If you’re capable of holding two thoughts in your head at the same time, then you may appreciate what follows. I’m glad we lost today. The last few weeks have been an exercise in self-delusion on a par with that ‘Chemical Ali’ chap in the Gulf War.
Thumping teams on the slide, whilst playing Conte ball. which is Mourinho ball but minus the tiresome bile has been a chore. Fans cheering meaningless stat padding. Really? Oh, yes. An endless supply of cheer.
How a world-class manager is able to sit in pressers week after week, talking about ‘improvement’ in respect of players, many of whom are closer to retirement than they are to EVER winning anything, has been beyond parody.
When a football team is a Japhet Tanganga and a Matt Doherty from success, that football team is a farce.
For a while, I felt Spurs were going to pull their now usual routine, rope-a-doper it, and then pop two or three past Potter’s lot in the second half.
As it was, this match, with a Boxing Day feel to it, didn’t even have the same cut-price magic to it as Leeds, Everton, and Newcastle. No records for scoring on a weaker foot were shattered today…
What was clear, was that in Conte’s absence, his staff had overtrained the boys and what should have been left in the tank for today had already been spluttered out on the manicured lawns at Hotspur Way.
Either that or the weaklings saw a chance to slack off in the gaffer’s absence.
Harry Winks has played 200 games for Spurs. He has 5 goals/6 assists. Less than 1 goal or assist a season.
In comparison, Sissoko – has played 202 Games – 5 goals, and 16 assists.
Bentaleb – played 66 Games – 1 goal, and 6 assists.
Ghaly – 34 Games – 3 goals, and 6 assists.
Winks came on today at 0-0 What did we expect to happen? This club is woeful from top to toe… Are you part of the problem?
Talk of a top-four finish has vexed me. We are barely improved from the squad that was repeatedly humiliated in the Europa Conference League.
The autopsy will be with you in the morning and don’t expect to hear any more guff about enjoying the ride.
This squad STILL requires major surgery, and talk of Champions League football is entirely embarrassing. Please stop it.
Tactically Conte should have changed things a little, all managers tend to stick with their preferred setup and tweak via instructions to players etc or possibly even a substitute or two. However, there are times when you need to change a bit more in a game. As many good things Conte brings, I find his approach a little formulaic, conservative and lacking in being more proactive at crucial times. This has cost us points…
I doubt Conte will make a blind bit of difference to bringing in players, only money will. Players and especially their agents aren’t stupid, they know the shelf life of managers at clubs. No player signs primarily on the basis of the manager, unless they’ve been there several years and there is a clear direction on the football side.
This. The predicable response will be that now it’s built, the money starts to stream in. Only, before it was built we didn’t have 800m of debt to service. So the final analysis of the likely hood that more money will be available for players and wages, offers up little hope of anything particularly significant…
Me neither pair of treacherous c#nts who along with Alli sold the club down the river ..hand of Levy all over that game..which is why Winks and Dier still exist .
Clippedy Clopp …it’s that the sound of ……
We were crap yesterday ..in a game that really mattered against are most serious opposition for weeks.
We had £ 340 million in the bank before WHL was knocked down..
It was Levy endorsed ..he would bleed the blood from a stone ..of course flying to and from the States doesn’t affect your body clock ..not if your laying in the arms of Levy ..the muggy turnout c-nt….
Both beaten at home by Brighton within seven days of each other, identical points haul this season. Sure, we have Kane and Son, we have a few differences but it’s a team game and neither team are meeting expectations. Both as inconsistent as each other, hard to admit but it’s true. Conte might squeak us 4th because he’s in a different league to Arteta, but the teams, nothing in it right now.
Of course he is, this ‘brave new world’ of Conte thing will most probably be proven to to be the utter claptrap it looks. Like ever other false-dawn under this ownership.
