Vinai Venkatesham - CEO

[Bishop]

People keep saying the squad, and of course we need some upgrades, but the biggest factor will be how we get on with injuries. There is no chance had we a 'normal' injury season we would have been anywhere near where we were positionally. And that outside of City and the Goons any team would struggle missing the number of players we had and key ones at that for long periods.

You only have to look at when we played Aston Villa who put out many of their backups, against us with just as many first teamers out and we were by far the better team and Villa are meant to be one of the better teams in this league. Hardly any team in world football is going to look good having to play the majority of their backups most of the season.
I agree that we need upgrades in key positions to get where we want to be, but if we are going to say our squad is rubbish and then so is 90 plus per cent of the squads in the league....

Surprise, surprise but I'm also one of those people who think the quality level has dropped relative to the previous 15 or so years in football in general.

 

[harr1984]

Surprise, surprise but I'm also one of those people who think the quality level has dropped relative to the previous 15 or so years in football in general.

Oh there's no argument from me there, it absolutely has. The drop in quality has coincided with the systematic nature of teams setup I think...

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

i think George Graham’s Arsenal side were amongst the top scorers in the league

You would hope so given they won the league

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

.And that outside of City and the Goons any team would struggle missing the number of players we had and key ones at that for long periods.

Which in fairness is something I said weekly early in the season. Its 100% a mix of the two

We have to be realistic also that some like Deki are not coming back the same player which means further need for better

Given Madders record we need to be realistic there too.

But even with a full fit squad, our front three isnt fit for top level football IMO

 

[Gazza Dazzla]

People keep saying the squad, and of course we need some upgrades, but the biggest factor will be how we get on with injuries. There is no chance had we a 'normal' injury season we would have been anywhere near where we were positionally. And that outside of City and the Goons any team would struggle missing the number of players we had and key ones at that for long periods.

You only have to look at when we played Aston Villa who put out many of their backups, against us with just as many first teamers out and we were by far the better team and Villa are meant to be one of the better teams in this league. Hardly any team in world football is going to look good having to play the majority of their backups most of the season.
I agree that we need upgrades in key positions to get where we want to be, but if we are going to say our squad is rubbish and then so is 90 plus per cent of the squads in the league....

100% this, but it’s not a fashionable opinion..

 

[harr1984]

Which in fairness is something I said weekly early in the season. Its 100% a mix of the two

We have to be realistic also that some like Deki are not coming back the same player which means further need for better

Yeah I remember and agreed with you at the time.

It will be interesting to see what we do regarding our AMs, Madders has just come back and isn't young himself really and Simons is out for a while and no one knows with Deki. Would probably be a good idea to get someone else in, but would be fair to argue we have bigger priorities and with no Europe a lack of games and revenue it's probably wise to revisit in a years time....

 

[K.D.D.D.D.Soc]

Oh there's no argument from me there, it absolutely has. The drop in quality has coincided with the systematic nature of teams setup I think...

With most teams playing cautious systems it leads to turgid (is this latest buzz word) games. We all want our teams to play faultless football, but without mistakes and misses the games loses the ups and downs which takes away the excitement.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

what makes you think playing progressive attacking football was ever their concern? You realise they hired Jose, Conte and Nuno in the previous 4 years right? When was any of their profiles progressive attacking football?

You're trying to lambast them for something they weren't even trying to achieve. You might want progressive football Levy neither ever cared about that or understood what was needed to achieve it.

You may be right, but in the statements they put out they talk about plating a certain way, and Frank talks about taking risks being one of his key things.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

Its exactly that, some of the rubbish written about him around stuff that doesn't pertain to his time at Spurs is just utter trash. "ohhh he never got it because he played the Media" not to mention the other stuff that speaks to a personal nature about him.



Yeh they are, my point isn't about Spurs or related to Spurs so your last part is irrelevant. In isolation his Brentford team played good football and scored loads of goals because of the personnel he had.



I never said it was, I said it was when related to the other crap being spouted about him. He failed at Spurs, everyone agrees, the other stuff is just rubbish. You yourself have said you are uncomfortable because people are not laying it on as thick as they should be.

As for being shown up, time will tell, I like RDZ and I think he will do well, but their starts here are identical with this group of players, players who looked to, in part let RDZ down at Chelsea and Leeds with mistakes like they had with Frank.

So I maintain, in no defence of anyone, that this squad is utterly rubbish and unbalanced and needs to improve for RDZ as it did for Frank, anyone that thinks different has their head stuck up their arse.

