***OMT Tottenham Hotspur v Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Saturday August 29th, 5.30pm, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium***

[robp135]

Quantitative data imho tells only part of the story. Here's a more qualitative analysis :-

Danso became an absolute foundational piece for De Zerbi’s structural turnaround. [1]

• • The Crucial Run-In: Danso started six of De Zerbi's final seven matches.
  • Defensive Resilience: In those crucial matches, Spurs clawed their way out of danger, picking up three wins and two draws.
  • Standout Performance: He notably marshaled a dominant 2-1 victory away at Aston Villa, limiting their opponents to zero shots on target for the first 62 minutes of the match. [1, 2]

Defensive Volume and Leadership
When comparing the defense with and without him, Danso provided a level of penalty-box security that Micky van de Ven and Jan Paul van Hecke struggled to replicate consistently on their own. [1, 2]

• • Clearance Machine: Danso led Tottenham in clearances for the 2025/26 Premier League season with 131 clearances (averaging 6.24 per game), edge-casing Van de Ven who had 129. [1]
  • The "Chaos-Slayer": Media and fan reviews from Spurs Web heavily praised him for stepping up at Anfield and dealing with high-pressure games, making him the defender who could make a "chaotic game feel survivable". [1, 2]

Without Danso's robust, "heart on his sleeve" interventions during the spring of 2026, Tottenham's defensive unit lacked the raw aerial dominance and clearance volume needed to hold onto narrow margins. His presence directly coincided with the team finding the defensive calm required to salvage their season. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Thanks RobGPT

 

[Jurgen the German]

I get that we’re a work in progress. I get that we’ve finished 17th two seasons running because, frankly, we’ve been crap. And I understand that the new signings aren’t going to gel overnight.

But is it really too much to ask that we at least look like creating and scoring goals, even if the goals themselves don’t come straight away?

We never look solid either. So if we almost always concede, we never really look like scoring, and we can’t buy a bloody win at home, where exactly are the points supposed to come from?

I genuinely fear we could go down for real this year. Not because there are necessarily 17 better teams than us, but because teams that flirt with relegation season after season eventually tend to go down. West Ham did. Wigan did. Villa did. The only exception I can think of is Everton.

 

[Robspur12]

Thanks RobGPT

Partly from the official website actually.

 

[DeanoAustin]

I get that we’re a work in progress. I get that we’ve finished 17th two seasons running because, frankly, we’ve been crap. And I understand that the new signings aren’t going to gel overnight.

But is it really too much to ask that we at least look like creating and scoring goals, even if the goals themselves don’t come straight away?

We never look solid either. So if we almost always concede, we never really look like scoring, and we can’t buy a bloody win at home, where exactly are the points supposed to come from?

I genuinely fear we could go down for real this year. Not because there are necessarily 17 better teams than us, but because teams that flirt with relegation season after season eventually tend to go down. West Ham did. Wigan did. Villa did. The only exception I can think of is Everton.

We’ve been absolute dogbrick and it’s been a very, very disappointing start to the season. I can’t say I saw this coming and, having endured two seasons of unprecedented brick, it is massively frustrating.

However, it’s two games and I can’t make any judgement on two games or even five games. If we got 10 games in and we’re still getting bummed like this, I’m worried. But, in the scheme
of things, two games is nothing.

We’ve gotten in an excellent manager, we’ve backed him. This is now the uncomfortable bit where we have to be patient and not let our very understandable frustration become our overriding emotion.

It will get better. It just might take a while.

 

[MrScottSpur]

Tel no more get out my club go holiday with Richy

 

[Jurgen the German]

We’ve been absolute dogbrick and it’s been a very, very disappointing start to the season. I can’t say I saw this coming and, having endured two seasons of unprecedented brick, it is massively frustrating.

However, it’s two games and I can’t make any judgement on two games or even five games. If we got 10 games in and we’re still getting bummed like this, I’m worried. But, in the scheme
of things, two games is nothing.

We’ve gotten in an excellent manager, we’ve backed him. This is now the uncomfortable bit where we have to be patient and not let our very understandable frustration become our overriding emotion.

It will get better. It just might take a while.

I agreed with every word and you made a great case up until that last sentence. I would bite your hand off for top half. And I think people are delusional if they think we’re going to push for the top 4.

