I didn’t want to do it, but I am going to. Yep, I’m planting a flag on the whole Antonio Conte thing because I think it perfectly captures the difference between being strategic and reactionary when it comes to the beautiful game.
Daniel Levy has had an up and down career at Spurs. His peak was undoubtedly hiring Mauricio Pochettino. The guy had vision, he was charismatic, everyone loved him, and he delivered as much as one could without silverware.
That’s when things started going wrong. You can luck out in business, catch fire without really knowing why, and that seems to be what happened here. Just look at how many visionary business people that can never replicate their initial success. Steve Jobs did Apple, Pixar, and NeXT… Mark Zuckerburg made ranking babes a billion dollar venture and hasn’t had an innovation since.
Serial success comes from thinking strategically.
After making the Champions League final, Poch was very public about the dip that was coming, but Daniel Levy didn’t have the stomach to take the pain of the rebuilt. Ray Dalio, one of the greats of the hedge fund game, always says that people run from things that hurt in life which is why they fail to improve.
So where did Levy run? To the place of least pain, at least on paper. He looked at a Champions League finalist squad and instead of understanding why it made it that far, he assumed… incorrectly. His assumption was that Spursy in elite football was a thing and there was only one man that could fix it: Jose Mourinho. Why? Because he’s a ‘winner.’
That move made sense to the countless people that talk about ‘elite’ online without knowing what it means. It was clear that the squad he inherited was not going to react well to an old school dictator telling them they were soft boys. Poch was a modern leader, empathetic, understanding, and mentor like. Jose came in, did his usual wrecking ball job, and left a mess. The mess was so extreme, no manager in Europe wanted to touch it. One would assume that the money wasn’t there for the rebuild, Daniel Levy wanted to control things, and their new tech director isn’t that impressive.
They landed on Nuno. A second Mendes shill. What was the thinking there? Is he a master of coaching? No. Is he a visionary? No. Does he play the sort of football Spurs fans demand? No. He’s a coach that shills for super agents. That’s why the Valencia fans heckled him out despite him making top 4 for them. That mistake, which we all saw coming, cost them £10m.
So now they’re at attempt number 3 post-reboot and Daniel Levy has made the most unimaginative hire possible. He’s gone all-in on a ‘winner’ again. Can I knock the talent of Antonio Conte? Absolutely not. He’s a winner. He improves all types of players. He will 100% get an uptick in results because he’s ruthlessly organised.
But what is underpinning this decision?
What is the strategy? Because ‘winning’ isn’t a strategy I’m afraid.
Conte is a short term fix, but for me, he’s a very rich fix for a very different type of problem.
What are the ingredients for 2021 Antonio Conte to work.
He needs to work with good players.
When he rolled into Chelsea, the job he did wasn’t a miracle. He took over a squad that had won a title in 2015 and he made them purr that season. He did a fabulous job, but let’s be clear, Jose Mourinho did the hard work on that squad. They were winners. It was a more elite version of what Emery did for Arsenal over the first 21 games.
He moved to Inter Milan under the guidance of Beppe Morotta, arguably the best technical director on the planet. He was given money to spend, but he was controlled. He beat out a Juventus in decline after they moved on Allegri. A terrific job, but he had loads of resource and elite people surrounding him.
Modern Conte needs money. He needs good players. He needs to make an impact fast.
I’m not sure he has that at Spurs.
There’s a tremendous leadership job to be done as well.
Harry Kane doesn’t want to be there. I have extreme doubts Conte changes the equation for him because being an elite manager in the Premier League at the moment, in all reality, is hardly a game-changer. Being a ‘winner’ doesn’t mean anything in a league with Tuchel, Klopp, and Pep Guardiola. Spurs is a rebuild, Kane is 28 years old, he doesn’t want to be the old man crowning a 3 year journey with an FA Cup win.
Antonio Conte is on record saying that he’d rather kill a player than let him upset the camp. That’s his style. It’s brute force dictatorship. The Italian might have a different approach to Mourinho, but it lives in the same world. Do we think that sort of approach is going to map to the profile of the players? It didn’t under Jose or Nuno.
