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Antonio Conte - officially NOT the coach of THFC

Apologies that I cannot be on here and reply to everyones post's.I can,t find the time .besides I'm not the most academic on here.

alekaras you may be right..allthough Conte is a long standing coach,so you would think he understands something.
BTW we have been saying for a while that change's are needed.

You have to admit we do go spurzy at the last moment just when we are about to push on to the next position if its in the League or the cups..yes something needs to change..I cant blame Levy 100% for us not winning things but then again I don't know how the club is run behind the scenes .who buy,s the players etc. I do think any Manager/coach would have to choose who he wants in his Team. Anyway I was actually thinking about a week before conte left..that maybe the players are having it too cosy at Hotspur way! and maybe they should be made to train at Hackney marshes..lol

Can anyone put their finger on why we allways slip up at the last!!??
again is there just a little bit of truth in conte's rant?

What truth?

- the club is on it's most succesful (as @Grays_1890 mentioned ) league run (consistent league finishes) in our history
- we have been to 13 SF's & Finals, 23+ if you include QFs and PL runs in 22 years (again for a club that just about averages about a cup a decade, that's good, probably in lines with best, honestly couldn't figure out how to check)

We have also sucked at converting, at a rate that makes no sense (almost like Kane's free kicks), we should have outright fluked one or two.

So what's the context?

- Easy answer is club culture, players don't turn up, manager tactics were brick, squad wasn't good/deep enough.
- Yet the squad got us to a CL final, multiple league cup finals and two PL runs
- It's not the same players, probably three completely different squads in that timeline

I genuinely don't believe that can explain every loss, as I said, statistically we should have fluked one or two.

- Part of the context is we are playing in the least open version of English football ever, the money gap, PL/CL money. City have won 4 out of 5 PL's, 5 out of 7 League Cups, over the last 30 years. In the 2000's as an example, two sides finished in top 4, 10/10 times, the other two 8/10 & 7/10, so out of 40 spots, there were 5 variations in a decade. You can go do that for every trophy domestically in last 10, 20, 30 years, then go compare to 50's - 80's
- Up until recently our better sides were poached -> Carrick, Modric, Bale, Berbatov, Keane, all big setbacks
- Timing, I really feel (and I'm not a Poch believer) that if we didn't have that Wembley season exactly when we did, exactly after the unbeaten at home season, the side could have pushed on, stadium spend when we needed the money to refresh, Jose and Covid is another example of just brick timing

And finally they have been mistakes
- Bad manager choices, big misses on club record signings (Sanchez, Lo Celso, Ndombele), missing windows to invest in squad (via similar cash injection to last summer)

But the spin that this is some uniquely brick strategy/approach from Spurs that is some systemic club/player culture issue is nonsense
- Every club has appointed bad managers, bought the wrong/brick players
- Every example that is used to brick on Spurs has a million caveats -> e.g. flavor of the month is Arsenal, they have finished 8th two seasons in a row, a result we haven't done since 2009 (almost 14 years ago), and even if Arsenal wins something (same as United) they are still a shadow of the success they were for two decades. Yet Spurs are a joke but Arsenal and United who tinkled away a position of two decades of dominance and then spent the better part of a decade trying to recover are shinning examples of "good club strategy". Three years ago it was Leicester, every year there is a Brighton, Fulham, whoever that will revert to norm in 2-3 years.

It's a worthwhile conversation if you are willing to really look at context and caveats, but narratives are so much less thinking ...
 
No, because top managers actaully win them after a while, as arguably Poch could/should have. So when he says "Cups don't matter" etc he a) invites more attention when they are not won and b) his players who ARE ambitous and also loyal to follow his methods (which are said to be some of the most physically demanding around) start to question why the need to give that extra 5-10% in training and in games if "Cups are only for egos". We saw the drop off from those comments towards the end of his tenure. I and others did say at the time it was a misstep alomg with us not buying any players in summer 2018.



If Poch or any other manager is going to get praise and lauded as a top manager, then they are eventually going to be judged by the same standards; you can't have it both ways, see Jose, Conte with us recently.



