I get a lot of the frustrations with Ange, and there are undoubted issues with some of his approach to tactical setup and substitutions.
But I do still quite like him and back him (I’d probably class myself as wanting to see more before making any rash decisions),The root of a lot of this was the summer though - I just don’t think we had a particularly strong transfer window and we’re really paying the price.
From what I’ve read some of that is on Ange and he’s backed himself too aggressively to polish up some diamonds and not realised the elite level of the PL IMO, but the club haven’t helped either.
For me this is particularly evident in the attacking areas (most of the GK and defensive signings have been decent).
None of Johnson, Solanke or Son (current version) are elite level players and it shows when you watch us play. Odebert is young and TBC, Moore is all potential and Werner isn’t of the required level.
If you compare our attacking options to the clubs in and around us we fall short. Our team would be sooo different with a Salah or a Saka in the side who is a consistent and constant threat to opposing full backs, but also offers a great outlet when under pressure.
I expect the inevitable retort of how many goals we’ve scored, but I don’t think that’s a particularly nuanced way of assessing what goes on in every game. Those attackers contribute to us turning over the ball and allowing dangerous counters time after time.
They also don’t pose enough of a threat to low block defences which we are seeing regularly setup against us.
The big myth is that Spurs have become a spending team over the last few years so board criticism isn’t fair. The reality is whilst transfer spend outlay has been refreshingly high, we’ve avoided anyone on chunky wages to prop up the books and that’s why we still have huge amounts of FFP margin and our wage to turnover ratio is so low.
A 65m player on 150k pw costs much less than a 45m player on 300k pw over a 5 year contract. Attacking signings like Johnson, Werner and Solanke haven’t really been game changers for us in any way.
If you look at this summers signings in particular, only Solanke has made any impact so far, and thus I did think 5th - 7th is where we’d be this season before we got started and that’s looking accurate.
As I said above, I think Ange has some culpability in that but as a club we were ineffective this summer and we’re paying the price currently.
I’m willing to cut Ange some slack because I don’t think our squad is particularly great……