Craig Emanuel

Is he tweeting from the future? Timestamp appears to be 2130 tonight. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Haven’t written one of these in a while. This one’s from the heart. For the best fans in the world #THFC #COYS t.co/ei3P0tmyHK

If Bergvall somehow makes it then we have more options and he has to start. But without him I’d be testing out a Sarr, Bentancur, Porro midfield three in training this week. Just like ‘84 with Tony Parks we need an unlikely hero to emerge - perhaps that could be Porro or Sarr. Thoughts? #THFC #COYS

He’s done well against MU before, scoring with a late run into the box last season, and his biggest attribute - athleticism - is like cryptonite to this MU midfield. Plenty of teams have run all over it. Harsh on Biss after the semis but that looks to me like our most balanced midfield for the final

He won’t play as high as Maddison. Think more Trent in midfield type role. Spence is more than able to fill in at RB. But I don’t like Porro, Biss and Bentancur either. We need someone who can get up and down and support the front three so that has to be Pape Sarr.

They won’t drop deep and allow us to build up like Madders does and they can’t dictate tempo. My solution is putting our most creative fit player into the midfield and that’s Porro. He’s inverted plenty so it’s not completely alien to him and his passing is as good as anyone in our squad.

So here’s my take. I don’t like Rodrigo, Biss and Sarr as a three. We’ve tried it before and it hasn’t worked. Stodgy. No creativity. Only way we win with that is on pens. For me, Odobert or Moore in the #10 isn’t going to work in a match where we don’t dominate possession.

🧵 How do you solve a problem like a creative midfielder injury crisis before a European final? To ad lib a Mario Balotelli T-shirt, “why always us?” No Madders. No Deki. Bergvall unlikely. It’s a shit situation. No solution is ideal. But we need to find one. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves.

We all just want the best for Spurs. I think in recent years a lot of supporters have developed a fierce loyalty to certain managers and become entrenched in that position. Ange is the most likeable since Poch and I like him and his philosophy. But I’ve got to the point where I‘ve lost belief.

If we win the Europa then it would be amazing and I’d love him for that forever. It’d be the best achievement in my 30+ years supporting Spurs. But I don’t think that’d mean he’s the best person to manage us going forward. You make that decision based on ALL the evidence not a handful of EL games.

He’s also taking swipes at the fans and the players are getting worse under him. I can’t really think of anyone who has improved. There are reasons we’re not fighting for a CL place which mostly are outside of Ange’s control. But 16/17th is unacceptable and it’ll cost us about £30m in prize money.

Since January though, our performances (+ results) have fallen off a cliff and IMO the manager’s position has become undefendable. Teams walk through us at will. Attacking patterns have largely disappeared. Subs almost always like-for-like even when the tactics aren’t working. We’re set up to fail.

I was pro Ange for a long time, accepting the excuses for our poor form but hoping that it would improve, particularly as we got players back. I thought we started the season reasonably well in terms of performances (although patches in games did worry me), but injuries initially derailed us.

Thing is, if we were seeing signs of improvement towards the end of the season and the direction of travel was upwards then you might see if he can continue it into next season. But we’re actually getting worse and injuries are no longer any kind of excuse. Really wanted it to work but it hasn’t.

Now do Leicester away, Coventry away, Palace away, second half at Brighton, Ipswich home, Galatasaray away, Wolves home, Everton away, Leicester home, Tamworth away, Alkmaar away, Wolves away. It’s not about today. It’s about the most abject season in decades and the fact he’s reduced us to this.

The returning players clearly haven’t made a noticeable difference. Whoever is on the pitch we’re almost always a mess defensively. It wasn’t like this at the start of the season but we’ve been in freefall for 6 months and he hasn’t been able to turn it around. It’s done. He has to go.

It’s the best signing we could make this summer. £20m seems a steal when looking at the prices we’ve paid for various forwards in our squad. Ultimately the manager is the most important position. And if we get Iraola, Frank, Glasner etc instead we’d still have to pay some compensation. No brainer.

The players are being completely and utterly mismanaged. This isn’t about individuals, it’s about kamikaze tactics that have failed over and over again, leaving us completely exposed. The coaching teams he’s up against in the PL are just way above his ability level. That’s the reality.

We’ve conceded 11 goals to Liverpool in two PL matches. Leicester conceded 4 goals.
Southampton 6 goals.
Ipswich 6 goals.
He’s failing so miserably it’s not even a debate any more. We’re constantly overcommitting and leaving ourselves wide open and he’s doing nothing to address it. Pitiful.

Levy is obviously a major problem but Ange is completely failing too. I don’t understand how anyone can possibly defend him now. He’s completely and utterly out of his depth. There is no way our squad (even minus Romero and VdV) should be 17th with a record number of defeats. It’s a joke.

A lot of truth in that but I also do believe he (perhaps understandably) cares a lot more for his country and prioritises his availability for Argentina over us.

I suspect he’ll leave this summer as long as we get a decent offer from Atleti or someone else. And I’m sure he’d thrive under Simeone in the same way he turned an error prone Trippier into a very good defender. But I won’t miss him at Spurs. I don’t think he’s ever performed consistently for us.

He’s good half the time and a liability the other half. Problem for us is that the half when he’s good he’s usually playing for Argentina (notwithstanding his recent brain fart against Brazil).

The Larsen goal is the only one that probably counts in the errors leading to goals stats, which is ludicrous. Also doesn’t count the reckless red cards he’s got - AC Milan in the UCL knockouts, Chelsea (H) in the PL 2023. Both were massively costly.

Errors leading to goals stats are are nonsense (see below extract from earlier this season). Just off the top of my head, he’s been culpable for the following PL goals this season:
- Vardy - LEI (A)
- Barnes - NEW (A)
- Isak - NEW (A)
- Gabriel - ARS (H)
- Welbeck - BRI (A)
- Larsen - WOL (A)

Personally I don’t think Romero is an excellent defender at all. He’s capable of putting in excellent performances but for me an excellent defender is reliable and consistent - King, Vertonghen, Alderweireld. Romero doesn’t get near any of them.

If you listen to Spurs twitter, influenced by some Spurs podcasters, Romero is the second coming of Franz Beckenbauer. Yet the eye test tells me that, although he is great at line breaking passes, he’s an unreliable defender who is susceptible to lapses in both concentration and discipline.

Now let’s look at the level of performance he’s got out of everyone else in the squad. Almost every single player has regressed under him in the past 18 months. Just to be clear, do you think we should be continuing with Ange beyond the end of this season?

No one is calling him Cafu but he’s clearly good enough to use as a rotation option with Porro/Udogie, which Ange refused to do until the injuries bit.

Ange has publicly declared that he was “testing” Spence. I don’t believe him but even that rationale is bizarre when it was to the detriment of the team. It increased the workload on Udogie/Porro and under utilised a very talented player. Ange and Conte are both culpable but we’re discussing Ange.