The sliding doors moment

[Ndombers]

Can or can't? Levy is a fucking can't

 

[bbunc]

It could also be argued that the turning point was 2018, when we decided to stop being a "selling club" (Walker in 2017 was the last key player we sold). It seemed like a really positive change at the time, but had we sold one key player (e.g. Dele who was reported wanted by Man Utd and Real, or Dier who Man Utd reportedly offered £30m for), it may have helped us to keep the the squad "fresh" enough to continue with the Poch's high press style.

It’s so easy to say that in hindsight. If we’d have sold Dele for 60-70M at the peak of his ability, we’d have all been going nuts about what a disastrous weak decision that was and that we need to act like a big club. Nobody could predict he’s go from star to league one level in 2 seasons.

now Dier I agree with.

 

[ginola99]

Hate to say it, and apologies if said already.

Roman bidding for us in 2003.

Had that happened, we would've been the spoilt brats. Genuinely is THE sliding doors moment for us to be honest, history would look very different by now, albeit being owned by Putin's mate, after all, Real we're owned by Spain's version of Hitler back in the 1950s.

 

[stormfly]

When Crouch scored the winning goal against Man City and putting us in the CL. I was only ever hoping for the odd cup run before then but that put me in a delusional state where I felt we could actually be a big club and win the big prizes. Now supporting Spurs seems like death from a thousand cuts ?

 

[HodisGawd]

Dembele leaving.

Fair enough, by that time he needed to be put out to pasture. But we needed a replacement. Tielemans was the obvious option, and available for £40m. But we decided to wait 6 months for someone better: Ndombele, the star midfielder. He was a lemon, and here we are.

 

[eddiev14]

2018 summer transfer window.

Not selling Alli, Eriksen, Rose at the top of their market value and not listening to Poch. The man said painful rebuild because he knew.

All the players and managers who we’ve burned cash to back since then, just imagine if we’d given it to MP.

Honestly it’s just Levy on the football side all over. Penny wise, pound foolish.

 

[pook]

When Hull City exercised their puchase option on Ant Gardner's loan, I knew it was all over. Frankly, I knew when I found out we'd allowed a purchase option.

 

[whenstevewentup]

In football terms was Roman buying Chelsea and completely inflating the market and in Tottenham terms the nelson Saha instead of Cahill and Suarez closely followed by sissoko instead of Mane

 

[HodisGawd]

2018 summer transfer window.

Not selling Alli, Eriksen, Rose at the top of their market value and not listening to Poch. The man said painful rebuild because he knew.

All the players and managers who we’ve burned cash to back since then, just imagine if we’d given it to MP.

Honestly it’s just Levy on the football side all over. Penny wise, pound foolish.

Can you imagine the reaction from the ENIC-outters if that had happened. They would have gone bananas.

 

[spurs9]

Not incoming transfers. Everyone obsesses about transfers.

The sliding doors, in this case, slid very slowly, but the big hinge in the Pochettino team's fortunes was when Dembélé's body starting giving up on him and he decided he needed to leave English football for something less physically demanding, to prolong his career.

People underestimate the degree to which that entire team and its style were centred around his role and quality. We could have expected to have another 2-3 years, albeit at declining pace, of Dembélé dominating the centre of the park and rumbling forward, unbudgeable, to bring the ball out of defence and into attack.

His peculiar genius was simply irreplaceable and he left before people seriously thought they needed to adapt the side to his absence.

We never had that level of iron grip on matches thereafter. And our midfield has never been the same.

I've seen this a lot, but I don't think it is true. He was a great player, but he was injured alot and our win % was similar to when he played than when he didn't.

In his last season, he was with us for 22 games, in which he was injured for 11. In the 11 games he played, we won 8 and lost 3, the exact same as the 11 games he didn't play. Even the 4 games immediately after he left, we won all 4.

IMO, it turned to shit, due to having a high energy press system, that largely had the same players with little refresh for the previous 3.5 to 4 years, that also had little rotation, resulting in physical and mental fatigue as well as a manager that was also mentally fatigued.

 

[rossdapep]

Not incoming transfers. Everyone obsesses about transfers.

The sliding doors, in this case, slid very slowly, but the big hinge in the Pochettino team's fortunes was when Dembélé's body starting giving up on him and he decided he needed to leave English football for something less physically demanding, to prolong his career.