Anyway, this is the VV thread, not the "why doesn't everyone hate Frank like they should" club

Brentford did not play good football in isolation, again that’s the entire point I’m trying to make. A team has to deal with the situation their opponents give them the majority of the time. More teams would give Brentford more space because a Brentford game would be one marked on the calendar as a higher possibility of a win. Teams do not give Spurs the same amount of space. I would have expected our decision makers to understand that whatever he did at Brentford wouldn’t automatically translate. He would have to show he could adapt, which he just didn’t.

I’m not saying I want people to hate Frank. I just want the reality of his terrible performance to be more acknowledged, rather than excused. As I find it odd that he is let off, and by extension the people that employed him also get left off from the deserved scrutiny around it. Of course RDZ is going to succeed more with better players available. But it still took him two games to display a team with intent and initiative. He did this with a worse squad than available for most of Frank’s time, and he did it with a central midfield pairing that many people said was the reason the football was so bad. It wasn’t - it was Frank being unable to allow the team the patterns to build up from the back, play out and get up the pitch.

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

Brentford did not play good football in isolation, again that’s the entire point I’m trying to make. A team has to deal with the situation their opponents give them the majority of the time. More teams would give Brentford more space because a Brentford game would be one marked on the calendar as a higher possibility of a win. Teams do not give Spurs the same amount of space. I would have expected our decision makers to understand that whatever he did at Brentford wouldn’t automatically translate. He would have to show he could adapt, which he just didn’t.

But Spurs has nothing to do with Brentford and how they played and the good football they played, the last paragraph of conflation I don't get TBH.

I’m not saying I want people to hate Frank. I just want the reality of his terrible performance to be more acknowledged, rather than excused. As I find it odd that he is let off, and by extension the people that employed him also get left off from the deserved scrutiny around it. Of course RDZ is going to succeed more with better players available. But it still took him two games to display a team with intent and initiative. He did this with a worse squad than available for most of Frank’s time, and he did it with a central midfield pairing that many people said was the reason the football was so bad. It wasn’t - it was Frank being unable to allow the team the patterns to build up from the back, play out and get up the pitch.

It seems to be abit of an unhealthy obsession mate.

 

[Bishop]

.

I’m not saying I want people to hate Frank. I just want the reality of his terrible performance to be more acknowledged, rather than excused.

This is rich coming from you considering all the excuses you made and continue to make about the terrible football we played under Ange.

Either accept that there can be mitigation for the quality of the football and the results or be like me and accept no excuses. You can't decide to makes excuses for one guy and not the other. That's hypocrisy.

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

This is rich coming from you considering all the excuses you made and continue to make about the terrible football we played under Ange.

Either accept that there can be mitigation for the quality of the football and the results or be like me and accept no excuses. You can't decide to makes excuses for one guy and not the other. That's hypocrisy.

Frank was terrible, but its not an excuse to say the club also needs to do ALOT better by its managers..........most importantly moving forward.

Its as simple as that

 

[Muttley]

Keeping Frank out of it, others can continue to drone on about him................If we don't back RDZ and we treat the future windows like we have the past, he will go exactly the same way as those before him, its as simple as that for me

I'm one who does think it is massively about the manager. I'm not talking about the formal org chart, but when you have an entire club working for the first team manager then you are in a good place. That includes the chairman, the DoF and all of the scouting, fitness, medical, U21's, academy etc. For me, that is the secret sauce. What happens when you get the wrong manager then you don't have this. We didn't have this with Poch either as he kept preaching about the timings of summer transfers and his chairman kept doing things his own way. There are a lot of pieces to holistically get behind a manager, not just the first team squad.

In fact, the only piece of our club that shouldn't be directly behind RDZ is the women's section.

This is what guys like Klopp and Pep have always had at their clubs. It's the reason that lot down the road just won the league.

 

[Mikey10]

You may be right, but in the statements they put out they talk about plating a certain way, and Frank talks about taking risks being one of his key things.

And then he found out what the squad were (in)capable of.

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

I'm one who does think it is massively about the manager. I'm not talking about the formal org chart, but when you have an entire club working for the first team manager then you are in a good place. That includes the chairman, the DoF and all of the scouting, fitness, medical, U21's, academy etc. For me, that is the secret sauce. What happens when you get the wrong manager then you don't have this. We didn't have this with Poch either as he kept preaching about the timings of summer transfers and his chairman kept doing things his own way. There are a lot of pieces to holistically get behind a manager, not just the first team squad.

In fact, the only piece of our club that shouldn't be directly behind RDZ is the women's section.

