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The Blame Game Or ‘Why AVB & Levy Are A Pair Of Naffing Jokers’

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Good morning.

And so to part two of what I can now reveal is a two step search and rescue mission for sanity and someting that might just pass muster for the truth.

We’ve established that the environment isn’t fit to play in and heard from some caricatures that are part of the problem. The stain on the Y fronts of what ought to be our support.The argument of this subspecies appears to be that if you go every week then you’re entitled to behave as you wish. Devoid of accountability or reason. Thank god the customers of the Coach and Horses aren’t calling the shots in our board room.

So let us now risk further enlightenment by looking at resources. As a football manager your players are a vital element in a fairly simple equation. I have to labour this because I know some of you are as thick as paint and actually believe it when you say ‘X’ manager is a better manager than ‘Y’ manager. The truth of course is that there is an element of truth in such assertions but only a smidgen. No coincidence that the world’s most successful managers have also had great resources.

Villas-Boas took over after Arry, but he did not inherit Arry’s squad. To suggest so is wildly inaccurate. Beyond laughable.

Here are the players you need to minus from the new chap’s armory. King, Modric and Van Der Vaart. And just as missing due to prolonged injury Kaboul, Parker, Ade, Moussa and Benny to which you can now probably add Sandro. Scratch Moussa and that’s over half of a typical Arry first team squad right there.

Now this is a cracking opportunity to wheel out the old tripe about the chairman of course. The astute among you will recall a couple of facts. Modric went on strike. Sylvie Van Der Vaart tweeted,  ‘Thank you Spurs, and all the fans ? you always#coys Time to go home now ?’. These two weren’t sinister cash ins. Some fans need to embrace the ebb and flow of life. Maybe your grandparents haven’t died yet and you still think everything stays the same forever. Oh dear… did I say something bad? Let’s move on.

We were linked with a host of strikers in the window but 99% of it was a combo of paper talk and agents looking for leverage. The Moutinho thing was undoubtedly a fiasco but it is painful to hear the guesswork of people who were 100% not privy to the negotiations deliver their punts with such searing authority. Beyond painful.

Could we have landed any number of ‘superstars’ that were untested in the Premier League? Arguably yes. But as we aren’t Champions League side we would have had to pay more for them both in fees and wages. Last time I looked we only have 36,000 odd seats to sell. You see that’s why they call it breaking the bank. That’s why they call it bankruptcy. Not ‘tickling’ the bank or ‘bankfuncy.’

The fresh meat has been a mixed bunch. Vertonghen is a class act, Siggardson might be alright and Moussa was rapidly becoming a blessing until his hip went and that is a total disaster. Dempsey may be more limited than an Alan Sugar limited company but Deuce was a back up buy. That is what you get for that money.

So where or rather with whom that leave us with? A still clearly unfit Adebayor. The lunatic Walker. Ten Tonne Tommy. A Migdet gem who spends most of his time wincing as he pings the damn thing wide before saying, ‘Wha?’ with fake confusion to teammates who were in space. Sandro, a man with a hernia from carrying Tommy and Jake. Gallas a man who has asked our physios for written reassurances that he cannot catch ‘stupid’ from Walker.

Is AVB making a mistake with Brad and Lloris? Who knows? I want to see Hugo play but to be blunt this is almost a cosmetic decision at this stage. If we were losing every game to Gomes theatrics or by 3 or 4 goals then I’d have more of a beef. My guess is that AVB doesn’t need any more naffing ‘maybes’ to factor in. Brad ain’t perfect but neither is he broke.

Our midfield has no wit or discernible craft. And this is where great teams create and thus achieve.  You can boo and grumble all you want sweethearts but this isn’t a tactical issue. We don’t have the staff. Leave out Livermore, bring in Carroll, play Tommy deep it’s all shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic. Parker was immense and now he’s gone. Maybe he’s back by Christmas. Maybe. You don’t lose a player like that and ‘laugh it off.’ He is to us what Scholes is United.

It is the absence of players like Parker, Kaboul, Moussa and a fit Adebayor that is killing us. Nothing else. So stop booing. Stop acting like outraged consumers. If you really care about this club more than anyone else …give up your seat to someone who wants to cheer the lads on.

You’re not that special and worse you’re none too bright. Stop booing. There is a considerable waiting list that believe, like me that it is your time that is up. Tottenham need your seat.

To put a supporter in it.

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388 comments

  • Mabelode The Faceless says:

    Please can we play with 2 strikers. Please, please. Lone striker? Even The Lone Ranger had Tonto.

    • Shelf Side Yid says:

      Ade is not fit we have no one else till Jan possibly the summer,as H said this was always going to be a consolidation season after losing two of the games best players Rafa and Luka not to mention our first choice pairing at the back.
      If you want to boo fuck off some where else and do it!

  • Davros says:

    Morning H,, some good and salient points above. We certainly know what we’re missing and we have to play the hand we’re dealt tothe best of our ability. I’m not certain we’re doing that at home and would like to see us play 4 4 2 against teams we ought to be confident of beating. I feel both Sigg and Dempsey would be comfortable in that formation too. What are your thoughts on AVB’s home tactics?

