ENIC

[Raziel]

Hindsight Hotspurs FC

This, and everything is obvious in hindsight, and memories revise history.

The real question is what is our strategy moving forward?

- We are betting on this manager, so what are we going to do in January to support him?
- We have a good youth system now, with 3 or 4 that might have a legitimate shot, how do we develop them and ensure that some make the final step
- Is the future more PL buys or do we supplement that with looking for the next Modric, Eriksen, Berbatov, even VDV?
- How do we sort out the who we keep of Gray, Bergvall, Maddison, Gallagher, Xavi, Deki, Odobert, Solanke, Richi (last one obvious but lots of players we need to make decisions on next summer)

 

[billyiddo]

Had we sold Dier for £50M in 2027, Rose for £50M in 2018 and Dele for £80M in 2019 what would the reaction of the fan base been?

I mean it doesn't really matter what the reaction would have been, all that matters is if the result of those moves would have seen us progress.

The trouble is that we know we got close and then eventually tailed off so any move suggested in hindsight is seen as the missing piece of the jigsaw when in all reality we could have just as easily sold those players and regressed all the same. Then the argument would be we should have kept that team together and done XY or Z instead.


For me the issues from that period are more to do with the transfer department as a whole being threadbare, rather than any particular deal or sale being the difference maker. We had the stadium build going on which meant transfer business was going to need to be balanced for a fair while, fair enough - but we would have known this ahead of time and should have planned accordingly, indepth knowledge of the market and supplement an already top quality team with lesser known players that command less of a fee. I guess we did try to do that, but we didn't have the setup in place to find the right players. I feel like we gave Poch the power in the market that he deserved, having earned his crust over several seasons, but it came at a time that we couldn't pursue his primary targets and so were left scrambling around with Hitchens little black book.

 

[glasgowspur]

Look at those 3 players though, there hasn't been a CM in the entire game even half as good as Modric since he left, there hasn't been an MF anywhere near as good as Eriksen in the PL since he left, and there has never been, before or after, a PL forward as good as Harry Kane.

That is 3 players it was impossible to have a succession plan for.

When you think two of them played in the same team is it any wonder Poch team struggled badly when they went off the boil, got injured.
Add in similar with Toby, dele and Wanyama, it's shocking we the fans couldn't show more patience.

 

[robp135]

I mean it doesn't really matter what the reaction would have been, all that matters is if the result of those moves would have seen us progress.

The trouble is that we know we got close and then eventually tailed off so any move suggested in hindsight is seen as the missing piece of the jigsaw when in all reality we could have just as easily sold those players and regressed all the same. Then the argument would be we should have kept that team together and done XY or Z instead.


For me the issues from that period are more to do with the transfer department as a whole being threadbare, rather than any particular deal or sale being the difference maker. We had the stadium build going on which meant transfer business was going to need to be balanced for a fair while, fair enough - but we would have known this ahead of time and should have planned accordingly, indepth knowledge of the market and supplement an already top quality team with lesser known players that command less of a fee. I guess we did try to do that, but we didn't have the setup in place to find the right players. I feel like we gave Poch the power in the market that he deserved, having earned his crust over several seasons, but it came at a time that we couldn't pursue his primary targets and so were left scrambling around with Hitchens little black book.

We sold Walker and signed Aurier
We sold Dembele and signed Ndombele
We sold Eriksen and Lo Celso was in place
We sold Kane and signed Solanke

 

[Lilbaz]

We sold Walker and signed Aurier
We sold Dembele and signed Ndombele
We sold Eriksen and Lo Celso was in place
We sold Kane and signed Solanke

Before that though we sold carrick and bought berba. We sold berba and bought modric. Bale, wslker, rose etc... came in along the way.

We used to be great at player trading. We are terrible now.

We need a great dof. More than anything.

 

[robp135]

Before that though we sold carrick and bought berba. We sold berba and bought modric. Bale, wslker, rose etc... came in along the way.

We used to be great at player trading. We are terrible now.

We need a great dof. More than anything.

Zakora was the Carrick replacment.
Pavlyauchenko was the Berbatov replacement.
Dembele was the Modric replacement.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

Had we sold Dier for £50M in 2027, Rose for £50M in 2018 and Dele for £80M in 2019 what would the reaction of the fan base been?

I’m sure there would have been a lot of unease and potentially anger. Although my argument would be that we needed to have the confidence in a football strategy that made sense relative to our financial power at the time, and not be guided by things like the fan reaction. (Not saying you are saying this)

I think it also depends on how we replaced them. Part of the issue through the years was replacing Carrick with Zokora, Modric with Dembele, Bale with Lamela, and Berbatov with Campbell. In the case of losing Carrick, we replaced the guy who made us tick with a completely different style of player, which then made Jol’s job harder. Berbatov with Campbell, the issue there is obvious (the argument may be that Pav was the Berba replacement and an example of good succession planning the prior window, but we are talking fan reaction here). Modric for Dembele, the issue is not Dembele, who was a great player just different to Modric, the issue is that we didn’t get Moutinho. I don’t have as much criticism of how we used the Bale money, because I think we reacted quickly and as smartly as we could once the deal became impossible to resist, although there would be an argument there that we could have gone for 1 or 2 top class proven talents rather than spreading the risk around the squad, with each player unproven in the PL.

Overall point being, if we replaced top players with top players, I think the fan angst dissipates pretty quickly. If we remain consistent in the league and actually evolve in interesting ways while still demonstrating our core values, it becomes moot. If we replaced them with unproven players, and started to fall in the league, the fan angst would be justified.

As it was, I think Levy could argue that the CL final run was the result of him keeping that squad together as long as he could. Because he got as many of them to peak as close together as possible and that is something he was never able to achieve prior. And I have some sympathy for that argument, because our players used their collective nous and belief in each other to earn some incredible results in that run. I think my counter to that would be, that the squad wasn’t truly peaking, it was more scraping by in knock out football. Our peak was probably in 2017. And ultimately it made the rebuild harder, because we left ourselves to do more at once when it became clear it was the end for that group.

 

[Lilbaz]

Zakora was the Carrick replacment.
Pavlyauchenko was the Berbatov replacement.
Dembele was the Modric replacement.

Not how it worked then. We sold carrick for €27m. Bought berba and zakora for €27m

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/tottenham-hotspur/transfers/verein/148/saison_id/2006

We sold berba for €38m and bought modric and pav for €39m.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/tottenham-hotspur/transfers/verein/148/plus/?saison_id=2008&pos=&detailpos=&w_s=