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Ange in or out?
- Thread starter Yiddo
- Start date
fernadez
Simon Davies
That's as much grace as I'd give, from the 2nd leg of the QF maybe.
Point is, I don't see that correlate with a downturn in our league form and performances. We was just as brick before that.
Glenda's Legs
Cecil Poynton
They must be pretty desperate to get away then if the medical team is their refuge.
Robspur12
Jimmy Neighbour
It would be great to win the Europa League. But I think a bit of perspective is needed about it because I don't think this year's campaign is comparable to any other. Ange has effectively given up on the league since the knockout stages and not had to worry about the domestic cups either. No other manager would have got away with that. The club wanted us to finish in Champs league places each season. Ange has been able to put all his eggs in one basket. I can't think of any other manager in recent times who has had that privilege.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
I think its the absense of narrative that's the problem. There's been no journey. No good performances. Nothing endearing.Jesus i can not believe some of the negative crap that i have just read over the last few pages. We are going to a fudging final of Europe and all i can see [from a few] is negative after negative about how poor we have been this season. NO ONE is happy about the season as a whole but for fudges sake we are going to a final and IF we win it it would be the first for a long time.
Why some fans have to be negative on the dawn of a major cup final is bewildering [ at least] and worrys me that some fans would rather see us lose the Ange win US a cup.
2019 was massive, because it was a 5 year journey we'd all been on. We loved the team, loved the manager, watched them grow and go on to become vice european champions.
Whereas now the players feel like victims, the manager is a dislikeable chippy prick, and we've not put in a good performance in nearly 2 years.
The one thing there is is maybe Son's 'lifetime achievement award', to make up for the bigger ones he got so close to.
It was a logical thing to do, people were literally saying we should be prioritising the EL on here by the start of the year.
It was obvious by the injury situation, once we got our players back after that nightmare 3 month period we didn't play our strongest team at any point in the league. Even if you just focused on the back 5, since VDV and Romero returned from injury earlier this year - the only time our first choice back 5 of Vicario/Porro/Romero/VDV/Udogie has been the EL. And I believe that back 5 hasn't featured in the league since the opening couple of months in the PL.
Does it mean we would have fared that much better in the league had we not prioritised the EL? Who knows. But I'd hazard a guess we'd be higher up than 17th. That doesn't excuse everything this season but it's pretty obvious players were held back for EL....
Mikey10
Paul Robinson
Mate, we’ve lost 20 league games already. We have 38 points from 36 games. We have avoided a relegation dogfight only by virtue of three of the worst teams in PL history finishing below us.
We have been appalling to watch. We have no structure, no patterns of play, we have been rolled over by anyone half decent, including Ipswich at home. There is a sense of inertia on the pitch which seems to be permeating every aspect of the club.
If we win the EL it will be massively important for the club. We will have salvaged European football despite being cannon fodder for most for the entire season. But in no universe will this be our ‘best season in 25-30 years.’ It will remain our worst in living memory, a fudging nightmare to live through, with the pain alleviated to some extent by a trophy win.
(I am trying only to post positive things in the run-up to the final, but I just couldn’t let this one pass. Sorry!
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Robspur12
Jimmy Neighbour
Ha mate I love your posts but herein lies my problem with those still defending Ange. He isnt held to the same standard as our other managers. Since when in your time as a Spurs fan has it been acceptable to forfeit the league? And with the money spent on the squad too, be that actual fees or net spend. I know that I would love to win the Europa league. But given how bad we and Utd have been this year, I can see why neutral football observers think that both teams being in the final is ridiculous. It is not comparable to other years.
Edit: and the hyperbole around him being our best manager in the last 20-30 years simply by winning the Europa League is equally ridiculous. Ange is a better Spurs manager than Poch, Harry and BMJ? Sorry I have to lie down in a darkened room.
