General thoughts on the 2014 / 2015 Season (now includes player poll)

[Didn'tMindGraham]

5th place and a cup final? Not a bad first year for a manager who had to quell an early revolt by a cadre of senior players; a manager who was clearly overseeing a "transitional" season and didn't really have a settled side for most of the year. At the start of the season, this was right at the high end of my expectations. So in those terms, Pochettino has been an unambiguous success so far, and the fact that so many of our best players seem to be youngsters (a lot of whom are coming through the academy) can only bode well.

All the talk of the Europa League distracting from the premiership... certainly the stats (and Everton this year) seem to suggest that teams who play in the Europa League finish lower that season than the last. But we're one of the teams that bucks that trend. In what has been demonstrated to be an unusually lengthy European campaign for us this year (in terms of miles flown), we still qualified from the group, reached a domestic cup final and improved our position in the league. That's no small feat. I'm not saying this was a season without negatives... but when I hear people suggest we are not progressing; I just don't get it at all.

Also, it's seasons like this that prepare a side for the Champions League. It's proof we can handle a lengthy European campaign without it consigning us to mid-table. That's why we qualify consistently. And it's why - when we do make the step up - we get to a quarter-final against Real Madrid instead of getting knocked out at the qualifying or group stages (as with Everton). I'd also suggest it means we'll be in a position to qualify consistently for Champions League once we make the step up.

So nobody needs to jump in with the old chestnut about how we'd probably have qualified for the Champions League this year if we hadn't had the distraction of Europa League football. That might even be true (though it might not - it's purely hypothetical after all) but to me it's essentially meaningless. I don't see Champions League qualification as the be-all and end-all. I want to win things. I want us to finish as high as possible in the league. But right now in our history we are capable of winning the Europa League. With every respect to Pochettino... we're just not good enough to win the Champions League next year. Of course I'd preferred to have finished 4th than 5th but if I'm honest... the fact that we have a realistic chance of winning the EL means each game will probably be more exciting to me than if we'd qualified for the Champions League. There'll be something tangible at stake. So in my eyes, it's no tragedy that we are where we are right now - challenging for the best trophies we can.

That said, it goes without saying that I want to see that change. I'm just realistic enough to understand it won't happen overnight and we need to give an ambitious manager a few years to build the team to the point where we can step up a notch and start challenging for the premier and champions leagues. That's the next step; but we aren't there yet.

This season tells me we're heading in the right direction though. The manager seems to have gotten rid of some troublesome players (Kaboul, Capoue, etc.) and built a core of young, generally hard-working players (with a couple of exceptions). There's every reason to believe Pochettino will be given the opportunity (so long as we can offload a few) to bring in some additional players; ones that he himself decides on.

There have been downsides - the aforementioned player revolt (or whatever it was) ended up being a positive as it seems to have solidified Pochettino's authority; but at the time it was hardly a great thing for the club. The late season slump was extremely disappointing, and that's something I'd expect to see improved on next season. I don't fully understand why it happened, but I bloody well expect the coaching staff to get to the bottom of it. There were other negatives and I didn't always agree with team selections (few of us ever do - no matter who the manager) but overall it was a very positive season.

And so long as Levy supports what Pochettino's trying to build, I can only see us getting better next year. Not a title challenge. Not yet anyway. But within "a few" years? Very possibly.


High point of the season: Tottenham 5-3 Chelsea / Tottenham 2 - 1 Arsenal / The emergence of Harry Kane
Low point of the season: Tottenham 0-1 Aston Villa
Player of the season: Harry Kane
Special mention to: Danny Rose, Hugo Lloris
Summer priority: Hang on to Lloris

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EDIT: I added a Player of the Season poll and included every player that I thought someone might want to vote for. If there's someone in the running that I've left out; just let me know and I'll fix it.

Feelgood quote of the decade

 

[Jordinho]

Can Spurs make the top four next season?

Jamie Redknapp: No. Spurs have taken eight points off the top four this season and although the table looks healthy with them in fifth place, what have they become? They are treading water.

This is not about my dad and the Champions League quarter-final they had when he was there; this is about driving home the message that their recruitment has been so poor.

It must improve and Harry Kane must stay.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...r-United-AVERAGE-miles-champions-Chelsea.html

 

[glorygloryeze]

Can Spurs make the top four next season?

Jamie Redknapp: No. Spurs have taken eight points off the top four this season and although the table looks healthy with them in fifth place, what have they become? They are treading water.

This is not about my dad and the Champions League quarter-final they had when he was there; this is about driving home the message that their recruitment has been so poor.

It must improve and Harry Kane must stay.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...r-United-AVERAGE-miles-champions-Chelsea.html

Haha...you protest too much. Nice of him to 'drive the message home', just to make sure like because it sounds so much clearer and important coming from him.

