SimplySpurfect

I don't think not signing a striker for £20m last winter was a Levy mistake, to be honest. I don't think there was any striker we could have realistically signed that would've made an instant and significant difference to the team. As frustrating as it is for Spurs fans to repeatedly see transfer targets slip away because the chairman has such a tight grip on the finances, I think Spurs fans on the whole understand that it has to be done. Spurs don't have the bottomless pot of cash of Man City or Chelsea or the huge stadium and global brand name of Man Utd, Liverpool or Arsenal and the extra revenue that comes with that, so Spurs have to be extremely careful when it comes to spending big money. You can't just spend £20m on a striker in January, along with the massive wages a £20m striker will command, in the hopes that said striker will instantly fit into the team and shoot Spurs into a Champions League spot. I'd say Levy's biggest flaw is the transfer fees he expects for his own players. I fully support his stance when clubs come after our top first team players (Modric, Berbatov, Carrick, Keane), but demanding premium prices for players that can barely earn a place on the bench seems a bit ridiculous. Every year, our ITKs tell us that x amount of fringe players are for sale and y amount of teams are interested but are constantly put off by the high valuation. I think we'd be better off accepting a lower bid, collecting the smaller transfer fee and freeing up the wages and squad place for someone else.

There's a good player there. He's failed for a number of reasons. He is one of the slowest wingers I've ever seen. That doesn't have to be much of a problem, but when you're brought into a team and a system that is used to having Aaron Lennon racing down the wing and cutting balls back, the lack of pace becomes much more significant. His best attribute being his crossing was ultimately a useless asset at Spurs, who have been terrible at scoring from headers and deep crosses for years. While that is none of his fault, as he was just a wrong fit for the team, he does seem to have issues with his mentality which haven't done him any favours. I think when he signed for Spurs, right around the time the media were hyping him up as the new Beckham for England, he let it go to his head somewhat. There seemed to be a complacency of someone who has decided they've hit the big time. It's a shame as off the pitch he looks like a great guy to have around. All of the training videos, interviews etc have always shown him as a Gascoigne-esque comedian, which must have been great for morale at the club. And I've not seen too many players that have looked as delighted as he did when he signed for Spurs.

Haha. Teaches me to copy/paste a post from SpursCommunity without checking the facts.

05/06: finished 5th. Could've had 4th if Mendes goal at Old Trafford was give, also Lasagne Gate 06/07: finished 5th. Unlucky to not beat Chelsea in QF of FA cup and lost to Arsenal in SF of carling cup 07/08: finished 11th. Change of manager in October, but also won Carling Cup and beat arsenal 5-1 08/09: finished 8th. Change of manager in October, "2 points from 8 games" lost on pens in CC Final to Utd. 09/10: finished 4th. FA Cup semi finalists, had a legit goal ruled out, could've changed the game. 10/11: finished 5th. QF's of CL and beat Inter and AC Milan 11/12: finished 4th. FA Cup semi finalists, Chelsea awarded an unfair goal, could've changed the game. That's the last seven seasons for Spurs. Redknapp was only in charge for three and a half of those seasons, and he only managed marginally better results with Modric, Bale, Parker, Van der Vaart and Lennon in midfield than Martin Jol did Jenas, Tainio, Davids, Davis, Murphy etc in midfield. Give Jol Redknapp's Spurs team and give Redknapp Jol's Spurs team and the Redknapp hype would've been far less wild. It's no surprise that Spurs performances have improved as the club's stature and ability to attract better players has increased. With a better manager last season, Spurs would've been sitting pretty in 3rd place.

