just not good enough?

[lukespurs7]

Is it me or are we only now starting to realise a fair few of our players are just not good enough-again!.Yes we shouldn't be where we are in the league(due to our poor start), BUT even if we'd had a decent start, I still don't think we are quite all that we make out to be, as a squad and as individuals.

Firstly, this season is one of the highest quality seasons for a long time, there are a good 8-10 who possess very strong squads. There are the top4 who i think we are still a fair bit away from and there are then:Everton,Man.City,Blackburn,A.Villa,Portsmoth,us.

I think that those5 teams all have a far better defense as units and probably individually. Blackburn,Man.city,Everton AND mabye Villa, ALL IMO have stronger more balanced and creative midfields main difference is we have 4 fantastic strikers who without we'd be in the bottom 3!!!

Now individually, the following players IMO aren't good enough.

Robinson-IMO not quite good enough, our players IMO MUST be at least as good as those 4/5 teams above if we are to try and break into the top4 and stay in the top6. I'd take Howard,Carson,Fridel,Hart and mabye James over Robbo i'm sorry to say.

Dawson-He is young yes but lately he's really being found out, the likes of Dunne,Distin,Lescott,Samba,Laursen are all of a higher quality.

Lee.Y.P-He works hard and gets up and down quite well, but his lack of a left-foot put us off balance, and he's too small so we suffer from set-pieces. Again, he's up against Corluka,Neville,Bouma,Warnock ok he's similar but then theres Evra,A.Cole,Clichy and Riise lol!

Lennon-Yes he has pace but how often does he score? put in a decent delivery, or even get an assist? answer-not very! I may now be being negative but I really think the likes of Arteta,Bentley,Kranjcar,Young are all better players and offer more to a team.

Zokora and Jenas- Both IMO far too average, rarely shoot or do something creative or impressive, both just very average premierleague players. The likes of Barry,Muntari,Elano,Cahill are all far better,we NEED midfielders of AT LEAST this quality! never mind LAMPARD,ESSIEN,GERRARD,SCHOLES,FABREGAS ETC!

That leaves our strikers, who I DO RATE, VERY VERY HIGHLY. For they don't actually get that decent service but yet score week in week out! ALL of them! Berbatov may sometimes strop, Keane may complain too much, Defoe seem like he's not in the game and Bent seem a waste of money but the fact of the matter is they are ALL FANTASTIC WORLD CLASS!! STRIKERS and they are the reason we could go places and have done reasonably well over the past few seasons. Apart from them, the defence are fairly poor with the exception of Bale,Chimbonda and King who 2/3 are rarely fit. IMO Malbranque is our only half-decent midfielder and Lennon sometimes.

SO yea we'll see how things go, we still have a decent squad with alot of young potentiol which is very pleasing, but as a team and individuals i just can't help but feel we lack the quality players to get where we want to be because if i'm finding it hard comparing us to the teams who are 5th-9th in some areas, fuck knows how we'll challange the top4!

Anyway Ramos and Poyet are quality and IF we finally give a manager time and more importantly,not just money but some fucking lenience to mabye break the wage and or age structure, we may just go big places, if not i feel we'll continue to bring in players who are decent but not of the level we need!

views?

 

[snake1]

I agree, except of course, the part about Lennon, as he's only 20 and obviously has great potential.

 

[joey55]

People talk about us having the 5th best squad and I think we easily have. However, I'm not convinced our first team is particuarly better than a few other teams. If you look closely at the quality of the Blackburn first team for example, then they are about as good as us. The difference is we have a better squad, but their 1st team players between them played far more games than ours did last season, so in effect our larger squad didn't really give us an advantage, as they obviously had better luck with injuries etc. Basically our strength in depth is only advantageous over the likes of City, Everton, Blackburn and Pompey, if they have a lot of injuries and suspensions etc. If they don't then I think in terms of the best 11 players, we are closer to that group of teams than we are the top 4. Yet, due to our success in the 2005/6 season we seem to see ourselves as part of a big 5, rather than the chasing pack. Our strikers really do stand out, but other than that, I'd say are far more top 8, than top 4.