 

[MrScottSpur]

I am sick of us being brick

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

We’ve been absolute dogbrick and it’s been a very, very disappointing start to the season. I can’t say I saw this coming and, having endured two seasons of unprecedented brick, it is massively frustrating.

However, it’s two games and I can’t make any judgement on two games or even five games. If we got 10 games in and we’re still getting bummed like this, I’m worried. But, in the scheme
of things, two games is nothing.

We’ve gotten in an excellent manager, we’ve backed him. This is now the uncomfortable bit where we have to be patient and not let our very understandable frustration become our overriding emotion.

It will get better. It just might take a while.

I agree. I think we’ll be fine. The players we have are too talented. We’ll get there. And we looked really good today until their goal.

Why does it feel so weird? I just don’t think the team dynamics have clicked yet. They all don’t really know each other. And that’s important because you need to know who your leaders are, and they need to know what buttons to push, and everyone needs to stick together. Right now a bunch of new people have joined, almost everyone is on better money, but there’re still figuring out what it means to win together.

It really is something you cannot sign. And when signing so many new players at once, it is more likely to occur. The leaders will emerge, the dynamics will become clearer. I think part of the reason RDZ was able to have such impact last season was because for as terrible as we were, there was at least some semblance of the team dynamics. The personalities were clear. There was something of a foundation to steer into the right direction. Here I think we have great players, but we’ve lost big personalities and the new ones just haven’t found their voice yet. But it’ll happen.

I am sceptical that anyone of our leadership group are actually the right personalities though, obviously I can’t judge without being behind the scenes but VDV doesn’t strike me as captain material, Porro too, Gray…Maddison…they all seem to be in the mould of great examples to the squad for different reasons, but no one is going to be the arse kicker or the confidence builder when times are tough. I think we need more of that and for someone to emerge.

Otherwise…it’s just weird because we’re playing Porro at right wing. When the transfer window is over surely this won’t happen.

 

[DeanoAustin]

I agreed with every word and you made a great case up until that last sentence. I would bite your hand off for top half. And I think people are delusional if they think we’re going to push for the top 4.

I’m not convinced we’ll get top 4 or top 6. I really don’t know what my expectation is. Top 4 feels a massive jump from two 17ths but mid table feels like a poor target after spending the money we’ve spent.

I give the board credit but I hope the sustainability of our spending this year (on fees and wages) isn’t reliant on us qualifying for CL or even Europe because it’s a big ask.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

I’m not convinced we’ll get top 4 or top 6. I really don’t know what my expectation is. Top 4 feels a massive jump from two 17ths but mid table feels like a poor target after spending the money we’ve spent.

I give the board credit but I hope the sustainability of our spending this year (on fees and wages) isn’t reliant on us qualifying for CL or even Europe because it’s a big ask.

I’m trying to think of another team that made such drastic changes and then made outsized improvements to their finishing position,

If memory serves, Chelsea’s first Russian money season was another 4th under Ranieri, and they won it the next season under Jose. I think the first UAE money was a 5th placed finish when we beat them to the CL, and then it started to come together for them after that in terms of a title challenge.

Liverpool really stepped up after they signed VVD and Allison. That felt like the time they jumped from inconsistent top 6-8 team with the occasional fantastic season, to one that was really more of a consistent top 3 side again. And maybe the lesson there is that it was a couple of big name additions on top of an already fairly strong squad.

We have made a lot of big name additions on top of a poor squad that for years wasn’t paying proper wages to attract the very best. So it’s just a lot of change. If we’re lucky, we might get a City esque first season with money but since the league is more competitive maybe we trundle along to 7-8th before being properly good next year.

All that said, I go back to how we played first 60 mins today and think…if it can click earlier this season we’ll be ok and do good. You can tell the football is sophisticated and the players are talented. It is just weird right now.

 

[DeanoAustin]

I’m trying to think of another team that made such drastic changes and then made outsized improvements to their finishing position,

If memory serves, Chelsea’s first Russian money season was another 4th under Ranieri, and they won it the next season under Jose. I think the first UAE money was a 5th placed finish when we beat them to the CL, and then it started to come together for them after that in terms of a title challenge.

Liverpool really stepped up after they signed VVD and Allison. That felt like the time they jumped from inconsistent top 6-8 team with the occasional fantastic season, to one that was really more of a consistent top 3 side again. And maybe the lesson there is that it was a couple of big name additions on top of an already fairly strong squad.

