Mid Table Club

[lillywhites61]

I think it's safe to say we are no longer a mid table club. We are certainly not punching above our weight. We are playing great football a lot of the time with a very useful squad of players, I believe we will go out and buy more and build further this year and try and cement the top four again. We are signing winners and this mentality of ours is more with the fans of other teams than of our players now I think.

That is why I think the like of AVB will be good because he will come in and say you can win and we expect you to do so. Rather than we should be happy to be where we are.

I'm very optimistic now and hope everyone gets on board with this philosophy that we seem to be trying to put together cause it may make a lot of people eat their words over the next few years

 

[myhartlane]

Totally agree, it annoys me that Redknapp and his friends in the press seem to think that he invented Tottenham Hotspur.

 

[SpurSince57]

Considering the gross lack of appreciation he had from some of our more delusional fans, I'd say he was entitled to a little exaggeration. If his successor, whoever he is, can sustain us in fourth he'll be doing well.

 

[guiltyparty]

Considering the gross lack of appreciation he had from some of our more delusional fans, I'd say he was entitled to a little exaggeration. If his successor, whoever he is, can sustain us in fourth he'll be doing well.

Can you not appreciate what he did and dislike him as a bloke?

It's a weird time to be a Spurs fan

 

[Wheeler Dealer]

Why is anyone surprised. We have successfully managed to assemble a top 3 squad and if only we had a manager with top 3 qualities, we would be looking to build a team for the title this year, but instead are taliking about a manager who everyone feels has been a victim and the end is nigh!

Keep the bulk of this squad and get a top 3 manager and this year could and should be rather enjoyable.

 

[camaj]

I think there's a perception that we're a mid-table club because of our failures in the 90's. However even if we agree that we finished in mid-table for 10 years that doesn't mean we're a mid-table club any more than ManC are european giants. We're a top club that finished in mid-table, and that's a big distinction. Fans have known for years that we've been underachieving but critics tell us that we're arrogant for saying that and we think we're better than we are. Recently we've been achieving near our level, perhaps still underachieving, but those same people now think we're overachieving. Part of me thinks they're a bunch of wankers but I can see why they might think that, as long as they don't think about it very hard.

We're not a mid-table club
We've been underachieving for years
We underachieved under redknapp, not overachieved as people claim.

 

[class of 62]

if you look at it from an outside perspective on the pitch we are seen as a mid table club that pops up & wins something from time & its the same outside perspective that looks in & see's redknapp in a diiferent light from spurs fans, talk to fans from other clubs & they think he's a fucking genuis & levy's lost the plot!!.
support wise we've always been up there with anyone up until this new wave of tossers who've got to the lane.. but on the pitch in my 45 years of following spurs we've always been "midtable" bar a few exceptional seasons.

the problem now is 4th is judged as success.. bollocks in my book, forget about playing the "tottenham way".. winning things is what we need to do wether the league cup or ecl!! win anything ffs... that when you cease to become "midtable"

being honest & it hurts me as much as any spurs fan but the truth hurts.

 

[AngerManagement]

I wouldn't get mad with you, I would say that is pretty much just as false as saying we are the greatest club in the World because we were the first team to do the double - how far back do you go. Our currect status is a top 6 team pushing for a CL spot, and that is very much emphatically not midtable.
Not so long ago Liverpool dominated English football and Nottingham Forest were one of their challengers - does that mean Liverpool, who have finsihed below us for the last 3 seasons, have a higher status that Citeh at present (I mean, Citeh only finished in the top 5 three years ago, and not long ago were in the third flight of English football)? And are Forest above ArseScum in the reckoning?
Of course they aren't.

Didn't Preston do it before us technically?

 

[dontcallme]

It does annoy me when HR goes on about 2 points from 8 games. He inherited a team with King, Woodgate, Bale, Modric, Lennon and other good players. Points-wise he might have done a really good job but he shouldn't imply he'd taken over a team of no-hopers.

We've been on a gradual incline over the last 6 seasons or so. Had one or two dips but they were temporary and the squad as a whole was improving.

HR deserves credit for the results he got but the ideas of him making us a big club is off the mark.

 

[Rout-Ledge]

I have read a lot of outlandish bollocks in the tabloids. Poor old Harry wanted Tevez but had to make do with Saha. Basically nobody has been able to fucking afford Tevez. That's why he's still at Man City.

