Tottenham Hotspur Message Board

John/NBR, Isn't it all a trade off though throughout the season? Don't you adjust ...

John/NBR,
Isn't it all a trade off though throughout the season? Don't you adjust what you what based on what is attainable?
While we we a mid table team, winning a domestic cup would have been superb. But as soon as we started to regularly hit the European spots (which isn't that long ago) - and brought teams like the Milans to the Lane - isn't that reward in itself? It doesn't preclude going after a domestic cup, but surely the goal is now higher?
And whether we like it or not, the players all now cost a fortune to buy and in wages, so the domestic cups simply don't 'earn' enough (£100K for the League Cup and £2M for the FA Cup - and that is winning them) - to win the Europa is probably closer to £10M (given the match and round bonuses).
But for me, it is and isn't about the money. I want a team that plays well and with flair - and I want to see us 'prove' how good we are by playing the best teams. I'm not that impressed by winning the LC having beaten Barnsley, Coventry...on the way. I want to see us beat RM - and the only chance of that is getting into the competition where those teams play - and that is by invite only - you have to get 4th and above. And by virtue or earning that 'invite' you get more money that hopefully enables you to return next year with better players. All money based, I know.

So, yep, I want the glory of lifting a trophy - but I want the FA over the League Cup and the Europa over the FA and the CL over the Europa. And there's the dichotomy as do I want Europa at the expense of the invite to the CL? Aaaaarrrrrrrrgh. I want both! I want us to be hosting the top clubs next season in the CL. I'd like the glory of lifting the Europa. What is more beneficial to the club? I would guess the CL.

Confused? I am....

Wrong! Holtby is a superb player, he didn't play well yesterday, but he has only been...

Wrong!

Holtby is a superb player, he didn't play well yesterday, but he has only been in the league for 3 months and is yet to recieve a first team run, so you'd be advised to reserve judgement.

Holtby will be amongst our best 5 players next season, you mark my words!

COYS!

NBR....At last, a fan talking like a football fan and not like an accountant. I thought al...

NBR....At last, a fan talking like a football fan and not like an accountant. I thought all fans got into football for the glory days when your club got to a cup final and you see your captain hold aloft the trophy. We had many a great european night in the previous version of the europa and no-one said it was a micky mouse cup then, even though it was third in line to the european cup and the cup winners cup. Even if we did finish regularly in the top four, I dont think we have owners who would pay top fees and wages for the top players, and would be more content to get by on players just about good enough to get top four . The sooner they make the winners of the domestic cups and the europa cup to join the league champs in the CL the better IMO instead of rewarding the failure of clubs who finish 2nd. 3rd and fourth. Still, I guess its the way of the modern game that some fans are more interested in taking part in a competition that only about eight clubs in europe have any chance of actually winning, and most of them have double or higher our ground capacity as well as rich benifactors who are prepared to spend fortunes. As a fan, give me a cup any day, and if by chance we ever get a squad of talented players good enough to win the CL through youth and astute buys then all the more glorious for an old fashion fan like me.

Are you saying if we got to the QF of CL & ended 5th that'd be a good achievement,...

Are you saying if we got to the QF of CL & ended 5th that'd be a good achievement, but if it happens this year with EL it's a poor result because of the level of the cup? Because I'm reading it as we want to be consistently in the top 4 and challenging for CL, which means we need to be able to play more games than we have this season.

Also, a good time to remember that when Livermore & Carroll came on against West Ham I'm sure many of us thought "is that all we've got on the bench?", but they were both involved in the build up to the winner; let's give them a chance before declaring the team dead, it makes us as bad as the Bale fixated commentators.

bale & lennon should be only out for 2weeks! great news. so I think that means they wi...

bale & lennon should be only out for 2weeks! great news. so I think that means they will miss the everton, basel & city games.
gallas is out for a few weeks too but to be honest I don't see why he even plays anymore.
would have preferred caulker last night.
lets just hope we aren't out the Europa & pushed down the league by the time they are all back.

Great article. thanks. Is there any real evidence the FA were ever seriously considering R...

Great article. thanks. Is there any real evidence the FA were ever seriously considering Redknapp for England manager? It seems he himself was the one talking it up more than anyone else. And now he says he was surprised to be sacked by Spurs, well he shouldn't have been.

Hi Ted and anyone else interested I just read a good article on Footballfancast.com, look ...

Hi Ted and anyone else interested I just read a good article on Footballfancast.com, look up the Spurs page. Good article about HR entitled "a bit rich to blame tottenham isn't it?"
Certainly puts it better than I.

