Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[fallenangle]

I was going to say that myself; thanks CP for ruining Steven Gerrard's swansong for Liverpool and in doing so giving us an outside chance of getting 5th place.

Spurs were lucky gainst Hull who deserved at least one goal particularly the incident when I think there were three defenders plus the goalie in the goal mouth literally blocking it off from a point blank Hull shot. But the Spurs goals really were good, if only those involved played like that more consistently.

24.05.15 Edit

Not a convincing win against Everton but a really good Harry Kane goal gave Spurs the points. The other results also went for us and 5th spot in the Premiership and only a couple of wins away from a serious 4th spot challenge is still a decent end to a season that had promised more.

Just hope Spurs do some business during the summer: we still want Morgan Schneiderlin and Kevin Mirillas apparently but some decent defenders too are a prority. I was also wondering if Charlie Austin might be a good match for Harry Kane; he's being priced at around ?10m which isn't a huge sum for a proven goal scorer so maybe worth a punt.

[EJG1980]

It makes a nice change to finish fifth on the final day of the season and for it to be an upbeat and positive thing Great to see Kane round off his campaign with another goal to end his "mini drought". Thirty-one goals, what a wonderful season.

I think the highlights must have given a false impression as I thought it was a really good away performance and a pretty straightforward and drama free win. Aside from about two chances just about all of Everton's chances were long range and we had much more of the ball and nearly double the number of chances they had.

The team is a work in progress, we have a very young squad, and Poch has been finding his feet, but (as you said) we only finished six points behind a fourth placed Man Utd side that spent the GDP of a small country on transfers. We improved on last season's league position and managed to reach a cup final. I think that Poch can be very happy with his debut campaign.

I'm pretty sure we'll try to improve the squad over the summer. As we brought in Poch's old head of recruitment (Paul Mitchell) from Southampton a few months ago, we should see Poch getting the exact type of players he wants.

I don't think we'll see any blockbuster big money signings but more Eriksen style signings; ?10-15 million, young and decent already with really good potential to improve. Not that I don't think we'll be on the lookout for affordable, older, wiser, experienced players if they're available, but I reckon most of our signings will be fit the former mould.

There should be one new signing announced pretty soon, Austrian centre back (a defender!!) Kevin Wimmer. His club Cologne had a "leaving ceremony" for players moving on from the club, and he was one of those included, and while Cologne said they can't yet say where' he's going, Wimmer has done several interviews stating that he's on his way to Spurs. Wouldn't be surprised to see an announcement on 1st June.

Definitely agree that Charlie Austin is a good shout, I'd be very happy if we signed him. A very good fee for a player who's shown they can score at Premier League level. He'd know he would start behind Kane in the pecking order though, so I wonder if he'd be willing to fight to get into the team, or if he'd prefer to go to a lesser club where he'd expect to be the main man up front (say, Villa, if they sold Benteke)? I guess we shall see if we make a bid.

Anyway, fingers crossed we can now have a good summer and kick on from here next season. COYS!

[EJG1980]

I was wondering if the result of the FA Cup final would affect where we enter the Europa League, and found this on UEFA.com:

"Tottenham Hotspur FC have sealed a return to the UEFA Europa League group stage by finishing fifth. The other two places will be determined by Saturday's FA Cup final. If Arsenal FC win then Liverpool FC take a group stage berth and Southampton FC, who ended seventh, enter the third qualifying round; if Aston Villa FC win then they take the group stage spot and Liverpool enter in the third qualifying round."

So we're straight into the group stage no matter what happens in the cup final. Very happy to avoid those potential trips to far flung corners of Europe in August.

[fallenangle]

Good news indeed. I enjoy seeing Spurs in the Europa League but the less wear and tear on the squad the better.

The MotD highlights of the Everton game seemed to me to show Spurs under pressure at the back more times than we did that to them. It certainly didn't match the reports I've read since saying it was a good, comfortable win for Spurs and Everton didn't play that well.

[EJG1980]

I guess it can easily happen when you try to compress a 90 minute match into 5 or 6 minutes. And maybe an Everton fan put together the highlights Definitely a good and deserved win for us, big chunks of the match with us in control, and comfortable most of the time Everton had the ball.

I love Spurs being in Europe too, I don't understand the flack the Europa League gets from the press and a lot of fans (of all clubs). There are some great teams to face in the EL, especially once you get to the knockout stages, and I don't buy the "it's so much more draining than the Champions League" argument. What's the difference between playing Wed / Sat or Thur / Sun? It's the exact same gap.

