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The Elephant On The Forum

The thing about Moyes and Man Utd is more how they've approached those games and how poor they've looked, regardless of the final results.
 
No, Spurs won't win the league, but I am more positive about Spurs than...er... ever really. Can't remember us ever having a squad this good.

Still room to improve the left back and striker options, but we have never had such a good squad.
 
Jordinho said:
You lot need another striker and defensive midfielder. Maybe if you got knocked out of the cups sooner, rather than wait until early March before getting into a league winning run of form.
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We're stacked in defenive midfield. We've also just spent big on a world class striker in soldado
 
I'd bite your hand off for 4th.

League - no chance. We have enough of a battle beating ONE of Arsenal, Chelsea, City and United, never mind all four of them. Not gonna happen.
 
I guess part of my post may have been in the spirit of 'get it in while you can'...

But should we best Chelsea, in football and result at the weekend, it's on!
 
I think we can win the league and I think we will be in the race for the title.

Take out games against Utd, City, Chelsea, and Arsenal and there are still 90 points to play for. IMO, we'll make a serious dent in that 90 and pick up some wins against those other top sides.

With our squad, we should be able to handle injuries/suspensions etc. and still put out sides good enough to take a big chunk of those 90 points on offer against the "should beat" teams.
 
This was my bet for us to win the league:

Back (Bet For) Odds Stake Profit
Tottenham 32.53 £333.50 £10,513.70
Lay (Bet Against) Backer's odds Backer's stake Your liability
Tottenham 26.91 £337.87 £8,755.90

I always intended to make a quick trade and have a "free" bet, but I should have waited a little while longer and then I'd stand to win more. As it stands, I'll win over £1600 if we win the league, and win £4 quid odd if anybody else does :lol:
 
If there's an elephant, it's the continuing lack of goals without the name G. Bale next to them. That may change; we'll see, but if it doesn't, top 4 will be a big ask, never mind the league.
 
mudshark said:
If there's an elephant, it's the continuing lack of goals without the name G. Bale next to them. That may change; we'll see, but if it doesn't, top 4 will be a big ask, never mind the league.
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I think the last 2 games have shown that won't be a problem this year. We won't come up against a keeper playing out of his skin every week.
 
So much denial in here! You lot haven't changed. I watched the match on a river the other night and tuned into the match thread. It was so bipolar even though we absolutely dominated the game!

Anyway, can we win the league? Well from what I have seen this season if the teams you lot and the media at touting as contenders can do why can't we?

After all our team is yet to gel properly and we've conceded only once so far. Look at the evidence, it's on!
 
chancer said:
I'd bite your hand off for 4th.

League - no chance. We have enough of a battle beating ONE of Arsenal, Chelsea, City and United, never mind all four of them. Not gonna happen.
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Why? What exactly is it about their squads that makes you think it just isn't gonna happen? Beyond the 'they've been there and done it' argument.

If you say the quality of our full backs, fair enough. I'll happily debate that point because I think they are quality, and vital to our shape and system. But I can understand why others may not see it that way yet. Everywhere else though, I think we are definitely stacked well enough to put up a fight.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
Why? What exactly is it about their squads that makes you think it just isn't gonna happen? Beyond the 'they've been there and done it' argument.

If you say the quality of our full backs, fair enough. I'll happily debate that point because I think they are quality, and vital to our shape and system. But I can understand why others may not see it that way yet. Everywhere else though, I think we are definitely stacked well enough to put up a fight.
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The 'we haven't done it yet' argument does hold a lot of weight, though. When we're drawing 0-0 in the eighty-ninth minute, will we have the stamina and ability to up our tempo to ludicrously fast speeds to force a late goal, a la United? That involves learning how to conserve stamina and mental energy for those last minutes, something that takes time to learn. When we've lost a game or two on the bounce, can we continue to play at the same level we were before those losses? That takes strength that can only be gained through experience. When the media expect us to win handsomely, when our fans demand results, when opposition managers play mind games against us, when opposition players try to lull us into a sense of complacency...can we handle that sort of pressure? When we need big wins to rack up the goal-difference and put the game to bed early in order to preserve our stamina, can we do it?