Last year Redknapp didn't take the Europa seriously at all, which I was very disappoin...

Last year Redknapp didn't take the Europa seriously at all, which I was very disappointed with, and we still didn't make Champion's league, although through some unlucky circumstances. But we should have managed third given the points lead we had. I'm glad AVB is actually going for it in Europa. Other players could step up. All is not necessarily lost. COYS!!

the point ALL us spurs fans are trying to make is.....even us arm chair fans would have pu...

the point ALL us spurs fans are trying to make is.....even us arm chair fans would have put priority on finishing top 4 first before anything and that would include a cup.......would bale put pen to paper if we do win the UEFA cup?...or would he be more likely to do so if we finish in the top 4 and guarantee us champions league matches?.....

with champions league matches next season it will not only open the possibilities of better buys in the summer but will argue the fact of keeping our top players for at least another season...by not buying in the january window has just shown our top players that spurs are a season to season club and not one that truly builds for the future...since jan even ady has lost that little spark he had and because of that it has started to dawn apon the rest of the players that this could well be some of them playing together for the last time at the lane ...

this importance of CUP win has harmed not only this season but our future as well...if bids for bale,ady and even vertoghen come in after a failed challenge for champions league spots it would be a minor miracle if we managed to hold on to them...

this Everton game on the weekend is a make or break game for spurs and a win is a must...if AVB doesnt set aside his ego and play a second string team for the return leg against basle then he really needs to look himself in the mirror and ask......"am i the spurs coach or am i just a coach looking to prove himself to everyone that doubted him"... for that i must point him in the direction of arsen wenger... who doesnt careless what people think of him but has always the best interests of his club.

Why is the Europa bad? We spent umpteen years outside of Europe, and now in the past 6 or ...

Why is the Europa bad? We spent umpteen years outside of Europe, and now in the past 6 or seven seasons we've become tooo big for a 'lesser' European tournament?
OK, I agree it's not the CL - but it's still Europe. Some fans (me included) like seeing us play against the other European clubs. To me, there are 5 events to play for each year - each with its own 'grade' - in my order of importance:
Winning the EPL
Gaining CL
Gaining Europe
Staying in the EPL

The cups are odd, as they are not more important to me than being relegated or gaining CL. But I'd rather have a cup and gain Europe than gain it via the EPL. The Europa to me is above the domestic cups.

That's me though. If you'd rather play a lesser team in the Europa at this stage - then who do you not pick - as surely, given that injuries are accidents and not foreseeable, any player you do pick and who gets injured could jeopardise the other competition. What if Ade had been injured last night or Vertigo or Dembele or...any one of the players may be influential in the run in.

Put it down to my senility and poor eyesight - I saw 'Rep...' and as it was the on...

Put it down to my senility and poor eyesight - I saw 'Rep...' and as it was the only Rep there - hit it (must have been at the 4 reply limit). I'll put on sack cloth and ashes until Christmas in penance.

As a fan though, don't you also want to see teams like RM or Barca at the Lane? What other chance is there of that apart from joining the big boys club?

What the hell though - have faith - we can do both....CL next season and a miraculous performance in Basle..Basel..Baal.... to get us through to the next leg in the Europa.

Glyphi, Holtby and Demsey are all going to shine in Bale and Lemmon's absence.

your missing the point. more CL games is good, more europa games is bad unless u win it or...

your missing the point. more CL games is good, more europa games is bad unless u win it or at worst get to the final. your point about more games even in the CL is bizarre. its in the CL! big difference. also a CL qualifer is more games, yes your right. but its to get in to the CL which is well worth. i think john & nbr seem to think my point is more games is always bad. no, my point is more games in the europa is a hinderance in the league. to me, its a hinderance thats not worth it unless u get to the final. i too love silverware. but i dont feel this squad is good enough to maintain top 4 & get to the europa final. so u need to make a decision of which u are going for. i believe AVB has buried his hand in the sand like a lot of our fans,& arrogantly & naively thought this team could do both. but by burying our head in the sand we have spread ourselves too thinly & will now fail at both. id personally have gone for 1 & strongly commited to it. id rather have achieved 1 at the expensive of failing miserably at the other. but seems to me avb & others would rather get quite close but ultimately falling short at both, just to seem positive & say we did our best at both. keep burying your head in the sand u guys, & we will continue to fall short.

Outrageous JL, I'm hurt you think I'm abusive, I'll let Yahoo know what I thin...

Outrageous JL, I'm hurt you think I'm abusive, I'll let Yahoo know what I think of that...

