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The problem with Spurs
I’m on the train back from the Bridge and already I can see the Twitter commentators delivering their verdict – Spurs lost because their squad lacks depth.
I’ve heard it from everyone. The PFM (Merse on Sky Sports – ‘Are Spurs in the title race?’ ‘No.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Squad.’) to Glendenning and my much loved Football Weekly crew. So let’s be clear. Spurs do not lack squad depth. It’s a myth.
This is lazy analysis based on cliches and stereotypes. Spurs’ problem is that their starting 11 isn’t good enough to compete with the very best. That’s why they fall short in the big games. They are poor at full back and lack experience and poise in CM post the Dembele golden age.
Spurs have rotated heavily this season and maintained a high standard. Does anyone actually look at the squad? 1 world class goalkeeper and 2 decent Premier League back ups. 5 fall backs who are solid if not quite at the required level (Aurier and Davies as back up are pretty good and a home grown talent in Walker-Peters). 2 high quality CBs and 2 incredibly promising back-ups. 4 central midfields in Dier, Sissoko, Wanyama and Winks. Maybe our weakest area but it still has depth. That doesn’t include another young prospect in Skipp. 3 exceptional attacking midfielders in Eriksen, Son and Alli and good reserve options in Lamela and Lucas. And Kane up front. And yeah Llorente looks like a cart horse these days but in theory it was a good signing and it’s not the easiest job to be back up to Kane.
I make that a squad of 24 and good reserve options in every area. If you do a similar comparison to everyone other than the Manchester clubs I think you’ll find Spurs compare favourably. So let’s stop with the cliches. Because the reason Spurs don’t take that final step is not because we haven’t got a good 4th choice CM. It’s because our best choice 11 isn’t good enough. I’m looking at you Trippier…
I’ll stop now.
Mark
Spurs, that
This is the first year away goals don’t count and Spurs win on away goals.
Normal service has resumed.
JoeKen (disappointed but we gave it our all)
…I think I preferred it when Spurs were consistently fumbling around in mid-table, largely amounting to nothing, with the odd cup run to a quarter final…
No-one expected anything……life was so much simpler then…..
Dan, Hornchurch (hoping this is my hat-trick letter).
…That’ll be another trophy that Tottenham won’t win, then……
I joke, but….
I don’t actually blame Pochettino for prioritising the bigger cups and prizes, but realistically the CL and league are huge asks for a club on that kind of budget plan. Where does he draw the line between ambition and tangible progress? They’re a great side with great players, but Kane, Eriksen and the rest will want to win things at some point. Where will the breaking point be?
HarryB
…No doubt there’ll be plenty on Spurs “bottling it” last night. But looking at this as on outsider with some objectivity, this narrative seems rather wide of the mark once you delve past the opportunistic trolling.
In the 10 years since Spurs last won a trophy, transfermarkt shows them having invested just 9 million net on player transfers. That’s the least of all clubs in the Premier League which is both surprising and also shambolic for a club with real aspirations. Even miserly Arsenal have invested 274 million in that time, and they themselves trail the remaining top 4 by some distance.
By comparison, City couldn’t win a trophy for 34 yrs prior to 2011. Chelsea won 1 league 3 FA Cups in 100 yrs before Abramovic. Both clubs regularly win now because of investment, and it had absolutely nothing to do with them suddenly learning how to stop “bottling it”.
The solution to Spurs silverware woes seems to me to hope Levy sells up to an owner willing to act like a top 6 club in the transfer market and stop exploiting the miraculous job Pochettino is doing.
George, Planet Earth
…Just wondering how Fred the Spurs fan is going to blame last night’s cup exit to Chelsea on Liverpool. Over to you Fred.
Derek, LFC, Dublin.
…I think this might just be the best intro I’ve ever read:
‘The Carabao Cup is like a stray dog turning up in the middle of a wedding: it’s weird, nobody can really explain why it’s there, it’s an unwelcome distraction from what you’d ideally like to be paying attention to, but it’s a huge amount of fun as long as nobody gets badly mauled.’
Conor(LFC)
‘Nuff diving
…Sorry to drag out the diving debate a bit further but I’d like to propose an alternative principle by which to assess how bad a dive is.
If you dive, it doesn’t really matter how you go down, the fact is you have done so. It’s dishonest and contrary to the rules so all types of dives should be treated equally. You could make an argument for using motivation to differentiate but ultimately the base motivation is always to gain advantage over the opponent. This includes winning penalties and getting players booked or sent off.
So what I’d like to see is a retrospective system of punishment based on the impact of the dive. So you dived in the box and the ref gave a pen? One game suspension for you and that goal will be taken away from whoever converted the pen (you if not) and your team’s goal difference – whether the penalty was converted or not. Oh you’ve dived and the player has been sent off unfairly? Well you’ll be serving the suspension that he would’ve served. You only dived in the middle of the pitch and a free kick was given? Have a yellow card.
