Which came first?

[StartingPrice]

OK, eternally naive children, stop criticizing the fans, the pessimists, the realists etc. the fucking facts of the matter are we have not played well in the majority of our matches. Stop "WE ARE 4TH" and "WE BEAT MU AT OT" excuses. If you want us to play like Sunderland or Wolves then you should be delighted, otherwise, stop being blind and overly sensitive to valid criticisms.

We've been lucky in the majority of our matches because the defend for our lives tactic is pure stupidity. Looks like it's running out.

AVB needs to turn it around fast, and is increasingly looking like he can't do it. Not all the fault is with him though. Daniel Levy has to stop being praised because he's done jackshit and his meddling continues to weigh us down.

Also, lots of our wants turned us down, and I can't see them wanting to come in January if they've seen how we've played so far.

I don't think anyone has said we are fourth, largely because we are fifth.
I don't think anyone has said we have played stupendously well...because, mostly, we haven't.
I don't think you have understood the wider and deeper points of the argument you are seeking to counter (by referring to anyone who doesn't knee-jerk as eternally naive children - for the record, time and time again on these forums it has been thepessimists who label themselves realists who have been shown to be naive in their predictions). Could you clarify: without referring to a dictionary, do you understand the term transition period? Without referring to a dictionary, do you understand lost three of the best players in the team in the Summer? Without referring to a dictionary, do you understand between four and six 1st teamers missing? Are you capable of combining these three facts together with the fact that we are fifth [sic.] despite not always playing particularly well, into a more complex understanding of the situation that merely bewailing the fact that we areshit like a shrieky arsed little biatch?

When I see valid criticism I will respond to it - hell, sometimes I even make a critique that I consider valid. I don't see much in this, or similar, threads. For instance, I don't find it valid to portray all of our games under AVB as uniformly terrible, while calling upon the mythos of exciting Mr Redknapp, while ignoring the fact that we were totally inept and often embarrassing, under the last named, when playing lower half teams, at WHL, in particular.

In this instance, I hardly think it is a valid criticism to simply expect to beat Wigan and then get agitated and then on the team's backs just because we aren't steam-rolling them after 15 minutes. Apart from displaying an incredibly childish level of understanding and expectation, it also suggests folk who never watch any other matches in the EPL, other than Spurs games, as if they did they would have seen all of the unholy trinity of United, Citeh and Chelsea similarly struggling and being incredibly flattered to get results against similarly rated teams to Wigan. Not to mention the Goons, who despite being some amazing Uber-team who are in a title race, are actually below us in the table.

What do we need to turn around fast - being fifth? Or your bizarre naive and childlike level of expectation?

No, that's right, Dan Levy has done nothing - let's ignore the fact that he has taken us form mid-table obscurity to challenging for the top 4, while totally revamping the youth set-up, building a state-of-the-art training facility, establishing innovative relationships throughout the footballing World and beginning work on a new stadium, all without getting us massively in debt, unlike our rivals

 

[Spurger King]

Boo-ing after 8 minutes? That's got nothing to do with previous games, nothing to do with league position, nothing to do with anything other than fans who feel entitled to sit and moan, bitch and groan before anything has happened. We can't say the fans caused the bad performance, but it sure as hell contributed and 100% didn't help. If they play crap, boo at the end, let them know how you feel, write a bloody letter, but you don't like the fact we knocked it back to the keeper a couple of times in the first half hour and aren't winning? Suck it up and support the team, you want to be able to instantly influence results from your fat arse? Give X-Factor your money, or go shout at traffic.

It was horrible really. That was easily the worst atmosphere I've experienced at a Spurs game. It felt like half the crowd just wanted us to smash the ball upfield rather than try to build up play.

In my opinion the atmosphere definitely affected the players. Some like Bale were trying too hard, whereas others were avoiding the possibility/responsibility of making mistakes by playing safe instead of being more adventurous.

To put it bluntly I thought a lot of the fans were acting like spoilt children that weren't getting their own way.