I think my point is (although I'm not really sure now), we're NOT the manager, we're fans. We don't have the experience or technical knowledge of the management - when we were shipping last minute goals I thought "that's annoying" not "he wants to be running more intellectually challenging activities at the end of training sessions to encourage players to remain mentally aware until the end of a match".

For a manager or a shareholder or accountant to say getting to the QF of a big trophy - or any trophy for that matter - while sitting in 3rd position is 'ruining a season' is one thing, as they will have a mathematical value of success. For a fan to say is it - to me - ludicrous; it's supporting with your head, not your heart, and seems to be too influenced by media and their coverage of The Best League In The World and The Only Important Cup Competition. Although I do have some awesome memories of CL games too...

However, I will concede to FACTUAL things - getting 4th is a better achievement than a cup isn't factual, but the squad clearout putting added pressure on some of the remaining players is. E.g. Lennon's already played 10 more games this season than he did last, whereas Bale's currently on 4 less, and if we don't get to EL SFs we've only got 8 games left, so he'd only have a few games difference.

If you're really interested, the player stats (games, not minutes played) are here: http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/spurs/Team/Statistics.page?

NBR, If you were a manager though, how would you handle a season? If it was me, I'd pr...

NBR,
If you were a manager though, how would you handle a season?
If it was me, I'd prioritise with the board and set the basic targets and then adjust the priority as I went. For Spurs, I would 'guess' that CL is the main board target - as again, whether the fans like it or not, the CL brings in the money that allows the squad to grow in quality (and gives the best financial return) - that hopefully then creates that cycle of staying in the top 4.
I would have then used the squad more in the earlier rounds of each of the other competitions with the priority (ie quality of player) being fitted to the perceived value of the prize. The League cup being bottom, then FA then Europa at the top - for me. I would then use the squad across the competitions, readjusting the priorities depending on how well we were doing in the various competitions.

'arry seemed to do that more than AVB (I'd be interested to see player usage stats across the competitions over the past 3 or 4 seasons). AVB seems to have stuck more to a set squad - maybe because of the clear out of 'squad' players during the summer.

Now we've got this far in the Europa, it seems a bit pointless not going for it IMHO - BUT - even though I never expected 4th this season (maybe 6th/7th), I now also want 4th as I think we deserved CL for this season and although in my opinion we haven't been playing as well - we have been at the 'top' for so long it would be a disappointment not to get CL for next season. If pressed, I still would prefer a CL spot over the Europa.

I see where you're coming from though - no one (fans) cares how many seasons the Woolwich bunch have achieved CL football - but they do care about when they won their last silverware.

PS If you get a message from Yahoo - it was me - I inadvertently hit the 'Report Abuse' button on your post. Apologies.

There. I said it. I do. Where did we finish in the League 5 years ago? Anyone remember o...

There. I said it. I do.

Where did we finish in the League 5 years ago? Anyone remember offhand? Because I don't. Anyone remember watching Ledley and Robbie lift the League Cup? Because I do, vividly, even though it was 'just' the League Cup.

You can say it's *only* the Europa Cup, but if we were to win it we'd do so over the Champions League holders, having knocked out Inter Milan and the champions of Switzerland amongst others. I think that's a pretty competitive competition, and one we should be proud of competing in.

You don't *win* 3/4/5th place, or any place other than 1st; you win cups. You can talk all you want about the money and players who might sign for you if you finish higher, but I don't support a balance sheet, I support a football club. And those people who might do those things? They might not too.

I'm pleased we've played teams who should've been able to win in all competitions, I think it shows respect for them and has been much more interesting. And you can't say it's ruined our season, because the season's not over yet. Criticising the number of games yet aiming for 4th is somewhat bizarre too, as then you're in the qualifying round for CL so have a shedload of games again, and may still end up in EL.

I know it's frustrating to watch key players getting injured at such an important part of the season, but it's utterly pointless talking about what could happen or should have happened; all we can do is keep our fingers crossed (or take other redundant 'lucky' actions) and hope we at least enjoy the football for rest of the season.

And I leave my essay with a (slightly tongue in cheek) article from the Guardian on why we should love the Europa League: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/apr/04/europa-league-five-reasons-to-watch

"Re: europas ruined our season" What I think ruined your season is AVB using th...

"Re: europas ruined our season"

What I think ruined your season is AVB using the same small core of players week in, week out and not resting key players. Players aren't robot, it's only a matter of time before the high number of games they've been involved in catch up on them. We're now seeing the result of Spurs not having a deep squad to rely on when the going gets tough. I think Spurs would do well to hang on to 5th spot this season as both Everton and Liverpool would have a say on that.