In fairness, that game came at a terrible time for Spurs. King, Gallas and Sandro were injured, Parker and Adebayor hadn't signed (though Adebayor couldn't have played anyway) and Modric was still kicking up a fuss about leaving. Having a central midfield combination of Kranjcar and a wantaway Modric is dangerous against any Premier league opposition, but it was catastrophic against a Man City team that started the season in such storming fashion. Since then, results have gone better than any Spurs fan could've hoped. I do think the team will come unstuck eventually. While the results have been fantastic, several performances have been poor. It's sheer good fortune that Spurs walked away from Fulham with an incredibly undeserved three points. QPR and Blackburn threatened to take points away from us in the second half of the games after we'd gotten a decent lead. I thoroughly expected Villa to come out second half, score an early goal and have a period of pressure that has us Spurs fans clenching our arse cheeks. Until the management and the players can learn to either go for the finishing blow or suffocate the opposition's attempt at a second half revival, the team runs the risk of dropping points from winning positions. The Spurs midfield had all the time in the world against Villa last night. It completely baffles me how they didn't score a single goal in the second half. It's rare that a team will come to White Hart Lane and give the players that much space, yet the players were content to just keep possession and occasionally play an attacking through ball. Man City would've scored 5 or 6 last night. Spurs did the exact same thing against Liverpool. I know the final score line was 4-0, but Liverpool were schocking even when they had 11 men. Once they were down to 9, Spurs were in a position to inflict a serious humiliation on them.

In fairness, against the two Manchester clubs, Spurs were without King, Gallas, Parker, Sandro, Modric (literally wasn't there against Utd, mentally wasn't there against City) and Adebayor. And both Manchester clubs started the season phenomenally well. Since the first two losses though, Spurs have won 6 out of 7, drawing the other 1. And that includes games against CL rivals in Liverpool and Arsenal and away games against Wolves and Blackburn. Yeah, both teams have been really poor this season, but Spurs traditionally struggle against them. Spurs obviously won't finish anywhere near 1st place, points wise, but if, and it's a big if, the manager keep the players playing with same spirit, work ethic and attacking movement we saw today, then they'll take some beating to get 4th, and Chelsea ought to be worried about keeping hold of 3rd place. I reckon three new players need bringing in during the January window though in order to maintain consistency. A centre back to take the pressure off needing King or Gallas fit, a right midfielder to compete with Lennon and a striker for when Adebayor inevitably starts to stop caring. Cahill, Marin and Leandro would be a fantastic window for Spurs. Maybe another attempt for Rossi as Villareal have declined this season.

Sorry Joey, but so much of that block of text is bull. Yeah, we signed a 21 year old winger on loan, who was previously on loan at Villareal B. I can't exactly see him pushing Bale and Lennon too hard on the wing this year. How about because our targets were players like Rossi, Aguero, Llorente, Falcao etc. More realistic targets would've yielded better results, don't you think? What? Redknapp spent about £38m bringing 3 strikers to the club. Having four poor strikers at the club also meant we had to get rid of one or two before we could even get anyone else in anyway. Who said we didn't sign top quality players? Van der Vaart is a quality player, but his inclusion required us to completely change the way we play. Surely, we should've spent time in training during the pre-season practicing the 4-5-1/4-4-1-1 system so we didn't look so lost when we immediately switched to it upon Rafa's arrival. The main problem in defence was that 50% of our defensive options were incredibly injury prone. Plus Gallas arrived at the club completely unfit and was forced to start immediately. Dawson and, in particular, Bassong both also suffered dips in performance last season compared to 09/10 where they were both predominantly excellent. Do you actually watch Spurs games? It's not guess work. Our strikers spent the whole of last season being completely static in and around the box. Against the relegation battling sides for instance, we absolutely dominated possession, but we constantly failed to score. Why? Because the other team defended deep and tight and just had to stay there as none of our attacking players were making runs to create space for team mates. Our strikers, Defoe and Pavlyuchenko in particular, didn't give a damn when we didn't have the ball. They only move when the ball is at their feet, and then all they do is take a touch and smash it towards the goal, regardless if there's a defender standing 12 inches away from them. Again, bull. Between the AC Milan away game in February and the Man City away game in May, we won one single game in the league. Man City's spending had absolutely nothing to do with our failure to win more than one game in 13 weeks. What's the point of qualifying once if you're never going to qualify again? It was our first season in the Champion's League. It should've been used as a fantastic learning experience for the players as well as an incentive to bust their balls in the league to make sure they qualified again for the following year. We were never going to win the Champion's League. Re-qualifying again for the following year, allowing another large injection of cash, as well as a higher reputation worldwide, would've given us the cash and allure to go out and sign a couple of top class players, which would've allowed us the opportunity to compete fiercely in the Champion's League without weakening ourselves in the league. Had we managed a couple of wins against Wigan, West Brom, West Ham and Blackpool, we would've finished 4th. Were it not for so many abject, passionless performances throughout the season, we could easily have finished 4th. City were far from convincing last season, and Arsenal utterly imploded after the Carling Cup. Tottenham's failure to finish in the top four is a result of Tottenham's own actions. You can look at the money spent by other teams as much as you want, but if you're using that as an excuse then you clearly didn't watch Spurs play too often last year. Jol finished 5th twice with a significantly weaker squad and got sacked for it.