 

[Dinghy]

are you 5 or 6 years old then? lol seriously? you must've missed the last half of last season were we played very much like this and with much better players

We never played like this at the end of last season. We were never playing this badly. We may have not got the results but... we weren't playing like this.

 

[TheGreenLily]

We never played like this at the end of last season. We were never playing this badly. We may have not got the results but... we weren't playing like this.

Are you sure about this? As I remember wails of disbelief at some of the games at the end of last season, including me. Some of the subs in those games as well.

I remember one SC'er taking their child (6 years old if I remember) to the game and asking them what would they do? The child replied take off VDV and bring on someone... The SC'er said they had a laugh as the kid was 6 years old and made completely the wrong choice. A few minutes later Harry did exactly what that 6 year old would have done. It was an utter shambles.

There was some right awful games where we looked nothing but completely disjointed and all because one player was injured.... Lennon.

 

[The Apprentice]

Not convinced there was that much booing. Sounded more like snoring to me.

 

[Stavrogin]

In this instance, I hardly think it is a valid criticism to simply expect to beat Wigan and then get agitated and then on the team's backs just because we aren't steam-rolling them after 15 minutes. Apart from displaying an incredibly childish level of understanding and expectation, it also suggests folk who never watch any other matches in the EPL, other than Spurs games, as if they did they would have seen all of the unholy trinity of United, Citeh and Chelsea similarly struggling and being incredibly flattered to get results against similarly rated teams to Wigan. Not to mention the Goons, who despite being some amazing Uber-team who are in a title race, are actually below us in the table.

The average person is a moron. A group of people are worse. But a crowd of people tends to move under an overriding logic.

This is an utterly depressing time, on every level. It carries over from the obscenity (both footballing and moral) of Chelsea and Arsenal getting into europe ahead of us; from the selling/loss of our best players; and now to this rather dull state of affairs where AVB is has next to no traction with anything or anyone.

I don't get the point of view that the fans are to blame for what happening or that the responsibility is theirs. I know that we are like Martyrs in a lot of ways, but asking us to martyr ourselves seems wrong - especially since, ultimately, the fans are the victims. They pay the money, they endure the matches and taunts etc. I obviously don't agree with booing but when things are on such a downer, you have to say, it is what it is.

What do you want, SP, for the fans to be Nietzschean supermen? They ain't.

 

[sim simma]

I blame the season ticket holders who have been going for the last ten years or so, it just seems that through utter bad luck they're all a bunch of boring dick heads. I don't think any one who maybe got a ticket on general sale would have boo'd, I think they would have felt proud to be there and would have got behind the team. It must be the same faces the ones who aren't making any new chants, the ones who stop singing after 2 minutes, the ones who are gonna be there until the new stadium is built. Have a look at them two mugs fighting over brads shirt, that just about sums up our season ticket holders.

 

[Spurger King]

What do you want, SP, for the fans to be Nietzschean supermen? They ain't.

Speak for yourself Stavrogin. You know nothing of my tussles with the spirit of gravity

 

[StartingPrice]

The average person is a moron. A group of people are worse. But a crowd of people tends to move under an overriding logic.

This is an utterly depressing time, on every level. It carries over from the obscenity (both footballing and moral) of Chelsea and Arsenal getting into europe ahead of us; from the selling/loss of our best players; and now to this rather dull state of affairs where AVB is has next to no traction with anything or anyone.

I don't get the point of view that the fans are to blame for what happening or that the responsibility is theirs. I know that we are like Martyrs in a lot of ways, but asking us to martyr ourselves seems wrong - especially since, ultimately, the fans are the victims. They pay the money, they endure the matches and taunts etc. I obviously don't agree with booing but when things are on such a downer, you have to say, it is what it is.

What do you want, SP, for the fans to be Nietzschean supermen? They ain't.

I want them to man/woman the feck up and realise you can't win every single game and you can't win them by seventeen nil.

