Good evening.
I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth. And indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory.
This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason!
How infinite in faculties! How like an angel in apprehension. How like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
Man delights not me, no, nor women neither.
Nor women neither.
I know it was dismal. But what has happened to ‘us’ and ‘them’ I ask only as increasingly I am finding it nearly impossible to tell the two apart. It’s been like that for some time but the odd pieces of individual brilliance and what have you appear to have only served to keep the wolf from the door.
The burden of expectation in now greater than it ever ever was. Seat prices match this. But how does this remotely justify our home fans at The Lane being so awful?
Hotspurs Half Hour – Show 3 by hotspurshalfhour
I wasn’t happy with today. Of course I wasn’t and who would be? But I’m truly saddened by the ‘Pot Noodle’ culture that seems to want to pollute reason. Online rubbish about ‘…back to Ramos’ , ‘…AVB is a [insert uninformed bile here]’ I can cope with. But at The Lane Tottenham Hotspur fans need to bit the bullet. Forget the pseudo pinko communist clap trap of being ‘outraged consumers’ , are you with us or against us?
I’ll run an analysis on the actual game in the morning, but I tell you this, Jesus wept – I’m more saddened by the performances off of the pitch today.
The big fear is that Levy is all bluff and there will be no new stadium.
Buying Prem players wasnt a bad idea missing out on the lynchpin is farcical.
Glaring howlers like this allow Levy to come under close scrutiny and at this moment in time I would have preferred the THFC books be open to fans scrutiny. I dont mind having a few lacklustre seasons if I can see a stadium rising from the ashes but I cannot and no info regarding sponsors etc comes from the club.
I wish AVB every success but worry that he has been set up to fail.
Reasons to be cheerful seems to mean one thing to the Chmn and another to the fans.
I still sing my head off though its why I go.
More meds please.
Yes, this is getting to the crux.
At the moment we have fans arguing with each other. On one hand you have people saying Levy is a cancer eating away at our club, on the other hand you have people saying he is the second coming and the best thing to ever happen to out club. Both sides make up facts to embellish their stand point and never seem to see a middle ground.
One issue is conflicting messages. AVB came in with talk of titles and he has openly said he has agreed a target of top 4 with Levy. Meaning, anything less will be considered a failure by all. Really? That’s weird because I don’t think that dismantling a top 4 side, selling a couple of star players and banking a tidy profit looks like the actions of a chairman who is really prepping his new manager for a top 4 assault.
My point being, if this is a transitional season, OK, I can take that. If we are putting some transfer kitty into the new ground fund and will be looking to operate a transfer profit surplus for a few seasons, I can even stomach that. So long as we stay top 6 or thereabouts, which should be very doable if you look at our competitors relative budgets – Everton, Villa etc are the nearest in terms of turnover after the richer 5 teams and they are some way below us still. So yeah, let us know what the actual plan is, what the vision is exactly?
The messages coming out of the club set the fans up for a fall. We will get a new flashy manager, a new flashy ground, retain key players, invest heavily on new additions. So far we have been delivered none of those and the flashy new manager has not been given a very nice start-up by the board at all. Problem is a lot of fans get caught up in one side of the argument or another – i.e. reciting ‘inlevywetrust’ like a bunch of dead-eyed cultists or raging against everything and anything he does.
Then again, I happen to think my own opinion is that Levy is a decent chairman in general, but repeats the same mistakes, almost as if brinkmanship and hard-balling is in his DNA and he knows no other way. Without any doubt, history has shown this can sometimes be to the detriment of results and performances.
Yes, our books look great. Well, the last time I checked anyway, it isn’t really my concern or interest. Yes, we have built our team up to the level where quite frankly it should be, given our relative finances – we have the 6th biggest turnover in the league so we should have no issues with being a Top 6 side. But Levy has also repeatedly hired terrible managers who have taken the club one steps forward and 10 back, and for gods sake can we start next season in mid-August not September for a change?
Sorry but ‘Dismantling a top 4 side..’ doesn’t that fall into the ‘Both sides making up facts to embelish their standpoint..’? Aside from selling Mod and VdV, where has the dismantling taking place? Rose, Gio,Saha, Nelson?
As for the selling of two star players, that you mention in addition to the ‘dismantling’:
Modric was kicking and screaming to get out since last summer, he even downed tools to force a move – what could anyone, apart Levy have done about that?
VdV was an old school luxury player, and one of the reasons we played decent football in spells but couldn’t maintain it to the finishing line. If he was that much of star player, then where were all the clubs battling for his signature? If he only went to Hamburg due to personal reasons then was there anything that could have been done to avoid that by AVB or Levy either?
6 new signings, including 4 of the prems top performers, and two International captains in defense is good business in any window. If you are still deluded about why World class players are difficult to sign for a club who are not in the Champions league, please give me detail on why you don’t think the players we have signed are good enough to improve us.
