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Roberto De Zerbi *OFFICIAL*

Without being alarmist, the situation feels quite fragile to me. Talk of 33-year-old Icardi on a free suggests they could be starting to panic, despite the public message about confidence in the squad.
 
Bedfordspurs said:
Time is telling that we keep on selling or losing our top and only reliable scorers
Losing the key to any success is madness in any walk of life
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It's more the lack of succession planning than losing the players in or of themselves.

Not using the fact that we had a generational world class striker to bolster the squad's all-round world class levels in general before he left will forever be a blot on Levy and the owner's scorecard for me
 
Mikey10 said:
I'm not sure that two 17th place finishes in a row can be qualified as success.

And there were good reasons to sell both Kane (he had given us many years and we had blocked moves for him before) and Son (age was undoubtedly catching up with him and, again, he had given us many years).

Johnson suited one system but seemed next to useless when we were not playing that way (see his 'progress' at both Palace and - so far - Everton). and Richarlison...well, I think we've had enough evidence over the years to see that the guy just doesn't have it if we are playing the longer game and wanting to actually improve. He's also appears deeply flawed as a squad member from what we can all see playing out.
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Selling goals with no obvious plan to replace them
Doesn’t matter who you sell if you have a plan
 
mudshark said:
Without being alarmist, the situation feels quite fragile to me. Talk of 33-year-old Icardi on a free suggests they could be starting to panic, despite the public message about confidence in the squad.
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It is very fragile. People can dismiss it all as sensationalist/rival fans/easy clicks, but we are 4-5 games from a major crisis and RDZ really hanging on by a thread. Any injury to Marmoush as an example exposes RDZ's exile of Richi as a poor decision.

Regardless of who's fault it is, it's now a 3rd season of underperformance, we can't wait this one out, we can't give it until the end of the season.

We may have to panic for someone like Icardi, and even if we don't, it's clear in January we will have to spend again.
 
Raziel said:
It is very fragile. People can dismiss it all as sensationalist/rival fans/easy clicks, but we are 4-5 games from a major crisis and RDZ really hanging on by a thread. Any injury to Marmoush as an example exposes RDZ's exile of Richi as a poor decision.

Regardless of who's fault it is, it's now a 3rd season of underperformance, we can't wait this one out, we can't give it until the end of the season.

We may have to panic for someone like Icardi, and even if we don't, it's clear in January we will have to spend again.
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Come on mate it’s 5 games with a pretty clear pattern of improvement in every single one!
 
Raziel said:
It is very fragile. People can dismiss it all as sensationalist/rival fans/easy clicks, but we are 4-5 games from a major crisis and RDZ really hanging on by a thread. Any injury to Marmoush as an example exposes RDZ's exile of Richi as a poor decision.

Regardless of who's fault it is, it's now a 3rd season of underperformance, we can't wait this one out, we can't give it until the end of the season.

We may have to panic for someone like Icardi, and even if we don't, it's clear in January we will have to spend again.
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Not really. If Marmoush were to pick up an injury, Richy being the back up plan would still be a terrible decision. You have watched Richy play and fail at being a striker for 4 years now. What makes you think this season would have been any different?

I don't understand what multiverse we are now where we pretend that Richy and Solanke haven't been absolute failures in terms of being strikers for us.

There is a very good reason why most us were advocating selling the pair of them.
 
Raziel said:
Then we are doomed ..

- Either we get really lucky (maybe the less games, especially as out of another cup will provide that opportunity) and they play the majority of the season, and we get far enough up table to be able to do more work in next window (another season out of Europe and we will have problems attracting players)

- Or this is going to be another long season.

I know your opinion of the squad from last season is clear, but this is where RDZ has to show his value. We have to win games when not at 100%, not saying we have to beat Liverpool/City when not at 100%, but the bottom half teams.
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If we regularly start games with a combination of Tel, Bergvall, Gray and Gallagher all in the starting 11 you can't actually be expecting us to win many of those games.

Yes absolutely De Zerbi needs to find a way to win games with the players he has available, but I'm just not understanding why people are confused when the same players who previously haven't been up to snuff still aren't up to snuff now.

Managerial competence only goes so far. It was the same with Frank criticisism last season, a manager can influence things 100% but at the end of the day they can only influence based on the quality of the ingredients they have in the first place. We now have some good quality produce, but as I've stated loads of times that new quality is paper thin. A few injuries here or there and we are playing pretty much the same side that almost got us relegated last season
 
Bishop said:
Not really. If Marmoush were to pick up an injury, Richy being the back up plan would still be a terrible decision. You have watched Richy play and fail at being a striker for 4 years now. What makes you think this season would have been any different?

I don't understand what multiverse we are now where we pretend that Richy and Solanke haven't been absolute failures in terms of being strikers for us.

There is a very good reason why most us were advocating selling the pair of them.
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Come on mate, you think if the choice comes down to Richi as #9, is it not better than playing Gallagher/Kudus/Savio in that role? (if Marmoush was injured and we know Solanke can't play 90 minutes). They are both absolute failures, but one can actually score the odd goal (and it's the one that doesn't have a squad number right now)

Bishop said:
If we regularly start games with a combination of Tel, Bergvall, Gray and Gallagher all in the starting 11 you can't actually be expecting us to win many of those games.