I hope I’m wrong but I can’t see anything tangible on the horizon that changes the usual and time honoured cycle of ENIC/Levy failure. Wilful neglect is just part of the business plan…
It’s that significant slice of the fan base that ENIC have been feeding off for 23 years. The one minor trophy in all that time still hasn’t allowed the penny to drop for some. Quite unbelievable really…
I have nothing against competitors, there are few footballers who aren’t. I don’t see Skipp being anywhere near Rice, but would love to be proven wrong.
Nobody who’s rich actually ’needs’ more money but that doesn’t stop them asking for more does it? I’ve yet to see it. Is it even human nature?
We are compared to the top three, so is the rest of the league l…
Time will tell. We haven’t heard anything official regarding how any extra revenues will be spent and on what. The Champions League revenues over four years changed nothing on the expenditure front. Will the stadium? It’s very hard to say, but we know the history under ENIC. That’s one thing we do know…
Robbie Keane’s party upset Arry, probably cos he wasn’t invited.
The w/b’s have to be far better quality than we have to try and open teams up, otherwise an attacking m/fdr is required.
He was always berry appy, regardless of how you felt. He kept telling us that he didn’t need a second striker because Son or Lucas could play up top in his formation. They both struggled and couldn’t… We were never ranked second best in Europe. We did well to get to that final, but rode our luck we were awful in the league that year.. We were supposed to be in a two horse race with Leicester previous to that and Botch managed to come third to the gooners.
How can you have a winning mentality without winning anything! The class of 92 and the Invincibles had winning mentalities…. Botch repeatedly botched it for many reasons. He infamously prefers to work with a small squad. This plus over training meant players were getting injured and burnt out at the end of every season. He never learnt from his mistakes. Tactics he was very basic, a one trick pony it was high press or die. Possession based a hell of a lot of sideways and backwards passing. He made subs and changes far too late, he was always the latest and most ineffective in the league. Every week for years.. So many silly decisions like dropping Dembele for finals and key games for poor players like Mason and Bentaleb. Botch was a great coach, good at training young lads to play specifically.. But he couldn’t manage a shag in a brothel.
Botch = Loser….. He’s been gone for 4 years now.. Try and let him go if you can Gramps.. You waffle on about this manager whos at a french club as much as the super obsessed Botch number 1 fan East Stand…. I get Manure fans still banging on about Sir Alex.. But Spurs fans idolising Botch is embarrassing..
Botch certainly wasn’t the answer after 6 long years. Leicester won the league and Brum, Stoke and Portsmouth won cups.. Botch won nothing. Give Conte half that time 3 years and see where we are. We will be winning silverware and probably the league.. He also inherited a superior squad than Conte, and didn’t join the club mid season in a disaster scenario… Look at Botches career at PSG, Spurs, Saints and Espanyol. He’s botched it everywhere he’s been… Now look at Contes track record. There is no comparison.
Brighton?
I just don’t understand this my man… Why would any fan want us to lose?.. Regardless of any personal feelings towards the bald one, the fact our squad needs major churning, surely winning is everything?
Easty, Sonny and Grampa Glory…. So you three amigos really think the Arse are better? LOL… Jokers.
👍
A manager like Conte only cares about his legacy and winning.. Already a multi millionaire from his playing days and manager days he’s certainly not desperate for cash.. Rugby union is a whole different ball game. Literally.
I mentioned Arsenal because it’s them who we are competing with for top four, along with Manure… Of course City and Scouse are the benchmark… We are certainly not crap though.
The stadium produces revenue so that we can sign top players for big money. We didn’t have it before.. Of course the Conte factor will be vital for transfers.
We were awful I agree. I have no faith in the likes of Dier and Davies and Winks.. But it was our key players like Kane and Son and Coolio who didn’t perform again when we needed them. Our midfield Benty and Hojberg were also poor.. Brighton deserve a lot of credit, they man marked Kane and Son and overran our midfield. They played well.. I watched the Scouse beat City too. These two are levels ahead of us for sure. Also the Chavs have a superior squad. I also believe that Manure have a better squad than us..
We are 4th still, this is a good position, especially considering our poor squad. We also have easier games than our rivals..