This is what guys like Klopp and Pep have always had at their clubs. It's the reason that lot down the road just won the league.

I agree to an extent but he is only going to be as successful as the parts he is able to bring in to an extent still. The issue at Spurs is we are now built the opposite, everything is done by committee and the expectation is any coach then plays with the parts provide. Its the tail wagging the dog in opposite to your example.

If we are going to continue to be the "these are the parts, you need to manage them" then we need to massively improve those parts, in a joint up way

 

[Muttley]

I agree to an extent but he is only going to be as successful as the parts he is able to bring in to an extent still. The issue at Spurs is we are now built the opposite, everything is done by committee and the expectation is any coach then plays with the parts provide. Its the tail wagging the dog in opposite to your example.

If we are going to continue to be the "these are the parts, you need to manage them" then we need to massively improve those parts, in a joint up way

I can't be sure what you're saying is the way actually. There was a little hint it was when Ange made that comment that summer transfers were being discussed in rooms that he wasn't in. However, I just felt at the time it was because of his spectacular fail in the league and the biggest hint that he was going to be fired. In normal times like we have now, I would think RDZ would be right in the middle of any meeting or discussion. There would be no exclusions, just a team working together for the same outcome.

Personally, I think it is so much more likely to happen than when Levy was at the helm.

 

[Raziel]

I'm one who does think it is massively about the manager. I'm not talking about the formal org chart, but when you have an entire club working for the first team manager then you are in a good place. That includes the chairman, the DoF and all of the scouting, fitness, medical, U21's, academy etc. For me, that is the secret sauce. What happens when you get the wrong manager then you don't have this. We didn't have this with Poch either as he kept preaching about the timings of summer transfers and his chairman kept doing things his own way. There are a lot of pieces to holistically get behind a manager, not just the first team squad.

In fact, the only piece of our club that shouldn't be directly behind RDZ is the women's section.

This is what guys like Klopp and Pep have always had at their clubs. It's the reason that lot down the road just won the league.

100%

For a fanbase that saw Ramos -> Harry, Nuno -> Conte, Frank -> RDZ, who saw Poch, to say the manager doesn't matter that much is mind boggling.

We just saw Bentacur/Palhinha go from being derided, incapable of making a forward pass, the cause of all our creativity problems to being our season saviours overnight. Our defense went from conceding the most shots to the least in the league. This is for a team in a death spiral, and Frank had Kudus & Xavi for much of that time. Stats are massively different (see below)



Now manager are about place and time, Poch will probably never be a better manager than he was for us at that point with that squad, Nuno (unlike Frank) is not a bad manager, but was a bad manager for us at the time. Pep wouldn't work at Spurs (he needs certain players for his no compromise approach).

What I will say is for clubs like Brentford the impact of a manager is probably less than it is for a top level club, part of it is how the duties are shared, part of it is the sheer pressure/expectation, part of it is the additional games, list goes on.

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

I can't be sure what you're saying is the way actually. There was a little hint it was when Ange made that comment that summer transfers were being discussed in rooms that he wasn't in. However, I just felt at the time it was because of his spectacular fail in the league and the biggest hint that he was going to be fired. In normal times like we have now, I would think RDZ would be right in the middle of any meeting or discussion. There would be no exclusions, just a team working together for the same outcome.

Personally, I think it is so much more likely to happen than when Levy was at the helm.

But its still committee IMO rather than a project lead. We are not the club structures in your example IMO, in fact the opposite.

The summer will show, but links to players who we have always been linked with shows a club run by committee (if those signings actually happen).

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

For a fanbase that saw Ramos -> Harry, Nuno -> Conte, Frank -> RDZ, who saw Poch, to say the manager doesn't matter that much is mind

Literally no one has said that....

The chat has been about whoever the manager is needed better back in better squad management. Ange needed it, Frank needed it and RDZ will need it.

If you think stand alone that this squad as is will shoot up the league and be consistently sexy and picking up results to make us compete at a high level just because of the manager then I think you are deluded.

No one is digging out RDZ before anyone kicks off either, the point is, he will need to be backed to be anywhere near as successful as his own talents can provide, thay talent cant and won't just do it on its own.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

And then he found out what the squad were (in)capable of.

But then RDZ showed much more intent and initiative with the team in 2 games, than Frank did his entire time, with a worse squad of players? And with a central midfield pairing that people said was the reason the football was bad.

It was Frank’s fear and incapacity to adapt to the demands of Spurs for the reason we saw the style we did. Not the players.