The sliding doors moment

[TheChosenOne]

But dont you think there was a window where we could have cemented ourselves and stayed up there a little longer?

Also a trophy or 2 probably would have led to more

A triumphal return to the new stadium should have been the kickstart to a new policy of buying the best.. Prudence got us a stadium that became an albatross around our neck instead of a fortress after the bad as bad stupid purchases that were sanctioned by a stupid board controlled by Levy
.. Sadly he’ll never change

 

[rossdapep]

I actually think if we’d beaten Chelsea in the FA Cup semi final where Walker was dropped was a huge moment for us

It was the beginning of the end for that group

Its a tricky one that one.

I don't really recall what happened but hadn't Walker flirted with City and Poch found out?

Or did they just have a training ground bust-up so Poch made an example of him?

Either way, difficult to keep him in the team at that point unless you find a quick way to remedy it or you plan to deal with it at end of season.

I think Son at LWB was far more damaging though.

Chelsea had Costa and Hazard on the bench that day and we needed to get our noses in front

 

[Timberwolf]

Very interesting question/thread.

I think there are a ton of potential sliding doors moments over the years and it's hard to choose just one. A couple that popped into my head:

- Chelsea winning the CL and nicking 4th off us. Maybe we sign Hazard and Redknapp stays? In turn then VDV and even Bale stay longer at the club? I guess this might've had more negative than positive repercussions down the line though - maybe we never bring Kane through, get a shit manager after 'Arry rather than Poch, etc.

- Missing out on Grealish. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't seem so big, but given we were in such dire need of creativity, inspiration and new blood as Eriksen was starting to fade and looking to leave, missing out on a bargain for a top quality player like Grealish then signing NO-ONE for an entire summer window was seismic in retrospect.

 

[rossdapep]

End of the 16-17 Season. We played so bloody well for almost 6 months. Last 15 games were like 13 wins, and we were literally smashing teams, goals all over the place (we had a +60 goal difference that year!!) - 86 points and we had nothing to show for it, as Chelsea beat us to the FA cup and the league. Year after that City took over, and had the first 100 point season., and the chances of competing started to slide away.

Yeah it really was an incredible year.

And its true that City and Pep were going to click relatively quickly due to their spend which was going to be a huge blocker.

I remember when we played City that preseason and despite looking good ourselves, City really were scarily good and really put us to the sword.

Still, Liverpool didnt let disappointment put them off. They took it to City, invested really well and got some trophies amd a few good years to show for it.

 

[TheChosenOne]

Its a tricky one that one.

I don't really recall what happened but hadn't Walker flirted with City and Poch found out?

Or did they just have a training ground bust-up so Poch made an example of him?

Either way, difficult to keep him in the team at that point unless you find a quick way to remedy it or you plan to deal with it at end of season.

I think Son at LWB was far more damaging though.

Chelsea had Costa and Hazard on the bench that day and we needed to get our noses in front

We dragged ourselves level and we were looking good but then the Son/Moses pen happened and it fell away miserably.
Alas Moses got his comeuppance in the FA Cup final v Arsenal for trying the same dive.

 

[TheChosenOne]

Very interesting question/thread.

I think there are a ton of potential sliding doors moments over the years and it's hard to choose just one. A couple that popped into my head:

- Chelsea winning the CL and nicking 4th off us. Maybe we sign Hazard and Redknapp stays? In turn then VDV and even Bale stay longer at the club?

- Missing out on Grealish. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't seem so big, but given we were in such dire need of creativity, inspiration and new blood as Eriksen was starting to fade and looking to leave, missing out on a bargain for a top quality player like Grealish then signing NO-ONE for an entire summer window was seismic in retrospect.

The board pretended that things might happen- that was the worst part

 

[rossdapep]

Very interesting question/thread.

I think there are a ton of potential sliding doors moments over the years and it's hard to choose just one. A couple that popped into my head:

- Chelsea winning the CL and nicking 4th off us. Maybe we sign Hazard and Redknapp stays? In turn then VDV and even Bale stay longer at the club?

