Mentality and Excuses

[Ionman34]

FFS...

 

[guy]

It's a mixture of both really. With a better squad of players, ie players who have the experience and have won trophies, they bring a stronger winning mentality, ie not legends.

There's definitely some truth and a connection in both arguments.

 

[Ribble]

I think that we're going to need to look at changing it up, get the likes of Harrison and Onomah involved in starting lineups, get Edwards on the bench, put some real pressure on everyone to step up or drop out.

 

[Lighty64]

Winning is definitely a good habit to have although after we beat city I don't think most of us would envisage going nearly 2 months with only one win against a team fourth from bottom.
December is as you say an important month to pick up points and wins for confidence building, if of course we can create and find the target.

those results after Man C mainly league we never looked like losing any of them, the opposition where the ones walking off the pitch happy to nick a point, and on 2 occasions their keeper being MotM.

I really think injuries have been very disruptive this season and not only have we not played the team that played so well as a group 2 or 3 have been off form.

I don't know if the opposition are setting up differently to stop the way we played last season, or whether we are not committing to the high press as much to try and prevent burnout, but we have only used it in 3 or 4 games this season so far, and with the set up from all our opponents in December including Man U, they are all going to sit back and try and frustrate us

 

[ajspurs]

I think that we're going to need to look at changing it up, get the likes of Harrison and Onomah involved in starting lineups, get Edwards on the bench, put some real pressure on everyone to step up or drop out.

Really not sure that's the way forward, not for me anyway. I think we're lacking a few vital traits from players in the team, speed, intelligence, directness etc. As much as some of Eriksen's (for instance) performances piss me off I'd still rather him in the team than Onomah myself.

Personally, I couldn't see the likes of Eriksen, Alli or Son becoming different players or the players we want from being dropped but I can see their performances behind enhanced with better players around them. I think more than anything we need to up the quality.

 

[WiganSpur]

I think that we're going to need to look at changing it up, get the likes of Harrison and Onomah involved in starting lineups, get Edwards on the bench, put some real pressure on everyone to step up or drop out.

It's not a bad time to start bringing Edwards through. We could do with another RM at the moment. Poch should start throwing him on for 10-15 minutes at the end of games because we can't do much worse at the minute.

I think Onomah is also very promising but Poch wastes him on the right. He's terrible there for me and always looks much more comfortable playing at 10 or deeper.

Similarly Harrison could now be a bench option if we are playing a 2 striker formation and Son is having one of those days again.

Winks also needs to start every week for me, I think he's good enough.

 

[shelfboy68]

those results after Man C mainly league we never looked like losing any of them, the opposition where the ones walking off the pitch happy to nick a point, and on 2 occasions their keeper being MotM.

I really think injuries have been very disruptive this season and not only have we not played the team that played so well as a group 2 or 3 have been off form.

I don't know if the opposition are setting up differently to stop the way we played last season, or whether we are not committing to the high press as much to try and prevent burnout, but we have only used it in 3 or 4 games this season so far, and with the set up from all our opponents in December including Man U, they are all going to sit back and try and frustrate us

I think we might be in for a tough season to be honest and like I've said before I never expected to finish top four this year nor the title as some on here thought we could.
You probably are right in what your saying but I have a feeling that again this is going to be another of those seasons of missed opportunity again.

 

[danielneeds]

Utter bollocks...... Games that mattered once we came into title race Leicester home, West Ham away, Arsenal home, Liverpool away, WBA home & Chelsea away we failed to win any of them when we had a chance to go top/cut points gap/put pressure on Leicester. Even after that we needed 1 point to finish above AFC from 2 games with 1 of them to a already relegated team we bottled.

This season again WBA away, they were on a shocking run and we coming off beating city. Win and we go top, you know the rest. 1 win in 10, and that was a fluke too, since City but the happy clapper idiots amongst our support are making excuses for it and our continual bottle jobs. Do carry on making excuses though.....

Looking at last season - None of those games were easy and we fought hard, West Brom is the only one where I would say we were awful. As for the rest, tough, tough London derbies. Anfield away, and Leicester at home we battered them and got nothing to show for it. The pressure was immense, I've never seen a media backing a team to win a team like they did with Leicester.

You can't just magic an impenetrable winning mentality out of thin air, it hard work and it takes time and patience. Throwing one's toys out the pram every time we lose, is just pathetic. It doesn't matter what happened 5, 10, 15 years ago at Tottenham. This is a young squad and manager, who are trying to grow and learn together, only an imbecile would think it would just be a simple upward curve with no hard times.

 

[ljinko888]

The problem with the mentality is we have a group of players who don't know what it's like to win and as a club we don't know what it's like to win. We get carried away with a small window of success which for our club is being in and around the top four.

3rd/4th isn't a trophy though. Poch is a great young coach but he needs to gain that winning feel as much as the players.