SB, As always you're entitled to your opinion. Obviously AVB puts a high value on the ...

SB,
As always you're entitled to your opinion. Obviously AVB puts a high value on the Europa - so it looks like he doesn't agree with you. AVB had no way on knowing that Bale/Lennon would get injured any more than you or me. Injuries are just unfortunate accidents.
I would hazard a guess that Levy sets the targets and expectations for the season, so I would be surprised if AVB went for the Europa the way he did without some form of backing.

Whether you (or I - if you look back I posted a while back that I thought the emphasis should be on the league) like it, the Europa was seen as an achievable goal - and still may be.
3rd is still achievable at this stage.

If we're to compete with the top 4, we can't go around bleating about playing extras games - as the big clubs have been playing more games in the EPL and Europe - season in and season out - and on top of that have a far better record than us in the Cups as well.

Del-agreed juan. levy has let us down. we badly needed another striker for 2 seasons now. ...

Del-agreed juan. levy has let us down. we badly needed another striker for 2 seasons now. our squad simply isnt good enough to get top 4 & win the europa. so it was 1 or the other. i feel people like avb are naive/arrogant for thinking we could both. as i do for other spurs fans who thought we could do both. the price we pay looks like being no europa cup & no top 4 finish. yes john,bale could have got injured against the swans. in which case it would have been for a good cause. no complaints. but getting injured in europa is a waste. a cup we most likely wouldnt have won anyway. no one said players cant get injured in league games. bit of a pointless point john. also stephen only posts to tell people they arent real fans. he rarely posts about tottenham. shows what he is more interested in.

i agree half and half here.......i was dreading the UEFA cup, its for clubs that have noth...

i agree half and half here.......i was dreading the UEFA cup, its for clubs that have nothing else to fight for and for clubs that can boast a large enough squad to rotate and give their fringe players a chance to impress and push for a first team slot...we made our first huge mistake back in january....we never bought a striker..not even an on loan player...... you guys say wheres our belief and hope..well it went in january in my books.... this is starting to become a regular trend for spurs..start well then fall apart after the new year..... i dont blame the players..they've really tried their best and to be in 3/4th position thus far is a great achievement and more than AVB could have asked from his players from the start of the season...they havent let us down...LEVI has, by not strengthening the squad in jan when we could all see there was a great chance in finishing top 4 and at that time we were still in 2 cups...

i agree with above comment...this season will be a scrap to fifth place not top 4....we've played an extra game remember....which means chel/arsen win their game we drop to forth 1 point infront of arsenal and once they move in front theirs no way we will over take them again....

my opinion is...this season was a great opportunity but ended in disaster....

stephen, that makes no sense. we could end up 6th or 7th. i think 5th a fair target with ...

stephen, that makes no sense. we could end up 6th or 7th. i think 5th a fair target with the fit players left.of course i want us to finish 3rd. but i dont think its a fair target without bale & probably lennon & defoe. i hope your right about bale. i was just going off the opinion rom the opinion of ex players who said he will be out for the season. & bale did look in a lot of pain

I'm not sure what people expected at the start of the season, but I never thought we&#...

I'm not sure what people expected at the start of the season, but I never thought we'd be where we are. EVEN if we drop a couple of places in the league it will be better than what I had originally hoped for.
But as yet, we're still 3rd.

As for the injuries - a bit of a pee off - but again no one 'expects' it to happen. Lennon may have gone off against Everton and Bale could have been injured against Swansea - only a crystal ball could tell. OK - the more games, the higher the odds for picking up an injury but if we're to be a top 4 club, we have to be used to playing more games.

The game itself was dire. We looked awful at the back and BAE looked pretty poor (and I normally like him). Ade tried but had no service (how many attempts - Naughton's shot was the only recollection of a save that I have) - Lennon didn't get into the game (maybe for obvious reasons).
Holtby buzzed and had a couple of nice touches - especially the one that managed to deflect Parker's attempt!

On the positive side, the Everton game will now give at least one player (I read Bale may only be out for 2 games) a chance to step up to the plate.

You are not a real fan if you are hoping Spurs (who are currently in 3rd) will finish 5th....

You are not a real fan if you are hoping Spurs (who are currently in 3rd) will finish 5th.

Also I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that Bale is out for the season but until this is announced how about we remain optimistic. It looked like he twisted his ankle; nothing to keep him out for the rest of the year.