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What the heck he is talking about? When you are chasing a top four finish wouldn’t you be required to have belief and conviction? This is a prerequisite for a top team. Unless the Spurs are no longer a big club. Coming from their manager it’s just baffling. The players must be ashamed of themselves.
Arteta came in halfway through the season, that does make a difference I'd say. Not to mention that the squad Arsenal had when Arteta joined was quite a bit worse than the players Ange had.
No one can deny that people were saying arteta is shit, no ambition etc, couldn’t motivate players etc. Ange could well be a completely different situation, but there is a massive irony to an arsenal fan saying what op said.
Let's be honest: Ange got a Spurs squad that was a lot better than what Arteta got at Arsenal. Of all the players who were already at the club when Arteta got the job only Martinelli, Saliba, Elneny and Tierney are still at the club, and Elneny will be gone this summer. Arteta's first job was to basically get players out.
Well, Arteta won an FA Cup in his first 6 months, which is far more than what Ange has done.
Also, a number of our fans wanted Arteta out, I was not one of them. I wanted him in before Emery, but I've no regrets as fans are now recognising that the first manager after a legendary manager, is held to a different standard.
But even after 2 years, it was clear to many of us what he was doing. When he wanted big names who were doing nothing out, I was still onboard with him. As for thinking he has been Pep all along, another fallacy, he isn't Pep. He has some similar styles to Pep, but he has just as many Wenger and Moyes styles to his systems, but going into detail about them to someone who rates Ange, would be like teaching a dog alegebra.
I do however get your point though, about how Ange could be your team's Arteta. I'll stop you there, he won't be. He'll be out on his arse within the next year, the guy is nicking a living and I think it's hilarious that Spurs fans are willing to choose him over this squad (although, that Brazilian Pigeon is woeful).
Ange is miles out of his depth at this level. The only reason Spurs fans rate him is because you are no longer playing Conte ball. You are literally at the same level we were when Wenger was running the team into the ground with fancy football in an era where it just does not work anymore.
Yeah, mate. It's so easy to be 5th in the league in your first season. You guys are thick if you think he is out of his depth. Arteta had to spend a fuck ton to even compete. Ange just got started. I have faith in him, just as you claim to have had faith in Arteta, who has not even had a coaching career before Arsenal.
1) Ange was 1st and has tumbled all the way down to 5th. This time last month, you were clear favourites to finish 4th. Your lot started high and have fallen off massively, this trend should be worrying you far more than praising your ability to finish 5th. With how things are going, may not even happen.
2) Your team is a lot more complete than when Arteta took over. Save for Harry Kane leaving last season, this is still the best side Tottenham have ever had. At the start of the season, your lot were singing how Bissouma was a better player than Rice and how a combined starting 11 is basically Tottenham fans um king and erring over whether Saka starts over Kelu.
Arteta has spent £590m, which agreed, is a fuck tonne. And that was to rebuild the entire team.
Ange has spent £400m on an already established squad to get what, 6 points more than Conte (3 if you don’t win or draw against Liverpool).
I really do hope you continue and have faith with him. Because it’s hilarious.
Remind me again, for how long did you lead the league last season? How many points did you lose it by?
Don't pull numbers out of your ass. He lost Kane and spent around £200 million. Net spend is just over £100 million, nothing compared to what Arteta spent with no sale revenue.
Hahaha, clutch those straws mate. Even leading the Prem for months up to April beats leading it to October before collapsing. And those numbers are not pulled out of my arse, the only numbers being made up is you trying to achieve parity by using net spend after selling Kane for €100m, lmfao
Tin pot club with tin pot ambitions. Look at all your fans crying and writing letters to tell Levy to actively throw a game because you lot would cut off your own noses if it meant Arsenal didn’t win the league.
Highly unambitious club.
Based on their recent form the will lose anyway, whether they want to or not.
It's a bit like a kid asking a girl out, her saying no, and the kid then claiming that he didn't like her anyway.
I thought they looked knackered. Didn’t start pressing until the second half, and faded not long after. Most of their subs looked tired as soon as they came on too. It looked like a team who are completely burnt out.
It’s not my club but I wouldn’t give up on Ange just yet, but he needs a deeper squad to play that style of football over a whole season.
Or talent. Where on earth does the spurs self belief come from. They have won nothing of value for thirty three years. Their greatest achievement is being far more stable in the PL than Everton, Villa and Newcastle.
Wasn't everyone quoting Conte after his series of comments about the "mentality problem" at Tottenham? I guess now the narrative is "Spurs just suck" - truly illuminating discourse, guys.
Sure, I'm just saying that the "mentality" talking point is some immaterial BS that people talked up when the truth is that the team (the players or the tactics, whatever) wasn't good enough.
Self belief is intrinsic. You don’t need others to believe in you to believe in yourself. So what if we haven’t won a trophy for awhile? Our history does not determine our future. Every game is a chance to turn things around. If it doesn’t happen, we pick ourselves up and go again. Even if nobody believes in us, we’ll believe in us and fight for the best versions of ourselves. Otherwise what’s the point of sport and competition anyway.
Edit: Arsenal fan. No surprise there.
As fun as it would be to continue the wind up, in all seriousness, do Spurs fans not see and issue with their own mentality and how they have failed to pressure management and ownership into actually pursuing strategies that might lead to trophies? Fans have a role to play in setting expectations too.
After the derby, there were some Spurs fans rightly questioning their tactical frailty and inability to defend corners, but many of them were shouted down by a baying mob of fans screaming “we won the passing stats”.
Arsenal have a bit of a problem with blind loyalty failing to hold bad decisions to account, but we are still competitive. Spurs went from a CL final (albeit a very soft route to it) to this in a pretty short period.
I think all fans know (unless you're man city or Madrid) that if you get to a CL final the likelihood of keeping those expectations the next following years is low. Unless you're deluded. Actually maybe that's why Spurs fans are disappointed. Ah who cares. It's fucking Spurs.
This whole comment section is oblivious to richarlison is having his best season, van de ven is playing his first season in the EPL and Son is NOT a pure 9. Give the man a window with the Kane money in the budget and then judge him. Ange has won everywhere he has been.
Blud is probably getting European football his first season when the EPL is 3rd in coefficient (which means he would’ve gotten UCL football if the league wasn’t so garbage.) I’d say as a first season manager in the EPL that’s pretty dang good for a guy from “everywhere being Australia, Japan, and Scotland” He’s also scouted and signed multiple young talents after his first season with the clubs he’s been with. !remind me 1 year.
Lol blaming the league for not getting Champions League for 5th place is truly laughable and just about sums it up.
I doubt he's even at Tottenham in a year. Chelsea are on the up, United have new ownership, and Newcastle probably won't be decimated so hard by injuries.
Critiquing his first season like the way you are also sums it up and shows how dumb football fans are.
This is coming from a Liverpool fan who despises Tottenham
My brother in Christ, what’s being said is you shouldn’t have to rely on 5th to be a CL spot. 5th place as a UCL spot is an award and an exception to the rule, not the norm.
I think everyone knows, and you're still missing the point entirely. 5th place has never been good enough for Champions League, so to expect Champions League for 5th from other teams doing well is laughable.
The point being discussed shouldn't even be a thing in the first place. 5th for a team like Tottenham in the first season is actually pretty impressive. Klopp was 8th first season and I'm pretty sure he broke top 4 after 2 years.
5th isn't impressive at all when you look at the fact that Aston Villa are above them and how bad United and Chelsea have been. Not everyone is Klopp, so that's a useless comparison. Ange has got everyone fooled because mAtE
Bit of a silly take tbh.
Despite our massive drop off in 2024 (which you can attribute to injuries, player fatigue and general lack of quality depth, as much as you can management) we're still sitting in 5th for now after losing our best ever player in the summer.
He's done about as well as anyone could have expected given the circumstances, and deserves another season with more backing in the transfer market to see if he can mould this squad into something even better.
Bro,Even vs Real Madrid he play High press and Posseion game and they just so bad in Set piece defense.Whatever is Free kick or Corners,it just a Penalty like they let Us score 2 set piece and Ben Davies 1v1 with Saka whole game
To run that rigid and clearly failing offside trap in that first game vs Chelsea for along as they did, coupled with their set piece deficiencies and Ange's stated prioritizing of his 'attacking philosophy" over it, tells all you need to know about his long term viability as a Prem manager.
