I was talking about Poch's squad, at it's best. What we have now is miles away imv. None of the players listed are great in the same sense as prime Son, Kane, Vertonghen, Alderweireld, Dembele, Eriksen etc. I also think the manager is not good enough. Levy has fucked up impressively many things the last few years.
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Management ENIC
- Thread starter The Fighting Cock
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He is damaging himself. All the anti media and some of the fan criticism will disappear as soon as he appoints another Manager. That is what he has always done. Our chance of a trophy will be put back years as the new Manager will not risk PL points for cup victories and we will go back to playing weak teams in cup matches and embarrassing defeats to lower league teams. The fans that pay their money and go to watch the matches are still backing the Manager.
The damage Levy is doing to the club is NOT buying an outfield player at the beginning of January who might have improved results.
Yes but, don't forget many posters don't want to do it this way.
They have historically stated they preferred the extremely slow organic way, that hasn't delivered yet.
I would suggest that had two Solanke level players been bought in the summer; one central midfield player and one left sided defender, who could play centre back or left back, then a lot of this may not have happened.
Ange was given Ben Davies, for the last year of his contract, to cover VDV and Udogie while Hojbjerg and Skipp were both sold leaving Spurs short of a midfield player who specialised in putting his foot in.
Ange didn't play Dragusin until Romero and VDV began missing games, through injury or suspension, and then there is the mystery of Spence being overlooked completely by Ange until the injuries really began to pile up.
Ange's credibility is now trashed and it seems as though he may have fallen out with one or two senior players into the bargain.
Ultimately it always seems to end up this way at THFC under Levy and ENIC.
I think Levy has reached his glass ceiling.
Eh, historically either in publicity or form terms, or both, the managerial changes have resulted in substantive improvement.
November 2019 Poch is sacked, December 2020 Bale is back and we're top of the table after 12 games
April 2021 Mourinho is sacked, May 2022 Conte blows away Woolwich to seize top four in an imperious run of form that spanned between seasons.
March-June 2023, from the Conte outburst to the humiliation of the managerial search that led us to Ange. November 2023 we're top after 10 games, best start in club history.
The exception that proves the rule there was Nuno, which collapsed within 10 league games.
I have long, long pointed out that Levy Out is a weird internet thing that hadn't really penetrated the mass consciousness.
Not anymore. It's here.
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Well, TBF, you're comparing many of them at the early stages of their careers to players at their absolute peaks. The idea with the young squad and hiring Ange was 100% to attempt to replicate what we built post-Redknapp with AVB/Poch. Hopefully Ange is the AVB, and the replacement (Iraola) will prove to be the true Poch successor.
VDV is much better than Vertonghen in 2013, and 3 years younger.
Dembele is greatly lionized by Spurs supporters (for reason) but his "peak" was pretty short similar to Dele - before that peak he was a bit of a square peg for Fulham and us, and after that peak he was hard to keep on the pitch.
On a side note, we've had several of these players over the years. Van der Vaart was only here a short while but is spoken of as though he played a decade. Dele was lightning - electric, bright, and loud...but for an incredibly brief time.
Johnson is contributing at a similar level to Son's first full season at Spurs and is a year younger.
Maddison is handling a greater share of the scoring than Eriksen was at similar age. Maddison has a better passing percentage and more progressive passes, crosses, but Eriksen had more key passes. Similar on the shot creating actions and Maddison has nearly double the goal creating actions. Basically identical in defence, and Maddison has more dribbles. Really belabouring this one because Maddison = Eriksen and it ties into my comment in the Maddison thread that all the complaints about him are just microwaved Eriksen complaints. Basically the same player.
Kane is what we don't have. Hard to get a Top 3 in the world striker, especially when you're not City/Madrid/Bayern. We probably will not produce another one for 5 generations, so we've got to figure out how to reach our goals without one.
I don't think Solanke is good enough, not to be an automatic lineup selection for sure, and we need to sign another one to compete in the summer.
