The price is too high

[ostrov]

I guess you're watching replays of all the entertaining games we've lost then?

Don't be silly with your sarcasm. I even watched replays of 6-1, 5-2 earlier this season but even those occasional exciting games have dried up.

 

[sausage]

We also just scored 3 goals in our last match (and Son missed an open net that should’ve made it 4). Did you see Ndombele’s goal? Are you not entertained?

 

[Shadydan]

I just really, honestly don't get what peoples issue with our football is. It isn't anti-football, it isn't negative football, its football and at times both as good and as bad a football as anyone has been playing this year.

Our team, on paper, isn't as good as you all want it to be and yet everyone wants us to be playing with the way we did when we had better, more settled teams with completely different managers.

Honestly, can someone explain in a non-dramatic way without using hyperbole what the actual problem is?

So we sit too deep sometimes and have dropped 10 points form winning positions?

Are we not still a team in transition with less than world-class defenders and midfielders? Are we not doing better than we were last season while a lot of those around us are doing worse?

Jose is the manager of this club therefore whenever we lose or drop points in all on him purely because of the narrative that surrounds him completely ignoring the fact that we've tended to look this bad over the past few years with more or less the same group of players.

 

[freeeki]

I don’t care.

Three words that I never thought I would say, or even think. But it’s true: I don’t care. What don’t I care about? Whether we win our next game. Whether we win the league. Whether we get into the CL. Whether we win the FA Cup or the Europa League. I never thought it would be possible for it to come to this, but it has.

I’m fairly old. So I’ve been following, supporting and watching Spurs for a long time. I’ve been at Wembley and the Lane when we’ve won trophies; I’ve seen us lose finals and semi-finals. I’ve seen us relegated and promoted. I’ve watched some great players and some shit ones, some good teams and bad ones. But I’ve never seen anything like this season’s Tottenham.

I want to win trophies. It’s embarrassing that we haven’t won anything since 2008 and that we haven’t won the Cup since 1991. It’s obvious to say that a club of our size should be competing for trophies most years and winning them on a fairly regular basis. It’s why Jose Mourinho is our manager. We don’t have to like him. We just have to respect his CV and trust in the idea that he will make our ‘nearly men’ of recent years into winners.

That’s what I did. I’ve never liked him and I don’t like him now. I think he’s a prick. But he’s our prick and we have to get behind him. So I supported his appointment and reasoned that I could put up with ‘Mourinho-ball’ because, as far as winning trophies is concerned, the end justifies the means. All-out attack hasn’t worked. Pragmatism, I told myself, is fine.

Only we aren’t watching pragmatism. Pragmatism is adapting to the prevailing circumstances in order to achieve the desired result. Pragmatism is adjusting how you play depending upon the opponent. In simplistic terms (and as a rule of thumb), pragmatism is attacking teams that are weaker than you and defending against those that are stronger. We aren’t pragmatic.

We have a ‘plan A’. If that isn’t working then……we stay with ‘plan A’. Plan A is simple: don’t concede a goal and rely on our world-class forwards to get one. Then don’t concede a goal. If we concede a goal, don’t panic. Don’t concede another one and hope that our world-class forwards get at least one goal; hopefully more than one. We don’t have any strategy of how to attack apart from ‘get it up to the forwards as fast as possible’.

The reason that I don’t like this is simple: it’s cowardice. We’re scared of losing. We are afraid of trying to win. Our objective is to avoid defeat – preferably with a clean sheet - and hope that we can score one or two more than the opposition.

I remember having a conversation with an Arsenal fan in the days before Wenger took over. He admitted that he wished his club played more attacking football but he justified the fact that they didn’t – the fact that they had been defence-first for as long as anybody could remember – by winning something now and again and never having been relegated. He knew there was a better way – it was three miles down the road – but didn’t want to admit it. That was the way things were. He lived with it.

Are we going to have to live with it? I can’t. If this is the price of winning trophies, then I’m sorry but the price is too high. We’re sacrificing what we are for the promise of a pot or two. We’re selling our soul. We’re abandoning our history because we haven’t won anything for a while. We’re in danger of not being Tottenham any more. Bill Nicholson will be turning in his grave.

