Do we agree with Ange's team selection?
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Hello everybody and welcome once again to The View from the Lane, the multi-award winning Tottenham Hotspur. They are Daniel, I said it. Podcast from The Athletic. Joining me, Danny Kelly, are James Moore and Jay Harris from the aforementioned Athletic. Let's start with your overall impression. James, why don't you kick off for us of a classic game of two halves, but in the end another defeat for Spurs. Yeah, to paraphrase the late, great Sven-Goran Eriksson,

First half, not so good. But second half, good. Yeah. That was really my reading of it. I know we're going to go into team selection and stuff in a bit more detail in a minute, but...

I think probably what we've learned from that is that despite Pep Guardiola's insistence that Spurs have incredible depth, and I don't know if you saw, he made a big point of mentioning that after the game. Hair ruffling, hair ruffling. Yeah, I mean, he can't do that. The reality is Spurs need all their best players in the team to be able to compete against Spurs.

anyone kind of semi-competent. And for all the problems this season, Manchester City are at least semi-competent. So without Spence, without Kolosevski, to an extent without Son, obviously you've got people like Solanke missing as well, Van de Ven and Romero. It's very difficult and I understand the logic of it. And look, on Monday, I said focus on the Europa League and put all your eggs in that basket. There is a weak position.

as we record now in a bit, until next Thursday evening when they play that game. The luxury of eight days between the two games. So it's not like the ludicrous kind of three, four day turnaround that we often see. So maybe that does make it a bit different. But look, I mean, we're going really into it straight away here, aren't we? Pedro Parra, I thought, shouldn't have played because... Right, well, let's get on to it. I'm feeling your pain here because like you, I know...

that these games are irrelevant Spurs are going to finish in mid-table right but I'm a Spurs fan like you are and I don't want to see them getting messed up in the first half of football matches I want to win the football matches and

And yes, I want them to win the game against Manchester City last season and all the rest of it. Jay, before we get into the nuts and bolts then, what are your overall impressions of your latest outing to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium? Similar to what James said, the first half was so sluggish. It was a really disappointing performance. The fact that Man City only won 1-0...

probably flattered Spurs slightly. I can certainly remember Savino missing a good chance and I think Doku had a couple of good chances. I mean, Doku gave Pedro Porin nightmares. They had a perfectly good goal chalked off. Yeah, exactly. Who didn't enjoy that? That was very good. If only Sarr could have equalised after that, the fury would have been great, wouldn't it? The second half was much better, but...

I don't know, it's a bit of a bugbear of mine when teams, they start playing well when they've got a goal down. Well, you sort of have to come out and show a little bit of your personality. Potsdor Coghly was asked after the game, you know, was it Kulosevski, Son and Spence's turn for a break, basically. And he just said, I can't sit here and moan about the squad and not use it. We need a doggy, Odebeer and Johnson to play today to get minutes into them. Kulosevski, Son and Spence have played a lot, which...

I don't know, I sort of understand, especially in Kulosevsky's case, I get that. He really has been running to the ground. And if you're thinking, I want someone who certainly before Christmas was the best person and the best player on his team by a mile to be fully fit and sharp, then I can sort of understand the logic behind that.

Bench and Kulishevsky, but certainly not with Spence. And I think, as I just mentioned, Poro had a really difficult game. James doesn't think he should have started. I think Poro's deficiencies... I bet he wishes he hadn't started. Yeah. You know, Poro did, going forward, you know, made that really good chance for Odebeer. And he was the one who provided the cross for Sars' chance at the end. But Adoku just...

yeah, Poirot just found it so difficult to come up against Tokyo. I'm not saying Jed Spence would have done miles better, but I think Spence would have done better in those one-on-one situations. I'm slightly conscious that I've defended Pedro Poirot a lot on this podcast this season, maybe to kind of a generous degree.

