i appreciate what you're saying, and intend no disrespect, but there was a time (and some of us old geezers remember it) when spurs were class - on and off the pitch. one of england's premier sides. a time when winning a cup while struggling to stay in the top half of the league, would not be considered a 'great' season. we've always cherished cups, of course, so, sure, no season with silverware will be a 'failure'; but you'll just have to trust me when i say that winning the UEFA cup would not cast a shadow over many a spurs' season.* *which is not to say that there aren't many a season that it would.
no disrespect taken at all -- I'm a newbie who admittedly doesn't truly appreciate the club history. I don't want to sound like an ignoramus, but I do believe that with everything the club is currently trying to do (become a big european club again), a UEFA cup victory would be a huge, huge step in that direction and thus a landmark season. Perhaps not one of the greatest in the grand scheme of things, but a landmark one nonetheless (assuming we build on it and reach our goals).
emphatically agreed. i think either the FA cup* or the UEFA cup would be huge for us. the carling cup would be nice, but not the same kind of indicator. *i think the FA cup, even more than the UEFA cup, is 'getting harder'. it's really sad, however, that qualifying for the champions' league is a better indicator of quality than either. sad, because i'd rather win silverware than finish fourth, any day; but i know that the latter would probably mean more to the club.
I think I would be pretty excited if anyone outside the big 4 won the FA cup this year. That's a little sad.
I have no idea whether he'll win us a cup or not, but *if* he lasts until the end of the season I suspect the fans will be very happy with him and his entertaining and competitive team. Jol has gotten a team of attacking young players who are willing to stay at Spurs for him--not Levy and our low payscale. If Jol leaves, what's going to keep Lennon, Berbatov, Bent, etc. at Spurs? Obviously Levy has done a great job keeping the players on a low pay scale, but a third consecutive UEFA Cup spot and they'll all want more money. Once we break into the CL spots they'll want more money. So, that can't last realistically. Every new coach wants his own players--that's a fact. So, we'll once again overhaul the roster if we bring in a new coach, and the current players will have less incentives to stay. Sure, we might keep Defoe, but at the expense of who, Berbs? Keane? Sure, we might add some flair Spanish speaking players, but who do you think they'll replace, Lennon? Bale? We'd lose Jenas, Huddlestone, Zokora, Malbranque and Lee almost definitely, but does anyone think that we're going to keep the rest of our core under a new coach? I definitely do not. I think Jol has proven himself in the Eredivisie (however u spell the Dutch league!), and at Spurs. THFC are achieving again and entertaining again. Despite another slow start, I can't really predict anything other than at least another UEFA Cup spot for this season. If we get it a 3rd time in a row, that'll be only the 3rd time we've gotten it since the Premiership started, which is saying a lot. The Board may not be happy with Jol, but if they want to replace him, their best chance is during an early slump. Jol's track record shows that his teams improve during the season, finish strong, and generally outperform their talent level and pay scale. So, sacking him after the season will be tough. If the Board doesn't sack him during his early season malaise, they suffer tarnishing the Spurs brand considerably. For a man (Levy) who is rumored to want to buy, enhance, and then sell Spurs for a massive profit to move up in Lewis' empire, I can't see him really wanting to tarnish the brand just before he sells it. Bad business that. -Digital
Agreed. It's a stupendously stupid time to replace a manager, but it's about the time Levy sacked Hoddle too. It's not a smart time to do it from a club success standpoint, but it may be the only opportunity to do it from a Levy-save-face standpoint. So, that begs the question, which is more important to Levy, his image or the club's success? I didn't think he'd make the same mistake twice, and I hope he learned from that disaster. -Digital
The thing that really grinds my gears about this season is that we haven't learned from last year. Another slow start? Another game where we were up big only to let them back into the game? Yes, MJ brings some great things to the table, which DT listed out above. But let's learn from our past mistakes, ok?
You're referring to Jol and yes, on the evidence of Fulham, he hasn't yet. But let's also hope that Levy learns from his mistakes and remembers that firing a manager in September can leave you with a whole season of disarray.
just a win should suffice. hell, even a draw should suffice, as we'd likely still beat them there. but, yeah, if by 'crisis' you mean "what will it take for us to to to cyprus without nervousness?", i'd agree that a three-goal advantage should do it - for me, anyway. i'd probably be ok with 2-0, too. but the way we let sides back in it, i'd prefer that we not take our foot off the throttle until we're up five or six.
