View from the Away End

[CuteMancs]

I have decided to go early with this one because there are more than enough comments to get an idea of the spuds state of mind. I have also included a very long comment (at the end), which I would never normally do. We need to make amends for the away game, and the fact that Conte has never lost four games in a row before just adds that extra incentive. I’m not even thinking about the Harry Kane angle! I like the comment about nuking Ukraine and getting the game called off. Made me wonder; does anyone else think that the chumps league final cannot go ahead in Russia if they start a war in Eastern Europe, or is it just me?

COME ON CITY!!!

Referee: Anthony Taylor
Assistants: Gary Beswick, Adam Nunn
Fourth official: Craig Pawson
VAR: Darren England
Assistant VAR: Simon Bennett

Team Selection

Lloris
Romero Dier Rodon
Emerson Bentancur Skipp Hojbjerg Reguilon
Kane Son

And the rest…

You just know we're gonna win this one!

I’m pumped over this already. Bring on the Champions.

This is where we win 2-0 on 3 shots and 25% possession, and we all claim that we’re only 1 or 2 summer signings away from a genuine title challenge next year.

7-1…And I'm being serious this time.

That’s just the first half, right.

Christ, it's away aswell.

The incentive to avoid lose 4 on the trot will be huge. When did we last lose 4 on the bounce?

At least the squad have a week to prepare, while City are playing mid week…So hopefully we'll only lose by 2.

If we play 2 in midfield against City and Winks is one of them then we will absolutely deserve the fucking hammering we're going to get.

Forfeit may be the way to go if it only results in a 3-0 loss…If we play with the guys we have available it is likely to be a worse loss than that. With the way nobody wants 4th it is going to be tight and keeping the goals against down could be key.

An absolute bumming incoming I'm afraid.

Where's a covid outbreak when you need one.

Harry will want to show them what they are missing.

It’s a funny old game . In fact , our last two have been fucking hilarious!

Arguably the best pressing team in the league and in Europe and everyone knows that if you press our players they shit themselves, can't wait for this lol.
We are going to get absolutely fucking pumped so just sit back and enjoy the gallows humour.

If we play 343 we'll get hammered regardless of who the 2 are…Being out-numbered by Rodri, KDB & Gundogan will be fucking suicidal and I'll be furious with Conte if we do it.

We are a fucking shambles, we are guaranteed to get torn apart by them. It's just getting worse and worse.

These cunts next. Fucking great.

If City are at it, it could get messy.

I have no doubt we'll do them, because that's just Tottenham. Fate has to maximize the number of times we're kicked in the balls, so we can't be allowed to peacefully fall off the pace for 4th so soon.

Reckon kane will get stick from city fans such as look what hes missing. Fuck all that club without their owners. Have shaun goater as a club legend. Say no more.

This will end in tears…Hopefully a win, because sorry, I don't want to see oil City and Pep winning the league yet again.

I never fear City…Problem is, I do fear us.

Any chance Russia will nuke Ukraine before this match? …Could be our only way out.

Honestly expecting one of our heaviest PL defeats here…City are light years ahead of anyone else in the PL and we just got made to look like idiots by Southampton & Wolves for fucks sake.

This is a well oiled City machine well in their groove vs our clapped out side grinding to a halt. And it’s at the Etihad. And they’ll want a bit of payback after the opening day defeat.

The Emptyhad is a tough place to go; but worse sides than us have got points there.

New record for Pep and the Guiness book of records. An embarrassing 14:2 for Citeh. I‘m very optimistic with these 2 goals, I know!

One interesting fact to consider is this : Spurs have not conceded a single Premier League goal under Antonio Conte when Eric Dier, Oliver Skipp and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg have started for the side. (5 Matches)…In contrast, when the three have not all started together, Spurs have conceded 13 goals. (7 matches).

They're financial cheats and have been for a long time now, of course we'll lose but I won't be crying about it as we should all know how they've won by now…3-0 to the cheats.

We are their bogey team. And even if we lose we split the points this season with the best team on the planet.

