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- [00:01]
Sponsor Voice 1
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Ayo Akinwaleere
Sometimes 25.
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Sponsor Voice 1
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- [01:20]
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- [02:14]
Acast Voice
Acast powers the world's best podcasts.
- [02:17]
Paige Desorbo
Here's the show that we recommend. Hey guys. Welcome to Giggly Squad, a place where we make fun of everything, but most importantly, ourselves. I'm Paige Desorbo. I'm Hannah Burner. Welcome to the squad. Giggly Squad started on Summer House when.
- [02:32]
Ayo Akinwaleere
We were giggling during an inappropriate time.
- [02:34]
Paige Desorbo
But of course we g can't be managed. So we decided to start this podcast to continue giggling. We will make fun of pop culture news. We're watching fashion trends pep talks where we give advice, mental health moments and games. And guests listen to Giggly Squad on Acast or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:53]
Acast Voice
Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.
- [02:59]
Paige Desorbo
Acast.com.
- [03:04]
Sponsor Voice 1
The Athletic FC Podcast Network.
- [03:10]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Welcome to the Athletic FC Podcast with me, Ayo Akinwaleere. In the space of just four days, Tottenham Hotspur have been knocked out of two competitions. Marlon right across.
- [03:20]
Phil Hay
Oh, and he will be forced in.
- [03:24]
Paige Desorbo
Morgan Rodgers soaks up the acclaim and he may well have put this FA.
- [03:29]
Acast Voice
Cup tie beyond Tottenham Hotspur, their hopes.
- [03:32]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Of ending their trophy drought now rests solely on the Europa League. So where do spurs and Ange Postecoglou go from here? With us today we have our Tottenham Hotspur correspondent, Jack Pitt Brooke, and lead writer for the Athletic FC newsletter, Phil Hay as well. Good to have you with us, gents. Jack, let's get into this defeat to Liverpool and Aston Villa in the League cup and FA cup, ending spurs hopes of domestic silverware this season. How damaging are those two defeats for Ange Postecoglou?
- [04:05]
Paige Desorbo
Yeah, it's been a really bad few days for Tottenham. I think all season there's been a school of thought which is that, yes, the league form is really bad. No one can look past that. But if they can just do something in the cup, then it will kind of all be okay, like people will at the end of the season. If they get a big trip to Wembley, if they get a big cup final, people won't care whether they're 6th or 10th or 16th in the league table. So this has always been at the back of people's minds, right, that they could, they could get that vindication through the domestic cups. And so to go out of both of them within four days of each other, particularly having, you know, got all the way through to the semifinals of the League cup, you know, they beat Manchester United, they beat Manchester City, they even beat Liverpool 1 nil in the first leg, you know, they were looking pretty good. And then for it to collapse the way it did on Thursday and to go out the FA cup as well to Aston Villa, I think people have realized that they've only got a very narrow path to success left in the form of the Europa League. And this is almost certainly going to be a very bad season at the end of it.
- [05:04]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Okay, Phil, I'll come to you for your take in just a sec. But let's hear of the fallout at Aston Villa. Jay Harris was there for the athletic and in a very fiery post match press conference, here is what he made of it.
- [05:19]
Phil Hay
That was very interesting. Post match press conference from Ange Postecoglou. When spurs lose, he, he tends to be quite quiet and doesn't really show his emotion too much. But he actually got very animated with one journalist in particular who wanted to dig a little bit deeper into why it feels like against Liverpool and against Aston Villa, spurs didn't play the way that we've expected them to. Those performances were very passive and postecogly put his head in his hands and I wouldn't necessarily say it was a rant, but he got very passionate and very defensive and a bit sensitive.
- [05:55]
Jack Pitt Brooke
Look, I don't know how else to explain it right so I, I really don' how else to explain it other than if you can't see that this team is just trying its hardest to play under the most extreme two and a half months of asking 18 year olds and 17 year olds and senior players with no rest to play Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, Sunday. I'll keep going for three, two and a half months. And if you think that that is not at all a factor of how this team is performing right now, then there's nothing else I can say.
