If it weren't for the Europa, we'd be leading the league

[spurious1]

Well, perhaps not...but the idea is not crazy. After hearing Tim (and AVB before him) always insisting that Europa Thursdays didn't affect our league form, I checked the actual numbers:

After Europa league W/D/L 4/2/6 6 GF, 13 GA, 1.27 PPG
Other matches 12/3/1 31 GF 20 GA 2.28 PPG

In other words, if we had performed in all of our games as we did in the "not after Europa Thursday" games, we would be sitting now on 64 points, and leading the league. Our non-post-europa form is actually awesome.

If we played all of our games like we do the post-europas, we'd be on 35...not quite relegation fodder, but no where near European places. But considering the above, would you really want a Europa place

 

[Armstrong_11]

Over heard a man utd fan saying this.... "if we didn't lose all those game, we would be on top of the league" hmm... Like duh...

Don't think it's fair to blame the Europa league. Rather we not be in it, but we have to get use to playing 2 games a week. At the end of the day, getting in to champions league is one thing. We need to stay there.

 

[spurious1]

Over heard a man utd fan saying this.... "if we didn't lose all those game, we would be on top of the league" hmm... Like duh...

Don't think it's fair to blame the Europa league. Rather we not be in it, but we have to get use to playing 2 games a week. At the end of the day, getting in to champions league is one thing. We need to stay there.

I think it's fair to blame the Europa league. Unless there is a better explanation for the radically different league form we have after or not after a Europa game.

 

[Montasura]

I think it's fair to blame the Europa league. Unless there is a better explanation for the radically different league form we have after or not after a Europa game.

Nonsense. You can't "blame" a European competition for not being in the top 4 when the overall aim of reaching the top 4 is to play in a European competition.

If our squad is not capable of playing 2 games per week then we have absolutely no right to even be thinking of top 4.

 

[chrissivad]

what part or effect of playing European football is costing us?

 

[Geyzer Soze]

Bill said

"It's magnificent to be in Europe, and this club - a club like Tottenham Hotspur - if we're not in Europe.... we're nothing. We're nothing."

/thread

 

[SteveH]

the amount of injuries in key positions is by far the biggest problem for the Spurs.

The lack of quality cover is where we fall over when we have too many consecutive games

 

[Metalhead]

I think it's fair to blame the Europa league. Unless there is a better explanation for the radically different league form we have after or not after a Europa game.

The Europa League is a bitch in terms of games. I'm not convinced that we would be top without them but your overall theme that it's affecting our league form is fair. We really should be able to compete on two fronts though. That's my thoughts anyway.

 

[jackson]

Yes it maybe effecting our results, but no that shouldn't be a reason or an excuse for a team aiming to play CL year in year out - unfortunately shows that we're probably still not capable of competing on more than one front and would fail to qualify the following year if we got back in.

Only time we've qualified was when Arry pretty much ignored the EL and Carling cup. Liverpool are enjoying the extra rest this year and doing them the world of good but ultimately it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[sweyid]

Yes it maybe effecting our results, but no that shouldn't be a reason or an excuse for a team aiming to play CL year in year out - unfortunately shows that we're probably still not capable of competing on more than one front and would fail to qualify the following year if we got back in.

Only time we've qualified was when Arry pretty much ignored the EL and Carling cup. Liverpool are enjoying the extra rest this year and doing them the world of good but ultimately it shouldn't be an issue.

We weren't in Europe 09/10.

 

[stonecolddeanaustin]

I think it's fair to blame the Europa league. Unless there is a better explanation for the radically different league form we have after or not after a Europa game.

Of the five losses that I can find, one was against Arsenal and one Liverpool, which with how we were playing we would've lost anyway. One was Newcastle when we actually played well but couldn't finish and their keeper had a blinder. The only draw I could find was against Man U when they were actually playing quite well. (either I'm missing two games or those figures aren't quite right)

The only games I'd say you could really attribute some blame to the Europa league hangover would be West Ham and Norwich, which we wouldn't have necessarily won anyway so I don't think it's screwed us over that much this season.

 

[Kiedis]

Of the five losses that I can find, one was against Arsenal and one Liverpool, which with how we were playing we would've lost anyway. One was Newcastle when we actually played well but couldn't finish and their keeper had a blinder. The only draw I could find was against Man U when they were actually playing quite well. (either I'm missing two games or those figures aren't quite right)

The only games I'd say you could really attribute some blame to the Europa league hangover would be West Ham and Norwich, which we wouldn't have necessarily won anyway so I don't think it's screwed us over that much this season.

To few people look behind the numbers. We should always aim to compete on multiple fronts. It seems to be a learning curve attached to it though, and teams that are used to being involved on all fronts the most of the season obviously struggle less than teams that have a good year and then have european football coming almost as a surpise the following season (see Newcastle, Swansea, Real Sociedad + +).

The way to grow as a club is to get used to this amount of matches and rotate the squad sensibly. Injuries are hindering us a bit, but all through the autumn, I think we did this well and also allowed the entire squad playing time.

Also, look at what happened when team Sherwood got nine days on the training field before the home game against City. There's no automatics that say that playing less matches will make the team more coherent.

 

[dontcallme]

Of the five losses that I can find, one was against Arsenal and one Liverpool, which with how we were playing we would've lost anyway. One was Newcastle when we actually played well but couldn't finish and their keeper had a blinder. The only draw I could find was against Man U when they were actually playing quite well. (either I'm missing two games or those figures aren't quite right)

The only games I'd say you could really attribute some blame to the Europa league hangover would be West Ham and Norwich, which we wouldn't have necessarily won anyway so I don't think it's screwed us over that much this season.