Holy balls, that post was a lot longer than I intended it to be. Basically, Redknapp **** up big time in several areas last season. But his chummy relationship with the press has kept him safe in his job when most other managers would be getting torn to shreds.

I'll answer this for ya. For a start, "done wonders for the club" is a massive over reaction created by the media. His achievements look far better because of the oh so infamour 2 points from 8 games when he took over. A ridiculous number of people have claimed that he single handedly turned Spurs from relegation certainties to Champion's League qualifiers, which just isn't true. Spurs vastly under achieved in the league under Ramos. A combination of the manager heavily favouring the cups, not being able to accurately convey his ideas and philosophies along with losing our strike force and making several poor signings that summer all led to a terrible start. But at the time, Spurs had a squad capable of finishing in the top 6-7 that year. So any manager worth half a damn could've come in, steadied the ship and got the club to safety. The season Spurs finished 4th, they did it with the 4th best team in the league, with the 3rd best squad at the time. Helped, of course, by City's poor early form under Hughes, the managerial transition to Mancini as well as Villa falling away after 2/3s of the season. And that year Spurs did play great football a lot of the time. Yeah, Dawson and Assou-Ekotto had a tendency to over play long balls up to Crouch, but people claiming that was the only way Spurs played are the people with an anti-Spurs agenda. The majority of the attacking play was Modric and Huddlestone controlling the ball and using Lennon and, later in the season, Bale to attack down the wings. So at the end of that season, all was rosey with Redknapp. Spurs had achieved CL football for the first time, they were playing exciting, attacking football and several players (Gomes, Dawson, Assou-Ekotto, Huddlestone, Bale, Modric and Lennon) had made huge strides forward in their abilities. That brings us to last summer, where Spurs have a chance to really push on and make themselves a real force in the league. Every man and his dog knows a new top class striker needs to be brought in. Spurs have the money and the CL allure to attract a number of very, very good strikers to the club. The players and clubs were sounded out and revealed they were available for transfer and willing to join. All Redknapp had to do was give the go ahead to whichever player he wanted and Levy would've made it happen. Instead, Redknapp constantly changed his mind and refused to make a decision for fear of it backfiring and then end up with nothing. A sheer stroke of luck saw VDV join at the last minute. Redknapp later claimed he had been after him all along but was originally quoted too high a price. Except that Van der Vaart's arrival required a shift in formation to accomodate him, meaning Spurs had to play with one up front. Except of the four strikers Spurs had at the club, not one of them could play the lone striker role half competently. So if Van der Vaart was always a target, surely Spurs would've had to sign a striker to play alongside him, right? But no. Instead, Spurs have to pursist with watching their current strikers fail to score until January where Harry can repair his earlier mistake by signing a new striker. Yet again, Spurs have the opportunity to sign one of several top strikers and yet again, Redknapp refuses to make a decision. Eventually resulting in Levy's desperate deadline day attempt to take matters into his own hands and offer crazy money for several players. Along with the failure to sign a striker, we also got to watch our team go from playing quick, exciting goal hungry football to watching the players move around the final third as if they're wearing concrete boots. We got to watch Redknapp burn out Bale and Van der Vaart around January by constantly playing them while half fit or carrying injuries. We got to watch Bassong, Palacios and Kranjcar, three of the stars of the previous season, get completely shafted. Destroying their confidence, making them want to leave and then refusing to let them leave. We got to watch Gomes drop dramatically in form, Dawson revert back to his old unconfident self, Lennon lose the drive to attack players, Huddlestone decide he doesn't want to work hard defensively, Bentley become even more useless. Not bad considering Redknapp has built a reputation on getting the best out of players. We also saw Spurs manage to win only one game in ten from