Progress

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I think the progress is in the overall makeup of the squad. When you look at our squad at the end of last season there was very little to project as positive for the long term. We had been buoyed to a solid league finish by Adebayor and Eriksen. Everyone who has paid attention knew the Adebayor thing was not a long term solution. We had six failed signings, Vertonghen and Lloris were unsettled, Bentaleb and Rose were scapegoats, and we had no coach and Franco Baldini.

Now about twelve months later we have one of the best strikers in the league who is 21 and cost nothing, Bentaleb and Rose are two of our most consistent performers, Vertonghen seems unlikely to leave, we have the young player of the season at the top three levels of English football (Kane, Pritchard, and Alli), Ryan Mason is found money even if his future is as rotation player, Chadli scored 10 league goals, Lamela could still be salvaged, Eric Dier looks like a real player, our academy is brimming with talent, at worst Pochettino is a competent coach, and we have a guy heading our transfer decisions that looks like he has a clue.

I think that in Kane, Bentaleb, Eriksen, Dier, Vertonghen, Rose, Lloris, and hopefully Walker, Lamela, and Mason we have a real base of players that we can feel confident building around the next 2-3 seasons and only Lloris looks a immediate threat to leave. Plus Alli, Pritchard, and the academy boys have tons of potential as well. Last season you would have said only Eriksen, Vertonghen, and Lloris were good bets for the future.

For that reason, I do think we've made progress. I actually feel like I see a team coming together that makes sense for the future. Do we still have huge holes? Absolutely. Is the core young and football immature? Yes. Might Levy sell a bunch of them off? Of course. However, we have a bright and talented young core with a good portion of it being homegrown. You could not say that 12 months ago. That is substantial progress IMO. Now to see tangible on field progress we need to buy smartly in the summer and hope that Pochettino is manager that can coach his team to improvement from season to season.

Last season's sixth place was built on smoke and mirrors, this year it feels like we could have something special going forward if we make a few smart decisions and get a little luck. A long way to go though.

Wow.
This.
x1000.

Thank you!
 
Makes me sick to say but money wins football matches. That should be clear with those West London bastards doing a double this season.
The only way we will succeed in the coming years is for Levy & Co to heavily invest in our squad.
Not the 'Tottenham way' but it'll be the way to league titles and cup victories.

Or you can define "success" differently.
I agree the Premier League title had likely passed us by, but we can still succeed on the pitch & as a club without abandoning "the Tottenham way."
 
Or you can define "success" differently.
I agree the Premier League title had likely passed us by, but we can still succeed on the pitch & as a club without abandoning "the Tottenham way."
But where do we stop? If we start a slip down the table and become a good solid top 10 side but never challenging for Europe for the simple fact everyone around us upped their game and had directors that supported the managers in terms of both capital and time, are we still being successful?

We need to keep evolving or we will get left behind and again I fucking hate saying it but a big new stadium full of tourists paying £100 a pop to get in would help that.
 
same with a lot of the arguments for optimism. if we get rid if the deadwood, if poch gets his signings, if lamela proves etc
 
I think the progress is in the overall makeup of the squad. When you look at our squad at the end of last season there was very little to project as positive for the long term. We had been buoyed to a solid league finish by Adebayor and Eriksen. Everyone who has paid attention knew the Adebayor thing was not a long term solution. We had six failed signings, Vertonghen and Lloris were unsettled, Bentaleb and Rose were scapegoats, and we had no coach and Franco Baldini.

Now about twelve months later we have one of the best strikers in the league who is 21 and cost nothing, Bentaleb and Rose are two of our most consistent performers, Vertonghen seems unlikely to leave, we have the young player of the season at the top three levels of English football (Kane, Pritchard, and Alli), Ryan Mason is found money even if his future is as rotation player, Chadli scored 10 league goals, Lamela could still be salvaged, Eric Dier looks like a real player, our academy is brimming with talent, at worst Pochettino is a competent coach, and we have a guy heading our transfer decisions that looks like he has a clue.

I think that in Kane, Bentaleb, Eriksen, Dier, Vertonghen, Rose, Lloris, and hopefully Walker, Lamela, and Mason we have a real base of players that we can feel confident building around the next 2-3 seasons and only Lloris looks a immediate threat to leave. Plus Alli, Pritchard, and the academy boys have tons of potential as well. Last season you would have said only Eriksen, Vertonghen, and Lloris were good bets for the future.

For that reason, I do think we've made progress. I actually feel like I see a team coming together that makes sense for the future. Do we still have huge holes? Absolutely. Is the core young and football immature? Yes. Might Levy sell a bunch of them off? Of course. However, we have a bright and talented young core with a good portion of it being homegrown. You could not say that 12 months ago. That is substantial progress IMO. Now to see tangible on field progress we need to buy smartly in the summer and hope that Pochettino is manager that can coach his team to improvement from season to season.

Last season's sixth place was built on smoke and mirrors, this year it feels like we could have something special going forward if we make a few smart decisions and get a little luck. A long way to go though.
Top, top post. My thoughts exactly, only articulated better.

I know a lot of folks disagree, but I thought this season was a blast. All of those last minute winners. A cup run. A couple of orgasmic wins. A group of young players who you can really get behind. Harry Kane in goal after a hat trick. Juju. Archway burning to the ground. An inflatable dolphin passed around the stadium.

It's just been a lot more fun this season. I call that progress.
 