I know most of you – if you’ve bothered to read this far – won’t agree. ‘Stupid old bastard’ you’ll say; ‘he’s talking bollocks. It’s all about winning’. Well, yes and no. Of course it’s about winning, but it’s about more than that. I realise it’s a cliché, but I’ll sign off with the famous quote from our famous captain.

"The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It is nothing of the kind. The game is about glory, it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom."

Audere est facere.

EDIT: first time I've ever got a full set of all thirteen ratings

I would possibly feel the same if I was "fairly old", too, for whatever that means.

As it is, I'm 33 (34 tomorrow FYI, get those dick pics in lads), and in my time supporting the club we've won two League Cups. That's it.

Okay we won the 1991 FA Cup in my lifetime, but I hadn't yet started school at that point, let alone started watching Spurs.

It's easy enough to look back and demand more "exciting" football when you remember the glory glory nights of the UEFA Cup wins, the FA Cup wins, the Cup Winners Cup, even the First Division titles. But for those of us who are under 45, we don't. I'm delighted for you that you're able to look back and decide whether, on balance, you enjoy the attractive football (whatever the hell that means), or winning stuff. Most of us don't have that luxury, because we've never experienced the latter.

The reality is, we are title contenders for the first time in my lifetime. Real title contenders. Not "oh maybe Leicester slip up we've got an outside chance". Actual title contenders. My reasoning is this - a month ago, we lost our spot at the top of the league, and Liverpool looked like they were running away with it. Now, Liverpool have failed to score for 3 games, and we're 1 point away from them with our next game being against them. And that's in spite of us hitting a poor run of form. The reality is, it's anyone's season, and we are well well in the mix.

I have no doubt you will see the return of the style of football you crave in your lifetime. Then you can have your cake and eat it, remembering when we used to win stuff.

In the mean time, those of us who never saw the trophy-winning days, would quite like to experience them too please. And we have no greater chance to do that than with a manager whose footballing legacy is greater than that of anyone who has ever managed Tottenham in its history.

 

[freeeki]

I just really, honestly don't get what peoples issue with our football is. It isn't anti-football, it isn't negative football, its football and at times both as good and as bad a football as anyone has been playing this year.

Our team, on paper, isn't as good as you all want it to be and yet everyone wants us to be playing with the way we did when we had better, more settled teams with completely different managers.

Honestly, can someone explain in a non-dramatic way without using hyperbole what the actual problem is?

So we sit too deep sometimes and have dropped 10 points form winning positions?

Are we not still a team in transition with less than world-class defenders and midfielders? Are we not doing better than we were last season while a lot of those around us are doing worse?

15 months ago: "The team is stale, a painful rebuild is needed and it's going to take years, that's why we're shit, we must back Poch"
Now: "Jose hasn't won the league with largely the same squad after 14 months in charge, 10 of which have been through a global pandemic? Get him out of my club"

Is roughly where we're at.

 

[dudu]

Jose is the manager of this club therefore whenever we lose or drop points in all on him purely because of the narrative that surrounds him completely ignoring the fact that we've tended to look this bad over the past few years with more or less the same group of players.

Some seem to be going on about the 'good times' under Poch and Harry forgetting what we had at our disposal. In our top years under those managers, we had a midfield that were virtually unplayable on their day, and it took a bit of time, and money to get us the players we had at our disposal.

 

[dudu]

15 months ago: "The team is stale, a painful rebuild is needed and it's going to take years, that's why we're shit, we must back Poch"
Now: "Jose hasn't won the league with largely the same squad after 14 months in charge, 10 of which have been through a global pandemic? Get him out of my club"

Is roughly where we're at.

Pretty much sums it up to me!

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

first time I've ever got a full set of all thirteen ratings

Have a 14th

 

[Shadydan]

Have a 14th

Ironically that's exactly where we were when Jose took over.

 

[brasil_spur]

I don’t care.

Three words that I never thought I would say, or even think. But it’s true: I don’t care. What don’t I care about? Whether we win our next game. Whether we win the league. Whether we get into the CL. Whether we win the FA Cup or the Europa League. I never thought it would be possible for it to come to this, but it has.