 

[MrShibby]

Is it me or are we only now starting to realise a fair few of our players are just not good enough-again!.Yes we shouldn't be where we are in the league(due to our poor start), BUT even if we'd had a decent start, I still don't think we are quite all that we make out to be, as a squad and as individuals.

Firstly, this season is one of the highest quality seasons for a long time, there are a good 8-10 who possess very strong squads. There are the top4 who i think we are still a fair bit away from and there are then:Everton,Man.City,Blackburn,A.Villa,Portsmoth,us.

I think that those5 teams all have a far better defense as units and probably individually. Blackburn,Man.city,Everton AND mabye Villa, ALL IMO have stronger more balanced and creative midfields main difference is we have 4 fantastic strikers who without we'd be in the bottom 3!!!

Now individually, the following players IMO aren't good enough.

Robinson-IMO not quite good enough, our players IMO MUST be at least as good as those 4/5 teams above if we are to try and break into the top4 and stay in the top6. I'd take Howard,Carson,Fridel,Hart and mabye James over Robbo i'm sorry to say.

Dawson-He is young yes but lately he's really being found out, the likes of Dunne,Distin,Lescott,Samba,Laursen are all of a higher quality.

Lee.Y.P-He works hard and gets up and down quite well, but his lack of a left-foot put us off balance, and he's too small so we suffer from set-pieces. Again, he's up against Corluka,Neville,Bouma,Warnock ok he's similar but then theres Evra,A.Cole,Clichy and Riise lol!

Lennon-Yes he has pace but how often does he score? put in a decent delivery, or even get an assist? answer-not very! I may now be being negative but I really think the likes of Arteta,Bentley,Kranjcar,Young are all better players and offer more to a team.

Zokora and Jenas- Both IMO far too average, rarely shoot or do something creative or impressive, both just very average premierleague players. The likes of Barry,Muntari,Elano,Cahill are all far better,we NEED midfielders of AT LEAST this quality! never mind LAMPARD,ESSIEN,GERRARD,SCHOLES,FABREGAS ETC!

That leaves our strikers, who I DO RATE, VERY VERY HIGHLY. For they don't actually get that decent service but yet score week in week out! ALL of them! Berbatov may sometimes strop, Keane may complain too much, Defoe seem like he's not in the game and Bent seem a waste of money but the fact of the matter is they are ALL FANTASTIC WORLD CLASS!! STRIKERS and they are the reason we could go places and have done reasonably well over the past few seasons. Apart from them, the defence are fairly poor with the exception of Bale,Chimbonda and King who 2/3 are rarely fit. IMO Malbranque is our only half-decent midfielder and Lennon sometimes.

SO yea we'll see how things go, we still have a decent squad with alot of young potentiol which is very pleasing, but as a team and individuals i just can't help but feel we lack the quality players to get where we want to be because if i'm finding it hard comparing us to the teams who are 5th-9th in some areas, fuck knows how we'll challange the top4!

Anyway Ramos and Poyet are quality and IF we finally give a manager time and more importantly,not just money but some fucking lenience to mabye break the wage and or age structure, we may just go big places, if not i feel we'll continue to bring in players who are decent but not of the level we need!

views?

No offence, but I don't think you can use these words in the same sentence. Defoe and Bent are a way off being WORLD class IMO :wink:

I also think our squad is suffering from a real lack of confidence too. With a bit of decent organisation and a leader on the pitch, we'll make ourselves difficult to penetrate. At the moment everyone looks so nervous on the ball and it leads to silly individual mistakes which are costing us dearly.

Some good points in there but I think we have the potential to be the 5th best squad in the league, IMO

 

[Andy]

Is it me or are we only now starting to realise a fair few of our players are just not good enough-again!.Yes we shouldn't be where we are in the league(due to our poor start), BUT even if we'd had a decent start, I still don't think we are quite all that we make out to be, as a squad and as individuals.