He also needs money and he will bang the door for it. When he was let loose at Chelsea, he made some pretty dire signings, then proceeded to crash the team the next season… throwing the players under the bus when he did it.
Then you wade into some of the murky details. Conte already said no in the summer. We know he’s on record saying Spurs is second rate. What changed?
Football knows Conte. His team were fast out the traps for the United role because that is the job for him. He’s built for that sort of expensive mess. In my view, if he’s taking Spurs it’s because United told him there wasn’t going to be a job for him, and more broadly, there wasn’t a better offer in Europe. No Barca, No Madrid, No Paris… so Spurs became the only option on the table.
I don’t know how many times I need to say this: There is nothing elite about being difficult to work with in 2021. You can’t be ‘too much of a winner’ and use that to write off bad behaviour. Someone was talking to me on Twitter yesterday, explaining Conte’s eliteness, and in the same breath admitting he crashed his second season at Chelsea because ‘he didn’t get the players he wanted.’ Can you imagine doing that in any other business? No. Because it’s embarrassing. Sulking because you want things your way is what children do.
But… he does win things.
He won the Premier League with record points.
He broke the Juventus stranglehold on Serie A.
He has an aura that follows him from club to club.
It’s a big signing for Spurs and it will feel very good for them right now.
I’m just not sure he’s the fit for where they need to go.
This is a desperate hire. £15m a year for a brand name that will bring a 20 person coaching staff is not how football works in 2021. I am going to be honest here, I’d have been more worried if they’d given Graham Potter or Ten Haag the keys to the castle for the next 5 years. They didn’t, you know why? Because it’s painful.
Arsenal went down a crappier version of this path with Unai Emery. We invested in ‘nearly’ players that looked good on paper but couldn’t deliver. Last summer, we did the same, it didn’t work.
So what are we doing this season? We’re taking the pain. We’ve alligned on a strategy that meets where we are as a club. We’re going to build back based on a Project Premium Youth model. It will be tough because getting back to the top is tough. But you know what? It’s sustainable. You know what is elite? Sustainable models in football.
RB Leipzig is a sustainable model of football. They grow coaches and players and have a standardised way of playing across 4 countries. They can still compete even when they lose Nagelsmann or Marco Rose. Why? Because the strategy is clear and it is ruthlessly adhered to.
Liverpool are peak sustainable. They have a clear approach to how they operate. They have a very specific style of football. They win trophies and maintain an incredible level of football. There’s no drama up there.
Manchester City is another side that does that same. They have a style that has been implemented up and down the club. They don’t fire their manager all the time. They are now developing elite young talent and compliment the side with big signings every year.
Teams that aren’t sustainable?
Manchester United. There’s a vision, but it’s not very good. They buy stars that don’t fit to any particular model. They chop and change their managers. They don’t really progress. It’s a mess because they live in a world of star fuckery. Jadon doesn’t get games, despite costing £70m. Ronaldo gets all the games, despite being 36. It’s about share price over there and selling shirts. They’d be more dangerous with an actual vision that was sustainable.
Spurs might make top 4 this season, but they are not working with a vision of 5 years in mind, because if they were, the chances are, they’d not have hired Conte.
So in short, there’s a lot of glitz, there’s a lot of ‘THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT’ from people that don’t know, and I suspect that all that glitters is not gold might be a truism here.
Well, I hope so. Let’s see what they have. Top 4 just got spicier.
Everton have literally spent 100s of millions on players and can still barely crack the top 10.
Back in the mid 2000s you had Bolton, Blackburn and Everton all finishing top 6/even 4th (2005, Everton) spending peanuts.
WE, when I ran the numbers from the Transfermarkt there were Charlton and Bolton sitting in 7th and 8th in the 2003-04 PL table.
Now both clubs combined value at $20m.
Crazy.
Weagle
“Lower PL sides have better players now and there are much more strong teams that can beat the best sides on their day.”