February onwards, despite having a very favourable run in. Despite the incredibly poor form, Redknapp refused to change anything at all. Spurs constantly played the same drab football, constantly failed to create real goal scoring opportunities and failed to stop conceding soft goals. He then had the nerve to call it a "fantastic season" and "the best it'll ever get for the club." Yet, take out Milan away, Inter home and the second half of Inter away, and you struggle to find many top class performances. So having seen the club take a small step backwards results-wise, and a massive stride backwards performance-wise, the fans understandably feel like they deserve better and that the club has underperformed and vent their frustrations on TalkSport etc. Redknapp then calls in to a radio show to say that the only people who call in to radio shows are idiots. Also stated that any Spurs supporter who thinks Spurs should've done better should go and support a different team. So any fan who expect Spurs to win at least one game out of the eight games played against Blackpool, Wigan, West Ham and West Brom is an idiot for expecting so much from the manager and the team. Then this summer we have to constantly listen to him complain that he wanted to sign Rossi, Falcao, Llorente, Dzeko, Suarez etc but they were too expensive or wanted CL football. Yet every single one of those players could've joined the previous year and, in Rossi and Falcao's case, for a fraction of the price their clubs wanted this summer. He also constantly moaned about the fact that Spurs can't compete financially with the other top clubs. Even though he spent big money on Palacios, Keane, Defoe, Crouch, Bassong etc. Spurs then spent most of the summer trying to sell all of those players, most of them at a loss. We also get the start the season as we finished the last, with terrible performance and terrible tactics, formations and team line ups. You'd have to be mentally retarded to think it's a good idea to use a central midfield pairing of a half hearted Modric and Kranjcar against Man City, especially when Jake Livermore, a strong, tough tackling central midfielder, had just delivered a top class performance against Hearts a few days earlier. Lo and behold, Spurs get destroyed. The scoreline wasn't due to City playing brilliantly. It was down entirely to one of the worst performances I've seen from Spurs in my lifetime. Redknapp later claims that he wasn't surprised by the result because he "felt something wasn't right. I could sense it." So basically, he sent out a team that he felt was going to lose. Rather than setting the team up to be tight and strong and play for a draw or a 1-0, he sends a team out to get slaughtered. In Adebayor, Spurs now have a striker with the footballing ability to score goals and assist in bringing the midfield into play. A midfield of Sandro, Parker, Van der Vaart, Modric and Bale is one of the strongest in the league, defensively and offensively. If Redknapp can't get the team playing good football and picking up good results again in the next few months, he simply has to go.

As if my previous post needed more weight behind it.

You seriously spend a large amount of your free time trawling the internet for every little bit of anti-Spurs propaganda you can find, can't you? "Yes, one Fulham fan said something negative about Spurs! I must share this with the world because I also don't like Spurs and I need something negative to say about Spurs because it's a welcome distraction to all of the negative stuff I say about Villa!"

And as a Villa fan, you have a reason to be arrogant, right?

Huh? For one thing, Bale won't be going anywhere for at least 18 months. Levy already point blank rejected one offer for him in the summer, so there'd be no reason for him to need to accept another in the next couple of windows. Secondly, I've never seen Albrighton's name mentioned with Spurs in any way at all, barring the match reports of the two games this season. Ashley Young and Pienaar are the left wingers that have been linked with Spurs, with a Pienaar deal seemingly progressing already. Have absolutely no idea where you got that Albrighton stuff from, to be honest.

Re-read most of this thread. In particular, re-read ALL of your posts in this thread. Then re-read that comment in bold.

Do some research before jumping the gun next time. Some people are obsessed with Spurs DVDs. I really don't understand it. It's a money making venture, which is what all businesses are about. Although a lot of them are less successful at it than Daniel Levy and Spurs.