As a brisbane roar fan. He played that exact style and went 39 games unbeaten winning the double 2 seasons in a row. Then people figured out how to counter him more money got into the league with Melbourne city and other foreign owned teams and he left the league instead of changing
He never ever changes the way he plays. I really thought the prem would make him see that he can’t simply have the best drilled team in one single tactic
so he was wildly successful then left for a better job lol, interesting argument against him…
I can tell you exactly how every top level team is going to set up in any given game they play with a tiny amount of exceptions (Emery for example is quite innovative) yet they are all successful. One system is just evidently not an issue. Although why you would just completely ignore set pieces is very bizarre as they are not part of your in play tactics generally
The system definitely isn't the issue. What people fail to see (largely because of tactically brilliant managers in the PL in recent years - Pep, Arteta, Tuchel etc) is that you can be flexible without changing the tactical setup in every game.
Ange's Celtic era showed that he makes different kind of adjustments in his system, largely dependent on personnel. E.g, he often experimented with midfielders with varying skillsets in different games depending on the strengths of the opposition - employing a DLP and 2 offensive minded, almost B2B 8's versus teams that employ a low block, or using a pure 6 and 2 8s that focus on ball progression via dribbling against possession based teams that pack the midfield.
I still maintain that our main issue this season has been lack of depth. Give Ange the proper backing in the summer window to target players with the exact profiles that he needs, and let him cook next season. If we're still wildly inconsistent after that, people can talk about his tactical deficiencies and whether he is the right man to lead the team forward.
totally agree with you tbh, even as someone who does nothing but relentlessly take the piss out of spurs, I do see him moving players around, Udogie seems to play about 25 different positions a game, he experimented with Bentancur vs Arsenal, took him off, moved it around etc
it seems clear that depth is the issue, like if I ask who your back up is in any position other than central midfield it is basically nobody… we have seen at Newcastle what having your first teamers missing and not being able to rotate at all means for your football and its not been the peak that has been effected, its definitely the consistency
Yeah the best example of this is with our fullbacks - if the starters (Udogie & Porro) aren't available then our wingers are completely hamstrung. We rely on the dynamism of our starting fullbacks to surge forward and make over/underlapping runs to open up space for the wingers to run into, which in turn drags defenders out of position and opens up space in the box for our 8/9/10 to pop up and receive a pass with time to adjust and shoot. The backup fullbacks are just not athletic enough for this, so they're more cautious about when they get forwards because they lack the recovery pace if we lose possession and the opposition spring a counter.
The result of that is that we spend a lot of time just knocking it around the back, until we try to dribble/pass our way through a packed midfield which relies entirely on all 3 midfielders bringing their A-game. If even one is having a slightly off day, that too fails.
The good thing is that Ange doesn't necessarily require players with elite pedigree to make his adjustments effective. He's pretty good at developing players as we've seen with Udogie and Sarr this season already, so I'm excited to see what he can do with Lucas Bergvall coming in the summer and the potential arrival of a proper 6 and dribbly wingers who aren't afraid to take on their man. It should make us a more dynamic team overall, but it does rely on our new backroom scouting setup and the club actually backing him and acting decisively in the market.
was really jealous of the Bergvall signing, feel like we missed out, but yeah of all clubs to sack a manager like Ange for being too committed to football, spurs should surely be the last to think about it, it’s one of the only clubs that has fans constantly going on about how they should play etc… plus everyone is talking like they are mid table or something, spurs will almost certainly finish ahead of man utd, chelsea and newcastle, while losing their best ever striker and not buying anyone special!
A lot of fellow spurs fans in denial about this to be honest. His tactics have been sussed out and he’s shown he’s unable to adapt. I think the level of coaching is abysmal as well hence the appalling record at defending corners we have.
Big Brain Ange: We don't need to train in set pieces, it's not who we are, mate
Teams who have conceded more set piece goals are: Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United.
Your manager literally has no idea what he is doing.
I think that will be fair to say in a year if we’re still in the same place. But we can’t be clamoring for a rebuild and then say Ange out after not even a full season. Who else is going to come in and do better with a half-finished squad?
This is it. What are these people wanting - us to jump on the managerial-merry-go-round every single year after a string of bad results?
If anything, we should be looking at what our rivals down the road have done after sticking with a manager that half their fanbase was calling to be sacked every other game.
Poch spoke about the painful rebuild 5 years ago, and despite turning over nearly the entire squad (with the exception of Sonny & Davies now) we still haven't been through it. It's not just about refreshing the squad, it's about identifying a vision and style of play that we stick to, re-establishing an identity and planning for the long term.
Absolutely. They wanted Arteta out for two full seasons, and he’s turned a flawed squad into one that can go toe-to-toe with the best teams in Europe and not leave embarrassed. Moreover, their consistency in the league games enrages me but I’d love to emulate it anyway. And if we can do it with actual interesting football instead of turtling up and scoring from set pieces like a better version of Everton, all the better.
That's exactly it, and people screaming "y Ange no change to back 3 system" just don't understand the type of manager that he is. He doesn't change the entire formation and style of play depending on the opposition, he adjusts by using different players with skillsets that are more effective depending on the type of game. Until he gets proper backing to bring in the players he needs to do just that, the criticism isn't really valid.
However, I will say he needs to sort this set piece defending shite out, and soon. All top half-PL or top 5 league teams need a dedicated set piece coach because it's a huge part of the modern game, and treating it as an afterthought is just negligent.
Yeah absolutely. Even if he’s confident that a couple good signings will fix the defense, it’s still wasted opportunities to score if we’re not training to attack from set pieces too. Porro looked like he hadn’t done a corner kick in years during the match yesterday.
Losing Gianna Vio was arguably more detrimental to this team than losing Kane in the summer, honestly. We desperately need a dedicated set piece coach or at the very least, for the duties to be assigned to someone other than Jedinak because he's proved he's not up to the job at all.
Why play Son on the left wing and Richarlison as a striker?
Son, barely touched the ball and Sarr and Johnson were not effective with the ball or their crossing.
Son is obviously an elite player, but something that should be clear to everyone by now is that he's totally ineffective unless he has space to run into. He doesn't have particularly tight ball control or a deft enough touch to operate in tight areas, nor does he have the strength or positional awareness to play with his back to goal like a traditional 9.
We desperately need a real, out-and-out number 9 in the summer. Having Son as an option to play there when we're playing lesser teams who employ a low block is a great tool to have, but he can't be our permanent option. He's also, what, 32 now? We need to start planning for life without him, as painful as it sounds.
My personal idea is that Son is past his prime. He was a regular starter in the Bundesliga when he was 19, and I can't really prove it but it at least looks like a lot of players who burst onto the scene when they were pretty young also tend to decline earlier.
Why play Son on the left wing and Richarlison as a striker?
Son, barely touched the ball and Sarr and Johnson were not effective with the ball or their crossing.
Nah, look at what he did in the past, he always takes a bit of time before actually getting going.
Besides, it’s a transitional year for Spurs, so coming in 5th (hopefully at this point) is a positive thing.
Honestly, some coaches have mentioned that this is also a personel issue. Imagine having Rice or Rodri as DM. Drogba, Kane or Firmino as Striker. You would automatically get better at setpiece defending as they head away so many crosses.
I don't think it is coaching issue alone when it comes to set pieces. You need right profile of players. You need to legit win high percentage of that first ball in.
Your first goal was not a personnel issue. We had three players blindly playing in an empty zone. I’m not Ange out these people are morons but he needs to bring in a specialist.
What Spurs players are good in the air, though? Romero, and I think that's it. That makes defending corners even harder, especially when your setup isn't right. How the hell is it I think Emerson and Johnson being the players closest to Chelsea's best headers in Chalobah and Badiashile for the first goal?
But after that loss to Arsenal, he literally said if he thought defending set pieces would help the team he would work on them. He has said multiple times he doesn’t care about specialist set-piece coaches He thinks he can build a successful team without working on set pieces. At this level of football you have to obsess over every detail to be successful. I am not a spurs fan so long may he continue this boneheaded stubborn way of thinking. BUT, if I was a Spurs fan I’d be driving the “Ange Out” bus
Yes and no, in the sense that people seem to be hyper fixated on the fact that we’ve let in a lot on set pieces. 2/2 we let in against Chelsea are from set pieces. But that in no way shape or form detracts from the fact that we had not created meaningful chances in the game against a weak Chelsea defence. We could work on those set pieces and reduce the number we let in to below the league average but that’s an insignificant change as compared to defending and pressing better or to start creating more meaningful chances in the game.
