Premier League Spurs - Arry's gone but we still dislike them...

[TrentVilla]

Adebayor?

Defoe?

Defoe is not and never will be a top striker and Adebayor has tools for it but not attitude or application

Nail firmly on head there from Zatman.

[theunderstudy]

Same for me, Zatman firmly on the money re: Defoe/Adebayor.

[Papillon]

Defoe is not and never will be a top striker and Adebayor has tools for it but not attitude or application

I actually think Adebayor's "attitude" is a bit misunderstood. He is not Mario Balotelli. Sure, a bit lazy and a bit cocky at the same time, like Berbatov, but long way from Balotelli. I would love Adebayor at the Villa, however, why the hell would he want to come here

[Jimzk5]

I hate Harry but would have him at Villa, he'd get us playing football.

I wouldn't. Never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever.

Ever

got spurs playing football? only small heath played more long balls than spurs last season.

spurs playing attractive football is another myth candle face has created, they play like we did under o`niell. defend well and use the pace of lennon defoe and bale to hit on the counter.

[SimplySpurfect]

What is it with spurs fans recently moaning about Redknapp

The majority ive heard calling in to talksport and posting on forums are constantly criticising the man he's done wonders for that club got them into the champions league built a good squad with quality players such as Van de Vaart and Modric yet they moan about the bloke constantly they should be happy with what they have and be careful what they wish for... Look how shit we have become practically overnight. Dont get me wrong i cant stand the twitchy eyed tosser but he's a bloody good manager and if i were a spurs fan id be worrying about him going to manage england who are they going to get in to replace him? Have they not taken the foreign manager route before and failed with people such as Ramos.

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.

[SimplySpurfect]

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.

[Zatman]

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.

Even stranger that from that list only Dzeko has moved to a Champions League

[NurembergVillan]

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.

Great post though. I enjoyed reading that. How would you rate England's chances with 'Arry at the helm, knowing the players at his disposal?

[theunderstudy]

Better post than Glaston's ostrich approach.

[GlastonSpur]

.... 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.

Harry is a motormouth and says a lot of silly things in public, but the bottom line is that with him at the helm we finished 4th and reached the CL QFs ... which is much more than can be said for many previous managers at Spurs going back a long way.

Managers usually get sacked (or not) based on results. The idea that Harry's job is under threat (and is only "safe" because of his chummy press relationship) doesn't really stand up IMO. He's been in charge for 2 full seasons: we finished 4th and 5th, both in the face of continued mega spendng by City. If that's a sackable offence then I give up.

We've also under Harry spent a lot less in net terms than under several previous managers. That can be seen as a criticism, namely that we didn't improve the squad enough during the summer after we finished 4th. Or perhaps Levy concluded that trying to compete with City in the transfer market would be a fool's errand and that he'd rather save up some of the CL cash bonus to put towards a new stadium ... of which I hear that some good news is on its way.

[Wainy316]

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.

Even stranger that from that list only Dzeko has moved to a Champions League

And he signed for them in January so they weren't even champions league at the time.

[joey55]

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.

Great post though. I enjoyed reading that. How would you rate England's chances with 'Arry at the helm, knowing the players at his disposal?

It's not a great post at all. It's full of rubbish actually. Alot of it is pure speculation with no foundation whatsoever. It's as biased as anything you could accuse Glaston of posting.

Of course Harry did make mistakes last season, but compared with rival managers he still made relatively few. It wasn't even a particuarly good year for Man Utd, by their standards. It's just the other title challengers managers made mistakes, as Harry did. For Ancelotti to only get 71 points with Chelsea, shows he must have been making more errors than Redknapp. Wenger and Arsenal went from 75 pts and 3rd, to 4th and 68 points, so he too must have been doibng something wrong. Man City were 5 points better off, but spent £150 million to get them, it's hardly managerial genius. I can't be bothered to go through his whole post and this is a Villa forum, so I doubt you want to read a Spurs fan debating with another Spurs fan. But there are many parrallels with what SimplySPurfect has written and so much of what is written by your fans concerning Villa in the main forum. So much of opinion in football is based on false assumptions and pure speculation.

[rhyscartwright_avfc]

this is a Villa forum, so I doubt you want to read a Spurs fan debating with another Spurs fan.

Errmmm.........It's a thread about Spurs

But on topic, Adebayor is a fantastic signing for Spurs, as is Parker. Glad I put Ade in all my FF teams now.

