Ancelotti

[Mr Pink]

I agree that in the 2009/10 season, he partnership between Dawson and Bassong, with King and Woodgate injured, was very promising and effective.

It is Harry's job though to project and forecast, so he went and brought in Gallas, even though there was a lot of reticence for him to even consider the move, me included, for a 33 year old ex-Gooner.

Yet Gallas proved me, and others wrong by commanding a first team slot through persistence, quality, consistence and leadership.

Effectively Bassong stepped down, and though disappointing to him, what is more didappinting to Harry, is that Bassong will not wait his turn to oust Gallas or Dawson through a drop in form or injury.

Spurs have been poor at the back with so many goals conceded to inhibit the result we wanted and with a consistently high performing, confident back five, including a stuttering Gomes, it would be a platform to snare three points.

To achieve this confidence a nucleus is essential with minimal change other than Ferguson-esque two or three per match to refresh tired legs - which is typically what Harry does.

The point is he had done well and as a partnership they were good...but it wasn't deemed good enough after that. Instead of them starting this season were they left off last seaon Gallas was bought and the rest was history as they say.

Not arguing with the signing of Gallas, it was a good one...but it does make you wonder if you're Bassong - in other words after doing well for a suistained period of time it still wasn't enough.

You can expect all players to try and force there way into the team....the problem is that Bassong thought he had done that off the back of last season, so its no wonder that he sees no light at the end of the tunnel in terms of his chances.

He was a Harry signing and had done well in his first season...yet his chances were in short supply this season, I dont blame him for looking at other options and he wont get much of a chance under Harry now so if he's any ambition he'll look to move - which he's doing.

 

[hans]

Ancelotti + wilkins would be a good move

 

[Mr Pink]

If you can be so sure that Levy thought Neville would have been as useless to us as you do then fair enough. The other possibility is that the opening bid was just to try and get him to force through a move, as that is usually the only way one can get a club to sell you their captain.

As I said, he should have used the squad better this season, I am sure he thinks that too looking back. I don't understand the freezing out of Kranjcar, but most of the rest of the squad got a fair crack. Bassong is tricky, because you want to keep your centre halves playing together in many matches as you can.

Thats a euphemistic way to describe it...I've been tearing my hair out over it for months.

 

[walworthyid]

I think Harrys done a really good job since he has been there and deserves a lot of credit for that but I also think he has many limitations and won't really be able to take us further than he has. Although that being said I don't think it was his fault that we didn't finish 4th this year, not directly anyway. Essentially we didn't score enough goals because our strikers aren't good enough and also because of the effect that vdv had on our shape. If we had a striker like Drogba or even Odemwingie up front we would have finished 3rd.

Where he is poor is in his desire to constantly shoe horn all of our good players on to the pitch rather than play a shape that is suited to the opposition. The Arsenal game stands out as ana example. We played a silly "everybody out there" formation in the first half and got owned, we played a proper shape in the second and dominated. The Fulham game in the cup is another one, what was going on with that team selection?

If we have the opportunity to bring in somebody like Ancelloti perhaps with Wilkins I would be all for it.

Harry is good, but I think I could manage this team to 5th place with the players we have.

 

[walworthyid]

The point is he had done well and as a partnership they were good...but it wasn't deemed good enough after that. Instead of them starting this season were they left off last seaon Gallas was bought and the rest was history as they say.

Not arguing with the signing of Gallas, it was a good one...but it does make you wonder if you're Bassong - in other words after doing well for a suistained period of time it still wasn't enough.

You can expect all players to try and force there way into the team....the problem is that Bassong thought he had done that off the back of last season, so its no wonder that he sees no light at the end of the tunnel in terms of his chances.

He was a Harry signing and had done well in his first season...yet his chances were in short supply this season, I dont blame him for looking at other options and he wont get much of a chance under Harry now so if he's any ambition he'll look to move - which he's doing.

That is fair enough and we can't know how well Bassong might have done this year, but with the loss of Dawson and the no-show from King and Woody we would have been left seriously short had we not bought Gallas and having bought him he had to play.

It was an extremely difficult decision but when a player like Gallas becomes available you surely have to consider buying him?

Harry is rather reactionary in terms of his team though but also quite lucky. Sandro has come in and been nothing short of a revelation, Rose, Kaboul, Bale, Mods in the middle. None of these things would have happened had it not been for injury, but Harry has shown the ability to make the very best of a bad situation and in that sense he utilises the squad well.

Still think we should move on though.

 

[Mr Pink]

That is fair enough and we can't know how well Bassong might have done this year, but with the loss of Dawson and the no-show from King and Woody we would have been left seriously short had we not bought Gallas and having bought him he had to play.

It was an extremely difficult decision but when a player like Gallas becomes available you surely have to consider buying him?

Harry is rather reactionary in terms of his team though but also quite lucky. Sandro has come in and been nothing short of a revelation, Rose, Kaboul, Bale, Mods in the middle. None of these things would have happened had it not been for injury, but Harry has shown the ability to make the very best of a bad situation and in that sense he utilises the squad well.

Still think we should move on though.

Yes totally agree.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

yes he was.

Ok....no he wasn't.

 

[bubble07]

certainly was this season...and we were better last season, go figure.

The odd game shouldn't really count. Redknapp has basically used 22 players in all competitions this season. It would be interesting to compare that to the 4 teams who finished ahead of us in the league

 

[Mr Pink]

The odd game shouldn't really count. Redknapp has basically used 22 players in all competitions this season. It would be interesting to compare that to the 4 teams who finished ahead of us in the league

its the timing and frequency of when the players were used which is significant....not how many players were used full stop.

 

[Mr Pink]

Ok....no he wasn't.

yes he was.

 

[worcestersauce]

Just reading through the thread and it suddenly hit me, we have a thread about AC Milan's Champions League winning coach Carlo Ancelotti coming to Spurs and people are taking it seriously but even more surprising is that there are people actually arguing that AC Milan's Champions League winning coach Carlo Ancelotti isn't good enough for Spurs, where have you all been for the last two decades?:shrug: