Tottenham’s Thursdays night game against Rennes in the Europa Conference League looks to become a talking flashpoint as numerous sources are running with the news that the club has been rocked by an outbreak of Covid. Sky Sports understand that up to six Tottenham first-team players and two members of backroom staff are believed to have tested positive for Covid-19.
According to Press Association Sport’s Jonathan Veal, our game against the in-form Rennes is unlikely to be rejigged, as there is a numeric trigger in place, whereas the Premier League is open to a conversation about the individual, case by case situations.
With the freakish snow-stopped Burnley game still to be rearranged, it might be that Spurs are denied the valuable wriggle room they might so desperately need.
What concerns me, in all this, is the alarming frequency with which some fans are suggesting we should look to get dumped out of the European competition. Maybe the lack of desire within this club doesn’t come from the boardroom, and it is the fanbase which has been holding this side back, all along.
Farce.
There’ll be a new euro competition for all the midtable finishers soon, then one for the 3 who are relegated, with group stages, knock out rounds, knock out play offs etc, and they’ll soon be parashuting Europa League failures into the Europa Conference League, and then Europa Conference League failures into the Isthmian South East second division Sharon’s Corner Shop trophy latter stages.
Same as watering down good beer; it’s not good beer any more.
Football will eat itself. And it’s already on the starters.
Agree.
I cant get behind the Conference competition. It’s just an excuse for UEFA to make more money. We now have nearly 40% of the EPL clubs playing in Europe in one way or another, and this one feels like a soulless extension of the drab pre-qualifying we used to have to endure for the other competition that used to be considered tinpot.
Now we are on the brink of securing an unwelcome 2 legged play off, the prize being the opportunity to play a team that is not good enough to stay in the Europa.
Maybe it has some benefit to giving squad members and kids a run out, but I’m sorry, the prospect of winning this excites me about as much as winning the Intertoto cup.
I can’t see any of it getting called off. If we play against Renne (which we will) then it’s a hard argument to make to call off Brighton because Sonny, Davies and Moura are missing from the previous Premiership starting 11.
Also I don’t see how they’d justify calling off Brighton and NOT calling off Leicester which on the 16th would also be in the 10 day quarantine period for said players.
No way they allow us to stack up 3 postponed games.
so the fans are holding the club back? Levy will love that!
The clubs attitude to the competition is shown by the fact that from the qualifying round the top tiers of all stands have been closed for all home games in the competition..
We give it our best shot Thursday evening assuming we have 13 available A teamers. If we get knocked out that will provide more opportunities in the new year for rescheduling postponed games, so more likely the Prem will look favourably on postponing Brighton.
If we beat the second best team in France on Thursday then why fear the 9th best team in the Prem on Sunday?
The fans are only reacting to what has been coming out of N17 or maybe it said more about the competition level of the Premier league that a beleaguered club like Spurs can be so atrocious and be competing in all competitions avaliable through at least January should we win against West Ham. We are up against the laws of dimishing returns in terms of winning silverware versus competing while our coffers continue to swell. Which is good for the Dan and Co. The income would still be auto guarantee if we are winning something and not just participating which would also see us in all competitions . Lol as HH would say The matrix is winning. No one notices when the big clubs are out of them other cups, they do not mind as they do not need to be rotating their squad as much in January playing in only 2 competitions and have schedules against the bottom tier of the league. That is the difference and until our ambitions are matching those clubs am afraid we will be singing the same tune over and over. And the fans are 100% on this. Maybe less games will preserved our almost useless squad so the first teamers can carry the torch.
I get that winning is a habit, but Conte’s extremely limited tools include about 13 trustworthy players and a load of garbage (plus some of those 13 become garbage when playing with garbage, see Ben Davies quotes on playing away vs Vitesse: “It’s not easy. It does give you that feeling of you’re a B team travelling for the game.”) – he doesn’t care about it being a European competition; he sees Dele and says “ffs, I might as well not bother tonight.”
You can’t play most of those 13 in all games, and if you don’t, you immediately get 2-1 VS Mura or 1-0 VS Vitesse or 1-0 VS Pacos Ferreira. That, along with our flakiness away in Europe, makes me think we have no real future in the competition. We should focus on the league and let “the Don” and AC work some magic in the transfer window to give us a chance in other competitions.