It's all over

raf18 said:

How can you come out with such a ridiculous statement? You telling me he couldn't do a better job than Joe Allen? All he'd have to do is play simple passes the whole time. But then he wouldn't have moany fans like you on his back if he were there.

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f***ing cheek of it How is that riducoulous ? Just compare game time stats of Allen and Erikssen and see who is more productive They have Gerrard, Countinho, Henderson and Stirling who piss over our midfield at the moment If you are saying Eriksen is our hero You are deluded

Billionaires aside I think we need to look at the clubs doing well considering their means and see what structure they have in place.

Man Utd - had a long standing manager who had full control of the club. He got the exact players he wanted and never had players bought that he specifically said no to. Sometimes he had to live with a budget (towards the end) but he'd implemented a way of doing things at the club so their structure and togetherness was very strong.

They have many players who have been at the club for a long time.

Arsenal - again a long standing manager who gets players of the type that he wants. Had to live within a budget but has the full suppport of the board. No DOF or people buying what he doesn't want. They are clearly a together team with a playing style that the whole club knows.

Everton - had a long standing manager. Very small budget compared to ours but make very few transfers. This has created a solidity within the club and players like Distin, Cahill and Arteta stayed there for a very long time.

Swansea - went through several managerial changes but hired managers with a similar playing style to the predecessor. This has created a playing style and less playing personnel changes than is expected from a club changing their manager regularly.


I like Levy and think he has worked wonders on the structure of the club. But I think the massive overhauls of playing personnel means there's no continuity. The manager changes have been massive changes as well. Jol's playing style was very different to Ramos' then Redknapp was completely different to him and now AVB was yet another massive change.

It has been a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

I don't want our next manager to have the best CV or flavour of the month. I want someone who is right for the group of players that we have.

dontcallme said:

Billionaires aside I think we need to look at the clubs doing well considering their means and see what structure they have in place.

Man Utd - had a long standing manager who had full control of the club. He got the exact players he wanted and never had players bought that he specifically said no to. Sometimes he had to live with a budget (towards the end) but he'd implemented a way of doing things at the club so their structure and togetherness was very strong.

They have many players who have been at the club for a long time.

Arsenal - again a long standing manager who gets players of the type that he wants. Had to live within a budget but has the full suppport of the board. No DOF or people buying what he doesn't want. They are clearly a together team with a playing style that the whole club knows.

Everton - had a long standing manager. Very small budget compared to ours but make very few transfers. This has created a solidity within the club and players like Distin, Cahill and Arteta stayed there for a very long time.

Swansea - went through several managerial changes but hired managers with a similar playing style to the predecessor. This has created a playing style and less playing personnel changes than is expected from a club changing their manager regularly.


I like Levy and think he has worked wonders on the structure of the club. But I think the massive overhauls of playing personnel means there's no continuity. The manager changes have been massive changes as well. Jol's playing style was very different to Ramos' then Redknapp was completely different to him and now AVB was yet another massive change.

It has been a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

I don't want our next manager to have the best CV or flavour of the month. I want someone who is right for the group of players that we have.

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What is your actual point ?

michaelj70 said:

f***ing cheek of it How is that riducoulous ? Just compare game time stats of Allen and Erikssen and see who is more productive They have Gerrard, Countinho, Henderson and Stirling who piss over our midfield at the moment If you are saying Eriksen is our hero You are deluded

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I'm not surprised they piss over our midfield when we haven't had our best midfield out once this season.

And here's your stats:

Player, Apps, Goals, Assists, Shots/Game, Key Passes/Game
Eriksen: 5(2), 0, 1, 1.3, 2.6
Allen: 4(3), 0, 0, 0.7, 0.3

Now what? Give him players who will make more out of his passes instead of Defoe receiving them whilst offside and Lennon running out of play, and then the stats will go up even further away from Allen.

Spurger King said:

We had the opportunities over the last few years to take the club to the next level, but we've managed to miss out, ignore, or blow every one of them.

I remember wondering how long we'd be able to hold on to our star trio of VDV, Modric, and Bale. Well, true to form of a professional selling club, not long at all. Every one of those players being replaced by a downgrade shows the ambition of the club.

Maybe Harry was right all along. Without a sugar daddy to buy and keep the best, those last two or three seasons were probably as good as it's going to get with Levy in charge.

Still...at least we're doing things 'the right way'. Whoopy fucking doo.

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I hate the term 'selling club.' We have only sold those we really wanted to keep to Man Utd and Real Madrid for massive fees.

If we truly are a selling club then why didn't we sell Modric to Chelsea? The answer is we wanted to keep him.

It's extremely rare for us to buy players who are at a top level straight away. We are in a position to buy players not quite there. We can buy the Modric's, Berbatov's, Vertonghen's and Bale's of this world when they are playing well in a league with less finance than the Prem.

