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Nuno Espírito Santo - Sacked

The players have seen the owners of the club fail to bring in a top class manager. Not only that but they have seen (through Sky News being shown at the training ground) the embarrassing search that we conducted before settling on a manager that surely wouldn't even have been in anyone's top 20 best managers in the game. They all know that there is no real ambition from the top for our football club to be the best in the land. That sort of thing rubs off.

I think its a bit crass to say there is no ambition at the top of the club. Ambition is not binary, it is not on, or indeed off. There's levels of ambition, and what is ambitious to one club (Yeovil Town being promoted to the Championship for example) is a step down for others. You cannot say that we are unambitious because we have one of the most expensive and desirable stadia in the world, we have the best training facilities in the country, and whether you care to agree or not, we've regularly competed for honours for the past 15 years, compared to 90% of our peer group. That we have not won something is the difference of a turn of a dice, the flip of a coin, a handball from Sissoko one fateful night.

That we are currently in a transition situation is to be expected - not so long ago Man Utd were in this situation, Arsenal are there now, and we may be headed there. These things happen in football. We did it when we sold Bale. We did it when we sold Gazza. We even did it when we sold Waddle.

So to come back to the original point - we're ambitious, but we're ambitious in a different way to those clubs above us. We've spent years telling people we are not oil funded, years citing the fact that City, Utd, Chelski and Liverpool's owners have a different financial perspective to ours, but what we don't mention when referring to that is the fact that we are generally more ambitious than 14 other clubs in our league. Our record signing spend stands 6th in our league. This signing was made at a time when we were funding a £1bn stadium and subsequently despite the pandemic shutting the stadium we've continued to buy players - yes its slowed, but how would you do without your main source of income for 15 months - would you be ordering the most expensive meal on the menu?

Another way of looking at ambition outside of trophies is to look at how the board have increased the value of the club. And before you say "its not about money its about trophies", don't, as the top five clubs in the land at the moment have got to where they are based on money spent - so in order to compete at the top table we need to be as big in revenue terms as the top five clubs.

In 2012 THFC was worth $564m. 9 years later, we are worth $2.3bn. Our club has quadrupled in value in 9 years. By comparison the gooners were worth $1.3bn in 2012 and now are worth $2.8bn. Barely doubled. Chelsea have trebled in value, to give another comparison. So we are now way closer to the big teams in terms of revenue, which means we are better placed to compete financially.

Whether you like it or not football is a business, and a decade ago we were a long way behind the most successful businesses in our industry. We are now far closer in terms of revenues and profits, and with that in time will come the potential to buy trophies like our competition. Sadly Covid has delayed this, but mark my words, in another 10 years there will be 6 or 7 clubs that will have any hope of competing for silverware, and I am willing to bet we will be one of them. Its the way that things are going, and is why we were at the table with the Super League clubs.

With regards Nuno - we didn't get the manager we wanted which would have been one of Naglesmann, Ten Haag or Rodgers, and once those three had been ruled out there was never a perfect candidate. So we've got Nuno who is a clever guy, but not a Spurs manager - not unless he changes his path from a pragmatic defensive coach to a new more expansive style. As such he's a stop gap until Poch, Ten Haag, Rodgers, or possibly Potter becomes available.

No lack of ambition - just a bad spell - I promise you.
 
I’m looking forward to popping back in here once Nuno gets some time to get his team right. How short sighted are our fans?

A manager needs games to get their side playing well, isn’t that obvious?

I'm sure most of us would love to be proved wrong. However, I'm not sure I agree with your logic. You could give Sherwood, George Graham or Gerry The Badger Francis a million games, and they would still suck at their job. Time does not equal success. On the other hand, I think it's unfair to imply that no manager in the world could get their team to a decent level in a matter of weeks/months. Some do.

At the moment, we're leaking in three goals per game. I don't know if I'm short-sighted but I know I'd feel a tad deluded if I were posting "we're going to be fine" all day long. We're not in a good place right now and the way I see it (my opinion), it's not going to get better any time soon but, again, I'd be delighted to be proved wrong. If I could also be entertained while watching the games, I'd be happy man.
 