- [06:25]
Phil Hay
Side this was a huge week for Spurs. This was an opportunity for them to I guess rewrite their season a little bit. The cup competitions have offered a nice distraction from their woeful league form and being knocked out of two cup competitions in a week means that everybody's going to focus back on league form again. Their next game in the Europa League is not till the middle of March, so there's going to be three, four weeks where if their league form doesn't improve then even more tricky questions are going to come past the company's way. So it is a very, very strange situation at spurs at the moment and it feels like they're quickly running out of gas.
- [06:57]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Phil, look, Jay did say it looks like spurs, you know, are running out of gas. I'm interested to, to know what you made of his post match press conference. But also, you know, they've got a week now to their next league match which means, yes, they might have a bit of rest. Yes, some of those players they've just brought in might be able to train but Then you've got the Europa League knocking on the door again and they're going to be need. They're going to need to be on full form for that. You've still got teams like Frankfurt in that tournament who are previous finalists and I think have also won the tournament. It's not going to be easy for Spurs.
- [07:24]
Expert Analyst
It feels like we've been listening to that style of Postecoglou press conference ever since the back end of last season and that game against Manchester City which blindsided him in so, so many respects and clearly got his, his hackles up. The Europa League is last chance to loon. Now this season now it's pretty obvious. So although, you know, I don't think we should get bogged down in the whole postecoglou second season. I always win trophies in my second season. With the club debate, I think it's a bit of a diversion and a bit of an irrelevance. You know, it doesn't really matter whether he' that record because none of his previous jobs had been in a division that's as unforgiving as the Premier League. And I also don't think he ever won any of those trophies with a squad resembling the Walking Dead either. But, but more to the point, like a trophy is not a gauge alone of whether a manager's doing a good job or whether plans coming together. I think erik10hag was a real prime example of that at Manchester United. They bottled out of sacking him on the basis of him winning the FA cup last season, when really all the signs were that, you know, 10 Hag was a mile away from, from getting a good and consistent tune out of that squad. So no matter what happens in the Europa League, that in itself doesn't deal with the elephant in the room, which is whether or not the Ange project has legs. I don't see where impetus is coming from in the short term. And I think in that clip that you listened to of Postecoglou, he was virtually saying that himself. And if we're being fair, I don't think the discussion can be solely about Postcoglia and his tactics. You know, the injuries have to come into the discussion. I heard the chance against Daniel Lev from the away end at Villa last night. And I think in any fair assessment, any objective assessment of Postecoglou, to use the word that he used, you always have to ask whether or not spurs have any intention of aspiring to be more than kind of cast members behind the bigger players in the Premier League or Europe, because at Present and for a while now, the squad building and the recruitment doesn't suggest that they do.
- [09:18]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Yeah, I definitely want to talk about that. Especially in comparison to Aston Villa who look like they fielded an all star, you know, attacking lineup. Phil, I'll talk about that later. But Jack, Phil does make a though, I mean, we do have to talk about the injuries. You, you look at people like Solanke, Brennan, Johnson, Van de Ven, Romero, Ndogi, Madison. Postecoglou was really positive in terms of, you know, really boosting his players and saying, look, these players have given everything this season. Give up two and a half months. You've got 18 year olds on the pitch. You've got 17 year olds on the pitch. They've done a stellar job. But they have been depleted by injuries as well.
- [09:51]
Paige Desorbo
Yeah, massively. Like it's. It is completely unavoidable as an explanation for why they've been so bad this season. Like they've missed most of their best players for it feels like most the season. Vicario is not played in months. Van der Fen's came back for 45 minutes, then back out the team again recently. Romero has not been seen in months. Solanke, who they're so dependent on, is currently out with a knee injury. You know, they've had muscle injuries to Doggy, who's so important. Verna, Brennan, Johnson, Madison, Almost the whole team, almost every single player. And this is a thin squad as well. Not a squad which I think can cope with these kind of problems. They've missed half their best players at almost every single point in the last. We haven't even mentioned Richarlison. We haven't mentioned Ode Bear, one of the most exciting summer signings from Burnley. Barely kicked a ball for Tottenham. At almost every given moment in the last few months, they've had at least 10 players out injured and they just can't cope with it. Nobody could cope with it and Tottenham certainly can't cope with it. So I think it's completely unavoidable as an explanation and it's something that has to be factored into any analysis or judgment on this season.
