- Feb 1, 2005
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You can always tell when we haven't a game for a while ![Big Grin :D :D](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
I honestly think he believes that though mate and he's probably right, I mean aside from Grealish City haven't spent £100mil on anyone, Arsenal only did on Rice and Liverpool haven't spent that much on anyone (although they have shopped in the £50-90mil bracket a few times)The only gripe I have with Ange so far is good comments about not spending 100m on a player. If the right player came along there is no reason we shouldn't do so. The teams we want to compete with do and we pay the highest prices in world football so we should expect to see the best players.
Hope this stance changes, Klopp said similar and then realised to win he had to spend big. Won the league the following season.
Its been 3 daysYou can always tell when we haven't a game for a while![]()
If only I’d said haven’t hadIts been 3 days![]()
doh , just wait for the takeover thread bump over international breakIf only I’d said haven’t had![]()
Sensible post but the difficulty is that our existing squad isn’t static. Players like Romero, VdV, Sarr, Udogie and others will be on the radar of “bigger” clubs while Son will eventually start to deteriorate if he hasn’t already. Sometimes it feels like an endless game of “we just need stability and a couple more windows.”
That is actually a great article that ‘gets it’.Great article about Ange and his impact.
From Sky Sports:
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Tottenham's playing style under Ange Postecoglou is splitting opinion but he is right to prioritise growth over top four
Tottenham sit fifth in the Premier League table, three points behind top-four rivals Aston Villa, after their 3-0 reverse against Fulham; Ange Postecoglous playing style has come under scrutiny but the clubs future looks bright under the Australianwww.skysports.com
A little snippet:
Postecoglou's refusal to compromise his style has infuriated some fans. The high line remains in place even without Van de Ven. The full-backs are asked to step into midfield even if they are Emerson Royal and Ben Davies rather than Pedro Porro and Destiny Udogie.
But Postecoglou does it for the same reason Pep Guardiola insisted on playing out from the back even as Claudio Bravo toiled in his first season at Manchester City. Or Jurgen Klopp set Liverpool up to counter-press even after taking the job mid-season in October 2015.
The idea is that the style becomes ingrained, and that, once enough transfer windows have passed for the squad to be sufficiently strengthened, injuries to key players can be mitigated, and the flaws that inevitably surface in the intervening period can be concealed.
Until then, Postecoglou must battle the general tendency to frame every result in the context of what it does for his side's top-four prospects. This is ultimately how perceptions are shaped.
Great overview post Mr P. It's the tactical dogma that concerns me. I luv a bit of flexibility me.We've got to find the solutions, adjust to what the opposition now does against us, and get back the sharpness and verve to our play and start knocking the ball about better.
Yeah well we haven’t had that stability thing, have we?Sensible post but the difficulty is that our existing squad isn’t static. Players like Romero, VdV, Sarr, Udogie and others will be on the radar of “bigger” clubs while Son will eventually start to deteriorate if he hasn’t already. Sometimes it feels like an endless game of “we just need stability and a couple more windows.”
I am almost inclined to stop reading after the first whopper of an inaccuracy in the 2nd paragraph. Spurs need Champions League to pay off the stadium debt.That is actually a great article that ‘gets it’.
Thanks for sharing. I must admit I havent enjoyed the risk and reward approach this season, largely because we usually suffer the risk element with the goals/major chances we give up every week with the lack of reward. Prior to Villa we had only beaten Burnley and Newcastle by 3 goals.Great article about Ange and his impact.
From Sky Sports:
![]()
Tottenham's playing style under Ange Postecoglou is splitting opinion but he is right to prioritise growth over top four
Tottenham sit fifth in the Premier League table, three points behind top-four rivals Aston Villa, after their 3-0 reverse against Fulham; Ange Postecoglous playing style has come under scrutiny but the clubs future looks bright under the Australianwww.skysports.com
A little snippet:
Postecoglou's refusal to compromise his style has infuriated some fans. The high line remains in place even without Van de Ven. The full-backs are asked to step into midfield even if they are Emerson Royal and Ben Davies rather than Pedro Porro and Destiny Udogie.
But Postecoglou does it for the same reason Pep Guardiola insisted on playing out from the back even as Claudio Bravo toiled in his first season at Manchester City. Or Jurgen Klopp set Liverpool up to counter-press even after taking the job mid-season in October 2015.
The idea is that the style becomes ingrained, and that, once enough transfer windows have passed for the squad to be sufficiently strengthened, injuries to key players can be mitigated, and the flaws that inevitably surface in the intervening period can be concealed.
Until then, Postecoglou must battle the general tendency to frame every result in the context of what it does for his side's top-four prospects. This is ultimately how perceptions are shaped.
Thanks for sharing. I must admit I havent enjoyed the risk and reward approach this season, largely because we usually suffer the risk element with the goals/major chances we give up every week with the lack of reward. Prior to Villa we had only beaten Burnley and Newcastle by 3 goals.
The points in the article referencing Pep and Klopps early periods are why i remain patient. It feels we have been sussed out to an extent however i remember Peps first visit to the lane which culminated in his first defeat. We were 2 up early on and City persisted to play out even though we pressed and constantly pinched the ball back. I wasnt sure if it was bravery, arrogance or pure stupidity but they added the required personnel and are now the tactical benchmark most of the league follows.
Similar with Klopp, the likes of lovren, mingolet, karius etc were figures of ridicule who regularly undid a lot of the teams good work but when they strengthened with VVD and Alison they went from top 4 hopefuls to league challengers.
