The 5-Year Plan

[JCRD]

We had a five year plan, Poch reached the end of that five year cycle and it needed another five year plan (although essentially five year plans tend to be revised accordingly. Poch said we needed new furniture but we didnt back him.

Levy clearly thought Jose could do more with the current squad and its more cost efficient to pay someone 15m a year to get what you thought would be more out of the squad but essentially that failed.

 

[rossdapep]

Not another project for the love of God.

Just let José clear out the deadwood and get us a decent squad. It's took us a over a year to get ndombele and lo celso playing together (and I expect to get stoned for saying this) we are close to getting the first 11 sorted. We just need to overhaul our squad players.

I honestly think we are just around the corner from having a team that can challenge. But if we sell Kane, son and lloris, we start a new project and another transition and I can't take it anymore.

No more fucking transitions, no more 5 year plans, just start challenging and sell the turgid players that have been clogging up our squad for years.

Take a loss on some players levy. If we bring in another manager we are going to see Toby, winks, dier, Dele and sissoko stinking out the place again. It's going to be painful but just give Jose one more year.

Did you read my full post or just the headline?

I am not suggesting a five-year plan - the opposite in fact. I specifically stated it's not necessary.

 

[-Afri-Coy-]

We need to start with both recruitment and integration from the academy. For every Sissoko there is a Maddison for the same price. For every Doherty there is a Robertson. You all know how this goes. I understand that we can’t have 100% success, but we need to start increasing our chances somehow.

Stick to younger, potential players. We seem to do our best business in this category, we need to stop chasing older players. Sell when stock is high, strategically.

Actively go out and sign the next big thing. Eze should be killing it for us right now. So should Grealish. It’s not fantasy football when we were actually linked with these players. Shit happens, I know. But it needs to happen a lot less and we need to close these deals. Fuck what Poch/Jose/The next manager thinks. Get these kinds of players in.

Identify the young players in our academy like Devine, Tanganga, White and Scarlett who we know have something special and actually give them game time. No more stop gap signings like Vinicius and Gedson. Let the younger players have at it. It’s the only way they’ll develop, think prime Barcelona and La Masia.

Keep all the players that compliment our strong core but get rid of the deadwood ruthlessly. No more freeloaders. That list is probably 8-9 players long at the moment. That’s how ruthless we need to be. It’s the only way to truly move forward. We need a true rebuild.

There’s so much we could do that wouldn’t cost a thing but take a ton of balls to do. Gutting a squad that challenged for CL and PL titles was never going to be easy. But if we do it properly we could reach those heights and so much more once again.

 

[slartibartfast]

 

[Goobers]

If the playing staff and team thereof needs a reboot then surely points away from Mourinho. If it needs tweaking and key employment in certain areas for success then maybe. But honestly the way I am feeling now - god knows ...
Some people have said to me it doesn't feel like when Sherwood was in charge but for me it doesn't feel far off. Perhaps more the like the end of AVB but doesn't feel like the team and club we have got to know for much of the last few years.

 

[SecretLemonadeDrinker]

Not another project for the love of God.

Just let José clear out the deadwood and get us a decent squad. It's took us a over a year to get ndombele and lo celso playing together (and I expect to get stoned for saying this) we are close to getting the first 11 sorted. We just need to overhaul our squad players.

I honestly think we are just around the corner from having a team that can challenge. But if we sell Kane, son and lloris, we start a new project and another transition and I can't take it anymore.

No more fucking transitions, no more 5 year plans, just start challenging and sell the turgid players that have been clogging up our squad for years.

Take a loss on some players levy. If we bring in another manager we are going to see Toby, winks, dier, Dele and sissoko stinking out the place again. It's going to be painful but just give Jose one more year.

No more Jose, thanks.

 

[GutBucket]

Next plan should include getting rid of deadwood, utilizing young HG talent (Skipp, Sess, Tanganga, later the likes of Devine, Scarlett, Parrott) and competing for top 4 to get CL and money to pay off stadium. Then hopefully ENIC sell the club to someone ambitious who will care about results more than profits (and who's not a slaver). Also hire only managers with modern attacking football and try to create a positive brand like B. Dortmund for example.

 

[shelfboy68]

No more Jose, thanks.

Maybe we should get you to takeover as manager or DOF take your pick, see if you can bring success at last

 

[HodisGawd]

hopefully ENIC sell the club to someone ambitious who will care about results more than profits (and who's not a slaver)

This is just pure delusion.

 

[GutBucket]

This is just pure delusion.

No it's not. Delusion would imply that it's impossible and that there are not clubs like that. It's not likely but not delusional.

 

[HodisGawd]

No it's not. Delusion would imply that it's impossible and that there are not clubs like that. It's not likely but not delusional.

Who exactly do you envisage coming in and taking over and also not being - as you put it - a slaver?

 

[GutBucket]

Who exactly do you envisage coming in and taking over and also not being - as you put it - a slaver?

