The sliding doors moment

essexyiddo27 said:

Three at the end of Pochs reign

Auriers toe offside and instead going 2-0 up lose 2-1 at Leicester

Wild long range shot from Guendouzi goes in at Emirates to make it 2-2

Son going round Allison and hitting the bar and instead going 2-1 up at Anfield we lose.

That silly ‘never win away this year’ label goes away and maybe cheers old Poch up out of his funk if any of those turn into wins. Then Levy doesn’t make the stupid mistake that’s set us back ever since.

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mpickard2087 said:

Generally not a fan of trying to repeat history and looking back. If it did happen though then it should be when no player is here that Poch managed before (I fear he'd be too sentimental and ultimately weak with them - he was before after all). If he was back then I'd want full on PochBall no compromises, and how will you get high energy high press from, in particular, the likes of Son and Kane?

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Neon_Knight_ said:

OP has gone back to a year before the infamous 2018 summer transfer window. With hindsight (but definitely not at the time) I'm tempted to go back another year earlier, to spring 2016 when Poch's job title was changed and he started to have more say in transfers. We signed Wanyama that window (a Poch signing at Southampton) and reportedly attempted to sign Mane (likely to have been scouted by Southampton before we poached Poch). Wanyama was a great signing, but the rest of our business was disappointing (Sissoko, Nkoudou & Janssen).

None of our signings the following year lived up to expectations and then we went 18 months without signing anyone - apparently because Poch couldn't have his primary targets and wouldn't settle for anyone else.

Then we spaffed big money on Ndombele, Lo Celso & Sessegnon...all of which falied to live up to expectations (like every other signing of the past 3 years)...and we all know what happened next.

Had we appointed a decent DoF, instead of letting Poch dictate our transfer targets, things could have been very different.

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rossdapep said:

That Leicester decision was a disgrace.

I watched that back last week and I still can't believe they judged Son offside.

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rossdapep said:

Yeah I agree. Poch is not a great tactician so he would have to compromise some of his methods to work with certain players and I don't think you'd get that version again.

Ten Hag is a coach who doesn't need the whole team pressing like demons, so it'd have to be someone in that mould should we keep Son and Kane.

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Timberwolf said:

Can't remember who else we might've brought in around that period, but there must've been better options than Jose, especially if we were willing to wait until the summer. I was convinced he was a busted flush before we got him and, while I hoped for the best and got excited when we were briefly top of the league under him, it was no big surprise how that one ended.

Not getting Ten Hag instead, nor going all out for him in the Nuno summer, could prove to be another massive sliding doors moment. I think he'll win the league at United within 2-3 years.

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mpickard2087 said:

As I’ve said many times before, what went wrong is what we did without the football. But unfortunately very few – managers, players, club management, even fans – realise it, prioritise it, and have done anything about it.

It’s always said that the ones with the most money win at football, that might be true, but if you look back over history very very often these winning teams had extremely high standards for their off the ball/defensive/work rate, if not setting new standards and defensive/pressing concepts altogether.

Poch’s outfit took Spurs to new heights (PL era at least) not because it was clearly the most talented – Redknapp’s team would want to battle for that accolade – it was because for once you had a Tottenham side that could roll it’s sleeves up and run hard and work and battle and put in a shift with such intensity that opponents week after week after week couldn’t live with. The football, and tempo of it, was played off the back of that.

Individually there were no shirkers. Kane ran through brick walls for the cause back then. Alli would press – usually badly, but at least keenly. Eriksen, contrary to the narrative, was, having been educated at Ajax, actually quite good for a long time at getting a toe in and/or blocking passing lanes and quietly covering a ton of ground doing it. Lamela would run around like a madman kicking people. In midfield, we started with two raw bundles of aggression and energy in Mason and Bentaleb as building blocks, and refined it to the unique brickwall uber-presence of Dembele and Wanyama’s ball winning capabilities as his partner. On the flanks you had Rose and Walker, neither could cross a ball to save their lives but they were two ultra aggressive little fuckers with jet engines strapped to them who dominated both sides of the pitch. At the back Toby and Jan had zero pace for a high line, didn’t matter though because we pressed, and compressed, so well that teams rarely, if ever, could exploit that.

We had about two - two and a half years, from Autumn 2014 to the end of 16/17 where the standards were put in place and we worked our bollocks off every single week (and could be quite nasty at times, remember the endless complaints about our tactical fouling from other fans?). But I remember even towards the end of that 16/17 campaign, the one most would say we peaked, I was writing about warning signs and starting to see things I didn’t like from the team and individuals regarding the press etc. (usually to disagreeing ratings, or replies of “u wot m8” or “just enjoy us winning ffs”). But at that time the team as an entity was flying and in such a groove and opponents so scared of us that it didn’t matter. But the signs were there.

