The Football (Soccer) Thread

[Bwang]

Spurs some how got smashed by Sheffield 3-1, ending a terrible season. With the budget being even smaller than usual and not CL / European football, it will be interesting what Mourinho can pull off for 20-21 season.

Everton up next won’t be an easy game for you, Ancelotti knows what he’s doing. Then the north london derby next weekend... Arsenal might be in better form, could be a painful night, although Jose is able to get his teams up for the big one off games.

[Mentor]

I think that in terms of top level managers, the EPL is the most packed it has ever been. Every match is a tactical battlefield.

[robin10]

Mate, I don't think managers will need a lot of tactical geniousness to figure out the weaknesses of spurs, when you have Eric Dier playing at CB and Serge Aurier playing at RB, Just saying.

Tell you what, I would fancy my chances against Aurier.

[Mentor]

Mate, I don't think managers will need a lot of tactical geniousness to figure out the weaknesses of spurs, when you have Eric Dier playing at CB and Serge Aurier playing at RB, Just saying.

Tell you what, I would fancy my chances against Aurier.

 

Yeah, both of those are total shite. Aurier does not even have a backup. We only have one real left back and he is below average at best (Davies). In fact, our whole defensive unit needs changing. Toby is getting old and he is slow, Vertongen is out of contract. Sanchez is ok, but that is about it, maybe as a rotation piece. Lloris is unreliable and out of his prime for a good 3-4 years already. Tanganga is a good young player but needs experience. From the whole defensive unit, we do not have even one player who would be worthy of a place in a championship level team.

 

Spurs have major issues all over the pitch though. Kane has been declining for the past couple of years, he is also injured a lot, his ankle issues are well documented. When he plays and if fit, he can be good, but he already lost some of his (already limited) pace. We do not have a backup striker, so we have to play either Moura or Son out of position. We only have one player capable of playing as a deep lying play maker and that is Winks, who lacks strength, size and creative skills (at least good enough to open up defenses). We also have a general lack of pace all over the pitch. We were never a really fast team, even when we were competing for top 4 places, but at least we had Walker, Rose, Dembele was fast with the ball, Kane was faster.

 

Anyway, i see Spurs in deep trouble. Out of the European football, with a huge dept on a pitch which is totally useless now (due to the Corona), Kane will likely ask for a move if we do not win shit next year (which we wont). Vertongen is leaving, we could be forced to renew Dier because we wont be able to get good value for him and his deal is out. Rose is leaving. With the lack of proper funds to invest and Levy's unwillingness to spend, Mourinho will be in a difficult place to sort the situation out. He probably won't leave because he is on one of the biggest contracts in football, but he will be very limited. He could be forced to promote via the academy.

[robin10]

Oh my! Who's excited for the final day of the league? Man! There's gonna be drama everywhere for sure. Hopefully United sneaks a draw away at Leicester and qualifies for the CL. I would love chelsea to lose and drop out of the top 4 altogether. Lampard is a overconfident POS. I really don't like that guy, he keeps talking rubbish when his team loses.

[Mentor]

It ended kind of weird, i did not expect Spurs to make it to Europe, i was thinking Leicester already did enough to get CL football and i was not expecting Arsenal to win the Cup. I am not really looking forward to the new season, i doubt Mourinho will get financial backing and with the current squad he will struggle to compete for a CL place. Money will be short for all teams this year, due to Covid and the much lower earnings.

[robin10]

Wow...Liverpool getting slapped up silly by fucking Aston Villa (7-2)...and man utd...o my,I'm sorry but these piece of shits gotta go!! These bunch of prats are destroying the legacy of this great club...I'm pretty sure ed Woodward will have a lot of visitors in his house VERY SOON! and they won't come over for a friendly chat...that's for sure.

 

[actionjackson]

It ended kind of weird, i did not expect Spurs to make it to Europe, i was thinking Leicester already did enough to get CL football and i was not expecting Arsenal to win the Cup. I am not really looking forward to the new season, i doubt Mourinho will get financial backing and with the current squad he will struggle to compete for a CL place. Money will be short for all teams this year, due to Covid and the much lower earnings.

