What was the trigger in our downward trend?

[Muttley]

Not sure I’ve seen this posted anywhere today so apologies if I’ve missed it, but Harry Redknapp has done an interview in The Times where he talks about Levy and Lewis trying to tell him that Robbie Keane was rubbish, and that he should ask Rafa Van Der Vaart who he wants to play upfront with.

It’s something I think has been under discussed, but I know there was a lot of player power in the club, certainly through Harry, Sherwood, AVB. Poch was such a strong figure and created such good alignment that we didn’t really feel it until the end of his reign. And then the players clearly didn’t want to keep going under Jose and Conte’s demands, while never giving Nuno a chance.

But my point is actually, after Conte, was there a concerted effort to reduce player power? I remember there being a feeling at the time of ‘it hasn’t worked under Jose and Conte, who the players have no excuse but to fall in behind the next guy, otherwise it’s truly on them’. And so was there almost an effort to sever ties between the boardroom and the changing room so that the club could try and take more of a long term view on these matters rather than be swayed by the general feeling of the squad on a particular day?

And then my actual point is, did the club arrive at that point of view, but far too late, and actually incorrectly? Eg the moment we stop really caring about what the players think, we end up keeping Frank way too long on the hope that he is turning it around, but never really listen to the players who at the canaries in the coal mine of being able to see the manager is truly not up to it and forcing them to turn in some of the literal worst attacking performances ever?

Because the Harry example is ridiculous for its own reasons. But not having the judgement to understand that while you don’t want players to have all the power, they’re still an important constituency that you would ideally want alignment from. And if we ended up getting that wrong as a club too, it’s another example of a decision that almost makes sense in theory but because it’s people that just don’t get football, the judgement is way off, and it’s costing us massively.

Unfortunately, Robbie was pretty poor in his second stint at Spurs. He left as a 28 year old with almost a one in two scoring record. He returned as a 29 year old and went to 1 in 4. So I can imagine that conversation happening about a 30 or 31 year old Robbie and it was quite logical. Robbie ended up at Hammers and Celtic on loan as his next chapter. It's also worth remembering that Harry was green himself at the level he had stepped up to. I was never convinced he could be really objective about players at the highest level.

That being said, the day Levy starts offering opinions on player ability is a sad one. I had a friend who worked on the Olympic Project who chatted with Levy in that capacity. Something he said in the side conversations about Defoe was incredibly wrong and misguided. Levy was made to look quite daft about him based on what happened next in his career.

So I absolutely see your point about player power being a pendulum. Let them get too overstated and you have a problem. Don't listen to them and you have and equal and opposite issue. I would say though that isn't our problem. We allow players to be passive aggressive. They nod their heads, act all agreeable and then do their own thing. It must drive managers to distraction. It's the passive aggression in the club culture that needs fixing.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

I know it appears to work elsewhere, but I wonder if we would fair better if there was a proper hierarchy and players had less influence.

There can’t be many industries where managers earn less than their direct reports. Maybe flipping that around would help.

In the instance of how the last year has gone though, I think the issue is that the players weren’t listened to enough. It’s always a balance, but I think the club have gotten this aspect very wrong.

At the same time, I think Levy and Lewis offering their opinions on players directly to the manager is frankly ridiculous. Just completely dumb, cliched idiocy. But I do think it would be Levy, or Lange or Vinai’s job to have a sense of what the players are feeling and what they need. Not to blindly listen to them, but to just have enough judgement that considers the squad on the whole as important enough to consider in the wider decision making.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

Unfortunately, Robbie was pretty poor in his second stint at Spurs. He left as a 28 year old with almost a one in two scoring record. He returned as a 29 year old and went to 1 in 4. So I can imagine that conversation happening about a 30 or 31 year old Robbie and it was quite logical. Robbie ended up at Hammers and Celtic on loan as his next chapter. It's also worth remembering that Harry was green himself at the level he had stepped up to. I was never convinced he could be really objective about players at the highest level.