If so, what you are implying is that the city, chelsea and liverpool are in fact better and stronger sides than the invincibles as the average points for the last 5 title winners is 95 , whereas the invincibles only managed 90 points against apparently inferior opposition.
In the 2003-04 season there were actually three clubs in the top ten that didn’t spend a penny on transfers that season.
A different era.
BREAKING NEWS: Mourinho talked Conte into taking the Spuds job. The conversation went like this:- Conte: Daniel Levis of Tottingham called me, He begged me to be their Manager but I turned them down again. Maureen: You are crazy. Take it, it’s an easy job: Conte: Easy? But they are shit. Maureen: I know but you have to take the job. Conte: But I’m waiting for a big club. Maureen: Look they will pay you to come, pay you to leave and there is zero pressure because you don’t have to win anything..! Conte: Sounds too good to be true.… Read more »
Pierre
In a vacuum maybe but it’s a game of eras and considering we were buying players for £5m and £10m a piece compared to £30-50m a piece like City and Liverpool, I don’t see an unbeaten season today as being any more valuable.
Just harder as the lower teams now have better players and there are more good teams.
We had no right building such an amazing team in the Invincibles era with such a low spend compared to United.
Would like Utd to draw with city
Mathematically it’s good for us meanwhile it keeps Ole in the job without actually bagging him 3 points
It’s the best arrangement for us
Also if we win we’re only a point behind city!
We also coasted a bit in the Invincibles season and our squad was nothing like these modern super squads with x2 top class players for each position virtually.
Always irked me a bit that we drew 12 games, some of them were down the stretch though like to Portsmouth, Fulham and the Spuds and our squad ran out of steam a bit.
An Invincbles XI vs City/Liverpool in a one off match, I would back us.
Weagle
“We had no right building such an amazing team in the Invincibles era with such a low spend compared to United.”
The work of a genius , without a doubt.
x2, can’t omit David Dein’s influence along with Arsene.
Ultimate PL team
————Schmeichal
-Adams-Terry-Carvalho
———Vieira——Yaya
Ronaldo-Bergkamp—Salah
————Henry-Drogba
Fuck having fullbacks and yeah Bergkamp is deeper than normal but fuck it he can be free and do whatever he wants
China , are you suggesting keeping pace with City is a priority?
With Conte off the table who would United replace the Norwegian genius with anyways?
Iirc we drew loads of the final games in 04 when the season was already virtually wrapped up
At the time I found it frustrating. How cute to be annoyed about that in hindsight
In a hypothetical world Wenger wins the CL in 2006 and the league titles in 2008 and 2015 and goes down as the greatest PL manager ever ahead of Fergie.
I mean £6m bought you prime 26 year old Tomas Rosicky in 2006, established international star and Bundesliga champion.
How much does a player like that go for in 2021, £50m+? At least. With nothing a secret anymore as every league is extensively covered and televised from England to Timbuktu and all of the stats/data recorded.
No secret talents anymore unless you are really looking in obscure places.
Tom look we don’t expect to finish above city but we’re right behind them. 1) they might not have a great season. If for any reason they don’t we shouldn’t be saying we have to finish behind them just because we expect to. We should take advantage if they don’t hold their expected level. 2) until it’s mathematically or realistically impossible you should always aim as high as possible. Leicester won the league at 5000-1 odds. If they’d said they aren’t interested in keeping up with city that mindset would’ve seen them land mid table or worse. Go into every… Read more »
Drogba the ultimate Finals man and Arsenal-killer but he doesn’t deserve to get into a PL all-time XI.
Aguero, Shearer and even Kane all have much more legit shouts if it is a x2 ST formation.
Salah is a pretty fair shout at this stage though.
Rich
Smith Rowe 6 ft ?
Come off it. 10 at the very least
Suarez >>> Drogba
We should have won the title in 2003, better team than United and we had a clear lead on them which we blew.
Would have meant we defended a title/ even likely 3-peated and Fergie vs Wenger would have been 4-4 in PL titles by 2004.
Bold statement there TR7. Even 2008/15 wouldn’t have been enough to put AW over Fergie.