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Silly McSilly Face
Sebastien Bassong
Who said i wanted to finish 9th? 9th is a poor season based on our budget, squad investment, wage bill, club profile and average league finish over the last 10-15 years.
17th is criminally bad. And that's the thing with Ange, if he'd finished 9th and won the EL, he'd probably keep his job. His league form has likely made any cup win irrelevant to how credentials of being the man to take the club forward in the eyes of the people that matter at the club and increasing sections of the fan base.
I'd rather have a win every game mentality, as that is the only way for those crying your eyes out moments to become more than a once in 20 years oddity.
People saying that finishing 17th and winning the Europa = success is probably why this club hasn't been successful. Because when you lose over 20 games and win a trophy, the trophy win is a chance fluke and you're not set up for sustained success. And once you've dried your eyes and the new season starts, that night in bilbao will quickly fade and the dark clouds of just how pony we have been allowed to become will close in rapidly
It's not ideal, but the problem was those injuries absolutely savaged us. And Ange had to play the same available players midweek in Europe then again in the PL week after week and as such more injuries occurred.
By the time we came out of that period the league was a write off. It's been an absolute freak in terms of injuries hence we've had to make the best of a bad situation. And if we get a European trophy and CL football from it then I can live with that. Does that mean this sort of season should be the norm? Or that absolves Ange of everything? Certainly not....
thfcsteff
Tony Galvin
The only perspective I think there is to apply, is that this has been one of the weirdest, most divisive seasons I ever remember, that somehow we found ourselves still with a basket in which to place CL placing eggs, and that said-basket also happens to come with a trophy! The domestic cups point is pretty inaccurate in my opinion, he went for all of them which is IMO partially why we are where we are. Our run to that semi-final saw Emirates Marketing Project and Man Utd; by the time we met Liverpool we were in the thick of the injury crisis. As I recall we then ended up at Villa not even a week later! What would you have done in such circumstances? FWIW I think he only binned the league off when we won in Frankfurt. Before that, I think it was a combination of bad luck and ineptitude, plus as you and others have said, a certain degree of stubborness where he simply would not change his approach despite not having the fit players to deploy it.
I agree, this campaign in incomparable to any other for many reasons.
On a side note, I find the fear of giving Postecoglu even an inch of credit to be fascinating. Are some people genuinely scared he could still be here if we win next Wed?
Robspur12
Jimmy Neighbour
This is a great point and why we failed with our last 2 trophy winning managers.
@Gutter Boy your post above perfectly articulates how I feel about this EL run. I can't believe, having been a Spurs fan for more than 45 years, I feel so little joy at the moment in my team.
thfcsteff
Tony Galvin
Who is actually 'defending' him beyond pointing out facts?
'Neutral football observers'? I am unware they exist mate. I have seen the likes of Wenger and Petit spark up, I've also seen some bitter goons. Like it or not, within the Europa League structure, the two best teams are in the Final. I don't see any issue.
As for the last bold-faced line, that would (indeed) be a ridiculous thing to say, and as someone who is sympathetic to all he has been through, I have to say if anyone said that to me I'd suggest they behave!!!!!
So much in that
- Getting us to a European final means he deserves credit, if he wins it, even more so
The caveats are
- He's completely abandoned the league, which beyond the fact that no manager has ever got that "luxury", it brings real questions of his ability to manage on multiple fronts where even minimum output on one of those fronts is expected.
- The season is an off the scale outlier in league performance of the last 20 years, it's not even close to what every other manager/caretaker has done with mostly worse resources than Ange has had.
The biggest issue for me is the point of your first line
- Like Conte, like Jose, Ange has become truly divisive, you cannot be successful at Spurs for any period like that, that's why I'd give him all the credit in the world to bring home a trophy, get that monkey off our back, bring some joy at end of the most miserable season of my memory. and then happily pay him off. I say that, because I know Spurs fans, lose two games to start next season and it will be utterly toxic again ..
