If you had predicted before the start of the season that Jose Mourinho and Mikel Arteta would be the managers for the first North London derby at Nouveau Whitle Hart Lane, behind closed doors, pat yourself on the back. That was how bizarre the 2019-20 season was for Spurs and that is without the lock-down thrown in. Coming off a run to the Champions League final and a strong pre-season, Spurs looked ready to, if not challenge the likes of Man City and Liverpool, at least finish in the top 3 or 4 and pick up some overdue silverware. In the end neither of those scenarios transpired as Daniel Levy put Mauricio Pochettino out of his misery and brought in Jose Mourinho to salvage a disappointing campaign whose only consolation was Europa League qualification. A season of misery was punctuated by our worst league campaign in over a decade, elimination in both domestic cup competitions by Colchester United and Norwich City, and a dismal CL campaign that saw us spanked 7-2 by Bayern before we were finally dumped out of the competition by RB Leipzig 4-0 over two legs in the round of 16. Without the backing of Daniel Levy, Poch was effectively a sitting duck at the start of the season. Players who had refused to extend their contracts (Alderweireld, Eriksen, Vertonghen and Rose) and several others who were past their best-before date (Victor Wanyama anyone?) should have been shown the door, but Uncle Danny's intransigence scared would-be suitors away. In the end, most of the team downed tools on the gaffer and by the first week of October, when the side were blown away by Bayern and Brighton, it was time to part ways. But Levy would wait until mid November to pull the plug. To be fair, Poch didn't help himself with some of his tactics and team selection, along with his constant moaning in the press. In came Jose Mourinho who inherited an awful mess. The Portuguese achieved mixed results (45 points in 26 games) with the high points being home wins over Man City and Arsenal. But most of the time, the side looked aimless and Mourinho was often out-coached by neophyte managers like Ole Gunaar Solskjaer and Frank Lampard among others. Mourinho has been quick to praise himself for getting the club into the Europa League, but he really blew the chance for a top 4 finish with some dreadful results against teams we should be beating. Under Mourinho we only managed 5 of a possible 21 points in the following away fixtures - Norwich, Southampton, Watford, Burnley, Sheffield United, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace. And in the biggest games, the crucial games we had to win to make up ground, he managed just 1 point in the 4 games against Chelsea and Manchester United and was shown to be a footballing dinosaur with his out-dated tactics. Mourinho has set us up to be a team that sits behind the ball and plays on the counter, and it did look like the team was adapting to his tactics in the final few games but by then it was too late. However, without much-needed reinforcements, even Mourinho's experience will not be enough to get us back up the table. I am not optimistic Uncle Danny will back the Special One in the transfer market - he has already gone on record as saying the club have lost 200 million pounds from the pandemic and have already spent 184 million on players in the last 2 transfer windows. One thing that hasn't changed though, is Levy's 6 million pound a year stipend, that really is the only thing that matters in Levy's world.
That's a decent post; but it could have done without the last dozen or so words, imo. Like him or not, Levy's put a shit ton of effort into Spurs during his tenure at N17. The club is miles beyond what ENIC inherited from Alan Sugar, both on and off the pitch. He could have pocketed just as big a wedge over the last 15+ years by merely treading water while the Premier League's expanding global popularity raised every member's value. But he's done a bit more than that, hasn't he? I tend to agree, however, with the overall premise of where we currently stand. I'm not as convinced as you that it will fail ... but I won't be the slightest bit surprised if you turn out to be correct.
Uncle Danny will have to step up his game in the next few weeks if we are to accomplish anything next season. With League Cup and Europa League fixtures, we could be looking at close to 30 games before the end of the year. Despite us not reaching the quarter-finals in any of the 3 cups we were in, we still played 52 games in all comps. If Levy is serious about us competing for honours, we will need reinforcements, otherwise what is the point of paying Jose Mourinho 15 million pounds a season and investing over 1 billion pounds in a new stadium? Talk of loan signings and scooping up players at the end of their contract is not going to cut it - we're not Watford.