Hold on a minute, isn't his dad the one that said he's ready to work again?

 

[Baleforce]

Can Spurs make the top four next season?

Jamie Redknapp: No. Spurs have taken eight points off the top four this season and although the table looks healthy with them in fifth place, what have they become? They are treading water.

This is not about my dad and the Champions League quarter-final they had when he was there; this is about driving home the message that their recruitment has been so poor.

It must improve and Harry Kane must stay.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...r-United-AVERAGE-miles-champions-Chelsea.html

ha ha, why the fudge would it be about your dad?

that was years ago, we are on our third manager since then

redknapp junior is a simpleton

 

[parklane1]

Can Spurs make the top four next season?

Jamie Redknapp: No. Spurs have taken eight points off the top four this season and although the table looks healthy with them in fifth place, what have they become? They are treading water.

This is not about my dad and the Champions League quarter-final they had when he was there; this is about driving home the message that their recruitment has been so poor.

It must improve and Harry Kane must stay.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3096535/Jamie-Redknapp-s-end-season-Premier-League-verdict-including-Manchester-United-AVERAGE-miles-champions-Chelsea.html

flimflam, he is still bitter about us giving his old man the boot.

 

[braineclipse]

Just looking to boost Harry's profile a bit, get desperate cash rich clubs sniffing around so that Jamie's inevitable inheritance grows a bit.

Or perhaps I'm being cynical...

 

[DublinSpur]

Just looking to boost Harry's profile a bit, get desperate cash rich clubs sniffing around so that Jamie's inevitable inheritance grows a bit.

Or perhaps I'm being cynical...

You're not being cynical. They do lots of TV adverts and are even happy to do adverts together as a family... they show up as pundits on TV, in the papers, and on radio phone-ins constantly. They make a very good living out of self-promotion. That's what they do.

I'm not judging them for it; you're free to think whatever you like about it. You can think "Fair play! Nice way to make an easy living". Or you can see it as selling their very souls to a demonic corporate system that is destroying all that is good and pure. Or - more rationally - somewhere between the two. Either way, you can't argue with the facts; they're in the self-promotion game, and so they will always find a way to shoe-horn themselves into the conversation wherever possible. And it's not cynical to point that fact out. Especially because it does start to get a bit annoying after a while.

 

[glasgowspur]

Can't argue with the conclusion, his justification for the conclusion is dumb.

 

[Raziel]

when your bias shows, Spurs exceeds his prediction by 2 places, Poch gets a 6, Pool is two places below prediction, 4 places below last year, brick season, gets a 5? wtf, this clam really thinks the marks out of 10 between Spurs and Pool for season was a difference of 1?

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/32799483

TOTTENHAM 5th (prediction 7th)
Manager: Mauricio Pochettino 6 Players: 6 Season: 6

The emergence of striker Harry Kane and reaching the Capital One Cup final, where they lost to Chelsea, were highlights but in many respects Pochettino's first season at White Hart Lane was one where Spurs stood still.

The impression remains that the Argentine has still not got the players he wants - or needs - to implement his trademark high pressing style.

LIVERPOOL 6th (prediction 4th)

Steven Gerrard is definitely leaving Liverpool. But what about Brendan Rodgers?

Manager: Brendan Rodgers 5 Players: 4 Season: 5

Said pre-season that this could either be the start of a great Anfield era or one of the great missed opportunities after just failing to win the Premier League last year. Now we know.

A season of three parts. Poor until December, then excellent until March before a collapse that saw Liverpool lose to Aston Villa in the FA Cup semi-final and miss out on the Champions League places - in other words a failure.

Rodgers and his transfer committee have had a poor return for an outlay of more than £100m, armed with £75m just from the sale of Luis Suarez to Barcelona. Now they must work out how to replace iconic captain Steven Gerrard and solve the unrest surrounding Raheem Sterling.

And as if all that was not unsettling enough, the horrendous humiliation of that last day 6-1 thrashing at Stoke City will be a shock that will reverberate through the entire club - and not the best result for manager Rodgers to take into his end-of-season review with owners Fenway Sports Group.

 

[Andyandy]

Interesting to see many of the perspectives on here.

I think our final league position is a bit misleading, I feel like we were a long way off 4th as we never threatened it. We've been 5th many times over the last 10 years with far better teams and players. It's better to look at points than anything else to show our own progress, we need 75 points or more to take that step up! The question is where will these points come from next season?

Other things to consider for next season:

1. Can we really expect Kane to match or better last season?
2. What's the plan for post Europa league games? It's an issue we've never solved - what we gonna do different?
3. Why our home form is so poor when it comes to so called 3 pointers?
4. What to do with Townsend, lamela et Al.? The almost good enoughs!

