Manager Ange Postecoglou

[Honest John]

Games we dropped points in come down to individual errors this season not style which is why I find it overly weird folk wanted the manager sacked

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I think a lot of people who want / wanted him sacked didn't really want him appointed in the first place. I include myself in that group.

What really fucked me off was how the appointment plummeted expectations in so much as what would for years have been considered a unacceptable season, is suddenly hailed as a success and a progressive one.

It's also like there was no pressure on the guy to succeed. And that should never, ever be the case for a Tottenham Hotspur manager.

However, fair play to the guy. He's actually gone and put the pressure on himself with his comments about winning in his second season etc. and I massively respect that.

If results continue to improve and he finds some consistency against the top clubs, (because let's face it, we are one ourselves) then he'll win me over. Saturday was a great step with getting the London Derby monkey off his back

 

[Shadydan]

I think a lot of people who want / wanted him sacked didn't really want him appointed in the first place. I include myself in that group.

What really fucked me off was how the appointment plummeted expectations in so much as what would for years have been considered a unacceptable season, is suddenly hailed as a success and a progressive one.

It's also like there was no pressure on the guy to succeed. And that should never, ever be the case for a Tottenham Hotspur manager.

However, fair play to the guy. He's actually gone and put the pressure on himself with his comments about winning in his second season etc. and I massively respect that.

If results continue to improve and he finds some consistency against the top clubs, (because let's face it, we are one ourselves) then he'll win me over. Saturday was a great step with getting the London Derby monkey off his back

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I understand thus but I think folk just have a hard time accepting that we're not the club we were under peak Poch and we are in rebuilding mode. I actually think the club had a hard time accepting this because we hired Jose and Conte and had moved into this massive stadium post CL final we thought we were up there with the big boys.

Hiring Ange was an admission from the club to say that we need to humble ourselves and start again which basically means we needed to lower our expectations in the short term for long term gain, this rebuild should have happened 5 years ago but no one at the club was ready to accept the challenge, we had an identity crisis.

This is why I'm all in on Ange by the way, I think he's the right man for the club, he gets it...he's a manager who constantly gets written off and mocked and he's at a club who suffer the same fate...the guy is absolutely determined to win with us and when he does it will be even more sweeter, two fingers up to the naysayers, the media, rival fans etc...

 

[kingdawson]

Positives are that performance wise we have definitely improved from last season and should have had more points if it wasn't for self sabotage. Solanke is big part in the improvement regarding our style of play with his ball carrying/dribbling/passing/ holding the ball ability being massive in terms of an outlet.


Negatives are that Ange is not proactive enough (although he was this weekend so hopefully that continues) and his persistence on playing Romero despite him costing us on so many occasions. Also I don't think a single pivot in big games is sustainable (generally speaking) so he needs to make a choice between Maddison or Kulu (bissouma and sarr have both been great this season btw). I didn't like how Bentancur took Bissoumas place in the team being that it wasn't warranted and he didn't earn it so hopefully that experiment is done with.

 

[Fattynomates]

I'm an emotional fan so I may have said before I wanted him gone after the gooners game, however if you take a look at this season as a whole ( barring the second half against Brighton) we have played well in all the games and the majority of goals conceded are through individual errors, or we are creating enough chances to be out of sight just it wasn't clicking uup front, however now we have a young exciting squad and a manager that wants to play good attacking football , if we can get any kind of trophy this season and get that monkey of our back then who knows what this squad can achieve, any way I'm now fully behind Ange.

 

[1882]

Bar Liverpool, our defence is as good as the top teams right now in terms of goals conceded.

We're also one of the most high scoring (the highest?) teams in the league.

We're not even a third into the season. It's just so early to be making any sort of judgement, barring exceptional catastrophe or exceptional excellence, both of which we have not met right now (and none of the top teams have).

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I wouldn't swap one of our current defenders today for what we had in 2017.

Porro - Romero - VDV - Udogie

Vs

Walker - Alderweireld - Vertonghen - Rose.

