The Daily ITK Discussion Thread - POST MORTEM EDITION

[Mikegold]

I really don't get why people don't think we'll get top 6? Most people will see City, Utd and Chelsea for top 3. Then the rest would be Arsenal, Us, Liverpool, Newcastle and Everton?

Liverpool are SHIT so taking them out, 7th is the lowest we'll finish and that is if Everton decide to have their highest finish since that 4th finish, AND the fact Newcastle will be worse this year with Europa AND the fact Arsenal lost their best player ever ever ever more than a 1 man team. I would say they've had a worse window than us.

So Arsenal have gotten worse than us, Newcastle have Europa to contend with, Liverpool won't be there, and Everton, well tbh I'm more worried about Everton than the rest (Except Arsenal will always do well), so top 3 sorted, with Us Arse and Everton. We'll finish 4th.

 

[Stavrogin]

And despite my mini rant I agree fully with this. I don't agree with booing your own team, and will support Spurs as much as I always do. I'm just not expecting much to cheer this season.

C'mon now, big guy - if the team starts to play well there's every chance we can finish fourth...

Are you saying we're not going to play well at some point? Do you think we'll always be sapped of confidence? Do you think Dembele, Adebayor, Dawson, Huddlestone, Caulker, Dempsey, Lloris and Parker won't get the opportunity to come into the side and maybe change/improve things?

These three games were aberrant-ly bad - just like all teams have bad games/runs - Of course, there's a slim chance they weren't an aberration, and if that's the case then AVB will be gone before christmas and some new manager will get to play superhero and propel us up the table.

It's inconceivable that the dross we've endured in these first few games will continue. Inconceivable... I, we, me and you, cannot conceive of it. So look forward to the bounce, you little gym-bunny.

 

[JD82]

Can someone point me to what JJ has said that doesn't sound good ?

The original JJetset‏@jetsetyid
2. I promised a round up and now i have all the facts i wont be posting them for many reasons. Sorry but its too sensitive information

The original JJetset‏@jetsetyid
stuff you wouldnt believe and especially not for twitter. Not sure whether i will be returning to twitter or not?

Then this response, which is the one that worries me slightly...

alongoldberg‏@alongoldberg
@jetsetyid bloody hell, that doesn't sound like it bodes well for the future...

The original JJetset‏@jetsetyid
@alongoldberg Farcical mate

 

[Bus-Conductor]

In the search button to the top left of your screen type in his username, click on the result and you'll see his posts.

I've had a look back through his posts in here and I can't see what everyone is getting worried about. Was it the remark about stat watchers for coach's and Freund ?

 

[Spurger King]

I don't get people putting so much emphasis on Moutinho, a guy who might have flopped in the PL. I understand it's less than ideal, but to say we'll finish 7th - 10th (not in the top 6) but with him we'd be 4th, is silly. Modric got injured for half the season the one time we did get CL, so if we could get there without a creative player for half the season, why can't we get there until Jan and buy someone? Also Dembele is a closer fit to Modric than Huddlestone when he replaced him.

I didn't say we'd be 4th with him. I'd say we'd have a better chance of it, which I think is true. The main reason is the simple fact that AVB wanted him in order to have a player at the heart of the team who knew all about AVB's way of playing, and as such could get across AVB's ideas better than any other player at the club.

Instead it's put AVB and the team on the back-foot. He's going to have a much tougher job of getting the team playing his way without Moutinho to speed up the process, and will struggle to play the formation he would prefer to with the players at his disposal.

For the record I'm not entirely without hope. I think Verts, Lloris, Dembele and Dempsey are excellent signings, and if AVB can find a way of gelling the players together they're certainly capable of playing well and getting some good results. I just think that as things stand we're far more likely to finish outside the top 6 this season.

 

[Makkaveli101]

I think it's the twitter comments above your post above mate. Sounds bad. Please someone take me back to 2010 when we'd just thrashed the European champions at WHL.

 

[Hoopspur]

From what I've cobbled together from various sources and rags, this is the most intelligible I can get it.

1) Porto finally accepted a lower than 30m bid for Mouts. Approx 22m + add ons.
2) Mouts rejected personal terms.
3) AVB had a word and Mouts accepted.
4) Porto then came back and said they wanted more.
5) We got them to agree 24m + add ons but this was late in the day.
6) The paperwork they sent through was full of mistakes.
7) Even though both transfer fee and wages were agreed, the paperwork wasn't good enough.
8) We asked for an extension. Couldn't get it as FIFA 'catch all' deadline is 12pm.
9) No Mouts.