IF and big IF Poch gets all the players he wants this transfer window and gets rid of the baggage I am very confident we can take it up to the top four next season. We have demonstrated that we can play (against the Chavs) and if we can foster more performances like this it will be an exciting season.
 
So many negative fans.

Baffles me how people don't see the progress. We outplayed the former Premier League Champions, a team who usually smash us.

We had a poor start and we had a poor March/April, largely due to getting knocked out of 2 cups at once. Don't let that distort your impression of the season. We've done a great job with what we've got.

We're more or less in the same position as last year, true. But....
Untied spent £170mil
Liverpool spent £110+ mil
Southampton spent £76 mil
Woolwich spent £105 mil

We spent £40 mill. Considering our rivals are all spending more than us, we've done incredibly well to hold our own with virtually no spending in a season of transition, while getting to a cup final and playing more games than anyone else in England.

The club is in good health, the scouting basis is impressive, the squad is young, players ARE improving, a new stadium in the next 3 years, a great youth academy with many prospects. Not sure what more people expect; for Levy to splash out £100 mil? How'd that go last time, remind me.
 
Why are we only looking at results against the top 4? Yes, we may have perform better against them this season but as a result there were also more rubbish results against the weaker teams.

It seems like Poch got alot more credit when we played well against the top 4 but when we played poorly against the weaker teams, the players get most of the blame.
 
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I would not be too harsh on Eriksen for the last few weeks, the whole team has lost motivation after what happened against Chelsea and Fiorentina
 
Looking at our squad following the summer transfer window and then again in January - 6th place would have been a phenomenal achievement with a team consisting mostly of painfully mediocre players and lacking true quality bar 2-3 names.

I think Poch has done well with the tools available, as well as successfully integrated number of young player into the squad - Bentaleb and Kane coming to mind. Having said that - we can still finish above Liverpool and that would be a mighty achievement looking at context critically.

However, the true litmus test for me comes this transfer window - whether DL would be willing to provide the necessary tools or forever shut the fuck up about Top 4 ambitions since it's becoming rather laughable to even consider that occurrence with marquee signings in the Alli / Davies mould and net spend of 0.
 
I thought the City game was brilliant. Either side could have won it, a draw was also very likely.

City was also very wobbly throughout this season.

My opinion is that we need some tough midfield general to make good tackles and win balls. We had that in Sandro and Huddlestone. Closest one now is Paulinho but he isn't good enough. Mason is also not good enough, although he is still young.

Oh, and having backup strikers who aren't deadweights also helps. Even Chelsea's old Drogs could deliver key goals at the ripe old age of 37.

Time to do serious transfer business in the summer, although I'm not sure if Poch wants the more physical, less technically gifted players.
 
Emperors new clothing ?

I think there have been some improvements and in others departments such as defensive
play we have gone backwards . Playing style is better but no neutral would pay good
money to watch us . Poch has done as well as could be expected under the limitations
provided by him at board level . We could ask for no more .
Next season my expectations see much the same without any chance sadly of success.
The teams above will buy , retain better players and we will at best tread water
24 years of bare cupboards (2 minor cups) has blunted any optimism my younger
brethren may have ., Sadly there is no Yellow brick road .
Our league position does not lie.
 
Big pre season for Poch. I have said before this guy needs time, as others here have mentioned we were smoke and mirrors last season with a coach who gave us more instability not less.

Poch has brought a calming influence and seems to know that certain players have to be moved on this close season, I.e. kaboul, capoue and adebayor

I think we have a good squad and we dont need to invest in a number of players, just the right ones, we need to get a top striker and a midfielder who can pull the strings.

Then our players need to be more consistent, eriksen, chadli and lamela are all talented but need to prove this and not just put in one good performance every four games

On the plus side and compared to last season the improvement of rose, kane and bentelab has been incredible, for me this shows evidence of a coach who knows what he is doing and I was not a fan when he was appointed
 
At the start of the season a lot of our fans wanted little more than to see the beginnings of a team coming together, built around a core of youngsters with spurs in their hearts. Get back to players 'playing for the shirt'... Its exactly what's happened.

Not enough though because one of those youngsters is already being labeled a mid level championship player by our fans for not being able to take us to the next level.

I think we've made some progress on the pitch and in terms of the squad, unfortunately I think we're going backwards in the stands and in places like these.
 
People have very short memories regarding just how bad we were performing last season if they can't see the progress that's been made this season.

Progress doesn't necessarily = more points.

We are playing better football in spells this season that we played at all last season. That's where the progress is visible.

Ive enjoyed watching us far more often this season than last. That's progress and in truth the only expectation I had of Poch this season.

Indeed.
Although there were some truly shocking performances in October and November. Eye bleeding stuff.
Pochettino was still finding his first eleven though.
 
At the start of the season a lot of our fans wanted little more than to see the beginnings of a team coming together, built around a core of youngsters with spurs in their hearts. Get back to players 'playing for the shirt'... Its exactly what's happened.

Not enough though because one of those youngsters is already being labeled a mid level championship player by our fans for not being able to take us to the next level.

I think we've made some progress on the pitch and in terms of the squad, unfortunately I think we're going backwards in the stands and in places like these.


I agree but if you are referring to mason then I would counter he is not a youngster and personally he is not good enough to warrent a start in every game. I like him and as a squad player have no issues but if we are going to allow players to start as they ' love the shirt' and would spill blood for it then me and you could be in the first 11

We need a balance of players that care, but we need more quality, especially in the middle of the park and up front
 
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