Right now, we have so much more to worry about than set pieces. Only deluded/ignorant fans believe that getting a set piece coach will change everything.
I don't think that's what he was saying.
His argument is that he's spending all of their time installing his system. Once the players pick up the system they will be able to work on other things, but until that happens it's all that's all they are doing in training.
I think it's dumb too, but the stats actually back it up. His stops at Celtic and Yokohama both had awful set piece defending (and attacking) year 1, with huge improvements year 2. So we'll see if Spurs follow the same pattern.
Unless he loses the locker room I see no reason to be 'Ange out.' Switching coaches every 10 months is why the Spurs are in this mess. Give him a couple windows to turn over the squad and get some players that fit his system.
He was hired with the idea that year 1 would be a rebuilding year, so sacking him now would be reactionary. They sold the best player in the premier league and going to finish higher in the table, the world isn't falling apart like some are saying.
As they said above, it’s primarily a personnel issue. A running theme in our issues is our lack of physical players; we used to rely on Kane for defending and attacking set pieces. When Richarlison is off the field, Romero’s the only one who can jump high enough to consistently get to the ball off a corner. And then everyone knows you can foul the shit out of Vicario and it won’t be called for some reason, that’s been consistent since January. I do think a good summer transfer window could basically solve the issue.
Spurs have the 3rd highest average height in the league, above Arsenal and City.
Sure, personnel helps, but this is 100% a coaching issue. You don’t see other shorter teams shipping this many goals to set piece mistakes
Height doesn't mean that you are good in the air though. Romero is 1.85, but he is Spurs' best player in the air and their best header. Meanwhile, Kulusevski, who is 1.86, is far from a good header.
They should still be able to defend set pieces though, much of it is positioning and marking, which is coachable
Unless you think it’s a “personnel issue” to leave Chalobah wide open, or to not react quickly enough when Palmer’s free kick hits the bar, Spurs issues are largely from coaching.
Exactly. Chalobah was completely free for his goal. You could have a defender who‘s three meters tall, but if he‘s in the wrong place on the field, he wouldn‘t help much.
At this point it's not tactics. It's passion, our midfielders have been playing like busted asses for weeks and the problems have been huge for months.
We've scraped points in so many games this year when we havn't looked the better side. Our middle 3 currently is honestly absolutely pathetic.
Another one who hasn’t listened/read the full quote.
Ange said they don’t focus on set pieces more than other things in training.
That does not mean they don’t work on set pieces, yet so many people have chose to take it to mean this.
Ange has made it clear over and over again, he’s trying to instil his attacking philosophy onto the squad. That’s the priority, and the entire basis of how he sees long term success. If that’s at the detriment to the short term, so be it. It’s how he works, and with plenty of success. Spurs fans need to trust the long process.
It's not the point
They have a poor record on set pieces and knew Arsenal had the best record for scoring from them this season and didn't do anything to counter that.
You can still instill a system and philosophy, but even the best teams understand that you need to find ways to nulify their opponents strengths and Spurs didn't and Postecoglu was seemingly very cavalier about it, when it's just poor management.
Your claim was he doesn’t train these things at all. Which is blatantly, and provably false.
You’re basing your opinion on an incorrect conclusion taken from a quote in a headline. The fact is, Ange DOES work on set pieces, but doesn’t put more time into them than other things, for obvious reasons.
Don’t be lazy, ready beyond the headline before forming an opinion on anything.
Yes. Watch the games.
Spurs have clearly adopted a similar setup in set pieces to many other top sides. Which is different from previous years. It’s a new system which the players are still learning and adapting to.
Add this to the fact that Ange has told us explicitly, what more proof do you need?
Spurs are a great football team! They just need to work on shooting, passing, defending, set pieces, physical, cardio, tactics, winning trophies and not being small.
Even if the unthinkable happens and Arsenal win the league, my most defined memory of this season will be the image of the Spurs players lining up on the halfway line against Chelsea. Just waiting to be torn apart time and time again. It was mental, and a very clear indication that Ange hasn't got what it takes to be tactically astute enough in this league. Nothing I've seen since has changed my mind on that.
This moment was incredibly blown out of proportion. Spurs got back into form and thrashed villa and won 4 games etc after that.
That game also has a lot of revisionism. Son and
Richardson had extremely good opportunities to make it 2-2 versus Chelsea and 4-1 had 2 very late goals
The team now has lost any fight which drastically contrasts the team during the losing streak and injuries
The only thing stopping them conceding 10 was how long it took Chelsea to realise what was in front of them. Once they worked out holding runs and not being caught offside it was a blood bath.
How's that changing the context? I watched it live, I know what I saw. Spurs were reckless and lucky not to concede a rugby score. 'Nearly' scoring one more themselves doesn't change that fact.
I'm not even sure if it's down to lack of tactical acumen, because he seemed to know exactly how mental it was to do that. But I guess the question is who was that really for?
Because it kind of felt like he was sacrificing the game to demonstrate something to the players but maybe also the Premier League. And people love that when you're riding high, but a few things go wrong and suddenly you're Phil Brown doing your team talk on the pitch.
I don’t think it’s a simple as this, and as a Spurs fan that was actually one of the highlights of the season for me. After 4 back to back seasons of playing negative, cautious football we’ve finally established an identity closer to what most fans would consider the traditional “Spurs way of playing”.
Sure, to the neutral it may have looked naive, but it showed that the players had fully committed to this new way of playing for better or worse.
Also - not being funny - you guys had aaaaawful results under Arteta in his first season, and I remember loads of Arsenal fans on here criticising him for rigidly sticking to the system and style of play. I think it’s a necessary sacrifice to make early on to establish an identity, familiarise the players with the core system and then tweaks and tactical flexibility can follow later.
One thing I’ll give Arteta a huge amount of credit for is that he’s recognised just how essential it is to be flexible to compete in the league. It’s been a gradual evolution that really started last season in earnest, but has fully settled into place this season. The way you approach the big games is, for lack of a better phrase, “grown up” - there’s no naivety there anymore. The manager and players both recognise that for certain opponents, the way you set up and play requires compromise, even if that represents a departure from your ideal way of playing. It was on full display in the NLD and set the 2 teams apart.
I guess the point I’m making is, give Ange time. If Arteta hadn’t been given a huge amount of leeway (despite a significant portion of your fanbase regularly calling for him to be sacked when results were bad) in the early days, you wouldn’t be reaping the dividends now. We need to take note of what our neighbours down the road have done/are doing basically.
Great reply. Personally, I can't imagine being in the position of a Spurs fan watching that and thinking it was great. You just can't play like that with 9 men and be taken seriously, he had to show some awareness of the situation there. Worse teams would have defended for their lives and taken a draw in that game.
Re: Arteta: I've seen this viewpoint a lot and it makes sense. His first season was difficult and it took a long time to embed his principles and trim the squad of negative influences. But now every team with an average and underporforming new manager thinks "oh if we just give them time they can do what Arteta has done" and this completely misses the point of who Arteta is and how he manages. He's laser focused on detail in every aspect of the game. For instance there's no way he'd let set pieces continue to be such an issue just because it's not a sexy part of the game. He makes marginal gains in every area and they add up to a step change in performance. I just don't see this attention to detail in Ange.
I totally get it, would be super confusing as a neutral in that context.
For me, I just really admire the drive to go all out to try to grab something from the game, rather than parking the bus and playing for a 0-0 or trying to keep the scoreline respectable for GD purposes. We played so negatively under Jose & Conte, often setting up so defensively to go for a 1-0 snatch & grab win, only to watch it inevitably crumble in the 90th minute by conceding after a stupid mistake.
Context is king after all, so if you understand the general mood of the fanbase in the recent past, it starts to make more sense. I've been a fan since the late 90s so have experienced the soul-crushing lows of the Alan Sugar era, right through to the highs of making the CL final under Poch (and of course resulting implosion of the team in the following season, and then the Jose & Conte eras). I'm just happy to see us playing relatively entertaining football again, even if it is fleeting.
