leffe186

I’d want to see it on a football pitch, but first reaction is I really like it. Does seem like a Marmite one.

Chatting to a guy this morning who said the minimum amount of money they will make would cover about 15 years of wages . Immediately making their own league a farce. Would be the equivalent of giving Man U £2.5 Billion (US version).

There’s a couple of different questions here. I’ve seen him play games where you could argue a case for £80M and there’s something really impressive about him as a person too, but it’s like the price of anything. The seller has to want to sell and if they don’t you have to pay more to prise what you want away from them. So do we want to sell? “Levy and most Spurs fans would drive him up here themselves for a lot less than that”. . No. General feeling is that in a train wreck of a season and a squad in transition he’s probably the best player. He was certainly the best in the first half of the year, then both Maddison and Bergvall (and for a short while Spence) have taken centre stage. (By the final, of course, the three attacking CMs were injured). You don’t offer to drive your best player away unless somebody’s backing up several Brink’s-Mat trucks. He’s contracted until 2028. The one variable that’s a concern is the injury. It’s severe, he’s going to be out for months, and maybe he won’t be quite the same player. The flip side of that is that I hope he’s now got a coach who’s technically savvy but also is less likely to inflict as much physical stress on the players, both in games and in training. Yet the injury makes any transfer much less likely - unless we think he’s actually broken. In which case, yeah, maybe we do drive him up there for 55M. How much would you take for Callum Wilson?

Well, quite.

I think the real answer is always far more prosaic and logical than the gossip/hype. They probably did what almost every club does - did some research, came up with a shortlist, sounded out the people on the shortlist, made a decision and started proper negotiations. It does seem very likely to me that the decision to try to hire Frank was made a long time ago. They didn’t want to sack Ange while there was still a chance of a trophy - and the players still broadly backed him. When we won the Cup they had to wait just enough time to let the euphoria die down but not too much time so Frank would come in too late. Maybe we did want Iraola? No idea. All I know is that (a) Frank makes sense as an appointment (at this stage) and (b) people in general wildly underestimate the percentage of social and legacy media coverage of football that is just utterly made-up bollocks.

There has been some pretty solid discussion about the key reason Qatar haven’t bought us yet being Levy wanting to stay on and run the place.

Suppose it depends on if you think we’re a cartel club: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-14788893/Spurs-pluck-defeat-jaws-victory-sacking-Ange-Postecoglou-writes-OLIVER-HOLT-joy-magic-night-Bilbao-lost.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ito=1490&ns_campaign=1490 https://m.allfootballapp.com/amp/news/EPL/OLIVER-HOLT Nuno-Espirto-Santos-Tottenham-are-now-a-team-of-forgotten-men/2699905 Maybe he’s just a cunt

Just my little joke.

Erm.

One of those times you have to make a decision and the overall sum of the reaction will be the same either way. 1. Loads of vocal opposition from some of your fanbase 2. Loads of support from some of your fanbase. 3. Trolls in the media have angles to attack you from. 4. Opposing fans who (rightly) are supposed to take the piss have angles to attack you from Nobody with a brain or good faith should be shocked. Angry or disappointed, sure, but shocked would mean you were…stupid or in bad faith. People who want to lump on (the Telegraph article for one) were always going to find a way to do so. It was a massive, critical and difficult decision that was time-dependent for a ton of reasons and I think on balance they may just about have done it right. We’ll see. What you want to do is look at a forum of opposing fans that is generally intelligent and honest and see what they say: “Ange effectively highlighted his limitations” ”It wasn’t just last season’s form either” ”Hope[sic] they would give him another crack Ten Hag style. They might hire someone competent.” ”Shame, clearly the right decision for Spurs” Again, nobody worth listening to is actually shocked. Equally though, nobody worth listening to should pretend there weren’t reasons to keep him. We’ve just won a bloody trophy for the first time in ages. There was real togetherness and joy between team and fans - and club and manager - just look at the parade scenes. The players as a whole seem to love him. You’re risking losing all of that good will and cohesion. We were and are still a squad in transition. Maybe the injuries weren’t to a great extent his fault. Maybe Ryan Mason was holding us back. Maybe that ability to adapt tactics was a sign of things to come. Maybe maybe maybe. To your specifics, again, anyone pretending trophies don’t matter is gaslighting you. One still of that parade should be enough to silence them (just like one still of a Presidential inauguration ceremony). People pretending that 22 losses - that an awful lot of people paid an awful lot of money to watch - don’t matter is also gaslighting you, or themselves. I’ll add my feelings. I’m ecstatic we won a trophy. i feel like we might be less unwatchable going forward. I feel like Frank might be the best appointment for now. I’m nervous for a ton of reasons of course, but that’s the nature of change and big decisions.