This buying strategy has an element of risk and is a cause of the mess we have created. Great for finances but the ones that make it go onto the top clubs eventually, we are all victims of the food chain, and the ones that don't become players we hope will make it but don't.

We probably need a sugar daddy to up our wage bill enough to buy adequate replacements.

Moutinho seemed a great replacement for Modric but we weren't prepared, or in a position, to pay him over£80,000 a week at that time.

I think we need to stop over-relying on the transfer market. Man Utd, Arsenal and Everton have many long-standing servants at their clubs and we need the same to build that stability.

Rose, Walker, Chiriches, Townsend and Lamela could be important players for us and we need to develop them. Some might not get to the top level but a good servant to the club can be worth it in the long run.

michaelj70 said:

What is your actual point ?

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That our strategy of constantly changing managers and playing personnel hasn't given us the stability or progress on the pitch that we could have had.

Can you please stop quoting my posts. You're weird.

Mullers said:

We had our moment in time, where we could have become top 4 regulars, we blew it. We are going to enter a dark transitional period. Liverpool now threaten the top 4, should they get there, I believe he will be backed with transfer funds to buy players he wants not players the chairman thinks he should have. As for us the next coach will be told players have to be sold if he wants new players. I suspect many of our players will be only to pleased to be shown the door, as nobody wants to stay on a sinking ship. The next coach will also be a short term appointment.
Like I said, it's all over.

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idontgetit said:

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Please don't quote that video again. It's really not funny.

dontcallme said:

Please don't quote that video again. It's really not funny.

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Redknapp actually made Levy look good after the Ramos disaster.

He pulled us out of the relegation zone and brought back the team spirit.

But it seems Levy still thinks he's the magic at the club.

Spurger King said:

We had the opportunities over the last few years to take the club to the next level, but we've managed to miss out, ignore, or blow every one of them.

I remember wondering how long we'd be able to hold on to our star trio of VDV, Modric, and Bale. Well, true to form of a professional selling club, not long at all. Every one of those players being replaced by a downgrade shows the ambition of the club.

Maybe Harry was right all along. Without a sugar daddy to buy and keep the best, those last two or three seasons were probably as good as it's going to get with Levy in charge.

Still...at least we're doing things 'the right way'. Whoopy fucking doo.

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Although I agree in principle, I don't think we've had any choice but to be a selling club.

I've been saying for years now that the idea of becoming a CL team is a dream until we get a new stadium. Without the resources that will provide, we'll always be fighting a losing battle in terms of keeping our best players and competing with the best. I've also been predicting us to finish 6th or thereabouts for the last couple of seasons.

Although I do agree that we are a selling club now, I don't think that's a particularly unhealthy thing to be. Most clubs in the world are selling clubs - there are only a few big fish at the very top who are not.

It's the fans who need to realise they need to keep their dreams and ambitions under control until the stadium is sorted. Expecting any sort of long-term success before this is overly optimistic.

It's also Levy's fault/problem. He's just as bad as people on here in that he expects whatever manager to establish us as a new City/United permanent fixture in the top 4. And yet he doesn't give a manager the resources to do it, won't buy players the manager wants, and sacks him at the first sign of (inevitable) failure.

Levy needs to get the stadium sorted - it's really his one final remit as Chairman. He's proven himself that it's not possible to compete long-term at the top without significantly increased financial resources and the pull of a bit stadium, and yet he's ignored that every time and sacked people and sold players with no appreciation of it. He wants Champion's League levels of success but isn't willing or able to provide the financial platform that success requires - he seems in complete denial that it's necessary.

Get the stadium built Daniel - fuck getting excited by whatever manager you poach next, whatever players you decide you want to buy - the stadium is your last chance to prove yourself as owner of this great club. Anything less than the project being delivered successfully (and SOON) and he'll go down as a failure as a chairman - which would be an absolute crying shame for everyone associated with the football club, including him.

We can still be successful the 'right way' - but we have to actually DO IT and stop just talking about it. The lack of information given to the fans re: the stadium is absolutely criminal IMO and indicative of the Levy Secret Police state he seems to run when it comes to keeping people informed.

As for the OP - yes, the unrealistic dream of becoming a regular CL club is over, and to be honest it's about time. It's never been likely and the sooner some fans reign in their expectations the better.

We will never obtain regular sucsess until we establish some kind of consistancy, and the fans( some, boo boys) will never do that, as they will never see past the end of their noses.

parklane1 said:

We will never obtain regular sucsess until we establish some kind of consistancy, and the fans( some, boo boys) will never do that, as they will never see past the end of their noses.