There's an awful lot of things we need to learn before we challenge for the title, without which aiming for top spot seems slightly ludicrous. And most of those things can only be gained through experience. Chelsea have that experience. United have that experience. City have that experience. Hence the 'been there and done it' argument holding water.

We don't, unfortunately.
 
Agree with Raziel, we don't have the experience or the mentality (yet). We're also incredibly light upfront as a title challenging team.

I really hope we win a trophy this season. I'm a firm believer that Man Utd's recent success was likely to come anyway but winning that league cup in 2006? I think helped that group of players feel the sensation of winning early and drove them onto better things. I think if we were to win something this season, whether FA (really time we won that again ffs), League cup or Europa, it could very well have the same effect.

This season I'd be happy with 4th, ecstatic with 3rd. Anything higher and AVB should be hailed a genius.

Still, our aim should be to win every game and the aim of all 20 teams in the league at the beginning of the season should be to win every game and look at the league title.

If we still find ourselves within touching distance late Feb/March, I might start believing.
 
I don't think AVB is finished shaping this team. I fully expect us to finish top four this season, and can see us a title contenders next year for sure. I'm just not convinced we're quite there yet.

Goes without saying that I'd be delighted to be proven wrong about that.
 
The fact that we haven't doesn't mean we can't. Are the frailties we had yesteryear still there ? How many goals have we shipped in the league to date ? The game at the scumirates showed we can be opened up, and we still hadn't sussed how to unlock them as they defended for their lives. Chavs will show how much we've grown in a short time, and the quality of the squad as injuries et al begins to take their toll.

We have to break the bad luck, the fragile mind set and bottlers tag - otherwise it'll continue to drag on us. And we have done that, there's not one team in last year's top 4 w haven't beaten in recent times, but we owe the chavs BIG, they've held the indian curse over us in the last 2-3 years. I wanna see us stuff them good and proper.
 
In the end, I think we'll lack stability and experience, unfortunately. However, if we manage to keep the current players, and strenghten with just a few over the coming season, we might very well NOT be contenders next year. See what I did there not to jinx it? ;)
 
There is a lot of ******** spoken about magical mystical ingredients required to win leagues. You just need the most points is all.
And the Cardiff game was all about the players determination to get three points, I see the Paulinho bundle and I see a team overjoyed to achieve that days mission.
We'll get 85 points this season and it is out of our hands if that is sufficient.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
Why? What exactly is it about their squads that makes you think it just isn't gonna happen? Beyond the 'they've been there and done it' argument.

If you say the quality of our full backs, fair enough. I'll happily debate that point because I think they are quality, and vital to our shape and system. But I can understand why others may not see it that way yet. Everywhere else though, I think we are definitely stacked well enough to put up a fight.
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Dubai and Hoot said it well already - mentality and experience and all that stuff really does matter. They translate into cold, hard points and aren't just meaningless psychobabble.

We haven't won the league in ** years. That's heavy, even if a new crop of players isn't consciously thinking about it. To expect us to bin that in this squad's first year and turn over 4 of the best teams in Europe for the last 5 to 10 years is just a hell of a lot to ask. 3rd would be one of the best seasons in the club's entire history, which puts it in perspective.

Of course, it could happen. Clubs do occasionally burst out of nowhere and surprise everyone. Everton, Villa and Forest in the 70's/80's won leagues after decades of nothing. Aberdeen under a certain special one did it. More recently Roma and Deportivo did it. Liverpool won the 2005 European Cup out of nowhere. If they can do it then we can, and in one of 50 parallel universes Spurs do indeed win the league. Maybe it'll be in this universe after all.
 
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