Europa League is good for Tottenham’s kids

Sarah Winterburn

Keep them coming. Watch Man United and then mail us at theeditor@football365.com

 

Keeping track of players is hard…
Reading the mail about Liverpool’s youth I had a bit of a wiki delve looking at how many games youth players had at various points and was astonished to learn that Andre Wisdom is still contracted to Liverpool! He’s on his fourth season-long loan in a row (at Red Bull Salzburg), having made a respectable 34 Premier League appearances in the last two years. Still only 23, with a big “home-grown” badge on is he going to make it back into the squad under Klopp? If not why is he being held onto?

This brings me to my next point, do other clubs’ fans completely lose track of players? I imagine lower-league teams are tough to keep track of the reserve players, especially with the weird one-month loans that seem to happen.

Chelsea must be a nightmare to follow. Oh look, still ‘own’ Christian Astu! Juan Cuadrado? That’s a murky one.

Any Juventus fans in the mailbox? Do you even bother? There’s 54(!) Juve players out on loan. Scattered all over Europe (and beyond). Must be an admin disaster.
KC (contract renewals will be tough to keep up)

 

A piece of cake
A line in the article on teenagers this morning really didn’t chime with me personally;

‘If you were given £500 to buy a cake, you wouldn’t be pondering brands of flour, butter and eggs, but whether your delicious treat will have one or two tiers.’

Well, to be a little pedantic Mr.Storey, by trade I’m a Chef, and if someone gave me 500 big ones to buy a cake for them I’d be into my kitchen sharpish. Cracking eggs, creaming butter and breaking out the tier stands. Surely in this personally applicable but perhaps at this point laboured metaphore The Club in Question is the Chef.

It is somewhat thier duty to at the very least try to develop thier own players, my professional assumption here being that they might even enjoy doing so. It would be a point of pride for me to make sure that my money doesn’t end up in the butter-soaked mitts of some Parisien patisiere, but rather I prove that I was the right place to come in the first place.

Right now it feels like Pochettino still has a few tiers left in the oven, icing in a bowl on one side, attempting to configure the best shape possible.

Klopp is delicately placing a cherry on top.

Conte a few weeks back swapped the middle with the bottom and now it’s the best tasting cake around.

Man Utd’s fancy four-layer souffle is in danger of permanant collapse.
TGWolf (pushed it too far, now it’s a mess) THFC,a kitchen somewhere in London

 

Blaming Poch
Tottenham play a weakened squad in the Champions League (for some reason) and they lose, getting knocked out of the competition in the meantime.

Tottenham play a stronger squad on Wednesday night and they win convincingly. Who would have thought?
Buchule, East London (Poch must receive absolutely all the blame for Tottenham’s regression this season)

 

Tottenham can play the kids now…
I think Matt Stead (Time for Spurs to respect Europa) should have a word with the resident celeb who wrote ‘No teenage kicks in Premier League’.

For the last few years the Europa has been a fantastic opportunity for Spurs to give first-team minutes to academy players. In 2014 we rested Soldado and gave our perennial loanee ‘Harry Kane’ a run in the Europa. Didn’t work out too badly. Without it he may never have shown the form that forced him into the first team. We also got to see first hand that Danny Rose was actually better than the new signing of Ben Davies. The next season we repeated the trick with ‘promising 19-year-old’ Dele Ali.

I’m disappointed that we’re out of the CL with a such a limp showing, and aware that I’m coming across as another Spurs fan pretending to be happy with a consolation prize but I’m hoping that now we can continue to scrutinse the squad a little more. I’d like to see more of N’Koudou, I’ve only heard good things of Carter-Vickers and Janssen needs an opportunity to boost his confidence against a lighter defense. Marcus ‘Messi’ Edwards has a handy looking Youtube reel and Winks can continue his development once Dembele is back.