And, yes, the crowd can have a big minus input on the performance of a team. Do you really believe they can't? :giggle:

No, I don't want the fans to be Nietzchean Supermen - not being pissy-arsed little biatches, however, that is achievable, surely.

Read Spurger's post, read it again, because that was very much the feeling I got, too. An atmosphere of demanding expectation, following very rapidly by hostility towards even the concept of patience, and then open hostility with more than half the match to go, and then despair with a good third of it remaining.

Honestly, we've had this they pay their money arguments on here, so many times (there should be extant threads - maybe you could go and read them). The argument totally and utterly misses the point, which is that the fans surely want their team to do well, booing the team is most likely, and most often, counter-productive as it can, and frequently does, inhibit the team, and drain them of confidence. So it is not a case of saying they aren't aloud to boo the team it is a case of saying it is fecking stupid to boo the team, as it is likely to have the opposite impact to the inherent desire of the fans. And what made yesterday so bad was that it was manifest so early, for so little reason, and with such untoward venom.

As others have said, it might have been more understandable if the team had played like that and the crowd had booed at full-time, but that ain't what happened, we ain't just talking about booing, and, in any case, we all know what the sub-text really is - whingey biatch-assed geezers whipped into a meeja frenzy because AVB replaced their darling 'Arry and isn't replicating his mythologised exciting football

 

[kaz Hirai]

We never played like this at the end of last season. We were never playing this badly. We may have not got the results but... we weren't playing like this.

Spurs 1- Norwich -2 (last season)

Manager Harry Redknapp with vastly superior first team and bench

Total shots including off target 13
Possession 52%
_______________________
Spurs 0 - Wigan - 1

Manager AVB with 4 key players out, and Adebayor out of sorts, poorlu backed by Levy in window

Total shots on target 13
possession 48%


Nearly identical stats so you'll find yes we were this bad last season against poor teams, in fact if i could be arsed i could pull up the home draw against wolves, the defeat to QPR, the painful performance against stevange were we managed a 0-0 and barely beating watford. after the thrashing arsenal gave us we have been disjointed missing all attacking flair. The team has been in a slump since then, and it's just continued over to this season and made worse losing modric, VDV, Adebayor and a massive of injuries

with the players we have lost, the form we were in before the season started and failing to get AVB's targets I am amazed we are grinding out results for the most part

 

[ravo]

Very quiet at kick-off and there was no real singing for 10-15 minutes. Disappointing really.

 

[playboypaul]

It is getting very, very depressing. Booing is so obviously counter productive that I am amazed so called 'fans' do it at the end of a game let alone before half time.

I think that our relative success in the last few seasons has polluted certain parts of the crowd. There is an air of expectation around the place and that isn't how it should be. We have hopes and dreams and desires. A will to succeed. Not expectations.

Has anyone ever had the mis-fortune to sit next to a boo-er, or even near enough to identify someone who has been booing? If so, what did you do in that situation?

I mentioned this a month or so ago, it would be great if we as fans could police ourselves as far as the booing goes. All it would take is a little,

"Excuse me, why are you booing?"

"Dere playing facking shit mate, dats why"

"Do you honestly think booing will help them play any better?"

"Well no"

"Then why are you doing it?"

"Well, well............I pay dare facking wages, wiv my muny, if I wanna boo, I'll facking boo awight??!!"

"So you are happy to pay money to boo at some footballers? You can do it for free at home if you want to save some money you know"

"Fack ovv you facking twat"

Or something along those lines. I'm sure someone here can think of an amazing piece of logic to bamboozle the wretch with that would serve much better, if so, please let us all know, so next time we are in said situation, we can try it.

After the boo-er has had some common sense chucked in his face, I'm sure he will shut up.

 

[double0]

The booing is a major concern.TBH many supporters from the start did not want Villas-Boas, he abaited an undercurrent of dissatified supporters still star struck with Redknap with some vital wins and our league position but those boo boys are still in the wings waiting to vent their disprovel.

