Missing out on CL could be catastrophic for us

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Son was signed when we were in the Europa League.

Yup, and Son is probably the best player we have signed in the last 5 years - and probably the only 'star' player bought in the last 5 years, arguably with Dele, the others have generally been 'ok' players or poor (eg N'Jie and N'Koudou).

We've missed out on several very good players who we could have got in those last 5 years - Robertson (LB) from Hull who cost Liverpool £8m and Gomez (RB/CB) who cost Liverpool £3.5m from Charlton - both young players who if Spurs had bought them would have solved both our full back problems to day.

And in the same transfer window that we bought Aurier for £25m, Leicester bought Perreira for the same money. One has conceded 4 penalties in the last few years (the most of any current PL player), the other has won their clubs Player of the Year.

So sadly it comes down to poor buying of players over the last 5 years - shown by the fact that the majority of Spurs first choice X1 at the start of this season was here before Poch arrived.

And that's with us being in CL for 4 years

The money is there to spend, so if we can identify good players (and that is the issue) we can buy players in January and the summer. But we do need to shift some of those 'ok' players bought in the last 5 years, particularly those overseas trained as we have our full quota of them already - not necessarily easy as we tried to shift Wanyama in the summer (£13m fee agreed with Bruges and £65k pw wages apparently but Wanyama turned it down) and Aurier attracted AC Milan attention despite being injured but nothing came of it.

A couple of Club trained and HG player spots available to the right players though.

And whilst I don't often post tweets from other club supporters :



Poch needed to have been playing many more of Spurs youth and/or loaning them out for experience over the last 5 years. That and poor buying is coming back to haunt us.

Change those 2 things and this may be a blip, but it certainly wont sink us
 
I don't think top 4 is out of question yet. 28 games to go, thats a lot of points.

However, we need to strengthen and move players on in January. Eriksen, Alderweireld and Rose need to be left out now and moved on in January. Aurier needs to go completely.

January main targets should be a right back and a creative player, ideally Aarons and Fernandes. Then in the summer a new centre half and centre mid.


As for not qualifying for the UCL, it could be a blessing or a disaster. We all like playing in the UCL, but if we miss out then it could be the wake up call Levy needs and force him to invest heavily.
 
Son was signed when we were in the Europa League.
Argument could be made that all of our best signings under Poch came when we were a "Europa League" outfit.

Young, fit players that he could form and help develop, rather than ready made stars that seems to not know how to handle.
 
The one thing that will lose Poch his job is missing top 4 so there’s the silver lining
We are now 8 points behind Chelsea who are fourth but I reckon a Europa League place will keep him his job. He will argue we are going through a transitional period and with competition for league places being so strong we have done well to keep a top six spot.
The alternative is that we continue to descend and he eventually walks or is pushed. For the moment the latter option seems to be more on the horizon.
 
In answer to the thread question, it might be a blessing in disguise.

It could give everybody a badly needed kick up the arse.
Levy realises that you need to buy quality every year.
Poch, if here, realises that you have to play the players in form
Players realise they have to work their bollocks off in every match, regardless of ability.
The lightweights and anyone else who doesn't want to be with us can fuck off and we can get players who are willing to fight
 
Does anyone seriously want us to qualify for the Europa League?

It's a competition we won twice in our history, although it had a different name back then. If CL is out of reach, the Europa would provide a chance to develop some of our younger players and would also be a reasonable shot at a trophy.

So yes, in case we don't make the CL, the Europa wouldn't be bad. Alex Ferguson once said it was a punishment, but I beg to differ.
 
How can you go on to write a post that long when your very first line is a lie and a fallacy.

Did you see the game?
Did you see Ndombele get half an hour and Lo Celso get one minute.
I did.
I also saw Dele and Eriksen being shit and getting 90 and 88 minutes.

But in you and your ilks warped little minds, I guess that means we underspent.
If Lo Celso doesn’t get games, we finish 9th and he ends his loan, he’ll be called a cheap deal flop by people.
Yet it’s the disgraceful behavior of Pochettino leaving him out while the old guard continue to underperform that is the only problem here.

Why are you so fucking blind that our problems on the pitch now are NOTHING to do with the past windows and the ONLY thing that is obvious is that Pochettino just isn’t a very good manager in any other system than the 4231 press, and that’s the system he has chosen to abandon.

The guy has us in free fall, the same old bullshit every week about investment.

He played Eriksen in a covering RB role yesterday.

Let that fucking sink in.

Hi there. We went an entire season last year without buying a single player. A first in premier league history.