For all Harry did right in getting you to CL. His flaws IMO were prioritising CL over Prem last season and not using the fact you had CL to improve the squad with real top quality players. Yes you had a nice time in Europe but it hasn't benefited your club in the long run. Getting in it again would have.

You needed a GK, DC, ST and another winger to take the pressure off Bale and Lennon. Of which you got none.

[joey55]

Gomes was one of our best players the season before last. We did get another DC (assuming you mean central defender) and we also got in winger. We failed to get a striker, but to blame Harry for that is pure speculation, as we have no idea why we couldn't sign our main targets, though Adebayor has said he was set to come in Jan, but then Real came in for him. We also needed a striker before Redknapp arrived, but couldn't get one, so the problem of landing our targets was already there. When you consider that Gallas, Sandro and VDV were 3 of our success stories last season, it's unfair to say we didn't sign top quality players considering our wage restrictions. The main problems in defence were that Dawson got a long injury and King only played in 5 Prem games, compared to 20 the previous season. So even though we brought in Gallas, who was really good for us, we were still weaker. The striker issue was the real problem and it's hard to say exactly what happened there and to simply blame Redknapp is pure based on nothing more than guess work. Other Spurs fans might not like to accept it, but 5th place is good for us. At the end of the day, we finished one place lower than the previous season and that was with the team that had previously finishing 5th, spending insane amounts of money on transfers and paying ridiculous wages. It's easy to say we shouldn't have prioritised Europe, but what is the point of qualifying if you don't have a go when you get there? Also Harry did say the league remained our priority, it's just we weren't good enough to finish 4th last season and to be honest I don't think, given the size and stength of the clubs we were competing against, there is much wrong with that. We finshed 5th, which is our joint 2nd ever highest Prem finish, got 62 pts, our third highest total and got to the 1/4 final of the CL. In my book that is a very good season for Spurs. I'd love to do better and think we can finish 4th again, but I'm not going to be overly critical if we don't, as I'm not going to forget the great strides we've made and I wont ignore the huge advantages our top 4 rivals have.

[TheDon]

Holy wall of text batman!

[Oaks]

IM not Harrys biggest fan, but to suggest he should get the sack, or isn't doing a decent job at Spurs is quite frankly ridiculous. Every manager makes mistakes, but i think he's made fewer than most.

The biggest problem i think is sustaining a top 4 place. You need a bigger squad because your playing more grade 1 games. I always thought that Spurs would fall away last year the further they going in the Champions League.

I ranked Spurs's squad about 6th best in the last 2 years and Arry has got a 4th and a 5th.

[SimplySpurfect]

Sorry Joey, but so much of that block of text is bull.

Gomes was one of our best players the season before last. We did get another DC (assuming you mean central defender) and we also got in winger.

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.

We failed to get a striker, but to blame Harry for that is pure speculation, as we have no idea why we couldn't sign our main targets, though Adebayor has said he was set to come in Jan, but then Real came in for him.

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?

We also needed a striker before Redknapp arrived, but couldn't get one, so the problem of landing our targets was already there.

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.

When you consider that Gallas, Sandro and VDV were 3 of our success stories last season, it's unfair to say we didn't sign top quality players considering our wage restrictions.

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 problems in defence were that Dawson got a long injury and King only played in 5 Prem games, compared to 20 the previous season. So even though we brought in Gallas, who was really good for us, we were still weaker.

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.

The striker issue was the real problem and it's hard to say exactly what happened there and to simply blame Redknapp is pure based on nothing more than guess work.

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.

Other Spurs fans might not like to accept it, but 5th place is good for us. At the end of the day, we finished one place lower than the previous season and that was with the team that had previously finishing 5th, spending insane amounts of money on transfers and paying ridiculous wages.

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.

It's easy to say we shouldn't have prioritised Europe, but what is the point of qualifying if you don't have a go when you get there?

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.

Also Harry did say the league remained our priority, it's just we weren't good enough to finish 4th last season and to be honest I don't think, given the size and stength of the clubs we were competing against, there is much wrong with that.

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.

We finshed 5th, which is our joint 2nd ever highest Prem finish, got 62 pts, our third highest total and got to the 1/4 final of the CL. In my book that is a very good season for Spurs.

Jol finished 5th twice with a significantly weaker squad and got sacked for it.