It's gonna be a messy transitional season from open football under Redknapp to a more messured sort from Villas-Boas time time time, until performances on the pitch improve it will be a love hate relationship but once our injury list comes down and Levy backs Villas-Boas in the transfer market we might be hearing more boos.

Lets be fair to Villas-Boas selling Modric Van De Vaart King retiring and replacing such qualtiy with Dempsey Sigurdsson Vertonghen is a massive step down.

 

[onthetwo]

are you 5 or 6 years old then? lol seriously? you must've missed the last half of last season were we played very much like this and with much better players

Ramos era? Geroge Graham and Hoddle Tottenham wasnt exactly an exciting watch either, odd last thing to say but it is an angry rant so you're obviously not thinking clearly.

Agree with some of what you wrote though, Levy is to blame, made so much money on VDV and Modric and then played silly buggers by not buying Wiilan and Moutinho. those 2 would have greatly made is us more easy on the eye and we couldve handled the injury to parker and dembele much easier.
instead we are having to go through huddlestone who is an awful creative midfielder, if Sandro is the ball winner enforcer, then why the frak was tom walking around the back 4 spraying balls to walker and Vert.

Sig and Dempsey are just looking like bad purchases, Probably dempsey more so, he was going cheap and we stole him last minute from liverpool, I'm sure daniel was chuffed with himself thinking he got a right steal. was interested to see how he would work with Adebayor first before writing him off, and for 40 minutes he looked just as anonymous


-------------Lloris
BAE--Kaboul-Vert--Walker
-------Parker--Sandro
------------Dembele
Bale-------Ade----Lennon

not ideal but if we ever get lucky enough to see that team for a period then i think we will be comfortably top 6 and will see better football

Your line-up is spot on and for me, proves the point about the current situation - we have 11/12 very good players and if a few of them aren't fit then we are devoid of ideas pretty easily. Either one or more of the kids needs to step up (Falque for instance) or we need to spend in Jan. Im not sure which way its going to go, hard to find value in Jan so honestly, i fear that the season could fizzle out for us, with increasing unrest in the crowd.

 

[Stavrogin]

I want them to man/woman the feck up and realise you can't win every single game and you can't win them by seventeen nil.

And, yes, the crowd can have a big minus input on the performance of a team. Do you really believe they can't? :giggle:

No, I don't want the fans to be Nietzchean Supermen - not being pissy-arsed little biatches, however, that is achievable, surely.

Read Spurger's post, read it again, because that was very much the feeling I got, too. An atmosphere of demanding expectation, following very rapidly by hostility towards even the concept of patience, and then open hostility with more than half the match to go, and then despair with a good third of it remaining.

Honestly, we've had this they pay their money arguments on here, so many times (there should be extant threads - maybe you could go and read them). The argument totally and utterly misses the point, which is that the fans surely want their team to do well, booing the team is most likely, and most often, counter-productive as it can, and frequently does, inhibit the team, and drain them of confidence. So it is not a case of saying they aren't aloud to boo the team it is a case of saying it is fecking stupid to boo the team, as it is likely to have the opposite impact to the inherent desire of the fans. And what made yesterday so bad was that it was manifest so early, for so little reason, and with such untoward venom.

As others have said, it might have been more understandable if the team had played like that and the crowd had booed at full-time, but that ain't what happened, we ain't just talking about booing, and, in any case, we all know what the sub-text really is - whingey biatch-assed geezers whipped into a meeja frenzy because AVB replaced their darling 'Arry and isn't replicating his mythologised exciting football

A crowd can rouse a team but not in this situation. There's a miasma of despondency that's not going to be cured by the crowd jollying up.

And i'm not making the 'they pay their money' argument, perhaps you should read more clearly - you're on pretty shaky ground to be making requests of people, eh? I'm talking about people shifting blame onto the crowd when pretty much EVERYTHING is wrong (ok, results aren't so bad, but there have been an inordinate amount of depressing scorelines mixed in there what with the cups).