Until we get that first pot in the cabinet this cycle will continue. Players come and go, managers come and go but ultimately we're just bubbling over the surface.

 

[sunnydelight786]

Looking at last season - None of those games were easy and we fought hard, West Brom is the only one where I would say we were awful. As for the rest, tough, tough London derbies. Anfield away, and Leicester at home we battered them and got nothing to show for it. The pressure was immense, I've never seen a media backing a team to win a team like they did with Leicester.

You can't just magic an impenetrable winning mentality out of thin air, it hard work and it takes time and patience. Throwing one's toys out the pram every time we lose, is just pathetic. It doesn't matter what happened 5, 10, 15 years ago at Tottenham. This is a young squad and manager, who are trying to grow and learn together, only an imbecile would think it would just be a simple upward curve with no hard times.

Really.....? So please do tell me how Leicester managed it last season & LFC have this even though they were miles behind us last season? How anyone can argue against our bottling mentality when it really matters is beyond me. No other so called big club in world football does bottle like we do. There is a reason why the term 'spursy' was coined.....

 

[sunnydelight786]

The problem with the mentality is we have a group of players who don't know what it's like to win and as a club we don't know what it's like to win. We get carried away with a small window of success which for our club is being in and around the top four.

3rd/4th isn't a trophy though. Poch is a great young coach but he needs to gain that winning feel as much as the players.

Until we get that first pot in the cabinet this cycle will continue. Players come and go, managers come and go but ultimately we're just bubbling over the surface.

100% correct. Our pathetic attitude towards cups is inherent towards our bottling mentality. The first thing SAF/JM would do in their pomp was to try and win a trophy asap so that their players could get that feeling of 'winning'. SAF has said that the 06 LC was important for his new side post Keane as it gave them the belief to could 'win'. The rest for that team is history.
Our manager chooses to throw cups in his pursuit of exactly what....?

 

[danielneeds]

Really.....? So please do tell me how Leicester managed it last season & LFC have this even though they were miles behind us last season? How anyone can argue against our bottling mentality when it really matters is beyond me. No other so called big club in world football does bottle like we do. There is a reason why the term 'spursy' was coined.....

Yeah, the reason is gullible fans who buy into this narrative. We never bottled the title, because we were never in the lead. Arsenal bottled the title because the were 1st in Jan. Every club has disappointments, and loses matches they should win. The only real "Spursy" thing was how criminally mismanaged the club was in the '90s, forcing us to play catch up ever since.

 

[ljinko888]

100% correct. Our pathetic attitude towards cups is inherent towards our bottling mentality. The first thing SAF/JM would do in their pomp was to try and win a trophy asap so that their players could get that feeling of 'winning'. SAF has said that the 06 LC was important for his new side post Keane as it gave them the belief to could 'win'. The rest for that team is history.
Our manager chooses to throw cups in his pursuit of exactly what....?

This is why I want us to go in the Europa League. Who are we to start picking and choosing which competitions to take seriously? Our performances in Europe are embarrassing so we are far from good enough to think Europa is beneath us.

 

[Lighty64]

I think we might be in for a tough season to be honest and like I've said before I never expected to finish top four this year nor the title as some on here thought we could.
You probably are right in what your saying but I have a feeling that again this is going to be another of those seasons of missed opportunity again.

i predicted 5th at the start, Chelsea and Liverpool both not having European commitments, Man C with their money and squad, and their new boss. the only 1's I have wrong way round at the moment is Arscum and Man U.

in the league we haven't played as well as last season for excitement value, but we are playing so shit that the opposition are walking off the pitch saying they should of had the 3pts bar Liverpool and possibly Everton, but whether due to having to field stronger teams in Europe that still haven't been full strength due to injuries, Janssen, N'Koudou and Sissoko not hitting the ground running, and Wanyama doing so well that on the odd occasion we have had on fielding the XI that looked so exciting, Poch has not tried it, but after 13 games with only a 3rd of the season gone the only thing I'm really disappointed with is being out the CL.

Until we can even compete with Liverpool on the wages front, we are going to struggle to buy players that will definitely come in and be an improvement on what we have at the moment, I mean Mane instead of Sissoko, Mane is only 50K a week more in wages, Batishuyi was going to join us apparently, but Chelsea match the full fee and offer a lot more in wages, and both those players are on more at their new clubs than our top earners we have on the books.

anything above 5th will be a bonus, anything below 6th will be seen as a failure, though would see us have a season of fixtures similar to Liverpool and Chelsea. the trouble with some classing us as legends when it matters, they seem to forget we are playing an opponent and those opponents are not going to lay down and let us walk over them, or their keepers actually have very good days. with the quality we can afford we are never ever going to be a team that dominates a season, and are going to face teams that just seem to raise their games v us.

