Ange departs

[Bedfordspurs]

Spilt milk.

Sour milk like the player attitude in this club when we play lesser teams

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Ricky somewhere embedded in this you have said his system works. It doesn’t work, not domestically at Premier League level it doesn’t. It only just scraped over the line at Tamworth.

This is literally what has happened with Ange at every club he’s been at, until it starts working beyond what anyone thought possible.

I’m not saying we definitely would have won the league with him, but I would have liked to see him with a reasonably fit and deep squad that was fully adjusted to the system and the physicality of it. That’s what I was hoping from the third season. The underlying numbers at the start of this season suggested we were on course to be one of the best teams in the league. (A lot of our dropped points at the start were down to terrible finishing, not the system).

 

[Bedfordspurs]

This is literally what has happened with Ange at every club he’s been at, until it starts working beyond what anyone thought possible.

I’m not saying we definitely would have won the league with him, but I would have liked to see him with a reasonably fit and deep squad that was fully adjusted to the system and the physicality of it. That’s what I was hoping from the third season. The underlying numbers at the start of this season suggested we were on course to be one of the best teams in the league. (A lot of our dropped points at the start were down to terrible finishing, not the system).

And a player just stopping doing his job and leaving his man .. repeatedly
Luckily that wasn’t the case in the European games

 

[billyiddo]

How long would you have given him to get the team playing his way? It has been two years and there's been no progress towards the team playing in his style. PL clearly just a step beyond where his approach is effective

 

[fernadez]

This is literally what has happened with Ange at every club he’s been at, until it starts working beyond what anyone thought possible.

I’m not saying we definitely would have won the league with him, but I would have liked to see him with a reasonably fit and deep squad that was fully adjusted to the system and the physicality of it. That’s what I was hoping from the third season. The underlying numbers at the start of this season suggested we were on course to be one of the best teams in the league. (A lot of our dropped points at the start were down to terrible finishing, not the system).

No team can defend like we did and be successful domestically without having superior players to the opposition.

We were never going to be that team, no matter how deep the squad is they still won't be man for man good enough to make up for the tactical short fall in the tactics.

You see it with Barcelona, a more tactically astute manager would have got them through into the Champions League final. There only reason for they went out is due to the way they defended.

For me 2 seasons is enough to be seeing an uptick in results. There were absolutely no indications that a corner was about to be turned. We were scoring and creating less and conceding more chances and more goals.

 

[billyiddo]

Oh and welcome back @BrainOfLevy

 

[Bullet]

People really are forgetting how bad we were.
For instance, I remember Luton coming to WHL in March 2024 and scoring after 3 minutes. Easy peasy.
That is an absolute shambles.
We huffed and puffed until they scored an own goal to get us back in the game.

I could list 50 games here and some of you would say it was just bad luck or injuries or some other excuse, but we were just BAD for most of Ange's reign.

We all bought into the ethos of trying some ballsy system, full belief, To Dare is To Do, let's go for it fully... but that was just too naive.

I'd actually like Ange to join another Prem team so we can see how that pans out for them.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

How long would you have given him to get the team playing his way? It has been two years and there's been no progress towards the team playing in his style. PL clearly just a step beyond where his approach is effective

I think at the start of this season there was absolute progress to playing his style. I do think underlying numbers were strong (we were below where we should have been on xG and had league leading PPDA stats etc) and the eye test said a lot of our dropped points were down to poor finishing. I think we would have ‘progressed to mean’ had the season not been derailed by injuries.

I remember feeling, even against Villa at home for example, even if we went 1-0 down we were going to score and probably score more. I think we’d got there as a team and would have gotten back to it this season. I can’t prove it, I just have belief in it based on following his career, as well as looking at underlying data not the results.

I mentioned a couple of pages back based on the Montgomery interview that what we saw from December onwards was not Ange ball, it was an attempt to maintain the principles but adapt a bit. So I give him a massive pass for getting away from implementing his system after that period.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

No team can defend like we did and be successful domestically without having superior players to the opposition.