Firstly, this season is one of the highest quality seasons for a long time, there are a good 8-10 who possess very strong squads. There are the top4 who i think we are still a fair bit away from and there are then:Everton,Man.City,Blackburn,A.Villa,Portsmoth,us.

I think that those5 teams all have a far better defense as units and probably individually. Blackburn,Man.city,Everton AND mabye Villa, ALL IMO have stronger more balanced and creative midfields main difference is we have 4 fantastic strikers who without we'd be in the bottom 3!!!

Now individually, the following players IMO aren't good enough.

Robinson-IMO not quite good enough, our players IMO MUST be at least as good as those 4/5 teams above if we are to try and break into the top4 and stay in the top6. I'd take Howard,Carson,Fridel,Hart and mabye James over Robbo i'm sorry to say.

Dawson-He is young yes but lately he's really being found out, the likes of Dunne,Distin,Lescott,Samba,Laursen are all of a higher quality.

Lee.Y.P-He works hard and gets up and down quite well, but his lack of a left-foot put us off balance, and he's too small so we suffer from set-pieces. Again, he's up against Corluka,Neville,Bouma,Warnock ok he's similar but then theres Evra,A.Cole,Clichy and Riise lol!

Lennon-Yes he has pace but how often does he score? put in a decent delivery, or even get an assist? answer-not very! I may now be being negative but I really think the likes of Arteta,Bentley,Kranjcar,Young are all better players and offer more to a team.

Zokora and Jenas- Both IMO far too average, rarely shoot or do something creative or impressive, both just very average premierleague players. The likes of Barry,Muntari,Elano,Cahill are all far better,we NEED midfielders of AT LEAST this quality! never mind LAMPARD,ESSIEN,GERRARD,SCHOLES,FABREGAS ETC!

That leaves our strikers, who I DO RATE, VERY VERY HIGHLY. For they don't actually get that decent service but yet score week in week out! ALL of them! Berbatov may sometimes strop, Keane may complain too much, Defoe seem like he's not in the game and Bent seem a waste of money but the fact of the matter is they are ALL FANTASTIC WORLD CLASS!! STRIKERS and they are the reason we could go places and have done reasonably well over the past few seasons. Apart from them, the defence are fairly poor with the exception of Bale,Chimbonda and King who 2/3 are rarely fit. IMO Malbranque is our only half-decent midfielder and Lennon sometimes.

SO yea we'll see how things go, we still have a decent squad with alot of young potentiol which is very pleasing, but as a team and individuals i just can't help but feel we lack the quality players to get where we want to be because if i'm finding it hard comparing us to the teams who are 5th-9th in some areas, fuck knows how we'll challange the top4!

Anyway Ramos and Poyet are quality and IF we finally give a manager time and more importantly,not just money but some fucking lenience to mabye break the wage and or age structure, we may just go big places, if not i feel we'll continue to bring in players who are decent but not of the level we need!

views?

As snake said the Lennon part is pretty crap as you have compared him against Arteta who plays left midfield,Young is also a leftie not a right winger, Bentley is a good young player but disappears in games,
And i wouldn't take a few of the Keepers over Robbo you mentioned either,Carson(not bad but not a step up), Friedel(getting on a bit) and Hart(too young atm)

The only other problem is you can't just go starting a thread about who/what is wrong and then pick on three or four players, It's a team game so in the interest of fairness this thread should mention every single player in the team.
The whole team is not defending well enough , even as Berbatov said in a recent interview the team defends from the front, Or should do,
We aren't linking up well enough but i think the whole problem lies with the person purchasing the players ,
What i mean is , Yes we have four good strikers but i want the same spending power spread throughout the squad now i want similar amounts spent of good/great defenders not 2/3/4 millions pounds bit part players and the same goes for the midfielders i don't want a good for two games then shit/goes missing for the next three games player i want a player in midfield that commands games and not one barring Lennon (not atm)can do that , Not any one of them.

