Are CBS’ Premier League pundits saying out loud what many Spurs fans are already thinking?

lol

Poch was exhausted and disallusioned,but he will be back,cannot wait

yes it was supposed to be a working mans game,work all week and be entertained at the weekend,win,lose or draw

absolutely

same here im afraid

he won the league with Chelsea when he didnt have european games,following season,not so good

spot on again

we hardly spent a penny for 2 windows under poch but played the best football in years

spot on

I think it’s Dier is the issue, he plays 5 yards too deep. He doesn’t draw a player out of position before he passes. WIng backs would have more space if he could.

Agreed. Player always will make mistakes, the better ones will always make less or recover quicker to get them out of making said mistakes.
Our defenders are not that top bracket.
Though if you think we didn’t get Bastoni, he knows Conte, says a lot.

Agreed. Our opponents just need to stop our front 3 getting the ball because no one else can really be creative, although against Chelsea Hojbjerg put a good ball through to Kane, who fluffed his lines. I would still expect our midfield to provide some assists, but it is not their ‘game’ and at the end of the season I am not holding out too much that Hojbjerg or Bentancur will be top of the ‘chances created’ stats.

With Perisic on the field he will give us a better outlet on the left, I saw Davies becoming a make shift left back when Perisic was up field v Wolves, because he will not be marauding up and down the field. On the right though we are doomed. Doherty and Royal will get plaudits galore the day they score/assist but it will take an age for his to happen and people will forget the 50 duff crosses each hit before a good one happens.

Our back 3 are all capable of having superb games, the problem is they are incapable of doing it every week. Just think about someone like Ledley, Mr Reliable week in week out – I still think Dier is better than McGuire and Stones mind you.

This is cobblers. Yes they struggle to string a few passes together on occasion, and yes, it seems like we need to be 2 goals up before we start popping it around nicely, but defensive and boring? Not seeing that.

I have no problem with them being a bit cagey for the first half hour as long as we’re dominating the game – I’m gonna keep banging this drum though, because the outlet in Conte’s system is almost always the wing backs, and ours are just not good enough.

I keep reading he builds success on defence (I am all in with that) but how can he explain away the 2nd Blue Scum goal. We have a central CB a LCB and a LWB to cover James’ area but it seems everyone wanted to go walkabout to the other side of the pitch apart from poor Ben who got stuck between the 2 players so that is 1 from 3 in position.
The Koulibay and the golf boy goals were not much better either.
Conte has been in about 9 months and we still cant defend.
It cant be the players as I keep seeing “Dier for England” posts so it must be down to Tonio.

Even Pep or Klopp didn’t play the best football to start with especially with any consistency. which a
The games so far haven’t been to the standard for the 90mins though there have been moments plus we do have 7 goals (only 3 clubs have more).
He is a defence first coach, in don’t lose games first,
Conte knows we can only ever get a maximum of 114 points in a season (well 112 now), realistically points will be dropped from that.
Then it is about the jam tomorrow, football like any business does go on cycles.
But points on the board are Conte’s biggest priority, he doesn’t want jam tomorrow, does he?
He will see there are at least 12 sides (at least) we should grind out wins against, regardless. That is 72 points, then it’s how he gets another 20 out of the rest of the games plus any slip-ups.
The league isn’t consistent, it is tiered in capability. Though like 2015-16 if Chelsea and Liverpool’s slips hopefully long continue there may be that opportunity.
But points on the board are paramount.
Conte loses his ‘cool’ when we lose against teams that should, that’s right should beat.
The lack of winning has affected who we sign.
Start winning pots and we sign better players, better players equals better football.
It is also about the players he currently has and had at his disposal.
We have to be real where we are.
We had stalled on the 2019 rebuild and had no real churn in years.
We have a fan base that celebrates mediocrity (even Sissoko being called a GOAT by some FFS), which a chairman has exploited for years.
Though the side does have a feel of a reset happening.
The squad is in better shape even if that isn’t as big in the starting 11. We have the cash to spend still and the way it is set up the 150m has to be spent in this window as the option expires before January if it is to be used on players. I hope we do go for a marquee signing, even if we go back to inter for a defender.
An opportunity could be here though sexy football may have to wait for points.

We haven’t been remotely in the league of success that Athletics have seen in recent years. Next.

Before Levy, the Spurs way actually delivered great football and trophies. Sugar and then ENIC made us Spursy. F*** them. Tiring hearing some fans excuse the lack of direction and focus on the football part of the football business.

Would take Toby and Jan over Dier and Davies even now. Selling Walker to strengthen a direct rival said everything about Levy’s priorities.