 

[billyiddo]

I think the table is fairly accurate of the situation as it stands - 4 clubs with much higher finances than the rest and then ourselves and Liverpool in the leading pack but some way off able to compete on a level footing with those above. Southampton as a good example of how good managment from top to bottom over a number of years can elevate a club a level or two - whether they can sustain this level or not will remain to be seen, wasn't so long ago it was Swansea/Everton in a similar position, now look at them

Whilst top 4 is obviously the target, league wise, we should keep in mind that Arsenal are no longer paying off their stadium so are much much closer to United/Chelsea level of financial muscle than they are to us like theyhave been over recent years - which makes it all the more harder for us to break in as we're basically up against 4 super powers (in financial terms) - so with that in mind closing the gap on top 4 (points wise) is a good target for next season. Hopefully we can benefit from a Chelsea in 11/12 style freefall from one of the 4 and be in a good position to step in to the space they leave

 

[Cochise]

The problem with comparing seasons is that we tend to focus completely on ourselves and not the rest of the league. In the 2013/2014 season we picked up 4 points off of a stuttering UTD team, a UTD team that were so bad that anyone fancied themselves at Old Trafford, City were playing some of the best football in the league and Suarez was leading a Liverpool title charge. 79 points got you 4th place last year, this year it got you 2nd place whilst you only needed 70 points to get 4th spot. The league was far easier to predict with few of the top teams stumbling against those in the lower end of the table. IMO the league was stronger this year, the middle teams all strengthened whilst we seemingly stood still expecting a new coach to work with what he inherited. Looking at the bigger picture to include the entire league I think we did well, not brilliantly, but well enough.

Last season we trounced most of the teams below us, purely because of the quality we had. I'm not certain we could hope to replicate that again as the gap in our teams quality to those below us has shortened, but for me that is the first step we need to take, we need to get into the habit of beating those sides, even if it means winning ugly at times.

As for strenghtening the squad. It's my belief that we should aim to make 2-3 top signings (excluding Wimmer) and go from there.

 

[Craig_J]

Can Spurs make the top four next season?

Jamie Redknapp: No. Spurs have taken eight points off the top four this season and although the table looks healthy with them in fifth place, what have they become? They are treading water.

This is not about my dad and the Champions League quarter-final they had when he was there; this is about driving home the message that their recruitment has been so poor.

It must improve and Harry Kane must stay.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...r-United-AVERAGE-miles-champions-Chelsea.html

If I remember rightly Rekndpapps record against the top four in his first season wasn't great but after a couple of windows we improved the next. Nothing to stop Poch doing the same, especially when you consider the performances we gave against Arsenal and Chelsea where we controlled the game.

And even if our record against the top four is poor "what have they become?" is a ridiculous thing to say seeing as it's been poor for over two decades.

 

[Raziel]

Interesting to see many of the perspectives on here.

I think our final league position is a bit misleading, I feel like we were a long way off 4th as we never threatened it. We've been 5th many times over the last 10 years with far better teams and players. It's better to look at points than anything else to show our own progress, we need 75 points or more to take that step up! The question is where will these points come from next season?

Other things to consider for next season:

1. Can we really expect Kane to match or better last season?
2. What's the plan for post Europa league games? It's an issue we've never solved - what we gonna do different?
3. Why our home form is so poor when it comes to so called 3 pointers?
4. What to do with Townsend, lamela et Al.? The almost good enoughs!

No it's not, the gap between 5th and 4th doesn't make 5th any less real an achievement. And as a lot of people have complained about, if we were a little more competitive in our run in, 4th wouldn't have been impossible. So lets look at the points you raised

- 75 points? we have been 4th twice in the PL era, at 70 & 69 points, and the league is getting harder (see Southampton/Swansea's progress, add Everton back next year), 70 still benchmark
- Who knows re Kane, what we should expect is his backup can't really do worse than Ade/Soldado this year
- What Europa problem? while the teams that play in Europa average 2 positions less in the league (vs. years they don't participate), that is not true with us and while I haven't double checked the stats, we have (my perception) played worse since our workload has dropped off. Europa also unearthed Kane.
- Our home form was poor this season, as we get better (hopefully adjusted to Poch's system, bought a few players to improve) we should fix that.
- Interesting, Townsend/Lamela/Dembele/Stambouli/Lennon all fall into that category for me, to me 2-3 out of the 5 must go based on who Poch favours, along with who we get offers for.

 

[mudshark]

This is not about my dad and the Champions League quarter-final they had when he was there; this is about driving home the message that their recruitment has been so poor.

