Improvements

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CLEAR improvements. This is the best period football I've seen us play..perhaps..EVER in my lifetime anyway. 14 goals scored in our last 4 league games, within that a complete decimation of Chelsea who didn't even look a threat against us. Now let's look at the tables:

2015/2016:
Played: 21
Won: 9
Drawn: 9
Lost: 3
Scored: 34
Conceded: 17


1. Woolwich - 43pts
2. Leicester - 43pts
3. Man City - 40pts
4. SPURS - 36pts
-----------------------------
5. West Ham - 35pts
6. Man Utd - 34pts


2016/2017:
Played: 21
Won: 13
Drawn: 6
Lost: 2
Scored: 43
Conceded: 14


1. Chelsea - 52pts
2. SPURS - 45pts
3. Liverpool - 44pts
4. Man City - 42pts
----------------------------
5. Woolwich - 41pts
6. Man Utd - 39pts



We are NINE points better off than last season. We'd be TOP last season if we had played as well as we had this year. Improvements are for all to see. Unfortunately, the whole league have improved. Everyone else on that table obviously a game less than this time last year so if Woolwich fail to win today, they would be the only team (out of the CURRENT top 6) to have performed worse than last season.

I think Man City away will be a big test and a win for us would REALLY start to get into peoples minds that we are the real deal. You still see the doubts in EVERYONES mind but Spurs fans. It's still a 3 horse race between City, Liverpool and Chelsea despite us CLEARLY out performing Man City this season. Liverpool and Chelsea obviously been two of the best teams this season so it's understandable why they're being touted as the title contenders, both obviously much improved on last year too but to neglect Spurs from any title talk when the performances and league table confirms that we clearly are is just awful.
 
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This team can, and will, be improved. Through time. Kane's 23. Dele is 20. Wimmer is a baby for a CB, as is CCV. Give them a couple more years we will see marvels. None of these guys except Hugo, Jan, Toby, and Mousa are at their best yet.
 
pipes said:
And you're so happy, you are on here, trying to start an online argument with a complete stranger and trying to break the World Record for most styles of font used in one post.

I wish I was you. You're awesome.
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I'm really not trying to start an argument ...but the most styles of font intrigues me...

...as do you... stranger!!


Honestly mate, I'm just happy we won today, a little pissed off ArseAnal matched our result, but fuck it.
I just don't like to see any negativity on here trying to shoehorn in needs for improvements, when we're pretty fucking awesome right now as it is!

I'm a lover, not a fighter... honest!
 
StuG said:
Went to my first game in '83 mate, so no, not a gooner.

You don't see me much on here because I don't comment much.

And I was disagreeing with you calling him a negative fuck. No need.

We haven't won anything yet, so improvements are needed.

Chill the fuck out.
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OK!
borat-thumbs-up.jpg


...actually, you make some very good, fair points.

Points which I don't have an answer to, other to post some GIF of Borat to lighten the mood.

You win.

I lost the internet this time...

But i'll be back... Mwooh-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Actually, I probably won't... I have nothing. Sorry for posting shit when we won.

Shoulda saved it for when we next lose!

My bad.

I'm chilled now.

:pochfacepalm:
 
Totti said:
I think I'll do something different and have a look at our improvement over Pochettino's 3 seasons and see how the league has changed:

2014/2015:
Played: 24
Won: 13
Drawn: 4
Lost: 7
Scored: 37
Conceded: 31

1. Chelsea - 56pts
2. Man City - 49pts
3. Southampton - 45pts
4. Man Utd - 44pts
-----------------------------------
5. SPURS - 43pts
6. Woolwich - 42pts


2015/2016:
Played: 24
Won: 12
Drawn: 9
Lost: 3
Scored: 44
Conceded: 19

1. Leicester - 50pts
2. Man City - 47pts
3. SPURS - 45pts
4. Woolwich - 45pts
-----------------------------------
5. Man Utd - 40pts
6. West Ham - 39pts


2016/2017:
Played: 24
Won: 14
Drawn: 8
Lost: 2
Scored: 46
Conceded: 16

1. Chelsea - 59pts
2. SPURS - 50pts
3. Woolwich - 47pts
4. Liverpool - 46pts
------------------------------
5. Man City - 46pts
6. Man Utd - 42pts
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How did our Points per match ended after 38 matches considering our ratio after 24 matches is an interesting stat, as some claim Poch sides always finish the season poorly.

2015: 1.792 PPG after 24 matches, expected net sum after 38 matches is 68.1, actual point tally 64
2016: 1.875 PPG after 24 matches, expected net sum after 38 matches is 71.25, actual sum was 70
2017: 2.083 PPG after 24 matches, expected net sum after 38 matches is 79.16

Now there is a statistically discernible dip, but it's rather small and with a large margin of error, when trying to run a regression I came up with 77 points, but it's far from sound. I should play with the home/away fixed effect though
 
This all points to Poch's prioritisation of the psychological side of the game. You could say we've ridden our luck, but you could also say we've earned that luck with the temperament and growing maturity of the side.
 
Okay, just looked at our fixtures for next couple of weeks (in fact, till March and game against Chavs).
11 games, 7 at home, 4 away.
The only team from top 6 we're gonna face in next two months is United. Apart from that, hardest fixture is gonna be at Everton. Other than that, all games we SHOULD win. I know football doesn't work that way, but.. If there is still a small hope, we need to make a run in next two months.

COYS!
 
Totti said:


8 points better off than at this stage last season.

9 points better off in the same fixtures as last season.

Burnley next.

We drew at home to them last season so getting a win would see us continue to improve on the same fixtures as last season.
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Oh that window has destroyed us.
Clearly shows that Levy and Enic must go and we should probably get Benitez in.
 


So it looks like for the 2nd year running, calendar year wise, we'll be the 3rd best team in the country. Last year we played 40 games in the calendar year and ended up with 87 points which is about 2.175 points per game. with only 4 games remaining this year we will end up playing 2 games less and if we WIN all of our remaining calendar year games, we would end up on more points (in 2 less games), though the better indication of improvement is points per game.

We are currently on 2.235 points per game as the tweet above shows. The improvement is huge in the scheme of things and another year of improvement going into next year should really see us in contention for the title without having to chase too far behind.

2018: 2.235 points per game (so far)
2017: 2.175 points per game
2016: 1.918 points per game
2015: 1.789 points per game
2014: 1.736 points per game

Highlights the improvements made since Poch took over.

Let's be honest, only a nonce would disagree.
 
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Totti

Totti

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Have we improved?

I look at our team and how we play every week and I don't see a team coming off the back of a title chasing season. I don't see a team that's grown in experience and learnt from anything that happened last season.

What I do see is how other teams around us have stopped performing like shit and now have some of the worlds finest managers managing them, sorted them out and are showing us exactly where we are in the pecking order really.

2015/2016:
Played 13
Won 6
Drawn 6
Lost 1
For: 24
Against: 11

2016/2017:
Played 13
Won 6
Drawn 6
Lost 1
For: 19
Against: 10

Pretty similar from last season. Obviously, if we keep this up and we match a lot from last season we'd end up on 70 odd points again. Which is usually about good enough for 5th place, sometimes 4th obviously depending on other teams performances.

Now let's look at the results from last season in the same fixtures we've played this season and have a look and see if we've improved at all:

2015/2016:
26 points from the exact same fixtures we've played this season

2016/2017:
24 points so far this season.

Our best unbeaten run this season was our opening 12 games. Though a lot of those games were draws. Our best unbeaten run last season was 14 games which come directly after our loss on the opening day of last season. That also harbored a lot of draws. Once again, we haven't really improved that aspect of our game.

I think we're a great team, I think we have a great manager but I just wish expectations of the team weren't so high basing everything from last season. It was a FREAK season. Chelsea, Liverpool and Man Utd ALL finished outside of the top four, when was the last time that happened? Man City finished FOURTH and Leicester won the fucking league.

Funnily enough, this year the norm returned. We have Leicester on the verge of battling relegation much like the season before. We have Man City and Chelsea back at the top of the table. Liverpool are hitting their stride and are on a 15 game unbeaten run in all competitions, Woolwich are on an 18 game unbeaten run in all competitions. We aren't better than ANY of the teams above us and that fucking pains me. Last season was the best oppertunity we had to win the league and it saddens me that we couldn't do it, nor could we capitilise on such a great season with a smart summer and a real crack at the Champions League.