I have to smile to myself when people assume that if we make top 4 then Levy will go on a spending spree of buying CL players. He never did that in 4 years of CL qualification why should he start now? Because we have Conte I hear the easily led say, well he had his wet dream of a manager in Mourinho and he went out and bought him Rodon instead of Skriniar, so that doesn’t wash. His idea of January backing for his dream manager was a big risk youngster from the Dutch league who has predictably flopped like all the others.
I doubt anything will change, Levy is a predictable beast as we should really all know after 23 years of his stifling control and ability to put hurdles in the way of us ever winning anything.
I’m afraid if we do qualify then we’ll likely be home before our postcards (remember them!).
In 51 Years of Spurs Pain and looking at the upcoming fixtures, involving Gooners , Utd and Ourselves. Yesterdays Shambles is probably our most Spursy. Kane being allowed to go to the Masters is up there with Botchs Date with Sir Alex, at the business end of the Season .
Well said. City and Liverpool are the benchmark, not Arsenal. Arsenal are also crap.
That’s right blame Poch. I hear he started the Ukraine war as well.
Antonio the latest sticking plaster.
Silverware? This lot? It appears that top 4 has replaced silverware in some Spurs fans minds anyway.
Only thanks to the wobbly arses.
Spawn of Levy…
Sadly, you will be amazed at the number of Fans, Supporters etc etc that do not see this.
i’m afraid so! 😱 😆
I would remind anyone who’s adding in Champions League qualification as this significant step change in the way we are run to hold their horses a bit. We never signed anyone who was coming particularly because we were playing in the Champions League. `Nothing was ‘stepped up’ in four years of playing in it. Why would that change now? Why, because of ‘the Conte factor’? I very much doubt it.
We are the club that “do things differently” remember. The club that wins awards for financial performance and nothing on the pitch. A ‘world class’ stadium, a top spa facilities, a zero carbon vegetable patch yet without even a functioning bench…
Oh gawd no, that thing has offspring???
I agree. This is not the time to swan off to the USA. With Conte sidelined with COVID and Kane away for probably two days at least it was hardly a focused week of preparation for a vital match and it showed. That was a disgusting performance not just because every single player was off the pace but the lack of intensity and desire shown in comparison to the Brighton swuad
Lol.
Baffles me how you can say we are not credible challengers for top 4 this season, when we are actually in 4th.
Was a game similar to those a few months ago, where a team that has the nous, discipline and tactical awareness to close down aggressively and stay compact left us devoid of answers.
There’s no on-pitch leadership to get it sorted out in the moment, and even the half time rollocking failed to change anything – can only hope it’s a blip.
As some might put it, we are all mouth and no trousers. Or; all ‘infrastructure’ and no squad. Conte is doing as good a job as he can, who knows it might be enough to grab 4th. However, our problems come from the top, until that changes we will forever be in this directionless and fruitless ‘hit the reset’ cycle for another 23 years. Probably under Levy Junior, or something like that…
‘Definitely’ the better side? On what basis? Both losing at home to Brighton makes any difference in level look highly unlikely, the table doesn’t lie either, being on about the same points tells us what? 🤔
We could just do with that Gazza type midfielder now.
Agreed.
Agreed. And however poor that game was… there have certainly been green sprouts of a good team in recent weeks, under Conte. We might squeak though into 4th, and that WOULD increase the chances of Conte staying and good quality players coming in… and that would increase the chances next season of another top 4 finish and silverware.
Much of that depends how fit to clean toilets the rest of the league are outside the top three. I’m of the view that nobody is…
Got in for free allegedly.
On a side note, anyone else got a problem with Kane popping up at the Masters?
I’m not saying it had any bearing on the outcome but you have just one job to do, keep your head down and get stuck in for last seven games as we have nothing else to play for… If a Man U player had done it they would be getting slated all over the media. I’m sure it was Levy endorsed anyway to promote the club to the US market.
The substitutions highlighted the inadequacies again. No quality. Threadbare. The first half was an insult to the paying public. No leader on the pitch. No Gazza or Modric to grab the game by the scruff of the neck. Expected outcome. A late winner.
