- Nov 15, 2018
- 19,598
- 48,952
This seems to be coming up in many other threads so lets discuss it here...have we become 'boring boring Tottenham Hotspur'?
Gone are the days of Tottenham having exciting attacking get you off your seat types of players (Hoddle,Ardiles,Waddle,Gazza,Klinsman,Ginola,Lennon,Bale,Modric,Van Der Vaart,Keane,Defoe,Eriksen,peak Dele)
Gone are the days of: the Ardiles front 5, Sheringham & Klinsmann link-up, the Martin Jol team, The Harry Redknapp Team, The Peak Poch team, those free-flowing, pass and move, to dare is to do, attacking high energy Tottenham sides.
It is nearly 3 years to the day that we hired Jose Mourinho on 20th November 2019, we threw the clubs DNA out of the window, we sold our soul to the devil for the promise of trophies and success, it was a soul destroying experience and didn't work for our club. We then followed that up by hiring an equally defensive and even more dull and cold manager in Nuno on 1st July 2021, then on 2nd November 2021 in comes Antonio Conte.
We hired Paratici a great sporting director with a history of winning at Juventus but a club and a country who's style and philosophy has traditionally been the polar opposite to that of our great club Tottenham Hotspur. If Paratici thought Nuno could make us proud and play good football or that failing that Gattuso could sort it all out then that is concerning for who might manage us in future if/when Conte is no longer with us.
The football we are playing the last 6-7 matches is boring and the squad we have is on the whole boring.
Outside of the occasional bit of creativity from Kulusevski or Son or a good finish from Kane the only striker we've owned for the last seemingly 10 years, the squad has such an incredible lack of pace or invention or creativity or goalscoring threat it is untrue.
Add to that we've hired 3 fairly pragmatic managers in a row to exacerbate the issue.
If we aren't going to play football the Spurs way in a more open and free flowing attacking pass and more to dare is to do style then we at least need some more players to get us excited as I'm sorry but we are boring, 3 years now of the same boring players and style. Under Jol, Redknapp and Poch for me we were up there with the most entertaining exciting teams to watch in the league, we wouldn't always win but you could never call our club boring, now we are. There are genuinely very few teams in the league who I'd not rather watch that us. This isn't all on Conte but the fact remains right now and over the sum of the last 3 years we have become 'boring boring Tottenham Hotspur'.
When Spence came on yesterday and made that bursting run forwards past 3 players it was like a shock to the system, I'd forgotten what it was like to see a Tottenham player do something like that.
If we are going to continue to play as we are then we need a set of 4 wing backs with pace and power and creativity, more like Spence. We've gone from Walker and Rose to Doherty & Emerson... boring.
We need Centre backs with class and style more like Romero and Lenglet, like we used to have with King, Gallas, Toby, Jan, we've gone from that to Dier, Davies and Sanchez... boring.
We need midfielders who can get the ball down and play and pass and dribble and create, more like we have in Bentancur and less like PEH (love PEH's attitude and spirit but he is the epitopie of a Jose Mourinho type player, not a Tottenham player), we've gone from the likes of Carrick, Huddlestone, Dembele, Modric, Eriksen to PEH, Skipp...boring.
We need creative wide players who make things happen, get us off our seats, play with invention and style and pace and class, more like Kulusevski, Gil, less like Richarlison (he's a good functional player but he's a bit boring)
And what we really really really need are... SOME BLOODY STRIKERS, GOALSCORERS, players who can run in behind, players who can shoot on site, a striker with some pace and power and energy and god help us someone else instead of just running Kane into the ground match after match for the last 5+years! I know we play a different formation now with just one striker but we used to have Berbatov, Keane, Defoe, Pav at one point, 4 classy different exciting options who can excite and score goals, Kane is obviously brilliant but having just him season in season out as our only striker option for 3-5 years is boring, he's knackered and so are we.
As the great Danny Blanchflower says below, the game is both about glory and doing things in style and with a flourish. I think these types of quotes are stitched into the fabric and DNA of our club and fans and given we've not been the most dominating successful of clubs in our history I believe that the one thing that Tottenham should never be is boring.