Completely agree. You have to look closer than just the numbers.

Like you say the 2 post-EL terrible results were West Ham and Norwich.

AVB was beyond foolish to take so many players to Russia just days before a London derby. He didn't even play some of them.

Against Norwich we created good chances once Sherwood played 2 upfront. If he'd done that since the start it might have been a different game.

The group stages in their current format are ridiculous but we have a stronger squad than many and if used correctly we can use the squad to get a better balance of results.

It's not as simple as saying it's all the EL's fault. SO much is within our own hands.

 

[hodsgod]

Nonsense. You can't "blame" a European competition for not being in the top 4 when the overall aim of reaching the top 4 is to play in a European competition.

If our squad is not capable of playing 2 games per week then we have absolutely no right to even be thinking of top 4.

It's not the number of games, it's the travelling that causes the problems. Champions league games are mostly in Western Europe, Europa League games are generally much further away.

 

[spurious1]

Nonsense. You can't "blame" a European competition for not being in the top 4 when the overall aim of reaching the top 4 is to play in a European competition.

If our squad is not capable of playing 2 games per week then we have absolutely no right to even be thinking of top 4.

Perhaps "blame" is not the good word. I am simply making the observation that we perform much much better in weeks when we haven't had a Thursday Europa match. Since not having a Europa match is so highly correlated to our good performance, I don't see how it can be considered "nonsense" to postulate there might be causation there, especially since it's pretty easy to, in addition, propose a mechanism behind the phenomena.

There may well be a better explanation, which I look forward to you offering. But if you think the entire process of trying to explain observations with models is "nonsense", I leave you to your mystical world. I was not saying what we "should be able to do", simply noting that there seems to be a good argument, based on data rather than on hyperbole, that playing in the Europa league affects our league form. After that, make what you will of it.

 

[ethanedwards]

Lack of goals.

 

[fortworthspur]

you've demonstrated we tend to perform worse after a midweek game, no argument. but that is a symptom, not the problem. The fact is, if you want to compete in the top quarter of the table you have to manage midweek games, too.

 

[Shea]

I think the EL has had a negative impact on our over all league form (as it does many teams who partisipate) the only issue I have with this is that it is more the fault of our managers -both AVB and now Sherwood- managing the squad poorly than the EL itself

We have a big enough squad with enough quality to have been able to rotate effectively enough to have reached this stage of the Europa without it having any impact on our league form.

Obviously it's not an exact science and you can't prove without reasonable doubt that other factors didn't affect performance in games where we dropped points following a Europa league match - but personally my opinion is that specficially the long distance away games preceeding the West Ham and Norwich losses did have a direct affect on us playing poorly and dropping points and that both AVB and Tim repsectively could and should have managed the squads better in terms of rotation and saved key players the travelling to remain fresh for the league games that followed (I think had we done this we could well have won both games)

But it's all hypothetical talk really and no one can prove their point - one thing I do know is I'd prefer us to be involved in the Europa than not because I remember the days where qualifying for the Uefa was a distant dream and we all longed for it (hoping for Fair play or Intertoto routes in) and I haven't become too snobbish as to turn my nose up on it now we've finally become regulars (though obviously I'd rather us be CL regulars)

The long and short of it is this - if we ever want to be a top club we need to be able to challenge on multiple fronts and I believe we already have a squad capable of doing so. Add a bit of quality in an area or two (LB for example) and get a manager capable of overseeing the a European campaign while performing strong in the legaue (or indeed hope the current managerial set up learn to do so if they stay longer than expected) and we will have no reason to continue debating this.

For my money it's only really the away games on a Thursday night in a Eastern European city that causes the issue anyway - and in games like we've played in Russia and Ukraine this year our managers should have known better than to take so many players who they planned to play on the weekend in the league (these sorts of silly dropped points could well be costly - and yes I personally do believe those two games were impeaded by our managerial decisions regarding rotation and the EL)

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

The problem with Europa league vs champions league is more games and they're on Thursday nights.
I'd rather play Saturday/ Tuesday/Saturday and Sunday/Wednesday/Sunday than Sunday/Thursday/Sunday

Especially if that Thursday is an away game..

I know some of you will (correctly) point out the number of days off between is the same. But it's when the games are played that have the adverse affect.
Just to point out, when most teams that win it qualify for the champions league, they fell in to it when they were knocked out in the CL group stages. Most likely less games.

The competition is a massive hindrance. No top players give two shits.
No big club wants to be in it.

This may change when a champions league place is on offer. But for now, it's costing us.

 

[Shea]

The competition is a massive hindrance. No top players give two shits.
No big club wants to be in it.

This may change when a champions league place is on offer. But for now, it's costing us.

This is key - even when playing strong sides against really weak opposition in the Group stages of the Europa these last two seasons we have played really shit and struggled against teams you'd expect QPR to smash (yes I know we won all our group games this year but the way we played was terrible in spite of the results)

It was pretty obvious that the players were all going through the motions and disinterested - it was like watching friendly matches

We were even pretty poor in the home leg against Dinipro and I doubt we'd have progressed had they not been reduced to 10.

I'm hoping the players can at least get up for the matches against bigger named teams (as we did at home to Inter last year) because if they continue to play with no passion for those games we might as well rotate a lot more and give some of the kids a chance