You fast forward from April (when we were competing), we have managed to stagnate. Liverpool, Man City and Chelsea have all improved (two of which have since employed two of the best managers in world football to coach the team), we haven't really improved our squad, knocked out of the League Cup and Champions League without even really bothering and all we really have to look forward to this year is a hope that the FA Cup is treated with more respect and the hope that we keep our players fit and manage to compete for fourth place.

Fans need to grasp that. I've seen talk of Poch being under pressure? Really!? We are in the EXACT same position as we were last season and he wasn't getting such talk. In fact, he got us knocked out of the League Cup at home to Woolwich last year (one stage earlier than we got knocked out this season) and he was playing youth in the Europa League yet I don't rememer any of this talk last season.

We are in a position our spending allows us to be. We overachieved last season mixed in with the fact that the top teams that outspend us under-performed. I've said it before, I'll say it time and time again, our squad is FULL of 7/10 players but we have a system and manager that when in place sees our team perform at a 9/10 (at times a 10/10 when it all clicks). The problem is, the players themselves need to step up. Dier, Alli, Dembele, Eriksen for example are all below par this season, all four at times were CRUCIAL last year.

I'm almost glad that unbeaten run is over. During that unbeaten run we got knocked out of the League Cup and Champions League and all it proved in the league was that we were better then the likes of Everton, Southampton and Man Utd. Hopefully the loss kicks some sense into the players, play like we did in the first half against Chelsea and we'll be a force. We PRESSED, which we have hardly done all season, our passing was very good and we constantly cut Chelsea apart, for whatever reason that stopped in the second half but we know we can do it, the players cared.

The expectations this season were raised significantly based on our position last year (despite fans not looking at the bigger picture as well as realising that our total points haul was below par), this has made things challenging whenever we fail to beat a team we should beat (despite also not beating them last season), we are a young team, one thats experienced injuries and we need to understand this is what happens.

But...

We are Tottenham. We have a very young team, an inexperienced manager who has improved our team and style within the 3 years he has been here. We are raising our profile, we have a new stadium coming within the next few years and we're ONLY going to get better.

My question at the start of the post was 'Have we improved?' - you answer the question.
 
CJJ said:
It kind of annoys me when anyone (even our own, but especially arse and plastic leicester fans) suggests last season we "lost the title" or were "title contenders".

Let's be honest, we just happened to rise above the other teams who lost a load of points. It was a low point season.

It's not like we spent half the season in 2nd - we spent 70% of the season in 4th/5th, and had a consistent run when other teams didn't.

So the reason why we don't look like we were title chasers last season, is because we weren't.
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It's just an easy way of people to 'gloat' that we didn't win the league, despite those that are gloating support the likes of United, City, Chelsea, Liverpool (who all failed to even finish in the top 3).

What they don't seem to grasp is that we didn't lose anything. We were NEVER top, not once. In fact I think the only time we found ourselves top was the 20 minutes between Kane putting us ahead in the NLD and Sanchez equalising. I think everyone else who finished in the top 6 last season were top at one point, BESIDES Spurs.
 
CJJ said:
It kind of annoys me when anyone (even our own, but especially arse and plastic leicester fans) suggests last season we "lost the title" or were "title contenders".

Let's be honest, we just happened to rise above the other teams who lost a load of points. It was a low point season.

It's not like we spent half the season in 2nd - we spent 70% of the season in 4th/5th, and had a consistent run when other teams didn't.

So the reason why we don't look like we were title chasers last season, is because we weren't.
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Leicester got 28 points out of their last possible 36.

We were never catching them, even if we beat Chelsea and Woolwich.

Leicester won the league as proven by that points tally. You can't lose what you never had.

That said, we were ''contenders'', we were just beaten.
 
imitationleather said:
I think us analysing this exact same point every midweek is going to drive us all completely insane before the season is over.
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Spot on. Let it lie for a little while. We have absolutely, 100% improved under Poch. We are having a choppy spell right now. But we are not even at full strength & still within reach of the top 2. We've not been at our best, but we are far from turning to shit. I'm really confident we will hit a purple patch soon as players return from injury & regain match fitness.
 
I8AVB said:
If we had spent our money more wisely, and spent more money, we would have been able to keep up with the pack. What we did is what we always do, sell some average players and replace them them with more average players.
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I think considering where we are in terms of wages spent, we are exactly where we should be league wise. Every other team in the top 4 spend way more than us.
 
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