Come on; There is a big bleeping difference to the status of Brighton and Spurs FFS. Have Brighton ever actually won a trophy before? Meanwhile, Spurs:
a) were one of the intial 'big 5' instrumkental in pushing for the creation of the PL (for good or bad)
b) until recently with the doped-up clubs ammassing trophies had the 5th biggest number of trophies in English football (Chelski only in the last two years have overtaken us for example, ditto Emirates Marketing Project)
c) until 2010, Spurs had won at least one trophy in every decade since 1950. It is not easy to win a trophy. Certainly a league title of CL (which we have only two in our whole history). But at least one trophy in every decade between 1950 to 2010; that's a form of consistency that is hard for most clubs to replicate, hence why we have such a large fanbase despite the large fallow years and hence why this current 16 year fallow period is something that grates some of our older fans when they are told "we've never had it so good"; i guess it depends on what is ultimately the point of following Spurs i guess.

My main point is, at some point the top managers and top clubs have their status validated by winning things. Poch with us is/was no different
You cannot compare Spurs pre-PL with Spurs post PL. That's disingenuous. The chasm between clubs was not as great back then. One club could not amass the best players in the country and things were more balanced. And just because we won trophies decades ago and were one of the 5 clubs that pushed for the creation of the PL, doesn't mean we started on equal footing with United, Pool, and Arsenal. We were always going to be playing catch-up and the money doping of Chelsea and City only exacerbated that. We have been an up and down team since the PL kicked off and thankfully with an upward trajectory. And we had a well-timed purple patch thanks to Poch right when we needed it. Had we won a cup it wouldn't have changed the expectations: we would still want to be a team that's competitive and in the mix. Well, guess what: we were a team that's competitive and in the mix. And now that we have closed the gap with the rest of the top 6, continuing to be competitive and in the mix will net us trophies too. It's been a long process, but opposite to what some fans might think, we haven't reached the end. There's still a little more to go.
 
You cannot compare Spurs pre-PL with Spurs post PL. That's disingenuous. The chasm between clubs was not as great back then. One club could not amass the best players in the country and things were more balanced. And just because we won trophies decades ago and were one of the 5 clubs that pushed for the creation of the PL, doesn't mean we started on equal footing with United, Pool, and Arsenal. We were always going to be playing catch-up and the money doping of Chelsea and City only exacerbated that. We have been an up and down team since the PL kicked off and thankfully with an upward trajectory. And we had a well-timed purple patch thanks to Poch right when we needed it. Had we won a cup it wouldn't have changed the expectations: we would still want to be a team that's competitive and in the mix. Well, guess what: we were a team that's competitive and in the mix. And now that we have closed the gap with the rest of the top 6, continuing to be competitive and in the mix will net us trophies too. It's been a long process, but opposite to what some fans might think, we haven't reached the end. There's still a little more to go.

I certainly agree with a lot of that; we are certainly more competitive than we used to be - hence why the "Cups are only for egos" comments were so out of place by Poch
 
What truth?

- the club is on it's most succesful (as @Grays_1890 mentioned ) league run (consistent league finishes) in our history
- we have been to 13 SF's & Finals, 23+ if you include QFs and PL runs in 22 years (again for a club that just about averages about a cup a decade, that's good, probably in lines with best, honestly couldn't figure out how to check)

We have also sucked at converting, at a rate that makes no sense (almost like Kane's free kicks), we should have outright fluked one or two.

So what's the context?

- Easy answer is club culture, players don't turn up, manager tactics were brick, squad wasn't good/deep enough.
- Yet the squad got us to a CL final, multiple league cup finals and two PL runs
- It's not the same players, probably three completely different squads in that timeline

I genuinely don't believe that can explain every loss, as I said, statistically we should have fluked one or two.

- Part of the context is we are playing in the least open version of English football ever, the money gap, PL/CL money. City have won 4 out of 5 PL's, 5 out of 7 League Cups, over the last 30 years. In the 2000's as an example, two sides finished in top 4, 10/10 times, the other two 8/10 & 7/10, so out of 40 spots, there were 5 variations in a decade. You can go do that for every trophy domestically in last 10, 20, 30 years, then go compare to 50's - 80's
- Up until recently our better sides were poached -> Carrick, Modric, Bale, Berbatov, Keane, all big setbacks
- Timing, I really feel (and I'm not a Poch believer) that if we didn't have that Wembley season exactly when we did, exactly after the unbeaten at home season, the side could have pushed on, stadium spend when we needed the money to refresh, Jose and Covid is another example of just brick timing