It's no contest to me. I feel they're better individually and as a unit. The centre backs played together for club and country, it's hard to beat a partnership like that. Walker/Porro are comparable, but walkers athleticism to bail himself out is far better than porro. Rose is better than udogie defensively, but I have high hopes for udogie, despite his recent poor form costing us goals. There's no defender from 2017 who can do what vdv can do though. That would be some back 3.

Though if you put dembele in today's side instead of bissouma, I think we'd be a lot better.

I think you're right that we definitely don't work on it as much, vdv is perfect for the system because I feel we're expecting to get caught out and he's there to bail us out. There is a lot of potential in our unit though and I think with the right coaching it can be pretty formidable.

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But just imagine VDV and Vertonghen together...
Now that WOULD'VE been sex!

 

[kingdawson]

I understand thus but I think folk just have a hard time accepting that we're not the club we were under peak Poch and we are in rebuilding mode. I actually think the club had a hard time accepting this because we hired Jose and Conte and had moved into this massive stadium post CL final we thought we were up there with the big boys.

Hiring Ange was an admission from the club to say that we need to humble ourselves and start again which basically means we needed to lower our expectations in the short term for long term gain, this rebuild should have happened 5 years ago but no one at the club was ready to accept the challenge, we had an identity crisis.

This is why I'm all in on Ange by the way, I think he's the right man for the club, he gets it...he's a manager who constantly gets written off and mocked and he's at a club who suffer the same fate...the guy is absolutely determined to win with us and when he does it will be even more sweeter, two fingers up to the naysayers, the media, rival fans etc...

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Actually no he "doesn't get it" to the point that he actually had to come out and apologise for misreading a situation regarding fans.

I don't think he gets it at all to be totally honest. He didn't get why certain fans didn't want us to get anything from the City game and instead chose to mock the lack of silverware stating he walks through the stadium and sees nothing. He didn't get the rivarly games stating they're just like any other game amd he doesn't see the difference between these games.

You can give him credit for a decent amount of positive things he has done but rewriting history by claiming he gets it is not correct. In time his method might work and might be best for what we need, we don't know.

 

[Shadydan]

Actually no he "doesn't get it" to the point that he actually had to come out and apologise for misreading a situation regarding fans.

I don't think he gets it at all to be totally honest. He didn't get why certain fans didn't want us to get anything from the City game and instead chose to mock the lack of silverware stating he walks through the stadium and sees nothing. He didn't get the rivarly games stating they're just like any other game amd he doesn't see the difference between these games.

You can give him credit for a decent amount of positive things he has done but rewriting history by claiming he gets it is not correct. In time his method might work and might be best for what we need, we don't know.

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This doesn't have anything to do with what I said by the way.

What you're talking about is fan perception in an isolated match, I'm talking about his mentality and his approach to managing this football club.

 

[Fattynomates]

Actually no he "doesn't get it" to the point that he actually had to come out and apologise for misreading a situation regarding fans.

I don't think he gets it at all to be totally honest. He didn't get why certain fans didn't want us to get anything from the City game and instead chose to mock the lack of silverware stating he walks through the stadium and sees nothing. He didn't get the rivarly games stating they're just like any other game amd he doesn't see the difference between these games.

You can give him credit for a decent amount of positive things he has done but rewriting history by claiming he gets it is not correct. In time his method might work and might be best for what we need, we don't know.

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Although I don't agree with him , I kind of get the city game from him - you can't have a manager that is saying to the squad "win at all costs" and is trying to build a winning mentality that its ok to lose the city game as it meant the gooners wouldn't win the league, it just goes against everything he is trying to build - what annoyed me more was going out in the League cup last season, wish it was win at all costs then!
Any way , Ange is not perfect , no one is but I think he is actually trying to change the mentality around the club , and its nicer to hear a manager back us to win rather than say we can't compete as we are just Tottenham.

 

[White Hart]

Stats mate. Pure unadulterated stats.