I always wonder what it can be like to be a fan of these Clubs. Many have been life long fans, and were so long before the money barons came along. Can those same fans deep down have any genuine satisfaction from the success that the Club has had in recent years, albeit I'm sure that they get a lot of enjoyment from the football they watch.

IN fairness, much like us City were second best in Manchester for a very long time, and the old lifelong fans used to come from a very tight area in Manchester - now my City friends tell me they come from far and wide and have more 'glory hunters' than he's ever known…The old fans obviously do love the football they play, and they like that the club are supporting inwards investment in the area around the stadium - as was once said to me (I paraphrase) 'let's face it no one else would'…Most accept that the new owners are guilty of financial doping and associated sponsor cheating by inflating deals, but of course, rationalise it by that the big European clubs have been doing it for years (which is true) e.g. if it wasn't for Audi Bayern Munich would have financially imploded decades ago as their football-related income never got close to how much 'support' they'd get from increased contributions from Audi and BMW..the same goes for Real Madrid who through various nefarious deals have had the state of Spain/Madrid with sweet-heart financial deal and financing like no other club on the continent. I could go on and on…Basically, the older fans have long ago accepted that they couldn't care less what their owners do as long as they keep digging deep and chucking money at them, it brings success, and let's be honest we have our own share of fans who couldn't give a damn and are only interested in having owners who are prepared to do whatever it takes…Personally, I will always call them cheats and live in the hope that sooner or later the authorities will fully accept the long-term damage they've done to the PL/Europe and football in general and act accordingly.

[nottsblue]

Cheers CM as always

One of the must win games of the 38 game season. Hate Spurs and always have done and always will.
They are in a way possibly the most delusional fans. Even more so than rags or dippers as they at least have had pots on the sideboard wheres all Spurs have is a tub of brasso from the last century

[CTID Hants]

Cheers CM

"Most accept that the new owners are guilty of financial doping and associated sponsor cheating by inflating deals"

Erm I for one don't accept we are guilty of financial doping, FFS we were cleared by independent panel!!!

Plastic rag said to me today you got to beat them lot on Saturday in hope of their top 4 bid.

[Harry Dowd scored]

Personally, I will always call them cheats and live in the hope that sooner or later the authorities will fully accept the long-term damage they've done to the PL/Europe and football in general and act accordingly.

Those remarks are a result of years of
Anti City propaganda and just shows how effective it is, aad why we will never get tbe recognition we deserve

[Bear60]

Thanks CM .
Cheats ?? These fucking idiots are unreal hope we slaughter the filthy north London wankers

[carolina-blue]

Personally, I will always call them cheats and live in the hope that sooner or later the authorities will fully accept the long-term damage they've done to the PL/Europe and football in general and act accordingly.

Those remarks are a result of years of
Anti City propaganda and just shows how effective it is, aad why we will never get tbe recognition we deserve

To right mate , I hear it all the time on the radio over here now ffs Oil money cheats . I know it’s been said in the past but it’s only going to get worse unless the club / owners fight back

[Mase]

Cheers CM

"Most accept that the new owners are guilty of financial doping and associated sponsor cheating by inflating deals"

Erm I for one don't accept we are guilty of financial doping, FFS we were cleared by independent panel!!!

Plastic rag said to me today you got to beat them lot on Saturday in hope of their top 4 bid.

How long will they consider the Sheikh our “new” owner? He’s been here for over 10 years now.

[john68]

i love the cheats insult...Short memories of how their handballed goal got them in Europe.

It seems the spuds fans are just another group of sheeple who have grabbed at the shite from the anti city media, in order to blame City for their own club's inadequaces.

Fuck 'em, a lot of 'em still consider they're a top side because they won a double at the start of the 60s.

[johnny crossan]

racists r' us - currency speculating parasite owners with a chorus of morons like Sugar fuel anti-Arab propaganda at every opportunity trying to deflect from their obscene use of their own club for property speculation and the PL as a cash machine.

[sheblue]

I really want us to smash these shits to pieces.
After the rags and vermin they are no 3 on the most hated list. Plus the cunts fluked a win against us in the first game.
They need a good slapping.

