Johan Lange - Sporting Director

[Finney Is Back]

I think it’s mainly just @Gutter Boy complaining…. And we all know that he has had an inflated view of how good young players are.

 

[Raziel]

I seem to remember it being generally accepted that Spurs had adopted a "Brighton - type" recruitment strategy, signing young players with potential to develop or sell on for a profit. Clearly that didn't work because the players signed under that strategy were mostly not good enough to cover when we had injuries to key players. My perception was that all our managers tried various midfield combinations featuring Gray, Sarr, Bergvall etc. but without any appearing to be total ready for the PL.

Two 17th place finishes have been enough to see the end of the "Brighton - type" strategy in favour of experienced, PL ready players. We certainly cannot continue to flirt with relegation or even below mid-table finishes while we wait and hope for those young players to realise their potential. Of course having had a reasonable taste of first team action I can totally understand why Bergvall etc doesn't want to take what could be seen as a demotion.

I find it slightly frustrating that fans who previously complained that the club didn't back the manager, didn't sell players for profit, didn't but PL quality players rather than 'potential' etc are now complaining that we are doing just that

Not sure I agree re us having Brighton style anything

- Certainly Spurs has tried to invest in Academy and to buy young talent (something we have done as far back as Bale/Modric/etc.)
- However our goal isn't to fund the club via sales, as a matter of fact, we have actively discouraged sales in an attempt to stop having our best players picked off (decade gap between Bale/Modric leaving and us selling Kane)
- A bit of us wanting our cake and eat it, we wanted to ensure resale but only if didn't want the player

The piece miss with Brighton is their only goal is survival in PL, they don't care about Europe (it's a bonus and they have only achieved it twice), that gives them a lot of leeway in results and allowing for developing players vs immediate results.

Do agree re last point, fans will complain no matter what ..