Played 8 and Haaland has scored 10. Solanke 2.
If Solanke had scored just 4 more goals in those type of games haaland does where he gets 1 chance and buries it we’d have more points. Header against woolwich comes to mind.

Give us another & goals and our GD is +17 after 8 games.
With Haaland they have a GD just 1 better than ours. They are far too reliant on him this season IMHO.

And when setting up a football club my friend got advice from Sir Alex. Which was.
Get yourself the best goalscoring number 9 and the best GK you can. With those two players you can always win matches.

Pep 100% works to that idea.

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True, but as regards which clubs have scored the most goals this season, we are 2nd, 1 goal behind City. Loss of points is down to defensive mistakes. What I would say ,however, is that considering our high level of attacking and amount of possession we really should be scoring more than we have.

 

[SeeSpotRun]

I understand thus but I think folk just have a hard time accepting that we're not the club we were under peak Poch and we are in rebuilding mode. I actually think the club had a hard time accepting this because we hired Jose and Conte and had moved into this massive stadium post CL final we thought we were up there with the big boys.

Hiring Ange was an admission from the club to say that we need to humble ourselves and start again which basically means we needed to lower our expectations in the short term for long term gain, this rebuild should have happened 5 years ago but no one at the club was ready to accept the challenge, we had an identity crisis.

This is why I'm all in on Ange by the way, I think he's the right man for the club, he gets it...he's a manager who constantly gets written off and mocked and he's at a club who suffer the same fate...the guy is absolutely determined to win with us and when he does it will be even more sweeter, two fingers up to the naysayers, the media, rival fans etc...

Click to shrink...

Interesting to compare Ange's start to Poch's.

First the baseline (season before they took over):

	Poch	Ange
Points	69	63
Goals	55	70
Goals Against	51	63
Goal Difference	+4	+7
Points vs top 5	5	4
GD vs top 5	-24	-15

Then their first full seasons:

	Poch	Ange
Points	64 (-5)	66 (+3)
Goals	58 (+3)	74 (+4)
Goals Against	53 (+2)	61 (-2)
Goal Difference	+5 (+1)	+13 (+6)
Points vs top 5	8 (+3)	8 (+4)
GD vs top 5	-11 (+13)	-6 (+9)

Then the first 8 rounds of their second seasons:

	Poch	Ange
Points	13	13
Goals	11	18
Goals Against	7	9
GD	+4	+9

Draw your own conclusions.

 

[spids]

I wouldn't swap one of our current defenders today for what we had in 2017.

Porro - Romero - VDV - Udogie

Vs

Walker - Alderweireld - Vertonghen - Rose.

It's no contest to me. I feel they're better individually and as a unit. The centre backs played together for club and country, it's hard to beat a partnership like that. Walker/Porro are comparable, but walkers athleticism to bail himself out is far better than porro. Rose is better than udogie defensively, but I have high hopes for udogie, despite his recent poor form costing us goals. There's no defender from 2017 who can do what vdv can do though. That would be some back 3.

Though if you put dembele in today's side instead of bissouma, I think we'd be a lot better.

I think you're right that we definitely don't work on it as much, vdv is perfect for the system because I feel we're expecting to get caught out and he's there to bail us out. There is a lot of potential in our unit though and I think with the right coaching it can be pretty formidable.

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A 26 year old Kyle Walker at RB in our team would be good. Imagine the recovery pace with Walker and VDV!

 

[nasm_f]

Interesting to compare Ange's start to Poch's.

First the baseline (season before they took over):

	Poch	Ange
Points	69	63
Goals	55	70
Goals Against	51	63
Goal Difference	+4	+7
Points vs top 5	5	4
GD vs top 5	-24	-15

Then their first full seasons:

	Poch	Ange
Points	64 (-5)	66 (+3)
Goals	58 (+3)	74 (+4)
Goals Against	53 (+2)	61 (-2)
Goal Difference	+5 (+1)	+13 (+6)
Points vs top 5	8 (+3)	8 (+4)
GD vs top 5	-11 (+13)	-6 (+9)

Then the first 8 rounds of their second seasons:

	Poch	Ange
Points	13	13
Goals	11	18
Goals Against	7	9
GD	+4	+9

Draw your own conclusions.