We were never going to be that team, no matter how deep the squad is they still won't be man for man good enough to make up for the tactical short fall in the tactics.

You see it with Barcelona, a more tactically astute manager would have got them through into the Champions League final. There only reason for they went out is due to the way they defended.

For me 2 seasons is enough to be seeing an uptick in results. There were absolutely no indications that a corner was about to be turned. We were scoring and creating less and conceding more chances and more goals.

I think we defended pretty well when we had our first choice defence playing.

I also note that for example Liverpool had their first choice defence playing most of the season. But they were humbled by Plymouth in the FA Cup. What was the difference in that game?

 

[SpurMeUp]

Why was it all about money? Because we have signaled by sacking a trophy winning manager that the board favours cash over trophies.

Spending 13m potentially sacking and hiring a new manager doesn’t tally with what you’re saying. It just doesn’t check out. Moreover trophies equal more financial success for the club. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense does it?

Why are we a laughing stock? Because the last time a manager won a trophy and was sacked straight after was....so long ago nobody can remember because it's not what you do.

Plenty of big clubs have and do.

Our decision to remove the manager has angered players, a large proportion of the supporters and confounded pundits, commentators and football purists up and down the land.

That is conjecture. I think the plays appreciated Ange but also feel like they need a change to develop - imo.

It's very possible that 10 games into next season we would have been saying bye to Ange. However it's just as possible, given what Nono experienced that whoever comes in next could suffer that fate.

That was hopefully an anomaly, it certainly not a regular event. And I think I was mainly because Conte became available. A top coach we couldn’t say no to.

The difference is that Ange had the goodwill of the players, the continuity and the achievement of the EL under his belt to enable him to make a good run at it.

I don't debate that our league performance was dire last year, but I also know it could have improved under Ange.

What you are missing is an analysis f how we setup. We weren’t the expansive attacking side at all when we won the EL. Far from it. If we’re honest we limped over the line playing a type of football Ange isn’t known for. And he doesn’t execute a defensive game as well as coaches who’ve been him in this type of football for years. And it showed. If you couldn’t see how porous and ineffective we’ve been, idk what to say. We weren’t particularly special in the EL either if we’re honest. We got the job done and we’ll be eternally grateful to Ange for that.

But you and everyone else knows we need to be levels better going forward. That means making a change.

 

[fernadez]

I think we defended pretty well when we had our first choice defence playing.

I also note that for example Liverpool had their first choice defence playing most of the season. But they were humbled by Plymouth in the FA Cup. What was the difference in that game?

Were theirs injured or rested?

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

Ricky somewhere embedded in this you have said his system works. It doesn’t work, not domestically at Premier League level it doesn’t. It only just scraped over the line at Tamworth.

Mmmm....have I?..I think I'm proposing what you are saying.

I (we) can't deny it's worked before though....that would be churlish.

 

[Lilbaz]

I think at the start of this season there was absolute progress to playing his style. I do think underlying numbers were strong (we were below where we should have been on xG and had league leading PPDA stats etc) and the eye test said a lot of our dropped points were down to poor finishing. I think we would have ‘progressed to mean’ had the season not been derailed by injuries.

I remember feeling, even against Villa at home for example, even if we went 1-0 down we were going to score and probably score more. I think we’d got there as a team and would have gotten back to it this season. I can’t prove it, I just have belief in it based on following his career, as well as looking at underlying data not the results.

I mentioned a couple of pages back based on the Montgomery interview that what we saw from December onwards was not Ange ball, it was an attempt to maintain the principles but adapt a bit. So I give him a massive pass for getting away from implementing his system after that period.

Underlying numbers (whatever that means) aren't woth a toss.
Overlying numbers and points count.

Unless you really enjoy what you see.

 

[thfcsteff]

Stability can only come with progression - ok i get that you guys see EL win as that but the league performances suggest otherwise.