After that, it was just downhill in these facets and to me it’s no surprise results/performances followed. But was this ever realised and taken into account? I don’t see much evidence of that. For the way we played frequent refreshing of the players was needed tbh, the core components as much as anyone. When we talk about “painful rebuild” what the criteria really should have been, under PochBall, is who couldn’t reach those high high standards anymore, and this very much included the star names, and no one had the bollocks to do it – Poch as much as anyone, despite what the narrative of him being let down claims. Signings hardly fitted the mould in terms of aggression and athleticism either, you either got players who didn’t offer this or in the case of someone like Sissoko absurdly off the scale in bringing this as to forsake any footballing nous or ability. So all in all it’s no surprise the team declined and fell apart.

I don’t think this ever changes. Fans, understandably, focus pretty much totally on what the team does with the ball. But it is what you do without it for me that wins you football matches consistently and determines the level that you can reach. I mean even now under Conte our best performances (and results) almost always come about when we’re good without the ball – every individual working hard, organised disciplined shape, compact, reduce time/space, etc.

Until we hit those highest of standards, and are more consistent in it, to our approach when we don’t have the ball - whoever is the owner, manager, or players – then we’ll continue to be looking back and wondering where it all went wrong and if/when we’ll ever get back there…….

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Darth Vega said:

Every summer from 2016 onwards.

2016: could've won the league with better investment

2017: replaced Walker with Aurier, unspectacular signings in Foyth, Sanchez and others

2018: no signings was an obvious calamity

2019: signings this time, but they were so bad and so costly it sometimes tricks me into thinking we had the right idea in 2018

2020-present: mostly shit recruitment and managerial hires to boot. Definitely improved since Paratici came in but we've been left with so much to do thanks to all the previous years we're still well short of where we need to be

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Dougal said:

Sissoko handball 20 seconds into the Champions League Final. Had we won that game we would always have that triumph to look back on that even Levy couldn’t take away with subsequent financial buffoonery. But it’s gone. And here we are.

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mpickard2087 said:

As I’ve said many times before, what went wrong is what we did without the football. But unfortunately very few – managers, players, club management, even fans – realise it, prioritise it, and have done anything about it.

It’s always said that the ones with the most money win at football, that might be true, but if you look back over history very very often these winning teams had extremely high standards for their off the ball/defensive/work rate, if not setting new standards and defensive/pressing concepts altogether.

Poch’s outfit took Spurs to new heights (PL era at least) not because it was clearly the most talented – Redknapp’s team would want to battle for that accolade – it was because for once you had a Tottenham side that could roll it’s sleeves up and run hard and work and battle and put in a shift with such intensity that opponents week after week after week couldn’t live with. The football, and tempo of it, was played off the back of that.

Individually there were no shirkers. Kane ran through brick walls for the cause back then. Alli would press – usually badly, but at least keenly. Eriksen, contrary to the narrative, was, having been educated at Ajax, actually quite good for a long time at getting a toe in and/or blocking passing lanes and quietly covering a ton of ground doing it. Lamela would run around like a madman kicking people. In midfield, we started with two raw bundles of aggression and energy in Mason and Bentaleb as building blocks, and refined it to the unique brickwall uber-presence of Dembele and Wanyama’s ball winning capabilities as his partner. On the flanks you had Rose and Walker, neither could cross a ball to save their lives but they were two ultra aggressive little fuckers with jet engines strapped to them who dominated both sides of the pitch. At the back Toby and Jan had zero pace for a high line, didn’t matter though because we pressed, and compressed, so well that teams rarely, if ever, could exploit that.

We had about two - two and a half years, from Autumn 2014 to the end of 16/17 where the standards were put in place and we worked our bollocks off every single week (and could be quite nasty at times, remember the endless complaints about our tactical fouling from other fans?). But I remember even towards the end of that 16/17 campaign, the one most would say we peaked, I was writing about warning signs and starting to see things I didn’t like from the team and individuals regarding the press etc. (usually to disagreeing ratings, or replies of “u wot m8” or “just enjoy us winning ffs”). But at that time the team as an entity was flying and in such a groove and opponents so scared of us that it didn’t matter. But the signs were there.

After that, it was just downhill in these facets and to me it’s no surprise results/performances followed. But was this ever realised and taken into account? I don’t see much evidence of that. For the way we played frequent refreshing of the players was needed tbh, the core components as much as anyone. When we talk about “painful rebuild” what the criteria really should have been, under PochBall, is who couldn’t reach those high high standards anymore, and this very much included the star names, and no one had the bollocks to do it – Poch as much as anyone, despite what the narrative of him being let down claims. Signings hardly fitted the mould in terms of aggression and athleticism either, you either got players who didn’t offer this or in the case of someone like Sissoko absurdly off the scale in bringing this as to forsake any footballing nous or ability. So all in all it’s no surprise the team declined and fell apart.

I don’t think this ever changes. Fans, understandably, focus pretty much totally on what the team does with the ball. But it is what you do without it for me that wins you football matches consistently and determines the level that you can reach. I mean even now under Conte our best performances (and results) almost always come about when we’re good without the ball – every individual working hard, organised disciplined shape, compact, reduce time/space, etc.

Until we hit those highest of standards, and are more consistent in it, to our approach when we don’t have the ball - whoever is the owner, manager, or players – then we’ll continue to be looking back and wondering where it all went wrong and if/when we’ll ever get back there…….

Click to expand...