ENIC don’t care about the team, just their portfolio.

Liverpool don’t have oil money and manage to beat City to some silverware.

So there aren’t any decent players for the 8th richest club? Nonsense mate. Levy out.

Anything that gets levy out is good by me. He and ENIC are cancers.

I have been impressed by Richarlison. I think the other shortcomings pointed out are spot on though.

Spit the Dog shouldn’t even have a job. Deplorable.

Italian football is still mired in the mindset of catenaccio whereby the philosophy is that if the other team can’t score, they can’t win. Italian football is pretty dire to watch rather like Spurs under Conte. I, like most other neutrals would much prefer to watch the PL, La Liga or the Bundesliga. Italian football has been on a downward spiral for many years which is evidenced by it’s failure to qualify for the World Cup despite winning the European Championship. The great Italian teams like AC Milan when Berlusconi was the owner are over. If Mourinho had been born an Italian, nobody would have been surprised. I never thought that he was the right manager for Spurs as I also do not think Conte is the right man for our club. He won’t last long at our club as he never does wherever he is the manager and his dull and turgid style of football will never catch on at Spurs. This will all end in tears as he will blame Levy for “broken promises” in recruitment and Levy will be booed by the fans who will blame him for serving up cr*p football which will lead to Conte’s dismissal. As far as I am aware, Conte has not signed a new contract.

Which is why Conte’s league record is impressive and his cup and European is much less so. Which is why it’s hard to see what we’re likely to win with him on charge with Levy’s budgets….

Especially if you’re the eighth richest club on the planet…

There’s always more than one way to skin a cat, but the majority of teams that win stuff these days generally press high and attack in numbers. Citeh and Liverpool being a case in point…

‘Doing it on the cheap’ – 23 years and counting….

The team lacks quality…

Conte is a bit conservative for my liking, I’ve always thought this. However, when we get on top in a game we start to play, that’s Italian coaches for you, basically…

😁👍

It was only Woolwich

Richi had only played a few minutes and has impressed in all of them. He’s actually made a difference to the durge being served up as football. In fact I’d say he had to start a head of Son who had been woefully poor.

I have to presume you had the two mixed up. If not you’ve clearly not watched our opening 3 games.

All before my time Brother James, unfortunately.. I’m not sure Busby was known as a master tactician from what I’ve read and seen. Some quality players and they played some great free flowing football with the ball. This comes naturally and instinctive with good players. But without the ball they all just banked in and pressed not far in front of their penalty area. Pretty basic compared to today’s tactics and transitions.

That back four in the last season at the lane where we went unbeaten at home is the best defence we’ve had in my lifetime.

Just class.

You’ve cherry picked one game under Ferguson but generally, they played attacking football under him when playing the likes of Giggs and Kanchelis in the same team for example. Again, I never stated that we should always play an attacking formation in some sort of kamikaze tactics, rather as we did under Ardiles but the football under Conte is dire.

Is that the same Sir Alex who beat the Gooners in an FA cup final while fielding SEVEN defenders… A back four of ‘Brown, Vidic, Smalling, Evra’.. With Rafael, O Shea and Fabio in midfield… That’s 63% defence with 45% full backs… Gibson made up the midfield and Rooney and Hernandez up top.

Sir Alex Ferguson “Attack wins you games, defence wins you titles.”

I may be missing something but I do not see where we have strengthened at the back. Last week against Wolves we had Dier, Sanchez, and Davies with Royal out wide on the right. We have added to our defensive midfield with Bissouma and we have added Perisic as a quality wing back on the left. Richarlison has yet to impress. I expect a lot more for £60 million than someone who “runs abat a bit”. It is as clear as day we need a world class creative midfielder. a quality CB alongside Romero and a quality RWB. How much of the £150 million war chest have we spent taking into account outgoings and loan savings off the payroll? That is the figure I will be looking for at the close of the transfer window. At the moment we are one injury to Kane away from a disaster.

The idea that Conte, who occasionally plays an attacking front four, is some Mourihno-esque, defensive minded, park-the-bus merchant is ridiculous nonsense. Mustoe edges Garry Neville for the biggest numpty in football punditry, it’s a three-way tie with Carragher for most annoying voice in punditry.