The squad needs an injection of energy, no questions there, but the pandemic is going to tie our hands. Never thought that throwing £14 million away on Jack Clarke would come back to haunt us but we could really use that money right about now. There's not much Levy can do because if we find spend big money during this window, it's going reflect poorly PR wise after the club tried to furlough staff. But if we don't spend, we're going to get left behind.
If there are a few good and reasonable signing, I think there will be a lot of forgiveness. It is not like Spurs would be the only club to be in the same position.
Neither are we City. The club's had to take out a 200+m pound loan from the UK government to cover our expenses - and quite specifically not to sign new players. We're up to our necks in debt (which is now growing significantly), and a massive chunk of what was supposed to pay it down (Spurs ticket sales, NFL, conferencing, and other non-Spurs events) will be unavailable indefinitely. Anyone thinking we're not in a serious situation, here, has his head in the sand. Piss and moan about the football all ya like, folks, but Levy's primary job right now is to keep Spurs solvent.
Just not good enough for a chairman who is earning 6 million pound a year, axed Poch and paid him 12.5 million in severance and then hired the new manager on 15 million per. The same man who made the disgraceful decision to furlough club staff.
Of course. For example, signing Hojbjerg for pennies is good business. Throwing money around like Arsenal with regard to Aubameyang, Willian and Coutinho would raise eye brows even though - let's face it - the latter two would make this team better in the short term.
Is there any talk about fans in the stadium next season? If not, there is now way Spurs will get either Willian or Coutinho.
Been a while guys! How about this for brevity? Tottenham Golden Generation wins 0 trophies, but finishes above Arsenal. Worst Arsenal team in 25 years finishes outside European places, but wins FA Cup and thus condemns Tottenham to 3 play in games to access Europa League group stages. Love, Homeat. PS - I miss you, Pook! Shooting you an email now.
All of your post was accurate and valid, Nick, and we are all aware of all of it. However, I have decided to requote the edited bit, as it's the only part that I feel compelled to comment upon. Here goes: Yup. Again.
Oh, what the hell, I'll comment on some other bits, too. Yeah, winning the FA Cup (again) is a bit of a kick in the junk - for some of us, anyway ... some honestly don't care, but I will admit to not liking it. I know I'd prefer a trophy over a pretty much any league position, save 1st. Certainly being kicked into qualifying games is a hassle that none of us appreciate. And of course, since we're talking about 1-leg elimination possibilities, it's not inconceivable that we could get bumped altogether, which would give greater credence to your success being painful to us. Oh, and for what it's worth, the golden generation included names like Blanchflower, Mackay, and Greaves - and a fair bit of silverware. Not affecting your general point, of course, but a point of contention for the testier amongst us. This more recent group wouldn't even qualify as our silver or bronze generation - we've had more than one or two productive patches in our history. Of course, most of us will admit that we haven't been as good as we probably should have been with this group; but frankly, you don't have to be all that good to finish above Arsenal these days. But you know that. Still, the Cup win(s) grinds ... so point taken. Anyway, good to hear from you matey. I've not got the email, by the way. You may want to throw it in the PMs (or 'conversations', or whatever they call it) here on BS.
When the Arsenal were dining at the top table, their supporters' attitude towards us was "you're shite and we don't care about finishing above you lot because we're competing for league titles, etc." At the same time, they were all over the Saint Totteringham day stuff. When they started their slide, their attitude is "well, we never were really serious about the Saint Totteringham stuff, we are more worried about challenging for the league than finishing above you lot". Now that they are shite, their attitude is "yeah, you finished above us again, but we still won the FA Cup with a shite side". I actually take it as a compliment. The fact that they are obsessed with what we are doing shows how far they have fallen, and the fact that we are moaning about finishing 6th (our lowest finish in a decade) after 4 straight seasons in the CL, shows how far we have come.