That in the first half, Doku Poro exchange, that clash, that head-to-head was happening right in front of me. And as I watched it, and I saw Poro sort of stand off Doku every time, and people getting really frustrated that he wasn't engaging, stepping up to him, making a tackle.

My sense there was, and I don't know that Amanda spoke about this after the game, I don't think he did, that the instruction had been to stand up and make him cross the ball from outside the penalty area rather than getting into the box and doing the kind of pullbacks that they score so many of their goals from and have scored so many of their goals from over the last 10 years.

I know that is ultimately how their goal did come effectively, although there was a deflection on that cross that put it right to Haaland when it was actually coming in behind him, I think. But it was also the way that the chance that Haaland missed on the Carrillo save, so it was happening. I did think actually that made it look like Poro was having maybe more of a stinker than he actually perhaps was. Maybe I'm doing him too much of a service there.

giving him too much benefit of a doubt possibly. But it did just really strike me as, or like there were moments where they were kind of two or three even Spurs players like stood up against Doku and none of them went to. And it did, it did just strike me, but maybe the, the, the, the, the,

The instruction was make him cross the ball from out wide. Or they're just staring at him thinking, how on earth do I take this guy down? It's that thing, like, are you over-committing? Especially if you go to ground and he's just going to go past you. Obviously, that's true. They were under-committing, weren't they? Pedro was standing off him because he was afraid of his pace. Well, in that case, you've got to position yourself in a place where even if he beats you, he's forced to cross the ball from so... He didn't stop him crossing the ball either, by the way. No, exactly my point, no.

And look, very quickly on that, you're right to say that afterwards, the exact words was, if I've got a squad, why don't I use them? Forgive me. And I'm not looking to tan the manager here. I'm just saying we are inclined to, entitled to, and paid to. Look at what he says here.

Because this is only 10 days after he was saying in a press conference, I defy anybody who's had a whole load of injuries to do this for any length of time. His selection meant that Spurs, who don't have that many injuries now, compared, you know, other clubs have three and four, went into the game with six of the notional first 11 missing again.

He was complaining about it when he couldn't pick them because they were injured and had to play six players who wouldn't be in the normal starting XI. Then he does it to himself. The other part that drove me slightly mad was not because Spence is the best defender amongst our fullbacks, though that's true, not because he said Spence needed a rest. Spence has played about 15 games in two and a half years, whatever it is. It's some tiny number.

But Spence and Doku were at Rennes together. He knows him. He knows what he does. He's trained against him. It was mad to leave Spence out at right back. And that's not even only about Pedro Porro, but given the fact that they are actually friends and he has played with and against him for hour after hour, why on earth would he leave him out? And the...

Whatever about Spurs' porous midfield, the sign, you know, the end of that, and you saw it close up there, James, was Doku getting the ball in acres of space. I don't know what a hectare is really. Otherwise, I'd say hectares of space and terrorizing Spurs. I didn't like the selection because I thought it was too weak to win that football match.

And one more, help me with this. You're around the training grounds, Jay. You have to go to press conferences and all the rest of it. When he says we've got to get minutes, what are they doing in training? Training is preparation for matches. I'm going to hear the phrase match fitness very soon, and that's okay. People don't pay 70 quid to watch people getting themselves fit.

I mean, I can literally go to the park and watch people jogging for that free of charge. Which place did he say that about? So he basically said that Odebeer, a doggy, and Johnson, that he needed to get minutes into them, which, yeah, I do understand. But also just on the point about the lineup. So it's Tottenham's second youngest starting XI in a Premier League match ever. 23 years, 243 days.

as the youngest since September 1992 v Sheffield Wednesday. On those three players that you just mentioned there, I mean, I mean, Oduber was probably one of, if not Spurs' best player on the night. Udogi, I mean, especially if Spence isn't playing, you're going to want him in the team. And given Poro is the one who looks the most completely broken by this season of the fullbacks, you'd expect Udogi would play.