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I think you guys are getting it wrong. I think Levy genuinely tried to do that. Redknapp put us in a good position but showed he could easily have his head turned. He was old and had no interest in developing the kind of highly technical and tactical ethos throughout the club as done by the likes of Barcelona and Ajax. Levy saw in AVB a youthful, high profile, extremely ambitious manager which an attacking, intelligent, technical ethos that could be installed long term to take advantage of our squad. This new manager along with a shiny state of the art training facility, excellent academy and new stadium was a vision of the future of Spurs. Unfortunately what everyone thought was AVB's ethos was not. Rather than highline pressing defence and agressive powerful attacking football we got miss-used highline semi-pressing defence with a team of atheletes, two central defensive midfielders and the inevitable ponderous, slow moving crab football that comes from leaving your most creative passing players on the bench. AVB was not going to take us anywhere, his underlying philosophies were flawed and especially did not fit Tottenham Hotspurs. He had to go, it was just a complete fucking shame he turned out that way

idontgetit said:

I think you guys are getting it wrong. I think Levy genuinely tried to do that. Redknapp put us in a good position but showed he could easily have his head turned. He was old and had no interest in developing the kind of highly technical and tactical ethos throughout the club as done by the likes of Barcelona and Ajax. Levy saw in AVB a youthful, high profile, extremely ambitious manager which an attacking, intelligent, technical ethos that could be installed long term to take advantage of our squad. This new manager along with a shiny state of the art training facility, excellent academy and new stadium was a vision of the future of Spurs. Unfortunately what everyone thought was AVB's ethos was not. Rather than highline pressing defence and agressive powerful attacking football we got miss-used highline semi-pressing defence with a team of atheletes, two central defensive midfielders and the inevitable ponderous, slow moving crab football that comes from leaving your most creative passing players on the bench. AVB was not going to take us anywhere, his underlying philosophies were flawed and especially did not fit Tottenham Hotspurs. He had to go, it was just a complete fucking shame he turned out that way

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We have all done the should he should he not have been sacked and what the reasons were, i disagree with you ( but that is fine)and i see no good reason to go through it all again. What i will say is that Levy bottled it ( i support Levy so i am not just having a dig at him), he should have ignored the boo boys and given AVB more time ( imo), the reason is we will never get anywhere if we keep replacing managers because a few fans think/know they can do a better job, when in all honesty most fan have not got a clue how to manage a Pro team, ( even though they can do well on FIFA)

parklane1 said:

We have all done the should he should he not have been sacked and what the reasons were, i disagree with you ( but that is fine)and i see no good reason to go through it all again. What i will say is that Levy bottled it ( i support Levy so i am not just having a dig at him), he should have ignored the boo boys and given AVB more time ( imo), the reason is we will never get anywhere if we keep replacing managers because a few fans think/know they can do a better job, when in all honesty most fan have not got a clue how to manage a Pro team, ( even though they can do well on FIFA)

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I think you need to get over this simplistic idea that AVB was sacked simply because of the fans.

tiger666 said:

I think you need to get over this simplistic idea that AVB was sacked simply because of the fans.

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Nothing simplistic about it both the media and a vocal minority of fans made the decision very hard for Levy, however its Levy who lost his balls ( and i am a supporter of Levy)he should have ignored the moans and groans and stuck with the plan he started with AVB 18 months ago.

Take a look at how many managrs we have had ove the last few decades, and then count the trophys we have won. We are once again going round in circles.

Turned the game off the second I saw 4-4-2.

nothing is over until we say its over

idontgetit said:

I think you guys are getting it wrong. I think Levy genuinely tried to do that. Redknapp put us in a good position but showed he could easily have his head turned. He was old and had no interest in developing the kind of highly technical and tactical ethos throughout the club as done by the likes of Barcelona and Ajax. Levy saw in AVB a youthful, high profile, extremely ambitious manager which an attacking, intelligent, technical ethos that could be installed long term to take advantage of our squad. This new manager along with a shiny state of the art training facility, excellent academy and new stadium was a vision of the future of Spurs. Unfortunately what everyone thought was AVB's ethos was not. Rather than highline pressing defence and agressive powerful attacking football we got miss-used highline semi-pressing defence with a team of atheletes, two central defensive midfielders and the inevitable ponderous, slow moving crab football that comes from leaving your most creative passing players on the bench. AVB was not going to take us anywhere, his underlying philosophies were flawed and especially did not fit Tottenham Hotspurs. He had to go, it was just a complete fucking shame he turned out that way

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when did AVB play to defensive central midfield players??? and when did he always leave our most creative passing players on the bench? can only assume you just mean Eric Lamela

otherwise he often played holtby or eriksen before injury. and Dembele or Paulhino with Sandro for the most part. then along with Sig/Townsend/Lennon/Lamela on the wings

thats 4 attacking players inc striker, one box to box and ONE defensive midfied player by my count. hardly set up to defend