Not really credible that we were serious top four challengers at any time this season as far as I saw it. What we really need to do is get off of the roller coaster of hope and expectation. One win in the next 7 days and everyone will be screaming again as they go over the top with shouts of “It’s ours, we will be Champions League next season”
I wonder what some fans/pundits/journalists are actually looking at sometimes. I don’t see that we have conquered our urge to lay down and die yet. If we had lost to Brighton fighting like demons then, ok, but really???
Not being cute, but did you watch that game?
I did and then I watched Sind of the the City/Liverpool match.
Chalk and cheese wasn’t in it. We’re not fit to clean toilets, let alone be called a top four side.
We’re not not in a good position
I said it as soon as Conte took over. We will get top four.. Of course we need major surgery, but getting top four will make the job a lot easier in the summer.. All top players want to play in the Champions league. We need to be in it to attract the best players… Arsenal spent over 100 mil recently, more than any prem club, 50 mil on Ben White and similar for Odegaard, plus more players… We spent less on Romero, Benty, and Coolio.. Our players are definitely better even though we paid less.. A bad day at the office against Brighton, no need to panic, we’re still in a good position.
Pierre is a class act. Underrated but gives everything. I love his attitude and his quality. We have half a team which strains all of the decent half dozen.
Skipp is a kid. ENIC out. We all know the problem.
Really?
Yes
Great article. Hard to stomach but spot on. Under ENIC we are doomed to do naff all.
Conte is a winner, with a squad that has been assembled along those lines. At Tottenham he’s merely a ‘fixer’, someone to improve a situation and actually get paid very handsomely to so it.
When some people ask me why I think Conte took the Spurs job, I often refer to Eddie Jones travelling halfway around the world to manage the England rugby union team. Money, money and er… money. To come an hopefully improve something as a highly paid troubleshooter.
OK. Right.
Maybe Sancho just isn’t as good as the fee United paid for him suggests? Harry Maguire is a decent player but has been (unfairly) slaughtered due to the ridiculous money United paid for him. James Madison is a much better player than the over rated Sancho and Premier League proven.
United sign players they don’t need and ruin them these days.
Skipp has been head and shoulders above Winks for two years. If Winks played on loan in the Championship for a season there is no way he receives the adulation and respect the Norwich supporters had for Skipp.
Winks has never been good enough and Poch is to blame for him being in the Spurs squad.
To play in the middle of the pitch you have to excel, in either stopping, scoring or creating goals. Jenas wasn’t brilliant but he scored, created and stopped a few every season. Yes he was often mediocre and error prone but he also scored important goals in big games against decent sides and would roll his sleeves up and attempt to compete.
Harry Winks has never done any of these things.
Hojbjerg is Steffen Freund with slightly more in terms of creativity and goal contributions. He’s Freund with tinsel wrapped around him.
Skipp is a real competitor. Opposition players will know they have been in a battle after 90 minutes of playing against Skipp. He is only going to improve and when you consider the praise currently being heaped upon Declan Rice, who has 6 goals in 161 games, I fully expect Skipp to become a complete central midfield player over the next few seasons.
Bentancur is a clever player in possession of the ball but needs time to get used to the pace of the Premier League and adapt to the work required when your team don’t have the ball.
Fans can be fickle, but I feel Hojbjergs role has changed a bit. Under Jose he was there to break the game up (his beast mode for us), now he’s expected to have a more offensive element. He’s not as composed with the pace of the Premier league compared to even international football doing this.
The physical gap is bigger than it has ever been between premier league player. The gap is huge and it takes a while for players to get that level. Teenage talent taking the league by storm is rare. Look at the Sancho struggle coming to PL. Let alone the players who can’t make the physical grade.
I’m with you winks should have been gone before even this season.
But I don’t think it’s a risk Conte on balance would take with the youth and developmentplayers. Skipp would be ahead of Winks. He would mix his midfielders if Skipp was fit but he isn’t and he’s not the fix on his own, like Dier wasn’t when he was out.