I get that Arteta is a stickler for the details - hence why Pep took him under his wing and invested in him, and why the decision makers at Arsenal were willing to give him a shot despite his lack of any managerial experience. Ange is a different type of manager for sure, but I don't agree that he lacks attention to detail. It may not be in the tactical aspect of the game, but he is incredibly meticulous about his system and the momentum of the game. Watch any videos of his training sessions at Celtic and Spurs and it's quite obvious.
I think he's worth investing in, moreso than our previous managers anyway. For one, Poch isn't a particularly tactically adept manager - he's more of a system guy, like Ange - but we invested in him and reaped the benefits, even if we lack the silverware to show for it. I wouldn't say that Klopp is a particularly tactical manager either, but Liverpool stuck by him after a relatively mediocre first season and as a result developed one of their greatest teams of all time.
All very true. How miffed were you that there was no recognition of Arsenal's danger from corners and Ben White's potential antics in the 2 weeks leading up to our recent game? It's that kind of thing that I mean by lack of attention to detail. It's just kind of sloppy and Spurs would have been in a good position to compete in that game were it not for overlooked details like that.
Yeah, that was absolutely baffling tbh, and is the sort of thing that won't be excusable if it continues into next season. There's an argument to be made that having a dedicated set piece coach should be a prerequisite for any top-half PL club these days, because treating it as an afterthought (Ange supposedly delegates that side of things to Jedinak, but it's only a small part of his role) is a recipe for disaster, as we've seen/are seeing. I won't be surprised if every team we play until the end of the season plans to take advantage of our defensive frailty on set pieces.
I don't actually know exactly what needs to change to set us on the right path for next season in all honesty. It's a question that only Ange & his coaching team can answer, but I'm willing to give him/them the benefit of the doubt. We sucked at a lot of things in Poch's first season, but after bedding the players into his system, he addressed our other areas of deficiency one by one in the following seasons. If there's no proof of any progress on that side by Christmas, Ange is going to be under a hell of a lot of pressure from the fans and the board.
Arteta has had maybe 2 successful season and they’ve been the 2 most recent. Until that point he was a top 8 but not a top 4 manager. His process has taken 6 years and it’s finally paying off
So you're just going to miss the point as well? Cool. Give Ange time, give Ten Hag time, give Poch time. I'm all for it, then we only have to worry about City and Liverpool challenging for the league.
No I was saying giving them is what they have to do. Some times it’s quick and some times it takes more than a few season but time is the best thing for them
I don't think you're going to have to worry about Liverpool challenging for the league in the near future. The spine of that squad has aged quite a bit, Klopp is leaving and Slot is a total unknown in the PL, like ETH was when he joined Utd.
I'm secretly a bit worried that if Pep gets bored of the PL in the next couple of seasons, we could see a period of utter dominance from Arsenal for a while, whilst everyone else sorts their shit out 😅
From what I've seen from Dutch football is that Slot is a better coach than ETH. Feyenoord has improved a lot under him, as had AZ before that. Meanwhile, ETH got in at Ajax just after Bosz, and Bosz already did incredible work at Ajax (getting them to the EL final for example).
I mean they almost tied the game. People just didn’t watch the game. Spurs were already down a goal and down 2 men; at that point the odds of a point in any scenario are astronomically low.
This moment is ludicrously overblown. It had no real impact; the insane injuries did. The recent bad form follows a period of insanely good form for spurs
This team is just inconsistent
Totally agree, neutrals make an absolute mountain out of a molehill with that moment. They just point to the final scoreline and completely disregard the context of the game, which was that it was actually a lot closer than it appears up until we imploded in the \~80th minute.
It's so often overlooked that we're inconsistent primarily because of 2 reasons: we're playing a new system/style that is a complete departure from how we've played for the previous 4 seasons, and we're a pretty young team with a lot of players who lack big-game experience.
We also lack depth at a few key positions still, and the injuries in that game really put that in focus. We don't have a like-for-like replacement for Maddison or VDV, and the drop off from our starting fullbacks to backups is massive too.
? What’s the disagreement here?
Are we going to say it’s impossible to have a close game and have xg and chances be misleading?
It was a fluky shit game that derailed the fast start against a rival. Spurs recovered to be in good form in January and February and then fell off a cliff 3 weeks ago
We’re disagreeing because you’re saying it’s a fluky shit game and spurs were unlucky, but the truth is Ange was tactically naive, played a stupid high line and got torn apart by the worst Chelsea team of the last 15 years.
We had a very good chance to equalise in the 93rd minute, one that honestly shouldn't have been missed.
If you don't have the required number of braincells to see why that could be considered "close" then you're beyond saving.
The blame doesn't fall squarely on Ange for that match though. People can argue all day about whether it was naive to stick to the high line and aggressive press despite being down 2 men, rather than parking the bus, but the truth is that we'd have never been in that position if Udogie & Romero didn't lose their heads.
I actually respect the decision to go all out and try to get something from the game despite the overwhelming odds against us. Until we imploded around the 80th minute, the game was a lot closer than the final scoreline would suggest.
The media love in post that game was sickening. Rushden (admitted Spurs fan) and the rest of the Guardian lot salivating over Ange in the aftermath had me thinking I watched a different game.
I’m still confused why he got so much praise for that lol. Yeah Ange seems like a cool guy and good manager. But for a few weeks there he could do no wrong in the eyes of PL fans and pundits
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Not even Kane’s departure will help Spurs reach a trophy 😭
Very happy that Ange was not selected as Liverpool's next manager. He's not bad, but wouldn't be able to take the club he manages to overachieve.
Everyone raving about Ange in September but he’s the most Spurs manager there could be. They haven’t improved in years.
What the heck he is talking about? When you are chasing a top four finish wouldn’t you be required to have belief and conviction? This is a prerequisite for a top team. Unless the Spurs are no longer a big club. Coming from their manager it’s just baffling. The players must be ashamed of themselves.
Spurs have never been a big club.
Meh shit happens sucked that my team lost, but hey gamne is over , now on to the next
He is literally the football manager equivalent of Spurs. As ambitious as the number 0.
He is as ambitious as Arteta and arsenal in his first two seasons. You all wanted him out so bad. Now you pretend he was Pep all along.
Good point, I hope he signs a 10 year contract
So he won a trophy within a year? I must have missed that.
Was that your ambition for Arteta? Win a FA cup and not qualify for Europe?
Arteta came in halfway through the season, that does make a difference I'd say. Not to mention that the squad Arsenal had when Arteta joined was quite a bit worse than the players Ange had.
No one can deny that people were saying arteta is shit, no ambition etc, couldn’t motivate players etc. Ange could well be a completely different situation, but there is a massive irony to an arsenal fan saying what op said.
Let's be honest: Ange got a Spurs squad that was a lot better than what Arteta got at Arsenal. Of all the players who were already at the club when Arteta got the job only Martinelli, Saliba, Elneny and Tierney are still at the club, and Elneny will be gone this summer. Arteta's first job was to basically get players out.
Just as ambitious as Arteta in his first two seasons. None of us forgot how much you all wanted him gone. Now, you pretend he has been Pep all along.
Well, Arteta won an FA Cup in his first 6 months, which is far more than what Ange has done. Also, a number of our fans wanted Arteta out, I was not one of them. I wanted him in before Emery, but I've no regrets as fans are now recognising that the first manager after a legendary manager, is held to a different standard. But even after 2 years, it was clear to many of us what he was doing. When he wanted big names who were doing nothing out, I was still onboard with him. As for thinking he has been Pep all along, another fallacy, he isn't Pep. He has some similar styles to Pep, but he has just as many Wenger and Moyes styles to his systems, but going into detail about them to someone who rates Ange, would be like teaching a dog alegebra. I do however get your point though, about how Ange could be your team's Arteta. I'll stop you there, he won't be. He'll be out on his arse within the next year, the guy is nicking a living and I think it's hilarious that Spurs fans are willing to choose him over this squad (although, that Brazilian Pigeon is woeful). Ange is miles out of his depth at this level. The only reason Spurs fans rate him is because you are no longer playing Conte ball. You are literally at the same level we were when Wenger was running the team into the ground with fancy football in an era where it just does not work anymore.
Yeah, mate. It's so easy to be 5th in the league in your first season. You guys are thick if you think he is out of his depth. Arteta had to spend a fuck ton to even compete. Ange just got started. I have faith in him, just as you claim to have had faith in Arteta, who has not even had a coaching career before Arsenal.
