The Guardian's pre-season assessment

[spursram]

Not much new, but a decent read.

Read the full article at The Guardian

 

[rupsmith]

Hey why wasn't Andros playing in these games?

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

He's doomed i tell ya Captain Mainwaring..........DOOMED!

 

[doom]

nice that we aren't being bigged up by anyone.

 

[teok]

Good summary of events so far. It's hard to sum up the window without knowing who we eventually sign.

 

[myhartlane]

Much better than the crock of shit written by Phil McNulty on the BBC website this morning.

 

[jolsnogross]

Hytner is a good footy reporter on all things North London and that's a pretty sound assessment.

I'd love for us to go back to having four top strikers, so if I had my way we'd sign Hernandez, Berahino and Werner while shipping Ade and Soldado out. I think strikers can be most often used as subs and a meritocracy of selection up front is very important to deal with form, injury, and tactical flexibility in that key position. It's not really possible to have that if we only have Kane plus a couple of understudies.

We start with a bang at United. And I don't have a good sense of whether we'll have as successful a season as we did last year. That's partly down to our lack of goal scoring options and some of the incomings at other clubs.....it's not clear if we will maintain a top 5 role or slip into a more crowded second tier.

 

[wakefieldyid]

Good article. In passing, I have to say that if Hytner's right and Hugo's feeling sore about Spurs over a verbal agreement, he should have sacked his agent by now. If the agent expects to take home a significant percentage of Hugo's earnings, I'd suggest he should at least be expected to have read the newpapers and understand the difference between Daniel Levy and Santa Claus...

 

[sendmark]

Much better than the crock of shit written by Phil McNulty on the BBC website this morning.

McNulty is a laughable Liverpool fan. Still recall him at the end of last season putting out an article about the Big Five, which obviously included Liverpool and not us.

 

[Chris_D]

We're a young largely unproven team with a young largely unproven manager. I wish I could write I'm expecting us to win the league but I think we'll probably end up around where we were last season. Not to be all doom and gloom, there are potentially great times ahead. We've had so many false dawns before but I think Poch just might be the real deal. Most of our squad won't peak for a few years, only Verts, Toby and Lloris are truly in their prime. In say three years the likes of Mason, Bentaleb, Lamela, Eriksen, Kane and Dier will be close to their best. If we can keep the squad together and sort out the stadium then that might be our time. We need Levy to back Poch though.

 

[JimmyG2]

'Genteman's agreement
Is normally conducted between gentlemen,
not a football agent and Daniel Levy.
That's called a rogues charter.

Remember Sam Goldwyn :A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.

 

[teok]

We're a young largely unproven team with a young largely unproven manager. I wish I could write I'm expecting us to win the league but I think we'll probably end up around where we were last season. Not to be all doom and gloom, there are potentially great times ahead. We've had so many false dawns before but I think Poch just might be the real deal. Most of our squad won't peak for a few years, only Verts, Toby and Lloris are truly in their prime. In say three years the likes of Mason, Bentaleb, Lamela, Eriksen, Kane and Dier will be close to their best. If we can keep the squad together and sort out the stadium then that might be our time. We need Levy to back Poch though.

What we need with this team and this manager is patience. I think the club and some of the fans have got this. We just need to get behind behind them.

 

[Legacy]

Hytner is a good footy reporter on all things North London and that's a pretty sound assessment.

I'd love for us to go back to having four top strikers, so if I had my way we'd sign Hernandez, Berahino and Werner while shipping Ade and Soldado out. I think strikers can be most often used as subs and a meritocracy of selection up front is very important to deal with form, injury, and tactical flexibility in that key position. It's not really possible to have that if we only have Kane plus a couple of understudies.

We only play with one striker now though, not two, so you're never going to see four top strikers at the club because they won't all get the game time to stay content.

At best, we'll have Kane, sign a striker to compete with him, another striker who can also comfortably play the wide forward positions and maybe a youth talent, though there doesn't seem to be much hype from our academy in the form of strikers.