[Outcast]

Yes before citeh's dirty oil money, Yids were winning it all until those dirty Arabs came along and destroyed it all. Bunch of cheats, we don't want them in our league.


I hate Yids with passion, I truly detest them

[johnny crossan]

Conte’s words may have been accurate, but Levy will not wilt – what happens on the pitch will speak far louder


By Jack Pitt-Brooke and James Horncastle 5h ago 75

Tottenham head coach Antonio Conte’s interview with Sky Italia this week has attracted plenty of attention.

If you read what he said, there is really very little to disagree with. Yet whether you think it was wise or constructive for Conte to speak in these terms about the club’s transfer policy is another matter.

There are plenty of reasons why a manager will say something in public — getting a message out to the players, the club or the fans — and ultimately comments should be assessed for their political function as much as for their truth value. Just because something is true, it does not mean it is always helpful to say it.

This time last year, remember, then-manager Jose Mourinho was hammering his Spurs players in public, despite requests from club staff not to do so. Mourinho’s analysis might have been accurate, but it was not wise to keep airing it publicly, and he was eventually sacked.

This is the situation Tottenham find themselves in, in their long post-Mauricio Pochettino identity crisis.

Daniel Levy has built the club up to the point that he can attract the most famous managers in the game to lead the team (in a separate interview with BeIN Sports, Conte praised Levy for building a “cathedral” for football in the form of the new stadium). But there is a lingering feeling with Conte (as there was with Mourinho) that Tottenham are just a bit too dependent on the man in the dug-out. That there is not enough ballast elsewhere at the club — quality in the squad, unity with the fans, strategic direction — to give him the support that he needs.

That is why, less than four months in, the Conte era already feels so brittle. There is no question he is a brilliant coach, and he has made Tottenham significantly better, with and without the ball, even if it does not feel like that after three league defeats on the spin. Spurs are still in the mix for a fourth-place finish, in the last 16 of the FA Cup, and in far better shape than they were likely to have been with the Italian’s short-lived predecessor Nuno Espirito Santo.

At the same time, Conte is already playing his own political games, managing expectations, refusing to commit his long-term future to the club — anything to strengthen his own position and reputation at Tottenham. His comments in recent months have not gone down very well with some at the club and, it appears this week, with some fans. That is only natural. People do not like to feel that they are lucky to have Conte managing their club. And they do not want to feel under constant threat of him walking out.

But in the context of everything Conte has said at Tottenham, this interview is not as explosive as it first seemed.

He started off by saying that he is “definitely happy” with the way that Spurs are working. He reiterated that it was going to “take time and patience” to get them to where they want to be. He said — not for the first time — that Tottenham are “one of the many teams that are in the middle and that has to work a lot”. No one who has watched Spurs recently would disagree with that.

There are two comments in the interview, which could suggest a difference between Conte and the club, that are worth a bit more examination.

The first is that what happened in the January transfer window was “not easy”, with Spurs losing four players and replacing them with just two. But even on this, Conte was not being as critical as some first thought.

“Four players left in January, four important players for Tottenham,” he said. “Two have now come in. Numerically, on paper, you may have ‘weakened’ instead of strengthening. Specific choices have been made for lots of reasons, but I definitely never expected four players who I considered to be important players would change teams in January for a number of reasons.”

Now, there are several ways that this is a slightly strange answer, but as an analysis it is not wildly off the mark.

The first thing to say is that if Conte really thought Tanguy Ndombele, Giovani Lo Celso, Dele Alli and Bryan Gil were “important players for Tottenham”, he had a curious way of showing it. Those four players started just three Premier League games combined under Conte (two for Dele, one for Ndombele). Ndombele was sent to train on his own after the FA Cup game against Morecambe and never made a bench again. Lo Celso and Dele were not even among the substitutes for Chelsea away on January 23 (Harvey White and Dane Scarlett were), giving a pretty good indication of what Conte made of them, too.

And there is certainly an argument that Spurs are better off this way.

Clearly, Conte did not fancy Ndombele, Lo Celso, Dele or Gil. Simply put: Tottenham are better off with two players the manager counts on rather than four he does not. Conte himself said in his first press conference after the window shut that the squad was “more complete” with the additions of Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski. It would be unusual for him to go back on that opinion now.