Here's the kind of shit I'm talking about...

"Daniel Levy must have missed it when the Premier League published an all-time table as part of their 20th anniversary celebrations this year – because Tottenham were sixth.
That’s right, Premier League history tells us Spurs are the sixth best club in the top flight – behind both Liverpool and Aston Villa.
And yet chairman Levy has sacked the man who saved Spurs from the threat of relegation and then finished better than sixth on three successive occasions – fourth, fifth and fourth."

So presumably by that logic City should be happy with top half

 

[eddiebailey]

Our record in recent years is about on a par with Everton's. Thanks to BMJ and Harry we may have established ourselves in the chasing pack but we are certainly not alpha dogs.

 

[Blockbuster]

Think it's well highlighted we have been great since 2005/6 season..but before that we were a midtable side.

Unless you are like 12 years old you will remember us being bloody awful.

We've been rubbish and midtable since The Premier League started until 2005/6.

Talking about the last 7 years as if that's all that matters is like saying Chelsea only became a club in 2004. It doesn't really work like that.

 

[tototoner]

If you looked up Mid Table team in the dictionary the description would be Tottenham Hotspur

Yes we have have a good last 3 seasons under Harry but since being promoted to the top division in 1978 we have only finished in the Top 3 three times ( 85, 87 and 90 ) and in those 34 seasons since we got promoted in 1978 our average final league position has been 7.94

Ask any other fan in the country - Name a mid table Premiership club ? - they will probably say Tottenham

Any fan who thinks we aren't have delusions of grandeur

BTW this is our league finishing positions since 78-79 so we have always had a decent spell through the years but never built on it

I hope it is different this time, but I am not convinced and even less so now the manager that has taken us to 3 Top 5 finishes in a row for the 1st time in 48 years has gone.

78-79 11
79-80 14
80-81 10
81-82 4
82-83 4
83-84 8
84-85 3
85-86 10
86-87 3
87-88 13
88-89 6
89-90 3
90-91 10
92-92 15
92-93 8
93-94 15
94-95 7
95-96 8
96-97 10
97-98 14
98-99 11
99-00 10
00-01 12
01-02 9
02-03 10
03-04 14
04-05 9
05-06 5
06-07 5
07-08 11
08-09 8
09-10 4
10-11 5
11-12 4

 

[tototoner]

Think it's well highlighted we have been great since 2005/6 season..but before that we were a midtable side.

Unless you are like 12 years old you will remember us being bloody awful.

We've been rubbish and midtable since The Premier League started until 2005/6.

Talking about the last 7 years as if that's all that matters is like saying Chelsea only became a club in 2004. It doesn't really work like that.

spot on , i would go further and say we still are as we finished 11th in 2007/8 and 8th in 2008/9

I sometimes think we've got a lot of new Johnny Come Lately fans due to our 1 CL venture - Playstation or Football Manager fans

 

[jonathanhotspur]

So presumably by that logic City should be happy with top half

Exactly. However, Villa were well within their rights to sack Big Eck.

 

[eddiebailey]

So presumably by that logic City should be happy with top half

I think you are confusing City with a football club. Before they became the toy of an Arab sheik top half was the very limit of their aspirations.

 

[SpurSince57]

I think there's a perception that we're a mid-table club because of our failures in the 90's. However even if we agree that we finished in mid-table for 10 years that doesn't mean we're a mid-table club any more than ManC are european giants. We're a top club that finished in mid-table, and that's a big distinction. Fans have known for years that we've been underachieving but critics tell us that we're arrogant for saying that and we think we're better than we are. Recently we've been achieving near our level, perhaps still underachieving, but those same people now think we're overachieving. Part of me thinks they're a bunch of wankers but I can see why they might think that, as long as they don't think about it very hard.

We're not a mid-table club
We've been underachieving for years
We underachieved under redknapp, not overachieved as people claim.

Even if we agree?

11th, 15th, 8th, 15th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 14th, 11th, 10th, 12th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 9th

That's actually fifteen years, and I don't see too much to disagree about there. If we finished in mid-table, we were mid-table. Even in the 80s we were mid-table half the time, and as for the 70s, after 1972 it's best we draw a discreet veil over the whole bang shoot. The one decade in our entire history in which we've spent most of our time in the top six is the 60s. Our average PPG in the EPL is 1.41, in the top flight—virtually entirely since 1950—1.45, and in the old Division 1 1.47. Over a 38-game season, those figures equate to 54 points, 55 points and 56 points. Comment seems superfluous.