I’m fairly old. So I’ve been following, supporting and watching Spurs for a long time. I’ve been at Wembley and the Lane when we’ve won trophies; I’ve seen us lose finals and semi-finals. I’ve seen us relegated and promoted. I’ve watched some great players and some shit ones, some good teams and bad ones. But I’ve never seen anything like this season’s Tottenham.

I want to win trophies. It’s embarrassing that we haven’t won anything since 2008 and that we haven’t won the Cup since 1991. It’s obvious to say that a club of our size should be competing for trophies most years and winning them on a fairly regular basis. It’s why Jose Mourinho is our manager. We don’t have to like him. We just have to respect his CV and trust in the idea that he will make our ‘nearly men’ of recent years into winners.

That’s what I did. I’ve never liked him and I don’t like him now. I think he’s a prick. But he’s our prick and we have to get behind him. So I supported his appointment and reasoned that I could put up with ‘Mourinho-ball’ because, as far as winning trophies is concerned, the end justifies the means. All-out attack hasn’t worked. Pragmatism, I told myself, is fine.

Only we aren’t watching pragmatism. Pragmatism is adapting to the prevailing circumstances in order to achieve the desired result. Pragmatism is adjusting how you play depending upon the opponent. In simplistic terms (and as a rule of thumb), pragmatism is attacking teams that are weaker than you and defending against those that are stronger. We aren’t pragmatic.

We have a ‘plan A’. If that isn’t working then……we stay with ‘plan A’. Plan A is simple: don’t concede a goal and rely on our world-class forwards to get one. Then don’t concede a goal. If we concede a goal, don’t panic. Don’t concede another one and hope that our world-class forwards get at least one goal; hopefully more than one. We don’t have any strategy of how to attack apart from ‘get it up to the forwards as fast as possible’.

The reason that I don’t like this is simple: it’s cowardice. We’re scared of losing. We are afraid of trying to win. Our objective is to avoid defeat – preferably with a clean sheet - and hope that we can score one or two more than the opposition.

I remember having a conversation with an Arsenal fan in the days before Wenger took over. He admitted that he wished his club played more attacking football but he justified the fact that they didn’t – the fact that they had been defence-first for as long as anybody could remember – by winning something now and again and never having been relegated. He knew there was a better way – it was three miles down the road – but didn’t want to admit it. That was the way things were. He lived with it.

Are we going to have to live with it? I can’t. If this is the price of winning trophies, then I’m sorry but the price is too high. We’re sacrificing what we are for the promise of a pot or two. We’re selling our soul. We’re abandoning our history because we haven’t won anything for a while. We’re in danger of not being Tottenham any more. Bill Nicholson will be turning in his grave.

I know most of you – if you’ve bothered to read this far – won’t agree. ‘Stupid old bastard’ you’ll say; ‘he’s talking bollocks. It’s all about winning’. Well, yes and no. Of course it’s about winning, but it’s about more than that. I realise it’s a cliché, but I’ll sign off with the famous quote from our famous captain.

"The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It is nothing of the kind. The game is about glory, it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom."

Audere est facere.

EDIT: first time I've ever got a full set of all thirteen ratings

Whilst I disagree with most of this post I appreciate the time taken to write it out.

There's a few things I think that you've got very wrong here, i'll address them below:

"Only we aren’t watching pragmatism. Pragmatism is adapting to the prevailing circumstances in order to achieve the desired result."
The desired result for last season when Jose came on board was to take a bunch of massively underperforming players, sitting 14th in the league and get results from them and ensure we stayed in a European competition. Job Done.

The desired result for this season is to bring in key players in key positions to strengthen our team and challenge for silverware. We're currently in a cup final and competing well in all other competitions. Job Done so far at this point in the season.

So I don't know you're defining us as not being pragmatic and getting the job required done here, but it's clear to me we are achieving this.

What we're not doing is winning every game and/or playing beautiful football all the time. Which brings us onto the Blanchflower quote. It's a great quote, I love it, but it's 45 years old based on a playing career from 60 years ago. A LOT has changed in the world of football since and whilst that quote remains true it's just not very relevant to the Premier League in 2021.

