Some of the players were sending messages to Pochettino, begging him to come back, while others were going straight to the chairman to complain about Conte. Whoever those players are, they are the selfish ones.
And now it looks like Emerson is out for the season after an injury with Brazil. ********ing international football.
I noted elsewhere that it almost doesn't matter who the manager is because with all the injuries, the team picks itself. You have to stick with 3 in the back, because no left back. One fit right wingback, one fit left wingback, so that's settled. Only 3 fit midfielders, and I think we can agree that Skipp has been doing great (not that I don't rate Sarr). Not saying they are all world class, but the 3 best (fit) CBs are clearly Romero, Dier and Lenglet. With Richy out, the front 3 has to be Kane, Son and Kulu. So the only debate is at GK. I favor sticking with an in-form GK, but I guess we'll be seeing Hugo again soon. So with the lineup settled, all the manager has to do is tell the guys to go out and run around a bit.
Talk about bad timing: the club posted an extended interview with him on the website. You cannot make this stuff up.
So – no manager, no director of football, almost enough injured players to field a team … top six might be a stretch at this point.
I don't think any of it matters, we are simply cursed. We are the Chicago Cubs (pre-2016) of football.
Paratici taking a 'leave of absence'. https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/2023/march/fabio-paratici-update/ Director of Football Levy, here we go! [emoji3525]
What actually changes? Levy is still involved in the football decisions, which explains the abomination the club is right now. Too bad Uncle Danny doesn't take a leave of absence himself.
I hear you, but Paratici was at least another influence for football decisions. Not always for the good though, eg Nuno is known to have been his idea. He's done fairly well with incoming players but that is not an issue until the summer.
Whoever is taking the decisions, it's not working, and the people who need to get us out of this disaster are the same people who have been taking bad decisions for 22 years now.
The Athletic is reporting that Levy was warned about Paratici before he hired him, but chose to ignore the advice. Somehow I'm not surprised.
Paratici was a proper mover-and-shaker, but in a very lousy-goosy kind of way which is why he's in trouble. Not the greatest football mind, but he knew how to play the behind-the-scenes game, using his influence to get his way (referee appointments, deals on transfers, etc). Someone who knew how to swim with the sharks, so to speak. That was his strength. Chances are, unless a very esteemed personality fills in at TD, the new manager will have more leeway to make calls on transfers and broader organizational matters. A manager who is very secure about himself and his ideas on football, who likes having a lot of control, would make a great hire in that respect.
It could. In fact it has, a couple of times in similar 'crisis' situations. When Harry came in, it coincided with not only Ramos, but Comolli going out. This gave Harry greater control over comings and goings and was said to be a condition of his arrival, if I remember correctly (which I may not). It was also a part of bringing in Poch that Paul Mitchell, whom he'd worked with at Soton, was brought in to head up recruitment, giving Poch far greater control in that area than his predecessors. Granted, Mitchell left a few years on, frustrated by Levy's intrusions, but there's no doubt that both Harry and Poch had greater influence in incoming and outgoings than either Ramos or Sherwood. Both to, inarguably, good results. So SF19's suggestion isn't really out of left field.
Those are a lot of intoxicants, and I'll admit that it doesn't look good. But I do respect that he's washing it all down with 7up.
Another example of why we will never win anything under Levy: it is being reported that the club are looking to extend Eric Dier's contract. Why in the name of the baby Jesus, why? We should be shipping him out of the club, not extending him.
I would keep Dier as a squad player. Definitely need 2 quality CBs already even if you keep him. Get rid of Dier and who's left? Just Romero and Davies are any good (realistically, Sanchez and Tanganga aren't coming back next year), so you would need 3 or 4 CBs. You just aren't going to find that many CBs better than Dier in one transfer window.
Ok, let's keep Dier and see how good we will be. Would he get into the squad of any of the other top 10 sides?
I saw an article about that a couple of days ago, and thought to myself, "Golara won't be happy about this." ... doesn't exactly make me Nostrodamus, I suppose, but I wasn't wrong.