We shall see in the NLD won’t we?
🤣 Touché
It’s never as black and white as it seems.
Spurs are definitely a better side than Arsenal at the moment and are on the up. Likewise you were never going to get a ‘Hockey score’ against Brighton. We are not a rollover side anymore despite not scoring many. You’re building with some promise- Gooners look like they’ve gone as far as they can without another step change- Spurs are just a better side all round.
It’s time the Spurs faithful put a final stop to this. How? Boycott matches. Full stop. Even if you have tickets put them under the pillow, burn them it doesn’t matter what you do but stay AWAY. Desperate times call for desperate measures! It’s the only way to force Levy & Co. out. This perpetual merry go round will end. This institution & heritage is dying a slow death under your watch. Believe me this course of action will make history a few years down the line. YOU HAVE THE POWER, ACT NOW.
I agree that tactically Brighton got it right, but the wing backs have to stretch the opposition more. Ours seem unable to do this. If the opposition drop deep we need a bit of guile. No one apart from our top 3 possess this, although we fluffed the two occasions we got in behind Sideshow Bob.
To me Skipp is another Winks in the making. Time will tell, but he loves a square pass. Defensive midfielders have become ‘trendy’ but they still need to contribute going forward. From the look of it Skipp, Hojbjerg and Darren Bentancur are lacking in this area.
This is not to criticise the boy, but I think Paddio has it right. We’re putting a lot of expectations on Skipp, who has been out injured for two and a half months (and the jury’s still out on his winning credentials).
I would like our fans to take a little bit of the confidence in Skipp and give a little bit of faith to Hojbjerg instead, whose tenacity and – surprisingly – cleverness gave us our only proper scoring chance today.
Completely agree that Poch should have been backed, but the situations of him and Conte are incomparable.
In prime Poch years, we fought Conte’s Chelsea and Leicester for the title. In one of those years, we ended up in 3rd, with Arsenal in second. No Liverpool, no City. The big sides were mostly in transition; no one was as dominant a force as City and Pool these days, and we should have taken advantage of that more.
Instead, we failed to do that (think back to WBA at home or Leicester at home). Finishing 2nd and 3rd is nice, but we failed to win the league. Over two seasons, we were statistically the best team in England and we got nothing to show for it. We’re nowhere near that level now.
Poch got us into the top four regularly and full credit to him for that. He raised the bar so top four was something we mostly came to expect (whereas in the prior years, it was our ceiling).
However, last season, we finished 7th, the season before, 6th. So it stands to reason that if Conte got largely the same squad to 4th, it would be a great job on his part. I don’t see much irony in that – other than the fact that we were in a better place in the past only for Levy to torpedo it completely.
Skipp is a winner. He makes tackles and competes with the opposition. He lets them know he is in the game. He’s not a child. He will be 22 in September. Spurs are accommodating Harry Winks for reasons that I fail to understand. Winks is utter trash. A useless player who has played a massive role in Spurs journey back into inconsistent mediocrity. 200 games it has taken for this joker to get rumbled but still manager after manager persist in picking this unflushable turd.
I’m annoyed with Conte for this decision today. You always have a choice as the manager. Winks does not deserve a place on the Spurs bench. I’d rather see Harvey White or Alfie Devine given an opportunity going forward.
Totally, we didn’t build a squad or churn the side when it past its peak.
But we should be balanced when we look back as well there were great moments, but there were times of dross as well.
I totally get Skipp is a top prospect, but the clamour of that he is seemingly the answer to all prays is slightly worrying.
Conte has a format, the lad could be our skipper in years to come, but we need to temper this expectation on the lad for his long term benefit.
It’s not the defeat; it’s the manner of the defeat that has left me scratching my head. Villa did a similar job in the first half last week but folded after Spurs went two up. Today no shot on target is the disgraceful stat that should haunt Conte and the players. If Spurs strongest available 11 are unable to create 1 shot on target, against Brighton, at home then there is a serious problem.