You can see how you've created a strawman, right? We don't know what the crowd are really upset about, we don't know their opinions on the style of football we're playing, but you and others have ascribed certain beliefs to them and deposited blame. And, again, the fact they're the ones who are paying the money makes them more the victims than the perpetrators.

As much as I don't like booing, who knows, this might be one of the times that it's beneficial. Since the results have been generally (perhaps deceptively) decent, all parties may feel they're doing ok. When really on every level we should hope to see some improvements - the players need to buck their ideas up, AVB needs to reconsider what he's doing, Levy should be weighing up what to do in the transfer window. Who can say whether bottling up a deep-seated dissatisfaction is right or wrong? no one.

 

[Kingstheman]

The answer is the chicke... no, wait a minute...

 

[formlesswater]

The crowd might be the reason for our away record being better than our home record.

 

[StartingPrice]

A crowd can rouse a team but not in this situation. There's a miasma of despondency that's not going to be cured by the crowd jollying up.

And i'm not making the 'they pay their money' argument, perhaps you should read more clearly - you're on pretty shaky ground to be making requests of people, eh? I'm talking about people shifting blame onto the crowd when pretty much EVERYTHING is wrong (ok, results aren't so bad, but there have been an inordinate amount of depressing scorelines mixed in there what with the cups).

You can see how you've created a strawman, right? We don't know what the crowd are really upset about, we don't know their opinions on the style of football we're playing, but you and others have ascribed certain beliefs to them and deposited blame. And, again, the fact they're the ones who are paying the money makes them more the victims than the perpetrators.

As much as I don't like booing, who knows, this might be one of the times that it's beneficial. Since the results have been generally (perhaps deceptively) decent, all parties may feel they're doing ok. When really on every level we should hope to see some improvements - the players need to buck their ideas up, AVB needs to reconsider what he's doing, Levy should be weighing up what to do in the transfer window. Who can say whether bottling up a deep-seated dissatisfaction is right or wrong? no one.

We lost against the CL holders and then had a disappointing away defeat in the Cup, before that our form was pretty damned good - I would hardly call that an miasma of despondency.

If you aren't making the they pay their money argument, why did you raise it? I think I read clearly enough.

You seem to have taken an overly simplistic and direct attitude to what is being said. No-one is blaming the crowd, they are saying booing et al is counter-productive and can have a negative symbiotic relationship with the performance of the team on the pitch.

No, I can't see how I've created a straw-man at all. It is true that the crowd, en masse, didn't, at any stage issue a statement explaining why they were booing, but, again, if you read the posts more clearly, you would understand that it wasn't just the booing, it was also the fact that there was a palpable discontent in the air, especially when the team tried to develop play patiently from the back from early on. Given the amount of journo BS connected with this, and the way so many, alas, pay such heed to the meeja, the numbers from the discontented on here voicing these concerns, the numbers in phone-ins, etc., making similar complaints, and given that we were not down, or not even getting seriously outplayed at the time, I think it is reasonable for a number of us to combine all of this accumulated evidence (and experience of similar) and infer that this is what the the crowd was disgruntled about. That may not be acceptable to some of you who are overly empirically obsessed, but for me, if it looks like shite and it smells like shite, then you can stand debating it for a decade, take samples, etc. - I'd rather just step over it and carry on. So I discount your Philosophy ABC attempt to cast doubt on the reasoning (or otherwise) of the crowd. They were palpably discontented from early on, not just booing, and it was fairly obvious why - and Spurger has explained, above, how that was visibly affecting the players.

The fact that they are paying the money doesn't automatically make them the victims, this is an assertion with no substantial argument behind it. They are booing and being generally disgruntled, and it has a negative effect on the team. My objection isn't that they have no right to do it, but that it is counter-productive, and, in this instance, they are doing it without any real cause from way too early in a game. I can accept booing as a final sanction for a team playing well below itself and losing it's 8th game on the trot, risking relegation - but that sure as hell wasn't it.

Who knows if this is one of the few times it is beneficial - apart from the fact that you could clearly see the players being affected negatively by it.