We have made a lot of big name additions on top of a poor squad that for years wasn’t paying proper wages to attract the very best. So it’s just a lot of change. If we’re lucky, we might get a City esque first season with money but since the league is more competitive maybe we trundle along to 7-8th before being properly good next year.

All that said, I go back to how we played first 60 mins today and think…if it can click earlier this season we’ll be ok and do good. You can tell the football is sophisticated and the players are talented. It is just weird right now.

Yeah it is weird. It’s hard to make comparisons because as undeniably brick as we’ve been in the last two years, I think we were underachieving on an unprecedented scale. Therefore, I’m not sure what par should have been. I know people will say “well, two 17th placed finishes means par was 17th” but, although we fully deserved those finishes, I don’t believe it was par for us.

As a result, I’ve no clue where we could finish or should expect to finish. I’d just like to see us look like a functioning club again where we start winning, start expecting to win and start winning some games with a bit of ease rather than the absolute struggle of last season.

Like you, I saw a bit to be encouraged by today. I firmly believe it will come. It’s just hard wading through the brick and harder still knowing what we should be aiming for.

 

[makkag]

Well that was brick , lovely to see all my football friends and family today but did feel hollow at the lane.

a whole new team and will take time perhaps till Xmas until we see where we are at ..I saw better football in spurts today than the whole of last year but still no team .

Fudging hard place to go our gaff after so few results in 2 of years ... let's try not to pile on .. accept where we are and what we have spent to sort it .. full rebuild gonna take a bit to see it purr .. don't let the media and negativity get to you !

Hard granted but but I think we will get there

 

[demotw]

Quantitative data imho tells only part of the story. Here's a more qualitative analysis :-

Danso became an absolute foundational piece for De Zerbi’s structural turnaround. [1]

• • The Crucial Run-In: Danso started six of De Zerbi's final seven matches.
  • Defensive Resilience: In those crucial matches, Spurs clawed their way out of danger, picking up three wins and two draws.
  • Standout Performance: He notably marshaled a dominant 2-1 victory away at Aston Villa, limiting their opponents to zero shots on target for the first 62 minutes of the match. [1, 2]

Defensive Volume and Leadership
When comparing the defense with and without him, Danso provided a level of penalty-box security that Micky van de Ven and Jan Paul van Hecke struggled to replicate consistently on their own. [1, 2]

• • Clearance Machine: Danso led Tottenham in clearances for the 2025/26 Premier League season with 131 clearances (averaging 6.24 per game), edge-casing Van de Ven who had 129. [1]
  • The "Chaos-Slayer": Media and fan reviews from Spurs Web heavily praised him for stepping up at Anfield and dealing with high-pressure games, making him the defender who could make a "chaotic game feel survivable". [1, 2]

Without Danso's robust, "heart on his sleeve" interventions during the spring of 2026, Tottenham's defensive unit lacked the raw aerial dominance and clearance volume needed to hold onto narrow margins. His presence directly coincided with the team finding the defensive calm required to salvage their season. [1, 2, 3, 4]

I hate these stats, only remains valid if the entire team is identical, in exactly the same condition etc etc. Ours is vastly different, you just can not compare

 

[demotw]

I’m trying to think of another team that made such drastic changes and then made outsized improvements to their finishing position,

If memory serves, Chelsea’s first Russian money season was another 4th under Ranieri, and they won it the next season under Jose. I think the first UAE money was a 5th placed finish when we beat them to the CL, and then it started to come together for them after that in terms of a title challenge.

Liverpool really stepped up after they signed VVD and Allison. That felt like the time they jumped from inconsistent top 6-8 team with the occasional fantastic season, to one that was really more of a consistent top 3 side again. And maybe the lesson there is that it was a couple of big name additions on top of an already fairly strong squad.

We have made a lot of big name additions on top of a poor squad that for years wasn’t paying proper wages to attract the very best. So it’s just a lot of change. If we’re lucky, we might get a City esque first season with money but since the league is more competitive maybe we trundle along to 7-8th before being properly good next year.

All that said, I go back to how we played first 60 mins today and think…if it can click earlier this season we’ll be ok and do good. You can tell the football is sophisticated and the players are talented. It is just weird right now.

Artetas first 3 games in charge was something like 3 losses, 0 goals scored and 9 conceded