People said all the same stuff about Beattie. The reality was he had a decent year or two at a diddy south coast club and then got signed by a Ye Olde big five team and found the step up too much.
There’s a mental aspect too. It’s far easier mentally at a club like Bournemouth than at clubs like Everton or Spurs who have grand histories, grand designs on the future but no real plan about how to get there.
I just saw there that Spurs spunked 55 million on Solanke and silently let out an “oh no” exclamation in my mind similar to the one I let out when I heard a naive mammy on Liveline who had paid 400 quid for a fictional Dublin v Mayo 2017 All-Ireland final ticket to a man who immediately legged it and never came back.
Bournemouth were the wallet inspectors and Spurs handed theirs right over.
Ange is a lovely man and it would be lovely to see him succeed at Spurs but it isn’t going to happen, he’ll be gone by November I’d say.
He’s a different level of athlete to Beattie. I’d say he’ll get 15-20 prem goals yet. There’s no James Beattie types these days any more, even the likes of Chris Wood, there isn’t a pick on him and he gets through his work.
You keep saying that he’s a good coach. Since his first 10 games when he got a new manager bounce. very little evidence of that since he came to Spurs. He’s wedded to his system which just seems to be endless sideway passing and no guile or penetration.
That’s the player’s with no guile or insufficient technique. The structure is sound enough to me but is breaking down when they go wide. Brennan Johnson alone is always botching crossing opportunities. I think they’ll be okay.
Conte, Jose, Poch, Ange where does it end? He also brought Madison, Van Der Ven and Udogie who are brilliant. He is maintaining around where they were under Conte and Jose without Kane and they play a swashbuckling Spurs Way style.
They need to spend more money I think. They beat Leicester the first night as they should, the table looks a lot better. This guy is a good coach. Klopp found it hard out of the gate with a similar high pressing style.
He is a better coach than Eddie Howe or Southgate which is who you’d get and Howe’s Newcastle bludgeon their way to results like Jose or Conte who ye didn’t like. I’d stick with him.
Spurs also have probably the best young lad in the country in Michael Moore. The big blonde Scandi kid who we’ve seen a small bit of is supposed to be brilliant as well. It will turn.
One other thing I’d have heavily in his favour is that he can clearly coach. They play to a recognisable pattern with the high press and fullbacks inverting into midfield.
There’s only really Pep and Arteta who one could readily recognise stylistically and Klopp before that. It is the sign of a high level coach and the biggest single black mark against Ten Haag.
Maddison has been rubbish since he had that injury lay off either side of Christmas last year. He’s spent nearly €300 million already, a good chunk admittedly the Kane money.
There’s nothing swashbuckling about the way Spurs are playing. It’s all sideways and backwards passes. Inverted fullbacks is a load of nonsense. Grand for a farmers league. We have full backs that are not defending and nothing from midfield, partly down to fullback pushing up and getting in the way.
He made a fast start, new manager bounce of 26 points out of 30 in first 10 games, an average of 2.6 points a game. Managers figured out Angeball pretty quickly though and there was and is no Plan B.
In the last 32 leagues games, point per game ratio has almost halved to 1.37 a game, a very poor 44 from 32 games. That equates to 52 points over a 38 game season which gets 9th or 10th.
In the last 11 league games we’ve utterly plummeted, losing 7, picking up just 10 points, 9 of which were against the bottom two sides last season, Sheffield United and Burnley and bottom of the table Everton this season.
You can talk about visions and philosophies all you want, but it is largely a results business. 32 game is a very large sample size and long time to be on such a dismal run of form. It’s a simple fact, if results don’t buck up quickly, he’ll be fired. He looks increasingly out of his depth.
We’ll see, I think he’ll turn it due to the quality of their football and Solanke not being so profligate.
Madison, Bissouma, Bentacur, the defence is good on paper.
I suppose the frustration is the money spent in the last few years on certain forward lads when fellas like Harvey Barnes, Michael Olise and even Rashford were there to potentially be got. There’s a lot of scouting networks should be hanging their heads in shame on Olise especially. He is just unbelievable and was there to be got for the last 18 months.
I didn’t see the game yesterday but I watched the Newcastle game and saw most of the Leicester game. I saw enough of this last season too. I’ve more or less checked out of this season already.
I was thinking myself yesterday the first 10 games last season could prove to be quite the false dawn. They’ve been below average for a long time now, much longer than that good spell, & the vultures will be circling soon if they’re not already. Is there an Ange consensus amongst matchgoing fans these days? I think @neilld is right in that the quality from midfield up doesn’t match with the elite coterie of super franchises. Yet they’ve spent a lot of money in the last 3 transfer windows. I thought FOTF “Miguel” Delaney made a fair point on Twitter yesterday too - Spurs are perpetually buying for the future. A large chunk of those massive transfer fees have been on potential & some of those lads look muck, e.g., Brennan Johnson. They could surely have bought more astutely than that. They could still be relatively young players but you’d surely find a better & more proven wide player in the 20-25 year old age bracket for £50mn than Brennan Johnson.
It’s a recurring trend though. Looking good, a goal up, game should be killed off with a second and third goal which never comes and then the opposition get a goal out of nowhere usually down to a Romero brain fart. Initiative lost then, we rarely under Postecoglu go again and win after getting pegged back or come from behind to win. It’s powderpuff stuff.
Johnson will be back at Forest next summer one would think and he will probably do really well again for them. It was a bit like Wan Bissaka at United, different playing for a team seeking to dominate the ball (most of the time).
How good is Matt O’Riley? have they missed a trick there; he’d have been something different for them coming in off the right or maybe rotating with Maddison in the ten. He is very creative from what I’ve seen and Athletico really wanted him. Most teams only play with one road runner, but there’s times when Son, Werner and Johnson are all on the pitch and the quality on the ball just isn’t there. A lot will rest on Solanke but at least he is getting the chances.