Gone are the days of Tottenham having exciting attacking get you off your seat types of players (Hoddle,Ardiles,Waddle,Gazza,Klinsman,Ginola,Lennon,Bale,Modric,Van Der Vaart,Keane,Defoe,Eriksen,peak Dele)
Gone are the days of: the Ardiles front 5, Sheringham & Klinsmann link-up, the Martin Jol team, The Harry Redknapp Team, The Peak Poch team, those free-flowing, pass and move, to dare is to do, attacking high energy Tottenham sides.
It is nearly 3 years to the day that we hired Jose Mourinho on 20th November 2019, we threw the clubs DNA out of the window, we sold our soul to the devil for the promise of trophies and success, it was a soul destroying experience and didn't work for our club. We then followed that up by hiring an equally defensive and even more dull and cold manager in Nuno on 1st July 2021, then on 2nd November 2021 in comes Antonio Conte.
We hired Paratici a great sporting director with a history of winning at Juventus but a club and a country who's style and philosophy has traditionally been the polar opposite to that of our great club Tottenham Hotspur. If Paratici thought Nuno could make us proud and play good football or that failing that Gattuso could sort it all out then that is concerning for who might manage us in future if/when Conte is no longer with us.
The football we are playing the last 6-7 matches is boring and the squad we have is on the whole boring.
Outside of the occasional bit of creativity from Kulusevski or Son or a good finish from Kane the only striker we've owned for the last seemingly 10 years, the squad has such an incredible lack of pace or invention or creativity or goalscoring threat it is untrue.
Add to that we've hired 3 fairly pragmatic managers in a row to exacerbate the issue.
If we aren't going to play football the Spurs way in a more open and free flowing attacking pass and more to dare is to do style then we at least need some more players to get us excited as I'm sorry but we are boring, 3 years now of the same boring players and style. Under Jol, Redknapp and Poch for me we were up there with the most entertaining exciting teams to watch in the league, we wouldn't always win but you could never call our club boring, now we are. There are genuinely very few teams in the league who I'd not rather watch that us. This isn't all on Conte but the fact remains right now and over the sum of the last 3 years we have become 'boring boring Tottenham Hotspur'.
When Spence came on yesterday and made that bursting run forwards past 3 players it was like a shock to the system, I'd forgotten what it was like to see a Tottenham player do something like that.
If we are going to continue to play as we are then we need a set of 4 wing backs with pace and power and creativity, more like Spence. We've gone from Walker and Rose to Doherty & Emerson... boring.
We need Centre backs with class and style more like Romero and Lenglet, like we used to have with King, Gallas, Toby, Jan, we've gone from that to Dier, Davies and Sanchez... boring.
We need midfielders who can get the ball down and play and pass and dribble and create, more like we have in Bentancur and less like PEH (love PEH's attitude and spirit but he is the epitopie of a Jose Mourinho type player, not a Tottenham player), we've gone from the likes of Carrick, Huddlestone, Dembele, Modric, Eriksen to PEH, Skipp...boring.
We need creative wide players who make things happen, get us off our seats, play with invention and style and pace and class, more like Kulusevski, Gil, less like Richarlison (he's a good functional player but he's a bit boring)
And what we really really really need are... SOME BLOODY STRIKERS, GOALSCORERS, players who can run in behind, players who can shoot on site, a striker with some pace and power and energy and god help us someone else instead of just running Kane into the ground match after match for the last 5+years! I know we play a different formation now with just one striker but we used to have Berbatov, Keane, Defoe, Pav at one point, 4 classy different exciting options who can excite and score goals, Kane is obviously brilliant but having just him season in season out as our only striker option for 3-5 years is boring, he's knackered and so are we.
As the great Danny Blanchflower says below, the game is both about glory and doing things in style and with a flourish. I think these types of quotes are stitched into the fabric and DNA of our club and fans and given we've not been the most dominating successful of clubs in our history I believe that the one thing that Tottenham should never be is boring.