Ange in or out?

[Bedfordspurs]

Quality around the team counts i suspect.
Imagine if some of those who have crumbled, knew we had someone on the bench just as good who if they fell below a certain standard would easily replace them on the pitch....

Kane never had a threat like that and neither really did Son

It’s all mentality
Saw it yesterday with Saudi Sportswashing Machine
We sign players and accept an inferior mentality for moments players
The issue is they don’t produce enough moments
On MOTD2 they called out players entitled…

 

[Mikey10]

I've got a funny feeling that Ange might be replaced during the international break...

I think the incident with the fan yesterday increases the jeopardy for him. It was a terrible look.

 

[Bishop]

I mean in games that matter
Finals
Semi finals
Deciders
Sonny did it when he wasn’t a senior player
Now he is …
So many get there and just crumble

Its not because he's a senior player, he's been one of those for years. Its because he's physically past it, he's simply not able to perform at the levels he was previously.

 

[Raziel]

It’s all mentality
Saw it yesterday with Saudi Sportswashing Machine
We sign players and accept an inferior mentality for moments players
The issue is they don’t produce enough moments
On MOTD2 they called out players entitled…

Come on mate? what happened last time Saudi Sportswashing Machine brick the bed in the final (last year?), same team, same manager?

It's not x or y, it's about
- Having the right tactics, picking the right players, managing workloads, be prepared, adjusting in game, all of these things
- Liverpool looks like they ran out of gas, Slot uses a relatively small group of players and they went deep in almost everything, what Saudi Sportswashing Machine did well was be prepared to take that moment, if you get a chance, take it.
- Spurs over the recent times has created lost of moments, lots of QF, SF, finals, top 3, we just don't put ourselves in the best position to take advantage, that isn't a player mentality thing (too cheap an excuse)

 

[Welshspur60]

How good do you think the squad is? Like what do you think a new manager could get out of this lot?

I'll be honest I'm not sure on a few:

Johnson - Gets in good positions to score but doesn't ever look like threatening in open play
Bissouma - Looks shot
Son - Regressing (A new strong manager would probably ship him out rather than feel compelled to play him every game (that dynamic hasn't helped us this season).
Bentancur - Unfortunately looks like he's struggling to get back to his best.
Porro - I like him, I'm hoping the recent lapse in form is down to fatigue.
Solanke - Jury is out. I don't see the dynamism of a Delap type.
Romero - Surely going

We've seen a lot of these at their very best and managed 5th.

Are people ready for a project/rebuild?

Agree and every one of those either needs replacing or need to step up Solanke and Porro).

 

[monkeybarry]

I’d take postman pat at this point

He knows how to operate a box

 

[Mikey10]

According to today’s View From the Lane:

Over our last 38 games we’ve got 44 points from a possible 114.

We have now had 9 games under Ange in which we have failed to register a shot on target - more than Conte and Mourinho’s totals combined.

 

[Baleforce]

He knows how to operate a box

As Mrs Goggins well knows

 

[thfcsteff]

Sorry to nitpick but we finished 15th in a 22 team league under Ossie and 14th under Gross so not 6th bottom. So I think Deano’s point stands.

No no, all good, nit-picking these stats is a good thing and I was wrong as I did forget it was a 22 team league at that point. So yes, Deano's point technically stands. However, if you're at all interested in the wider point of this debate/discussion beyond the correct stat, you'll clearly remember going to Oldham in April 94 and needing a win to avoid being dragged into the zone (we won 2-0, Samways as I recall) and again in 97, it was spring stuff at Wimbledon and 4 goals from Klinsmann which again prevented a slide into proper danger. So it has been as bad, if not worse, and withsome (on paper) strong players in those squads.

 

[Daisuk]

He should be, I really don't understand why he is still here.

I reckon Lange and co don’t think we have a caretaker that could potentially win us the EL. Levy got a lot of stick from sacking Mourinho before the cup final, so I don’t think he’ll do it again. If we do crash out to Frankfurt I reckon the odds of him going will increase, but it’ll still be an issue about who will come in as caretaker. We don’t need another Mason/Stellini thing, so might as well stick with Ange until the end.

 

[thfcsteff]

On a point of fact, 14th is 7 off the bottom while Ossie finished 15th in a 22 team league so not bottom 6. We’ve never finished in the bottom 6 of the Premier League.

While the players you listed under Gross and Ossie were all great players in their heyday, they were at different points of their careers. For instance, Carr was a kid in 1997. Klinsmann was back for a few months and miles past his best. Teddy was injured for much of 1993/94. Mabbutt by 1997/98 was nearing retirement. Then you have to mention the likes of David Kersalke, Stuart Nethercott, Andy Gray, Kevin Scott, Colin Calderwood, Ian Walker, Paolo Tramezzani, Jason Cundy, Neale Fenn, Ronnie Rosenthal, Nicola Berti, Jason Dozzell, Andy Sinton and so on. All of whom played fairly regularly.