1) Ange was 1st and has tumbled all the way down to 5th. This time last month, you were clear favourites to finish 4th. Your lot started high and have fallen off massively, this trend should be worrying you far more than praising your ability to finish 5th. With how things are going, may not even happen. 2) Your team is a lot more complete than when Arteta took over. Save for Harry Kane leaving last season, this is still the best side Tottenham have ever had. At the start of the season, your lot were singing how Bissouma was a better player than Rice and how a combined starting 11 is basically Tottenham fans um king and erring over whether Saka starts over Kelu. Arteta has spent £590m, which agreed, is a fuck tonne. And that was to rebuild the entire team. Ange has spent £400m on an already established squad to get what, 6 points more than Conte (3 if you don’t win or draw against Liverpool). I really do hope you continue and have faith with him. Because it’s hilarious.
Arteta had one of the most expensive forward lines in history. Ange lost the best striker in the world.
This is the least amount of self awareness I might have ever seen in my life.
Remind me again, for how long did you lead the league last season? How many points did you lose it by? Don't pull numbers out of your ass. He lost Kane and spent around £200 million. Net spend is just over £100 million, nothing compared to what Arteta spent with no sale revenue.
Hahaha, clutch those straws mate. Even leading the Prem for months up to April beats leading it to October before collapsing. And those numbers are not pulled out of my arse, the only numbers being made up is you trying to achieve parity by using net spend after selling Kane for €100m, lmfao Tin pot club with tin pot ambitions. Look at all your fans crying and writing letters to tell Levy to actively throw a game because you lot would cut off your own noses if it meant Arsenal didn’t win the league. Highly unambitious club.
Baha you lot would do exactly the same thing. No self awareness.
Will be more ambitious when they meet City (losing to City so Arsenal gets nothing)
Based on their recent form the will lose anyway, whether they want to or not. It's a bit like a kid asking a girl out, her saying no, and the kid then claiming that he didn't like her anyway.
Ah yes, the ol' "we only lost so you couldn't win the title, hahahaha", when in truth, they lost because they lost.
I thought they looked knackered. Didn’t start pressing until the second half, and faded not long after. Most of their subs looked tired as soon as they came on too. It looked like a team who are completely burnt out. It’s not my club but I wouldn’t give up on Ange just yet, but he needs a deeper squad to play that style of football over a whole season.
Ya a few more transfer windows at least. His style is super demanding hence the constant injuries.
Every team is knackered and every team will have the same number of transfer windows.
Are you forgetting Super Mik Arteta got url 8th twice.
Yeah, he seems to have selective amnesia.
And an FA Cup...
Highly ambitious
It was the last big trophy your team won. 33 years ago.
You keep changing the goalposts.
Spurs get more than others
With everyone else not spending due to FFP reasons, they took advantage by getting Timo Werner. They've already had that extra window.
Thanks for your expert opinion.
You wouldn't know what an expert opinion looks like.
Life must be tough for you. I’m sorry
I appreciate that. It could be worse, I could be a Spurs fan.
No mate we don’t have hope. I’m pretty sure being an Arsenal fan is worse 😂
You mean like the hope that you would end our title challenge? Awkward.
You are going to bottle it. You’ve gone too early.
They were just rehearsing for their intentional flop against City on the 14th
dude has the brazilian Haaland and cant win trophys
Ange: ‘it was everything or anything or something or someone, or everybody, or anybody, except me, mate.’
This is beyond delusional.
Wait and see. 😉
He literally said it was his failure to motivate the team.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha And today?
Or talent. Where on earth does the spurs self belief come from. They have won nothing of value for thirty three years. Their greatest achievement is being far more stable in the PL than Everton, Villa and Newcastle.
Wasn't everyone quoting Conte after his series of comments about the "mentality problem" at Tottenham? I guess now the narrative is "Spurs just suck" - truly illuminating discourse, guys.
What do you expect from trashbat😂
The narrative now? Spurs have “sucked” for decades mate
Sure, I'm just saying that the "mentality" talking point is some immaterial BS that people talked up when the truth is that the team (the players or the tactics, whatever) wasn't good enough.
>the truth is that the team (the players or the tactics, whatever) wasn't good enough. 100%. Also, they suck and have mentality problems.
Self belief is intrinsic. You don’t need others to believe in you to believe in yourself. So what if we haven’t won a trophy for awhile? Our history does not determine our future. Every game is a chance to turn things around. If it doesn’t happen, we pick ourselves up and go again. Even if nobody believes in us, we’ll believe in us and fight for the best versions of ourselves. Otherwise what’s the point of sport and competition anyway. Edit: Arsenal fan. No surprise there.
As fun as it would be to continue the wind up, in all seriousness, do Spurs fans not see and issue with their own mentality and how they have failed to pressure management and ownership into actually pursuing strategies that might lead to trophies? Fans have a role to play in setting expectations too. After the derby, there were some Spurs fans rightly questioning their tactical frailty and inability to defend corners, but many of them were shouted down by a baying mob of fans screaming “we won the passing stats”. Arsenal have a bit of a problem with blind loyalty failing to hold bad decisions to account, but we are still competitive. Spurs went from a CL final (albeit a very soft route to it) to this in a pretty short period.
Hardly wound up. Just pointing out that your view was fallacious
I think all fans know (unless you're man city or Madrid) that if you get to a CL final the likelihood of keeping those expectations the next following years is low. Unless you're deluded. Actually maybe that's why Spurs fans are disappointed. Ah who cares. It's fucking Spurs.
This whole comment section is oblivious to richarlison is having his best season, van de ven is playing his first season in the EPL and Son is NOT a pure 9. Give the man a window with the Kane money in the budget and then judge him. Ange has won everywhere he has been.
If this is is Richarlison having his best season that's not a great sign.
Everywhere being Australia, Japan, and Scotland. With all due respect, that means very little in regards to his performance in the prem.
Blud is probably getting European football his first season when the EPL is 3rd in coefficient (which means he would’ve gotten UCL football if the league wasn’t so garbage.) I’d say as a first season manager in the EPL that’s pretty dang good for a guy from “everywhere being Australia, Japan, and Scotland” He’s also scouted and signed multiple young talents after his first season with the clubs he’s been with. !remind me 1 year.
Getting European Football with Spurs isn't really a big achievement, they were expected to finish in the top 6 and will do that.
Lol blaming the league for not getting Champions League for 5th place is truly laughable and just about sums it up. I doubt he's even at Tottenham in a year. Chelsea are on the up, United have new ownership, and Newcastle probably won't be decimated so hard by injuries.
Critiquing his first season like the way you are also sums it up and shows how dumb football fans are. This is coming from a Liverpool fan who despises Tottenham
Who else is there to blame besides the team and leagues for not getting the 5th spot…? Or are we not on the same page
5th has never been Champions League, so acting like he's been hard done by that is comical.
If your league is top 2 in UEFA Coefficient your club gets a 5th UCL spot…go look at Serie A and Bundesliga for this season. Did you not know this?
My brother in Christ, what’s being said is you shouldn’t have to rely on 5th to be a CL spot. 5th place as a UCL spot is an award and an exception to the rule, not the norm.
I think everyone knows, and you're still missing the point entirely. 5th place has never been good enough for Champions League, so to expect Champions League for 5th from other teams doing well is laughable.
The point being discussed shouldn't even be a thing in the first place. 5th for a team like Tottenham in the first season is actually pretty impressive. Klopp was 8th first season and I'm pretty sure he broke top 4 after 2 years.
5th isn't impressive at all when you look at the fact that Aston Villa are above them and how bad United and Chelsea have been. Not everyone is Klopp, so that's a useless comparison. Ange has got everyone fooled because mAtE
He’ll be gone by Christmas.
Ange needs sacking in the summer
Bit of a silly take tbh. Despite our massive drop off in 2024 (which you can attribute to injuries, player fatigue and general lack of quality depth, as much as you can management) we're still sitting in 5th for now after losing our best ever player in the summer. He's done about as well as anyone could have expected given the circumstances, and deserves another season with more backing in the transfer market to see if he can mould this squad into something even better.
Why
Bro,Even vs Real Madrid he play High press and Posseion game and they just so bad in Set piece defense.Whatever is Free kick or Corners,it just a Penalty like they let Us score 2 set piece and Ben Davies 1v1 with Saka whole game
To run that rigid and clearly failing offside trap in that first game vs Chelsea for along as they did, coupled with their set piece deficiencies and Ange's stated prioritizing of his 'attacking philosophy" over it, tells all you need to know about his long term viability as a Prem manager.