Because the only thing that matters in the world is us winning trophies, fuck probity.
Of course we are trending, the club is mess.
A better run football team would not make any news.
The fans have done a good job at pointing the blame at Levy.
The banner was mentioned on MOTD, actually read out.
I think you're massively overrating what we have at the moment. If we get close to 2nd in the league/CL final over the next few years I will of course be very happy to be wrong.
Levy never buys or agrees a loan early in January as this means he must pay January’s wages.
If he does it at the eleventh hour, he saves a month's wages, probably around 500k to 600k per player for anyone decent.
This to him is a successful window.
If he does it at the eleventh hour, he saves a month's wages, probably around 500k to 600k per player for anyone decent.
This to him is a successful window.
Well, that's not simply about quality of players. There's opportunity, luck with draws/fixture scheduling, management, etc.
And, again, we had one of the top 3 forwards in the world at his peak. We're not ever going to have that again, unless we get stupendously lucky and buy some young player who just explodes.
AVB/Poch of course being later iterations of what was attempted with Santini/Arnesen, then Ramos.
A "modern" leadership structure has always been Levy's desire, whatever "modern" meant in football at that moment. 'Arry was really the only time in ENIC's tenure that desire was left by the wayside, maybe Jose to an extent.
But I very much agree with your hope that should an Ange successor soon arrive, it's an effort to execute a better version of the plan, not ripping up the plan and starting anew.
I'm as big of a Levy critic as anybody, but I do believe he is SOMEWHAT learning that he needs to empower real football people to run the day-to-day with a philosophically consistent remit.
Our football operation remains badly underfunded, but it's nowhere near as badly run as the shambolic, archaic disgrace of several years ago.
Anybody still defending Levy now is just as much of a cunt as he is.
And there were 4 banners. Only 2 made it through security and into the stadium though.
Still no signings under this complete mug. How long before he starts to lay the blame elsewhere. Likely manager gets it first and Ange certainly deserves some blame. Then likely Lange , who will be made another scapegoat.
This has all the hallmarks of previous Levy crap, countless managers half backed, Poch, Conte and Mourinho being the obvious ones. Rodon instead of Skrinnar, saha, nelson fiasco etc. Then we have the likes of Paul Mitchell who followed Poch to us, helped recruit likes of Son, Ali and Toby. He was working wonders, but low and behold he couldn't work under Levys constraints and he too got the boot/left, yet he us good enough to get the top job at Newcastle, following successful stints elsewhere.
Only a matter of time B4 the deflection commences, only surprise is that it hasn't begun yet with Anges sacking.
Unfortunately, it's likely nothing changes until Levy sells up or takes a back seat from all football activity, which I seriously doubt he is capable of.
This has all the hallmarks of previous Levy crap, countless managers half backed, Poch, Conte and Mourinho being the obvious ones. Rodon instead of Skrinnar, saha, nelson fiasco etc. Then we have the likes of Paul Mitchell who followed Poch to us, helped recruit likes of Son, Ali and Toby. He was working wonders, but low and behold he couldn't work under Levys constraints and he too got the boot/left, yet he us good enough to get the top job at Newcastle, following successful stints elsewhere.
Only a matter of time B4 the deflection commences, only surprise is that it hasn't begun yet with Anges sacking.
Unfortunately, it's likely nothing changes until Levy sells up or takes a back seat from all football activity, which I seriously doubt he is capable of.
He hasn't sacked him because it seems the majority of the fan base are still backing Ange (rightly or wrongly) so it would ramp up the anger aimed towards himself.
He's probably scratching his billiard ball head wondering how much longer before the fans turn en masse against the manager. When he thinks it's a popular decision, he'll pull the trigger.
I stand to be corrected, but I doubt the majority of our fan base continue to back Ange, small sections possibly, but anyone who has watched football for any length of time can see he has been found out and out of his depth.