    • Victor Meldrew says:

      Crap!

    • Harry Hotspur says:

      442 requires 2 strikers and we currently have 2 nearly men. Sig and Dempsey are (I believe) being played in roles to distract from the big gaps in the middle created by Modric, Parker, Moussa and Van Der Vaart.

      Defoe is supposedly our ‘primary threat’ and yet he had something like 5 touches and no shots prior to being subbed yesterday.

      I genuinely believe that nobody in the world could solve a puzzle that has so many pieces missing.

      • Qoizu says:

        agree completely. nothing to add.

      • BrizzleSpur says:

        I genuinely believe that nobody in the world could solve a puzzle that has so many pieces missing.

        Summed up perfectly.

      • Boon says:

        Exactly.

      • LLL says:

        It’s hopeless, we’re all doomed, we have the best man for the job dealing with it but there’s just nothing we or he can do to stop us being shit, given the circumstances.

      • Bobbles says:

        I wish the morons who think we should be smashing teams 3 and 4 nil every week would understand this.

        Where have all these unrealistic expectations come from? We’ve been decidedly average for years, and a few good seasons under ‘arry and now we EXPECT to be in the top 3 all year? And with a new manager and a depleted squad!

        Get real dickwipes.

        Disclaimer: The one thing I do agree with is that we should be going for it more at home. Popping it about around the half way line isn’t doing AVB any favours – he needs to understand the ‘spurs way’ a bit more, even if that means losing 3-4 a few times hahaha!

  • jesper says:

    Agree. Watched the game on tv in Denmark and the booing and not supporting the team was both painfull and embarrassing.

    • LLL says:

      The way we have played against QPR, Norwich (twice), Wigan, Maribor, Panathinaikos, West Brom has been both painful and embarrassing.

      • BrizzleSpur says:

        Do you not see that our squad has been significantly weakened by injury? This isn’t our first team playing rubbish football, it’s a make-shift squad struggling and getting booed by it’s own fans.

        • LLL says:

          I’ve watched every minute of every game in every competition this season. I don’t know how many minutes that adds up to, but I do know only a very small proportion of them were particularly entertaining.

          The reaction to the booing is out of proportion. And it’s a smokescreen. Those who booed AVB – AVB, not the team btw – for subbing off Defoe were expressing the opinion of the vast majority of fans. I wouldn’t do it, and I think it’s also cruel to a man whose only crime is his ineptitude. But you can’t really argue with the reasoning behind it.

      • Boon says:

        Ineptitude you say? Among Defoe, Adebayor and Dempsey, who have the better aerial threat, physical presence and able to hold the ball up better? Adebayor and Dempsey. When Wigan’s up, what do you think they are going to do? Put men behind the ball, pack the box and deny you space. Therefore, aerial threats the main way of attack. If you put all Dempsey, Adebayor and Defoe in, it’s going to make things worse because now you’re going to lose the midfield that Spurs are evidently already struggling versus Wigan, now you have all the strikers in their goal but no enough players in midfield to supply balls to the front men. Reasoning my arse.

        • LLL says:

          :dizzy2:

          Dempsey has offered almost no ‘threat’ of any kind this season. So you take him off and go with 2 strikers – the formation that suits our top scorer best after all.

    • blanchard says:

      Levy is to blame 4 choosing avb ,levy brought the new players, which arnt as good as the ones we sold. Avb does not want to change the formation to a 442 . I was there against wigan and that is the worst i have ever seen at the lane in 40 years.

  • KLSpurs says:

    Well written. DL and AVB should also then communicate that this is perhaps a 3 year plan to get Spurs regularly in top 4. False expectations are being built up a little too quickly by all and sundry. We don’t want a team to get the top 4 spot once in a blue moon but rather consistently and hence that needs time and money too

    • LLL says:

      Oh yes, because Bale etc are all willing to hang around for 3 years while the chairman fills the squad with mid-table bargain crud and the manager learns how to manage.

      I’ll tell you now that there is no 3 year plan – AVB told us his briefing was to achieve top 4 football, to continue and improve on the progress of the past few years and add trophies in the process. That’s the plan for this year. In other words, failure to achieve these goals will be a failure to meet the demands of the chairman. You may be willing to wait 3 years but just like our best players, this isn’t the schedule our illustrious bald-headed wizard of Spurs is working on.

  • DesertSpur says:

    Have to agree with you HH – missing half the team is clearly a major contributor to our indifferent form. The loss of VDV and Modric has hurt us badly, then coupled with the injuries of Dembele, Parker and Sandro mean that our CM is very poor – Hudd/Livermore, Siggs, and Deuce are nowhere near the standard of last seasons squad and the gulf in quality is obvious to all. Add Ade’s lack of fitness (more than likely precipitated by a 6 year long contract negotiation), the fact we have only 2 recognised strikers (meaning 2 up front is not really an option) and the loss of Benny meaning Jan the Man is having to play at LB, AVB has really got a crappy hand of cards to play with.
    That said our performance yesterday was abject – we were outcompeted by an inferior club, and showed a real lack of intelligence and heart. It needs sorting out, but with the current manpower I am concerned heading into the next few weeks.

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