- Missing out on Grealish. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't seem so big, but given we were in such dire need of creativity, inspiration and new blood as Eriksen was starting to fade and looking to leave, missing out on a bargain for a top quality player like Grealish then signing NO-ONE for an entire summer window was seismic in retrospect.

I mostly meant Poch era and something in our control but yeah your first one would have been huge.

Actually, the Grealish one is important. Eriksen was clearly not signing a new contract and he did seem to lose some of his spark.

If it was down to me, I'd have brought both Grealish and Maddison in and tried to see if any European clubs would bite at a slight discount for Eriksen (say 50m).

We needed a Eriksen back up anyway, Lamela kind of was but always injured and I think 2 young hopefuls who have bags of talent would have been a great fit.

Poch often played all of Alli, Son, Kane, and Eriksen so it could have been replicated.

Son, Grealish, Maddison and Kane.

 

[Timberwolf]

End of the 16-17 Season. We played so bloody well for almost 6 months. Last 15 games were like 13 wins, and we were literally smashing teams, goals all over the place (we had a +60 goal difference that year!!) - 86 points and we had nothing to show for it, as Chelsea beat us to the FA cup and the league. Year after that City took over, and had the first 100 point season., and the chances of competing started to slide away.

Yeah, it's actually probably sliding doors moments at other clubs that have affected us as much as anything.

If Chelsea hadn't been SO fucking shit under Jose the season before 16-17 and actually qualified for the CL (or even the Europa League) as usual, would they been able to challenge us for the title under Conte? Having no European distraction was massive for them that season and that extra 6+ games for them might have given us that slight edge to win the title.

 

[rossdapep]

The board pretended that things might happen- that was the worst part

What an odd summer.

The Grealish transfer felt inevitable with all the ITK and murmurings.

I recall JJ saying that even Grealish was expecting it and he felt for him as he already had his head out the door at Villa.

Clearly Levy was doing his usual of taking it to the wire and making Villa have to accept a late offer knowing the player wanted out. Then the new owners came and upped the price by about 15m.

Got what he deserved that day and poor Poch had to face the consequences

 

[JCRD]

Sliding doors moment? When Dembele was sold. I dont know if he would have played the CL final and who knows if we had gone through to the final had he been with us but I am certain we would have won that final had he been with us.

The two windows not buying anyone was so so odd, that was just idiotic by us. I still believe to this day we ae paying for it.

 

[rossdapep]

Whilst everyone is reminiscing whilst considering this question, just thought I’d give you something to smile about…

Ha I watched this last night and this is what sparked my idea for this thread.

I truly believe some of those players reached their absolute limit that season and what was needed was 3 or 4 players ready to step in and take their place (like when Poch signed Ndombele and Lo Celso, the idea, not those players).

We didn't get one.

 

[Timberwolf]

I mostly meant Poch era and something in our control but yeah your first one would have been huge.

Actually, the Grealish one is important. Eriksen was clearly not signing a new contract and he did seem to lose some of his spark.

If it was down to me, I'd have brought both Grealish and Maddison in and tried to see if any European clubs would bite at a slight discount for Eriksen (say 50m).

We needed a Eriksen back up anyway, Lamela kind of was but always injured and I think 2 young hopefuls who have bags of talent would have been a great fit.

Poch often played all of Alli, Son, Kane, and Eriksen so it could have been replicated.

Son, Grealish, Maddison and Kane.

Yeah there was an interesting conversation around this topic on A View From The Lane recently.

They discussed how Levy is a great negotiator when it comes to selling players like Bale, Modric, Carrick, Berbatov, etc. When he knows the player wants out, there's a massive club interested and he can eke out every last penny he's one of the best. In contrast he's absolutely terrible at actively moving players on, or allowing managers to do so.

It's easy to say with hindsight as there would've probably been open fan revolt if we'd sold Eriksen, Alli, Toby or, to a lesser extent Rose or Dier when they had 2+ years left on their contracts, but on the flipside we could've raised literally about 200-250m quid and properly rebuilt the team. Instead the team was all but finished within 2 years and in the end got a combined total of, what, 30m for those 5 players? Maybe plus 10m if we were to sell Dier now?

