Tottenham Hotspur Thread

The sole reason he took the job in the first place was because he couldn't get anything better.

He must have reckoned that he'd achieve a degree of success (maybe a cup?) with Spurs, or at least something which he could spin as success, enabling him to leave for a properly "big" club again, to match his ego.

But if he were on the market now, he wouldn't even get an equivalent to Spurs, since he has been sorely exposed. Coming after his failure at Man U, I can't believe any genuinely ambitious, competently-run club would now touch him.

Which means whether he walks or (more likely) he's sacked, he'll either end up being taken on by some bluffer of a Chairman looking for a "name" manager, and/or someone offering a shed load of money (China? The Gulf?). Or just maybe a National Team, ideally Portugal.

I know this must sound like Confirmation Bias, since I never wanted him near the Lane, but last night extinguished any remaining hope for me that he might somehow do a job for us.

Sack him now, Levy, and put us all out of our misery, including the Poisonous One himself.

Since he made his breakthough at Porto, JM had only ever managed huge clubs (Real Madrid, Inter, Man U), or Chelsea, who had Roman's millions to burn in the transfer market.

I'd love to say otherwise, but Spurs are nowhere near the stature of the first three, and were never going to give him the money he had at Chelsea. And he had always walked straight into another big job after being sacked/released at his previous clubs. Meaning that being out of work for nearly a year after Man U tells you how low his stock had fallen, so having to slum it at Spurs must have been embarrassing, if not close to humiliating, for a man of his ego.

As for a "Chairman who loves to spend" - don't make me laugh! Spurs have consistently been by some way the lowest net spender of the Top Six, with the lowest wage bill too. I mean, they even went through the summer 2018 window under Poch without buying a single player - unique in the PL! And that was the season when they made a world record profit of nearly £200m!

Whatever else he is, JM is no fool, he'll have demanded to know how much money he would be given to spend before he signed the contract, and Levy will have told him straight. (It was "buttons", btw, with Bergwijn only signed in panic after Kane got injured and they couldn't nab a cut-price Giroud in January)

coyne wrote: I'm still confused to how any of this is his fault, and the general consensus on social media appears to be in agreement

Where to start!

Strategically he prioritised the FA Cup ("The Special One wins trophies wherever he goes"), then fcuked up to a mediocre Norwich, after nearly f**king up against a similarly mediocre Soton. He next declared he would go for it in the CL, though it hardly looked like as we were being embarrassed by Leipzig, for example. Meanwhile, this has harmed our only remaining hope of qualifying for next season's CL (via the PL), even despite Top Five possibly being good enough.

Tactically, he has been short of strikers, as we know, but instead of at least keeping the defence tight, the team has been absolutely leaking goals. This is largely down to his continually changing the formation (sometimes 3 at the back, sometimes 4, occasionally 5). Worse, he continually chops and changes the personnel who are trying to adapt to this confusing tinkering.

Speaking of personnel, he clearly has his favourites and his dislikes ("scapegoats, more like). This would be fair enough if you had a huge squad and/or a fat transfer budget to spend. But Spurs have neither, leading eg to the ridiculous situation ofa youngster like Tanganga getting picked again last night, after his confidence was clearly shot by the time of the Wolves game, whilst the hugely experienced Vertongen sat on the bench. Or when the club sold Rose (fair enough, he wanted out) and his replacement Davies gets injured, instead of picking Sessegnon or Vertongen at LB, where both have played plenty before, he opts instead for 3 at the back, or plays Tanganga out of position.

Meanwhile, his man management has been appalling - witness eg the way he first refused to start our record signing, Ndembele, then publicly humiliated him by subbing him at H-T vs Burnley, before sl*gging him off to the Press after the game and ignoring him again last night.

As for his famed motivational powers, how does he expect the players to react eg when he's continually moaning about injuries, or (effectively) dismisses our chances against Leipzig after the 1st leg? Is it any wonder that the players have totally and obviously lacked confidence recently, even against lesser teams like Burnley, Norwich or Soton? (I might have added Wolves, except that embarrassingly, they're quite simply better than Spurs these days.)

It was summed up for me at the Norwich cup game, when the bloke behind me said: "This is like watching Spurs 10 years ago" - and we were 1-0 up at the time!

But I suppose I shouldn't trust the evidence of my own eyes or listen to the fans around me at WHL every week, I mean, what do they know?

Yeah, far better I start following the experts on social media, cos let's face it, that's where all the really credible opinions are to be found.

If they get through the qualifying rounds of the Europa League and EFL Cup, Spurs have an absolutely horrendous fixture pile-up coming in November/December - PL on Sunday, EFL on Tuesday, EL on Thursday, PL on Sunday again i.e. 4 x games every 8 days.

The only way they can get through this is to operate two separate teams, hence signing Hart. I reckon he'll play in the cup games, Lloris will play the PL games and Gazzaniga will sit on the bench for both, including flying back and forth for European ties.

Hart being home-grown helps their UEFA quota too, as you say.