When you say "We’re sacrificing what we are for the promise of a pot or two. We’re selling our soul." - I really struggle to understand what you're on about, other than perhaps, in the same way Nigel Farage presumably longs for the return of the British Empire, you have some sort of rose-tinted nostalgic view of what Tottenham Hotspur Football Club should always be? But all this shows is how you're looking backwards at our past instead of forwards to the great future we could have. Here's a few examples of what I think it means to be THFC in the 21st Century:

- To have a world class training centre and academy that is able to produce the best English players of our generation, and perhaps the greatest English striker of all time - Harry Kane.

- To have a state-of-the-art stadium that it is the envy of nearly every sporting club in the world, sat almost directly on the spot that our stadium has stood effectively since the founding our of club.

- To be a self-funded and economically sound club, free from the shackles of a developing world oligarch or monarchical member who has exploited their way into becoming a billionaire and is now nefariously syphoning this money into the club whilst attempting (and mostly succeeding) to circumnavigate every FFP rule that gets put in front of them.

- To give back to the local area, one that in the case of THFC happens to be one of the most impoverished areas of the country.

- To compete at winning trophies whilst maintaining fiscal responsibility, ensuring both the short, medium and long term success of the club.

There's probably more to add to this, but these are some solid starting points that cannot be said about almost any other club in the league right now. For me this is THFC in the 21st Century.

Does it mean we don't play beautiful, flowing football of the 60s - yes. But neither does almost any club in the world right now, including the original team of beautiful football (the Brazilian national team).

To quote someone else from the 60s: "the times they are a changin"

 

[Nayim60yards]

Firstly, I would rather re-live a Poch, Jol or Redknapp season than either of our last cup winning seasons under Ramos and Graham.

I wouldn't, we won a trophy at Wembley. Winning things is a fantastic feeling.

Ramos: We beat Arsenal 5-1 in the semis and went on to lift the cup against Chelsea, those two matches are two of my most joyous memories supporting Tottenham!

That particular George Graham season we played some great stuff with Anderton and Ginola on fire and we bagged a cup after having a man unjustly sent off and Robbie Savage who got Edinburgh sent off was subbed and as he walked off his nose had a long sticky line of mucus hanging out. Once he was off Iversen set up Neilsen to win the cup. Great memories.

 

[Metalhead]

One thing that it would be nice to have in the media are deeply biased pundits. Man United have them, Arsenal have them, Liverpool seem to have a plethora of them. All of the pundits that we have are far too even gsvd

I would possibly feel the same if I was "fairly old", too, for whatever that means.

As it is, I'm 33 (34 tomorrow FYI, get those dick pics in lads), and in my time supporting the club we've won two League Cups. That's it.

Okay we won the 1991 FA Cup in my lifetime, but I hadn't yet started school at that point, let alone started watching Spurs.

It's easy enough to look back and demand more "exciting" football when you remember the glory glory nights of the UEFA Cup wins, the FA Cup wins, the Cup Winners Cup, even the First Division titles. But for those of us who are under 45, we don't. I'm delighted for you that you're able to look back and decide whether, on balance, you enjoy the attractive football (whatever the hell that means), or winning stuff. Most of us don't have that luxury, because we've never experienced the latter.

The reality is, we are title contenders for the first time in my lifetime. Real title contenders. Not "oh maybe Leicester slip up we've got an outside chance". Actual title contenders. My reasoning is this - a month ago, we lost our spot at the top of the league, and Liverpool looked like they were running away with it. Now, Liverpool have failed to score for 3 games, and we're 1 point away from them with our next game being against them. And that's in spite of us hitting a poor run of form. The reality is, it's anyone's season, and we are well well in the mix.

I have no doubt you will see the return of the style of football you crave in your lifetime. Then you can have your cake and eat it, remembering when we used to win stuff.

In the mean time, those of us who never saw the trophy-winning days, would quite like to experience them too please. And we have no greater chance to do that than with a manager whose footballing legacy is greater than that of anyone who has ever managed Tottenham in its history.

Well put.

 

[PLTuck]

More points than at the same stage last season.
Tanguy starting to be the player we bought.
A gem of a player in PEH, for very little outlay.
A single point behind Liverpool.
3 losses in 18 league games.
In a cup final.