A fine summary, apart from the fact that I think all of us can, and should say that it clearly isn't beneficial when it is patently affecting the players. And the main point still stands, they were discontented because of false expectations, impatience, a failure to understand our true position, the circumstances ATM (transition period, lost some great players, a fecking serious injury list), and the bleedin' obvious fact that the meeja have it in for Levy and AVB on behalf of their darlin' 'Arry, and sadly, that does take it's toll.

But, hey, you carry on sitting in the woods pondering if trees make a noise when they fall and there is no-one to here it

 

[theShiznit]

The whole thing is backwards.

We "support" the team when they are playing well, winning and confident (thus don't need the support)

And get on their backs when we are playing poorly, not winning and lacking confidence (when we most need it)

That is all.

 

[Stavrogin]

We lost against the CL holders and then had a disappointing away defeat in the Cup, before that our form was pretty damned good - I would hardly call that an miasma of despondency.

If you aren't making the they pay their money argument, why did you raise it? I think I read clearly enough.

You seem to have taken an overly simplistic and direct attitude to what is being said. No-one is blaming the crowd, they are saying booing et al is counter-productive and can have a negative symbiotic relationship with the performance of the team on the pitch.

No, I can't see how I've created a straw-man at all. It is true that the crowd, en masse, didn't, at any stage issue a statement explaining why they were booing, but, again, if you read the posts more clearly, you would understand that it wasn't just the booing, it was also the fact that there was a palpable discontent in the air, especially when the team tried to develop play patiently from the back from early on. Given the amount of journo BS connected with this, and the way so many, alas, pay such heed to the meeja, the numbers from the discontented on here voicing these concerns, the numbers in phone-ins, etc., making similar complaints, and given that we were not down, or not even getting seriously outplayed at the time, I think it is reasonable for a number of us to combine all of this accumulated evidence (and experience of similar) and infer that this is what the the crowd was disgruntled about. That may not be acceptable to some of you who are overly empirically obsessed, but for me, if it looks like shite and it smells like shite, then you can stand debating it for a decade, take samples, etc. - I'd rather just step over it and carry on. So I discount your Philosophy ABC attempt to cast doubt on the reasoning (or otherwise) of the crowd. They were palpably discontented from early on, not just booing, and it was fairly obvious why - and Spurger has explained, above, how that was visibly affecting the players.

The fact that they are paying the money doesn't automatically make them the victims, this is an assertion with no substantial argument behind it. They are booing and being generally disgruntled, and it has a negative effect on the team. My objection isn't that they have no right to do it, but that it is counter-productive, and, in this instance, they are doing it without any real cause from way too early in a game. I can accept booing as a final sanction for a team playing well below itself and losing it's 8th game on the trot, risking relegation - but that sure as hell wasn't it.

Who knows if this is one of the few times it is beneficial - apart from the fact that you could clearly see the players being affected negatively by it.

A fine summary, apart from the fact that I think all of us can, and should say that it clearly isn't beneficial when it is patently affecting the players. And the main point still stands, they were discontented because of false expectations, impatience, a failure to understand our true position, the circumstances ATM (transition period, lost some great players, a fecking serious injury list), and the bleedin' obvious fact that the meeja have it in for Levy and AVB on behalf of their darlin' 'Arry, and sadly, that does take it's toll.

But, hey, you carry on sitting in the woods pondering if trees make a noise when they fall and there is no-one to here it

SP, you're likable but there's not a single thing you've written that isn't gibberish.

- You raised 'they pay their money' argument - falsely accusing me of it! My point is and always has been: you seem to be blaming the fans for the result, given that they have the most on the line, emotionally and financially, making them the scapegoat is unseemly (that's just an opinion, obviously) - especially as we seem to have the same problems whether they're there or not.

I can't really argue with you, it's just a shifting sandstorm of nonsense. Your underlying motives are obvious though, making it doubly pointless. I hope you can see the grand humour in it though!