I feel like there’s a huge amount riding on the fixture lists this year. It’s clear that a favourable start makes a solid difference to your season, but with two big names possibly in ejector seats this season (Ange and Amorim at least) it could mean the difference between staying and sacking over the first couple of months.

Feel like I’ve wanted us to buy him for ever.

It’s the same at most clubs - their fans keep a very close eye on all news as well as having personal contacts. If you do it long enough you get a feel for what’s most likely true, what’s most likely bullshit and what’s most likely a party line being fed to somebody. I don’t generally have the foggiest idea what’s going on at any club bar Spurs, but I’d back myself to make a fair call on the likely truthiness of most “news” about us.

I’m trying to embark on my *checks notes* third and last career, teaching Maths. I know I’ll be teaching exchange rates for bottle caps before I’m done.

It’s everything Mike. There‘s no escape

No, that English teams were collectively banned for years back in the 80s, yet PSG’s consistently horrible fanbase doesn’t seem to attract much official sanction at all. Edit: and to be clear, that’s a little bit frustrating

fucking hell.

From your lips to God’s ears.

It’s really hard to have been an English fan throughout the 80s and not get exasperated about this. Every country and every team has its cunts following them, but the double standards are infuriating sometimes. Not least when you see the appalling way English fans (and others) are treated by the authorities on a regular basis including…the CL final Paris in 2022.

They’d be fine. The problems wouldn’t be to do with “the frozen north” or Championship teams - much of their domestic opposition right now is basically Championship teams and you have to go a long way down in the English League before you hit anything clarty. Their wage bill is higher than anyone else for starters, somehow even Man City. The only question is over how they’d fare against serious competition week in and week out. They won the league by 19 points of course, but they only lost two games all season and those came in the last four games when the league was long won and they were presumably resting for the CL. Look at the battles Arsenal were facing every week - it clearly took its toll. It’s the double-edged sword of the Premier League. Tons of money, but the League has done arguably the best job in Europe of sharing it around. The teams have more money that most teams in Europe, but have to fight tooth and nail most weeks just to stay in some kind of contention. You could also factor in the physical demands of the Premier League’s work towards trying to account for timewasting (more minutes on the pitch) or instructing refs to let the game flow. That said, I checked the minutes played this season. No PSG player has played more than Pedro Porro (4130 minutes) but two have played more than 4000 minutes, which surprised me a bit. However, Saliba at Arsenal has racked up nearly 4500 minutes, and Bruno Fernandes nearly 5000. Almost all against teams who are better than his. That’s got to take more toll than putting 6 past Montpellier or Saint Etienne.

This all feels a bit like Milan 4 Barca 0. Absolutely outclassed.

I’m just looking forward to finding out who we need to beat to be Champions of Europe.

Feels like Man U are getting a little extra stick on top because the usual suspects on social and other media kinda have to give us a bit of a break. Also feels like they’re going to get round to Villa at some point - amid all the sniping at our 17 years without a trophy Villa’s 30 years have been on the down low. Europa presumably them or Forest (35 years?) then!

That’s the Strasbourg owned by Chelsea, too. You can’t argue both ways though. If English clubs are too financially dominant then whoever gets in should piss it, no? Forest, or West Ham, or Chelsea, or whoever. That’s the acid test next year. That said, the whole thing is so obviously broken, and the presence of Strasbourg/Chelsea is just the shitty icing on a shitty cake. If they’re not going to change the Champions league then they have to at least change the Conference to exclude the bigger leagues.

As if there was any soul left to sell.