and Johnson scored two goals on Saturday I mean I didn't think he had an especially good game last night but like you know you can see the logic in him starting the game so actually I don't really think any of those three players Danny would you take exception to any of those three starting the game

No, it's a team game though. You're talking about individuals. Would I take exception to Spurs taking to the pitch against a team as good, if somewhat sporadic this season, as Manchester City with a forward line of apparently having to have a run out to get fit, a completely unused to the Premier League tell, and Brennan Johnson who I still can't see what he does except get those excellent first touch finishes at the far post. No, I wouldn't have selected that team.

because I knew what the result was going to be and I knew what the result was going to be before it started. I knew Spurs would lose. Well, I mean, look, I would say the biggest problem with that attack is Solanke is currently injured, Richarlison is always injured until from what we've seen in admittedly still a very small sample size

doesn't really look like a centre forward which isn't a kind of slight on him at all as a player because there's loads of other things he can do but he doesn't look like a guy and he doesn't look comfortable nor am I having a go at him he's doing his best it's sort of like what we said about Dragosin I think I mean again we're not quite rushing to this judgement yet but it feels at this stage like well

As a centre forward, that isn't quite the fit. He doesn't move off the ball like a striker. He doesn't feel like he finds the right sort of spaces or is facing in the right direction or making runs at the right time, showing for the ball in the right areas. It just doesn't feel like he has that kind of instinct. Yeah, he looks a bit out of place. But you can picture him playing with the ball at his feet, he's good.

And as we saw in the Manchester United game, he's not afraid to get a shot away. But in this system, as we saw with Solanke particularly early in the season, and from all the stuff we heard about Postacogli's football before, the strikers don't get loads of touches of the ball. And you don't get those opportunities to establish yourself in the game in the way that you might do for another. I stand to be proven completely wrong here, but Tell at the moment looks like one of those players, you know...

centre forwards mostly in the systems we play now with one up front, they make runs to where they want the ball to go. And then you've got players like Tell, who I think wants the ball and he'll take it to where it needs to be. And there's a difference. And at the moment, he's struggling with that transition. But as I say, he's a teenager. I get it. In a very young team, as Jay has pointed out. And playing against in, you know,

Ruben Diaz is not some ordinary guy. They've just come out of the crowd a competition winner. He's a fantastic footballer when fit. And yeah, I didn't think the forward line gave us any chance of winning the game. What I would also say, by the way, on that starting 11 is yes, they were dreadful in the first half, but I also thought they were good in that 20 minutes before the substitutions in the second half. Or certainly a lot better than they were in the first half. They were a lot better. They got themselves back into the game, properly back into the game. Yeah.

I agree with that. In that first 20 minutes. It wasn't... I think it would be disingenuous to say it was the substitutions that turned the game. I don't know what they've done...

what's been said at half-time, either kind of motivationally or tactically, to change that. But it looks a lot better in the second half, even for the substitution. Well, I was going to say, whatever about the individual personnel, I've had my say about that. In the first half, I couldn't see how they were trying, Jay, not to attack and win the game, but to defend their goal. Because they didn't press, not really, they didn't press high anyway. They didn't play low block, and I'm glad. Who wants to see the team parked out in the edge of its own box?

And they didn't man mark. So what were they doing defensively? And the answer, I don't know. But whatever it was, the upshot was that the city's wide players were having a field day. And again, you wonder sometimes with players whether they're so coached now and instructed in a way of play that somebody doesn't just say, look,

We may need to change this for 10 minutes just to stem the flow because the flow was all... Spurs had a chance early on, didn't they? And after that, it was all one way. Just to annoy you because I was going to mention something on tell quickly. Posakoglu did say after the game that he probably needs a bit of a breather because he's playing so much at the moment. We'll just play Aitig in the next game, yeah. And obviously at the moment, or since he joined, he's played against... He started against Liverpool away, Aston Villa away,