People underestimate the degree to which that entire team and its style were centred around his role and quality. We could have expected to have another 2-3 years, albeit at declining pace, of Dembélé dominating the centre of the park and rumbling forward, unbudgeable, to bring the ball out of defence and into attack.

His peculiar genius was simply irreplaceable and he left before people seriously thought they needed to adapt the side to his absence.

We never had that level of iron grip on matches thereafter. And our midfield has never been the same.

I agree to an extent.

Demebele did allow the entire team to push on when he had the ball as he could take out 2 or 3 players at times.

However, he did miss a fair few games where our level of performance didn't drop off.

He was a key component but I dont think he was the glue necessarily.

Wanyama and Dier paired up a few times and we still had a strong performance.

I think the issues started with players not being able to maintain high intensity pressing, especially from the front and THEN without Wanyama or Dembele, that midfield no longer had that strength or control.

 

[tevezito]

There's a lot of not moments here!

My moment would be the following, although to be honest it felt pretty big at the time too, so maybe not really sliding doors either.

Furious Pochettino admits he ‘crossed the line’ confronting referee

The Argentine was angry at the final whistle with a dispute over whether a goal kick should have been awarded instead of a corner for the Clarets' first goal through Chris Wood

www.independent.co.uk

If we'd won, we'd have stayed in the title race. But not only did Poch losing it and a Spurs supporting referee allegedly saying we'd lost our chance for the title that day highlight our Spursiness, look at his post-match comments, 'I knew if we lost it will be difficult to be a contender.' Not the message to give your players. No wonder we went on a horrible run in the league from then on. Clearly he had a different message for the Champions League, thankfully, until right before the final and his leaving if we win comments. And we all know how things unfolded after that.

 

[jurgen11]

anyone got the samaritans number - ffs

 

[jurgen11]

When Peter crouch left and took Abbie with him..

 

[Athenspur]

The Dembele departure was the turning point. Few realized it at the time.

 

[jolsnogross]

Which moment was our sliding doors moment from looking like a serious team to becoming one lacking in direction?

Levy thinking Poch was the problem and thinking that another manager could extract more out of the same limited squad. Downhill from there.

Tip of the hat to DTSF quoted above for being first and possibly the only one to pinpoint the "right answer"

It's amazing to me that sacking Poch isn't the obvious answer from everyone's keyboard. That was the sliding door from purposeful direction and a coherent 'philosophy' and team ethos, to the nonsense we've seen since his tenure. It also differentiates a couple of decades worth of mediocrity to real competitive achievement = Spurs getting 86 and 77 points in the league, reaching a CL final. Historic highs. But the fans and Levy thought it would be a piece of piss for some other manager to get more . Or that the process of getting that far was unrepeatable by the guy who'd done it at Spurs and the cycle was over, since we "haven't won anything"

The most important person at a football club - the one that transmits a club philosophy and winning ethic to young men that must become more than the sum of their parts in the ultimate team game - is the manager. We were well underway to an era defining one, not based on individual components, specific transfers, particular defeats, or certain 'windows', but because we had a guy who gets it. And a guy who did it at Spurs, not leaning on former glories elsewhere. Someone who knew how to put the parts together to be better in unison than they are individually.

And what does numpty Levy do: throws not only the man out the door, but the method and playing style with it. As though he's learned nothing over the years of close proximity to it all.

Other clubs have had the Ferguson era, the Wenger era, the Guardiola era, the Klopp era......Clough, Paisley, Stein, Cruyff, Michels, Sacchi. Hell, we've even had the Nicholson era. There's a clue there folks.....managers. Those are men that provide the defining periods in footy club folklore. And our sliding door toward much worse outcomes was the self-inflicted wound of giving up on one far too prematurely.

 

[jolsnogross]

Just a quick addition - it's not certain that re-hiring Poch will get us back to the good times. But there's no reason to believe the character and know-how of the man has changed in the time since he was sacked.

It might be that Paratici calls the philosophy shots now and we're wedded to 3 centre-back systems. Or at least anyone coming in must be subservient to Paratici's preferences. That's fine, even if I disagree with it. There's logic to it.

But if we will soon be considering a new manager, evidence-free superstitions or hurt feelings like "never go back" or "he said he'd leave if we won" or "he wanted to go to Man U" should be completely binned for the nonsense they are.

 

[millhouse]

All valid choices in this thread.