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After the opening 8 games in 15/16 (in which we only lost once) we went on runs like 9 wins in 11 including 6 on the trot, we only lost 2 games before the new year (1 in August and 1 in December) and then only lost 2 more before that draw against Chelsea and then throwing away 2nd, we didn't lose home or away against Woolwich, Liverpool or Chelsea, beat City home and away and lost to United on the opening day but beat them 3-0 at home.

Obviously that season was a massive opportunity missed in hindsight especially only taking a point off Leicester but if that's the sort of season you see unfolding based on this start then I'll be glad to eat any manner of humble pie.

 

[WillWilliams]

Obviously that season was a massive opportunity missed in hindsight especially only taking a point off Leicester but if that's the sort of season you see unfolding based on this start then I'll be glad to eat any manner of humble pie.

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One big dollop of TFC humble creampie is on its way to your face come May then my good sir.

Rather you than me tbh.

 

[Starks]

After the opening 8 games in 15/16 (in which we only lost once) we went on runs like 9 wins in 11 including 6 on the trot, we only lost 2 games before the new year (1 in August and 1 in December) and then only lost 2 more before that draw against Chelsea and then throwing away 2nd, we didn't lose home or away against Woolwich, Liverpool or Chelsea, beat City home and away and lost to United on the opening day but beat them 3-0 at home.

Obviously that season was a massive opportunity missed in hindsight especially only taking a point off Leicester but if that's the sort of season you see unfolding based on this start then I'll be glad to eat any manner of humble pie.

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For that season to happen again, it would require every single top team in the country to underperform. Like they did that year.

The quality right now, not just in the top teams but across the league is quite simply 10x better than it was back then.

Teams actually press, they are fitter, they're tactically better. Coaches across the board are better. More money means better squads for everyone too.

Woolwich were on a decline. Man City weren't the force they are now. Man Utd were in their post Fergie slump and still are. Chelsea were becoming a bit of a mess. Liverpool were at a point where they were about to head for 1 trophy in 13 years and pre-Klopp.

I like the comparisons between Ange and Poch from a project perspective. They are basically identical, though I think Ange took over from a far worse position in terms of squad and league position. I've made the comparisons before in terms of fan support and eventual acceptance.

But the footballing landscape has changed so much. So much so, that you plop this Ange team into 2015/16 and it'd probably walk the league such is the intensity of our game compared to the way the league was back then.

 

[Kaz Hirai]

I understand thus but I think folk just have a hard time accepting that we're not the club we were under peak Poch and we are in rebuilding mode. I actually think the club had a hard time accepting this because we hired Jose and Conte and had moved into this massive stadium post CL final we thought we were up there with the big boys.

Hiring Ange was an admission from the club to say that we need to humble ourselves and start again which basically means we needed to lower our expectations in the short term for long term gain, this rebuild should have happened 5 years ago but no one at the club was ready to accept the challenge, we had an identity crisis.

This is why I'm all in on Ange by the way, I think he's the right man for the club, he gets it...he's a manager who constantly gets written off and mocked and he's at a club who suffer the same fate...the guy is absolutely determined to win with us and when he does it will be even more sweeter, two fingers up to the naysayers, the media, rival fans etc...

Click to shrink...

 

[nasm_f]

One big dollop of TFC humble creampie is on its way to your face come May then my good sir.

Rather you than me tbh.

Click to shrink...

 

[nasm_f]

For that season to happen again, it would require every single top team in the country to underperform. Like they did that year.

The quality right now, not just in the top teams but across the league is quite simply 10x better than it was back then.

Teams actually press, they are fitter, they're tactically better. Coaches across the board are better. More money means better squads for everyone too.