Man City and Man United and Ipswich. So quite a high calibre of opponents. But just on his positioning, because I mentioned this. I love the way you slipped Ipswich there. I thought you slipped Manchester United in there. Very, very, and Manchester, very good. Just on his positioning, because I wrote about this last night in the piece, I wrote about Odebeer. Because he doesn't look like quite a natural fit at

centre forward with a caveat he is only 19 and there's a lot of development to go if he ends up out on the left wing Spurs technically have currently five players who are left wingers oh that's their preferred position now I think it's safe to say Werner's loan is not going to become permanent and in the summer he'll part ways with a thank you and a goodbye but then you've still got Son, Odderbeer, Moore

until um so yeah i'm just intrigued because you sort of don't want him to become a left winger you sort of need this conversion to center forward to work otherwise too many players otherwise there's not enough games and players pathways and developments get blocked etc there's a world where currently mikey moore's the third choice left winger which seems quite crazy because

he's offered a lot of hope in what's been a dismal season at times. Yeah, I mean, no disrespect, I made this point the other day when you weren't on. We're looking at more left-sided forwards. They've got to decide what they're going to do with the ones they've got before that becomes an issue. Overall, the first half, I suppose we could argue that they... Well, there's no argument about it. Spurs did well, James, to get off the pitch just a goal down. Yeah, I mean, I'd say that first half was...

a performance you would probably put you would probably bundle in with you know the worst that we've seen this season I'm trying to work out whether that's a little bit over dramatic because it's Manchester City but Manchester City now are not Manchester City of two three years ago or even last season I don't think they look they look way up at level I think actually as you put in our WhatsApp group last night

they were kind of a bit vulnerable coming into this game and that's probably the biggest frustration that Spurs like started the game so slowly and really let them establish themselves and get not just get that one goal lead but also like

a real sense of being in complete control of that game which you know as we said to be fair Spurs like wrestled control back to a certain degree in the second half and probably on the balance of the second half that wrongly disallowed goal aside you'd probably say Spurs were the better team in the second half and we'll cheer up and talk about the second half soon yeah but yeah is it really frustrating to see like

Kind of sloppy on the ball, not really particularly good out of possession, which is quite an unusual thing in the last few weeks. That's felt like one of the things that really...

in the last three or four matches. Not just pressing, but just general aggression, tenacity, organisation off the ball. The midfield got disconnected from the back four in ways that I hadn't seen for some time and it was tricky to watch. It's pretty much every element of it. As you said, that forward line didn't quite work. I thought down the right in particular...

Poro and Johnson really did not link up at all. I mean, again, from where I stand in that first half, I'm looking like I have Poro's view down the right wing. Do you stand legally? I do stand legally. And more importantly, I stand safely.

Very good. No, that's all good. God help the person behind you, James. It is quite. But yeah, like Johnson's movement off the ball wasn't great. I mean, yeah. It's not the first time we've seen that, but...

There's a lot of times that Porro's got the ball in there. And again, I'm not just defending Pedro Porro, OK? I'm not here just to defend Pedro Porro. I've defended him too, but he was poor last night. We can say that. The evidence is that he was poor. Make no point about it. But there were many, many times. But his crossing remains really dangerous, yes. Well, look, I mean, both Johnson and Porro, having been bad in the first half, set up probably, I suppose, two best chances in the second half, didn't they? Johnson for that son one. And, yeah, the Sar header at the end from Porro.

I don't think you're being overdramatic, and I can prove it in saying it was one of those ones you put into among the least decent performances of Spurs in what's been a really, really topsy-turvy season. Because, as you know, when I sit there in front of the television watching the games, I make copious handwritten notes. And I remember turning to, and this is one of the joys of being married to somebody who's a literary journalist, and the question I asked her was, do you think dog shit is one word or two?

Because that's what I thought about the first half. I thought they were defensively useless and didn't put a paw on Manchester City. Thankfully, the second half cheered me up a bit because they did play some decent football. I thought they were dire in the first half. And I blame the selection. I want to address this dogshit thing first. Yeah. How many words? Well, interestingly, I think if it's adjectival, I think it's one.