A little end of season bonus with our short trip to Malaysia and Australia. Spurs vs Malaysia XI on Weds at 13:45 and Spurs vs Sydney FC on Sat morning at 10:30, both on BT Sport or on the Spurs web site.

[nakamura]

The league system is a joke in it. Either make it two leg KO or a balanced 4 team league system.

[EJG1980]

Sorry, I'm being slow: I assume by balanced groups you mean that after the group stages there would be (say) 32 teams remaining, and not the current 24 + 12 Champions League losers to make up the numbers? If so I 100% agree that would make it better. Drafting in teams from another another competition half way through definitely devalues the EL.

Unfortunately I don't think they'll ever go back to the classic UEFA Cup format of two leg KO matches in every round. I think it'd be really exciting to have every tie being all or nothing, and it'd help differentiate the Europa League from the CL, but group stages mean more matches which means more TV and advertising money. Although if the competition was more exciting and got better viewing figures, you could charge more for adverts, so maybe that'd make up the difference.

Even so, despite the faults, I still want Spurs to be in Europe every season. It may not be the CL but I've got to see Spurs play the likes of PSV, Lazio, Lyon, Inter, Fiorentina and Benfica over the past few years, which really isn't too bad.

[nakamura]

32 teams in groups yes and no Champions League rejects either.

[nakamura]

It's too long and drawn out in its current format. Too many teams get involved. It's a parody of a competition now.

[EJG1980]

Length wise it's not too bad, from the group stages onwards. Only one extra knock-out round compared to the CL so it's 13 matches to win that vs 15 matches to win the EL.

The argument often used for having lots of teams in it (and group stages) is that it gives the minnows a larger chance of playing more matches, making extra money, improving themselves, etc., which is a view I have some sympathy for. I don't think it's a bad thing to try and help smaller teams and leagues improve. So I wouldn't mind if they kept the competition the same size and just got rid of the CL dropouts.

Move a few more of the minnow teams directly into the group stages (thus helping the smaller teams even more than the current format) have 16 groups of 4, and then you can progress to a round of 32 without the need to parachute in CL losers.

Mirroring the CL format completely would be good, and we'd get better group stage match ups if they reduced it to 32 at the group stages, but I doubt UEFA would do that as it'd give the minnow even less chance of a little run in the competition.

[EJG1980]

Spurs have signed 22 year old Austrian central defender Kevin Wimmer, from FC Koln. Hope we manage to get more of our signings done nice and early like this, so they can have a full pre-season with the club.

http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/wimmer-completes-move-290515/

[EJG1980]

Spurs are going to take part in the Audi Cup in Munich on the 4th and 5th of August.

Spurs vs Real Madrid and AC Milan vs Bayern Munich in the semis on the first day, second day has the 3rd place match followed by the final. My younger brother and I are going, should be good fun.

Looking forward to seeing us face Bale and Modric! Fingers crossed the results can go our way so we end up playing Munich on day two, as I haven't seen us play them before.

[VR46]

Hope they all put our decent teams, I saw a similar match at Wembley I think it was, Spurs v Barca years ago and hardly recognised anyone playing - bar Toure, giant of a man when you see him on the pitch.

Edit link to match report in fact

http://www1.skysports.com/football/live/match/104751/report

[EJG1980]

Hope they all put our decent teams, I saw a similar match at Wembley I think it was, Spurs v Barca years ago and hardly recognised anyone playing - bar Toure, giant of a man when you see him on the pitch.

I was there for that (and the 2-0 loss to Celtic the following day). The only one of six Spurs matches I've attended at Wembley that we didn't lose

I think the teams in the Audi Cup should be better as it's only a few days before the start of the new season, so I'd expect the first choice players to be playing as a final tune up for the opening day.

[EJG1980]

We've signed Kieran Trippier from Burnley. Seems like a good player and from what I've been reading the Burnley fans are very sad to see him go and think he'll be tough to replace. Certainly didn't look bad whenever we played Burnley last season. Apparently he was the most accurate crosser of the ball in the Premier League.

Hopefully he comes in and does well enough to make the right back spot his own, or the competition pushes Kyle Walker into rediscovering his best form to keep him out (the same way the signing of Ben Davies last year really galvanised Danny Rose into having an excellent season). Good signing.

Edit: also, very nice to see Harry Kane responding to questions about a move to Man Utd by saying that he sees his future at Spurs and fully intends to be a Spurs player next season