I hope we build on a lot of the groundwork and good recruitment we have put in place with the specific quality Ange needs to deliver trophies. He represents the values we felt had been missing from our club a year ago. Time will tell.
I don't see any reason why we won't continue to progress and recruit the same way we have been for the last couple of transfer windows.
I'm not expecting us to spend stupid money, I'm expecting us to identify the best potential talent around to give Ange the tools he needs for next season.
We are never going to be a club that spends hundreds of millions. That model doesn't suit us.
I have confidence that Ange will get what he needs.
I don't expect us to spend the money Manchester City do but I think we should be able to match Liverpool and Arsenal's spending power. Otherwise, what was the point of the new stadium and the subsequent debt?
I hear everything you’re saying…and I can understand some fans’ frustrations.Alright chaps, been a while since I was on the forum.
Last time I was on here was during that rough spell of Nov/Dec, where it felt like everything that could go wrong was going wrong in terms of injuries and suspension. What had been a settled consistent team to start the campaign had been decimated, and at that time we couldn’t buy a win. Naturally the grumbling was starting amongst the fanbase, but I was still really positive and had no cause for alarm at that point. Some of those losses were really unlucky, and even with backup players and the likes of Emerson, Davies, Hojbjerg et al we were dominating the matches and zipping the ball about nicely, playing some great stuff that cut through teams and created chances. Results just weren’t coming, but that was always going to be temporary with those performances. The system and approach was still in place and showed excellent coaching, it just needed the stronger pieces of the puzzle to come back and our luck to turn.
Fast forward to the present and well, I’m less enthused about what I have been seeing. I think Ange is getting a bit of leeway currently about this great and scintillating football which has largely disappeared since the turn of the year. For me we’re rather limping along at the moment the best we can. I don’t care what people might say about the overall results recently, PPG, league position, whatever. In my opinion, and what concerns me, since Xmas there has been a marked difference in performance. Every team we play has adjusted to us now and we see common themes every week – stick a man on Bissouma, block the channels where our fullbacks want to roam into, get in behind the ball and funnel the play wide, etc etc. Results have been that we’re struggling to progress the ball (then doesn’t help that someone like Maddison just loses patience and comes to pick the ball off the centrebacks shoelaces for 90 minutes), where it used to be zipped about the park it’s now really sluggish, sharp passing moves to cut through teams have largely gone, and we’re struggling to create chances against low block defences now.
The primary gameplan – possession, dominate, force the opposition back – has become a real struggle and often quite dull and even error-strewn. The build up patterns, the runs (eg. that underlap by Udogie or Sarr), and so on are really basic and done to absolute death. Most goals, and patches of games, that have got us out of a hole in recent times have had to rely on counter/transition/attacking space (valid ways of scoring goals of course, but simpler to do and really not the primary game plan). Villa the other week a great example – first half they sat back and we created the square root of fuck all, second half they came out and pushed up, we caught them out early, then blasted them away as it fell apart for them. But you can’t be hoping to outgun and outrun teams in open games every week, we have to adapt these really quite basic patterns we overdo to the extreme, and our possession play and control must be rediscovered. That is more important for the long term, than squeaking a result at this point.
Then there is selection. Look we're a top PL team, these are still PL footballers, if you keep playing them of course they will have moments every game and still do good play, score goals, and get assists. But lets have some standards and be honest - the likes of Bissouma, Maddison, Bentancur, Kulusevski, Porro, and a few others have been pretty rubbish for weeks now. You can't have numerous players going out there and giving you "vast majority poor, small minority good" performances and fucking the ball away at will. Obviously our engine room firing would help the football and the results massively, and players have to account for themselves, but at some point if you’re not getting it from them then selection changes have to happen, a message needs to be sent to get a reaction and set some standards. Against teams that sit deep we also often have too many runners and not enough footballers.
We’ve also had another transfer window since I was last on here, and tbh I wasn’t thrilled with the direction we went in. Dragusin is pretty meh for me – even focusing on young defensive prospects there were better athletes out there, and also better technical ball playing defenders. We’ve plumped for someone who does a little of everything but nothing to an inspiring level. Werner I just don’t understand the logic, I’m actually not surprised we’re getting a contribution out of him but we just spunked god knows how much on Johnson a few months prior. Basically the same player, with the same strengths and same considerable weaknesses. Ok we needed a bit of cover at the time, but it will be barmy beyond belief to have Son, Johnson and Werner – all primarily off the ball runners - in the same squad next year. There is also the apparent obsession with Conor Gallagher, completely unnecessary when we already have a box-to-box option in Sarr. As I said previously the squad needs more technical footballers, and less athletes/off the ball runners, at this point, otherwise the tactics will never get where Ange wants them to get to.
I’ll end by saying that obviously Rome wasn't built in a day and it is the first season and there won't be linear progress, we should continue down this path absolutely. There is the potential there and I think we're on the cusp of being a serious team again. But I am a bit concerned and I’m not liking what is being served up at the moment – we often hear about other clubs where managers get critiqued for not being able to put in place their (effective) gameplan and relying on individuals having “moments” and we’re seeing this happen to us currently far too many weeks where we have to fall back to transitional basic football. In my opinion the performances (even in that tough spell in Nov/Dec) were of a marked difference in those first 3-4 months compared to those since Xmas/New Year. We've got to find the solutions, adjust to what the opposition now does against us, and get back the sharpness and verve to our play and start knocking the ball about better.