

We are definitley in the mix for fourth but we will know more were we will end up the lates end of January when we face Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, West Ham or Leicester under Conte. Especially how we can perform away from home will be important, we are actually first in the Home table.

I have a lot of faith in Conte though.

We are in the mix but I believe 6th. West Ham are better than us and so are United. Already United looked 10x better and controlled the game against palace, whilst we are conceding huge chances against a depleted Norwich side and giving them 60% possession. We are still so easy to play against.
we won’t know how good we really are until we play Leicester, Brighton have 8 injuries.
Liverpool will tear us apart if we are as open as we were against Norwich

 

[Deleted member 29446]

Changed my vote to 5-6 from 7-11 for the obv reason that is Conte.

However I also think Rangnick will get Man Utd firing again and they will grab 4th as they have way better players than we do.

With 2 first-teamers signed in january who knows what will happen with Conte at the wheel.

 

[homer hotspur]

If there was no January transfer window, I couldn't really see us finishing higher than 6th or 7th. That remains the biggest factor at the moment for us.

 

[BringBack_leGin]

Amazingly, we’re top of the home league so far this season. Only 10th in the away league.

When you consider we’ve already had City, Chelsea and Manchester United, that’s not disastrous.

 

[Danfunkel]

4th should be the target now. We can do it, but United will be back up there too.

FA cup run would be a dream.

 

[Lo Amo Speroni]

Going to be a good battle for top 4 this season. Nice that we appear to be in the race.

 

[Dov67]

Until Conte I never even entertained the possibility of a top 4 finish.

How far we push it depends a lot on whether we manage to extricate ourselves from the European shitshow competition. In fact, I’d say our chances of getting top 4 doubles if we’re out.

If Kane hits forms and starts scoring again, who knows - anything is possible. After all we find ourselves in 4th should we win our games in hand, having been managed by Nuno for most of the season and with Kane having scored only 1 goal and we’re less than 2 weeks to Xmas. Pretty amazing really.

 

[djhotspur]

West Ham keep dropping points against the bottom half. They have Europe to contend with still.
united were so bloody lucky yesterday, they were fully outplayed by Norwich.
top 4 is so close and tight. The Leicester game if it goes ahead is huge, I think if we lose that it will really rerail us and then Leicester will enter the top 4 race properly.

 

[hellava_tough]

Fixture congestion because of Covid could knobble us in the end.

But then again, it could well knobble our rivals too.

I think it's going to be another crazy season tbh.

 

[Nayim60yards]

4 West Ham 16 +9 28
5 Man Utd 16 +2 27
6 Arsenal 16 -1 26
7 Tottenham 14 -1 25

If we won our two games in hand we would be three points clear in fourth place. That is barmy after the season we have had!