 

Spurs looked pretty good against United even though they are a bit of a dumpster fire right now. If the defense holds up I see them have a nice year, top 4 and who knows seems wide open this year so could challenge for the title. Say what you what about Jose but he gets it done at least until he wears out his welcome.

[Mentor]

Yeah some weird results last weekend with Spurs 1-6 vs United and Villa 7-2 Liverpool. I think we (Spurs) did everything right in the window, if Bale can get fit and me 70% of what he used to be, he will be a strong addition and an emotional signing, he is on a loan anyway, so the risk was not that huge, i read that Real is paying most of his wages. Vinicius is our backup for Kane, he scored about 25 goals for Benfica and is also on a loan with a buy option, so also very little risk. Reguilon from real already seems like a steal, Doherty is a proven RB and Hojburg is an upgrade over Sissoko. This is almost a totally different team over what Mourinho inherited. We still need to see the results but i think Mourinho has setup a pretty good team and he did not spend 100m to get it all done.

 

I think Everton and Spurs had the best overall transfer window. Spurs got players in positions they needed for relatively little investment. Everton got some good talent and Rodriguez seems to have fit in well. Chelsea over spent, but those players should settle in eventually.

 

I think this year we will see more than the traditional top 6 compete for a CL spot. Leicester seem strong, Everton and Wolves were pretty good last year, they spent quite a bit this time round, even though they sold Chilwell and Doherty.

[robin10]

VERY-VERY Unpopular opinion...but this is my PL table at the end of the season.

 

1) Liverpool (by a mile)

2) Man City (chelsea will fight tooth and nail with them)

3) Chelsea (Fight for 2nd place will go to the wire)

4) Spurs (Class transfer window, and mourinho looks like he is back to being the mourinho we love)

5) Arsenal (Solid transfer window and i feel they will just pinch the 5th spot from Everton)

6) Everton (Absolutely stunning transfer window, filled up every position they needed to, and ancelotti is getting them to gel really well and really fast)

7) Leicester (I have a strong feeling that they will do well at the beginning and fade away slowly again!)

 

Man Utd (IN THE BIN)

[popart]

Been watching Chelsea a fair bit lately- anyone else think that their kit sponsor is atrocious?

[robin10]

Alongside that third kit.

[Mentor]

Spurs up 3-0 vs West ham in the first 15 minutes....................................................last 15 minutes we are still up by 3. The game ended 3-3. I have to say, i was no way expecting that to happen. I have not watched Spurs since the CL final and decided to watch some game to see what all the fuss was about after we scored 18 goals in the past 3 games. Well, i do have to say that the attack is looking good, but you are not winning shit with that type of defending.

[popart]

Since I transferred Colleges halfway across the country last year, Chelsea is the main team that seems to be on television so i've been watching quite a bit of them. Of the big PL signings this transfer window, I think Lukaku will turn out to be the best. Ronaldo's been great but I don't see him being enough to vault United above Chelsea/Man City/Liverpool this year. 

[Mentor]

Not too confident with Spurs this year, a top 6 will be considered a huge success i think. 

[popart]

On 10/13/2021 at 5:35 PM, Mentor said:

Not too confident with Spurs this year, a top 6 will be considered a huge success i think. 

Should have sold Kane when they had the chance imo. Levy seems to operate as though Spurs are a top 4 team, refusing to sell to other big clubs. That's simply not true at this point, and that cash would have been massively useful to bring in players to this aging, declining side. Kane isn't going to propel Spurs to a top 4 finish this year, but bringing in some youth might propel them there in a couple years.

[Mentor]

I also think they should of sold Kane, the biggest issue with that is the money (or the lack of it). But if City were willing to pay 100m for Grealish, i am sure they would of paid more for Kane. I heard we wanted 150m but were not accepting any player exchanges or any money spread over 2 or 3 years. Some of the players being offered were Stones, Jesus and Sterling (although Sterling was not interested). Either way, we should of at least considered money + players. Now Kane is off form and will be 29y next year. We wont be getting 150m next year for a 29y old, disgruntled player who just had a bad season. 