I don't know, world will change a lot when ENIC sell the club. What if Ballmer decides to buy a club in England? Or Buss family. Or any successful club owner in other sports. One of Villa's owners is doing a good job in NBA and spends basically whatever they can under FFP and second one is relatively unknown.

 

[dirtyh]

this a dieting thread?

we all know we don't make any plans whatsoever.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

Sissoko, Nkodou, Janssen and Wanyama did not represent the ambition of a club looking to go one better than the year before

Good post, but did you mean to include Wanyama in that list or was it a typo?

Wanyama may not have been a 'marquee signing', but he was only 24 when we signed him and during his first year with us he was one of the best CDMs in world football. The severity of his knee injury the following season was bad luck and nothing to do with a lack of ambition from the club. If it wasn't for that injury, at £11m he'd likely be considered one of the best bargains in PL history.

He was very much a key factor in us finishing 2nd in the PL (i.e. one better than the year before!), accumulating a club record points tally (86 - 16 more than the previous season), and conceded the fewest goals of any team in Europe's top 5 leagues. I think it's fair to give him and his defensive contributions credit for us also scoring the most goals in the PL that season, as he freed up our fullbacks and attacking players.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

This keeps coming up in spite of the fact that that "back of house restructuring" was done last summer. The football man on the board was subsequently headhunted by the EFL, which is a spanner in the works, but the will is clearly there.

Who was that?

 

[Neon_Knight_]

Yet, somehow, we got there without "massive investment", whatever that means.

It means our worsening results on the pitch didn't result in us "doing a Leeds"

 

[Neon_Knight_]

Exactly. In hindsight, I think the club probably started deviating too much from a sense of self during Pochettino as a result of success. Rather than stopping along the way to look at what made it work and to preserve that, there was a reckless sense of having arrived at a form of Nirvana and that was allowed to cloud judgement. The upside is that the Pochettino years are still so fresh that one would be able to look at that and reassemble the best pieces and arrive at a new Tottenham way.

Wasn't Poch the best piece though?

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

It means our worsening results on the pitch didn't result in us "doing a Leeds"

Being careful what we wish for has come up trumps hasn't it

 

[BringBack_leGin]

Year 1: sack Jose, bring in Redknapp, burn the stadium and training ground down and rebuild from scratch to ensure his stench has cleared, rent out Barnet Copthall Atletico track as Saracens will do anything for money. We finish 8th and win nothing

Year 2: move back home sell Kane to Madrid, buy 10 players with £15m each in hope that one or two turn out to be the new messiah, make Dele captain. We finish 6th and get to the league cup final. Charles beat us.

Year 3: Dane Scarlett breaks into the side, scores buckets as we challenge for top 4. Miss out on the final day to Arsenal by a point having led the whole way but losing the last three matches to Newcastle, West Ham and Leicester. Scarlett signs 6 year deal.

Year 4: sack Redknapp, hire Parker. Parker has us in 15th at Christmas, gets sacked and is replaced with Graham Potter, who won last years FA cup with Everton. He gets us up to 7th but wins the Europa league after a favourable draw to the final before an against the odds win v PSG (who finished third in their champions mate group), still managed by Pochettino, with much help from VAR and dodgy handball rules.

Year 5: Graham Potter is poached by Man Utd to replace Mourinho, who returned after Solskjaer was sacked during an investigation into allegations of child cruelty. We, now back in the champions league, rehire Pochettino after his own sacking by a PSG for failing to win anything in Europe and making Neymar cry. Kane, now 32 and a serial la liga and champions league winner, also returns, but now as a deep lying playmaker. Gareth Bale comes in as director of football.

 

[rossdapep]

Good post, but did you mean to include Wanyama in that list or was it a typo?

Wanyama may not have been a 'marquee signing', but he was only 24 when we signed him and during his first year with us he was one of the best CDMs in world football. The severity of his knee injury the following season was bad luck and nothing to do with a lack of ambition from the club. If it wasn't for that injury, at £11m he'd likely be considered one of the best bargains in PL history.

He was very much a key factor in us finishing 2nd in the PL (i.e. one better than the year before!), accumulating a club record points tally (86 - 16 more than the previous season), and conceded the fewest goals of any team in Europe's top 5 leagues. I think it's fair to give him and his defensive contributions credit for us also scoring the most goals in the PL that season, as he freed up our fullbacks and attacking players.

Thanks and I agree with everything you said about Wanyama, I just meant as a collection of signings, that's all we did.

Wanyama was a solid signing and we definitely missed him the years after but imagine if that collection of players had read Salah/Zaha, Wanyama, Batshuayi (who we wanted at the time) & Wijnaldum. It would have looked like ambition.

And let's face it, if Wanyama's contract hadn't been running low, we wouldn't have moved for him as we wouldn't have spent 30m on a defensive mid.