 

[t79boy]

another non constructive player bashing thread that has been done to death :adios:

 

[jambo]

Now individually, the following players IMO aren't good enough.

Robinson-IMO not quite good enough, our players IMO MUST be at least as good as those 4/5 teams above if we are to try and break into the top4 and stay in the top6. I'd take Howard,Carson,Fridel,Hart and mabye James over Robbo i'm sorry to say.

Sorry but this one is crap. The only one there not to have made any more mistakes than robbo is friedel. Hart is young and we will see in time how he progresses so im not going to say much on him.

Dawson-He is young yes but lately he's really being found out, the likes of Dunne,Distin,Lescott,Samba,Laursen are all of a higher quality.

Daws is still young and needs to be guided by a more experienced, commanding CB to learn his trade. He will be a very good CB in a few years but we do need someone in with a more experienced head for now. No mention of Kaboul though who i think has had a more torrid time of it than Daws?

Lee.Y.P-He works hard and gets up and down quite well, but his lack of a left-foot put us off balance, and he's too small so we suffer from set-pieces. Again, he's up against Corluka,Neville,Bouma,Warnock ok he's similar but then theres Evra,A.Cole,Clichy and Riise lol!

Have you watched any of our games this season? Lee Y.P has been one of our most consistent performers and has done well this season. How many times have you seen us concede a goal this season from set peices because Lee has lost his man? Not many if not none.

Lennon-Yes he has pace but how often does he score? put in a decent delivery, or even get an assist? answer-not very! I may now be being negative but I really think the likes of Arteta,Bentley,Kranjcar,Young are all better players and offer more to a team.

Again Lennon is still learning and will be amazing in a few years. To say he is not good enough is absolute crap. We do need another option on the right though, someone that will give us a different dimention. I rate this boy very highly but sometimes think there is alot of pressure put on him which could have an adverse affect in the future.

Zokora and Jenas- Both IMO far too average, rarely shoot or do something creative or impressive, both just very average premierleague players. The likes of Barry,Muntari,Elano,Cahill are all far better,we NEED midfielders of AT LEAST this quality! never mind LAMPARD,ESSIEN,GERRARD,SCHOLES,FABREGAS ETC!

This is one area I agree with you on. Zoks and JJ are not bad players at all and do offer alot of qualities but this area of the field does need to be strengthened.

That leaves our strikers, who I DO RATE, VERY VERY HIGHLY. For they don't actually get that decent service but yet score week in week out! ALL of them! Berbatov may sometimes strop, Keane may complain too much, Defoe seem like he's not in the game and Bent seem a waste of money but the fact of the matter is they are ALL FANTASTIC WORLD CLASS!! STRIKERS and they are the reason we could go places and have done reasonably well over the past few seasons. Apart from them, the defence are fairly poor with the exception of Bale,Chimbonda and King who 2/3 are rarely fit. IMO Malbranque is our only half-decent midfielder and Lennon sometimes.

So Lennon is half decent but as per the thread title he isnt? Make your mind up. Berba and Keane I would say are pure quality and would get in alot of teams starting 11. Defoe and Bent are good strikers but I wouldnt say world class. I wouldnt want anyone of them to leave as we have a devestating strike force, the best in the league imo.

I wouldnt blame individuals who are not good enough on our poor start to the season. The last time I looked there was 11 players on a pitch that all have a role to do. It's a team game. We win as a team and lose as a team, end of. Yes we do need strengthening in certain areas of the field with certain types of players which I think we will see in the summer more than in the current window. Im happy as long as the guys we do have on the field play there hearts out and leave it all out on the pitch. Ramos has got the guys fitter and working more as a team, the most noticible problem is defending set pieces
but im fairly confident the coaching staff will have this sorted out soon.

 

[batigol]

Well, I don't want to point to individual players but I think our biggest problem is that the balance of our squad is wrong. In terms of that, we are maybe as good as or even inferior to teams like Villa, Everton, Portsmouth, and Man C.

