Sorry Koppel but I disagree.
He missed an absolute sitter and they still equalised because we couldn't hold on to the ball!
He's a nice lad for a Chav fan but he's not at our level.
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Sorry Koppel but I disagree.
He missed an absolute sitter and they still equalised because we couldn't hold on to the ball!
He's a nice lad for a Chav fan but he's not at our level.
One angry fucker one cup?
Absolutely, but it is fair to say there will be apprehensions and doubts in their minds about how to compete in Europe. As Champions they will have earned the respect of other teams, now setting up differently against them and with the exception of Marhez they don't have the quality to effectively play a different way other than hoofing it the channel. To compete they need to buy in more players, the more players the more doubts and uncertainty. Do they buy players that compliment their one demential system or do they look for different options and run the risk of of "square pegs in round holes". Those squeaky one goal margins can easily swing back to draws and losses with a bounce of a ball. For me there will be many doubts in the camp, may be not at squad level but there will be within their staff some major doubts and head scratching going on. Not least a in the accounting dept where a hefty fine for breaking FFP rules is looking on the cards, someones bum is already squeaking.
We have got all of our ducks already in a row. Everything is in place, the only thing that was lacking was our mindset and this season has allowed us to smash through a glass ceiling.
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That statement fails to acknowledge our philosophy at the club and what is being built. I wouldn't expect you to get it not being local, but "he's one of our own" isn't just a chant plucked out of thin air. It is sung by fans who this club is their local club. It is possible that they grow up and went to the same school as Mason, or perhaps their own kids go to his school, or they know someone who knows someone.
The spirit that exists in the squad today is underpinned by players like Mason who have been at the club longer than some people have been fans. Let us also not forget he scored one of our contenders for goal of the season against Sunderland, where he didn't just poke the ball into the net, he set the whole move up and touched the ball 6 times in the build up before sticking it into the net like a player who cares for a club by injuring himself in the process and effectively ending his season unable to win his place back.
Also, funny how when people don't like a player they look for reasons to hate them, possibly even make up those reasons. All this Chelsea supporting stuff, I've yet to see any evidence of this, I'd like to see a photo of him wearing a chelsea kit, even better God forbid with his hair dyed blue partying in the streets with other Chelsea fans whilst they parade a cup from an open top bus. I mean what would we do if any of our players did this, aye?
Well said. As a "foreigner" who supports Spurs, it is sometimes difficult to see the connection between a player & his club- local roots & all that. We are so used (fans generally) to signings from all over the world, that "one of our own" can lose its true context.
Well put Bolton. I am aware that those that are or have been local can sound like "superior fans" and I have been guilty of taking this high ground in the past, something that I regret. But I can't deny my pride that when I was at school I played for Spurs and I knew some lads that went on to play for the first team, one of them lifting an FA Cup. As I have got older my kids and nice's and nephews are now at school with some of the current crop. It's a connection that is hard to put into words, but I can vouch that 90% of those kids that are local all support Spurs like you and I and would do anything to put on our shirt, more than a kid we buy from outer mongolia.
Would Ferguson have gone out and bought O'Shea? Sometimes you need squad players who can come in. Especially when they come from your youth and know the club.
But they still must be good enough for that philosophy to work and I don't think Mason is
Problem is we aren't going to replace him with a multi million pound player on double his wages, so I'm not sure what you're expecting us to do.
He played an important role in us coming 5th last season so he's clearly no mug.
No he's no mug but hasn't been the same since his injury he picked up at Sunderland.
I've said if he's here next season it's because Poch rates him and that will do for me.
Prefer him to Bentelab for instance.
And yes he played a part in coming 5th but we can do better as evidenced this season.
I've said if he's here next season it's because Poch rates him and that will do for me.
Prefer him to Bentelab for instance.
And yes he played a part in coming 5th but we can do better as evidenced this season.
I think he is good enough to be in the squad.
Our issue this season is that he is in our 12-14 squad places (first sub often) and not in our 15-17 squad places.