- [10:59]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Is it quite tricky though because like, what other choice did they generally have? And I can sort of. I can see Postecoglou's frustration when people asking this question. I mean, what did. What do you expect him to do? Like, can't pull a rabbit out of a hat. It's back to what Phil maybe was talking about as, as a wider recruitment conversation. But he can't help the Cards. He's sort of been dealt at this point.
- [11:17]
Paige Desorbo
Exactly. Yeah, he can't sign lots of replacement players, that he can't make adjustments to the squad mid season beyond what they were able to do in the January transfer window, which was fine. You know, they got three players in who they desperately needed. But it's just not up to Postecoglou. You know, he doesn't choose the makeup of the squad really. It's obviously done done with the club. So yeah, I do have a lot of sympathy with him on, on this point. Like it's clearly depleted his ability to play the football he wants to play. And clearly that is why in the last few months Tottenham have not really played, you know, what you might call Ange Ball. They've just played fairly, I think fairly generic 4, 2, 3 1, fairly unconventional football, which worked for a while. But even then the problem is that all the players who are not injured, who have been playing twice a week every week for the last three months, are now so exhausted. I'm thinking particularly people like son Kulasevsky, Pedro Porro, increasingly Archie Gray, Dragozin before he did his acl. All those guys are now, I think, so tired that they can't really replicate the kind of performance levels that you would want from them.
- [12:24]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Okay, well, next we'll look at Spurs January spending and the makeup of their squad.
- [12:32]
Phil Hay
You're listening to the Athletic FC podcast with IO akamwalere.
- [12:38]
Acast Voice
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- [14:12]
Sponsor Voice 2
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- [15:10]
Jack Pitt Brooke
I think this group of players, once we get the rest of the group in, we'll be an outstanding team. I've got no doubt about that. Whether other people see that or not is of no interest to me. But if you want to measure anything on what they're doing at the moment, other than the fact that the extreme situation they're dealing with, then I think your analysis is skewed. It's not objective. That's my opinion.
- [15:31]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Yeah, that was Anj Pozecoglu there pleading for patience after Sunday's latest loss at the hands of Aston Villa. Now Jack, looking at the team that started at Villa park, there were a lot of teenagers. I mentioned it at with the pod there, Grey Bergfall, more tell. Obviously a brand new addition. You've also got the 21 year old goalkeeper Kinski. And of course look they they've been thrown in early due to the injury crisis they're facing. But as well as waiting on injuries, is this a squad with the very nature of how it's been constructed in terms of, you know, buying younger players? Is it worth spurs fans just having patience right now? Because yes, they've brought these kids in, but we probably won't see the fruit of this labor for maybe next season. Maybe the season after.
- [16:14]
Paige Desorbo
Yeah, I mean, I think spurs fans could be, you can be patient in a, in a long term sense, like recognizing that they have a lot of teenage players who will I think be very, very good players a few years down the line. Like again, you know, on top of the teenagers that you mentioned there, there's Oliver Bear who remains injured but is also very young and came in with a, with a big reputation. So I think long term it'll be, it will be, it'll be. This would be a good transfer policy for Tottenham to have pursued, but I think in the short and medium term it's obviously a big problem because they came into this season, I think with a squad that was, that basically took a series of risks because they didn't have enough backup, they didn't have a good backup goalkeeper, they didn't have a fourth center back, they didn't probably have enough backup at fullback, they certainly didn't have enough backup in midfield, up front, on the wing, like every single position. I think Tottenham within and all of the risks that they took have been shown up by injuries that they've sustained this season. So. And I think that's when you start to think maybe the transfer strategy should have been geared towards giving Postecoglou more support in the short or medium term rather than five years down the line. Like if they want to, if they want to succeed under Postecoglou, he needed to have more players. And while the investments they made in Grey, bergval, oderbert, hal, etc. Really good players for the future. But I just think they could have focused a little bit more on the.
- [17:37]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Right now, on the note on transfers. You know, you look at Solanke, you look at Danto, they're much older players. Everyone else is under the age of 21.