Our greatest strength is in our attacking and that is all thanks to our strikers like the original poster has said. However, in our defence and midfield departments, we are surely weaker as compared to Everton, Portsmouth, Villa and Man C. Until we iron out these issues, we will always have erratic performances as our attack cannot bail us out everything.

Most importantly, we lack a leader on the field. Someone who can grab the game by the scruff of the neck and lead our players to victory. We need to sort these issues out, and if not by January as it is not the best time to do business, then surely by next season. Relegation is no longer an issue but Spurs need to regroup so that Ramos can get the right players in the play the game that he wants to play.

 

[stevenqoz]

Some players you can build a team around. Man Utd knew it when they had Bryan Robson or Roy Keane. Liam Brady and Glen Hoddle were also such players, if in a slightly different way. Paul Ince led where ever he went. Souness as a player was a leader as was Terry Yorath even in his short time with us. Even watching Reo-Coker the other night was an example of a passion player willing to put the foot in.
For one cross purposed moment the other night I saw Dawson with the armband on and assumed (wrongly) that he was skipper for the night. I thought 'it might lift him' before realising that everyone was wearing a black armband. This silly mistake of thinking Dawson was understandable because there was literally no one on the pitch who would have demanded that armband. This is our problem. No leader. Kevin Nolan might do the job. I can hear the derision but in truth often the captain/ leader is not nearly the best player in the side....he just needs to be someone who can tell others what to do....at corners, free kicks, on the break or when things go wrong. We won't move forward til this is addressed.

 

[themanwhofellasleep]

It's an argument that has raged for a while now. Do we have a fantastic squad with great players who are merely disorganised and/or badly coached, or do we have an average squad? I think the answer is somewhere in the middle.

We clearly have fantastic attacking players, but I think it's pretty obvious that defensively we're not good enough. It could be argued that if we'd had a settled back 4 for the whole season, we might not leak enough goals, but I suspect that at the end of the day, our defenders and goalkeeper simply aren't good enough. Robinson is a good shot-stopper, but terrible with crosses and set-pieces. King, Rocha and Bale are perpetually injured, Dawson hasn't made the progress fans expected, Kaboul is inexperienced and suffering from a woeful lack of confidence. Chimbonda is inconsistent, and Lee is average. And Stalteri is just crap. If we want to progress, we need to sort out the defence and sadly I don't think that hoping that King stays injury-free is the answer. We need new players. Once we have the new players the management needs to ensure that they remain fit, and that we have a consistent back 4 week in, week out. If we chop and change the back line every week then we're always going to be vulnerable.

In terms of the squad as a whole, it's less to do with quality and more to do with balance. We need to ensure that there is quality in every area of the pitch, rather than having fantastic attacking options and a crap defence. There are teams above us in the league with weaker squads but far better defences than ours. It should also be noted that our league position isn't just about us going backwards - it's also about other teams progressing. The likes of Man City, Everton, Portsmouth, Villa and Blackburn have all improved their squads and have received decent investment and (with the exception of Man City) have had a settled management team for some time. Spurs, like Newcastle, will suffer compared to many teams because of the expectations of the fans. We believe that we're a bigger team than we actually are, and this creates an ambition that the club struggles to match. This creates pressure on the management that inevitably ends with us sacking manager after manager. I only hope that we stick with Ramos (and he sticks with us) for a good few seasons. Setting targets like a top-four finish only creates more pressure. If we want to success, we should look at how Everton have treated Moyes. He hasn't had the money that Spurs managers have had, but he's been given time, even when results weren't there.

 

[lukespurs7]

People talk about us having the 5th best squad and I think we easily have. However, I'm not convinced our first team is particuarly better than a few other teams. If you look closely at the quality of the Blackburn first team for example, then they are about as good as us. The difference is we have a better squad, but their 1st team players between them played far more games than ours did last season, so in effect our larger squad didn't really give us an advantage, as they obviously had better luck with injuries etc. Basically our strength in depth is only advantageous over the likes of City, Everton, Blackburn and Pompey, if they have a lot of injuries and suspensions etc. If they don't then I think in terms of the best 11 players, we are closer to that group of teams than we are the top 4. Yet, due to our success in the 2005/6 season we seem to see ourselves as part of a big 5, rather than the chasing pack. Our strikers really do stand out, but other than that, I'd say are far more top 8, than top 4.