And finally they have been mistakes
- Bad manager choices, big misses on club record signings (Sanchez, Lo Celso, Ndombele), missing windows to invest in squad (via similar cash injection to last summer)

But the spin that this is some uniquely brick strategy/approach from Spurs that is some systemic club/player culture issue is nonsense
- Every club has appointed bad managers, bought the wrong/brick players
- Every example that is used to brick on Spurs has a million caveats -> e.g. flavor of the month is Arsenal, they have finished 8th two seasons in a row, a result we haven't done since 2009 (almost 14 years ago), and even if Arsenal wins something (same as United) they are still a shadow of the success they were for two decades. Yet Spurs are a joke but Arsenal and United who tinkled away a position of two decades of dominance and then spent the better part of a decade trying to recover are shinning examples of "good club strategy". Three years ago it was Leicester, every year there is a Brighton, Fulham, whoever that will revert to norm in 2-3 years.

It's a worthwhile conversation if you are willing to really look at context and caveats, but narratives are so much less thinking ...
Post of the decade.
 
I certainly agree with a lot of that; we are certainly more competitive than we used to be - hence why the "Cups are only for egos" comments were so out of place by Poch
What Poch wanted to bring attention to was how the team was performing compared to how it did in the previous 2 decades in the PL. It was putting in performances that would eventually result in trophies and to singularly focus on the trophy and disregard how competitive Spurs had become would be missing the point. Any team can fluke a domestic cup, but not every team can maintain a high level over years.
 
What truth?

- the club is on it's most succesful (as @Grays_1890 mentioned ) league run (consistent league finishes) in our history
- we have been to 13 SF's & Finals, 23+ if you include QFs and PL runs in 22 years (again for a club that just about averages about a cup a decade, that's good, probably in lines with best, honestly couldn't figure out how to check)

We have also sucked at converting, at a rate that makes no sense (almost like Kane's free kicks), we should have outright fluked one or two.

So what's the context?

- Easy answer is club culture, players don't turn up, manager tactics were brick, squad wasn't good/deep enough.
- Yet the squad got us to a CL final, multiple league cup finals and two PL runs
- It's not the same players, probably three completely different squads in that timeline

I genuinely don't believe that can explain every loss, as I said, statistically we should have fluked one or two.

- Part of the context is we are playing in the least open version of English football ever, the money gap, PL/CL money. City have won 4 out of 5 PL's, 5 out of 7 League Cups, over the last 30 years. In the 2000's as an example, two sides finished in top 4, 10/10 times, the other two 8/10 & 7/10, so out of 40 spots, there were 5 variations in a decade. You can go do that for every trophy domestically in last 10, 20, 30 years, then go compare to 50's - 80's
- Up until recently our better sides were poached -> Carrick, Modric, Bale, Berbatov, Keane, all big setbacks
- Timing, I really feel (and I'm not a Poch believer) that if we didn't have that Wembley season exactly when we did, exactly after the unbeaten at home season, the side could have pushed on, stadium spend when we needed the money to refresh, Jose and Covid is another example of just brick timing

And finally they have been mistakes
- Bad manager choices, big misses on club record signings (Sanchez, Lo Celso, Ndombele), missing windows to invest in squad (via similar cash injection to last summer)

But the spin that this is some uniquely brick strategy/approach from Spurs that is some systemic club/player culture issue is nonsense
- Every club has appointed bad managers, bought the wrong/brick players
- Every example that is used to brick on Spurs has a million caveats -> e.g. flavor of the month is Arsenal, they have finished 8th two seasons in a row, a result we haven't done since 2009 (almost 14 years ago), and even if Arsenal wins something (same as United) they are still a shadow of the success they were for two decades. Yet Spurs are a joke but Arsenal and United who tinkled away a position of two decades of dominance and then spent the better part of a decade trying to recover are shinning examples of "good club strategy". Three years ago it was Leicester, every year there is a Brighton, Fulham, whoever that will revert to norm in 2-3 years.