Of all those prospective sales, not flogging Dier to Man United when they were willing to pay like 40-50m quid seems especially absurd in retrospect. He was never that important to the Poch era - we really should've taken the money and run on that one.

 

[rossdapep]

Most of the previous points are spot on. For me they’d be categorised as sliding doors off the pitch: not signing single player in 2018/19 which I think coincided with Paul Mitchell, head of recruitment leaving. This to me was huge, since then our recruitment has been woeful. Under Mitchell’s watch Deli, Son, Trippier, Toby were signed up.

On the pitch the knock on effect with the above decline which started to show through when we couldn’t win away from home in the league for nearly a year: the Champions League final year (this mentality seeped into the final).

Never having squad depth and quality to challenge those who were in that squad for a number of years which highlighted the fragility of the team and club‘s mentality: this has marinated for years and now we don’t have an identity. People going round in circles, we’ve all fallen for the winner project in Jose & Conte and realised that the board will not back these types of win now managers. It’s got to a stage of a never ending sense of Deja vu. I want the club to go back to the strategy under 2016-2018 Poch period and admit that they’ve got it completely wrong with footballing matters and be honest with us all and say we will always be a club for a project manager who seeks to put an attacking style of play first, this time do it don’t just say it and then hire another Nuno.

Yeah, I agree with the premise about who we are.

I believe the Jose appointment sent us down the wrong route

The club should have really taken their time with that and tried to understand why it went wrong with Poch, why they appointed Poch in the first place and how they can get back on track.

Levy's idea was so lazy, yet so costly.

"We have 500m of talent here, we just need a winning coach to get them over the line"

That's not a strategy. Its a hit and hope.

Jose had just failed with more talented players then our group, how was he going to get the best out of spent players like Jan or young talents that needed serious coaching?

Looking back, I wouldn't have minded an interim coach just to tidy over until the club identified a coach similar to Poch

 

[Timberwolf]

Yeah, I agree with the premise about who we are.

I believe the Jose appointment sent us down the wrong route

The club should have really taken their time with that and tried to understand why it went wrong with Poch, why they appointed Poch in the first place and how they can get back on track.

Levy's idea was so lazy, yet so costly.

"We have 500m of talent here, we just need a winning coach to get them over the line"

That's not a strategy. Its a hit and hope.

Jose had just failed with more talented players then our group, how was he going to get the best out of spent players like Jan or young talents that needed serious coaching?

Looking back, I wouldn't have minded an interim coach just to tidy over until the club identified a coach similar to Poch

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.

 

[rossdapep]

Yeah there was an interesting conversation around this topic on A View From The Lane recently.

They discussed how Levy is a great negotiator when it comes to selling players like Bale, Modric, Carrick, Berbatov, etc. When he knows the player wants out, there's a massive club interested and he can eke out every last penny he's one of the best. In contrast he's absolutely terrible at actively moving players on, or allowing managers to do so.

It's easy to say with hindsight as there would've probably been open fan revolt if we'd sold Eriksen, Alli, Toby or, to a lesser extent Rose or Dier when they had 2+ years left on their contracts, but on the flipside we could've raised literally about 200-250m quid and properly rebuilt the team. Instead the team was all but finished within 2 years and in the end got a combined total of, what, 30m for those 5 players? Maybe plus 10m if we were to sell Dier now?

Yeah this is the big lesson for everyone I feel.

Poch's team was always better than the sum of its parts.

There was some exceptions, such as Kane, Dembele, Son, Eriksen and peak Toby/Jan but players like Alli, Rose, Dier were not pivotal to the way we played.

There was plenty of tenacious left backs about, plenty of defensive midfielders better than Dier.

A club with a real solid strategy would have analysed each player for sale.

Look at Brighton, they know when to release a player and they already have the next part to come in. The system isnt reliant on it.