- [17:48]
Expert Analyst
Yeah, two really good points I think Jack's made. The first is the way in which Ange Ball has just kind of disappeared and we don't really speak about it any anymore. And I, I would assume that from Postecoglou's perspective that's because it is, has become impossible for him to, to implement it properly, given a few players he's got available. And yeah, you're right in saying that as much as I had a dig at recruitment earlier, it looks worse, doesn't it, when you have an injury list like Tottenham have at the moment. And I do have a certain degree of sympathy with the fact that the squad that they've built is not the squad as, as it is on match day at the moment. It's it's nothing close to it, but there are definite gaps in it and those gaps have been been found out. I mean, the odd thing is there's almost an argument to say that the younger players who've come in have been some of farmers recently. For what that's worth, there hasn't been a whole lot of stepping up from the more senior faces around them and in the long term, you know, I doubt this will damage any of them individually because there's some massively talented kids there. Graham Bergwell look like really serious prospects and between Kinski's price and what I've seen of him so far, I'm intrigued to see how good he gets. But at the same time, if you're going to have that strategy, then it makes zero sense to bin Postecoglou at short notice or after a short period of time. And I know two seasons and he's kicking on towards the end of his second now it would be considered to be a fairly long stretch by Premier League standards, but sacking him in that timeframe doesn't marry up with a recruitment strategy which, as Jack says, seems to be aiming four or five years down the line rather than than here and now. I mean, I said on the podcast a little while back that Antoniola is an example. Doing what? Getting bombers to do what they did at Newcastle, you know, taking injury riddle squad to bang in form and turning them over at St. James's park didn't reflect particularly well on postecoglou. But the injury list at spurs is so badly out of hand and it just doesn't give Ange any chance of turning the tide, you know, here and now. You had Richarlison back, pull this cast straight away. You had Danzo thrown in yesterday, immediately got his head smashed open like that is just Tottenham at the moment. That's how it's going. I wouldn't also absolve Postecoglou of all blame, and I think the limp way in which spurs defend on occasions does need somebody to kind of read the riot act. But it seems like a really thankless gig. And okay, yeah, they were fairly intensely negative at Anfield in the second leg of that Carabao cup semi final, but my gut feeling is that if they'd been braver, they'd have probably lost 4 nil anyway. It would just have been in a different fashion. Liverpool would have class above.
- [20:17]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Yeah, I guess the way spurs are set up right now, does it almost feel like the writing's on the wall is about how much they get Beat. Because look, I look at Villa, Jack, and I know where they're heading as a team. And you know how long Tottenham Hotspur have been in this sort of mix of are they going to be the next big thing? Are they going to be the team that pushes on? They're bringing on Asensio, they're bringing on Rashford and I know they're lone signings, don't get me wrong. But even Marlon, you look at the experience that's there, you're talking about Champions League playing players. Marlon was in the Champions League final not too long ago. I mean, that surely is where spurs fans want. What spurs fans would love to see. Of course we've got the young ones, but get some experience in that can just get us over the line to what we need to do in the immediate future.
- [21:02]
Paige Desorbo
Yeah, I think what it really shows is the difference in how willing the ownership of those two clubs is willing to commit a lot of money on players wages ultimately. Like when the Deloitte Football Money league report came out recently, Tottenham, I think had the lowest wage spend to turnover percentage of all the clubs they assess. You know, Tottenham was like 42% whereas Aston Villa, I can't remember exactly the number, but believe it was in the 90s. It was like really, really strikingly high. And you can see that in, you know, in this summer's. Sorry. In this window's activity, like Tottenham signed a very talented young goalkeeper. They signed Dano on an initial loan. They signed Tell on. On again on an. An initial loan. Whereas Aston Villa, like bringing in like Marlin would have been expensive and Asensio and Rashford are like big, big name players. You don't get players like Asensio and Rashford on loan in, in a January window at their age, with their CVs, without being willing to commit a lot of money on salary. Right. So I just think it shows the difference. Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying to necessarily say difference in ambition, but like difference in the willingness to accept risk in your. How you allocate resources from the, from the Aston Villa and the Tottenham Hotspur ownerships.
- [22:15]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Yeah, I mean it's a, it's a risk management strategy it seems. Phil and I, I'm thinking about these young kids on the field. You know, you've got a keeper that's 21 years old. You almost feel, I mean this kind of pressure just shouldn't be put on their shoulders really. I mean, we're judging on what they're able to do and of course there are senior players on that team. But I mean, I'm not expecting a 21 year old keeper not to make mistakes along the way.