I’ll take your point on Ange but disagree. Hindsight and some daylight after he’s gone will maybe offer a clearer perspective. He did inherit a club who had challenged for Europe for pretty much every season since 2004 and has us 14th in the league. That’s a fact. Did it need rebuilding? Yeah, to an extent. But Porro, Romero, Bentancur, Bissouma, Kulusevski and Son were all very well established before he got here.

I don’t believe he’s managed the likes of Bergvall and Gray very well either. They’ve played but played when we’d no other choice really. For me, Ange doesnt get much credit for that because he had no choice and results couldn’t really have been any worse with them in the side (not their fault I must add). His management of Spence, like Conte, has been poor and epitomised by the fact he wasn’t even in the EL squad originally despite looking like arguably our best player when he has been forced to play him.

There are extenuating circumstances for Ange. But none of them, absolutely none of them, justify a league position of 14th and 15 defeats. Like with Comolli, some may look back when we rise again and give him credit for his work here. I don’t think I’ll be one of them. To paraphrase Ange, “sometimes, when you look outside and it’s raining, that’s the rain mate. It’s not anything else.” When you’re sitting 14th in the league, that’s mainly on the manager IMO.

Responded to the stat correction in Jurgen's post; you'll not get two apologies out of me LOL!!!

Of course there is context in my examples. I remember them all clearly (not dearly in most cases).

I think what is clear is that you don't like him and want him out. All good. However to my eye, you're skewing various contexts to suit that narrative. The 'european trophy to rebuild' area of your debate is a huge example of this. Yes. We have been competing for European football since (well) 2006-ish. However the rebuild we needed after the mess made in the Post-Poch era was huge. You have chosen to only focus on Porro, Romero, Bentancur, Bissouma, Deki, and Son as 'established players' he had at his disposal. You have wilfully ignored the mess our academy was in, the bloat of average players we had, and the broken communication between board and football team. These are massive structural issues. Getting the academy back on track is a huge undertaking. Getting the bloat off the books is a huge undertaking. Doing these whilst committing the club to a 'youth forward' policy? You guessed it, a huge undertaking.

You bring up Spence and the EL squad. This has been discussed. This was a club fudge-up. And a clear indicator of the sort of problems he had to deal with in regards to how the squad was built.

I am not a fan of hindsight, the single most useless gift ever bestowed upon mankind, and only retrievable as useful IF people learn from it.

I agree, 14th in the league with 15 defeats is a poor record, and as I have said, I don't think he survives it. With regards to your rain paraphrase, I'd suggest that the injuries we dealt with are that rain he was speaking of, and the truth is we aren't going to catch up in terms of league play with those players returing, the best we can hope for is he gets 5 European games to prevail in with that side finding their flow in time. I personally don't think it will happen.

I stand by my opinion that (statistics aside) we have had worse, and seen worse.

 

[thfcsteff]

I think that’s a really good take on it. He’s clearly irked by the way his track record was dismissed by the press from early on. And I get it. Despite my doubts about him, I always credit Ange as a guy who built himself up from working in a bank to being a Premier League manager with a lot of successes under his belt.

But he’s passed comments which suggested that he felt his reputation was being short changed from early on. “This league isn’t the be all and end all like you guys think”, “I’ve taken a lot of stick from you guys that’s been dismissive, I won’t talk about it now but will in the future”, “I have won trophies mate, do you want to see them”, “I always win in my second season”.

And he’s not been unjustified in that. Some of the commentary, while I agree with the core points, has been coated in condescension and manipulation of sound bites. Unfortunately, as you allude to, things seem to be spiralling out of control.

This -as both you and Tommy have said- is the key thing right now. Because it does feel that way. And it's unpleasant.

 

[stratnumberone]

We’ve had worse and I’ve certainly seen worse. But not much worse! We are very lucky this season that there’s such dreadful sides below us that we’ve escaped a genuine relegation fight, because I think we’d lack the grit and determination to survive otherwise.

I don’t understand the ‘people have it in for him because he’s an Aussie’ line. I don’t give a monkeys where someone comes from, as long as they do the business at my club. He hasn’t and therefore is bound to get stick. Some of the stick he has received has been well out of order (I was stood right by the pitch at the end of the Bournemouth game on the south coast when he had an altercation with a fan(s) and the personal abuse was wrong) BUT he must’ve experienced it before and I’m surprised he can’t just walk away from it. Like a few have said it’s an awful look and must surely weaken his position further.

He has definitely been dealt a poor hand in some areas (and I also agree to an extent with Steff’s view that we might be a little more appreciative of him in coming years when the pain and anger has subsided). However, his puzzling tactics, failure to cut out basic errors and strange squad choices mean that ultimately he has to bear much of the responsibility for what is happening. I am staggered that he’s still employed by Spurs. The noise in the press regarding the club prepping a list of potential replacements is getting louder and - assuming there’s no smoke without fire - maybe he really will be gone before our next match. It’ll be the end of a sad chapter in the history of the club, a chapter that started with such promise. I still want it to work with him, but I know it won’t.