Woolwich were on a decline. Man City weren't the force they are now. Man Utd were in their post Fergie slump and still are. Chelsea were becoming a bit of a mess. Liverpool were at a point where they were about to head for 1 trophy in 13 years and pre-Klopp.

I like the comparisons between Ange and Poch from a project perspective. They are basically identical, though I think Ange took over from a far worse position in terms of squad and league position. I've made the comparisons before in terms of fan support and eventual acceptance.

But the footballing landscape has changed so much. So much so, that you plop this Ange team into 2015/16 and it'd probably walk the league such is the intensity of our game compared to the way the league was back then.

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I'd have to disagree about the team being better for Poch's first season and the bit about Chelsea as they won the league the next season but apart from that, all of the valid points you've made about the strength of the league these days and the money available does make it difficult but it could be argued that this has the potential to be a similar season with City arguably not looking quite as dominant, Liverpool under a new manager and Woolwich stumbling now they're getting reffed properly.

Chelsea and Villa are looking threats but there's no reason we can't make a challenge but first and foremost, that would require consistency which imo would be a minimum of 4/5 league wins in a row a couple of times and a minimum of maybe 7/8 games at a time without a loss which we haven't seen in a while and now would be the time when the gap is still doable, we'll see at the weekend.

 

[Ed Vanderlay]

2

One big dollop of TFC humble creampie is on its way to your face come May then my good sir.

Rather you than me tbh.

Click to shrink...

 

[Fattynomates]

I understand thus but I think folk just have a hard time accepting that we're not the club we were under peak Poch and we are in rebuilding mode. I actually think the club had a hard time accepting this because we hired Jose and Conte and had moved into this massive stadium post CL final we thought we were up there with the big boys.

Hiring Ange was an admission from the club to say that we need to humble ourselves and start again which basically means we needed to lower our expectations in the short term for long term gain, this rebuild should have happened 5 years ago but no one at the club was ready to accept the challenge, we had an identity crisis.

This is why I'm all in on Ange by the way, I think he's the right man for the club, he gets it...he's a manager who constantly gets written off and mocked and he's at a club who suffer the same fate...the guy is absolutely determined to win with us and when he does it will be even more sweeter, two fingers up to the naysayers, the media, rival fans etc...

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Great post - I just hope we win something while Sonny is at the club - I'd love to see him lift a trophy!

 

[Starks]

I'd have to disagree about the team being better for Poch's first season

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Feel free to disagree. But Poch took over a squad in which the majority of the players he had at his disposal ended up making up the starting eleven of his most successful teams.

Ange has had to basically replace 80% of the team he inherited. Including losing the clubs best ever goalscorer.

and the bit about Chelsea as they won the league the next season

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Fair - but they did end up finishing 10th in Pochs second year. Which I guess is the season we are discussing.

but apart from that, all of the valid points you've made about the strength of the league these days and the money available does make it difficult but it could be argued that this has the potential to be a similar season with City arguably not looking quite as dominant, Liverpool under a new manager and Woolwich stumbling now they're getting reffed properly. Chelsea and Villa are looking threats but there's no reason we can't make a challenge but first and foremost,

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I don't think it'll be anywhere near similar or even has the making of being

City are on a 31 game unbeaten run. Liverpool might be under a new manager but the squad is still a squad that got Champions League football last season and have the solid foundations Klopp built up over the years. Woolwich are still strong. Chelsea are performing better than they have in the last few years. Aston Villa are still as efficient as they have been under Emery. As you've mentioned.

that would require consistency which imo would be a minimum of 4/5 league wins in a row a couple of times and a minimum of maybe 7/8 games at a time without a loss which we haven't seen in a while and now would be the time when the gap is still doable, we'll see at the weekend.

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Consistency ultimately is key.

We really do have three fixtures coming up that we should be looking to get 9 points from. Villa at home, tricky but they're more than beatable. Even a point in that game wouldn't be the end of the world and it'd see us go into the international break with just 1 loss in 7 in the league and in a good position.