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OMT - Tottenham Hotspur vs Internazionale

No doubt about they’ve been instructed to play out from the back. It’s the fact he dithers on the ball to much.
Kicking long also breaks the press, may have stopped it. But we persist with it 90% of time.
Something City do well change it up.

You are right about midfielders hiding but Dier was not great on the ball tonight.

It’s mental, you need to keep the defense thinking, you have to offer a deep threat.

It’s even worse against Liverpool as it’s been a guaranteed way of getting at them for years.

Its arrogant.
 
Remember the debate about how winning trophies aren’t important? I do wonder if after three seasons or so of intense training and not actually winning anything from this causes players to whether deliberately or not ease off their efforts as they’re not seeing any real rewards? It must be mentally draining to keep on putting in such effort then just falling short. Another reason why freshening up is necessary. Just a thought....
 
I like your posts even though I don’t always agree and I don’t agree with some of this.

Like a lot of fans, you’re almost inferring that this was a “risk it on one season or think long term” choice. We could have both.

If we don’t make CL, if we go out in the group stages this year and if Eriksen, for example, runs down his contract because we’re not progressing, we are going to lose more than we have saved by not splashing out on a couple of players this summer. I honestly believe we could have added a couple, made a strong statement and strongly improved our chances of doing well this season without risking our future if it still didn’t work out.

Levy has put all his eggs in the long term basket. I really hope I’ll look back in 10 years and say he got it right.
IF Levy had the money for some players who would have improved us and didn't spend it then he didn't learn from the Saha/Nelsen fiasco. Which I doubt. While he clearly likes a bargain, to not invest with alleged money available to improve the success on the pitch doesn't sound like Levy.
 
I agree, maybe we will lose Eriksen. But maybe we would have lost him anyway. And I think what Levy is strong at is always analysing well what the implications of different decisions are, and whether or not it gives us strategic advantage.

'Risk on one season' is an extreme example of the position taken, but I'd like to think that if Levy could spend any more than he did this summer while maintaining investment in the long-term project, he would. Because there is no reason not to. But it's a really complicated issue with lots of different factors. Maybe he increases the wage budget by another 50k for top earners. Maybe he sanctioned signing someone like Pulisic. Maybe he could do a few other things. But long term, are those things going to help us above City and United? Because they can go out and do the exact same thing as us, only more often and at higher values.

So I agree that sometimes he plays it safe. But I'm waiting for the point where we operate on a closer financial footing to our rivals, once the stadium is done (and maybe once we are sold). Then, if the club is failing to keep pace, failing to make the right decisions to take advantage of our position and be smart strategically, I'll be annoyed. But, in spite of a current bad run of form, an interesting summer, player distractions and stadium delays, I still fully trust Levy's project. Because I don't want anything holding us back from getting on to a better financial footing, and I don't want us to risk more for the sake of having one great season. We may lose a few from this squad that we don't want to lose, we may lose Poch, but as long as we have the new stadium, we will recover. Because this sport is ultimately driven by money over the long term, and the big clubs always get back to where they are supposed to be.

Fair points mate. I don’t fully agree but see where you’re coming from.

I’m just so emotionally invested in these players and this manager that it sickens me to see us waste what Poch has built over the last few years. Hopefully he sticks around and guides us if and when Levy’s vision comes to fruition.

Football is about emotion. Sometimes talk of common sense and having a vision just doesn’t compute because that sort of talk doesn’t beat the rush of a win at Stamford Bridge, Harry scoring to beat the Goons or beating Real Madrid in the Champions League.

fudge football anyway. fudge supporting Spurs anyway. I’m gonna go stamp collecting or something less stressful than this.
 
I agree, maybe we will lose Eriksen. But maybe we would have lost him anyway. And I think what Levy is strong at is always analysing well what the implications of different decisions are, and whether or not it gives us strategic advantage.

'Risk on one season' is an extreme example of the position taken, but I'd like to think that if Levy could spend any more than he did this summer while maintaining investment in the long-term project, he would. Because there is no reason not to. But it's a really complicated issue with lots of different factors. Maybe he increases the wage budget by another 50k for top earners. Maybe he sanctioned signing someone like Pulisic. Maybe he could do a few other things. But long term, are those things going to help us above City and United? Because they can go out and do the exact same thing as us, only more often and at higher values.

So I agree that sometimes he plays it safe. But I'm waiting for the point where we operate on a closer financial footing to our rivals, once the stadium is done (and maybe once we are sold). Then, if the club is failing to keep pace, failing to make the right decisions to take advantage of our position and be smart strategically, I'll be annoyed. But, in spite of a current bad run of form, an interesting summer, player distractions and stadium delays, I still fully trust Levy's project. Because I don't want anything holding us back from getting on to a better financial footing, and I don't want us to risk more for the sake of having one great season. We may lose a few from this squad that we don't want to lose, we may lose Poch, but as long as we have the new stadium, we will recover. Because this sport is ultimately driven by money over the long term, and the big clubs always get back to where they are supposed to be.