The moves we've made off the pitch and there being an actual transfer department with an eye on the medium to long term means there needn't be wholesale changes - at least any more than is usual with manager changes at other clubs. But regardless even if there would be you can't let that dictate your position on whether or not whoever is the current manager being suitable or not.

I think the single most frustrating thing about this continual debate is that there is acknowledgement from us/everyone that the league performances were not good enough, yet the contexts for those continually get pushed aside/disregarded as major factors. There are so many ways to measure progress beyond statistics, and it is wholly possible that the strength the group gained from weathering adversiy and succeeding in such a focussed objective could've been a catalyst for much more.

I freely acknowledge that there is a lot we don't know, that the people who have made the decision are in full grasp of the facts and situations (with contexts) and are certainly trying to do the very best for the club (should go without saying). Again, however, it is the 'de-meritisation' of this other perspective I offered above which is bizarre.

I would love to know if the discussion was had with Postecoglu as to whether he would be adapting things a little more given the experiences of this past season, and with Mason going to WBA, who knows what difference a new assistant coach might've brought? You'd have to hope/assume they did have those conversations, or that Ange had signaled zero chance of changing anything. I think it comes down to personal preferences.
With Poch, I wanted to take the gamble and give him at least the rest of the season to try and rebuild/refocus versus the form we were in.
We didn't.
With Ange, I wanted to take the gamble and see if this coming season was the beghinning of something or the end of a moment.
We didn't.
It didn't surprise me sadly; I expected it. Whenever there is the potential magic of that intangible -chemistry, belief, unity, and what that can bring to a groupo of young players - we step back into 'safer' waters. Look, perhaps we have to. Perhaps it is because of the business model. But it is a fact that we do that, so I'll find it easy to move on once we confirm the new manager/next swathe of coaches.

I am relieved we did not go the 'give him 10 games' route as that would've fudged us. All or nothing. We chose nothing, and so onwards.
It does appear that if Levy has taken one lesson from Poch, it is to stick with his first instinct and not dangle a leg in the shark infested ocean for a couple of months (I say that as someone who wanted Poch given that season, but who in hindsight thinks it would've ben better for Danile to lt him go that summer given what he didn't give him).

 

[DaveT316]

Something on Ange that I don’t see get discussed much (and that I think does him a disservice) is this idea that he should have adjusted more. But that is to misunderstand what exactly was ever going to make him successful to the extent that he wanted to be.

The thing with Ange, is that he has such unwavering belief in a system and principles of play, that he was never going to compromise completely on them. Nick Montgomery talks about this in an interview with an Aussie paper last week. He did adjust, but he could have adjusted more at the risk to the long term belief in the system and principles that he was building around, and that he hoped to get back to properly in his third season.

It’s like this: his system requires immense bravery and immense belief in it to carry off. The benefit is once everyone is locked in with it, it can lead to outsized results way beyond expectations. It requires doing something that no other team would be willing to dare to do, in order to get greater results than they thought possible. This is why players joined after speaking to him, and this is why they stayed behind him. It was belief in a bigger idea and something they were working towards.

If he compromised on that even more, it calls into question everything he was building towards. He absolutely did adjust the system for most of the last season, but as Montgomery says they didn’t fully adjust the principles. The reason being if you abandon them to be more pragmatic, just to fight your way back up to maybe 12th position, then it’s very difficult to go back there. You can’t ask the players to be braver than they’ve ever been as a non negotiable, and you can’t build a spirit around this idea that you are brave, if you are shown you are willing to abandon those principles yourself.