Come May we just might not have an exhausted first 11, and could save ourselves a tonne of transfer budget next year.
Josh (separate mail on the state of access to large stadia imminent)

 

Spurs can’t afford to take Europa seriously…
Yes it’s a trophy and yes it’s a route back to the Champions League but I just don’t think it’s as clear as that. Yes we could win it. I think we’re good enough. But in a cup competition you’re only ever one poor performance/injury crisis/dodgy referee away from elimination. In the league you have a chance to put it right next week or hope the same befalls your rivals but in a cup that’s it.
More importantly I just don’t think the Thursday/Sunday pattern can allow you to compete on both fronts. People say it’s the same as Wednesday/Saturday but that just doesn’t happen nearly as often. England’s four Champions League representatives this season will have only played five times on a Saturday after Wednesday between them through the group stages – and one of these was because a City game was delayed 24 hours due to rain. Europa League teams will have already done it six times each. To get to the final there will be eight more games where this happens. That’s over a third of the season where you play with less preparation time and rest than your rivals. That’s just not conducive to good league campaign. No recent Europa League winner has competed for their league title and most would/did not qualify for the CL through their domestic league. Liverpool’s run to last year’s final coincided with an eighth-place finish.

Last season Spurs were fifth at the conclusion of the European group stages with a worse record than now. Our best runs were during the European break and again immediately after we were eliminated in the last 16. (I expect Man Utd’s form to pick up once the group stages are over). I’m not saying that it will happen again but we’ve come through a sticky patch and performances and results are looking up. Key players are returning and we’re in a position to push on. If we do and are competing at the top of the Premier League it would be foolish to sacrifice it for the lottery of a cup when the knock-out stages roll around in February. If we’re adrift then by all means let’s go for it but our league form will suffer.

If you want the Europa League to be taken seriously by teams competing on more than one front then the Thursday fixtures must change. Perhaps the games could be played in the early evening slot on a Tuesday and Wednesday before the Champions League games to even things up. I think the Spurs decision to continue to play at Wembley will force the manager to put out strong sides (at least at home) but a run in the Europa League will drop us down the table.
Tom, Enfield

 

Money, money, money
Couple of bits of nonsense in this morning’s Mailbox about how clubs should be happy at being in the Europa League and having an extra qualifying round to weed out the minnows so that the viewing public don’t have to watch uninteresting games on TV.

One word: money. Have you people not been listening to Arsene Wenger for the last decade?

To use a musical analogy that Johnny Nic would be proud of, playing in the Champions League is like selling out a month of playing gigs at arenas and stadiums around Europe. You have to hire a pretty good sized road crew, a fleet of tour buses and vans, and put together a decent light show and the right sized Stonehenge stage set, but everybody gets paid handsomely and you’re still rolling in cash at the end of the tour.

Playing in the Europa League is like playing a regional heat of a battle of the bands at the Dog & Duck and getting a split of the door money, but you still have to hire the enormous road crew, the buses and vans and pay for the light show and the stage set. There’s a chance that you may progress to the final and win something worth having next year, but it’ll cost you a lot of money to do it this year.

So the smaller clubs who are supposed to be grateful for getting to play home and away in a qualifier against a much bigger club with the sniff of a chance to get through to three more games – their revenue is not being ‘slightly dented’, they are missing out on at least four more games against bigger clubs that will not just bring full stadiums but will bring a gazzillion pounds of TV revenue. They also lose their opportunity to get some experience of playing the bigger European teams and getting better at the competition so that they might improve at it if they qualify again next year (insert Spurs joke here).
Monkey Steve

 

Revamping the Champions League? No thanks
I’ve seen lots of calls from people that the Champions League needs revamping, because ‘the games aren’t interesting until the knockouts’. Moving aside the obvious point that this is the same in every single competition ever devised, as games get higher quality the further down the competition you go, I always think that these people can’t have actually been watching the Champions League in recent years (which is probably true, given that viewing figures have never been lower – thanks Michael Owen).

Years ago, when the same eight teams were always in pot 1, then the same in pot 2, I admit that groups were easy to predict, and many games were dull. Since UEFA had the pretty great idea to change the seedings however, I think the group stages have been more exciting then ever. In this year alone, Real Madrid and Dortmund played out two brilliant games, which were matched by Dortmund’s spanking of Warsaw, who put up a pretty good fight against Madrid. Juventus and Seville were in the same group, Bayern and Atletico, PSG and Arsenal, and of course, the games between Man City and Barcelona. Sure, in some of these groups, the last round of games were redudant, but that wasn’t always the case, and even these games were pretty exciting (Porto destroying Leicester case in point). Even the supposed ‘lesser’ groups were pretty interesting – Benfica, Napoli and Besiktas played out a close, exciting group, and the only reason why Spurs vs CSKA was a dead-rubber was because of Spurs’ general incompetence (which is funny as hell, we can all agree).