Once, it was likely Eriksen wasnt signing the contract, the club should have been all over a replacement.

Sell Dier and Eriksen = 100m, could replace with 3 players and still potentially improve.

Fergie knew to do this.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that was Fergies advice to Poch when they met

 

[rossdapep]

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.

Nagelsmann and Rodgers were 2 names really in the media at the time. I dont know how serious that was because they were floating around before Poch got the tin tac and when Poch was fired, Jose came in immediately.

So, no idea if they were asked.

But Ten Hag was certainly a name and we'd witnessed his coaching only 8 months prior.

 

[Timberwolf]

Yeah this is the big lesson for everyone I feel.

Poch's team was always better than the sum of its parts.

There was some exceptions, such as Kane, Dembele, Son, Eriksen and peak Toby/Jan but players like Alli, Rose, Dier were not pivotal to the way we played.

There was plenty of tenacious left backs about, plenty of defensive midfielders better than Dier.

A club with a real solid strategy would have analysed each player for sale.

Look at Brighton, they know when to release a player and they already have the next part to come in. The system isnt reliant on it.

Once, it was likely Eriksen wasnt signing the contract, the club should have been all over a replacement.

Sell Dier and Eriksen = 100m, could replace with 3 players and still potentially improve.

Fergie knew to do this.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that was Fergies advice to Poch when they met

Almost wrote an entire other spiel about exactly this - with the Fergie/Poch prediciton too! I suspect that's where the 'painful rebuild' idea may have come from.

 

[cjbyid]

Whilst everyone is reminiscing whilst considering this question, just thought I’d give you something to smile about…

How that team never won anything will always be a mystery! Cruel.

 

[rossdapep]

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…….

Very very true.

We were absolutely relentless off the ball.

The amount of games where we'd completely suffocate teams.

We played so many games against opposition in their own half and they couldn't get beyond the half way line.

As you say, thats because we pressed relentlessly and even behind the front press, Dier, Vertonghen and Toby were ready to cut anything out.

Toby went from being a CB who hardly fouled to one that was gettinf regularly spun within about 2 years.

I also think Poch forgot a lot of fundamentals.

When he was clamouring for big money signings like Ndombele, those won't the players that made his team so special, it was players who ran like demons.

What the hell was Poch watching when he saw Ndombele???

One of the reasons I think City have been so dominant, other than having top players, is because Pep's philosophy has always been to get the ball back within 5 seconds. They wont sign players who can't play this way, thats why theyve passed on some big names, they know they won't do it and they suffer for it.

Instead they sign multiple players with a healthy age and rotate but more importantly trade the squad frequently.

Poch needed that.

All of Rose, Vertonghen, Walker, Lamela, Eriksen, Dembele had been struggling for consistency before Poch came, some even didnt look particularly good footballers, but Poch got some looking much better than they were because they ran like dogs.

Rose never played as well prior to Poch coming and nor after he left.

Eriksen struggled for a few years.

Walker got better cause he joined a coach who demands the same.

So to replace some of these would have been relatively easy. As I mentioned, we didn't need to keep players who were quite simply 'cogs' in the machine like Dier, Rose and maybe Toby.

We could have brought in a fair whack and then really expanded the squad so we could keep it fresher.

To further your example. Liverpool are in the same boat. I think all of Robertson, Matip, Gomez, Henderson, Milner, Wijnaldum, Keita, Oxlade Chamberlain, Firmino were/are nothing special BUT again, they ran like demons and as a unit, teams could not deal with them.

Even Mourinho signed better players at United but couldn't lay a glove on Klopp and Liverpool. For this reason, energy and workrate off the ball and as a unit.

Anyway, how would you feel about a Poch reunion? Do you think it could still work?

Im skeptical because today, most coaches operate with high intensity pressing and Im not sure Poch is wily enough to adapt

 

[rossdapep]

It's not really one sliding door moment, because for me our decline came as a result of the entirety of the recruitment failings from 2016-2019. The ultimate failure of the Pochettino project, and all of the subsequent dysfunction, really takes place amidst the backdrop of those four summer windows all taken together.