Firstly, I never stated that we could or should outspend those clubs controlled by oil sheiks or previously oligarchs, although FFP is meant to produce a more level playing field. Playing attractive and winning football can only be achieved by having the right players and this can only be achieved by having the right scouting staff in place, analytical tools and a good head of recruitment. We have spent a fair amount of money over the years but on the wrong players. We have had plenty of opportunity to buy the players to compete and play attractive football but mainly due to Levy’s lack of judgement in his recruitment staff, Hichen for example, and the sacking of Paul Mitchell, we have failed lamentably. Trying to shaft Villa over Grealish was a prime example of Levy’s penny wise and pound foolish attitude in the transfer market over the last twenty three years. N’Dombele is an example of a player whom was bought without the due diligence being done.
If you look at some of the players Liverpool have bought since they restructured their recruitment team, they have made some great buys without overpaying which include Andy Robertson, Salah, Jota, Mane and Diaz, ironically we could have and nearly signed the latter two, and yes, they play attractive football and win silverware. Incidentally, they decided to go a different route to us and chose to get things right on the pitch before spu**ing £1 billion on an NFL stadium.

In defence of City, they generally don’t overpay for players. Walking away from buying Cucurella is a prime example. Brighton are a well run club that scout very well and sell even better. Ben White to Arsenal for £54 million was a great trade and so was selling Cucurella for £60 million and they play very attractive football under an up and coming manager who was rumoured to to have turned us down.
Man Utd’s recruitment policy has been dire and they have spent fortunes without achieving success.
So in short, the right recruitment is all important if you are going to compete with sovereign wealth funds and having the right manager to play attractive and winning football.

Currently we play well in patches – in the second halves against Wolves and Soton and bits and pieces against Chelsea. In those patches, we blew Soton away and we created much more against Wolves, hitting the frame of the goal twice, scoring, and creating several other good chances. Remember that Wolves are notoriously hard to score against (5th best defence last year) and have a solid record away from home to top 6 sides. We don’t do well against them at home generally.

In the small sample of this season, we have the third best attack in the league. We are also second best scorers in the calendar year after City. No denying some of our football has been far from easy on the eye, and it’s concerning how we can’t seem to get going in the first half, but some people are a tad too harsh on the way we play under Conte.

Style will follow the winning.👌

I don’t think there was anything basic about the Busby Babes and at the time most observers admired Spurs for their mix of power and skill. We thrashed a top European team Atletico Madrid to win the European Cup Winners Cup, that wasn’t too shabby.

Maths for dummies – It’s not where you are in the table of richest clubs, its how much more money the clubs above you have than you. If club X has twice the revenue of club Y it doesn’t matter if they are next to each other in the table or a hundred places apart, it’s the same financial gap. Given City, PSG and now Newcastle have oil revenues to rely on it’s not so much a financial gap as a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon.

A lot of clubs wouldn’t sell to Spurs in the early sixties. Bill Nicholson wanted Bobby Moore but West Ham wouldn’t sell.

Wow so easy, we just outspend Man City’s oil revenue and buy the best players then we can win playing attractive football. How come the club hasn’t thought of that ? You’ve got the whole thing back to front. If you don’t have the income of an oil state at your disposal you have to win in order to generate the cash to buy the players to play more attractive football. Unless of course you’ve figured out a short cut ? Only you don’t actually explain how to produce this fantasy football team.

Waren’t we supposed to be the 8th.richest club in the world,and didn’t Levy state catagorically the the generational debt incurred for the new shopping mall would not impact the transfer business?

Well we still find ourselves with big holes in the squad that need filling with quality and also appear to be unable to attract the top players needed.No wonder Conte has to play basically a defensive system which fans aren’t too keen on.It doesn’t bode well for the rest of the season.

You are correct but Brazil beat us and went on to win the tournament with great style!

THIS. Levy has made a lot of mistakes over his chairman era, but two of the biggest are 1). Rarely prioritising the pitch product, because he chooses to 2). Prioritise milking as much money as possible out of stubbornly old school fans by providing image and false status over results.

It is a sickening codependency that must stop.

From the horse’s mouth (sort of):

https://www.spurs-web.com/spurs-news/conte-explains-his-3-4-3-spurs-formation-in-detail-high-press-and-low-block/

I think that was the Germans in 70.

Ndidi. Nothing beats a true fact. take this one from stinkipedia: They collected at least one major trophy in each of the six decades from the 1950s to 2000s – an achievement only matched by Manchester United

Pick a decade and we won stuff – playing in whatever style it was. At least within my lifetime. True also that critics were fawning.

Of course we all feel better if after having watched another turgid 95+ of wretchedness and sordid frightfulness we can reflect on the points gained.

All reasonable musing by all on here about Conte’s getting started, winning is fab etc.

I just prefer to recall when points had been gained and we played like the bollochi di cani.