If we can get 2-3 players that are on the same level as our first 11 to help with rotation and substitutions then we'll be much better.
I actually rate Bentaleb more than Mason! And yeah we can do better but I guess this is why he's on the bench and not starting more often than not. I'm fine with that and he can come in and do a job when called upon.
But he didn't on Monday
I'm not blaming him for us only drawing but he came on, missed an absolute sitter and didn't influence the game at all.
We needed possession, someone playing the simple ball well and to take the heat out of the game.
He couldn't do it.
I would have brought Chadli on before Mason but that's with hindsight and at the time it looked a sensible substitution.
I'm not making a big thing out of this, just my view.
:dierpochhug:
If Alli had been available it cd all have been so different.
If....
I'm not blaming him for us only drawing but he came on, missed an absolute sitter and didn't influence the game at all.
We needed possession, someone playing the simple ball well and to take the heat out of the game.
He couldn't do it.
I would have brought Chadli on before Mason but that's with hindsight and at the time it looked a sensible substitution.
I'm not making a big thing out of this, just my view.
:dierpochhug:
If Alli had been available it cd all have been so different.
If....
Excellent piece from Seb Stafford-Bloor....
Pochettino and Spurs provide the perfect example of time's preciousness
Pochettino and Spurs provide the perfect example of time's preciousness
With Tottenham currently on course for their first top-two finish in over half a century, it's easy to forget the Argentine's difficult start at White Hart Lane. Seb Stafford-Bloor explains why boardroom patience is a virtue...
On a cold, wet winter's day in late 2014, Tottenham were drifting towards defeat at Villa Park. Andreas Weimann had given the home side a lead with their first goal for almost two months, and Spurs looked directionless and disorganised.
It was Mauricio Pochettino's 10th league game in charge and, good wins over Southampton and Queens Park Rangers aside, there had been little indication of the progress that was to come.
Much of that game against Villa has now been forgotten. Five minutes before the end, Nacer Chadli drifted into space at a corner to level the scores, before Harry Kane's deflected free-kick stole the points in stoppage time.
It was one of Kane's first steps towards what he would eventually become and, in need of something to cling to, many of the supporters channelled their energy away from the team's general underperformance and towards their new centre-forward.
October brought defeats to Manchester City and Newcastle and, a week later, Tottenham would be beaten at home by Stoke City; this was very much a team in transition and familiar, doubting opinions had started to reappear.
In retrospect, that stuttering beginning was entirely understandable. Pochettino was trying to implement a vastly different style of play and had inherited a squad weakened by cracks of uninterest. The direction in which he was trying to take his new club wasn't one which his players were entirely equipped to travel and, despite a late 2014 upturn and impressive sequence of results in the second half of the season, Tottenham's imperfections were never far from the surface.
In the present day, Pochettino's side attack with flowing, one-touch football and press with relentlessly rigid discipline, but those are new associations which have taken almost 18 months to flower.
Superficially, this is a story with relevance only to north London. Look closer, though, and it preaches an important lesson. Affording new managers patience and time may never be a guarantee of success, but it's telling that even a coach as capable as Pochettino took as long as he did to show his true worth.
Tottenham may have finished 2014/15 with a League Cup final appearance and a Europa League-qualifying league placing, but even as recently as last summer there was no hint of what they would become. Back then, the consensus was that they were a talented, hard-working team who should be good enough for fifth or sixth and might, if the stars aligned, flirt with the top four. Aspirations of Champions League qualification or a title challenge were laughable and, ultimately, that was because nobody yet knew what Pochettino was capable of.
The modern game has simplified the perception of management. This is an age of soap opera drama and personalities and, consequently, the detail of a head coach's role has been lost within that fog.
He is seen as a shouter and a screamer, and preferably a player of mind games. The average supporter still puts stock in whether a head coach sits or stands on the touchline and is offered more reassurance by seeing him bawl at underperforming players than by thoughtfully taking notes.
It's those little biases that help to prematurely damn managers. Because, as members of the public we aren't privy to the training-ground detail and the incremental improvements it shows, we can only judge what we see in the stadiums or on television. It's a false economy and it enables an overly bold judgement as to which managers should stay, which should go and which should just be fired into the sun.