- [22:38]
Expert Analyst
No, but I think ambition is the right word that Jack used there. And it's not. You have to be careful in the way that you use that because the one thing that, that Levy has done at spurs and it's not as if there are no green ticks on, you know, on his sheet, he's done some good things there and they are financially stable. When you talk about clubs in England who are a shambles, Tottenham never come into the discussion in terms of the finances ever. You know, they're just not part of that conversation. But the issue now is that they only have the Europa League to cling on to and yes, that might bring them some relief. Although in the current state it's really difficult to see how they end up winning that. Aside from that, they've got a lot of nothingness in the Premier League and that is the perfect climate for infighting and retribution. What do Tottenham do, you know, in the slightly medium to longer term that's going to turn this on its head if they've got a summer of vast expenditure planned? Because as Jack referenced there, they never seem to tap into the very highest tier of players, which is what you absolutely have to do if you're going to compete at the very, very top. And it is a matter of ambition. If you spend X amount of money, you get better footballers and you tend to develop a better squad. I rather feel for Tottenham that the highlight of their season for the second year running is most likely to be Arsenal failing to win the Premier League title.
- [23:58]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Well, Jack, isn't there something quite disjointed there? Because you've got, I mean, I've been there that the training facilities at spurs are insanely good. Like you've got pretty much, I would say the second or first best stadium in Europe in terms of football action. I mean, it's incredible revenue boosting stadium with the. Whatever goes on with the Go Karten and stuff like that. So you've got a great business structure. Right. But slightly distorted when the team don't play well. And as Phil has said, you fail to attract the top tier of talent. Something quite disjointed there in my eyes.
- [24:28]
Paige Desorbo
Yeah. So look, the stadium has clearly been really, really good for, for revenues like Tottenham. Tottenham's revenues last in, in the season for which we last had the accounts were over £500 million for the season for the first time. So the stadium is bringing a lot of money and it's. It will be able to do that forever. So they're always announcing new boxing that's Beyonce's coming this year. There's rumors the Rolling Stones are going to come in the summer as well. So from that perspective, it does generate a lot of money for the club club. But I think what fans want to see is more of that money like put into the players wages like Tottenham have. You know, I think they, in terms of transfer fees, they have committed quite a lot. Like they have, you know, they've broken their transfer record in recent years. You know, Solanki was what, 65 million pounds. Arlison was initial 50 million, you know, Madison was 40 million. So they have like, they have consistently bought good players though, as Phil says, not the absolute top players. I don't think they've bought anyone who you say was world class when they bought them, although some players they bought as promising and have improved since they were there, like Romero or Kulasevski. But I think if you're going to be really, really competitive in the Premier League, it's very difficult to do that without a big wage Bill. And it wasn't that long ago that Tottenham would have been, let's say, fifth in the Premier League out of salaries. But the wage bills come down. In the last year or two, they've lost a lot of their big earners. Perisic Harry Kane and Dombele, Larisse, Dyer Hoiberg. These are guys who earn quite a lot of money because they're experienced players. They've generally been replaced with kids or young players who obviously earn a lot less. And now again, to go back to the Deloitte Report, if you ranked all the Premier League teams by wage spending, Tottenham, who used to be very close to Arsenal, are Now more than £100 million a year behind Arsenal. In fact, Aston Villa, I believe, are ahead of spurs and I wouldn't be surprised if next time if Newcastle United are ahead of spurs as well. And so all of a sudden the idea of a big 6 of wage spending doesn't really exist. It's kind of a big five. And then you've got Tottenham Villa, Newcastle and Spurs aren't even top. I don't think next year spurs would necessarily be top of that group of three. So clearly it's a big gap that has to be made up if you want to be competitive in the league.
- [26:36]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Yeah, nice one. Well, let's move on because we'll discuss where Tottenham are headed under Ange Postecoglou.