It's a worthwhile conversation if you are willing to really look at context and caveats, but narratives are so much less thinking ...
The 'Averages a cup every decade' thing is a little disingenuous. Remember that Spurs Spent more than half of their time outside the top division prior to promotion in 1950. Since then Spurs won (ignoring Charity Shields):
1950s: 1 trophy
1960s: 5 trophies
1970s: 3 trophies
1980s: 3 trophies
1990s: 2 trophies
2000s: 1 trophy
2010s: 0 trophies.
2020s: 0 trophies (so far with 40% of the decade gone).

So since being considered one of the big clubs we have won an average of 2.8 trophies a decade until the point that ENIC took over, since when we have won an average of 0.4 trophies per decade.

I agree with some of your caveats. Though I will say that the scenario this year where Arsenal are reasonably likely to win the league (please GHod no!) would never happen under Levy as he would've dispensed of Arteta in 2019/20 when they finished 8th and if not in 2019/20 then certainly in 2020/21 when they finished 8th again.
 
What truth?

- the club is on it's most succesful (as @Grays_1890 mentioned ) league run (consistent league finishes) in our history
- we have been to 13 SF's & Finals, 23+ if you include QFs and PL runs in 22 years (again for a club that just about averages about a cup a decade, that's good, probably in lines with best, honestly couldn't figure out how to check)

We have also sucked at converting, at a rate that makes no sense (almost like Kane's free kicks), we should have outright fluked one or two.

So what's the context?

- Easy answer is club culture, players don't turn up, manager tactics were brick, squad wasn't good/deep enough.
- Yet the squad got us to a CL final, multiple league cup finals and two PL runs
- It's not the same players, probably three completely different squads in that timeline

I genuinely don't believe that can explain every loss, as I said, statistically we should have fluked one or two.

- Part of the context is we are playing in the least open version of English football ever, the money gap, PL/CL money. City have won 4 out of 5 PL's, 5 out of 7 League Cups, over the last 30 years. In the 2000's as an example, two sides finished in top 4, 10/10 times, the other two 8/10 & 7/10, so out of 40 spots, there were 5 variations in a decade. You can go do that for every trophy domestically in last 10, 20, 30 years, then go compare to 50's - 80's
- Up until recently our better sides were poached -> Carrick, Modric, Bale, Berbatov, Keane, all big setbacks
- Timing, I really feel (and I'm not a Poch believer) that if we didn't have that Wembley season exactly when we did, exactly after the unbeaten at home season, the side could have pushed on, stadium spend when we needed the money to refresh, Jose and Covid is another example of just brick timing

And finally they have been mistakes
- Bad manager choices, big misses on club record signings (Sanchez, Lo Celso, Ndombele), missing windows to invest in squad (via similar cash injection to last summer)

But the spin that this is some uniquely brick strategy/approach from Spurs that is some systemic club/player culture issue is nonsense
- Every club has appointed bad managers, bought the wrong/brick players
- Every example that is used to brick on Spurs has a million caveats -> e.g. flavor of the month is Arsenal, they have finished 8th two seasons in a row, a result we haven't done since 2009 (almost 14 years ago), and even if Arsenal wins something (same as United) they are still a shadow of the success they were for two decades. Yet Spurs are a joke but Arsenal and United who tinkled away a position of two decades of dominance and then spent the better part of a decade trying to recover are shinning examples of "good club strategy". Three years ago it was Leicester, every year there is a Brighton, Fulham, whoever that will revert to norm in 2-3 years.

It's a worthwhile conversation if you are willing to really look at context and caveats, but narratives are so much less thinking ...

How do you explain that when we have a good run,everything appears to be hunky dory..everything is going along just fine and then...we play a Team that we know are dam well not as good us...and we play with no passion and go and blow it. It has happened so many times. Its as if when they come out to play the players have not got the incentive or knowledge of where they are in the Table!!!! or the will to take the bull by the horns and make a challenge..I dont understand it.Its not as if our players are inferior to the other teams all the time..granted the lack of class players in the defence with no real leader there over the years has gone amiss.
 