Can someone please put Ollie Skipp’s photo on a milk carton. It seems a bit odd to me that Skipp has seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth while he is negotiating a new Spurs contract. What is going on? The introduction of Winks in the second half finished me off. Brighton played 3 in the middle against Bentancur and Hojbjerg but how Conte reasoned that replacing Bentancur with Winks was the obvious change needed is truly baffling.
Could Dier not have been pushed into the midfield and a centre back brought on to cover at the back? Spurs are painfully short of quality in the midfield positions. The squad players are not fit for purpose. Conte should look again at Alfie Devine. Wasting any more game time on Winks and expecting a positive outcome are not the actions of a world class manager.
Clippedy Clop…Is that the sound …Levy believes he has the fan base wrapped round his finger ..hence the early ST issue..he doesn’t give a toss if the y gagged Conte speaks up ..he has the Messiah in reserve ..with the Welsh Gizzard Bale Bale 🤮🤮🤮. Showbiz pay dirt.
I really hope Eriksen knocks Spurs back.
Yes back then we were cup specialists only, very inconsistent in the league, as Fergie would say “it’s only Spurs lads”!
They are what they are and always will be.
He had a good team, not so much a squad. We never had a proper second striker for example.
However he made us the second best team in Europe. Just think about that for a minute.
Dier and winks still stink the place out.
I have not forgotten Zagreb.
This..mind you Wanyama was broken..never mind that play him..
Levy out..
That result has let the hot air out of the few optimists on this site. When you consider that both Liverpool and City made seven changes to the sides they put out earlier in the week, it just demonstrates how thin our bench is. We can debate amongst ourselves about the merits of Poch but although I am not advocating his return, he achieved CL qualification four times on the trot, and we played some pretty good football at the same time. I felt he also gave the Spurs fans some self respect and we were certainly not underestimated by our opponents along the lines of “it’s only Spurs”. He told the board “to be brave”, so he saw that the team needed refreshing but he was predictably ignored by Levy who then lied to the fans by stating that the new stadium costs would not impact on our transfer spending. Back to reality. One of the commentators remarked during today’s game, that if the opposition stop Kane and Son, the game is likely won. We have very little creativity in midfield and our full/ wing backs are not up to scratch. I also thought that Dier’s attempt to close down Trossard was pathetic. In conclusion, this squad is threadbare, to say the least compared to our so called rivals and if by some miracle we make top four, I dread to think how much it will costs us to compete with any seriousness in the CL next season. In short, Conte will probably walk and Levy will continue to peddle his lies and demonstrate his utter contempt for the fans by pretending to be a fan when all he is interested in is enriching himself and the President of Patagonia. I look forward to another twenty three years of utter mediocrity, should I live so long.
Ironically ..so en vogue 2 new wing backs is what Poch wanted..how much dough have the club done on those 2 positions ..buy cheap buy 4 times.. Reg is a failed athlete and I not really sure what Royal is ..still
…
He wore a Barca shirt,
he’s good enough for Spurs,
Just leave a pile of dosh by the Old Oak Tree…
Do you mean by cup team we won cups..
You’re an imbecile 👍
☺️
I disagree, because Potter set up to frustrate and block our paths forward with their eleven in their own half, which is why there was more playing safe sideways & back passing.
The midfield should dictate the tempo more for me, but the two W/B’s are not good enough as you say, although tactically Brighton were good today.
As soon as you said “Spurs can’t lose today” I knew we were getting duffed. It’s entirely your fault H. You need to man up and accept full responsibility for this and we can all move on.
Legend
We are pretty much wasting our time hoping for different results so it’s not worth getting upset about it anymore imo.
I too am pleased Tottenham lost today. I have also found it a chore watching them win matches.
The money only matters if you spend it. Last time I looked Lewis had a net worth of over 5bn.
Absolutely spot on coudnt agree more
Yeah but think of the money rolling in.
He also had Wembley to cope with which surprisingly didn’t affect us as much as it could have.
However he did have a squad with players in their prime which should have won a trophy, yes it regressed towards the end due to a lack of fresh faces, but also, they may have stopped believing by then.