Clubs that have spent more than us NET SPEND (gross spend means fuck all as you are losing key players like Bale Modric Walker and others in order to finance new players. That isn't progression)

over the past 5 years:

West ham
Leicester
Chelsea
Woolwich
Wolves
Watford
Man city
Man utd
Fucking Bournemouth
Fucking brighton
Aston villa
Everton
Liverpool

Had we not bought ndombele this season we'd be dead fucking last below the likes of Burnley and sheff utd a championship team.

If you went back a decade we have only spent 87million that's less than 10 million a year.

Sorry but ndombele has come 5 years too late. The damage has already been done to this club and current set of players.

Where is the ambition when you are being outspend by minnows Bournemouth?? How can you justify that. Its clear as day that this club is being bled dry by Levy who is only in it for the profit. Where is all the TV revenue from the Champions league since 2009? Where is all the PL TV revenue?

The players have had enough. They are sick of being severely underpaid compared to the rest of the league. As for pochettino, he took. Us to a champions league final and has qualified for CL every year. But at some point the worlds greatest blacksmith will not be able to produce quality work anymore if the tools he is using are broken and the steel is of poor quality.
 
It's a competition we won twice in our history, although it had a different name back then. If CL is out of reach, the Europa would provide a chance to develop some of our younger players and would also be a reasonable shot at a trophy.

So yes, in case we don't make the CL, the Europa wouldn't be bad. Alex Ferguson once said it was a punishment, but I beg to differ.
I used to love the UEFA Cup when it was a prestigious competition; one of the best nights of my life was standing on The Shelf on the 24th May '84 but the wretched Champions League has skewed everything and the Europa League has become a poison chalice.
 
Hi there. We went an entire season last year without buying a single player. A first in premier league history.

Clubs that have spent more than us NET SPEND (gross spend means fuck all as you are losing key players like Bale Modric Walker and others in order to finance new players. That isn't progression)

over the past 5 years:

West ham
Leicester
Chelsea
Woolwich
Wolves
Watford
Man city
Man utd
Fucking Bournemouth
Fucking brighton
Aston villa
Everton
Liverpool

Had we not bought ndombele this season we'd be dead fucking last below the likes of Burnley and sheff utd a championship team.

If you went back a decade we have only spent 87million that's less than 10 million a year.

Sorry but ndombele has come 5 years too late. The damage has already been done to this club and current set of players.

Where is the ambition when you are being outspend by minnows Bournemouth?? How can you justify that. Its clear as day that this club is being bled dry by Levy who is only in it for the profit. Where is all the TV revenue from the Champions league since 2009? Where is all the PL TV revenue?

The players have had enough. They are sick of being severely underpaid compared to the rest of the league. As for pochettino, he took. Us to a champions league final and has qualified for CL every year. But at some point the worlds greatest blacksmith will not be able to produce quality work anymore if the tools he is using are broken and the steel is of poor quality.
What’s that got to do with when we deploy shit tactics we play shit, and when we deploy good tactics we play well?

Oh that’s right, nothing. Because that’s the managers fault.

The new signings were on the bench yesterday.
And Poch says they need two years.

So it was nice read, but still an irrelevant one based on a lie.
 
Gotta love just how many posters in this thread have absolute inside knowledge, to the point of mindreading individual players.

:pochshock:

Like a written version of Talksport
 
I wonder if we have player personnel people that can recognize great players that have not yet reached their potential. Simply buying established stars is great if you have oil money.
 
I suppose from a positive perspective -

we've already been away at City, Liverpool and Woolwich, Also Leicester.

GLC looks like he might be an excellent player, Ndombele has started pretty well. I hope Sess takes the LB spot and makes it his own.

Not sure what to do with the wantaways......
 
Here’s all the players from Liverpool’s first team that NOBODY here would have wanted when they were available.

Allison
Roberston
Arnold (if he was offered to us from their academy)
Henderson
Firminho
Matip
Wijnaldum
Fabinho

WAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
WAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

THEY BOUGHT ALL THE WORLD CLASS PLAYERS IN THE WORLD WAAAAAAHHHHH
 
As for Champions League football attracting players, that was only necessary when we couldn't compete financially during the stadium build. CL was integral as our wages were low. This is no longer the case.

It is built now.

So we can get whatever player necessary with money outside of the elite mercs like Neymar, Bale etc.
 
If we continue on a downward slope I can see Harry going abroad for a few years, maybe Real, win a few trophies. Maybe come back to see out his career if he's not wrecked by then.

I can also see him wanting to play for Pep, but the deluded fan in me thinks he wouldn't do it to Spurs.
Real aren't winning shit for a long time.
 
28 games left, Lots still to play for. But until we see some consistency in team selection and tactics from Poch I am genuinely starting to worry. Not that we’ll go down, just that we’ll finish 8th or 9th
 
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