Anyway, we just sacked our coach and brought in Conte on 13m per year. He is arguably the best possible coach we could bring at this time, known to get fast results, but i doubt even he can turn the ship around with the current squad.

[robin10]

When a player doesn't want to play for your club anymore, then you gotta let him go, but obviously levy is as stubborn as it get's so he just blocked that move against Harry's wishes, and now look what has happened, Harry ain't even trying hard enough. 

As for city tho, i mean god knows why they bought grealish for a whopping 100 million, with Mahrez, sterling and ferran torres on the bench, but i guess the incredible amounts of oil money needed to flow out one way or another, but in all seriousness city need a number 9 in the january window or they ain't winning the PL or the CL. 

[popart]

8 hours ago, Mentor said:

I also think they should of sold Kane, the biggest issue with that is the money (or the lack of it). But if City were willing to pay 100m for Grealish, i am sure they would of paid more for Kane. I heard we wanted 150m but were not accepting any player exchanges or any money spread over 2 or 3 years. Some of the players being offered were Stones, Jesus and Sterling (although Sterling was not interested). Either way, we should of at least considered money + players. Now Kane is off form and will be 29y next year. We wont be getting 150m next year for a 29y old, disgruntled player who just had a bad season. 

Anyway, we just sacked our coach and brought in Conte on 13m per year. He is arguably the best possible coach we could bring at this time, known to get fast results, but i doubt even he can turn the ship around with the current squad.

I think Levy's demands were a bit unreasonable for Kane, being 28 and all. I do believe he should fetch more than 75m, but I don't believe a player of that age has ever gone for 100m. I would have been fine with a little under 100m. 

 

the two matches under Conte seem very promising. I understand they drew against Everton, but they actually looked like they had an attacking approach, something they desparately lacked under Nuno. Future looks bright imo. 

[Mentor]

Well, they were willing to pay 100m and we rejected that. Personally i do not think anyone should be going that amount of cash, but Kane is a 2 time MVP, 4 time Goal scoring champ and 1 time assist winner. He was also last years assist and goal scoring winner. Being English + competing in the same league, adds an extra premium. I also think Kane will probably be a top level striker for a good 3-4 years, somebody who you can rely on giving you 20+ goals and the reason i think that is because he does not rely on pace to do what he does. 

I think if Levy would accept 125m or 100m + a player like Stones or Jesus, it would seal the deal, but he did not accept that and Kane has sucked balls this year, so his value will be down next summer.  I think the long summer, due to the Euro's played a big role, missing training camp did not help either and the new coach was playing him way too deep, he was not getting in scoring positions, so maybe under Conte his form will be up.

[Mentor]

7 hours ago, robin10 said:

When a player doesn't want to play for your club anymore, then you gotta let him go, but obviously levy is as stubborn as it get's so he just blocked that move against Harry's wishes, and now look what has happened, Harry ain't even trying hard enough. 

As for city tho, i mean god knows why they bought grealish for a whopping 100 million, with Mahrez, sterling and ferran torres on the bench, but i guess the incredible amounts of oil money needed to flow out one way or another, but in all seriousness city need a number 9 in the january window or they ain't winning the PL or the CL. 

I think they had to get Grealish due to the restrictions in purchasing foreign players. All EU players are also foreign now, the players already in the league were given work permits, but new players will struggle under the new terms. They need to be proven foreign internationals for big countries and even then, you need to name a certain amount of English players in the 25 man squad. I think those new rules will be fully active in the near future, so some teams have started to stock up British talent. But yeah, 100m for Grealish is absurd. 

[popart]

From various reports, it seems that Conte's first target is Franck Kessie. IMO this would be a HUGE pick up, Would be a massive upgrade over both Skipp (obviously) and Hojbjerg. 