That being said, the day Levy starts offering opinions on player ability is a sad one. I had a friend who worked on the Olympic Project who chatted with Levy in that capacity. Something he said in the side conversations about Defoe was incredibly wrong and misguided. Levy was made to look quite daft about him based on what happened next in his career.

So I absolutely see your point about player power being a pendulum. Let them get too overstated and you have a problem. Don't listen to them and you have and equal and opposite issue. I would say though that isn't our problem. We allow players to be passive aggressive. They nod their heads, act all agreeable and then do their own thing. It must drive managers to distraction. It's the passive aggression in the club culture that needs fixing.

Yeah exactly, it’s a balance, and you make an interesting point about passive aggressiveness. I do find it odd that our squad is just completely incapable of playing any sort of low block, box defending system for any sustained period of time. Like, there’s arguments that Romero and VDV for example aren’t best suited to that, and maybe others like Toby and Sanchez and Dier weren’t either, but I do wonder if part of it is that the players never truly buy into that.

Anyway, I do think there’s something in this. Maybe it was simply that Vinai and Lange haven’t established the same relationship with the squad. Maybe some of the squad considered themselves to be ‘Paratici’s boys’ and him leaving causes a rupture itself. Overall though, there is something waaaaaay off with the dynamic of the squad, and it’s weird that the club didn’t really understand it until it was way too late. A hierarchy that felt comfortable asking the star player who he wanted to play upfront with wouldn’t have let it get to this point, as ridiculous as that situation also is.

 

[Mcfee]

Just a thought but exactly how good is/was Conte? He spent a very long playing and managerial career in Italy. He then had a brief hiatus with Mourinho's Chelsea side and won the league. He disrupted the league with that 3-5-2 system for one season but then opposition managers got wise. He didn't even make CL places the following system and got the sack. He seemed to lose the changing room in the process. He then regrouped really well at Inter and eventually won Serie A. Then history repeated itself in a smaller way with us. He had a decent first season at Spurs, then we fell into free fall and he got sacked from the PL yet again after a shortish stint.

Personally, I don't think there is any guarantee that he would have consistently prevailed outside of Italy, especially in a league with so many top sides and managers. That is, even given 5 or 6 years as a tenure at Spurs. I'm never sure he's as good as some want to make out. He's no Ancelotti in my mind.

Free fall into 4th or maybe 5th position? And no he didn’t get sacked, he effectively walked out.

 

[billyiddo]

Just a thought but exactly how good is/was Conte? He spent a very long playing and managerial career in Italy. He then had a brief hiatus with Mourinho's Chelsea side and won the league. He disrupted the league with that 3-5-2 system for one season but then opposition managers got wise. He didn't even make CL places the following system and got the sack. He seemed to lose the changing room in the process. He then regrouped really well at Inter and eventually won Serie A. Then history repeated itself in a smaller way with us. He had a decent first season at Spurs, then we fell into free fall and he got sacked from the PL yet again after a shortish stint.

Personally, I don't think there is any guarantee that he would have consistently prevailed outside of Italy, especially in a league with so many top sides and managers. That is, even given 5 or 6 years as a tenure at Spurs. I'm never sure he's as good as some want to make out. He's no Ancelotti in my mind.

He's not an elite manager imo - can't handle European competition, rarely competes on more than one front

 

[Finney Is Back]

A few thoughts from me....

The lack of succession planning for Kane and Son wasn't the only problem for me with those guys. It was not treating them like equals that became the problem. Jose designed a system where 27/28 year old Kane and Son (and Moura) could just be as casual as they want defensively. They weren't leading the line, shutting down defenders and Jose allowed a 50 yard gap between midfield and attack. Conte continued this nonsense and just played rope-a-dope knowing that Kane or Son might take chances and bail him out. Then we had the Kane ending where he scored 30 but probably cost us about 10 goals with his lack of leading from the front. He'd pull out of headers and he'd hide when he should have been showing for the ball. He was reduced to a 30 touch a game player and only got 3 league assists all season. So no doubt these 2 were incredible players but the luxury roles they were given is still doing damage today. It set a 2 tier culture. There is absolutely no chance that stuff happens at winning clubs. Every player is equal, and want to be equal. The part I do agree about was their sheer quality though. Kane especially was just clinical (world class) in front of goal.