For final comparison, here’s another true fact (same source):
Tottenham is owned by ENIC Group, which purchased the club in 2001. Since when…

Splitters

I have never been sure why fans think you have to play defensive, turgid football to win matches. Do they think that playing attractive football and wining are mutually exclusive?
The greatest sides I have watched over the years generally played the best football and won silverware. Ajax won three European Cups in a row in the early 70s playing a style of total football never seen before. Brazil, who beat us in in the quarter finals of the 1970 World Cup in Mexico were a phenomenal team, playing wonderful football. Man Utd, under Ferguson, played attacking football and achieved success. The recent winners of the PL have been City and Liverpool, both of whom are capable of playing very entertaining football and winning silverware.
Under Poch we played some great football but sadly didn’t win anything but for those of you who think that I am living in some kind of time warp in the 60s, you can think again. I lived in south London most of my life but I supported Spurs as my uncle was a season ticket holder and he took me to my first match in 1962 and I was then smitten for life. It would have been much easier for me to have supported Chelsea but Spurs was in my DNA and always will be. For me, football is a game of entertainment, first and foremost, and the Spurs fans who are not the most patient in the league, will not enjoy watching this type of dull, defensive football all season in their billion pound stadium.

We are a tough watch which isn’t really for me if I’m honest, coys

I watched this discussion live here (on NBC sports btw H) and agreed with Howard. He’s pretty good for a pundit and sticks mostly to the game and not the other nonsense.

I’m taking the view that it’s still early doors in the Conte era here and his first order of business is to shore up the back, which he has done no question. Next it’s playing faster, 1-touch football. We’re seeing glimpses but the talent is not here yet. We’re also starting to press higher. Once the pieces are in place I expect a morw free flowing attack.

👌

Yep I’ve never heard a Juve, Inter, or Chavski fan speak bad about him.. Everyone loves him… Only Spurs fans here have doubted him and slated him..

I have never been that bothered about style it is all about results for me.
So Conte has a defensive style of play which means he will be gnashing his teeth over the space our defence has left in the box – first to Golf Boy then to Koulibaly.
I recall stats saying Blue Scum & Wolfs only had x chances but I still have flashbacks of the ball flashing across our box (was it Havertz missing?).And the space for James we had no defence for that.
Wolfs had no predator or else we could have started at 1-0 down.
I dont like WBs I prefer a defence of 2 top CBs like we had in Jan & Toby aided by 2 class FBs.

Blanchflower played in the 50s and 60s, a very basic era of football.. It was a different game back then. A lot has changed since last century.

So you would be more entertained losing 5-2, rather than win 1 – 0.

Each to their own… But I’m a winner so I don’t understand this logic.

At the time Blanchflower played there was a “big six” in English football. Spurs were one of them. Each of those clubs had about the same income and could pretty much buy whoever they wanted. Now we are competing against oil states. You can indulge in a fantasy where we are still in the 1960s if it makes you happy. It won’t change reality however. In the current world of football finance we will always have to punch above our weight. That means being more like Atletico than Real Madrid. If you prefer a role as a secondary club who don’t really compete for trophies fair enough. But it is definitely not what I want from my club.

These are the same type of fans that prefer to play the ‘spurs way’, which means we tend to lose a lot.. The game is about winning at the end of the day.
There is no flair or style in leaking 3 or 4 goals every week.

I don’t find Conte nor his style boring at all.. The man and his approach to football is fascinating..

I was a centre mid box to box. But I was also sometimes deployed up top as a 9 or 10. I also played on the wing when I was young.
Boy I would love to play in Contes set up. Especially at wing back. These areas get overloaded in his system.

You are absolutely correct, I loved them and we played so well that other teams were scared of playing against us which I hadn’t see for years. We were respected by the other teams and their supporters and even the critics who are notoriously prejudiced against Spurs were full of praise. Ultimately, we won nothing which was a great disappointment but one could argue that much of that was down to Levy not backing Poch in the market.

I cant honestly recall that when Conte won the title with Chelsea that there was any backlash to their playing style , quite the reverse in fact .
I haven’t heard anything negative from Juventus or Inter Milan for that matter , so lets give him his shot .
I’d label him a man that “players play for ” and this applies to the fans too . He has that something special [ which most great managers have ] that fans adore .

So am i right to assume you enjoyed the years under Poch ?????