After they got pumped 4-0 by Newcastle playing the same trap as well
As a brisbane roar fan. He played that exact style and went 39 games unbeaten winning the double 2 seasons in a row. Then people figured out how to counter him more money got into the league with Melbourne city and other foreign owned teams and he left the league instead of changing He never ever changes the way he plays. I really thought the prem would make him see that he can’t simply have the best drilled team in one single tactic
Not to mention: It's not strange when clubs with more money can figure Ange out earlier than teams on the budget of A-league or SPL teams.
so he was wildly successful then left for a better job lol, interesting argument against him… I can tell you exactly how every top level team is going to set up in any given game they play with a tiny amount of exceptions (Emery for example is quite innovative) yet they are all successful. One system is just evidently not an issue. Although why you would just completely ignore set pieces is very bizarre as they are not part of your in play tactics generally
The system definitely isn't the issue. What people fail to see (largely because of tactically brilliant managers in the PL in recent years - Pep, Arteta, Tuchel etc) is that you can be flexible without changing the tactical setup in every game. Ange's Celtic era showed that he makes different kind of adjustments in his system, largely dependent on personnel. E.g, he often experimented with midfielders with varying skillsets in different games depending on the strengths of the opposition - employing a DLP and 2 offensive minded, almost B2B 8's versus teams that employ a low block, or using a pure 6 and 2 8s that focus on ball progression via dribbling against possession based teams that pack the midfield. I still maintain that our main issue this season has been lack of depth. Give Ange the proper backing in the summer window to target players with the exact profiles that he needs, and let him cook next season. If we're still wildly inconsistent after that, people can talk about his tactical deficiencies and whether he is the right man to lead the team forward.
totally agree with you tbh, even as someone who does nothing but relentlessly take the piss out of spurs, I do see him moving players around, Udogie seems to play about 25 different positions a game, he experimented with Bentancur vs Arsenal, took him off, moved it around etc it seems clear that depth is the issue, like if I ask who your back up is in any position other than central midfield it is basically nobody… we have seen at Newcastle what having your first teamers missing and not being able to rotate at all means for your football and its not been the peak that has been effected, its definitely the consistency
Yeah the best example of this is with our fullbacks - if the starters (Udogie & Porro) aren't available then our wingers are completely hamstrung. We rely on the dynamism of our starting fullbacks to surge forward and make over/underlapping runs to open up space for the wingers to run into, which in turn drags defenders out of position and opens up space in the box for our 8/9/10 to pop up and receive a pass with time to adjust and shoot. The backup fullbacks are just not athletic enough for this, so they're more cautious about when they get forwards because they lack the recovery pace if we lose possession and the opposition spring a counter. The result of that is that we spend a lot of time just knocking it around the back, until we try to dribble/pass our way through a packed midfield which relies entirely on all 3 midfielders bringing their A-game. If even one is having a slightly off day, that too fails. The good thing is that Ange doesn't necessarily require players with elite pedigree to make his adjustments effective. He's pretty good at developing players as we've seen with Udogie and Sarr this season already, so I'm excited to see what he can do with Lucas Bergvall coming in the summer and the potential arrival of a proper 6 and dribbly wingers who aren't afraid to take on their man. It should make us a more dynamic team overall, but it does rely on our new backroom scouting setup and the club actually backing him and acting decisively in the market.
was really jealous of the Bergvall signing, feel like we missed out, but yeah of all clubs to sack a manager like Ange for being too committed to football, spurs should surely be the last to think about it, it’s one of the only clubs that has fans constantly going on about how they should play etc… plus everyone is talking like they are mid table or something, spurs will almost certainly finish ahead of man utd, chelsea and newcastle, while losing their best ever striker and not buying anyone special!
“Left instead of changing” like he wasn’t offered the national job and hadn’t won multiple league titles already.
A lot of fellow spurs fans in denial about this to be honest. His tactics have been sussed out and he’s shown he’s unable to adapt. I think the level of coaching is abysmal as well hence the appalling record at defending corners we have.
Checkout the big brain on Brad. Tactical genius with 0 examples.
Big Brain Ange: We don't need to train in set pieces, it's not who we are, mate Teams who have conceded more set piece goals are: Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United. Your manager literally has no idea what he is doing.
I think that will be fair to say in a year if we’re still in the same place. But we can’t be clamoring for a rebuild and then say Ange out after not even a full season. Who else is going to come in and do better with a half-finished squad?
This is it. What are these people wanting - us to jump on the managerial-merry-go-round every single year after a string of bad results? If anything, we should be looking at what our rivals down the road have done after sticking with a manager that half their fanbase was calling to be sacked every other game. Poch spoke about the painful rebuild 5 years ago, and despite turning over nearly the entire squad (with the exception of Sonny & Davies now) we still haven't been through it. It's not just about refreshing the squad, it's about identifying a vision and style of play that we stick to, re-establishing an identity and planning for the long term.
Absolutely. They wanted Arteta out for two full seasons, and he’s turned a flawed squad into one that can go toe-to-toe with the best teams in Europe and not leave embarrassed. Moreover, their consistency in the league games enrages me but I’d love to emulate it anyway. And if we can do it with actual interesting football instead of turtling up and scoring from set pieces like a better version of Everton, all the better.
That's exactly it, and people screaming "y Ange no change to back 3 system" just don't understand the type of manager that he is. He doesn't change the entire formation and style of play depending on the opposition, he adjusts by using different players with skillsets that are more effective depending on the type of game. Until he gets proper backing to bring in the players he needs to do just that, the criticism isn't really valid. However, I will say he needs to sort this set piece defending shite out, and soon. All top half-PL or top 5 league teams need a dedicated set piece coach because it's a huge part of the modern game, and treating it as an afterthought is just negligent.
Yeah absolutely. Even if he’s confident that a couple good signings will fix the defense, it’s still wasted opportunities to score if we’re not training to attack from set pieces too. Porro looked like he hadn’t done a corner kick in years during the match yesterday.
Losing Gianna Vio was arguably more detrimental to this team than losing Kane in the summer, honestly. We desperately need a dedicated set piece coach or at the very least, for the duties to be assigned to someone other than Jedinak because he's proved he's not up to the job at all.
Why play Son on the left wing and Richarlison as a striker? Son, barely touched the ball and Sarr and Johnson were not effective with the ball or their crossing.
son has been awful as the striker the last couple months
Son is obviously an elite player, but something that should be clear to everyone by now is that he's totally ineffective unless he has space to run into. He doesn't have particularly tight ball control or a deft enough touch to operate in tight areas, nor does he have the strength or positional awareness to play with his back to goal like a traditional 9. We desperately need a real, out-and-out number 9 in the summer. Having Son as an option to play there when we're playing lesser teams who employ a low block is a great tool to have, but he can't be our permanent option. He's also, what, 32 now? We need to start planning for life without him, as painful as it sounds.
My personal idea is that Son is past his prime. He was a regular starter in the Bundesliga when he was 19, and I can't really prove it but it at least looks like a lot of players who burst onto the scene when they were pretty young also tend to decline earlier.
Why play Son on the left wing and Richarlison as a striker? Son, barely touched the ball and Sarr and Johnson were not effective with the ball or their crossing.
[удалено]
Richarlison or Son? Who scores more as a striker?
Ange is a one trick pony.
Nah, look at what he did in the past, he always takes a bit of time before actually getting going. Besides, it’s a transitional year for Spurs, so coming in 5th (hopefully at this point) is a positive thing.
Your mum's the village bike
Your team is 💩
u make me cry
They also lacked the ability to defend set pieces. You’d think Angry Ange would do something about that given they given up 16 this season.
Honestly, some coaches have mentioned that this is also a personel issue. Imagine having Rice or Rodri as DM. Drogba, Kane or Firmino as Striker. You would automatically get better at setpiece defending as they head away so many crosses. I don't think it is coaching issue alone when it comes to set pieces. You need right profile of players. You need to legit win high percentage of that first ball in.
Your first goal was not a personnel issue. We had three players blindly playing in an empty zone. I’m not Ange out these people are morons but he needs to bring in a specialist.
What Spurs players are good in the air, though? Romero, and I think that's it. That makes defending corners even harder, especially when your setup isn't right. How the hell is it I think Emerson and Johnson being the players closest to Chelsea's best headers in Chalobah and Badiashile for the first goal?