Robspur12
Jimmy Neighbour
Put simply Steff -yes. Because, although I can see you have perspective, plenty on here seem to have lost theirs. Hence the passionate defence of him, the comments about him being the best manager in 20-30 years if we win the EL, the comparisons belittling Poch's achievements, and from posters who I have a lot of respect for too. I have no idea how the club will view a win next week. I don't know if the euphoria will blind them to what's happened this season. Because tbh they've allowed Ange more rope than he should have been given already. So what's to say they won't give him more? I don't want to be negative but I can't believe some of the stuff I'm reading.
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It's sad to hear, and obviously no one can tell you how you should feel. All I can hope is, come Wednesday night you will feel some form of compensation for what has been fair to say an underwhelming season as a whole....
I'm not sure a manager that loses 20/36 league games this season and 32/74 in total deserves much credit to be honest. No one likes to hear it but the Europa League is a weak competition these days and we have struggled in a fair few of those games too.
If we win I'd be over the moon for him. He gets his 2nd season trophy and we get our first trophy for GHod knows how many years
thfcsteff
Tony Galvin
It's a great point of discussion.
I think the journey was largely sentenced to 'bedding in' when we aggressively persued the youth signing policy. There is no doubt we have ended up having to play Bergvall and Gray far far more than we wanted to in terms of senior development, as for Moore he would've been in U-21s with the occasional appearance on the bench.
It is somewhat sad that the club chose Postecoglu to spearheads this 'root and branch' change within the club. There's a huge argument for saying they should've gone all out and got someone like Amorim - young, charming, defiant, sure of himself - and perhaps it would've been different. He would most certainly have given us a 'figure' to believe in. Instead, we went with Ange. I suspect choice dictated that to an extent.
Next season we will see players like Bergvall and Deki ascend fully to leaders. Gray will be a 'bigger' presence. We will finally see the scratch notes of a narrative imagined yet haphazardly executed start to blossom as the young players gel more and more under the leadership of (hopefully) a younger, more dynamic manager. That's the hope. Ange has done his time, and there is no more he can do/not do.
You raised 2019 so I have to go there again. First off, EVERYTHING you say about it is bang-on. I will add that we were on the doorstep of doing the impossible -winning the biggest club prize in world football- without blood or VC money. What Poch did inside and outside the club was beyond incredible, and as someone who was a regular during the Burky years, I can say I never felt as much pride in who we were as during those years with him. I shed many tears that night in Madrid; a small piece of my footballing me broke. I shed further tears when he was sacked, because I knew we'd never have such an opportunity again in terms of the narrative you talked about. A bigger piece of my footballing me broke that night, and was further bruised by the appt the next day.
Everyone defines success differently. For some it's trophies only, for others it's more (or less depending on perspective). I never felt more pride in this club than during those 2016/17/18/19 seasons. That final season at the Lane was incredible. We were beautiful and the story was poetry in motion, led by a poet who created the verse we had craved and needed (Jol probably got closest before him during ENIC's time, he could modulate with us in that way albeithe was also a bit of a grifter).
thfcsteff
Tony Galvin
I wholly accept that his league record is appalling and that even wafting the word 'credit' near it would be offensive to anyone with a brain. I do think, however, that if we win on Wed, he will deserve a ton of credit for somehow steering us to it despite the awful brick around it.
We haven't had sustained success at any point hence why people are happy and grateful anytime we have the opportunity to win a trophy. Under Poch we were great in the league, funnily enough we didn't have any quantifiable success (and Poch was great, that's not being dismissive of how he got us playing at all). And now the league is even more competitive, we will likely never have sustained success, certainly not under our current owners.
The best we can hope for is CL qualification now and again and the odd trophy and who knows we might just do both in one go next week. Doesn't mean we should make a habit of such a poor league campaign, and both Levy and the fans won't allow it. But we don't have the priveledge to take for granted cup finals, so let's just hopefully enjoy this one....