 

Spurs have also been linked with Jordan Pickford as a replacement for Hugo Lloris in the long term. I can't see this one going through, at least not in January. Lloris, while older, is the least of our problems.

 

I'd like to see Conte go for a dominant Centre Back, I personally think that outside Romero the back line is a bit weak for Conte Ball.

 

PS, can we go ahead and just change this to the Spurs thread? lmao

[Mentor]

Spurs lost to some Slovenian team called Mura which is a team formed in 2012. I have Never heard of them and I bet 99.9% of Spurs fans never heard of them 😀 But they just beat Spurs, a top 12-15 team in terms of budget (that is the only thing they are top anything in). 

Spurs went from CL finalists less than 2 years ago, to losing unknown teams in the European cup called the Conference League (3rd tier European cup), In fact, i did not know we were in a 3rd tier European cup until we lost (because i could not find us in the Euro league groups and thought, what the fuck is going on). 

So we lost to an unknown team in an unknown cup 😁
 

Let's see what Conte does in the winter transfer window, Levy is not known to spend during that break (he is not known to spend period, but the winter break he is even worse).

 

[popart]

On 11/30/2021 at 12:22 AM, Mentor said:

Spurs lost to some Slovenian team called Mura which is a team formed in 2012. I have Never heard of them and I bet 99.9% of Spurs fans never heard of them 😀 But they just beat Spurs, a top 12-15 team in terms of budget (that is the only thing they are top anything in). 

Spurs went from CL finalists less than 2 years ago, to losing unknown teams in the European cup called the Conference League (3rd tier European cup), In fact, i did not know we were in a 3rd tier European cup until we lost (because i could not find us in the Euro league groups and thought, what the fuck is going on). 

So we lost to an unknown team in an unknown cup 😁
 

Let's see what Conte does in the winter transfer window, Levy is not known to spend during that break (he is not known to spend period, but the winter break he is even worse).

 

Not-So-Fun Fact: Mura FC wasn't even founded the last time we won a trophy. 

 

However, despite Levy's cheap ways, I am very hopeful that they will be making some big moves this January. Given that Conte turned down the job this summer, I expect that him accepting it this time around was predicated off of Levy giving him ample spending power.

Simply put, the team is in need of a ton of work. Even a manager like Conte won't be able to right this ship without some financial backing. I hope Levy gives him that backing. 

[Mentor]

On 12/8/2021 at 4:58 PM, popart said:

Not-So-Fun Fact: Mura FC wasn't even founded the last time we won a trophy. 

 

However, despite Levy's cheap ways, I am very hopeful that they will be making some big moves this January. Given that Conte turned down the job this summer, I expect that him accepting it this time around was predicated off of Levy giving him ample spending power.

Simply put, the team is in need of a ton of work. Even a manager like Conte won't be able to right this ship without some financial backing. I hope Levy gives him that backing. 

Levy never really gives anyone financial backing and with the state of the club at the moment (financially that is), i think he will need to sell before he can spend. The thing is, Spurs does not have any real assets to sell, that can garner real cash. Kane is the only obvious one, but even he wont bring in big cash, due to the Covid situation. Most of the big clubs in Europe are cash strapped (Real/Barca/Inter/Juve), he wont sell to Arsenal or Chelsea and the one team that offered 100m (City), he rejected. His value will be down in the summer, due to his bad season so far and his age.

Who else can he sell? Son maybe? That will be a difficult one though, as he just signed a new deal and never showed interest in leaving, plus he will be 30 in the summer. Nbombele could be sold, but most likely on a loss (we bought him for 55m, 2 years ago). 

As far as i remember, Levy never spent big in the winter break, at most he buys rejects or players on expiring deals. The past 2 summers we did spend some cash, but all the purchases (besides Hojbjerg and Reguilon) have failed to keep a place in the first team. 

The only good thing we have going for us, is Conte. I think he is exactly the type of manager we need to turn the ship around. I doubt we could have anyone better, with this team at the moment than Conte.