Dear Jamie,

Aside from the trivial observation that you're basing a conclusion (which you say revolves around recruitment) on events that haven't happened yet (that's generally known as begging the question, by the way), we probably made the Champions' League IN SPITE of your dad's stewardship, not because of it, on account of the world-class players we had at the club at the time. In my opinion, his record at QPR is as good an illustration of the sort of value he adds.

Dismissively,

mudshark

 

[Andyandy]

No it's not, the gap between 5th and 4th doesn't make 5th any less real an achievement. And as a lot of people have complained about, if we were a little more competitive in our run in, 4th wouldn't have been impossible. So lets look at the points you raised

- 75 points? we have been 4th twice in the PL era, at 70 & 69 points, and the league is getting harder (see Southampton/Swansea's progress, add Everton back next year), 70 still benchmark
- Who knows re Kane, what we should expect is his backup can't really do worse than Ade/Soldado this year
- What Europa problem? while the teams that play in Europa average 2 positions less in the league (vs. years they don't participate), that is not true with us and while I haven't double checked the stats, we have (my perception) played worse since our workload has dropped off. Europa also unearthed Kane.
- Our home form was poor this season, as we get better (hopefully adjusted to Poch's system, bought a few players to improve) we should fix that.
- Interesting, Townsend/Lamela/Dembele/Stambouli/Lennon all fall into that category for me, to me 2-3 out of the 5 must go based on who Poch favours, along with who we get offers for.

What was interesting about the comments in this thread was the optimism, not had that for a while!

- I don't agree that it's getting harder to get 4th. The champions league teams are not winning the champions league anymore and we have almost fallen into 5th due to Liverpool's self destruction and Saudi Sportswashing Machine/Everton not turning up this season. We've been 5th a few times in the last 10 years - for me this is our worst team that achieved that. It's promise comes from the age of the players.

- Europa league - we obviously need to make it work better for us, we certainly can't withdraw. A Europa game on Thursday is usually followed by a lethargic performance on Sunday, I would be confident to say that we dropped enough points to close the gap on 4th. Furthermore our lethargic cup final performance followed the same. I don't have a solution but we cannot ignore it.

 

[Robspur12]

What was interesting about the comments in this thread was the optimism, not had that for a while!

- I don't agree that it's getting harder to get 4th. The champions league teams are not winning the champions league anymore and we have almost fallen into 5th due to Liverpool's self destruction and Saudi Sportswashing Machine/Everton not turning up this season. We've been 5th a few times in the last 10 years - for me this is our worst team that achieved that. It's promise comes from the age of the players.

- Europa league - we obviously need to make it work better for us, we certainly can't withdraw. A Europa game on Thursday is usually followed by a lethargic performance on Sunday, I would be confident to say that we dropped enough points to close the gap on 4th. Furthermore our lethargic cup final performance followed the same. I don't have a solution but we cannot ignore it.

I am perplexed with the statement that ,"we only got 5th because Liverpool self destructed." We achieved 5th because, over the course of 38 games we accumulated more points than them simple as. Were we not above Liverpool at various points of the season not just at the end? I am a little disappointed although not surprised that several posters are trying to belittle the achievements of this season. I think the last time we finished in the top 6 and reached a cup final was before the inception of the PL.

 

[Andyandy]

I am perplexed with the statement that ,"we only got 5th because Liverpool self destructed." We achieved 5th because, over the course of 38 games we accumulated more points than them simple as. Were we not above Liverpool at various points of the season not just at the end? I am a little disappointed although not surprised that several posters are trying to belittle the achievements of this season. I think the last time we finished in the top 6 and reached a cup final was before the inception of the PL.

Are you seriously saying that this 5th placed team is on-par with our other 5th places before the rise of Emirates Marketing Project, the demise of Benetez's Liverpool and the modric, bale teams etc?

We've had a good season but that's only because our expectations and current team as they stand are not that high.

 

[Robspur12]

Are you seriously saying that this 5th placed team is on-par with our other 5th places before the rise of Emirates Marketing Project, the demise of Benetez's Liverpool and the modric, bale teams etc?

We've had a good season but that's only because our expectations and current team as they stand are not that high.

Have I said that? Personally as a fan I enjoyed getting 5th place more this time because we won it on the last day rather than getting it as a result of failing to get 4th. But we did not win 5th because Liverpool self destructed. They had their issues throughout the season and so did we it's not like they deserved 5th place any more or less than we did. In the end we were just better than them. Many Spurs fans are too busy looking at what we could have had rather than focusing on the reality of what we have. We have a young, exciting squad with a very good coach and hopefully no major departures. The squad will be buoyed by finishing 5th and getting to a cup final. Poch has a lot to build on and hopefully he will be able to strengthen some areas. I am really excited about next season.

 

[billyiddo]

4 points closer to 4th place than last season as well