All that being said, at the start of the window Conte probably did not expect he would lose four players and only get in two. Whether you think Spurs will be better off or not, they certainly do look short of a body or two. Some key players have played so much they do not look themselves right now. There is no genuinely creative midfielder in the squad. And there is still no attacking right wing-back, which back at the start of January was Conte’s top priority. So he may well have a point that the outgoings did not lead to the signings he was hoping for. Moves for Luis Diaz, Adama Traore and Franck Kessie all came to nothing.

This leads us to the second part that stands out, the part concerning Spurs’ stance on not signing experienced players. Conte said — quite accurately — that the signings of Kulusevski and Bentancur reveal the club’s intentions in the transfer market. “Tottenham are looking for young players, players to develop, not players who are ready now,” he said. “That is what it comes down to.”

When asked about the contrast between previous club Inter Milan’s policy of signing experience and Spurs’ policy of signing youth, Conte recognised the difference. “It is inevitable that if you want to grow faster and if you want to be competitive more quickly, you also need players with a lot of experience,” he said, “because they can also lead to an increase in experience across your team.” But Conte then said he has “come to realise that (the) vision of the club is this”.

This is not the first time recently that Conte has talked up the value of signing experienced players. In his press conference on January 14, Conte was asked whether he would like Spurs to do what Inter did when he was in charge, and buy him experienced players to help him win. (They signed Arturo Vidal, Romelu Lukaku, Diego Godin, Aleksandar Kolarov, Ashley Young, Alexis Sanchez, Christian Eriksen and the rest, and won Serie A last season.) Conte did sound like a man who wished his new club would do just that.

“When you go to sign experienced players, it can help you, it can help the players in the squad,” he said. “Especially if there are young players without great experience. It is not simple to sign experienced players, but at the same time, I think there are players who can build something important.” He pointed to the example of Zlatan Ibrahimovic rejoining AC Milan at the age of 38 “to help them improve, and to teach them how to manage the pressure”.

Of course, Tottenham have not done that. It has been a strategic goal of Fabio Paratici since he arrived last summer to renew the squad by signing younger players. And they have done that, signing six outfield players, the oldest of whom is 24-year-old Bentancur.

Given the players who have left the club, Spurs have a much younger squad now than they did last season. This might make it harder for them to win in the immediate term but it is also a long-overdue process of renewal. As has been discussed many times before, they had been playing with more or less the same squad since the start of the Pochettino era. The idea of going into this season with the same old players would only have delayed the pain, and made it worse when it did come.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the interview is that Conte is out in public discussing the football strategy of the club, allowing distance to be perceived between him and the club. Conte, remember, is Tottenham head coach rather than manager, and has been in that position for less than four months. His current contract expires at the end of next season. He is not going to be here forever.

Really, the job of explaining and defending the club strategy in public should belong to Levy and Paratici. They are in charge of the long-term plan of the club and should answer for it.

But Levy rarely speaks in public, and has said very little since his “Tottenham DNA” message at the end of last season, which has effectively hung over the club ever since. When Nuno was sacked after only four months and Conte then appointed, it was Paratici’s name on the quotes on the Tottenham website.

When Paratici arrived last summer, there were hopes he could take some of that pressure away from Levy and the head coach, in the way that he did at previous employers Juventus by conducting pre-game interviews. He gave one brief pre-match press conference in November when Conte was waiting for his clearance to take over and has given a few cheery interviews to the club’s official media channels.


This is certainly not a problem unique to Tottenham. Very few senior executives at their fellow Big Six sides speak publicly and in detail about their plans. But the fans of Spurs — and their rivals — deserve to hear from the people who set the strategy and direction rather than just having the head coach trying to defend the policy he is paid to implement.

But for as long as Conte is the only one who speaks, he can continue to play politics as much as he wants.

Whether this gets him the desired results is another matter.

Levy might not be enjoying the public pressure Conte puts on him, but this behaviour will surely have been “priced in” when he gave him the job in the first place. And while Levy and Joe Lewis are unlikely to suddenly find him an extra £200 million to spend this summer, Conte is also unlikely to walk away this early in his tenure.

