Birdy

The atmosphere should be incredible, I think that will play a part. Against all the odds, I've just got a good feeling.

So many times we've been on the receiving end of the “new manager bounce” so I'm hoping we might benefit this time. Based on very little, I think we're taking points off them. They're rattled, and we're in a siege mentality.

Based on the first 40 mins, I really can't see it. We still have another 15 mins with 14 men.

England appear to have forgotten how to tackle. In fact, they've largely forgotten how to play rugby. 😫

Yeah, I got the meaning though. To be fair, the green shoots were barely visible.

I'm sure Levy appointed Frank. I'm clinging to the hope that 99% of the current shit show is down to Levy despite all the good he did. Tudor was a leftfield but seemingly good appointment which gives me some hope.

Wasn't Frank a Levy appointment? I never wanted Frank (I wanted Ange S3) but I do understand them persisting with him. If results had picked up, he could have seen us through to the end of the season with the least upheaval.

Maybe I'm wildly over omtimistic, but can we really judge the new hierarchy yet? A lot of our current issues are of Levy’s making (no strategy on manager appts & cheapskate on wages). When I first heard about Tudor I was WTF?! But read up on him and it seems a shrewd appointment.

I'm slightly more optimistic, having read about his recent roles, than I was when I first heard the news. He ticks a few boxes in terms of discipline and experience (including CL) and appears to have a reputation for rescue missions. On the face of it, a fairly smart short-term solution.

Spurs don’t have a “manager problem”. They have a strategy problem. - Birdy Spurs Thomas Frank has eventually been sacked after less than eight months in the job, with Spurs sitting 16th and only five points above the relegation zone.

Advocating for Frank is more reason to criticise Lange, IMO. I wrote this yesterday, saying the 2 reasons for this current mess are lurching from one manager style to another and a lack of ambition in transfers. I think both of those have to come from the top. birdyspurs.co.uk/spurs-dont-h...

I'd argue he was a poor fit for Ange despite his good record. Ange needed 1v1 wingers, which is why Johnson always blew hot and cold. My overall point is that we can't be sure how much of the blame lies with Lange. If he was mainly tasked with bringing in young prospects, he's done pretty well.

Levy chose to restrict wage spending, which Ange confirmed yesterday. Lange may well be to blame, too, but I think some of our recent poorer signings (Johnson, Dragusin, etc.) were made by Paratici. I think Levy's decisions on spending & manager appointments are the main cause of this current mess.

Also, Ange confirmed what we already knew yesterday – that Levy wanted everything on the cheap and wouldn't pay the wages. Who's to say that most of the signings were Lange's 3rd/4th/5th choices because we would pay for his 1st choice? I'm not a Lange fan, but I find the hatred a little weird.

Wasn't Lange more geared to signing young prospects, with Paratici tasked with first-team signings? You could argue that we've signed some good prospects, but very few that improve the first team. Paratici was working as a consultant for quite a while. Why isn't he getting more grief?

The picture depicts a tanker with Spurs on the side on fire and sinking. This is in reference to Thomas Frank’s quote “it’s a super-tanker we’re turning in the right direction”. With Frank having been sacked and Spurs 5 points off the bottom 3, this portrays the current state of the club.

Thomas Frank tanker update. #thfc

Spurs don’t have a “manager problem”. They have a strategy problem. - Birdy Spurs Thomas Frank has eventually been sacked after less than eight months in the job, with Spurs sitting 16th and only five points above the relegation zone.

Some thoughts on who's to blame for the latest shitshow at Spurs.

birdyspurs.co.uk/spurs-dont-h...

Spurs don’t have a “manager problem”. They have a strategy problem. - Birdy Spurs Thomas Frank has eventually been sacked after less than eight months in the job, with Spurs sitting 16th and only five points above the relegation zone.

birdyspurs.co.uk/spurs-dont-h...

Maybe. However, their messages so far suggest they are open to investing and increasing the wage budget. The January transfer window doesn't necessarily indicate they'll do otherwise - I'd put that down to the limited availability of quality players and Paratici's departure.

This highlights the two main problems:

1. Reactive manager appointments rather than a long-term strategy.

2. Trying to become a "big club" whilst behaving like a mid-table club in the transfer market (not backing managers).

For all the good that Levy did, this current malaise is of his making.

Another thing I’ve not seen mentioned in the transfer window discussion is the impact of Paratici leaving. Wasn’t he supposed to be in charge of first team recruitment & Lange youth prospects? We’ve actually done ok with prospects recently so maybe we need to replace Paratici rather than sack Lange?

I agree with Pete, we’ve fallen into the trap of signing 3rd/4th/5th choice players in the past & it really harms our long term squad building. On Hackney, Boro turned down a bid from Forest so we would have needed to go big to get him. Look at the rest of the PL, very little good business done.

Exactly. We won the Europa League through pragmatic football. If you decide that Ange isn't the right manager, you should at least continue the idea that Levy mentioned about "Spurs DNA" and then focus your appointments and transfers around that – not lurch in the opposite direction.

The problem is there's no strategy. We tried to act like a "big club" by hiring Jose & Conte, but didn't back it up in the transfer market. Now we try the Brentford route in response to Ange, who wasn't pragmatic enough. It's completely reactive. With a strategy, you don't pivot from Ange to Frank.

Look at business done across the PL. Only City made big signings and Palace overspent on mediocre players. My guess is we chose not to go down the Palace route and overpay for the average players available. Very few top level players move in January.

I'm not sure now is the time. This team is still low on confidence so if it had gone 2-1 with too many kids on we might have shat the bed. A draw would have seen us out of the top 8.

That was a Kane-esque finish from Dom. Lovely stuff.

More coherent going forward, with a couple of flashes of quick interplay through the actual middle of the pitch.

Lord Benji Ice cream of Asda.

They’re also playing better than we have all season.

What change are they asking for? Sign more players? Not exactly a coherent statement, sounds more like a social media rant of an entitled child - only on headed paper.

I didn't have enough characters to articulate that, but yes, last season's bad performances had way bigger caveats than this season's. I really wish we'd got to see what 3rd season Ange looked like.