Fantastic point, well put, I tottally agree. Our squad strength is the 5th best BUT our 1st 11 isn't much different if at all. The likes of Fridel,Samba,Bentley,MGP and Santa Cruz at B-Burn, Richards,Dunne,Petrov,Elano at city Howard,Lescott,Neville,Arteta,Cahill,Yakubu,Johnson at Everton and so on are all top class 1st 11 players our team just doesn't stand out from that and espcially not our defence and to a certain extent not our midfield. Until we impove the qualilty of our 1st 11 not our SQUAD, then we'll stay in and around the top8 but no further.

 

[lukespurs7]

Now individually, the following players IMO aren't good enough.

Robinson-IMO not quite good enough, our players IMO MUST be at least as good as those 4/5 teams above if we are to try and break into the top4 and stay in the top6. I'd take Howard,Carson,Fridel,Hart and mabye James over Robbo i'm sorry to say.

Sorry but this one is crap. The only one there not to have made any more mistakes than robbo is friedel. Hart is young and we will see in time how he progresses so im not going to say much on him.

Dawson-He is young yes but lately he's really being found out, the likes of Dunne,Distin,Lescott,Samba,Laursen are all of a higher quality.

Daws is still young and needs to be guided by a more experienced, commanding CB to learn his trade. He will be a very good CB in a few years but we do need someone in with a more experienced head for now. No mention of Kaboul though who i think has had a more torrid time of it than Daws?

Lee.Y.P-He works hard and gets up and down quite well, but his lack of a left-foot put us off balance, and he's too small so we suffer from set-pieces. Again, he's up against Corluka,Neville,Bouma,Warnock ok he's similar but then theres Evra,A.Cole,Clichy and Riise lol!

Have you watched any of our games this season? Lee Y.P has been one of our most consistent performers and has done well this season. How many times have you seen us concede a goal this season from set peices because Lee has lost his man? Not many if not none.

Lennon-Yes he has pace but how often does he score? put in a decent delivery, or even get an assist? answer-not very! I may now be being negative but I really think the likes of Arteta,Bentley,Kranjcar,Young are all better players and offer more to a team.

Again Lennon is still learning and will be amazing in a few years. To say he is not good enough is absolute crap. We do need another option on the right though, someone that will give us a different dimention. I rate this boy very highly but sometimes think there is alot of pressure put on him which could have an adverse affect in the future.

Zokora and Jenas- Both IMO far too average, rarely shoot or do something creative or impressive, both just very average premierleague players. The likes of Barry,Muntari,Elano,Cahill are all far better,we NEED midfielders of AT LEAST this quality! never mind LAMPARD,ESSIEN,GERRARD,SCHOLES,FABREGAS ETC!

This is one area I agree with you on. Zoks and JJ are not bad players at all and do offer alot of qualities but this area of the field does need to be strengthened.

That leaves our strikers, who I DO RATE, VERY VERY HIGHLY. For they don't actually get that decent service but yet score week in week out! ALL of them! Berbatov may sometimes strop, Keane may complain too much, Defoe seem like he's not in the game and Bent seem a waste of money but the fact of the matter is they are ALL FANTASTIC WORLD CLASS!! STRIKERS and they are the reason we could go places and have done reasonably well over the past few seasons. Apart from them, the defence are fairly poor with the exception of Bale,Chimbonda and King who 2/3 are rarely fit. IMO Malbranque is our only half-decent midfielder and Lennon sometimes.

So Lennon is half decent but as per the thread title he isnt? Make your mind up. Berba and Keane I would say are pure quality and would get in alot of teams starting 11. Defoe and Bent are good strikers but I wouldnt say world class. I wouldnt want anyone of them to leave as we have a devestating strike force, the best in the league imo.