- [26:51]
Sponsor Voice 2
This podcast is brought to you by Aura. Imagine waking up to find your bank account drained, bills for loans you never took out, a warrant for your arrest. All because someone stole your identity. Hackers aren't waiting. Why are you? That's why we're thrilled to partner with Aura. Your personal data is a goldmine for hackers and Aura helps lock it down. Aura monitors the dark web, blocks data brokers from selling your information. Includes a VPN for private browsing and a password manager to secure your accounts before criminals break in. For a limited time, Aura is offering our listeners a 14 day free trial plus a dark web scan to check if your personal information has been leaked. All for free@aura.com safety that's aura.com safety to sign up and start protecting yourself and your loved ones. That's a u r a.com safety terms apply. Check the site for details.
- [27:47]
Phil Hay
This is the Athletic FC podcast with IO Akamalero.
- [27:53]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Well, Jack, after yesterday's match I got, I got a text off a Spurs fan. He's a really good mate and I think he only texted me as he knows we're probably going to do a podcast on spurs, but he basically said, look, it's been a bad week. Outplayed in two matches in a row, out of two cups. Running out of things to hold on to. The question is, how much belief do you think there is then left in this project at this point in time with Spurs, Possecoga can talk about the future and this team coming together and even thinking they can compete at the highest level. But right now, I mean, there's a lot of disheartened fans out there.
- [28:24]
Paige Desorbo
Yeah, yeah, there certainly are. And I do think that the, the last few days has really put a big dent in the mood of the fans, which wasn't exactly positive a week ago, but I think is now much worse than it was. I do think if we're looking for positives, I'd say that the players, I think the players are still on board with the manager and the manager's ideas in a way which is very different from the end of the Mourinho era or the end of the Conte era, when really it was clear that the players were very, very fed up. So I think the, he retains the enthusiasm to an extent of the players and the fact that they're still in Europe does give the, the opportunity, at least in theory, for spurs to, to win a trophy. So I think it's, I think it's just important that they kind of manage to find some of that energy and enthusiasm within Themselves, as hard as that seems now. So they can maybe have a. Have a. Have a bit of a run at the Europa League in March and beyond.
- [29:18]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Yeah, but Phil, is this slightly different to the Gary O'Neills and Sean Deutsches of this world? You know, we've talked about that sort of point of no return. You can almost see in the demeanour of managers in press conferences that just look battered down and you're like, how long is this going to last for? Do we get a sense that there's actually a bit more investment in Postecoglou? Because what's the point of buying all these players if you're not going to invest in this manager, to sit in the seat to see how it all flourishes?
- [29:40]
Expert Analyst
This all depends on Levy, doesn't it? I mean, it's his decision ultimately, and he doesn't seem to me, and I don't think I'm telling anything. They don't know you. Many other people would say the same. Doesn't seem to me like a man who's swayed by sport or sentiment, particularly. Certainly not by the media. Maybe, as Jack suggested, there more so by the players and their attitude and how they're feeling about Postecoglou, and I would suspect in the past very much by what his manager or head coach is actually saying. Postecoglou has been pretty careful to this point, for all the frustration with injuries and depth of the squad and everything else, not to actually cross swords with Levy on the board. You know, he's been really careful in treading that line. Levy, from what I've seen him over the years, tends to take course and stick with it until he decides that the people around him, along with him, decide that enough's enough. You rarely hear a word from him. He's interviewed so infrequently, so who really knows what he's thinking? And I think that is the most crucial aspect for Postecoglou at the moment. The injury list must offer some mitigation. I mean, it has to. But at the same time, I'd be surprised if spurs hierarchy won't front a bit worried by quite a lot of what they're seeing. I feel like it'll be exactly like Gary O'Neill at Wolves, where they'll want to stick this out for as long as they can, and they'll want to get through the mist and through the fog and into better times. But there's always a breaking point.
- [31:00]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Yeah. Do those injuries returning fix Spurs, Jack? You know, I mean, it's. It's plausible Right. I mean, there's some top players there. Will that just change it? You know, if they come back pretty soon, spurs gallop a little further up the table. Yes. Foster, Coglu staying, you know, I mean, is that enough to fix what's going on? Right.