But if you're talking about some dog shit on the street, I would be tempted to say two. And do you know what? Alex Clark of the Times of London, the Guardian and the Irish Times says the same thing. So I wrote down, I put it down as one word.

Yeah, absolutely. Just on the defence, because I just flipped back. I thought you were going to ask more about the spelling of dog shit. No, no, no. Just on the defence, because you mentioned it, I'll just flip back through my notes. And I remember a couple of times in the first half, Danso pushing up really high to tackle Marmouch is clearly what he's brought into the team to do, to be very aggressive, similar to Romero. But quite a few times he didn't win it.

And Marmouche sort of turned him. And then all of a sudden you've got like Archie Gray up against Haaland and a massive gap that City can drive into. The goal was a good example. Exactly. Danso was way out of the... Exactly. And he gets back, but he's just a couple of yards out of position, which makes a crucial difference. And Udogi doesn't have the defensive instincts to get the other side of Haaland. So you end up with a situation where

arguably the best centre forward in the world. I don't think it's even an argument since Kane left Spurs, is unmarked, essentially unmarked. The deflection helped him, of course, but you get deflections in football. Nobody was in a position to affect his finish and it looked terrible. I didn't like it at all. We shouldn't

undermine the fact that that was quite a ferocious City starting XI because, you know, basically had four strikers, you know, Marmouch, Haaland, Sevigno and Doku. So they were always going to cause Tottenham problems. But I think obviously the frustration is that Tottenham sort of just allowed them to play the way they wanted to play. It didn't make it difficult enough for them. Well, I think, I mean, I'd say the frustration is...

If you're playing against a team with four strikers, the flip to that you would expect is there's going to be space where you can get in behind. And as you're saying, like the movement off the ball of the front three, maybe not on the ball, but certainly the other two, wasn't great. There weren't like many kind of particularly sort of dangerous balls played in behind or whatever. Yeah, it just felt like a bit flat and a bit sort of unadventurous.

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Have you ever spotted McDonald's hot, crispy fries right as they're being scooped into the carton? And time just stands still. Welcome back, everybody, to The View from the Lane. Completely different second half.

I suppose that's, A, that's very good, B, a bit frustrating because why didn't they, etc. What did you make of the second half, Jay? What changed, even before the substitutions? I mean, City were still on top, I think, in the first five, seven, eight minutes of the second half, and then Spurs clicked into gear. What did you make of that?

Well, I thought Odober had a pretty decent game. And I thought even in the first half, there were a few examples where he was trying to be positive on the ball. But in the first 15 minutes of the second half before he went off, he did suddenly just, I'm not going to say explode into life, but he went on a couple of mazy runs quite similar to...

to Doku and I think he just targeted Matthias Nunez Nunez is not a right back he's playing out of position he made the mistake when a doggy tackled him and tried to set up tell later on in the second half and I think just Odebede decided right I'm just going to drive at this guy he's not comfortable doing that and it paid off a little bit it

As I mentioned earlier, I wrote about Odebeer last night for the piece that's gone up on The Athletic this morning. And what really interested me is that Odebeer's played six games in the league this season and has something like 258 minutes. It's nothing, right? He's already attempted more take-ons than Werner. He's going to overtake Johnson.

And if you basically averaged out the numbers, he'd probably be the player in Tottenham's squad that attempts the most take-ons throughout the whole season, in each game, etc. It's very clear what he's brought into this team to do. He's supposed to be direct and dribble at defenders in the way that Doku did for Man City last night. So I think he had...

a big part to play in why Spurs suddenly looked a bit more energised at the start of the second half. And it also makes you think, I wonder what he would have given

You know, this is his first start since the middle of September. He's played, I think, four times since October. It's a shame he's missed so much football. And, you know, you can't help but think, wonder what would have happened if he'd been available for that time. Would he have been able to come up with a couple of goals and assists? Would he have converted that chance he had if he'd been, you know, a bit more in himself? Yeah.