Wenger Eagle “We had no right building such an amazing team in the Invincibles era with such a low spend compared to United.” This. It is a point often missed. It is impossible to compare football now to 20, 30, 40 years ago. Sol Campbell said.”Would our team be the best today? Oh yeah, You look back at the team we had and you think it would cost more than £1b to buy those players now. Easy, £1bn” This wasn’t anything like we have today where doped clubs can buy the best players. This was a team that didn’t even… Read more »
1 CL title, 5 league titles, 1 invincibles, 20 plus straight top 4 finish, 6 FA Cup titles with limited finances, a stadium move, constantly losing your best players, bias from officials and perhaps the lowest net spend among top teams – no contest as far as I am concerned but sadly it wasn’t to be.
Forgot to add orgasmic football too
AFC
He also had the French market sussed out long before anyone over here caught up hence getting in Petit, Henry, Vieira, Pires, Wiltord, Flamini, Diaby, Clichy, list goes on.
Even in the more modern (ish) era getting Sagna, Nasri, Koscielny and Giroud on the cheap.
Wenger absolutely was a great manager and a visonary back in his earlier Arsenal days.
Pedro, Spurs are a wheat field of dicks and Antonio Conte is a combine harvester armed with Hattori Hanzo blades. The eventual ego showdown between Levy and Conte will leave nothing but a charred husk. Meanwhile, across north London there is relative calm. A rookie manager is to be given more time to get things right than any other in the top flight since Alex Ferguson. The scouting department has been cleared out and reset. The playing squad has been cleared out and reset. The executive leadership has been cleared out and reset. The club is now on a path… Read more »
I still hate United more than any other club, including the Spuds Even though I respected him greatly could never stand Fergie and United. Still pains me seeing their band of Utd mafia dominating the football punditry world but at least they are all keeping the party going and Ole at the wheel. Hate Neville, Ferdinand and Scholes. Former is a decent pundit but he is a weasel and was a nasty and dirty little thug of a player. Him and his dopey brother used to hack the shit out of poor Reyes and probably helped send him back to… Read more »
Fergie managed the richest and biggest club in the World. As such, there was nowhere for his players to leave for to better themselves. This was a huge advantage. They could also buy anyone they wanted and pay whatever they needed to pay. It was like Maureen at Chelsea. The difference was, Manchester United’s financial dominance was organic. Not artificial like Chelseas’s. Fergie’s team had a monopoly on the league. In his book, former referee Graham Poll wrote about how importance Old Trafford was and the influence Fergie had on match officials. According to poll, referees knew that having a… Read more »
Tim Akinola in the under 23, can apparently run at 10.4 metres a second
The athletic profile of some of these lads is insane, they’re not human beings, they’re cheetahs
Remember Bellerin’s interception + assist for Ozil against Bayern, I’d never seen pace like it
Apparently Tierney is currently the quickest in our first team
It was organic to a point but they caught lightning in a bottle happening to have all the right pieces fall into play and a great team assemble just as the Sky takeover money exploded and was being pumped into the league.
If the class of 93′ was the class of 2003′ and our Invincibles side happened in the mid 90s, it may well have been us to dominate the PL era.
Wenger Eagle “Hate Neville, Ferdinand and Scholes. Former is a decent pundit but he is a weasel and was a nasty and dirty little thug of a player. Him and his dopey brother used to hack the shit out of poor Reyes.” That 50th game proved everything. By the way I watched Gary Neville on his Soccerbox programme with Rooney. In one game they were reviewing, the Man Utd team were spitting bile at a referee as they surrounded him. Neville said something along the lines that they were a horrid team to referee and how he looks back now… Read more »
Drogba wasn’t the best goal scorer but him and Henry is scarier than him and Aguero for me. He had that nasty cunt presence and bullied defenders in a way I don’t think Aguero could despite being a better goalscorer
Alphonso Davies is the current fastest player in Europe apparently by the metrics.
Find it hard to believe that anyone is faster than Mbappe, I haven’t been mesmerized by pace like that since young Walcott.