From a reasonable source (well a lot closer than I) at the match suggested that Mouts wanted a percentage from shirt sales with his name on the back. We were never going to agree to that. Does this come under point 2?

The whole point in any of this is that why did we try and start and conclude a deal of this magnitude on the last bloody day of the window?

 

[etchedchaos]

The thing that bugs me about the Levy Out talk is that there's talk of incompetence and all that. Wait a minute? What the fuck is incompetent about our transfer window? We missed out on Moutinho and Llorente, Moutinho was always a tough buy, even if Porto weren't going to play silly buggers and Llorente was a pipedream.

It almost seems to me that it doesn't matter who we buy but if Levy misses out on even one target it's a failure. If we had signed Moutinho early and failed on Llorente or someone of his ilk, they'd still be on Levy's back. This window was not a failure, we missed out on one player we needed and even then we had a backup plan signed anyway, just as a precaution.

We had alot of pressing needs that needed addressing, they almost all got covered, we could've done better, Moutinho would've been great but every ITK worth a damn told us it was a tough buy. The only time a decent ITK gave us hope was when JJ all but told us he was signed and then everyone lost their minds when it fell through. But if you had stepped back and looked at all the info we'd been fed, it wasn't even a 50/50 chance of him signing at all.

The players we did sign are all top quality players, players who will do well for us and have strengthened our squad as a whole. Hell if you told me we would just Lloris on deadline day I would've been happy, we needed a GK badly, Friedel can do a job but he's 41. There are few in the world we could've signed who are better than Lloris. He's still young and god willing he'll be ours for the next decade.

 

[jackson]

I've had a look back through his posts in here and I can't see what everyone is getting worried about. Was it the remark about stat watchers for coach's and Freund ?

Sorry perhaps I was being OTT, but when I read his comments (below) earlier it just deflated me - having been optimistic about AVB and going forward. To me it sounds like he's suggesting that AVB and his coaches with the exception of Freund haven't got a clue, which if is the case doesn't bode well at this early stage...

JJ:
"Yes i can.
I expect the players you mentioned plus JJ to go on loan to champ clubs and not sure where Tom is going but he simply cannot run, he is so out of shape(a joke in training) i cant believe he was on the bench let alone brought on and look what happened. Piss poor effort all round and the coaches are responsible !!He needs to play, he didnt play all last week then he gets put in the squad and brought on! you couldn't make this sh*t up."

& with regards to who the coaches are:

"computer geeks and Freund etc !! sorry statisticians...."

Plus the twitter stuff.

 

[TaoistMonkey]

From what I've cobbled together from various sources and rags, this is the most intelligible I can get it.

1) Porto finally accepted a lower than 30m bid for Mouts. Approx 22m + add ons.
2) Mouts rejected personal terms.
3) AVB had a word and Mouts accepted.
4) Porto then came back and said they wanted more.
5) We got them to agree 24m + add ons but this was late in the day.
6) The paperwork they sent through was full of mistakes.
7) Even though both transfer fee and wages were agreed, the paperwork wasn't good enough.
8) We asked for an extension. Couldn't get it as FIFA 'catch all' deadline is 12pm.
9) No Mouts.

Porto sent?? Do you think they were stitching us up?

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Sorry perhaps I was being OTT, but when I read his comments (below) earlier it just deflated me - having been optimistic about AVB and going forward. To me it sounds like he's suggesting that AVB and his coaches with the exception of Freund haven't got a clue, which if is the case doesn't bode well at this early stage...

JJ:
"Yes i can.
I expect the players you mentioned plus JJ to go on loan to champ clubs and not sure where Tom is going but he simply cannot run, he is so out of shape(a joke in training) i cant believe he was on the bench let alone brought on and look what happened. Piss poor effort all round and the coaches are responsible !!He needs to play, he didnt play all last week then he gets put in the squad and brought on! you couldn't make this sh*t up."

& with regards to who the coaches are:

"computer geeks and Freund etc !! sorry statisticians...."

Plus the twitter stuff.

Ok Cheers.

I think that's just the standard modus operandi for Huddlestone, it's just to someone like Redknapp or Jol he was "just a big lad".

I think the computer geeks thing is just perhaps a more modern approach is being taken. Compared to Redknapp's methods I would imagine a stop watch would be technologically advanced.

 

[SandroClegane]

honestly think that this international break's the best thing that could happen to this team right now. I wish we could pull our new signings out of those games (I'm sure Lloris, Dempsey, and Dembele will all be selected) but even if we don't it should allow us to at least have them train with the club for a bit and get to know the other players.