My second point is about 2017. That was a real point of inflexion for me. It was all uphill with Poch prior to that. It was all downhill from that point and keys stats like PL points accumulations and goals for / against etc told the story of what was happening at the club. I still say Levy and his team got their multi-year forecasting slightly wrong in those couple of years after. Whilst we got to the CL final, you could tell the on pitch quality had dropped off. Walker was gone, key injuries happened and the squad was burning out. Some players were disillusioned because no contracts were coming at the level they were playing at. We needed to sell players and refresh well from 2017. We didn't.

My third point is the obvious one. It's all about football operations. A great example is continually hiring managers who have no stylistic fit to our football club. Levy is guilty as charged here. There is no walk of life other than him being an owner that would ever allow someone like that hiring and firing "football" managers. There is no walk of like where he would be in charge of a football strategy and execution. The quantity over quality transfer strategy is a big part of that. Because Levy didn't stick to the things he was good at and model a leadership team for the other pieces, he failed. One key date for this dialogue was 1 Sep 2020. That was the date that Trevor Birch joined Spurs. This was when I finally believed Levy had plugged his own deficiencies gap. 4 months later Trevor was gone and has never really been replaced well. As Birch has proven with his role as head of the EFL, that guy had qualities we needed on the football operational side.

Completely disagree with your first paragraph but agree with the second and third.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Just a thought but exactly how good is/was Conte? He spent a very long playing and managerial career in Italy. He then had a brief hiatus with Mourinho's Chelsea side and won the league. He disrupted the league with that 3-5-2 system for one season but then opposition managers got wise. He didn't even make CL places the following system and got the sack. He seemed to lose the changing room in the process. He then regrouped really well at Inter and eventually won Serie A. Then history repeated itself in a smaller way with us. He had a decent first season at Spurs, then we fell into free fall and he got sacked from the PL yet again after a shortish stint.

Personally, I don't think there is any guarantee that he would have consistently prevailed outside of Italy, especially in a league with so many top sides and managers. That is, even given 5 or 6 years as a tenure at Spurs. I'm never sure he's as good as some want to make out. He's no Ancelotti in my mind.

We were in 4th place the PL when Conte was sacked.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

Fair enough. I’ve seen you mention the Everton game before and I must admit I don’t recall it the same way you do. I remember it being in the midst of the horrible run (in terms of results, fixture congestion and injuries), we had just lost Brennan for 6 weeks and then we lost Solanke just before this game. It was also Moyes second home game back. If you look at our bench that day, Richy is the only one who isn’t a kid.

I remember it as Ange trying something different to try and stem the tide with a 3 at the back, precisely because losing so much wasn’t acceptable to him, but then turning in a bad first half with the players not used to a different system, and reverting to normal for the second and scoring 2 goals to lose 3-2.

If that’s your example of Ange normalising losing I think I’d respectfully disagree and say it’s unfair. I don’t think he burnt the house down to win the trophy. But I do think he is a big factor in our current predicament. Because I don’t recall a club like ours, going through a situation like that, actually winning a rare trophy at the end of it and then sacking the manager.

I think if we were going to sack Ange, the next appointment after had to be unquestionably, so obviously a level up, with both a personality, style of play, and tactical nous that the players fully bought into it, accepting that Ange needed to go for their greater good. And if that person didn’t exist, they should have let it ride with Ange. Because the players were still behind him, and the moment someone not up to the job like Frank gives them any reason to doubt him, their minds go back to the fact that the club sacked a manager that took them through the hardest season of their lives, promised they would become winners, and then made it happen.