Add a doubler on it so repeat offenders get twice the punishment they got for their last offence and you’ll soon reduce the amount that goes on (so a red and one game suspension for the second innocuous dive, two games for the third, four for the fourth etc).
Ash (nothing wrong with this idea at all, oh no) Metcalfe
…Diving? Some see sin, some see smart.
But if you can honestly say you wouldn’t accept a dive from your team to win a trophy, you’ve won too many or never came close.
Aidan, Lfc (or you’re a much better person than me…which is very possible)
…Absolutely loved Dave J’s DIV formula for eliciting CBL. Should be mandatory somewhere in 16 Conclusions in the 8-12 ‘stretching it’ section.
Now we have a robust mathematical and incontravertible metric for diving we really need to look at time-wasting to inform further CBL calculations.
I’m thinking goal kicks, throw-ins, corners and impossibly slow walking for an athlete at a substitution (the meat-pie effect). To include variables such as ‘not knowing left from right’ (goal kicks and corners), repetitive ‘seepage’ up the line for a throw-in and ‘it’s not me it’s you’ at goal kicks, throw-ins, corners and substitutions.
Obviously this is beyond me, over to you Dave J (please) or viewers of American Football or other entirely unrelated sports.
David lfc (Neither Salah nor Sterling surely Ashley Young for CBL? )
He spent six months stuck in a catflap
The question that even Liverpool fans should be asking… Im a Liverpool fan and of course I want us to win the league, but I can understand other fans not wanting us to. I mean just think of the ever lasting image of that trophy being lifted….
…..that’s right Jordan Henderson’s smug face.
Its enough to make me cringe at the thought!
Mark
Selling out
Did you really just print the first known correspondence on “net attendance”?
What have you done?
You monsters.
Darragh (did Bernard Shaw really not have a quote about arguing with scousers?), Spurs, Ireland
…With the typical Scouse uproar in response to the stadium/attendances debate, do we now have a new “Net Attendance” trophy that Liverpool are champions of!?
LeftyDan, Belfast
Radio ga ga
Wheeler LFC – With apologies to Rory O’Keefe, I believe that unless you’re currently completing a Rajar diary then you’d be safe to listen to talkSPORT without adding to their reported listening figures and thereby increasing the amount they can charge for advertising.
I’d be wary of listening on Sky, Virgin or online – there may be different methodologies in play for measuring listenership via those (they’ll certainly know how many users are streaming from their own website, for instance, and might be able to factor that in to their rate cards) but you should be fine listening via MW/DAB/Freeview.
I would question why you’d even want to really – but each to their own!
Luke Nuckley
A song for Europe
In reply to Mark’s question. Leeds United Fans sing “We are Champions, Champions of Europe” For years I thought it was just sung to state they are the best club in Europe but it turns out they sing it because they was robbed of the European Cup in 1975 due to dubious refereeing decisions.
Jack Feival, NYC
Liverpool, the Messiah, and Dante’s Inferno
No one likes to be the bearer of bad news, but I will take the cross ‘pon my shoulders: James, Liverpool– your son, bless him, and fine young man though I’m sure he is, is not the messiah.
In Dante’ s Commedia, hell us divided into 9 concentric circles, with both the sin and the punishment increasing in severity towards the centre. In the final ring, the devil lies in a frozen lake. He has three mouths, and inside the central mouth is the space reserved for the most reviled, the greatest sin, and greatest sinner, of all human history. James, your son is a fairweather fan. A glory boy. I’m sorry. But also, get over it.
Ben, London (You are my Solskjaer, my Ole Solskjaer…)
Fan mail for Lineker
Have to agree with DC, BAC wholeheartedly. Gary Lineker’s smug face getting involved with every “issue” has become too much to bear. We get you’re a caring, liberal, “woke” man of the World, Gary. We know you’re a cut above the average, bog-standard knuckle dragging ex-Pro’s of this World. Self-serving is the right word for him. Smug, cliche ridden, band wagon jumping, Twitter addicted, media whore.
Even when I agree with his sensible, humble, right on comments, I want to disagree, because it’s him who’s saying it. Go away and discuss social issues in a vegan cafe with Stormzy and Lily Allen.
W*nker.
Stewart Scott
The important issue
To get all the relevant things out of the way: Liverpool are cheats (but not really any more than anyone else), Solskjaer in, poor Tottenham and that gaunt, thin squad, Ozil hero to now O-zilch, Higua-IN at Chelsea, Hazard to Madrid, or not, or yes, City will win, no Liverpool, no sod it, City, yadda yadda yadda…
All that aside, can we take a moment to reflect on how much Ole Gunnar Solskjaer looks like Andy Serkis these days? It’s uncanny. Maybe he’ll end up being “The Precious One”
Jamin (missing the old lookalikes section from this ancient website) Chaput – Toronto