Blanchflower said of football: “The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It is nothing of the kind. The game is about glory, it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom.” I couldn’t put it any better myself and I doubt anybody else could either. If I wasn’t a fan, I wouldn’t want to watch the current side under Conte. The football is as dull as ditchwater but it’s just not that we don’t have the players to play a more expansive and attacking style, Conte’s teams are always set up this way. Even if he had been properly backed in the transfer market, would he play an AM for example? It’s not in his DNA to play the “Spurs way”. I understand the frustration of the fans who want silverware after one trophy in twenty three years under Levy but for me, football is entertainment and I must be honest and admit that I don’t really enjoy watching the team at the moment.

Win first. Win in style second.

Honestly, people moaning about style can just eff off. What do you want, style first win second? How many league titles has that delivered in the last 140 years?

I agree it has not been good watching, but it is only 3 games, without a loss and in fairness to back up what is being said Hugo has hardly been put under any serious pressure

I dont care about style, I want to see spurs lift a throphy!

You’re right. The football was much better when we had the Belgians in defense and Dembele in the middle. Bentancur and PEH are good footballers, but it was evident in Wolves match that Neves was a notch above. If our ambition is to win the Prem or CL we need 2 defenders on the same level as Romero and a creative midfielder.

Under Mourinho you championed this type of football HH, it was football played by a serial winner after all. The problem was Mourinho didn’t have many good footballers, lads who could keep the ball when under pressure so he just kept men back and let Son and Kane score goals and Levy inexplicably sacked him the week before a final. The irony was that to win that game v City we would have afforded them 90% possession and look to win off a corner. What would Bill Nicholson have thought? This is the problem that Conte still faces though, but he has Kulu as a better attacking option than Moura/Bergwijn and Bentancur is better than Winks. Nothing much has changed between the two managers even when ‘He Who Shall Not Be Named’ was with us. Mourinho and Conte just knew how to get blood out of a stone, Nuno didn’t.

I am not a fan of football played the way I have seen for a fair few years now, but imagine playing a more expansive game with the muppets at the back that we have, bar PopChips Romero? We would get destroyed.

Any football team should buy ‘footballers’ first and foremost, but when ball playing CBs are mentioned (Andersen at Palace) they are usually ridiculed. Would Andersen get in City’s team, no. But is he a better option than Dier and Sanchez, yes? Especially when I had to see these two pump long ball after long ball to no one v Wolves. I also watched the 3 Ch Lg qualifiers last night and there were players much better at keeping the ball than what we have. They are out there, we just need to get them.

While fans of some other clubs sem to understand you have to win no matter how you play some Spurs fans seem to only want to win playing pretty football. Maybe that’s why we’ve won so little. Get the points on the board, win anything you can win and if you can play well while you are doing it that’s a bonus. But the record books don’t show how you played only what you won and where you finished. Hence other fans jokes about our continued lack of success.

Agreed CS, a good summation.

Yes H, the first half was indeed tough viewing, as it was against Chelsea. On the other hand, there were some scintillating performances at the back end of last season and this season against Southampton.

I think the implementation of Conte’s system is still a work in progress and that the personnel to enact that system have not yet all been acquired. There is undeniably an improvement in the depth of the squad, but still some fairly glaring weaknesses.

These would be, no creative AM, of any requisite calibre. No world class CB, other than Romero. A midfield corps that offers considerable energy and stamina and ability to win the ball, but limited ability to do much with it. RWB play, quality and consistency!

Only our forward line is irreproachable, in terms of quality, depth and production, the best in the league. So there will be more afternoons like last week, but the overall trajectory under Antonio is upwards. ENIC need to find another 150 mill next off-season, to fill in the gaps.

As long as we keep getting points, I frankly don’t care about the style. I didn’t care under Jose and I don’t care now. We got 7 points out of games where we got nothing last season, scoring 7 goals. That’s decent for a side that looked poor for most of the three games, including what is probably our toughest away game every season.

Conte is certainly defence first, but we are also second (I believe) for goals scored in 2022, outperformed only by City. Not bad for a creative black hole.

Do we need another high-level CB and an AM? Absolutely, but that might have to wait. We’ve already brought in a comparatively extreme number of new players to strengthen the squad (though not the starting 11), and while I’d like to get still more, it might have to be left for January or next summer.

Anyway, if we sign someone right now, they will not be ready to play right away (for physical or tactical reasons), and the way we quickly concluded several deals before pre-season leads me to believe that if there was someone to be signed, they’d have been signed already.

Kane , Son , Richarlison , Kulusevski , Gil , Moura , Perisic .
At least 4 of these will play regularly in the first team .
We are looking for a speedy wing back and an attacking mid .
It dont smack of a team totally committed to defence , but I’ll concede – we need “a star ” !!

Maybe the fans should start doing what Conte and the players are doing and just turn up for the 2nd half ………