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.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/3205376/Harry-Redknapp-Spurs-are-down-to-the-bare-bones.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/fa-league-cups/injuries-cut-spurs-down-to-bare-bones-1916990.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/tottenham-hotspur/9219834/Harry-Redknapp-blames-small-squad-and-injuries-for-Spurs-sinking-feeling-at-QPR.html
http://www.goal.com/en/news/9/england/2012/02/19/2916571/redknapp-lists-injury-concerns-ahead-of-tottenham-clash-with
This was the game we lost 5-2 right?
Looks like it.
If so, it wasn’t injuries that cost us that day so much as inept set-up and tactics from Redknapp. We just tonked the Toons 5-0 at home so he went with the same line-up. A ‘wide open’ 4-4-2 at the Emirates. Sandro came on 2nd half to try and single handedly drag back a ship that had already left the harbor.
But doesn’t the score and the emphasis on injuries highlight the fact that without having well rested and fit players, especially in mid-you’re bound to lose against teams that are strong in the centre? And also reflecting that even Harry didn’t get it right on more than one occasion. Like you, I thought Moyes was the best of the rest and was pretty dumbstruck to hear he wasn’t even spoken to by Levy-but we’ve got AVB now and I don’t the club can sustain yet another huge compo payout or Levy remaining in his post if it all goes Bartlett
Yes, the midfield is important – of course it is, which is why it was suicidal for Harry, with all of his experience, to set up like that.
There were plenty of times when Harry got it wrong, imo. He did do the basics most of the time, nothing more, sometimes less. Atm we aren’t even seeing the basics from a man who was sold to us as a tactical genius. That’s my worry. It was always going to be a potentially catastrophic appointment for Levy, and there’s nothing any of us can do about that now or in the future. Regardless, I don’t think avoiding discussing glaring errors of judgement and making excuses for AVB because you personally nailed yourself to his mast is going to help anyone.
Woah Hang on there, I’ve nailed myself to THFC’s mast-I’ve never supported any manager-as they like players are just ships in the night. I’m suggesting that turning up with a ‘peel me a grape’ attitude isn’t the real point of going to ‘support’ your team.
I’ve never heard anyone other than Blackburn fans say’ I’m really looking forward to a shit game-so I can have a good boo-and hopefully DL will agree AVB’s out of his depth etc, etc, and I can post a huge “I told you so” I’d rather walk away peacefully than boo my team=personally I think it’s a detrimental thing to do and is in direct contrast of what we as fans a supposed to do-which is to support the team-last season I locked horns with a mustard crazed idiot, who, after a unbeaten run lasting from Sept-Nov was still slagging the side to no end-now that’s the level of support we’ve had to contend with-you, by comparison do make sense however-well mostly ;-)
I didn’t mean you specifically, or at all actually, I meant ‘one’, and specifically the likes of HH who will seemingly throw up any obstacle and diversion to avoid actually engaging with the issues of AVB’s tactics, playing style and decision making.
Ad infinitum