I think its a bit crass to say there is no ambition at the top of the club. Ambition is not binary, it is not on, or indeed off. There's levels of ambition, and what is ambitious to one club (Yeovil Town being promoted to the Championship for example) is a step down for others. You cannot say that we are unambitious because we have one of the most expensive and desirable stadia in the world, we have the best training facilities in the country, and whether you care to agree or not, we've regularly competed for honours for the past 15 years, compared to 90% of our peer group. That we have not won something is the difference of a turn of a dice, the flip of a coin, a handball from Sissoko one fateful night.

That we are currently in a transition situation is to be expected - not so long ago Man Utd were in this situation, Arsenal are there now, and we may be headed there. These things happen in football. We did it when we sold Bale. We did it when we sold Gazza. We even did it when we sold Waddle.

So to come back to the original point - we're ambitious, but we're ambitious in a different way to those clubs above us. We've spent years telling people we are not oil funded, years citing the fact that City, Utd, Chelski and Liverpool's owners have a different financial perspective to ours, but what we don't mention when referring to that is the fact that we are generally more ambitious than 14 other clubs in our league. Our record signing spend stands 6th in our league. This signing was made at a time when we were funding a £1bn stadium and subsequently despite the pandemic shutting the stadium we've continued to buy players - yes its slowed, but how would you do without your main source of income for 15 months - would you be ordering the most expensive meal on the menu?

Another way of looking at ambition outside of trophies is to look at how the board have increased the value of the club. And before you say "its not about money its about trophies", don't, as the top five clubs in the land at the moment have got to where they are based on money spent - so in order to compete at the top table we need to be as big in revenue terms as the top five clubs.

In 2012 THFC was worth $564m. 9 years later, we are worth $2.3bn. Our club has quadrupled in value in 9 years. By comparison the gooners were worth $1.3bn in 2012 and now are worth $2.8bn. Barely doubled. Chelsea have trebled in value, to give another comparison. So we are now way closer to the big teams in terms of revenue, which means we are better placed to compete financially.

Whether you like it or not football is a business, and a decade ago we were a long way behind the most successful businesses in our industry. We are now far closer in terms of revenues and profits, and with that in time will come the potential to buy trophies like our competition. Sadly Covid has delayed this, but mark my words, in another 10 years there will be 6 or 7 clubs that will have any hope of competing for silverware, and I am willing to bet we will be one of them. Its the way that things are going, and is why we were at the table with the Super League clubs.

With regards Nuno - we didn't get the manager we wanted which would have been one of Naglesmann, Ten Haag or Rodgers, and once those three had been ruled out there was never a perfect candidate. So we've got Nuno who is a clever guy, but not a Spurs manager - not unless he changes his path from a pragmatic defensive coach to a new more expansive style. As such he's a stop gap until Poch, Ten Haag, Rodgers, or possibly Potter becomes available.

No lack of ambition - just a bad spell - I promise you.


Good post.
We are ambitious, but we are ambitious to a realistic level. We know what rewards our current level of spending will bring us, we also know how much, much more it will cost us to take the next step.
And probably more importantly, should that next level of investment pay off the fans demands dont get less, they become higher.
Blackburn and leeds did not end up where they are by winning the, they ended up there by trying to push on with absolutely no solid base to do so.
 
Ehhhh…I dunno about consistency.

City was counter attack.

Wolves was dig in. Watford was patience and I think Palace would have been patience. Chelsea and Wolves again was more pressing. Arsenal was whatever Arsenal was…long ball.

But I think there’s been some really different approaches in most of the games.

I think those changes are more about the difference in quality and style of the different opponents than us adjusting.

As an example "patience" against Watford was more about them standing off us and us not doing much with the ball. Had City stood off us I think it would have been the same. Of course City are never likely to do that, but just as a hypothetical.
 
It's crazy to think how much a win or a loss colours the perception of most fans. You only have to look as far as the Wolves and Watford match threads to see how the same manager and the same players were praised, despite the performances being no better than the one against Chelsea (Watford is debatable, although I seem to recall that we got our best chances once they opened up in search of an equalizer).

If we'd won against Palace, the Arsenal game would be considered a mere blip in an overall good start to the season. I'm not having a go at anyone but I'm honestly amazed to see that the odd goal here and there can make all the difference in the world, regardless of what happens on the pitch.

I missed our best game of the season but if I forget the players' names and the table, what I've been seeing on the pitch since the start of the season looks very much like relegation material. It won't happen because, unlike smaller clubs, we have the means to shake things up if need be, but it's that poor.
Spot on apart from relegation material for me. Mid tableish for me.