Because that was a brilliant chance. And I expect, I don't know, I didn't see enough of Burnley really. I expected other times he would have put that away and then it would have been game on. What did you make the second half, James? Particularly, how did Spurs...

transformed themselves really from a team that was clearly going to lose the game into one that was in the end strangely disallowed goals notwithstanding well done referee and VAR into one that probably in the second half deserved a point yeah I mean I mean obviously Jay mentioned Odderberg there the other player I thought stepped it up which isn't to say he wasn't good in the first half was Bergvall

Having said quite early in the season, looked like he was going to take some time to establish himself as a Premier League player. I mean, we're over halfway now. But now to me, it just looks like a seasoned Premier League veteran almost, in a good way.

Yeah. He's sort of tenacious on and off the ball. You were right, it has taken some time, about three months. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like sort of tenacious and aggressive on and off the ball. He's bold in possession. He's like, you know, not afraid to like take a ball in a tight corner and then turn, you know, turn a defender and turn an opposition player and then lay the ball off and whatever. Like he does a lot of this kind of

the kind of highly technical simple stuff if you see what I mean like the little I don't want to compare him to Luka Modric or whoever but like those little things that those kind of players make look very simple that really help a team like progress the ball up pitch or play their way through like in Jessamine Field or whatever like that that stuff is a really really really really important and like I say like off the ball as well it's like aggressive tenacious and we've talked before about the number of yellow cards he's been getting and

how kind of willing he's been to fly into challenges. Actually, I think he might have been the only one out that midfielder that didn't get booked yesterday. But clearly, you know, on both sides of the ball, he's like a real asset. And I was really impressed by the way he...

to use a cliche, took the game by the scruff of the neck in the second half particularly. It just looked like he had the drive that maybe Spurs had been lacking. Not to say, you know, I get Madison as well, I thought was good again. And to be fair, Bentinker, who it felt like it dropped off a little bit, I thought played pretty well too. Bergvall also did the club's interview post-match interview.

which I feel like normally after a loss is reserved for a senior player. You do it to the captain. So you'd pick Madison or Vacario. So the fact that Bergwa was the one who was selected, I thought says a lot about how, even though he's only just turned 19 at the beginning of this month, definitely has a maturity beyond his years. Brackets, except when he's not clattering into tackles and getting yellow carded.

What I would say, by the way, is there was a thing said on the tour that a couple of the guys on the tour wrote about, including Seb Stafford-Bloor for us, about the club kind of being happy with Gray and Bergwijn and seeing them as players who were going to the team straight away. And I think the kind of subtext of it was, so we didn't need to sign another midfielder. I still think, I mean, early in the season, there was a lot of kind of scoffing at that statement and suggesting it was completely wrong. But I

I mean, I guess in a way it's going to do something with number six. But I mean, actually, the fact they do both look like proper Premier League players already, maybe suggesting that wasn't too far off. Do you know what? I have a question for you both now. Based on the midfield, what happens with Yves Bissouma? Because I realised the other day that his contract expires next summer. So he just basically has a year left on it. You know, Apostol Koglou was asked in the press conference the other day about Ben Tenkoos'

because I think Benton Coors' contract expires at the same time and he was a bit more positive on... He didn't give too much away, but he was quite positive on Benton Coors. If Gray's long-term future is as a six, you've obviously got Burwell doing wonders in there, do you get rid of Basuma and bring in another player of...

higher quality if you can especially because he didn't come on last night either did he my my take would be they need to improve in that position they need a number six who i don't use the phrase i've already again but some someone who can start straight into the team and improve them without the ball basically uh so my thinking would be to replace benson to sell benton or basuma and bring in someone to do that and then you know as you say you've got

Bergwijn and Gray and the other, you know, Sarra and whoever else to play as the eights and whatever. So, yeah, I'd sell one of those two. I mean, I think I've been pretty open about my misgivings about Benson and Karen, what happened last summer. But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if that was what happened, Basuma being sold and someone else being bought in because that feels like, if you're looking at the starting 11, assuming everyone's fit and I think we all know that is a big assumption. Yeah.

