I'm not him, but I don't think he was referring to you. Unfortunately, you're right about Spurs recent history. When the Premiership was formed Spurs were a big club, one of the English footballing royalty almost. But, Spurs have continued to be mired in mediocrity since then ... up until Levy took over and re-constructed Spurs. Bringing in Arnesen to run the team was a big move. He brought in Santini and Jol with the intent that Jol be the one to run the team day-to-day. Well, it worked quite well, Santini--realizing he was more of a figure head than a true manager--left, paving the way for Jol to take charge. I think that might have been Arnesen's secret plan, but who knows. Arnesen has moved on, but we pulled in Wenger's talent guy, Comolli, to run the show, and Spurs haven't missed a beat. With Jol in charge, we're finally making good on our potential. With the good talent that Arnesen brought in (e.g. Robinson, Carrick, Jenas, Lennon, Dawson), we had a solid foundation upon which to build. Comolli has continued bringing in good talent (e.g. Berbatov, Zokora, Malbranque, Taarabt). Jol has integrated them into the team and made us one of the best teams in the Premiership, all while still being one of the very youngest. IMHO, it's all in the time-frame you choose to view it. If you look at the historic perspective, you have to look far deeper than the recent TV phenomenon of the formation of the Premiership. When you do that, Spurs have a very good record. If you choose to select only the time-frame of the Premiership's existence through 2005, you're going to see a down time in Spurs history, and will not be impressed. If you choose the recent time-frame of the last 2 or 3 years, you're likely to be quite impressed with Spurs again. Spurs made it deep into the domestic cups and had a great run in the UEFA Cup. Spurs have finished #5 in the Premiership table twice now, including narrowly missing out on the Champions League and displacing Arsenal last season. It wasn't because of poor play that Spurs didn't finish 4th ... it was because of some dodgey lasagna, not something that oozes Spurs inferiority by any means. This season we even had a newcomer that was so successful he made the Premiership team of the season ... even in a year where the picks were so obviously skewed to the top teams (van der Saar makes the team in one of his worst goalkeeping years in memory!). Spurs have 4 England internationals (Robinson, King, Lennon, Defoe) and a few more in the pool (Jenas, Dawson). Spurs have other internationals as well (Berbatov, Keane, Zokora, Chimbonda, Lee, Staltieri, Mido, Ghaly, Tainio, Rocha). Spurs have some great young talent (Lennon, Huddlestone, Taarabt). Spurs finished 5th two seasons in a row with one of the very youngest teams in the Premiership. Spurs finished near the top in goals scored, and if it hadn't been for a disaster of central defender injuries, might have well finished in a CL spot. So, really, how you rate Spurs tends to depend upon what your time-frame is for viewing their results. -Digital
An ex-Premiership manager once told me that every club always needs 3-4 players. While you may see a team as complete, they will not. Spurs do definitely need some strength in depth, the centre/left back reshuffling in March/April really cost us.
The thing about defending Berbs is how do you mark a guy who doesn't run, but still finds a way to beat you. I think he'll continue his form from this season into the next.
Agreed, Berbatov does not look at all like the kind of player who would struggle in a 2nd season. The players who tend to do that are either the ones who rely on a physical quality, ie great pace or heading ability which teams learn to cope with, or mediocre ones who just got lucky with a run of chances. Berbatov's superb technique cannot really be countered, if they get tight he spins off with his first touch, if they stand off him he can pick out a teammate or go for goal.
I don't think anyone out of the big 4 can challenge for the title in the forseeable future because of CL money. Maybe we can sneak into the CL for the 4th spot.
I'm very happy with our season, after years of inconsistency and disappointment, I'll take consistency and only a bit of dissappointment that our cup runs were so close to reaching a final, but very happy over all. We finished 8 points behind 3rd and 4th place, and sure, Arsenal and Liverpool dialed it in a bit in the last few games -- a better defense from Spurs and maybe we still finish 5th but only 2-4 points behind 4th. There is no reason we can't reasonably challenge for 4th next year, we have a great young core team and what we need to fix to improve is very obvious and we have the money, management and staff to fix it.
We were 5th last year with 65 points and 5th this year with 60 points. I still think this season should be seen as improvement: We played loads more games Progressed in the cups Berbatov! Zokora starting to replace Carrick Beating Chelsea Did really well without King Dawson was brilliant and signed a new contract Jol continuing to be the best manager we've had in ages I think we won a lot of fans this year. Obviously, there are things to improve. We need to sign a left back, central defender and left mid. We should sort out a ground move or develop The Lane further (and transport links please!). We need to win more games against the top 4. We don't show enough conviction or belief. When we go goals up against big teams we let them back in (England-style) by changing the way we play and being sloppy. This cost us in the cups against Arsenal and Chelsea. I will be very upset if we don't sort out the left sided problem this summer. We can afford to spend fairly big. Bridge, Bale, Pedersen... Who knows. Have a great summer chaps.