[joey55]

Simplysperfect, I was replying to Rhyscartwrigths post and he was talking about the seaon we qualified for the CL. SO I wasn't talking about Falque, but Piennar. But none the less, none of it was bull. There is no evidence to suggest our targets were Falque and Llorente. Posting stuff like that was what cause me to say your post was full of rubbish based on little foundation. Rossi wasn't an unrealistic target, it's just that we thought the price was too high when we went back in for him in Jan. The previous summer we were quoted £18 million and that comes from Harry, not pure speculation

Two of the strikers Redknapp originally brought to the club, were signed when we were in a relegation scrap, not trying to improve on 4th place. Also Defoe and Crouch made significant contributions to us finishing 4th. It's pretty ridiculous to criticise signings that took us to a position that in order to improve further, we'd need better players. It's like saying we should have signed world class strikers when we were 15th in the Prem! As if they'd have been interested in signing for Spurs then! Basically we signed players with the objective of getting out of trouble and then push for CL spots. They achieved that and so we looked to push on again and sign even better players, but couldn't. It's as if you are criticising Redknapp for improving things too quickly!

We might have had a bad run after the Milan game, but the obviously our rivals also had bad times during the season otherwise with the squads they had, we'd have been nowhere near them. Our fans need to realise that all of the previous seasons top 4 had dissapointing seasons compared to the year before. Utd won the title with 3 less points with which they finished 2nd the year before. Chelsea and Arsenal both got alot less points. Basically it's tough league and had City not been able to spend so much money on so many huge signings, then it's fair to say they'd have probably struggled to improve as the entire previous seasons top 4 did. Also we only lost 3 in the remainder of the season after the Milan game and one of those defeats were due to 2 goals that should never have been allowed against Chelsea.

You haven't got a clue what formations we practised in training, so don't speculate that we didn't train 4411. Also we didn't look lost when we played it either.

Dawson had a long injury lay off, though came back very well. I don't think Bassong was ever that great, but we suffered from injuries (Dawson I've mentioned) and King only started 5 games, so we was never able to strike up a decent partnership. But I don't see why these things are Redkapps fault. At the end of the day we signed a CB, who despite his Arsenal connections, won the crowd over as he played so well.

We did want to qualify for the CL again, but we failed. But to suggest we shouldn't put ut full strength sides in the 2nd round and 1/4 final is insane. Imagine how are star players would feel if we did that! Did you even think of that when criticising? Imagine telling VDV, Modric and Bale that they aren't playing in the CL! Football fans are so unreasonable in their criticisms it's unbelievable.

Had we managed a couple of wins against those teams you've listed, we could have finished 4th. But we didn't becasue it's a tough league and we weren't as strong as our rivals and they dropped less points. I think most non Spurs fans would have been able to predict that before the start of the season. The point is to blame the manager and suggest he should perhaps lose his job is crazy, as when you look at the achievments of his rival managers, it suggests they'd have done even worse with our squad. As you say Arsenal imploded and City were hardly convincing. If Wenger and Mancinni could do that with their squads, what would they have done with ours - finish 8th probably! The final point you make about Jol, should be the exact reason you stop making such strong criticisms of Redknapp. So many unreasonable and unrealistic Spurs fans wanted Jol to be sacked and came out with nonsense such "he's taken the club as far as he can" etc. At some point our fans need to start thinking that given the circumstances, there is only so far a club of our size and financial resources can go and stop making petty criticisms of our managers and actually start being a bit more thankful that we've got such a good manager. I don't mind the Villa fans consistently bashing Harry, but it gauls me to see Spurs fans doing it.

[Oaks]

We finshed 5th, which is our joint 2nd ever highest Prem finish, got 62 pts, our third highest total and got to the 1/4 final of the CL. In my book that is a very good season for Spurs.

Jol finished 5th twice with a significantly weaker squad and got sacked for it.

And look what happened to Spurs in the 2-3 years following. 2 wrongs to not make a right.

[GlastonSpur]

... Yes you had a nice time in Europe but it hasn't benefited your club in the long run. ....

Well, it brought in an estimated £45-50m of extra cash and also provides belief to the players that what was done once can be done again.

I don't know whether some or all of that money will be spent in January or instead put towards a new stadium, but the player belief in their ability will go a long way in helping Spurs to be there or thereabouts for top 4 come the season end.