The new style of groups and seedings allows smaller teams genuine chances of progressing, while also giving them their day in the sun against one, or potentially two, giants. Watching how Ludogrets celebrated against PSG was brilliant- small-time players, against a European giant, in a huge stadium, actually playing for something and doing really well. We could make the Champions League start in February and only allow the 16 biggest teams in, as Osin seems to be suggesting (as if anyone would watch any round with the title ‘qualifying’- would make historic European teams play in the equilivant of the second round of the FA Cup), or we could just acknowledge that for once, UEFA had a good idea to change the competition for the better, and as a result, it’s produced a higher class of football that’s more exciting while also giving smaller teams genuine chances of progression.
Ben, London, CFC

 

Who wants Benzema?
So it seems Aubameyang is determined to get his move to Madrid, and there ain’t room for him, Ronaldo, Bale and Benzema.

Assuming Ronaldo is too valuable to cut despite his age, that puts the excellent (50 Champions League goals) Benzema up for sale because he’s not flashy/fast/as marketable as the other three.

That means it’s time for wild speculation! He’d be commanding a £40m+ fee and at 29 will want an increase on his £160k contract.
Step forward bidders:

Arsenal – why it will happen: they’re no longer afraid to splurge on massive players and there’s still people saying a striker will fix a lot of problems.
Why it won’t: there’s current debates over breaking the wage structure for two players, would they be prepared to do it for three?

United – why it will: they’ve got all the money. Space for a key striker as Zlatan enters his final year.
Why it won’t: (assumed) no Champions League. Majorly upsets Martial and Rashford and their first-team chances.

City – why it will: they’ve got all the money United don’t have.
Why it won’t: same age and not quite as good as Aguero, he’d be wasted.

Chelsea – why it will: another club that wouldn’t bat an eyelid at his fee. A different type of striker to Costa, likely would get more goals.
Why it won’t: would he get in ahead of Costa? Maybe reluctant after Batshuayi’s experience this year.

Other teams that could afford him:
Liverpool: superstar signings aren’t really Klopp’s thing.
Juve: Surely the money spent on Higuain means they wouldn’t splurge again unless Dybala leaves.
Bayern: pretty content with Lewandowski I reckon.
PSG: great fit, depends on how Cavani gets on. French connection.

Outside chances:
Spurs: playing in front of 90000 in London?
Inter: got all the money again, looking at a poor season this year though.
RB Leipzig: would be big even for them, but maybe after a decent season.
KC (let the bidding commence!)

 

You’ve got to hate someone…
To Franklin (and all the other people trying to understand the Chelsea hate), while your points about all clubs having just as many bad apples on the pitch and in the stands are certainly true, I think your attempts to understand it logically are a waste of time.

There’s nothing rational about supporting sports teams, it’s emotional, and your heroes need villains. It just happens that at this time Chelsea are a lot of people’s favourite villains. It won’t last forever, (I agree with the mail the other day saying Conte has already made them harder to hate) but I can almost guarantee a different club will fill the void when the time comes. That won’t be in any way rational either, it’ll just be because we need a villain, it’s all part of what makes supporting teams fun.

Go on, jump on the bandwagon when it’s someone else’s turn, and don’t even bother with the ‘why’ of it.
Dan (Using the term ‘hate’ lightly, it’s only a game!), London

 

We all want to know…
I want to know more about Peter G. How can a man have time to watch a re-run of West Brom-Watford?

Here’s my image of him so far:

– Not American – he talks stats like an American but seems to understand the Premier League like someone who’s seen it first-hand rather than purely from 3000 miles away – possibly an American that’s lived in England/ Europe.

– Rich – he must have so much time on his hands and seems too articulate to be unemployed.

– Commuter programmer/software engineer or some other high tech job – clearly a geek of some description.

No kids – again so much time to research mails.

So Peter, am I right or are you a low-wage American meathead, working three jobs, with three kids and an unhealthy obsession with football?
Matt, AFC