Recruitment, Rivalry & Reaction

Its always best I find to give it a couple of days after yet another defeat in the North London Derby before trying to put my thoughts together on the outcome.

In what seems to be a re-occurring theme, Spurs had 63% possession and twice as many goal attempts as their opponent but this time around didn't ever really look like scoring. Its fair to say that this is mainly down to the quality of the opposition. You have to be honest and say that Arsenal are a far superior side to the current Spurs team, despite at the weekend missing two of their best players and the bloke they signed to replace one of those should be not be available.

Arsenal are of course three years or so ahead of Spurs in their current 'project', a word I can't stand in this context and their board have backed their coach to the tune of well over half a billion since he got the job. But as we all are well aware, its not what you spend but why you spend it that makes the difference.

From where I sit I see one club that is desperate to get back to being the Champions of England and are going full pelt in pursuit of the Manchester City bemoth thats eaten up the last four titles and six of the last seven. This is reflected in signings that have been made to constantly improve the first team. They've made a couple of mistakes along the way but it the last year alone they've significantly upgraded the goalkeeping position and in the midfield. Thats added to a defence thats vastly improved on the version that lost 3-0 at The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium towards the end of our 'Conte' season. Who remembers Rob Holding now?

Then: Holding Off
Now: Holding Banished By Manager From Training Ground At Palace

Whereas, at our end of the Seven Sisters Road with the odd exception (Solanke) every signing is made with speculation in mind and not to currently improve the starting XI. Now Ange, like Poch, prefers to work with young players and I accept this but this is also why he's the perfect coach for ENIC. Its always all about re-sale. They're hoping that in three years time Gray, Bergvall and Odebert will be worth a stack more than they've been signed for so if they won't sign new contracts for whatever reason they can be sold on.

2024: Cost £47m
2027 Worth £???????

As I mentioned previously, the Spurs plan has a great chance of being successful on the pitch but it rather relies on all the other teams deciding against strengthening their squads over the next few seasons.

If you take a step back, the massive increase in the revenue from all of the outside events at the stadium plus of course the matchdays means that the Champions League money, although obviously welcome, becomes less of a necessity. 

Lucas Moura, just over 5 years ago but feels like a lifetime

I  may be completely wrong but I sense the boards reaction to failure to qualify for that competition last season would have been more disappointment about less worldwide exposure for the 'brand' than the setback of not having the opportunity, however small, to win the best club competition in world football. 

The mention of winning competitions takes me nicely onto tomorrow's Carabao Cup tie away at Championship Coventry City. Plenty of significance in this match. For a club that is trophy-less for sixteen years this competition should be taken very seriously. Especially as its quite apparent we will be nowhere near the front runners in the league this year and have very little chance of qualifying for the Champions League via our league position. Of course you can get in by winning the Europa League but that could mean as many as seventeen fixtures. Sadly, if you bare in mind you only have to win five games to reach an FA Cup Final and we haven't done that for thirty-three years you can see why I feel history may well be against Spurs there. 

So long ago I had hair, as did Daniel Levy

I hope Ange will have learned from last years exit at Fulham albeit on penalties, where he changed ten of the starting line-up. Coventry, like Spurs, have had a mixed start to the season but were very unlucky not to make the FA Cup Final last season after that semi-final against Manchester United. They cannot be taken lightly. I hope for an absolute maximum for four changes to the starting line up. 

There's a line said by Boycie in 'Only Fools & Horses', something like "These days its Only E-Type Jaguars & Sebastian Coe that make me proud to be British". With the Spurs squad, and I include the management team, I think only Van der Ven & Kulusevski have made us feel 'proud' and justified their positions in the team with their performances. I'm hoping the rest of them can use tomorrow nights game and the weekend clash with Brentford to put a marker down and help us at least temporarily forget the events of last weekend.