I wouldnt blame individuals who are not good enough on our poor start to the season. The last time I looked there was 11 players on a pitch that all have a role to do. It's a team game. We win as a team and lose as a team, end of. Yes we do need strengthening in certain areas of the field with certain types of players which I think we will see in the summer more than in the current window. Im happy as long as the guys we do have on the field play there hearts out and leave it all out on the pitch. Ramos has got the guys fitter and working more as a team, the most noticible problem is defending set pieces
but im fairly confident the coaching staff will have this sorted out soon.

Fair enough mate, some good and intresting points there, thankyou

 

[lukespurs7]

It's an argument that has raged for a while now. Do we have a fantastic squad with great players who are merely disorganised and/or badly coached, or do we have an average squad? I think the answer is somewhere in the middle.

We clearly have fantastic attacking players, but I think it's pretty obvious that defensively we're not good enough. It could be argued that if we'd had a settled back 4 for the whole season, we might not leak enough goals, but I suspect that at the end of the day, our defenders and goalkeeper simply aren't good enough. Robinson is a good shot-stopper, but terrible with crosses and set-pieces. King, Rocha and Bale are perpetually injured, Dawson hasn't made the progress fans expected, Kaboul is inexperienced and suffering from a woeful lack of confidence. Chimbonda is inconsistent, and Lee is average. And Stalteri is just crap. If we want to progress, we need to sort out the defence and sadly I don't think that hoping that King stays injury-free is the answer. We need new players. Once we have the new players the management needs to ensure that they remain fit, and that we have a consistent back 4 week in, week out. If we chop and change the back line every week then we're always going to be vulnerable.

In terms of the squad as a whole, it's less to do with quality and more to do with balance. We need to ensure that there is quality in every area of the pitch, rather than having fantastic attacking options and a crap defence. There are teams above us in the league with weaker squads but far better defences than ours. It should also be noted that our league position isn't just about us going backwards - it's also about other teams progressing. The likes of Man City, Everton, Portsmouth, Villa and Blackburn have all improved their squads and have received decent investment and (with the exception of Man City) have had a settled management team for some time. Spurs, like Newcastle, will suffer compared to many teams because of the expectations of the fans. We believe that we're a bigger team than we actually are, and this creates an ambition that the club struggles to match. This creates pressure on the management that inevitably ends with us sacking manager after manager. I only hope that we stick with Ramos (and he sticks with us) for a good few seasons. Setting targets like a top-four finish only creates more pressure. If we want to success, we should look at how Everton have treated Moyes. He hasn't had the money that Spurs managers have had, but he's been given time, even when results weren't there.

Yep again tottaly agree, really hope we keep Ramos for the long-term, great comparison to Newcastles situation and why the pressure of expectations has an adverse affect on us. Good to read and well-written.

Great contributions to this thread, i'm grad I wrote it even if i now realise i may have been a bit off with a few of my comments.

 

[easiman]

Can't be bothered to quote on individuals, but we do not play well as a team, top 8 is fair assessment.

 

[Damian99]

Is it me or are we only now starting to realise a fair few of our players are just not good enough-again!.Yes we shouldn't be where we are in the league(due to our poor start), BUT even if we'd had a decent start, I still don't think we are quite all that we make out to be, as a squad and as individuals.

Firstly, this season is one of the highest quality seasons for a long time, there are a good 8-10 who possess very strong squads. There are the top4 who i think we are still a fair bit away from and there are then:Everton,Man.City,Blackburn,A.Villa,Portsmoth,us.

I think that those5 teams all have a far better defense as units and probably individually. Blackburn,Man.city,Everton AND mabye Villa, ALL IMO have stronger more balanced and creative midfields main difference is we have 4 fantastic strikers who without we'd be in the bottom 3!!!

Now individually, the following players IMO aren't good enough.

Robinson-IMO not quite good enough, our players IMO MUST be at least as good as those 4/5 teams above if we are to try and break into the top4 and stay in the top6. I'd take Howard,Carson,Fridel,Hart and mabye James over Robbo i'm sorry to say.