OK, so I notice you have cannily ignored the general theme of my argument and want to nitpick about small details to defend Levy from any criticism. :gaehn: Ok.
Sorry but ‘Dismantling a top 4 side..’ doesn’t that fall into the ‘Both sides making up facts to embelish their standpoint..’? Aside from selling Mod and VdV, where has the dismantling taking place? Rose, Gio,Saha, Nelson?
Well, Mod, VDV, plus he was looking to farm out Thud and Daws and Defoe at one point. You can argue about the merits of all these players, that’s not my point, which is that nobody can deny they have all played a major role in our past few good seasons of being a top 4/5 side. So certainly the plan was to make wholesale changes, even if this didn’t quite come to fruition. No argument with the other deadwood you mention either way. Though the fact that we are still carrying our heaviest dead wood is depressing.
“what could anyone, apart Levy have done about that?”
What he could, and unarguably should have done is replace him. Our midfield has been nothing short of tragic in these first 3 games.
If you are still deluded about why World class players are difficult to sign for a club who are not in the Champions league, please give me detail on why you don’t think the players we have signed are good enough to improve us.
I’m not deluded at all. That’s what I was talking about – mixed messages. The message from the club seems to be that we are intent on finishing in the top 4 every year, and getting that CL money. But that’s only one side of the message as the actions do not always back this up.
As for the signings, well…
Vert – I think he looks the business, great signing, no argument. Will he improve the team? Only marginally really as he is a like-for-like replacement for King, who was faltering last year.
Sig – I think the jury is very much out on this guy. Had a decent 6 months in a small team. Is he the VDV replacement we signed him to be? Ability / talent wise you have to say no, no way near, although he can last 90 minutes which is a boon.
Dembele – I think a potentially great signing. Where does he fit in? I’m not totally sure, except that our need in midfield is now urgent so he will be crammed in there I imagine.
Dempsey – jury out for sure. He isn’t a striker and looks very much like an opportunist / panic buy to me. Like a patented last minute Daniel Levy signing.
Aside from that our Modric replacement will certainly not improve us as he simply didn’t arrive. Our failure to sort out our striking options for the 10,000th consecutive window is, well, an ongoing travesty. No other way of looking at it.
Spur’s books are published every year, whether they’ll still go into as much detail now they’ve delisted is debatable but as a ltd co they’ll have to file accounts at companies house.
the stadium project is an extremely complex project with some major issues to overcome, whether these issues will subside is debatable but commercial funding for development purposes is quite expensive and scarce at the moment especially for alleged medium to high risk projects
Booing is totally wrong, for god’s sake the core of this team have given us hours of fantastic entertainment of the past few years, ok we’ve had a few hiccups but we need to roll with the punches and back them to the hilt.
AVB needs time and loyalty, it’s a new style of play with differing formations, the pre season should have been our testing period but he ho our squad has only just now been assembled. We missed out on a key player by 4 minutes in the window, we move on and handle the situation, there’s quality in the squad to deal with it.
A couple of wins and all will be fine, the confidence will flow and the bed wetters will get their sheets changed.
The self flagellation needs to stop, AVB is a promising young coach who if he gets it right will win top honours for the club
Let’s show a little patience while he finds his feet with us
No one is changing my sheets win lose or fuckin draw pal.
I am pro Tottenham Hotspur.My only concern about AVB is exactly the same as about Harry Redknapp.Where Harry was not a thinker and was more a soul type,AVB maybe more the opposite but where they may be the same is they both maybe stuck in one way of doing things. I am not saying that AVB is like that.I dont know.What I find is the players are running and running and seem to be chasing something.Its not just the ball they are chasing.They could be chasing AVB’s idea.
When you are running with confidence in what you are doing,you are more purposeful,more solid.
They have been running and running for 3 games now.Chasing.
Last year they were complately shit at times and at others were totally in control of what was happening. When things went wrong (not just at the end of the season) they had no idea how to get back on track.But when things went well they were flowing.There was a sureness to what they did.
For three games now its been chasing rainbows.It could be they are not used to the system or the new players.But they have to find comfort and balance with what they are doing and do what they do by the heart not just by the book.
The longer it takes,the problem will culminate on itself and it will become negative.
AVB has to lead with confidence not just ideas.
I don’t mind chasing rainbows, just Don’t go chasing Waterfalls alright?
One problem with AVB is that he is damaged goods. He is a young, inexperienced manager still smarting from failure in his last job. Nevertheless he is proud and ambitious. But he isn’t exuding confidence, he looks more desperate for the 3 points than anyone else. That can’t be a very relaxed training ground at the moment and those 3 points are urgently required to give AVB himself a bit of a lift.
I just hope the away support is as noisy as usual.