But there is one glaring omission which all others pale in comparison

lasagnagate.

Imagine if you will we don't get sick and beat West Ham that day.

The scums goodbye party the library is ruined, they have to move into the degenerates without champions league money. The staduim hamstrung them for years in the transfer market imagine if they hadn't had the following seasons champions league money.

 

[Cochraam]

People will laugh, but I think our sliding doors moment was not building the cheese room, and I have the data to back it up. According to this article in the Guardian, the rumors of the cheese room emerged in January 2017 and then it was confirmed there would be no cheese room on February 11th, 2019. That period where the cheese room may have been on coincided with an incredible run of results for the club; during that time the cheese gods smiled on us and gave us their favor. However, nearly everything since then has been crap because we've angered the cheese gods and incurred their wrath. Here's the data:

Pre-cheese room rumors 2016-17: We were 10-6-2 in the league and 13-7-6 overall crashing out of the Champions League group stage and EFL Cup.
Post cheese room rumors 2017: We ended the year on a fantastic run, 16-2-2 in the league and 20-3-4 overall including an FA Cup semifinal.
2017-18: A solid year for our club - 23-8-7 in the league and 33-12-10 overall including another FA Cup semifinal, and going undefeated in a tricky Champions League group that had eventual winners Real Madrid.
Pre-cheese room cancellation 2018-19: We started pretty well this year, 20-0-6 in the league and 26-3-10 overall including getting out of a tough Champions League group.
Post-cheese room cancellation 2019: After the Guardian announced there would be no cheese room, our results nosedived in the league, going 3-2-7 the rest of the year. Of course we managed to get to the Champions League final, but that was a miracle, after all.

So, that period where it looked like the cheese room might happen, we went 59-10-15 in 84 league games, a 70% win rate and 2.23 points per game!! The two half seasons before and after that period, we only managed 13-8-9 in the league, a 43% win rate and 1.57 points per game. Aside from the Champions League final, everything has been going downhill - from bad to worse - for our club since February 11th, 2019 when the cheese room was revealed as a dead idea. Best coach in a decade sacked, dull football, embarrassing cup exits, losing to coaches in jail, Super League fiasco, 7 weeks to appoint Nuno, and on and on and on.

The good news is we can still rectify this situation. Levy, build the cheese room, end this curse, and lead us to glory!!

 

[thePessimist]

People will laugh, but I think our sliding doors moment was not building the cheese room, and I have the data to back it up. According to this article in the Guardian, the rumors of the cheese room emerged in January 2017 and then it was confirmed there would be no cheese room on February 11th, 2019. That period where the cheese room may have been on coincided with an incredible run of results for the club; during that time the cheese gods smiled on us and gave us their favor. However, nearly everything since then has been crap because we've angered the cheese gods and incurred their wrath. Here's the data:

Pre-cheese room rumors 2016-17: We were 10-6-2 in the league and 13-7-6 overall crashing out of the Champions League group stage and EFL Cup.
Post cheese room rumors 2017: We ended the year on a fantastic run, 16-2-2 in the league and 20-3-4 overall including an FA Cup semifinal.
2017-18: A solid year for our club - 23-8-7 in the league and 33-12-10 overall including another FA Cup semifinal, and going undefeated in a tricky Champions League group that had eventual winners Real Madrid.
Pre-cheese room cancellation 2018-19: We started pretty well this year, 20-0-6 in the league and 26-3-10 overall including getting out of a tough Champions League group.
Post-cheese room cancellation 2019: After the Guardian announced there would be no cheese room, our results nosedived in the league, going 3-2-7 the rest of the year. Of course we managed to get to the Champions League final, but that was a miracle, after all.

So, that period where it looked like the cheese room might happen, we went 59-10-15 in 84 league games, a 70% win rate and 2.23 points per game!! The two half seasons before and after that period, we only managed 13-8-9 in the league, a 43% win rate and 1.57 points per game. Aside from the Champions League final, everything has been going downhill - from bad to worse - for our club since February 11th, 2019 when the cheese room was revealed as a dead idea. Best coach in a decade sacked, dull football, embarrassing cup exits, losing to coaches in jail, Super League fiasco, 7 weeks to appoint Nuno, and on and on and on.

The good news is we can still rectify this situation. Levy, build the cheese room, end this curse, and lead us to glory!!

levy stinks so bad the board probably felt it wasn’t necessary