I think sacking Ange destroyed the culture and let the players feel like Tottenham was a pointless endeavour for them, because nothing would really change, no matter what they achieved in whatever circumstances. And I think that’s why we’re seeing what we’re seeing right now. A complete lack of culture. We simply had to let it ride with Ange and if he started the next year badly, sack him then.

I think blaming him for creating too good a relationship with the players, and being too successful in the most awful of circumstances is just way off to be honest. Yes he is polarising, but he didn’t start the season saying ‘I’m going to tank the league so I can say I always win things my second year’. He faced horrendous circumstances and still came out the other side with a trophy because that was the only way the season could be a success.

I actually agree with a lot of your analysis, I agree there are massive fractures between the players and the fans. But I don’t blame Ange for doing his job. I blame the club for sacking him and getting the next appointment badly wrong. It simply isn’t usual for a club, especially one like ours who doesn’t win often, to sack a winning manager. It isn’t usual to see the outpouring of love from the players that came after that news broke. We chose to throw that way, for someone the players quickly realised wasn’t up to it. I think that fractured the relationship between the club and the players, because it was so obviously a horrendous decision. The squad likely has no respect for a club that can do something so stupid, and most know they will be able to force their way out this summer. And now we are where we are.

I’m actually going to temper this a bit on reflection.

I do think sacking Ange is part of this. It’s a factor, but overall the reason for the downfall this season is that there is no reason for any player to believe that Tottenham is the right place for them to be, mid-long term. Different players will have different reasons for thinking it, but we need as many of them to think it to have a team spirit that sees us through anything. And this is why the mistake with Poch was allowing this to happen during his time too, as too many players stopped seeing Spurs as the place to be for them, and he wanted to get ahead of it,

So I think for a lot of players, it was Ange. It was the idea that come what may, they would always play a style of football that they would enjoy playing. That was something they could get behind, but sacking him breaks that.

For others, and I think for a lot of players and managers since 2019, it’s the promise that if you join Tottenham, you join a club on the upswing. That they will be the ones to elevate the club on to the next level. And I think the incompetence and general lack of real investment from ENIC since the stadium has opened has made too many players and managers realise that nothing is really gonna change. And so they end up calling the board out, and going through the motions.

Then Paratici leaving, you probably have a fair few players who believed in the way he sold the project, and him leaving means they now call that in to question. And hell maybe they are a couple that felt some loyalty to Levy but have absolutely no feeling for Vinai and Lange.

Then you have players like Kolo Muani, who’s not even going to be here long term. Xavi who probably wants to make it work but knows he’ll be fine if he doesn’t. There’s probably very few players that actually believe that Spurs is the right place for them mid-long term, or where there is some sort of loyalty keeping them there. Gray I can see being one, because this is a great opportunity for him to run the show. Spence should also be one of those but I’m just not sure…basically barely any other player I can see really seeing Spurs as the place.

And so that’s what it is for me. The players heads have completely gone. And I think that’s because there’s been a complete fracturing between the players and the decision makers, the owners, board, sporting directors. In the belief in the prospects of the club. There’s no unity and no togetherness because no one has a reason to deeply care, or to be seriously loyal. We’ve systematically broken it bit by bit, by sacking managers, from thrashing from one style to another, from completely different sporting directors, to removing the Chairman. And unfortunately we’re a club where if we do well enough to sign great players and don’t progress, they’ll have other options, and if we don’t have togetherness, we’ll definitely underperform.

There’s a complete vacuum and no reason for any player to see Spurs as their future. Other than the under 20s who could well provide the core to us coming back up.

 

[spurspinter1]

Free fall into 4th or maybe 5th position? And no he didn’t get sacked, he effectively walked out.

People add on the details to memories they want to sometimes. You can say we were in 4th but apparently it wasn't a true league position because of games in hand. We definitely were not in free fall, obviously what transpired with Steilini taking over was never going to bring on a sudden upturn in form but it's possible that taking the scolding and regrouping would have.