The more you read and learn about the profession, though, the more you realise how reliant on personal relationships it is. Being tactically astute is very important and so, in many cases, is having the right support staff, healthy working conditions and an eye for the transfer market.
More crucial, however, is the ability to develop a bond with players. Whether it's cordial, paternal or even authoritarian, a manager's ability to exert a psychological hold over his squad will likely determine whether he succeeds or fails. Having the respect and trust of players is what enables the implementation of strategy and the realisation of ideology. Even at an initial level, a player's basic human relationship with his manager can determine how hard he's willing to work, whether he looks after himself in his spare time and, in some instances, prevent him from leaving a club.
That kind of connection doesn't grow in weeks or even months, but over seasons. In Pochettino's case, his impact has clearly deepened as his players have bought into his approach. As their faith in him and his direction has grown, his priorities have essentially become theirs: the conditioning work is embraced rather than resented and the "team-first" mentality is accepted without resistance. That's why internationals like Nacer Chadli and Son Heung-min frequently start from the bench without growing disaffected, and why Christian Eriksen and Erik Lamela adapted their playing habits to suit the team.
Not every manager is destined to succeed and, sometimes, clubs make errors in recruitment which are simply better to fix. But the contemporary trends are still self-defeating; though there are valid reasons as to why, there is still a reductive tendency for giving up on a manager-squad partnership before it's ever given time to properly mature.
To Daniel Levy's credit, Pochettino was essentially given a degree of autonomy during his first year. Trouble-making or uncommitted players were purged and, contrary to popular convention, the manager was given time to shape his team's personality. At a different club, a cabal of well-paid malcontents would have been allowed to create an imbalance; at Tottenham, they were swiftly kicked through the exit door.
That's how the process should work: Levy showed the requisite deference to his manager's need to build a harmonious group and, now, Tottenham have more positive momentum than at any other time during his tenure. It's an idealistic example, but it still has value as a blueprint – especially in an era during which clubs appear to make managerial appointments without being willing to provide the time or the context for their hiring theories to be realised.
It's a strange, contradictory failing which seems to be shaped by the game's short-termism, and it represents an inability to appreciate the true components of good management.
Pochettino and Spurs provide the perfect example of time's preciousness
Pochettino and Spurs provide the perfect example of time's preciousness
With Tottenham currently on course for their first top-two finish in over half a century, it's easy to forget the Argentine's difficult start at White Hart Lane. Seb Stafford-Bloor explains why boardroom patience is a virtue...
On a cold, wet winter's day in late 2014, Tottenham were drifting towards defeat at Villa Park. Andreas Weimann had given the home side a lead with their first goal for almost two months, and Spurs looked directionless and disorganised.
It was Mauricio Pochettino's 10th league game in charge and, good wins over Southampton and Queens Park Rangers aside, there had been little indication of the progress that was to come.
Much of that game against Villa has now been forgotten. Five minutes before the end, Nacer Chadli drifted into space at a corner to level the scores, before Harry Kane's deflected free-kick stole the points in stoppage time.
It was one of Kane's first steps towards what he would eventually become and, in need of something to cling to, many of the supporters channelled their energy away from the team's general underperformance and towards their new centre-forward.
October brought defeats to Manchester City and Newcastle and, a week later, Tottenham would be beaten at home by Stoke City; this was very much a team in transition and familiar, doubting opinions had started to reappear.
In retrospect, that stuttering beginning was entirely understandable. Pochettino was trying to implement a vastly different style of play and had inherited a squad weakened by cracks of uninterest. The direction in which he was trying to take his new club wasn't one which his players were entirely equipped to travel and, despite a late 2014 upturn and impressive sequence of results in the second half of the season, Tottenham's imperfections were never far from the surface.
In the present day, Pochettino's side attack with flowing, one-touch football and press with relentlessly rigid discipline, but those are new associations which have taken almost 18 months to flower.