Man U were the ‘biggest and richest club’ when Fergie took over in 1986, that’s why it was so easy for him to win.
In fact, they were so dominant their last First Division title came just 21 short years before they appointed Fergie.
Elite hot take.
Wenger eagle “If the class of 93′ was the class of 2003′ and our Invincibles side happened in the mid 90s, it may well have been us to dominate the PL era.” Impossible to disagree. When the Invincible team broke up and we went through a period of selling players to generate cash for the stadium project, the oil money had arrived. Couldn’t have been worse timing. That and the fact there was no clear strategy in place in future years is why we are where we are now. I’m lucky enough to have watched football throughout the 70’s, 80’s,… Read more »
“Pedro, Spurs are a wheat field of dicks and Antonio Conte is a combine harvester armed with Hattori Hanzo blades. The eventual ego showdown between Levy and Conte will leave nothing but a charred husk…”
Take a bow… genuinely laughed out loud.😂😂😂
Yeah 17 year old Theo was Olympic sprinter fast it was almost comical
Jamie
No doubt Fergie the GOAT PL manager for me and what he did there was amazing.
Things did fall nicely for him with the class of 93 and being the top team when Sky were pumping unprecedented levels of money into the league though.
There’s talk that Spurs ared set to sign Franck Kessié on a low fee in January because he won’t extend his contract at Milan.
Pedro
Good assessment of the Conte appointment.
I agree, I’m not sure it will work long term but in the short term there will be a bounce at spurs.
That makes things tougher for arsenal.
The club is playing a long game but I’m not convinced that it will work- is there room for long term squad builds in the PL anymore?
And, let’s be honest, we’ve been here before.
The team has been impressive lately and so far the kids have done extremely well but heading into the brutal end of year schedule, they may struggle – understandably.
Up until he fucked his knee up in the 2-0 Cup win vs the Spuds in 2014, Theo was as quick a player as I have seen over short and longer distances.
He used to be such a valuable weapon against sides that gave you space to run into, it’s why he would do well against Pep’s Barcelona even.
Against sides that sat deep though he was as basic a footballer as you would find starting for a top club.
Fergue benefited from money, the class of 93 and all that stuff but he also managed to win the league usually with a fair share of average players in his teams
Darren fletcher, Phil Neville, Wes Brown, Silvestre, Anderson, Nani, the da Silva brothers, the list is LONG. He managed to always do enough so that even some of their pretty drossy players were somehow able to do enough
“Find it hard to believe that anyone is faster than Mbappe, I haven’t been mesmerized by pace like that since young Walcott.”
Will be interesting to see how fast Tavares is,..
Jamie Man Utd had always been a big club. The Busby Babes cemented them as the Nations favourite. The air-crash that resulted in the sad death of many of their players further attracted global sympathy and with it support. When Fergie first joined Man Utd, it is true the club weren’t the financial powerhouse they became later. Michael Knighton had promised to inject cash into the club towards the end of the 1980’s but when that deal fell through Martin Edwards decided on another path. In 1990 or 91 they were floated on the stock exchange generating a lot of… Read more »
Yeah look Fergie’s 2013 title win (at a canter) over that stacked City side along is an elite managerial feat.
With the likes of Rafael, Cleverley/Fletcher, Young, etc as starters.
The best part of Fergie is the manner he reinvented himself over decades.
He embraced change a lot more than Wenger, even though our Wenger was always lauded for innovation.
Fergie constantly changed his backroom to tap from his assistant managers, Wenger just stayed the same and eventually became a salt statue. I
Like let’s be real, Darren fletcher was a mid table level player at best. His entire skill set was to commit fouls.
He was a central player in a CL winning and multiple title winning teams.
Somehow.
Pierre
Apparently over 30 metres, Tavares is second just behind Tierney
Tavares apparently has the best stamina at the club though, he looks like some athlete, there was a picture of him on the club website competing for a header a while back, and the leap on him was phenomenal
Fergie was able to buy the best players when he needed them. Sure he was a great manager, he had already proved that at Aberdeen, but he had the same clout the doped clubs have today. If he needed a striker he could buy and attract the very best.