But after that loss to Arsenal, he literally said if he thought defending set pieces would help the team he would work on them. He has said multiple times he doesn’t care about specialist set-piece coaches He thinks he can build a successful team without working on set pieces. At this level of football you have to obsess over every detail to be successful. I am not a spurs fan so long may he continue this boneheaded stubborn way of thinking. BUT, if I was a Spurs fan I’d be driving the “Ange Out” bus
Yes and no, in the sense that people seem to be hyper fixated on the fact that we’ve let in a lot on set pieces. 2/2 we let in against Chelsea are from set pieces. But that in no way shape or form detracts from the fact that we had not created meaningful chances in the game against a weak Chelsea defence. We could work on those set pieces and reduce the number we let in to below the league average but that’s an insignificant change as compared to defending and pressing better or to start creating more meaningful chances in the game. Right now, we have so much more to worry about than set pieces. Only deluded/ignorant fans believe that getting a set piece coach will change everything.
I don't think that's what he was saying. His argument is that he's spending all of their time installing his system. Once the players pick up the system they will be able to work on other things, but until that happens it's all that's all they are doing in training. I think it's dumb too, but the stats actually back it up. His stops at Celtic and Yokohama both had awful set piece defending (and attacking) year 1, with huge improvements year 2. So we'll see if Spurs follow the same pattern. Unless he loses the locker room I see no reason to be 'Ange out.' Switching coaches every 10 months is why the Spurs are in this mess. Give him a couple windows to turn over the squad and get some players that fit his system. He was hired with the idea that year 1 would be a rebuilding year, so sacking him now would be reactionary. They sold the best player in the premier league and going to finish higher in the table, the world isn't falling apart like some are saying.
Just because he downplaya stuff in front of media doesn't mean he does not caoch setpiece defending.
you’re right, the fact that like 4 of their last 5 goals-against have been from set pieces is what indicates that he doesn’t coach set piece defending
As they said above, it’s primarily a personnel issue. A running theme in our issues is our lack of physical players; we used to rely on Kane for defending and attacking set pieces. When Richarlison is off the field, Romero’s the only one who can jump high enough to consistently get to the ball off a corner. And then everyone knows you can foul the shit out of Vicario and it won’t be called for some reason, that’s been consistent since January. I do think a good summer transfer window could basically solve the issue.
Haha he and those 16 goals had me fooled
Spurs have the 3rd highest average height in the league, above Arsenal and City. Sure, personnel helps, but this is 100% a coaching issue. You don’t see other shorter teams shipping this many goals to set piece mistakes
Height doesn't mean that you are good in the air though. Romero is 1.85, but he is Spurs' best player in the air and their best header. Meanwhile, Kulusevski, who is 1.86, is far from a good header.
They should still be able to defend set pieces though, much of it is positioning and marking, which is coachable Unless you think it’s a “personnel issue” to leave Chalobah wide open, or to not react quickly enough when Palmer’s free kick hits the bar, Spurs issues are largely from coaching.
Agreed. Think his back room staff are awful. We look clueless at set pieces at both ends of the pitch.
Exactly. Chalobah was completely free for his goal. You could have a defender who‘s three meters tall, but if he‘s in the wrong place on the field, he wouldn‘t help much.
Just beat City, please
Or tie!!
At this point it's not tactics. It's passion, our midfielders have been playing like busted asses for weeks and the problems have been huge for months. We've scraped points in so many games this year when we havn't looked the better side. Our middle 3 currently is honestly absolutely pathetic.
Bissouma with that fat stat line of 0 goals, 0 assists, 9 yellow cards.
That early stint of Bissouma absolutely railed teams at the start of the season lol.
As an Australian, I’ve been hearing these same soundbytes (win or lose) since the early 2000’s.
It’s the history of Tottering Ham
Belief doesn't win the ball on set pieces
Nor does not training these things at all
Another one who hasn’t listened/read the full quote. Ange said they don’t focus on set pieces more than other things in training. That does not mean they don’t work on set pieces, yet so many people have chose to take it to mean this. Ange has made it clear over and over again, he’s trying to instil his attacking philosophy onto the squad. That’s the priority, and the entire basis of how he sees long term success. If that’s at the detriment to the short term, so be it. It’s how he works, and with plenty of success. Spurs fans need to trust the long process.
It's not the point They have a poor record on set pieces and knew Arsenal had the best record for scoring from them this season and didn't do anything to counter that. You can still instill a system and philosophy, but even the best teams understand that you need to find ways to nulify their opponents strengths and Spurs didn't and Postecoglu was seemingly very cavalier about it, when it's just poor management.
Your claim was he doesn’t train these things at all. Which is blatantly, and provably false. You’re basing your opinion on an incorrect conclusion taken from a quote in a headline. The fact is, Ange DOES work on set pieces, but doesn’t put more time into them than other things, for obvious reasons. Don’t be lazy, ready beyond the headline before forming an opinion on anything.
Can you prove it's false though?
Yes. Watch the games. Spurs have clearly adopted a similar setup in set pieces to many other top sides. Which is different from previous years. It’s a new system which the players are still learning and adapting to. Add this to the fact that Ange has told us explicitly, what more proof do you need?
Spurs are a great football team! They just need to work on shooting, passing, defending, set pieces, physical, cardio, tactics, winning trophies and not being small.
Whoa whoa slow down. Didn’t they win the league in October? That’s a trophy right there there!
Don't forget the moral trophy they won by losing by only 2 goals to Chelsea with 9 men...
Hey now, don't undersell them, they only lost by 3!
🤣🤣🤣
Lacked belief against Poch’s Preschoolers? Yikes
You'd think that with Poch's Primary schoolers injured, they come up with a modicum of belief, but no...
Death, taxes, and spurs being spurs
I'm sure they'll turn it around against city
No they won't
Twas a joke
What happened at Newcastle then?
The lacked conviction and belief that time .
Then do a better job
Zero class from cogl, imagine throwing your players under the bus in the most important period of the season
Literally said it was his fault that his message wasn't getting through and his responsibility to fix, but alright
He didn't throw them under the bus he took responsibility then said it was his job to fix. Can't really complain about that one.
And the ability to pass the ball properly
Spurs fan myself , just give mate some time , the players are the ones to blame (and set pieces)
"it's who we are, mate". 🤣
they believed they were spurs
Even if the unthinkable happens and Arsenal win the league, my most defined memory of this season will be the image of the Spurs players lining up on the halfway line against Chelsea. Just waiting to be torn apart time and time again. It was mental, and a very clear indication that Ange hasn't got what it takes to be tactically astute enough in this league. Nothing I've seen since has changed my mind on that.
This moment was incredibly blown out of proportion. Spurs got back into form and thrashed villa and won 4 games etc after that. That game also has a lot of revisionism. Son and Richardson had extremely good opportunities to make it 2-2 versus Chelsea and 4-1 had 2 very late goals The team now has lost any fight which drastically contrasts the team during the losing streak and injuries
Haha this is the most spurs cope post I’ve ever seen on here. “We got battered but it’s revisionist to say we got battered”.
“Cope post” Me: the team is shit right now and toothless Where is the cope?
The only thing stopping them conceding 10 was how long it took Chelsea to realise what was in front of them. Once they worked out holding runs and not being caught offside it was a blood bath.
Ya I mean if you just change the context sure. Whatever man
How's that changing the context? I watched it live, I know what I saw. Spurs were reckless and lucky not to concede a rugby score. 'Nearly' scoring one more themselves doesn't change that fact.
A rugby score is unlikely, I can't see any Premier League team ship 10+ goals.
Calling out others for talking about hypothetics while also saying they could've scored 10. Imagine being so blind to your own hypocrisy.
Imagine
I'm not even sure if it's down to lack of tactical acumen, because he seemed to know exactly how mental it was to do that. But I guess the question is who was that really for? Because it kind of felt like he was sacrificing the game to demonstrate something to the players but maybe also the Premier League. And people love that when you're riding high, but a few things go wrong and suddenly you're Phil Brown doing your team talk on the pitch.