How do you explain that when we have a good run,everything appears to be hunky dory..everything is going along just fine and then...we play a Team that we know are dam well not as good us...and we play with no passion and go and blow it. It has happened so many times. Its as if when they come out to play the players have not got the incentive or knowledge of where they are in the Table!!!! or the will to take the bull by the horns and make a challenge..I dont understand it.Its not as if our players are inferior to the other teams all the time..granted the lack of class players in the defence with no real leader there over the years has gone amiss.
It's football, it happens

Sent from my SM-A127F using Fapatalk
 
Unlike the Emirates Marketing Project teams from the last couple of years, I don't see this one going on a run where they win every one of their last 10 games. I think Arsenal can lose 3 games from here and still win the league.
Depends who they lose too
This is not vintage city
But it’s also an arsenal side who haven’t won the league before
 
The 'Averages a cup every decade' thing is a little disingenuous. Remember that Spurs Spent more than half of their time outside the top division prior to promotion in 1950. Since then Spurs won (ignoring Charity Shields):
1950s: 1 trophy
1960s: 5 trophies
1970s: 3 trophies
1980s: 3 trophies
1990s: 2 trophies
2000s: 1 trophy
2010s: 0 trophies.
2020s: 0 trophies (so far with 40% of the decade gone).

So since being considered one of the big clubs we have won an average of 2.8 trophies a decade until the point that ENIC took over, since when we have won an average of 0.4 trophies per decade.

I agree with some of your caveats. Though I will say that the scenario this year where Arsenal are reasonably likely to win the league (please GHod no!) would never happen under Levy as he would've dispensed of Arteta in 2019/20 when they finished 8th and if not in 2019/20 then certainly in 2020/21 when they finished 8th again.
All trophies are not created equal. You can't lump league titles in with domestic cups. Finishing 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 4th in the PL with the resources we have, is infinitely more difficult than winning a 5-round knockout competition.
 
How do you explain that when we have a good run,everything appears to be hunky dory..everything is going along just fine and then...we play a Team that we know are dam well not as good us...and we play with no passion and go and blow it. It has happened so many times. Its as if when they come out to play the players have not got the incentive or knowledge of where they are in the Table!!!! or the will to take the bull by the horns and make a challenge..I dont understand it.Its not as if our players are inferior to the other teams all the time..granted the lack of class players in the defence with no real leader there over the years has gone amiss.

Why did Pool smash United then lose to Bournemouth?

I could say "it's football" but that's as lazy an answer as "the players are pansies" or the club culture sucks

Klopp famously lost something like 6 finals in a row, is/was he a bottler? but he's now a winner?

Clearly we need to improve, we need to convert the chances/opportunities and part of that is better players, more aligned managers to club, prioritization (balance the cup/top 4 views) matters, but just saying culture/bottlers is a throw away comment
 
What Poch wanted to bring attention to was how the team was performing compared to how it did in the previous 2 decades in the PL. It was putting in performances that would eventually result in trophies and to singularly focus on the trophy and disregard how competitive Spurs had become would be missing the point. Any team can fluke a domestic cup, but not every team can maintain a high level over years.

That's not the coach's job to do; that's maybe for us as fans, pundits, maybe even Levy to do.

You can't talk about how you've progressed over x decades and then say "cups are for egos", i'm sorry that can't co-exist when you have players who want to win those trophies.
Ultimately, trophies won determine how highly a manager is regarded; see how Pep, Jose, Conte, Klopp, Ancelotti are regarded vs the likes of Bielsa, who many of the aforementioned coaches speak highly of.

No other coach who wants his players to give an extra 5-10% each game to reach for the highest levels they would get continued efforts if he then say "trophies are for egos" or words to that effect, i'm sorry
 
That's not the coach's job to do; that's maybe for us as fans, pundits, maybe even Levy to do.

You can't talk about how you've progressed over x decades and then say "cups are for egos", i'm sorry that can't co-exist when you have players who want to win those trophies.
Ultimately, trophies won determine how highly a manager is regarded; see how Pep, Jose, Conte, Klopp, Ancelotti are regarded vs the likes of Bielsa, who many of the aforementioned coaches speak highly of.

No other coach who wants his players to give an extra 5-10% each game to reach for the highest levels they would get continued efforts if he then say "trophies are for egos" or words to that effect, i'm sorry
All the managers you outlined have won league titles and CL finals. That's why they are regarded so highly. They have their teams performing at a consistently high level. They didn't get to where they are by winning a domestic cup every year or every other year. Do you consider Emery to be in the same class as the managers you outlined? He has won 4 Europa League trophies, but the best finish he could muster in a decent league was three 3rd place finishes with Valencia (and no, I am not counting his stint with PSG). I'd still take Poch over him anytime.
 
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