Yes absolutely De Zerbi needs to find a way to win games with the players he has available, but I'm just not understanding why people are confused when the same players who previously haven't been up to snuff still aren't up to snuff now.

Managerial competence only goes so far. It was the same with Frank criticisism last season, a manager can influence things 100% but at the end of the day they can only influence based on the quality of the ingredients they have in the first place. We now have some good quality produce, but as I've stated loads of times that new quality is paper thin. A few injuries here or there and we are playing pretty much the same side that almost got us relegated last season
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You tend to extreme on this, I don't disagree that certain players aren't good enough for Spurs, and for Spurs ambitions, but that is a very different statement to "not good enough to keep a side out of the bottom 5 teams in the PL"

And that's where Ange failed, and where RDZ has to start getting something out of these players or he will to. Not trying to through shade on RDZ, but I'd bet Moyes (and I dislike him as a manager) would swap squads in a heartbeat and get more of tune right now (long term to be seen)
 
mudshark said:
Without being alarmist, the situation feels quite fragile to me. Talk of 33-year-old Icardi on a free suggests they could be starting to panic...
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...Or they are doing their due diligence and trying to upgrade and improve the squad.
If Icardi comes here and scores goals to help us move up the table, then great!....no matter what it may look like or suggest.
He would at least give us more depth and cover for injuries.

"He is the captain of Inter, and he is not your average kind of attacker. I have always told that he has the back bone like Ibrahimovic, because he wants the responsibility, he is a special kind of person and football player. A great guy and a great professional."
— Inter manager Luciano Spalletti, October 2017
 
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Raziel said:
Come on mate, you think if the choice comes down to Richi as #9, is it not better than playing Gallagher/Kudus/Savio in that role? (if Marmoush was injured and we know Solanke can't play 90 minutes). They are both absolute failures, but one can actually score the odd goal (and it's the one that doesn't have a squad number right now)
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I don't see any difference. Give Gallagher or Kudus the striker role and they would be just as bad as Richy, but they might actually keep the ball better (Kudus 1000% would) and link with others in the final 3rd. I'd argue we would probably score more goals overall with either them playing the 9 over Richy. He is detrimental to the football we play. I find it crazy how short everyone's memories are.
Raziel said:
You tend to extreme on this, I don't disagree that certain players aren't good enough for Spurs, and for Spurs ambitions, but that is a very different statement to "not good enough to keep a side out of the bottom 5 teams in the PL"
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You thought this about Ange and you thought this about Frank and your begining to think it about De Zerbi. Maybe...just maybe it's not the ever revolving managerial door. Maybe it's actual no, that group of players isn't good enough to keep us out of the bottom 5. They've proven that to be the case twice already.
Raziel said:
And that's where Ange failed, and where RDZ has to start getting something out of these players or he will to. Not trying to through shade on RDZ, but I'd bet Moyes (and I dislike him as a manager) would swap squads in a heartbeat and get more of tune right now (long term to be seen)
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Sure Moyes would love this squad and do better with those players but that's because he would play unambitious survival football. Similar in a vein to what we saw from Frank last year so let's not pretend you would be happy with what Moyes would be able to pull out of those players, because it would be the same no risk survival first attitude that everyone hated last year.
 
Bishop said:
I don't see any difference. Give Gallagher or Kudus the striker role and they would be just as bad as Richy, but they might actually keep the ball better (Kudus 1000% would) and link with others in the final 3rd. I'd argue we would probably score more goals overall with either them playing the 9 over Richy. He is detrimental to the football we play. I find it crazy how short everyone's memories are.


You thought this about Ange and you thought this about Frank and your begining to think it about De Zerbi. Maybe...just maybe it's not the ever revolving managerial door. Maybe it's actual no, that group of players isn't good enough to keep us out of the bottom 5. They've proven that to be the case twice already.

Sure Moyes would love this squad and do better with those players but that's because he would play unambitious survival football. Similar in a vein to what we saw from Frank last year so let's not pretend you would be happy with what Moyes would be able to pull out of those players, because it would be the same no risk survival first attitude that everyone hated last year.
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I actually agree with you on the short term memories about Richy.

He is good as a pure finisher, so sort of worked in Ange’s system as a striker, especially getting on the end of the Brennan cutbacks.

Every time he’s been asked to hold up the ball, link play, make the right decision, do anything other than purely getting on the end of it, he’s been completely dreadful. Solanke is a league above in this. And Marmoush….forget about it.

If we played him in our system I’m not convinced he’s additive to it. And based on his performances with us in those specific aspects I’m actually surprised De Zerbi wanted him to extend his contract.
 
SissokoWasGood (BoL) said:
I actually agree with you on the short term memories about Richy.

He is good as a pure finisher, so sort of worked in Ange’s system as a striker, especially getting on the end of the Brennan cutbacks.

Every time he’s been asked to hold up the ball, link play, make the right decision, do anything other than purely getting on the end of it, he’s been completely dreadful. Solanke is a league above in this. And Marmoush….forget about it.

If we played him in our system I’m not convinced he’s additive to it. And based on his performances with us in those specific aspects I’m actually surprised De Zerbi wanted him to extend his contract.
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It's funny because the single worst CF performance we have seen this season was the one with Richy starting up top. The same Richy that would now somehow become our saviour

Now of course there are some mitigating circumstances when you take into account the rest of the starting line up but he wasn't a bright spark in a dull lineup, he was actively one of the worst if not the worst out there.
 
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