Dawson-He is young yes but lately he's really being found out, the likes of Dunne,Distin,Lescott,Samba,Laursen are all of a higher quality.

Lee.Y.P-He works hard and gets up and down quite well, but his lack of a left-foot put us off balance, and he's too small so we suffer from set-pieces. Again, he's up against Corluka,Neville,Bouma,Warnock ok he's similar but then theres Evra,A.Cole,Clichy and Riise lol!

Lennon-Yes he has pace but how often does he score? put in a decent delivery, or even get an assist? answer-not very! I may now be being negative but I really think the likes of Arteta,Bentley,Kranjcar,Young are all better players and offer more to a team.

Zokora and Jenas- Both IMO far too average, rarely shoot or do something creative or impressive, both just very average premierleague players. The likes of Barry,Muntari,Elano,Cahill are all far better,we NEED midfielders of AT LEAST this quality! never mind LAMPARD,ESSIEN,GERRARD,SCHOLES,FABREGAS ETC!

That leaves our strikers, who I DO RATE, VERY VERY HIGHLY. For they don't actually get that decent service but yet score week in week out! ALL of them! Berbatov may sometimes strop, Keane may complain too much, Defoe seem like he's not in the game and Bent seem a waste of money but the fact of the matter is they are ALL FANTASTIC WORLD CLASS!! STRIKERS and they are the reason we could go places and have done reasonably well over the past few seasons. Apart from them, the defence are fairly poor with the exception of Bale,Chimbonda and King who 2/3 are rarely fit. IMO Malbranque is our only half-decent midfielder and Lennon sometimes.

SO yea we'll see how things go, we still have a decent squad with alot of young potentiol which is very pleasing, but as a team and individuals i just can't help but feel we lack the quality players to get where we want to be because if i'm finding it hard comparing us to the teams who are 5th-9th in some areas, fuck knows how we'll challange the top4!

Anyway Ramos and Poyet are quality and IF we finally give a manager time and more importantly,not just money but some fucking lenience to mabye break the wage and or age structure, we may just go big places, if not i feel we'll continue to bring in players who are decent but not of the level we need!

views?

Are you the same dude who last week posted how brilliant we were and that ALL our players(player for player) were better than anyone elses in the prem??

Just curious :shrug:

http://www.spurscommunity.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=24382

Well i was almost right i suppose

 

[jimmy-jojo]

Can't be bothered to quote on individuals, but we do not play well as a team, top 8 is fair assessment.

Can't agree.

We play very well as a team. Our problem is pretty much purely set-pieces. In open play we defend pretty well and control possession.

The optiistic thing is that defending at set-pieces should be one of the easier things to fix...

 

[Defsta]

Daws hasn't been as good as he used to be when he was partnering King in our back end, though he's still young with lot of potential but he needs right player to partner him.

 

[van_Pommel]

I think in the light of alot of individual performances this season alot of our players are not as good as we thought. Some still have the potential and some are lost causes. The hardest to swallow of these are Dawson and Kaboul. If we manage to get in a couple of more experienced CB's, I think both could do with a loan or a spell in the reserves to build up some confidence.

Personally I rate Villa, Blackburn and City's 1st teams as better than ours. The squad debate is a tricky one but I know I'd rather have a small squad with a top quality starting 11, than a larger squad of less overall quality.

 

[paxtonyiddo]

As a squad I think we are able to challenge the top 4 but teams like villa,portsmouth and man city have strenghtened durin the summer makin it that bit harder for us. we need to replace quality for quality and the likes of o'hara, taarabt can only be a good thing. we need quality players on the sidelines who are abloe to do a job if one of our starting XI are out. Now up front i believe we have that in bent and defoe. cerny in goal is a good enough back-up.

in defence however we suffer. our midfield should also be strong when u look at our players.

i believe that if ramos brings in a centre back and LM (When o when??!!) we will build some consistency to push us on.