Superficially, this is a story with relevance only to north London. Look closer, though, and it preaches an important lesson. Affording new managers patience and time may never be a guarantee of success, but it's telling that even a coach as capable as Pochettino took as long as he did to show his true worth.
Tottenham may have finished 2014/15 with a League Cup final appearance and a Europa League-qualifying league placing, but even as recently as last summer there was no hint of what they would become. Back then, the consensus was that they were a talented, hard-working team who should be good enough for fifth or sixth and might, if the stars aligned, flirt with the top four. Aspirations of Champions League qualification or a title challenge were laughable and, ultimately, that was because nobody yet knew what Pochettino was capable of.
The modern game has simplified the perception of management. This is an age of soap opera drama and personalities and, consequently, the detail of a head coach's role has been lost within that fog.
He is seen as a shouter and a screamer, and preferably a player of mind games. The average supporter still puts stock in whether a head coach sits or stands on the touchline and is offered more reassurance by seeing him bawl at underperforming players than by thoughtfully taking notes.
It's those little biases that help to prematurely damn managers. Because, as members of the public we aren't privy to the training-ground detail and the incremental improvements it shows, we can only judge what we see in the stadiums or on television. It's a false economy and it enables an overly bold judgement as to which managers should stay, which should go and which should just be fired into the sun.
The more you read and learn about the profession, though, the more you realise how reliant on personal relationships it is. Being tactically astute is very important and so, in many cases, is having the right support staff, healthy working conditions and an eye for the transfer market.
More crucial, however, is the ability to develop a bond with players. Whether it's cordial, paternal or even authoritarian, a manager's ability to exert a psychological hold over his squad will likely determine whether he succeeds or fails. Having the respect and trust of players is what enables the implementation of strategy and the realisation of ideology. Even at an initial level, a player's basic human relationship with his manager can determine how hard he's willing to work, whether he looks after himself in his spare time and, in some instances, prevent him from leaving a club.
That kind of connection doesn't grow in weeks or even months, but over seasons. In Pochettino's case, his impact has clearly deepened as his players have bought into his approach. As their faith in him and his direction has grown, his priorities have essentially become theirs: the conditioning work is embraced rather than resented and the "team-first" mentality is accepted without resistance. That's why internationals like Nacer Chadli and Son Heung-min frequently start from the bench without growing disaffected, and why Christian Eriksen and Erik Lamela adapted their playing habits to suit the team.
Not every manager is destined to succeed and, sometimes, clubs make errors in recruitment which are simply better to fix. But the contemporary trends are still self-defeating; though there are valid reasons as to why, there is still a reductive tendency for giving up on a manager-squad partnership before it's ever given time to properly mature.
To Daniel Levy's credit, Pochettino was essentially given a degree of autonomy during his first year. Trouble-making or uncommitted players were purged and, contrary to popular convention, the manager was given time to shape his team's personality. At a different club, a cabal of well-paid malcontents would have been allowed to create an imbalance; at Tottenham, they were swiftly kicked through the exit door.
That's how the process should work: Levy showed the requisite deference to his manager's need to build a harmonious group and, now, Tottenham have more positive momentum than at any other time during his tenure. It's an idealistic example, but it still has value as a blueprint – especially in an era during which clubs appear to make managerial appointments without being willing to provide the time or the context for their hiring theories to be realised.
It's a strange, contradictory failing which seems to be shaped by the game's short-termism, and it represents an inability to appreciate the true components of good management.
Yeah, it's been nuts. The change in the statistics when we do go one behind are also really amazing. When we're a goal down we suddenly start outshooting teams at a pretty ridiculous Barcelona-esque rate. Basically, scoring on us is the worst thing a team can do.Anyone remember when we used to get slapped 4 or 5 nil under Redknapp, Sherwood and especially AVB? We're yet to be down more than 1 goal this season. Unbelievable, really.
Let saints score 1st ?
I prefer a shit lucky off the backside win to put the first nail in the Woolwich curse COYS
I prefer a shit lucky off the backside win to put the first nail in the Woolwich curse COYS