- [31:18]
Paige Desorbo
Right now I'm not optimistic. I think that the problem is that the players who have not got injured are so exhausted now that they're nowhere near as good as they were earlier in the season. Like Ki suppose his best player, he was unbelievably good for the first half of the season. He's had to play every single game this season and he's now exhausted. Like we could see. You know, I thought he was their best player again against Aston Villa yesterday. I also thought he's, you know, running on empty. So. And then, you know, on top of son again had to play too much. I think son is clearly not playing well at the moment. So I don't think that the returning players coming back will necessarily make everything okay. Like it'll make spurs better in some areas. Like it'd be great if they could, you know, build up from the back again. It'd be great if they had more pace out wide again. It would be great if they had someone who could hold the ball up, up front because they don't really have that without, particularly without. If you don't have Solanke or Richarlison, you've got nobody who can hold the ball up. Like we've seen that since Richarlison's calf injury the day. So there's things that could be improved by the new guys, by the injured players coming back, but I don't think that spurs will certainly be a good team again.
- [32:24]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Yeah, Phil, I've just as. As Jack's just talking, I was just thinking about how much hope a player like Harry Kane brought to spurs while he was there. I mean, spurs have always had this sort of up and down thing going on, but in the midst of, you know, darkness there was always this guy, the talisman, who actually, when you look at it now, did more than just scoring goals for this team.
- [32:43]
Expert Analyst
Yeah, and. And there have been periods in the time where Kane was at spurs where close, you know, really close that season where they were the Premier League was. Was almost right there for them and could have been their Champions League final as well. It's not as if they haven't been in the mix and I think it is a bit of a dead election of duty. But they've missed the opportunity to capitalize on that they've gone backwards at quite a severe rate and I think you would say they've gone backwards from last season to this as well. Again, the loss of players has definitely made a difference, but I was writing about this in the newsletter this morning and I was saying that if postecoglou survives the run in and gets to the summer, and we'll see whether that happens, he's gonna have less breathing space next year than those aliens in Toy Story and that little spaceship. He's gonna be under extreme pressure and in order for him to get out of that bubble and to get into smoother waters, he's gonna have to have some serious support from the transfer market. And you just never quite feel confident that spurs are going to deliver those.
- [33:43]
Ayo Akinwaleere
That, yeah, that's a good point actually. Now actually think about the transfer market. I mean, it's easy to look at it now, but how well do you think that money has to be spent since Harry Kane left to Bayern Munich in terms of rebuilding this squad? Because Phil makes an interesting point there, actually. This. The money came in, but they don't seem to have moved forward since then.
- [34:01]
Paige Desorbo
Yeah, I mean, I think the k. I think it can't be emphasized enough how, how important Kane. And also if we're on a son when he was at his best work, like for years Tottenham were able to play badly and win because if you've got two world class striker, you can play badly and win. And now they don't have Kane. Sonnen's clearly in decline and they just find it so much harder to do anything, I think with that kind of, I guess that kind of safety net comfort blanket, however you want to phrase it, removed. I think spurs in the transfer market, they've done okay. I think Fabio Paratici bought quite a lot of good players when he was at the club recently. Some of the guys they bought have been fine. I think their policy of buying very talented teenagers will pay off a lot in the end. I think Graham Bergwald are very, very good. Wait. Probably have to wait and see a bit on tell. And Odebear Kinski is clearly very gifted too. I just think they didn't come in with enough players, really. I think the squad was too thin and I think that there were a series of players in the summer who were linked with spurs who they were interested in, who were more experienced than the guys who they went for and they didn't end up doing deals for any of them. You know, they definitely looked really hard at Jacob Ramsey at the start of the window now Ramsay would have been about 50 million and they had a small window to do this back when Aston Villa had the PSR challenges. And this is before Villa sort of think it was DRB to Saudi Arabia and Douglas Luis de Juventus. But spurs didn't do it. And obviously then Ramsey scores against the Open against Tottenham yesterday. Connie Gallagher is a player that Anteposicoglou was really interested for a long time. Wouldn't have been cheap. You know, Chelsea might not have wanted to sell into Tottenham. He might not not even have wanted to go to Tottenham himself, but he went to Atletico Madrid. You know, Pedro Natto went from Wolves to Chelsea. You know, everybody knows his release clause. Tottenham didn't meet it. He's still at Crystal Palace. So if they'd really been committed to Postecoglou succeeding right now rather than building the squad for five years time, there's any number of Premier League established players who they could have gone for. And yeah, they would have cost a lot. You know, they would have cost big fees and big salaries too, because those guys don't come cheap. But I just think that the Tottenham transfer strategy was almost too, too far sighted. It was too focused on, on the, the distant future and probably not sufficiently focused on the here and now. But that which the problem is they, they, they had clearly come into the season without enough players for the here and now.
