- Sep 9, 2014
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A chairman or manager pointing to "not losing players" as reason to celebrate is considered something of an excuse or cop-out but it's the primary objective for every football club. Everyone has given up claiming they're "not a selling club" but really, every club in Europe, with the exception of Real Madrid and Barcelona, is now a selling club.
In recent years, Tottenham have previously been forced to cope with the loss of almost every genuine superstar they had: Dimitar Berbatov, Luka Modric, Gareth Bale to name just three. Keeping your star players is far better than signing a star player: there's no risk, no period of adaptation and no need for others to adjust their game to cope with a new arrival.
What's most striking is that Spurs' key players haven't even been linked with other clubs: there's no will-he-won't-he saga involving Alli or Kane. Desperately convincing a want-away player to leave can be disastrous too: the uncertainty hampers tactical preparations and harms team spirit, the player performs poorly because he doesn't want to be there, and the club eventually sell the player the following summer at a knock-down rate because his contract is closer to expiring.
It's not simply about avoiding sales, but about avoiding the possibility of sales.
In that respect, Tottenham have played a blinder. They have lost one player -- Kyle Walker -- but Spurs were compensated with a truly staggering amount of money, £50m. They'll surely be able to purchase a comparable replacement for that type of money while they currently boast an impressive understudy in Kieran Trippier (who recently signed a contract extension) anyway.
One of the most frequent cliches used to encourage clubs to sign new players is "if you stand still, you go backwards." That's unquestionably true, but improving isn't simply about signing new players. The most crucial improvement can equally come from individual players gaining more experience -- Tottenham have a number of players approaching their peak years, for example -- and from teams becoming better collectively due to more experience of playing together.
Tottenham are arguably the most tactically harmonious team in the Premier League. During Mauricio Pochettino's three years at the club, the points tally has gone from 64 to 70 to 86. There have been some crucial signings, certainly, but more than anything, Spurs' improvement has been about their collective understanding of Pochettino's tactics. The way they've become excellent at various concepts in turn -- pressing, defending, attacking, tactical versatility -- is about far more than a couple of new arrivals.
They were even worse than that - 6th in the leagueUnited under Fergie weren't prone to wholesale changes every single summer.
They rarely lost players and just added (mostly) quality when it was available.
The constant changing is the problem, not the cure.
Look at them since he left. First season half the squad retired/left and Moyes only signs Feleni. Shit.
Then LVG buys half the globe at around £300m.
Shit.
Now Moureen breaks world records and signs players left right and centre. They won 2 2nd rate cups and and finished 5th. THE RICHEST BIGGEST CLUB ON TH PLANET WITH THE CHOSEN ONE. FIFTH.
When are pundits going to connect the dots?
Barcelona and Real sign the odd superstar each summer, not 5-10 of them.
Agree. It's like the media hate us because of how we're building. It's shocking really, you'd at least expect the people in the sport, pundits etc, to acknowledge and praise what we're doing as the way to go, but instead, they think that being rich is what's impressive, as if they've earn't their success. Guarantee, if we suddenly got bought out by the mafia or Saudi's, they would suddenly be impressed.United under Fergie weren't prone to wholesale changes every single summer.
They rarely lost players and just added (mostly) quality when it was available.
The constant changing is the problem, not the cure.
Look at them since he left. First season half the squad retired/left and Moyes only signs Feleni. Shit.
Then LVG buys half the globe at around £300m.
Shit.
Now Moureen breaks world records and signs players left right and centre. They won 2 2nd rate cups and and finished 5th. THE RICHEST BIGGEST CLUB ON TH PLANET WITH THE CHOSEN ONE. FIFTH.
When are pundits going to connect the dots?
Barcelona and Real sign the odd superstar each summer, not 5-10 of them.
We're managing to keep Sissoko, yay!
I'm not sure how many of us really know whether or not Poch is entirely happy to have KWP as back up for Trippier in the event that he is injured.
.
I'm presuming Poch's spent the summer reinventing Sissoko as a right back.
So we have three RBs nice idea :Haha, trippiers speed and walkers crossing. Nice combo.