 

[Metalhead]

I wouldn't, we won a trophy at Wembley. Winning things is a fantastic feeling.

Ramos: We beat Arsenal 5-1 in the semis and went on to lift the cup against Chelsea, those two matches are two of my most joyous memories supporting Tottenham!

That particular George Graham season we played some great stuff with Anderton and Ginola on fire and we bagged a cup after having a man unjustly sent off and Robbie Savage who got Edinburgh sent off was subbed and as he walked off his nose had a log sticky line of mucus hanging out. Once he was off Iversen set up Neilsen to win the cup. Great memories.

I enjoyed the '99 league cup final too. I honestly can't remember the quality of the football but I remember the drama of it and of course we had a trophy to show for it.

 

[riggi]

I don’t know if it’s a combination of other factors (lockdown, continued absence of fans), but I definitely feel as disengaged with Spurs as I have for a long time.

This feeling predates Mourinho, and is maybe a time of life thing, but the football we play is making it harder and harder for me to invest fully in Mourinho’s Spurs.

I’m not as far along the line as you, @spud but probably not that far behind. Pretty sure there are plenty of other people feeling similar as well.

Only watched out of a weird sense of Duty. I think there are many factors and like you, they predate Jose.

 

[PLTuck]

I enjoyed the '99 league cup final too. I honestly can't remember the quality of the football but I remember the drama of it and of course we had a trophy to show for it.

IIRC it was the Worthington Cup at the time? Allan Nielsen the only goal vs Leicester?

My memory is shit but yeah I think i remember it too. Likewise I don't remember how the quality was, I just remember that we actually won something. we got over the line.

2008 was the same, except after that final the entire team seemed to go on holiday until Ramos was sacked.

 

[Wearegoingtowintheleague]

IIRC it was the Worthington Cup at the time? Allan Nielsen the only goal vs Leicester?

My memory is shit but yeah I think i remember it too. Likewise I don't remember how the quality was, I just remember that we actually won something. we got over the line.

2008 was the same, except after that final the entire team seemed to go on holiday until Ramos was sacked.

I remember the game and it was an awful watch, really dull.

But obviously the end and winning it was what mattered and I enjoyed seeing us lift the trophy.

 

[Nayim60yards]

But Tanguy did score that wonderful goal. People need to relax

I know what you mean, when we win it's like: but what if we missed that chance? Or what if they had got that penalty they should have got? But when we don't win it's just because we're no good or because of Jose's tactics, there's no: What if we scored that chance? Or what if?
There's no balance and that's because Mourinho is such a polarising personality. I always hated him when he wasn't our manager but now I really like him, he tells it straight whether you agree with him or not and he is the only manager I make a point of watching every press conference because he always says something worth listening to.

I don't think we play anti football at all, however, I think we could be playing more fluent football in terms of our passing and I have concerns about some of the players being picked for certain matches. I am also acutely aware that this is his first full season and look at what he has achieved so far. We are deep in every competition and have lost just 4 out of 31 matches in all competitions this season. That is truly remarkable and deserves credit. We have gone from quite easy to beat to damned hard to beat in a year so I am happy to go on this journey with Jose as he acquires more and more players and instills his values into the squad more and more. I'm no wide eyed youth, I'm 51 and have been a fan since way back in the Burkinshaw years. I have lived through some shite teams over those years and I can't believe the vitriol aimed at the team play when the football had been woeful for a year before Jose got here (Champions League aside). I enjoyed some of Jose's early "boring" games I went to see back when we could: Burnley, Bournemouth, Olympiakos being three of them.
It's gonna be a wild ride but I'm on board, hopefully the final destination is Trophysville! COYS!

 

[Nayim60yards]

One thing that it would be nice to have in the media are deeply biased pundits. Man United have them, Arsenal have them, Liverpool seem to have a plethora of them. All of the pundits that we have are far too even gsvd
Well put.

We do have Michael "Nicest guy in the world" Dawson and he was on duty yesterday.

 

[Metalhead]

Yea

We do have Michael "Nicest guy in the world" Dawson and he was on duty yesterday.

Yeah he is one of the good ones!