The squad was in a good place going into summer 2016 but there were obvious areas that called for improvement. We made a shrewd signing in Wanyama, but the others were characteristic of Levy's risk aversion. Poch wanted a pacey winger and chased after Mane and Zaha, but Levy was unwilling to pay what would have been required to get them. Instead, we wound up with a bargain basement punt in Nkoudou, replacing the bargain bin pacey winger punt we'd taken the previous summer in Njie. There was also Sissoko, whose wage demands were more tolerable to Levy than the superior alternatives Poch actually wanted, but whose lack of technique made him a deeply flawed signing as an attacking signing. Similarly, Poch was denied his first-choice Kane backup and given Janssen, whose CV consisted only of a six-month purple patch in a piss-poor league. The end result was that we failed to improve any of the areas we'd set out to strengthen going into the window other than with Wanyama, who promptly fucked his knee.

The same general dynamic played out the next summer. Sanchez was an ambitious signing but one who ultimately failed to represent real improvement. Otherwise, it was the same old second-choice (Aurier, Lucas in January) and bargain-rate (Foyth, Llorente) signings. Again, we failed to make any lasting improvements on the first XI.

So the squad was already in a two-year long period of stagnation by the time we reached summer 2018, and Poch had repeatedly been denied his targets throughout. He put his foot down and demanded that he be given his chosen signings or no one at all, and Levy obliged by delivering no one at all. That turned out to be a massive mistake, but it was an understandable stance for Poch to take given everything that had transpired leading up to that point. The disaster of 2018 can't be understood without reference to the preceding windows.

Of course, we all know how things went after that. By the time Poch was finally given his preferred signings it was all too late, and he also turned out to be a dreadful scout of a player. If he'd been given reasonable backing that had actually improved the squad in the years leading up to 2019 maybe there would have been a greater willingness to compromise, and less desperation to deliver his hand-picked players notwithstanding the red flags surrounding them.

Had the recruitment setup been even modestly competent in those years we likely could have prevented the gradual decline in the quality of the squad and avoided Pochettino becoming so stubborn, which cost us dearly in the end. We'd have likely kept Eriksen and Kane on side, and Poch may well have been able to see us over the line. We wouldn't constantly be playing catchup with areas of the squad that fell into disarray more quickly than we could fix them. Things would be very, very different at the club if we'd gotten the recruitment anywhere close to right during that period.

Brilliant summary, mate.

I think that is pretty much a nailed on description of what happened and why its led us here.

Whilst I too think the 2016 window was poor, I feel it was still retrievable the year after. Instead we ended up further bloating the squad so much we now had Nkodou, Foyth, Llorente, Janssen and Walker Peters hanging around the squad hardly being used or preventing us from signing better players.

At the time we sold Walker, KWP was already emerging and Trippier was proving a very able player, why did we sign ANOTHER RB when Rose was suffering with injuries, Dembele was on his way out and we still needed another decent attacking option?

Actually, this is the story of ENIC. We dont seem to prioritise very well.

The 2022 window it was imperative we signed CBs and a RWB, we signed a 60m attacker who struggles for game time and weve just brought in another attacker on loan. The RWB came in after BOTH these when it should actually have been the priority.


City dont do that. Arsenal are no longer doing that.

In fact, Arteta's first major signings were White, Partey and Gabriel.

3 immediate areas that needed addressing and when PEA was clearly on his way out they didnt panic, but addressed it in a proper manner and didnt try for a quick short term fix.

I remember in 2021 their fans complaining cause they didnt sign another AM alongside Odegaard. But truth is they needed to pay attention to the defence and they signed all of Ramsdale, White, Tomiyasu and Tavares to go on top of Gabriel who theyd signed before and with Saliba to come in, theyd essentially addressed the entire backline.

Pep did exactly the same at City, when he first came in, although he had to correct it second window.

The point is we dont seem to have a window where we really focus on the core.

Perhaps 2018 was that time. Certainly 2022 was