Andy Cole
Ruud Van Horsey Rooy
Waynetta Rooney
Robin Van Persie
You still have to manage well but this was a big advantage he had.
Alex, the long play is next season top 4, the season after titles.
Dissenter
Remember Fergie saying something like:
“If you don’t change your team every 5 years, then they’ll change you”
I accept the points Pedro is making in this post, but let’s be honest, results are the be all and end all. If Conte can deliver top 4 for Spurs and we finish outside it, he’s done better. His team might not be sustainable, but Wenger did the whole sustainable thing without winning or seriously challenging for years and it wasn’t enough for us as fans.
If results were the be all and end all then managers would not get booed after a win.
But we all know this happens
We could finish 3rd with another strong transfer window. No prob saying that here, esp if man city dont sign a striker in jan, but even if they do we cN challenge them.
No europe is turning out just like it should, extra rest less
Injuries and better league results
The year that RvP won Fergie his last title I’d argue that they had a weaker side than we did. Look at the lists. Latter day Wenger handicapped himself by ignoring obvious deficiencies in the name of his ill guided principles.
Taking my son (age 7) to his first Arsenal game on Sunday so hoping for great game & gunners victory!!
We’ve suffered in recent years but things are looking positive & it’s fun to follow ‘the Arsenal’ right now.
COYG
The discussions were top notch today.
Anyway, I think we definitely should go for a CM in January. We need one because Xhaka is poor normally and he would be returning from injury. Elneny and Partey are going to AFCON. So Lokonga and AMN plus Xhaka isn’t enough to hold it down. I would go for a left sided attacker too if there is an opportunity. We need to loan out the likes of Balogun though. Same for Martinelli if he isn’t going to play. He needs a series of games.
Paolo, have a great time, your boy is going to have a fun day out!
Paolo
Hope you have a great time mate, your son will be buzzing. Get there nice and early, so you can take some photo’s outside of your Junior Gunner around the ground, the Canons and statues – then blow your cash in one of the shops….!!! COYG
Jamie O’Hara is such a melt. He was behaving like the deluded Spuds we’ve been accustomed to, similar to some people on here to be fair. He was goading us Arsenal fans, hailing Conte as the second coming. As if Spurs fans could come twice.
Thank you Pedro & AFC Forever Yep we getting 9am train from Brighton so going to make a proper Gooner day of it!! We get off at Finsbury Park so we’ll go for a pint (or two) in Auld Triangle, get a burger, show him Highbury & let him enjoy the Armoury before the game. Also taking my daughter (age 10) who’s been twice before but this time feels so much more exciting. My son Ted is so excited we drive past the Amex all the time & he asks if the Emirates is as big! I say its twice… Read more »
Dang,
Anyone have a good stream for the games today?
Ajax looking sexy as fuck.
Some interesting results… Ajax balling out literally in the CL.. Ball breaking goal. anyhow.
PSG still look fragile as hell. And good ol” Lexi Sanchez scored today. Forgot he was still playing.
Middy
Safe to say Tadic was fully committed on that one, jeeeesus.
Sal-
Yep.. He may never have any more children….. but a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.
Liverpool are so strong this year
Milan Porto and athletico in their CL group. 4 games 12 points…
‘Alex, the long play is next season top 4, the season after titles.’
This your thinking, Pedro?
So what’s your target for us this season?
6th?
Emery surprised me not taking the Magpies job. Apparently, didn’t like the KPI of getting the sack if Newcastle went down. Not being privy to the details other than it was in the press I’ll assume the caveats were not to Emery’s liking. Shame because it would have made another derby game: the manager’s derby, Arteta v Emery. Arteta dodged bullets because he has no idea how to beat Emery. Those who wanted Eddie Howe here will get to see what he can do with the type of TW kitty the Saudis are offering. Bournemouth he was restricted heavily financially.… Read more »
Predicted Premier League table via (Sporting Index)
Man City points – 84
Chelsea points – 83
Liverpool points – 82
Man Utd points – 69
Arsenal points – 62
West Ham points – 60
Tottenham points – 58
If we can get 5th via a supercomputer then 4th is attainable with Ole at Manure.
