Europa League 2013/14 Thread

[brenchill]

Spending £100m on a load of squad players instead of bringing in 2-3 quality players may be the one of the worst decisions I've ever seen in football. I liken it to when Dalglish completely dismantled that exciting 90's Newcastle team and just brought all his old Liverpool mates in for a last pay day.

[Colly]

Difference there being that (while I don't agree with how he managed it) Kenny was under brief to cut the wage bill, whereas presumably those half a dozen players are collectively earning more than Bale was.

[Jimmy]

Spending £100m on a load of squad players instead of bringing in 2-3 quality players may be the one of the worst decisions I've ever seen in football. I liken it to when Dalglish completely dismantled that exciting 90's Newcastle team and just brought all his old Liverpool mates in for a last pay day.

I don't think this is quite fair. I just think our players need a season to adapt, and they've also had to try and adapt under a pretty big management chance, and Sherwood's inconsistency in line-ups. Eriksen, Lamela, Paulinho, Chirches and Soldado all possess quality. I'd say Eriksen's probably been the bestso far this season, and if we keep hold of them, all five of them will be consistent starters in the team. We've been unlucky with injuries, all of the players bar Soldado have been injured numerous times at one point or another.

Lamela's never had a chance and has now been out for three months, Eriksen missed out during AVB's last run through injury, Paulinho was having his best game until Charlie Adam put him out for a month, Capoue looked quality until his injury against Arsenal and we've sorely missed Chirches since his second or third injury.

It hasn't panned out yet, but there's more reasons to it then us buying 'squad players'. These are great players, and if we don't panic, or we can convince them to stay, I think they'll be excellent next season.

[Gazz]

You need to take the manager into Sherwood forest and leave him there.

[brenchill]

Spending £100m on a load of squad players instead of bringing in 2-3 quality players may be the one of the worst decisions I've ever seen in football. I liken it to when Dalglish completely dismantled that exciting 90's Newcastle team and just brought all his old Liverpool mates in for a last pay day.

I don't think this is quite fair. I just think our players need a season to adapt, and they've also had to try and adapt under a pretty big management chance, and Sherwood's inconsistency in line-ups. Eriksen, Lamela, Paulinho, Chirches and Soldado all possess quality. I'd say Eriksen's probably been the bestso far this season, and if we keep hold of them, all five of them will be consistent starters in the team. We've been unlucky with injuries, all of the players bar Soldado have been injured numerous times at one point or another.

Lamela's never had a chance and has now been out for three months, Eriksen missed out during AVB's last run through injury, Paulinho was having his best game until Charlie Adam put him out for a month, Capoue looked quality until his injury against Arsenal and we've sorely missed Chirches since his second or third injury.

It hasn't panned out yet, but there's more reasons to it then us buying 'squad players'. These are great players, and if we don't panic, or we can convince them to stay, I think they'll be excellent next season.

I see your point, but to me, all of those players you listed are just squad players. They aren't world-class players. You lost Bale who was brilliant, you should have capitalised on the massive amount of money you got from the transfer and bought as I said, 2-3 top class players to strengthen the team.

Bale went, you got £100m to spend on players then somehow your Chairman and Manager went and completely weakened the side.

I think Soldado and Lamela were good buys (yes, I know they have been poor) but the rest? Not so sure.

[METALMAN]

Tottenham did poorly this summer. You can use the excuses of injuries and so on, but the reality is they signed several players and not one has had a meaningful impact.

[GoN_]

I was expecting much more from Tottenham this season. Most players that were signed are really good (hell, Soldado was playing incredibly well, last season). Most likely, it was too much too fast. So many players with no premier league experience really needed a lot of time to get things right. Changing managers mid-season, with the new manager playing different XI's erratically is not the way to solve the problems...

[Colly]

Paulinho's been decent when I've seen him.

[Matt]

I'll be shocked if Paulinho and Lamela don't turn out good, Eriksen is looking a bit handy and I'd expect Soldado to improve. I think everyone expected too much of Spurs this season but they haven't done that badly at all, they just seem to get smashed when they play one of the top sides. I think once Lamela and co settle down properly that'll stop. I think the only thing that could stop Tottenham being genuine top 4 contenders next year would be Levy bottling it and getting shut of the players that haven't adapted to the league yet.

[Colly]

I think the biggest problem they have is Sherwood, whenever I've watched them he's doing weird Football Manager things like four attacking midfielders, or indeed Walker on the wing. Team full of cultured foreign players, bring in inexperienced English coach to play 442 sort of.

[Jimmy]

I'll be shocked if Paulinho and Lamela don't turn out good, Eriksen is looking a bit handy and I'd expect Soldado to improve. I think everyone expected too much of Spurs this season but they haven't done that badly at all, they just seem to get smashed when they play one of the top sides. I think once Lamela and co settle down properly that'll stop. I think the only thing that could stop Tottenham being genuine top 4 contenders next year would be Levy bottling it and getting shut of the players that haven't adapted to the league yet.

That's the hope. I'm a little scared Lamela's going to want out this summer because he hasn't settled, which will be a huge waste of talent and money. I also think Paulinho will have a very, very good World Cup. I'm quite worried we'll lose Lloris and Vertonghen, and that'll mean we'll have another year trying to rebuild certain areas of the squad. Obviously there's still a chance we can get top 4 this year, but I just don't have any faith in Sherwood to deliver that. Eriksen possesses the creativity we've lacked since Modric left, but we waste him by playing him on the left.

And I'd argue there wasn't many world class players we could attract. We've bought a lot of players who could well be world class, but it wasn't like we missed out on someone huge or anything. Willian's as close as it gets and I'd argue he isn't in the 'world class' bracket, but that seems like a silly thing to argue.

[Colly]

I'd agree with that, it's not as if Spurs could've gone 'ooh, £100m, let's get Falcao and Thiago Silva', they had to aim for that rung below, and because everyone was aware they had that amount they probably got stung on a few of the fees.

[GoN_]

Team v Benfica - Friedel; Naughton, Fryers, Sandro, Rose; Lennon, Bentaleb, Chadli, Sigurdsson, Townsend; Soldado. #COYS
Subs vs Benfica - Archer, Ball, Ogilvie, Veljkovic, Eriksen, Winks, Kane.

Dat defense.

[MDK]

Wow

Spurs gon die

[King Ellis]

I'm going with Benfica to score 5.

[Baddar]

United bound Garay () gives Benfica the lead on the night.

[Baddar]

Where's this come from?! Spurs need another to force extra time!

[Summers]

Come on Spurs! So close then.

[GoGo Yubari]

Ha, Chadli was saying yesterday that Spurs supporters hadn't seen the best of him yet. He's backing it up!

[Baddar]

Didn't even look like they'd get an equaliser 10mins ago.