Interesting post though a couple points I would strongly debate:
- "But long term, are those things going to help us above City and United?"
- "I'm waiting for the point where we operate on a closer financial footing to our rivals"

I dont think we're ever expecting to be consistently above the two Manchester clubs...and really our 'rivals' are Liverpool, Arse and to some extent Cheatski (given that they seem to being less bankrolled by the Russian).

I believe Levy's aim is 4th every season, which isnt a bad aim if you accept that Man U and Man C are far far richer. However I worry that he's been lulled into a false sense of security as a result of Poch's achievements. Our transfer activity - both incomings and outgoings - this summer was awful and exacerbated by the world cup...but we knew about the world cup and the number of our player which would be involved.
 
For once I actually wanted us to lose tonight. Said 2-1 after we
Scored. Poch needs to go. He’s lost the dressing room.

Under Poch over the last three seasons we have finished third, second and third. This summer Daniel Levy failed to strengthen the side and now because we have lost three matches in a row for the first time under Poch you think he should go.

Your post is one of the most stupid brain dead comments I have ever read on this forum.
 
IF Levy had the money for some players who would have improved us and didn't spend it then he didn't learn from the Saha/Nelsen fiasco. Which I doubt. While he clearly likes a bargain, to not invest with alleged money available to improve the success on the pitch doesn't sound like Levy.

Does our inability not to sell players though also suggest our transfer policy (ie asking prices, and offer prices) is out of kilter with where the market is? We'd have taken offers for Alderweireld, Rose, Dembele, Sissoko, GKN, Llorente, Janssen and various others this summer but none left and no-one arrived.
 
Spurs were sloppy in the first half, as were Inter. Not high quality. Scruffy.

Second half we played better, dominated, deserved to be winning, well in control.... and Poch changed everything with wild subs?!!
 
It absolutely is a valid reason. It's the whole reason we have a wage budget. It's the whole reason the club is in good financial health. It's the whole reason we have a platform that enables us to build a stadium etc.

Take for example, Sadio Mane. Liverpool signed him because they could offer him 125k per week, and at the time our highest earner will have been Kane or Lloris on anywhere from 80-100k. If we sign Mane on 125, that means Kane and Lloris at the time would have gone to at least 150. And then every other player's agent demands more because the scale has increased. Players get annoyed, unrest starts, and the club either relents and puts themselves on a more risky financial footing or they refuse everyone else which creates friction in the dressing room, because we've given a good player but not our best player the top earning. And as soon as they can, our actual best players would jump ship, because they have no loyalty at this point.

It's hard to see that when things are going bad, alternatives over the mid-long term might not actually be better strategic decisions, even though they will be different.

Once again, it’s up to the club to manage who deserves a pay increase and who doesn’t. Just because one player gets a pay increase doesn’t mean you have to do it for the entire squad. If we’re going to continually use this argument then we’ll never sign players for fear of upsetting anyone who earns slightly less, or a lot less.
 
I doubt we will never really know what has caused these problems this season.
I think we could argue the toss untill Poch’s cows come home and still be none the wiser.
Let’s get behind the guys and move on to Brighton!
COYS

He must have written another book
 
Fair points mate. I don’t fully agree but see where you’re coming from.

I’m just so emotionally invested in these players and this manager that it sickens me to see us waste what Poch has built over the last few years. Hopefully he sticks around and guides us if and when Levy’s vision comes to fruition.

Football is about emotion. Sometimes talk of common sense and having a vision just doesn’t compute because that sort of talk doesn’t beat the rush of a win at Stamford Bridge, Harry scoring to beat the Goons or beating Real Madrid in the Champions League.

fudge football anyway. fudge supporting Spurs anyway. I’m gonna go stamp collecting or something less stressful than this.

I think, and hope, that whatever Poch ends up doing, that we always look back in this era as an absolutely ridiculously amazing job. Because what he has already achieved in terms of making our club what it is today, with all that he has to fight against, it's one of the best jobs done in football I would say. The consistency over the last 4 years, the absolute normalisation and how easy he has made it look, is phenominal.

But it may be that we look back on this era as one where I think we had one club pulling all in the same direction. We had business aligned with football and a real good strategy that helped us compete and over-perform. And it's lead to some great times. But we are more than likely going to start winning things when we are in that stadium and reaping the financial rewards. I hope its Poch that does it, because I love the guy and the job he has done is utterly amazing, but as long as we remain on the upward curve, I think we will get there regardless.

I will say on your emotion point, I usually watch every football match I can, but on Saturday I had to switch off from it all after seeing us play so badly. Didn't really come on here. Didn't read anything to do with football. It hurt me so much that I couldn't bring myself to care outwardly. But tonight, I feel a lot better. We were hopeless against Liverpool, it was like an unrecognizable team. But tonight we showed what we can do, and that we are getting there. And I like Poch's fighting words in this press conference. He's going to bat for players that did him proud tonight, and it's that kind of thing which fosters the spirit that means we will end up being ok. I'm positive again.
 
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