 

[Raziel]

I agree, 14th in the league with 15 defeats is a poor record, and as I have said, I don't think he survives it. With regards to your rain paraphrase, I'd suggest that the injuries we dealt with are that rain he was speaking of, and the truth is we aren't going to catch up in terms of league play with those players returing, the best we can hope for is he gets 5 European games to prevail in with that side finding their flow in time. I personally don't think it will happen.

I stand by my opinion that (statistics aside) we have had worse, and seen worse.

I'm actually not sure
- Have we had worse teams? absolutely
- Have we had more fractured relationships between teams and manager? absolutely
- Have we ever had a side that was consistently (probably 12 months now) operating 8-10 league positions below is potential? I don't think so

Let me start with the credit
- He's had to deal with a lot of player churn (Vic, VDV, Danso, Spence, Udogie, Gray, Bergvall. Johnson, Wilson, Maddison, Solanke are 11 first team players in 18 months who have never played under another Spurs manager, Sarr & Porro only really had half a season prior, and that level of change goes through the full 25 man squad)
- Lot of youth players to manage, Kinsky, Udogie, Sarr, Bergvall, Gray, Moore, Wilson, Tel is a lot
- The players largely have stayed with him, every other manager I've seen at Spurs lost the players a lot earlier than he has

Here's my issues and why that statement
- Leicester, Ipswich, Everton, Fulham, we can't seem to win games where our player quality advantage should be all you need, to quote a previous manager, just tell then "go round about a bit" and we should win
- Lack of game management, this idea of we play the same way regardless of if it's minute 5 or minute 95 is frankly fudging stupid, it's one of those at high level statement seems to make sense, but the minute you actually think it through, not so much.

I listened to his whole statement on being ok with people criticizing his tactics/results but not being ok with (effectively) people saying he doesn't have a clue. no plan b, etc. because he's being doing this for 27 years and deserves more credit.
- The problem is (and yes, some of the statement towards him are OTT or inappropriate), he hasn't been doing "this" for 27 years, he has been managing football clubs and players for sure, but not this club and in this league.

My best comparison would be driving a Formula 2 car for a decade, moving to Formula 1, constantly crashing and saying "I've been doing this", no you haven't, the margins are different, what you can get away with is different and by you not understanding that, you are not even giving yourself chance to correct it, you are signing your own death sentence.

I'm completely confused that he is still here, of all the complaints I've had with the club over the years, we have never let anything drift like this, and it's really concerning.

 

[thfcsteff]

I don't consider the Mourinho/Conte spells as long term projects. There are different strategies.

Strategies which basically aligned to flogging the best they could out of Kane and Son. By that metric (and all others actually) both failed miserably. I still cannot believe the pass Mourinho gets in these parts from some.

 

[Craig_J]

I've got a funny feeling that Ange might be replaced during the international break...

I could be wrong but I feel if Ange was going to be replaced it would have happened within 24 hours of the Fulham match.

Fact it hasn't yet makes me strongly believe he isn't going anywhere till after Europa earliest.

 

[Raziel]

Strategies which basically aligned to flogging the best they could out of Kane and Son. By that metric (and all others actually) both failed miserably. I still cannot believe the pass Mourinho gets in these parts from some.

100%

The only caveat Jose gets is it's pretty obvious that the budget he got was massively impacted by Covid. Given the $300M Ange got, would he have done better? hard to argue no (regardless of how awful the football would probably have remained).

 

[thfcsteff]

I reckon Lange and co don’t think we have a caretaker that could potentially win us the EL. Levy got a lot of stick from sacking Mourinho before the cup final, so I don’t think he’ll do it again. If we do crash out to Frankfurt I reckon the odds of him going will increase, but it’ll still be an issue about who will come in as caretaker. We don’t need another Mason/Stellini thing, so might as well stick with Ange until the end.

In reckon there is truth in Levy and Munn thinking of also turfing Lange.

 

[thfcsteff]

100%

The only caveat Jose gets is it's pretty obvious that the budget he got was massively impacted by Covid. Given the $300M Ange got, would he have done better? hard to argue no (regardless of how awful the football would probably have remained).

Out of interest, what is that 300 mill Ange got? Not questioning it, genuinely want to see it in a list as I'm sure even I'll be surprised...and just for record, are we counting outgoings against that 300? Does Harry's 100 count? If Mourinho had got 300 minus the sales including Harry, we'd have shat the bed even harder and he'd have blown the club up IMO...

 

[Baleforce]

Out of interest, what is that 300 mill Ange got? Not questioning it, genuinely want to see it in a list as I'm sure even I'll be surprised...and just for record, are we counting outgoings against that 300? Does Harry's 100 count? If Mourinho had got 300 minus the sales including Harry, we'd have shat the bed even harder and he'd have blown the club up IMO...

Ange has blown the club up.