The performances in the opening three games was overrated by many. Same with the Palace game up to the red card. We didn't create enough chances, we didn't do well enough on the ball, we relied too heavily on counter attacking.
 
I think its a bit crass to say there is no ambition at the top of the club. Ambition is not binary, it is not on, or indeed off. There's levels of ambition, and what is ambitious to one club (Yeovil Town being promoted to the Championship for example) is a step down for others. You cannot say that we are unambitious because we have one of the most expensive and desirable stadia in the world, we have the best training facilities in the country, and whether you care to agree or not, we've regularly competed for honours for the past 15 years, compared to 90% of our peer group. That we have not won something is the difference of a turn of a dice, the flip of a coin, a handball from Sissoko one fateful night.

That we are currently in a transition situation is to be expected - not so long ago Man Utd were in this situation, Arsenal are there now, and we may be headed there. These things happen in football. We did it when we sold Bale. We did it when we sold Gazza. We even did it when we sold Waddle.

So to come back to the original point - we're ambitious, but we're ambitious in a different way to those clubs above us. We've spent years telling people we are not oil funded, years citing the fact that City, Utd, Chelski and Liverpool's owners have a different financial perspective to ours, but what we don't mention when referring to that is the fact that we are generally more ambitious than 14 other clubs in our league. Our record signing spend stands 6th in our league. This signing was made at a time when we were funding a £1bn stadium and subsequently despite the pandemic shutting the stadium we've continued to buy players - yes its slowed, but how would you do without your main source of income for 15 months - would you be ordering the most expensive meal on the menu?

Another way of looking at ambition outside of trophies is to look at how the board have increased the value of the club. And before you say "its not about money its about trophies", don't, as the top five clubs in the land at the moment have got to where they are based on money spent - so in order to compete at the top table we need to be as big in revenue terms as the top five clubs.

In 2012 THFC was worth $564m. 9 years later, we are worth $2.3bn. Our club has quadrupled in value in 9 years. By comparison the gooners were worth $1.3bn in 2012 and now are worth $2.8bn. Barely doubled. Chelsea have trebled in value, to give another comparison. So we are now way closer to the big teams in terms of revenue, which means we are better placed to compete financially.

Whether you like it or not football is a business, and a decade ago we were a long way behind the most successful businesses in our industry. We are now far closer in terms of revenues and profits, and with that in time will come the potential to buy trophies like our competition. Sadly Covid has delayed this, but mark my words, in another 10 years there will be 6 or 7 clubs that will have any hope of competing for silverware, and I am willing to bet we will be one of them. Its the way that things are going, and is why we were at the table with the Super League clubs.

With regards Nuno - we didn't get the manager we wanted which would have been one of Naglesmann, Ten Haag or Rodgers, and once those three had been ruled out there was never a perfect candidate. So we've got Nuno who is a clever guy, but not a Spurs manager - not unless he changes his path from a pragmatic defensive coach to a new more expansive style. As such he's a stop gap until Poch, Ten Haag, Rodgers, or possibly Potter becomes available.

No lack of ambition - just a bad spell - I promise you.

Just a couple of questions:

Re: "we've regularly competed for honours for the past 15 years, compared to 90% of our peer group."
Who do you consider to be our peer group then?

"With regards Nuno - we didn't get the manager we wanted which would have been one of Naglesmann, Ten Haag or Rodgers, and once those three had been ruled out there was never a perfect candidate. So we've got Nuno who is a clever guy, but not a Spurs manager - not unless he changes his path from a pragmatic defensive coach to a new more expansive style. As such he's a stop gap until Poch, Ten Haag, Rodgers, or possibly Potter becomes available."

What ruled those managers out? Nagelemann, fair enough - he went to Bayern Munich and I know they are an absolute giant of a club compared to us. Ten Haag and Rodgers though are at Ajax and Leicester. If we cannot attract either of those two managers then that is a sad indictment of the the package on offer at THFC. Why would we have to wait until Potter 'becomes available'. In his Telegraph article Matt Law suggested that Potter let it be known that he wasn't interested in tarnishing his growing reputation by going to Spurs. Does it not worry you that managers with a good reputation see our club as one that is so very hard to succeed at? Do you think sacking Pochettino at the first sign of a blip after he had so obviously consistently over achieved compared to resources has done us any favours when it comes to wanting to hire a young manager with a growing reputation?
 