The biggest factors in deciding whether or not Spurs have a more productive summer window, and whether the Conte era works out or not, will not be anything said to Sky Italia, or indeed in Friday’s pre-game press conference.

Finishing fourth or lifting the club’s first trophy since 2008 in the FA Cup will still be what make this season, and this appointment, a triumph.

For now, the only thing that can make this relationship work are wins, the only true answers to be found on the pitch.

[Dimples]

It will be interesting to see the Spurs players reaction.
Basically Conte has indirectly said to them:

1. For the squad he has said you are not good enough and I need to replace you with experienced players who are better.
2. For Kane he has said the Club have a long term vision of buying and developing young players. So Harry we are going to win nothing and play Europa league for what is left of your career.

I just cannot see how any Spurs player will put in a 'die for the manager' shift after that.

[stevefromdonny]

i hope we batter them into the ground, and then batter them more, and when we have battered them we batter them more, and when we have finished battering them, we fucking batter them more, until they cry and then batter them more

and i hope we batter the team as well

[Bear60]

i hope we batter them into the ground, and then batter them more, and when we have battered them we batter them more, and when we have finished battering them, we fucking batter them more, until they cry and then batter them more

and i hope we batter the team as well

Yes thats how I feel but I also
Have concerns that Conte will not want to loose 4 games on the bounce

[patrickblue]

I've been known to lurk on rag cafe, just to feel their pain. Strangely enough, the main culprit on there for slagging City is some character who professes to be a spuds fan. Really vitriolic too.

[zuricity]

"tight area of Manchester " my a*se , we are from all over Manchester. I am amazed at times at the ignorance of some people . Tight area ? what Beswick ?

Really . I hope we really tonk Spuds tomorrow. Some issues mean i might not get to the game tomorrow, but i'm staying positive

[john68]

"tight area of Manchester " my a*se , we are from all over Manchester. I am amazed at times at the ignorance of some people . Tight area ? what Beswick ?

Really . I hope we really tonk Spuds tomorrow. Some issues mean i might not get to the game tomorrow, but i'm staying positive

Manchester is only 14miles north to south and only 6miles east to west at its widest...
For a City with so much influence, that's pretty tight.
Trafford, Salford, Wigan, Bolton, Bury, Rochdale, Oldham, Tameside and Stockport can fuck 'emselves, they're not in Manchester.
And neither are the rags.
Interestingly, the rags rags were not in Manchester when they were founded. Newton Heath only moved within the Manchester boundary around 1910.

[Outcast]

"tight area of Manchester " my a*se , we are from all over Manchester. I am amazed at times at the ignorance of some people . Tight area ? what Beswick ?

Really . I hope we really tonk Spuds tomorrow. Some issues mean i might not get to the game tomorrow, but i'm staying positive

Manchester is only 14miles north to south and only 6miles east to west at its widest...
For a City with so much influence, that's pretty tight.
Trafford, Salford, Wigan, Bolton, Bury, Rochdale, Oldham, Tameside and Stockport can fuck 'emselves, they're not in Manchester.
And neither are the rags.
Interestingly, the rags rags were not in Manchester when they were founded. Newton Heath only moved within the Manchester boundary around 1910.

Anyone beyond those borders is a plastic armchair supporter?? You should join forces with City64

[Outcast]

"tight area of Manchester " my a*se , we are from all over Manchester. I am amazed at times at the ignorance of some people . Tight area ? what Beswick ?

Really . I hope we really tonk Spuds tomorrow. Some issues mean i might not get to the game tomorrow, but i'm staying positive

Manchester is only 14miles north to south and only 6miles east to west at its widest...
For a City with so much influence, that's pretty tight.
Trafford, Salford, Wigan, Bolton, Bury, Rochdale, Oldham, Tameside and Stockport can fuck 'emselves, they're not in Manchester.
And neither are the rags.
Interestingly, the rags rags were not in Manchester when they were founded. Newton Heath only moved within the Manchester boundary around 1910.

Anyone beyond those borders is a plastic armchair supporter?? You should join forces with City64