‘A cheaper striking alternative for the Gunners comes in the form of Genk’s Paul Onuachu.’
Anyone know much about this 42 year old?
62 points would be very poor with this squad. 70 is the barometer for acceptable this season and anything higher will be good
Not aiming for top 4 this season would be very silly
There are only three teams in the league who we are very unlikely to finish above.
United are very inconsistent and have a poor manager. Spurs have a worse squad than us. We have no excuse for finishing behind teams like west ham. Leicester are no better than us, I prefer our squad.
Not seriously aiming for 4th this year when it is quite possibly attainable would be very lightweight from the club.
If Utd blow up and end up getting 75+ points and are above us come the end, fine. But I don’t currently think they will. They look more likely to get 65-70 than they do 75-80. We should be realistically about 70. So if utd get sub 70 and still finish above us it’s an L for arsenal
If they get 75 and finish a few points above us, fine by me
If we win this Sunday there is every chance we’re already above Utd. What gives anyone any certainty they should finish above us this season?
They have a more talented squad but a talented squad does not equal a good team and their poor manager is confounding this point. Their entire game plan is just hope one of their ballers can bail them out. We’ve already seen that is not reliable at this level of the PL right now so unless something changes, they are not going to have a great season
China Not aiming for top 4 is stupid. You have to do your job and see where you are at the end of the season. We have no Europe either. Which means as the season progresses, our players will be fresher and fitter. We can also keep playing a consistent line up with out having to worry about a big game in mid week. Meanwhile, United will have Champions league or Europa league to worry about. Westham and Leicester definitely have Europa league to worry about, and Tottenham have the Conference league. So there are a lot of things that… Read more »
We get off at Finsbury Park so we’ll go for a pint (or two) in Auld Triangle Paolo Have a great day with the nippers mate – might be a good idea to put a lemonade top in their pints unless they’re already hardened boozers! That pub is the one formerly known as the Plimsoll right? I gather it’s being changed back to its old name. Give them the full unabridged history mate. Tell them about the statues and show them the art deco exteriors at our proper home. You might bore them enough so they fall asleep on the… Read more »
The strikers that I have my eye on are Isak and Vlahovic. I like Osimhen too but there is no way we are getting him from Napoli because they are impossible to negotiate with. Adeyemi from Salsburg has impressed me in the Champions league because of his overall ability. Lille’s Johnathan David is also a good shout. Other than that there aren’t a lot of strikers that excite me.
Anyone know much about this 42 year old Hiya Tony, A spring chicken compared to us grizzled old bastards! I gather he does this neat trick where he deflects his shots off his zimmer frame with unerring accuracy and has a stannah lift installed to rise like a (tin of) salmon at the back post. Can’t believe another fucking international ceasefire is imminent. So dull. Like watching a breaking bad boxed set and someone slips in an episode of the fucking Vicar of Dibley into the dvd. Cardiff last night. 220 mile round trip to watch them lose 0-1 to… Read more »
Within a very very short period the impact of the International break and of course the additional demands put on the PL and EL clubs to qualify for the knock out stages of their respective competitions will be a thing of the past.Ok around the corner we have the likelihood that clubs will be losing players to that African Tournament. All obvious I know but to this point in time the lack of European football has benefited matters at Arsenal . Of course they the likes of Man Utd still have to go full pelt over the next two CL… Read more »
China1
Mate, look I know there’s little of interest today, but re-stating the obvious makes the day even more tedious – and we get more than enough of that already from Tony
Terraloon
Worry mot! With Partey gone, we’ll have Xhaka back.
‘not’ not ‘mot’
How the hell can Spurs afford Conte? They’ve already borrowed heavily to build an empty stadium. They have little in the way of winners prizes for decades.This changing managers and regimes with regularity must be putting them at big financial risk.
Moray
The mystery that keeps on mystifying. Wiat for the next episode.
Moray, I had that same thought. Can’t afford to do it, can’t afford not to do it!