Spot on apart from relegation material for me. Mid tableish for me.

The performances in the opening three games was overrated by many. Same with the Palace game up to the red card. We didn't create enough chances, we didn't do well enough on the ball, we relied too heavily on counter attacking.

Jesus, whatever about the first three games (and for me only City was a good performance), we were utter dogbrick against Palace even before the red card. It was a dreadful performance.
 
Jesus, whatever about the first three games (and for me only City was a good performance), we were utter dogbrick against Palace even before the red card. It was a dreadful performance.
Not entirely sure I understand what you're saying.

I'd use different words, but we probably more or less agree on the Palace game. I had several conversations on here with people who thought it was fine, we would have gotten at least a draw if not for the red card, 3 wins in 4, isn't that good enough etc. So I think the performance was overrated by some/many.
 
Good post.
We are ambitious, but we are ambitious to a realistic level. We know what rewards our current level of spending will bring us, we also know how much, much more it will cost us to take the next step.
And probably more importantly, should that next level of investment pay off the fans demands dont get less, they become higher.
Blackburn and leeds did not end up where they are by winning the, they ended up there by trying to push on with absolutely no solid base to do so.
Blackburn are sitting at exactly the level that their club should be.... The Championship... Yet they also realised the owner's dream and won the PL. I bet their fans wouldn't swap that for the World.
 
Not entirely sure I understand what you're saying.

I'd use different words, but we probably more or less agree on the Palace game. I had several conversations on here with people who thought it was fine, we would have gotten at least a draw if not for the red card, 3 wins in 4, isn't that good enough etc. So I think the performance was overrated by some/many.
It didn't look to me that we would've gotten at least a draw in that game. It looked as though we would get a draw at best (difficult to score when you don't actually do any attacking).
 
It didn't look to me that we would've gotten at least a draw in that game. It looked as though we would get a draw at best (difficult to score when you don't actually do any attacking).
We could have stolen a win of course, but that's a game we lose more often than we win if we played it like that 100 times.

The poor results were always coming unless we started playing better.
 
I’m looking forward to popping back in here once Nuno gets some time to get his team right. How short sighted are our fans?

A manager needs games to get their side playing well, isn’t that obvious?


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

I'm happy to be proven run but there have been a couple stats recently which have shown abouw how few goals his teams score and how few games he wins stretching back something like 100 games

His style is dreadful. If we're to accept dreadful football, he needs to get us top 4 and winning trophies. There is zero sign of that happening and I would say zero change of that happening

Finishing 5th (a level which we're miles off being) isnt enough if the football is turgid
 
Blackburn are sitting at exactly the level that their club should be.... The Championship... Yet they also realised the owner's dream and won the PL. I bet their fans wouldn't swap that for the World.

Similar level of trophies as us, actually more in recent history. Only bit they really lag behind us is in Europe.
Wouldn’t like to be on here if we were in the championship.
 
Not entirely sure I understand what you're saying.

I'd use different words, but we probably more or less agree on the Palace game. I had several conversations on here with people who thought it was fine, we would have gotten at least a draw if not for the red card, 3 wins in 4, isn't that good enough etc. So I think the performance was overrated by some/many.

My bad phraseology, sorry. We agree. It was more shock that anyone could justify that performance (which I know you weren't doing). It was arguably the worst one of the season even up to the sending off...until Sunday's first half shambles. That's Tottenham, no matter how low we go, we can always go lower.

Surely we won't hit a new low this weekend?
 
Spot on apart from relegation material for me. Mid tableish for me.

The performances in the opening three games was overrated by many. Same with the Palace game up to the red card. We didn't create enough chances, we didn't do well enough on the ball, we relied too heavily on counter attacking.

I agree, but we've also gone from having a narrow, compact midfield which was set up to limit chances, and having a reasonably comfortable back 4, to looking wide open - in the space of what - 2 weeks? What the hell happened in that international break?!! It was bizarre to watch on sunday. Has Nuno buckled to the media and fan narrative to be more 'attacking' ?! I preferred winning tight games 1-0 to getting spanked by 3 goals every week
 
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