 

[ExpatFan]

I'd actually imagined that scenario after we failed to sign him. I think I was trying to convince myself that not signing him was not too bad if I were to pretend that he'd sign in January and that he was simply out injured for 4 months. Then I realised I probably need help!

For me it was always more than just what Moutinho would offer on the pitch (which would be considerable). It would have been a real statement of intent that would have lifted the players and fans - even if he were to suffer a lengthy injury after joining. It would also have given AVB the assurance that his chairman would make sure his number one target was delivered.

Instead I can imagine that the mood in the club, from AVB down to the players, is dejected and with a feeling of trying to make the most of things. In short I think everyone needed that Moutinho signing to keep the positivity and sense of progression flowing.[/quote]

Not for the first time today, agree with every word!

 

[Stoof]

The whole point in any of this is that why did we try and start and conclude a deal of this magnitude on the last bloody day of the window?

From what makes the most sense, I would have thought it was the first day that Porto were actually willing to cut their losses on the 30m asking price on a potentially unhappy player.

I expect DL couldn't actually believe that a bid was actually accepted; which, I suppose, it ultimately wasn't. And we'd been courting them for a while; sweetening them on the idea. It's not as if the name was out of the blue.

 

[Spurger King]

It almost seems to me that it doesn't matter who we buy but if Levy misses out on even one target it's a failure.

I think the fact that we sold VDV and Modric without adequately replacing them is the key issue really.

 

[Misfit]

Sorry perhaps I was being OTT, but when I read his comments (below) earlier it just deflated me - having been optimistic about AVB and going forward. To me it sounds like he's suggesting that AVB and his coaches with the exception of Freund haven't got a clue, which if is the case doesn't bode well at this early stage...

JJ:
"Yes i can.
I expect the players you mentioned plus JJ to go on loan to champ clubs and not sure where Tom is going but he simply cannot run, he is so out of shape(a joke in training) i cant believe he was on the bench let alone brought on and look what happened. Piss poor effort all round and the coaches are responsible !!He needs to play, he didnt play all last week then he gets put in the squad and brought on! you couldn't make this sh*t up."

& with regards to who the coaches are:

"computer geeks and Freund etc !! sorry statisticians...."

Plus the twitter stuff.

Well with the greatest respect for JJ as an ITK, what exactly does he know about professional football coaching/management that should make a passing comment of his worry you so? Any more than another Spurs fan would anyway?

 

[etchedchaos]

I think the fact that we sold VDV and Modric without adequately replacing them is the key issue really.

We were never going to easily replace Modric, but we were never going to keep him. As for VDV, I thought Sig and Dempsey would take his role and if we had Joao, Dembele could too. He was replaced.

 

[WoodGreenSpur]

Who bought which player? If we knew this it would help.

Over the weekend reports saying Uncle Joe bought in Verts and Loris. Is this why Verts was dropped for the first game and the amazing comments by AVB about Loris?

Who signed/sanctioned Sig?

Finally, I get the impression that Dempsey was an AVB signing, from the comments he made. As for Demdele that's a no brainer, quality player anybody would buy him. We've been after him for 18 months.

 

[Hoopspur]

From what makes the most sense, I would have thought it was the first day that Porto were actually willing to cut their losses on the 30m asking price on a potentially unhappy player.

I expect DL couldn't actually believe that a bid was actually accepted; which, I suppose, it ultimately wasn't. And we'd been courting them for a while; sweetening them on the idea. It's not as if the name was out of the blue.

I accept that and I told one of my boys to watch Moutinho at the Euros because there were rumours even then that we were interested. I just cannot believe if there was even the slightist chance of a major deal being done on the last day for anything over the smallest amount that paperwork would not be at least prepared.

I'd suggest that if this were indeed the case then business negligence could be levied (excuse the crap pun) at the club? In the small business I run, if I am to make a purchase, and especially of a large size, I am aware of the consequences of any deal before I take it on. And especially if I had 3 months in order to analyse it and decide whether I was to go ahead with it or not.

Edit - *I understand we didn't ultimately take it on/conclude it, but the thought process remains the same.

 

[Stoof]

Porto sent?? Do you think they were stitching us up?

Yeah, that was the bit from Duncan Castles. Paperwork they sent through still had lots of errors in it.

I have no idea what paperwork, but he made it sound like there wasn't enough time to correct it all.

See, if Spurs had hired me ... well, I'm not gonna lie but we'd all be looking forward to Moutinho starting our next game.

(That's a joke, btw, I expect Spurs' GC is more than capable of marking up a document under pressure ...)