If this doesn’t work out for them, which of course we hope it doesn’t, I think ENIC will have to try and sell up but it won’t be an attractive option compared to many other clubs – massive debt on top of what ENIC will want.
The only thing to say really about Spurs hiring Conte is we will see just how good Conte is because managing Chelsea and Inter is a whole different kettle of fish to managing Spurs. Conte may get that initial new manager bounce might do but if he actually succeeded with Spurs then that is on a different plain than doing well with Inter in Italy and Chelsea in England. And success now for Conte at Spurs will most likely have to be redefined. Top four for Spurs is success. Conte will most likely have to forget about being a title… Read more »
Moray
They’re desperate mate. I suspect they’re gambling on Kane money, so if he doesn’t find his form, they won’t be getting £120m for him.
Bon N16
Yes, agree mate.
Not Bon obviously!! Sorry Bob!
Lots of worry on hear about Conte , lets see what the opinion is on the top five club mangers in the world currently .I think three of them already have the top 3 spots in the prem rapped up
Shaun
Conte chat is just more of the same. We had the same when Maureen joined them. It’s hard to remember a time when their fans weren’t running off at the mouth. It’s in their DNA, that’s what Levy meant. They are programmed from birth to ignore history and carry on the deluded bragging. Child abuse and something needs to be done about it before more kids are damaged.
Kris don’t compare Juventus with Spurs. Or even Inter for that matter in Italy. That’s silly. Spurs last won a league title back in the early 1960s. What this Conte appointment has done really is just to emphasise the huge chasm there is at present between challenging for the title itself or winning it or getting into the top four in the EPL. The fourth place in EPL is up for grabs. Can Conte get 4th place in the EPL in his first season or following seasons? Possible. Can Conte win a league title with Spurs? Never. There is a… Read more »
Kris
“can he win at least the mickey mouse cup with serial losers such as spurs?”
Why would anyone be concerned with that?
Everyone knows that the true mark of a good manager is to cut it week in week out in the EPL.
That’s why Poch got respect in some quarters. He got Spurs for a few seasons into top four or if not that challenging for top four. Don’t underestimate what that signifies or means at a club like Spurs.
Two strikers we are heavily linked with, Luka Jovic, 23, out of favour at Real Madrid, plays a game very similar to Lacazette, apparently we’re looking at a loan to buy. Hardly got a sniff at Real Madrid but was electrifying at Eintracht Frankfurt which earned him a move to Real Madrid – fits our present OR Andrea Belotti, 27, possibly available on a cut price fee (available on a free this coming summer) because their present club Torino is desperate to sell him to a club outside Serie A… and not lose him to Inter Milan, Juventus or AC… Read more »
I dont think we have to worry too much about Conte and the Spuds. He was a panic hire to cover Levy’s arse in the face of fan unrest. Spurs don’t have the money to buy the players Conte will want. He will undoubtedly make the team better but it will end in tears sooner rather than later as he makes demands that Levy cannot/ will not meet. Levy is no match for Conte. He took on Abramovitch and won.
*fits our present transfer model in terms of age
lol Belotti.
He’s a donkey.
And Juve will not be moving heaven and earth to obtain him.
He is at a cut down price now because it’s become apparent after he was being highly rated several years ago that he isn’t the mustard that some thought he was previously.
Juve might actually go in for Belotti actually because they love their free transfers but he will be signed as a squad player like a cover player rather than a star player for them.
For Arsenal? Keep away from him.
Arsenal should be talking to Ten Haag right now hes an amazing coach. He is tailormade for this type of project. Josh should be reaching out to his people right now. Ten haag would walk the league in 2 seasons time. Hes that good with young players. We could sell 70% of the team and still thrash the 80% of epl teams with a young & cheaply assembled squad. Arteta should consider a lower/smaller club to build his career
Jovic is more interesting but there would be concerns that he was a one hit wonder in that one season in the Bundesliga a few seasons ago.
And we know that filling your boots in the Bundesliga doesn’t many times translate into killing it in other leagues especially when that entailed just one season in Germany.