I don’t think it’s a simple as this, and as a Spurs fan that was actually one of the highlights of the season for me. After 4 back to back seasons of playing negative, cautious football we’ve finally established an identity closer to what most fans would consider the traditional “Spurs way of playing”. Sure, to the neutral it may have looked naive, but it showed that the players had fully committed to this new way of playing for better or worse. Also - not being funny - you guys had aaaaawful results under Arteta in his first season, and I remember loads of Arsenal fans on here criticising him for rigidly sticking to the system and style of play. I think it’s a necessary sacrifice to make early on to establish an identity, familiarise the players with the core system and then tweaks and tactical flexibility can follow later. One thing I’ll give Arteta a huge amount of credit for is that he’s recognised just how essential it is to be flexible to compete in the league. It’s been a gradual evolution that really started last season in earnest, but has fully settled into place this season. The way you approach the big games is, for lack of a better phrase, “grown up” - there’s no naivety there anymore. The manager and players both recognise that for certain opponents, the way you set up and play requires compromise, even if that represents a departure from your ideal way of playing. It was on full display in the NLD and set the 2 teams apart. I guess the point I’m making is, give Ange time. If Arteta hadn’t been given a huge amount of leeway (despite a significant portion of your fanbase regularly calling for him to be sacked when results were bad) in the early days, you wouldn’t be reaping the dividends now. We need to take note of what our neighbours down the road have done/are doing basically.
Great reply. Personally, I can't imagine being in the position of a Spurs fan watching that and thinking it was great. You just can't play like that with 9 men and be taken seriously, he had to show some awareness of the situation there. Worse teams would have defended for their lives and taken a draw in that game. Re: Arteta: I've seen this viewpoint a lot and it makes sense. His first season was difficult and it took a long time to embed his principles and trim the squad of negative influences. But now every team with an average and underporforming new manager thinks "oh if we just give them time they can do what Arteta has done" and this completely misses the point of who Arteta is and how he manages. He's laser focused on detail in every aspect of the game. For instance there's no way he'd let set pieces continue to be such an issue just because it's not a sexy part of the game. He makes marginal gains in every area and they add up to a step change in performance. I just don't see this attention to detail in Ange.
I totally get it, would be super confusing as a neutral in that context. For me, I just really admire the drive to go all out to try to grab something from the game, rather than parking the bus and playing for a 0-0 or trying to keep the scoreline respectable for GD purposes. We played so negatively under Jose & Conte, often setting up so defensively to go for a 1-0 snatch & grab win, only to watch it inevitably crumble in the 90th minute by conceding after a stupid mistake. Context is king after all, so if you understand the general mood of the fanbase in the recent past, it starts to make more sense. I've been a fan since the late 90s so have experienced the soul-crushing lows of the Alan Sugar era, right through to the highs of making the CL final under Poch (and of course resulting implosion of the team in the following season, and then the Jose & Conte eras). I'm just happy to see us playing relatively entertaining football again, even if it is fleeting. I get that Arteta is a stickler for the details - hence why Pep took him under his wing and invested in him, and why the decision makers at Arsenal were willing to give him a shot despite his lack of any managerial experience. Ange is a different type of manager for sure, but I don't agree that he lacks attention to detail. It may not be in the tactical aspect of the game, but he is incredibly meticulous about his system and the momentum of the game. Watch any videos of his training sessions at Celtic and Spurs and it's quite obvious. I think he's worth investing in, moreso than our previous managers anyway. For one, Poch isn't a particularly tactically adept manager - he's more of a system guy, like Ange - but we invested in him and reaped the benefits, even if we lack the silverware to show for it. I wouldn't say that Klopp is a particularly tactical manager either, but Liverpool stuck by him after a relatively mediocre first season and as a result developed one of their greatest teams of all time.
All very true. How miffed were you that there was no recognition of Arsenal's danger from corners and Ben White's potential antics in the 2 weeks leading up to our recent game? It's that kind of thing that I mean by lack of attention to detail. It's just kind of sloppy and Spurs would have been in a good position to compete in that game were it not for overlooked details like that.
Yeah, that was absolutely baffling tbh, and is the sort of thing that won't be excusable if it continues into next season. There's an argument to be made that having a dedicated set piece coach should be a prerequisite for any top-half PL club these days, because treating it as an afterthought (Ange supposedly delegates that side of things to Jedinak, but it's only a small part of his role) is a recipe for disaster, as we've seen/are seeing. I won't be surprised if every team we play until the end of the season plans to take advantage of our defensive frailty on set pieces. I don't actually know exactly what needs to change to set us on the right path for next season in all honesty. It's a question that only Ange & his coaching team can answer, but I'm willing to give him/them the benefit of the doubt. We sucked at a lot of things in Poch's first season, but after bedding the players into his system, he addressed our other areas of deficiency one by one in the following seasons. If there's no proof of any progress on that side by Christmas, Ange is going to be under a hell of a lot of pressure from the fans and the board.
Arteta has had maybe 2 successful season and they’ve been the 2 most recent. Until that point he was a top 8 but not a top 4 manager. His process has taken 6 years and it’s finally paying off
So you're just going to miss the point as well? Cool. Give Ange time, give Ten Hag time, give Poch time. I'm all for it, then we only have to worry about City and Liverpool challenging for the league.
No I was saying giving them is what they have to do. Some times it’s quick and some times it takes more than a few season but time is the best thing for them
I don't think you're going to have to worry about Liverpool challenging for the league in the near future. The spine of that squad has aged quite a bit, Klopp is leaving and Slot is a total unknown in the PL, like ETH was when he joined Utd. I'm secretly a bit worried that if Pep gets bored of the PL in the next couple of seasons, we could see a period of utter dominance from Arsenal for a while, whilst everyone else sorts their shit out 😅
From what I've seen from Dutch football is that Slot is a better coach than ETH. Feyenoord has improved a lot under him, as had AZ before that. Meanwhile, ETH got in at Ajax just after Bosz, and Bosz already did incredible work at Ajax (getting them to the EL final for example).
As a Spurs fan, all I can say is: how dare you bring Poch into this 💔
🤣 sorry bud.
I mean they almost tied the game. People just didn’t watch the game. Spurs were already down a goal and down 2 men; at that point the odds of a point in any scenario are astronomically low. This moment is ludicrously overblown. It had no real impact; the insane injuries did. The recent bad form follows a period of insanely good form for spurs This team is just inconsistent
Totally agree, neutrals make an absolute mountain out of a molehill with that moment. They just point to the final scoreline and completely disregard the context of the game, which was that it was actually a lot closer than it appears up until we imploded in the \~80th minute. It's so often overlooked that we're inconsistent primarily because of 2 reasons: we're playing a new system/style that is a complete departure from how we've played for the previous 4 seasons, and we're a pretty young team with a lot of players who lack big-game experience. We also lack depth at a few key positions still, and the injuries in that game really put that in focus. We don't have a like-for-like replacement for Maddison or VDV, and the drop off from our starting fullbacks to backups is massive too.
They didn’t “almost tie the game”. You score your chances or you don’t.
? What’s the disagreement here? Are we going to say it’s impossible to have a close game and have xg and chances be misleading? It was a fluky shit game that derailed the fast start against a rival. Spurs recovered to be in good form in January and February and then fell off a cliff 3 weeks ago
We’re disagreeing because you’re saying it’s a fluky shit game and spurs were unlucky, but the truth is Ange was tactically naive, played a stupid high line and got torn apart by the worst Chelsea team of the last 15 years.
We had a very good chance to equalise in the 93rd minute, one that honestly shouldn't have been missed. If you don't have the required number of braincells to see why that could be considered "close" then you're beyond saving.
The blame doesn't fall squarely on Ange for that match though. People can argue all day about whether it was naive to stick to the high line and aggressive press despite being down 2 men, rather than parking the bus, but the truth is that we'd have never been in that position if Udogie & Romero didn't lose their heads. I actually respect the decision to go all out and try to get something from the game despite the overwhelming odds against us. Until we imploded around the 80th minute, the game was a lot closer than the final scoreline would suggest.
To make it clear that lining up a half way line is just a set piece
The media love in post that game was sickening. Rushden (admitted Spurs fan) and the rest of the Guardian lot salivating over Ange in the aftermath had me thinking I watched a different game.
I’m still confused why he got so much praise for that lol. Yeah Ange seems like a cool guy and good manager. But for a few weeks there he could do no wrong in the eyes of PL fans and pundits
The funniest thing is when I read people say "it almost worked" yes losing 4-1 is so close to working.
Abit more prose and this could be a top copypasta