It’s this third prong that I don’t see talked about enough in discussion about our league form. It’s injuries, which lead to a focus on the Europa as the only way we can win something out of the season. But then it’s also caring about the long term plan he has with the team, and not wanting to abandon that. I have no doubt he could have been more pragmatic, and won a few more league games, but getting the players to adhere to extreme bravery in the next season would have then been the question. ETH abandoned a lot of his principles to be more pragmatic with United, and they looked bereft of identity. I see a lot of people saying Frank’s mix of ‘nice football most of the time, but pragmatic when he needs to be’ is the perfect mix for us at Spurs, as if it’s some cheat code that Ange or anyone else hasn’t thought of. It’s not a cheat code, it’s just another coaching choice with its own trade offs. We’ll have plenty of games where we don’t break teams down, but we’ll almost certainly be back in the top six at a minimum.

I was massively in favour of Ange because I liked his idea. That we were going to stand toe to toe with the biggest teams and try to win. That once he could have a settled side, with a deep enough experienced squad that knew how to play this way, we could really push beyond our place in the food chain in the same way we did with Poch. But we gave up on that. And it seems to me because either ENIC didn’t understand what Ange’s goal was with his decision making. Or that he was too much of a risk taker for them. They want the near certainty of top six money, not the riskier decisions that might ultimately lead us to getting more than that.

Welcome back. What’s prompted the return?

 

[Lilbaz]

I think the single most frustrating thing about this continual debate is that there is acknowledgement from us/everyone that the league performances were not good enough, yet the contexts for those continually get pushed aside/disregarded as major factors. There are so many ways to measure progress beyond statistics, and it is wholly possible that the strength the group gained from weathering adversiy and succeeding in such a focussed objective could've been a catalyst for much more.

I freely acknowledge that there is a lot we don't know, that the people who have made the decision are in full grasp of the facts and situations (with contexts) and are certainly trying to do the very best for the club (should go without saying). Again, however, it is the 'de-meritisation' of this other perspective I offered above which is bizarre.

I would love to know if the discussion was had with Postecoglu as to whether he would be adapting things a little more given the experiences of this past season, and with Mason going to WBA, who knows what difference a new assistant coach might've brought? You'd have to hope/assume they did have those conversations, or that Ange had signaled zero chance of changing anything. I think it comes down to personal preferences. With Poch, I wanted to take the gamble and give him at least the rest of the season to try and rebuild/refocus versus the form we were in. We didn't. With Ange, I wanted to take the gamble and see if this coming season was the beghinning of something or the end of a moment. We didn't.
I am relieved we did not go the 'give him 10 games' route as that would've fudged us. All or nothing. We chose nothing, and so onwards.
It does appear that if Levy has taken one lesson from Poch, it is to stick with his first instinct and not dangle a leg in the shark infested ocean for a couple of months (I say that as someone who wanted Poch given that season, but who in hindsight thinks it would've ben better for Danile to lt him go that summer given what he didn't give him).

Every season will have contexts. Every team will have challenges to overcome. There will always be an excuse.

You use that. We don't accept it.

It's not personal or anything. It's just what it is.

 

[Finney Is Back]

We don't remember the last time a manager was sacked sfter winning a trophy?
2 points from 8 games not jolt your memory?
Redknapp came in and we played the best football i've ever seen at spurs. Got cl. We never won a trophy under him though.
I doubt anyone would say we should have kept ramos.

Ramos managed us for lots of games after winning that trophy.... including the first 8 games of the following season

 

[Bishop]

Which shows how competitive the league stage was. We didn't lose the game, we qualified in fourth two points off the top and went on to win the competition. The end....

We could have easily lost some. The one I always remember because I was at the Quarabag game and if they had any finishing quality we would have lost that match and at home. I can't say I was ever actually impressed by our performances in the EL itself other than the Frankfurt 1st leg where I genuinely thought we played quite well and showed a level of quality pretty unseen from us at any other point last season.

 

[Bishop]

That’s not tactics
That’s player aptitude

No, it's player ability and tactics. If you don't have the players for the tactics the. You've selected a poor framework to work from.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

No, it's player ability and tactics. If you don't have the players for the tactics the. You've selected a poor framework to work from.

We had the players
They were brick and thought they would walk that game
It’s a recurring theme here
Hence why we lost so many Europe games for example as well as limping in the cups