Let's just not predict any clean sheets ... Derby is our only clean sheet this season and last year we didn't have too many either. Home leg I'm predicting a 3-1 win. -Digital
Sorry, just trying to beat the tabloid headline writers to the punch. My point was the home leg first puts the onus on us to score goals. No question, we will, I just want to avoid any nerves. You're probably right, any kind of win will likely be enough at the end of the day.
ok. so we're through to the group stage. the draw will be made on 9 Oct, and will place 40 clubs into eight different groups of five. each group will receive a club from each of five pots - pot 'A' holding the best eight clubs, pot 'B' the next best eight, etc. the constituents of each pot are determined by coeficient ratings, of which i know not. my question is this: does anyone know - specifically - what determines the coeficient ratings? ok, forget that question - does anyone know what pot we're in?
Team Coefficients Pot 1 Villarreal 78.374 Bayern Munich 73.640 AZ 63.995 Panathinaikos 55.415 Basel 54.869 Bordeaux 49.706 Bayer Leverkusen 45.640 Anderlecht 41.594 Pot 2 Tottenham Hotspur 40.618 Lokomotiv Moscow 38.920 Zenit St Petersburg 38.920 Sparta Prague 37.851 AEK Athens 36.415 Hamburg 34.640 Bolton Wanderers 32.618 Austria Vienna 30.104 Pot 3 Spartak Moscow 27.920 Sporting Braga 27.107 Galatasaray 26.791 Atlético Madrid 25.374 Getafe 25.374 Everton 24.618 Fiorentina 21.808 Rennes 20.706 Pot 4 Hapoel Tel Aviv 19.338 Red Star 19.256 Copenhagen 19.129 Toulouse 17.706 Dinamo Zagreb 17.533 Panionios 16.415 Nürnberg 14.640 Mladá Boleslav 13.851 Pot 5 Aris Thessaloniki 13.415 Aberdeen 11.064 Zürich 9.869 AE Larissa 8.415 Aalborg 7.129 Brann 6.509 Elfsborg 4.478 Helsingborg 3.478 Pot 1: avoid Bayern and Villareal Pot 3: avoid Fiorentina, Galatasaray and Atletico
thanks, murph. some decent clubs down there in pot three. and what about aris thessaloniki down in pot five? didn't jaymes have a tryout with them back in his playing days?
I hope we get a Greek team other then Panathinaikos, and we get them away. I'd definetly like to try and score a ticket for that.
the draw is on tuesday. the most important thing for me is that we draw a home match on Nov 8th. i'll be arriving in london on the day, and it'd be great to take in another european cup night at the lane (did brugge last year). bayern, villareal, or atletico would be brilliant; but i'll take anything.
Spurs miss out on top seeding in UEFA Cup draw Tottenham have just missed out on top seeding for tomorrow's draw for the group stage of the UEFA Cup. The draw will be made using UEFA's club co-efficients, with the leading eight clubs put into a pot of top seeds, but Spurs' rating puts them in ninth spot. Martin Jol's side will therefore join Bolton among the second seeds in the draw at UEFA's headquarters at Nyon, Switzerland - while Everton are among a group of fourth seeds and Aberdeen in the bottom eight clubs. It means all the British clubs face the prospect of being in a group with one of the top seeds - including Villarreal, from Spain, and German giants Bayern Munich. The 40 clubs will be drawn into eight groups of five, with each team playing two home and two away matches. Clubs from the same national association cannot be drawn in the same group. The top three in each group will join the sides finishing third in the Champions League groups for the knockout rounds, starting with 32 teams. The draw starts tomorrow at 11am BST.
Well that just sums it all up for Spurs... we can't get a top seed but somehow Leverkusen (who we beat in group play) does? Add to that the other not so great teams like Slavia Prague & Besiktas that we beat are in CL group phase this time around. I just hope we get a favorable group draw!
don't worry. only two of the five teams in each group are eliminated. if we can't get through the group stage of the UEFA cup - regardless of who we draw - then we aren't good enough to get anywhere, anyway. we'll be fine.
Spurs should certainly progress from this group. But it's not just progression that I'm concerned about. If I remember correctly, if Spurs place second in the group we end up with a home and home tie with a team which comes directly from the champions league, which I would very much prefer to avoid. (On the other hand, if Spurs win the group, we end up with a home and home against a third-placed side from one of the other UEFA cup groups, which would likely be a far weaker opponent.) So it would really be far preferable to win the group than finish second or third. We got a pretty good draw today, I think, but with Getafe languishing in the league (their start is about as bad as ours) Spurs' major competition for winning the group is likely to come from Anderlecht, and we play Anderlecht away. That could end up being a very important match, and I'd have preferred to have it at home. But I would make us favorites to win this group..