- [36:28]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Yeah. Where do they go from here, Jack? How much longer can this kind of continue without any action being taken? I mean it's, I guess it always falls on the manager, but I'm sure it's much deeper than that, surely.
- [36:39]
Paige Desorbo
Well, yeah, it's a great question. I think that, I mean it's telling that Postecoglou is still the manager. Right. Like, you know, Conte, lots of other Tottenham managers have been sacked from much better positions than Tottenham are now in Conte. Mourinho Pochettino, Nuno avb, you know, Harry Redknapp, Martin Yoel. Like the list goes far into the distant past, right, of Tottenham managers who've been sacked with the team in a better position than spurs are now. That said, I think right now it's difficult to see exactly what the short term benefit would be to sacking Postecoglou. I don't think there are many very good options on the market out there so that if they were to sack him, they could bring in somebody who would immediately improve the team. My guess is that they, they give him a bit more time, they allow the players to come back, they see how they do in Europe. Europe. And you know, it'd be great if they won the Europa League. I don't think it's impossible, but I think it's probably unlikely at this point. And then maybe sit down in the summer and have a bit of a think about what they might do next. You know, Postecoglou does have a contract for next season. He signed a three plus one deal when he took the job in 2023. So, yeah, it's certainly an unusual situation they're in at the moment, but I think they will probably, you know, roll it on for a bit longer.
- [37:54]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Phil, is it easy to say, you know, any failure of management is also a failure of the club and their recruitment in general? Because we've spoken about recruitment a lot. Just said it to Jack there, you know, Ange Postecogli will take the flak. But this is a much deeper conversation, surely about how the club is run.
- [38:11]
Expert Analyst
You do have occasions where managers or head coaches couldn't have been backed any more than they have been and where you do have coherent strategies in the background that they just can't take advantage of. But generally you're right. You know, when things fail, it tends to be failure by committee rather than one individual who's on the touchline. And I do think we've moved into an era now where there's certainly far more. There's been a focus on owners for a long time now, going back probably 10, 20 years. A really good piece written a long time ago about Peter Ridsdale at Leeds, saying that he was the first chairman who tried to put himself out there as a bit of a face and a personality rather than, you know, the good old days when literally the only person who ever really spoke or represented the club was the manager. It just isn't like that anymore. But a lot more pressure now on sporting directors and technical directors, but because supporters are far more aware of their presence and far more aware of their input and far more inclined to judge it. I mean, I always think of Levy when I think of the hierarchy, I suppose, because he leads it. And as I said earlier, there are aspects of his work that you have to give him credit for. The creation of the stadium being number one. It's as high end as any sports arena this side of the us. The NFL is like the market leader for spectacular stadiums. And if you plonked spurs in the middle of the NFL, it wouldn't look at all out of place. Hence why the NFL Europe games are gravitating towards Tottenham more and more. And he has kept the finances strictly in check. Jack referenced that, you know, the football expenditure to turnover ratio is low by the standards of most clubs and it does maintain a stable business. But it is also an outlier, really in the Premier League. Not many clubs are doing what they are doing and you have to say that while it might be a virtue, is it getting them any will in competitive terms? And the answer is at this stage, not really. And ultimately the supporters will always ask, are stable finances enough? Because there's no getting away from it. Tottenham don't go big or they don't go big enough. It seems to me that they're very obviously behind a curve. So Levy does have ways of defending this model and I'm sure he would do, but I don't think anybody can say with much credibility that the feet on the ground are set up to compete with Europe's best. Because they aren't.
- [40:21]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Okay, let's, let's leave it there. Thankfully for spurs, they've got a bit of a rest now to their next league match, so let's see if their form picks up. Jack, Phil, thank you for your time and also thank you all for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.
- [40:33]
Phil Hay
You've been listening to the Athletic FC Podcast. The producers were Guy Clark, Mike Stavrou and Jay Beal. The executive producer was a moorhead. To listen to other great athletic podcasts for free, search for the Athletic on Apple, Spotify and all the usual PlayStations. The Athletic FC Podcast is an athletic media company production.
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