Average PPGs for the last three seasons have been 1.84, 1.63 and 1.82; Redknapp's average PPG is 1.74. According to you, though, he underachieved.

Excuse me. I've got to go and fall about laughing.

 

[SpurSince57]

Can you not appreciate what he did and dislike him as a bloke?

It's a weird time to be a Spurs fan

Yes, but that seems to be entirely beyond some people. Mind you, they probably also struggle to zip their flies without taking off their trousers first.

 

[guiltyparty]

Yes, but that seems to be entirely beyond some people. Mind you, they probably also struggle to zip their flies without taking off their trousers first.

Ha, yeah

I have really mixed feelings about it all. I've never liked Harry as a bloke and as an employer I can understand why you'd be thinking off pulling the trigger for some of the ridiculous things he says in public, but the stats don't lie. 4th-5th-4th on our budget is a fantastic achievement, whichever agenda people want to bring to the table. His performance definitely kept him in the job longer than many had anticipated, arguably including Levy. But I'm also strangely numb to it all because, as I say, I can't stick him as a bloke, and will not miss the headlines generated by him giving three interviews a day, even in the close season, about things he should keep his own counsel on.

There's always a thin line between love and hate, but would I prefer a successful manager I hated or an unsuccessful one I loved? The former, of course. And that was Redknapp. The last three seasons have been the best since I started supporting Spurs, undoubtedly, in terms of the standard of football and the expectation, for once not unrealistic.

That said, I'm not hot on Moyes as our manager, but seeing him on the Beeb under questioning from Lineker, he was fantastic - everything you want from a manager, grounded, focused on the club, gives off the impression of a really close relationship with the chairman, that he wants the best for them. You never, ever got that with Harry. People say he's old school, but I'd argue that while he may be in some ways (tactically, for example, as many say), he's actually very modern in approach - he's like a player, constantly basking in the attention that comes with the Premier League, believing his own hype, massaging his own ego and always checking his bank balance. He kind of sums up everything that is making me fall out of love with football. And he was the manager of our team. It's a tricky dichotomy.

As someone wrote recently, if only he'd gone to England and then everyone would have left this arrangement in the right spirit, shaken hands and no hard feelings. That said, I don't think it's necessarily a catastrophe depending on who we get in as we're a well run club on the up, with lots of great players on long contracts and lots of reason to be optimistic.

So strangely for such a huge event in the recent history of our club, I feel almost entirely indifferent. Which is weird

 

[1966yid]

I keep reading this bollocks everywhere, how we are a mid table club punching above our weight, as if by some miracle we somehow made it to 3 top 5 finishes in the last 3 years. Its funny because if you look at the last 6 season it does show we have done well

05/06: finished 5th. Robbed of 4th due to Mendes goal and Lasagne Gate
06/07: finished 5th. Unlucky to not beat Chelsea in QF of FA cup and lost to Arsenal in SF of carling cup
07/08: finished 11th. Won Carling Cup and beat arsenal 5-1
08/09: finished 8th. Lost Carling Cup final on pens and iirc Harry didn't want 7th so we can concentrate on top 4
09/10: finished 4th. Lost to Portsmouth in Semi's
10/11: finished 5th. QF's of CL and beat Inter and AC Milan
11/12: finished 4th. Lost to Chelsea in SF of FA cup

TBH the last seven years have been great and in our worst season we got rid of 11 players from the first team and didn't replace our best strike force for years. The one 11th place everyone is quoting as proof of our mid table status we won the Carling Cup and beat le arse 5-1 for the first time in god knows how many years.

Our squad has got progressively better each year since we finished 5th in 2006 and to those who say Levy is happy with us being a mid table club is crazy. I wished Harry did stay and thank him for the last 3 years but I firmly believe, had Harry not changed his agent to Paul Stretford he would still be our manager!(which makes you wonder why he didn't change it in prep for the England job?)

Who knows maybe in 7 years time we may become a top half team

It should also be noted that on the only 2 occasions in the past 7 seasons when we finished outside of the top 5 we changed our Manager part of the way through the season!