 

[Styopa]

I believe we had an identical points total at the same stage last season and the same results record ie won 6, drawn 6, lost 1. We had a couple impressive wins against Bournemouth and West Ham and a very impressive win against Man City but, in fairness, we also had some indifferent to average results like the draws at home to Stoke, Everton and Liverpool, and the draw away at Swansea. Even the draw away to Leicester, at that time, probably felt like 2 points dropped. Really it was after that home loss to Newcastle that we really kicked in, winning enough games between then and West Brom to give us a real shot at the title.

We are in a poor run of form now, but it is my opinion that some of us are overreacting. Expectations have been raised (and rightly so) but some of us are being revisionist - let's not forget there were also occasions last season when we were average or worse even before the end of the season collapse.

What we need now is a big, confidence boosting performance and to put together a run of wins. With Kane back and other key players to follow hopefully things will look much better by the end of December.

 

[shelfboy68]

i predicted 5th at the start, Chelsea and Liverpool both not having European commitments, Man C with their money and squad, and their new boss. the only 1's I have wrong way round at the moment is Arscum and Man U.

in the league we haven't played as well as last season for excitement value, but we are playing so shit that the opposition are walking off the pitch saying they should of had the 3pts bar Liverpool and possibly Everton, but whether due to having to field stronger teams in Europe that still haven't been full strength due to injuries, Janssen, N'Koudou and Sissoko not hitting the ground running, and Wanyama doing so well that on the odd occasion we have had on fielding the XI that looked so exciting, Poch has not tried it, but after 13 games with only a 3rd of the season gone the only thing I'm really disappointed with is being out the CL.

Until we can even compete with Liverpool on the wages front, we are going to struggle to buy players that will definitely come in and be an improvement on what we have at the moment, I mean Mane instead of Sissoko, Mane is only 50K a week more in wages, Batishuyi was going to join us apparently, but Chelsea match the full fee and offer a lot more in wages, and both those players are on more at their new clubs than our top earners we have on the books.

anything above 5th will be a bonus, anything below 6th will be seen as a failure, though would see us have a season of fixtures similar to Liverpool and Chelsea. the trouble with some classing us as legends when it matters, they seem to forget we are playing an opponent and those opponents are not going to lay down and let us walk over them, or their keepers actually have very good days. with the quality we can afford we are never ever going to be a team that dominates a season, and are going to face teams that just seem to raise their games v us.

I will obviously take fifth as like yourself in thought that would be the best we could hope for and yes anything above is a bonus and last year we over achieved imo.
The bottling thing is a weird one because we know we can't just expect to turn up and win everything, but there has been times over the years when I've laughed and cried over the way we do seem to fuck it up more than most even if it's something like just going top of the league for say a couple of hours we do find way's of not doing it.
I think that is where most of the fan's frustration kicks in time and time again however looking at your username is can see we are of a similar age and have seen so much over the years both good and bad then bad again but I'm sure we will get there.

 

[markiespurs]

I've seen plenty of Spurs teams over the years that have had a mentality problem and this current side don't even come close to having a mentality problem in comparison.

 

[double0]

I think in times like now ie out of the CL, our unbeaten EPL stats gone, we should really take stock and understand how far we have come as a football club.

We should also keep in mind the blue print of developing young players buying potential to add to the team. I feel we should not lose sight of this and continue along those tracks until we find ourselves financially in a better position to offer wages required for better players. I look at what Pochettinho has done he's a progressive manager we should for now get behind and support the team.

 

[kitchen]

I believe we had an identical points total at the same stage last season and the same results record ie won 6, drawn 6, lost 1. We had a couple impressive wins against Bournemouth and West Ham and a very impressive win against Man City but, in fairness, we also had some indifferent to average results like the draws at home to Stoke, Everton and Liverpool, and the draw away at Swansea. Even the draw away to Leicester, at that time, probably felt like 2 points dropped. Really it was after that home loss to Newcastle that we really kicked in, winning enough games between then and West Brom to give us a real shot at the title.

We are in a poor run of form now, but it is my opinion that some of us are overreacting. Expectations have been raised (and rightly so) but some of us are being revisionist - let's not forget there were also occasions last season when we were average or worse even before the end of the season collapse.

What we need now is a big, confidence boosting performance and to put together a run of wins. With Kane back and other key players to follow hopefully things will look much better by the end of December.

The difference is that last season the performances were much better. We were making lots of chances and not taking them. Now we're not making lots of chances and still not taking them...

 

[jimmy-jojo]

NO we miss a winning mentality both on & off the pitch. A excuse culture exists amongst our support for every failure.
After cfc equalised everyone in the ground last night knew the inevitable was going to happen. We have a legends mentality on the pitch and that showed again last night. Every single question that has been asked of this team it's bottled the answer*.......

* Watch all the excuses rain in now for another failure.....

I agree with your general point about poor mentality, however I don't really think losing to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge last night can really be called bottling it.