That probably is the biggest area of need. I think most people would think that. Well, I'm just looking on the games he's played recently. He was substituted at halftime against Arsenal, although I think afterwards, Postacoglu sort of said he was a little bit injured. Started against Brentford,

played a few minutes against Man United and Ipswich and then doesn't come off the bench against Man City. So you can sort of see which direction the wind's blowing in because the amount of minutes he's played recently has dropped off massively. And that's before you get into the fact that he collects quite a few yellow cards. He obviously had the laughing gas incident at the beginning of the season. And I think when I watch Basuma, technically he is fantastic. His ability to keep the ball in tight spaces is quite remarkable. The problem is

I don't know if it's a concentration thing or he just gets too complacent, but he just hasn't a couple of errors in him. Every player does, but I just feel like with Basuma, there's no... I'd love Basuma to give 7 out of 10 in every game. What Basuma does is give you 8 out of 10 in some games and maybe a 4 out of 10 in others, and you just can't compensate for that at this level. Okay, let's leave that game and its ramifications. And of course...

As always, results and performances matter. And if they go out against Alkmaar, we're away first, aren't we? And play really well and come back with a result, preferably a win, that leaves them, you know, well-placed to qualify for the quarterfinals of a European trophy. Perhaps I'll look on the selection last night with a little less shade. I didn't like him, but, you know,

we've got people who think we should be chucking the league completely. Jay, change of pace. You went along to the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust event in the week. Tell us what it was and what went on. Yeah, away from the actual game, I've had a good week. I just want to give a quick shout out to little Ollie and his mum Gemma, who I met on the journey back from last night's game. Ollie's a seven-year-old kid.

Spurs fan. It was his 50th game already and he managed to manage to bag Archie Gray's shirt. So I put a photo up on Twitter for anybody who's interested in checking that out. THST event on Monday was great fun. I was there on a panel with Alistair Gold, Dan Kilpatrick and George Sessions grilled on a wide range of topics including ownership, injuries, play style, all the fun ones. And yeah, it's just great to meet

Spurs fans to talk to them. So yeah, thank you everybody for coming. Thank you for the group of gentlemen that bought me a Sambuca shot at the end. And yeah, hopefully there'll be more to come and I'll see more people there. It was a real good laugh. What was the mood like? I think obviously people just want to understand what's happened with this season. They want to understand if there's any...

They want to know what the direction of the club is, right? And they want to know if what's happened this season in terms of the results, the injuries, is that just a freak issue? Have Spurs really been unlucky or are there fundamental issues which need to be fixed? Obviously, lots of people concerned about the future of the club and the ownership. And ownership is such a tricky question to answer.

to answer because there's no perfect football owner right and that opens up a whole different kind of worms when you're talking about okay if uh daniel lee was to leave the club who would you like to come in and replace him and yeah that's a we could dedicate 10 podcast episodes to having that discussion so trying to devote 20 minutes to it on a monday night is tricky um

But yeah, I think people are in good mood. They just, yeah, obviously frustrated at the way the season's gone. There's a little bit of talk about ticket prices as well. I believe, I think there's going to be an update this week or next week about next season's ticket prices. So obviously that was high on the agenda. As a small business owner, my favorite thing about posting a job on LinkedIn is that when I hit post, I click.

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and therefore heading back towards the team. I don't know how far advanced that is. What about the mystery of Romero and Van de Ven, who I'm starting to believe don't exist? I thought I saw a photograph of him running. Okay, I can give you the lowdown because the press conference on Tuesday. Right. Well, because Romero and Van de Ven are just distant memories to me. I mean, they haven't got broken legs. What is the matter with them? So...

I have to give a very boring explanation of how press conferences work briefly. But for people that don't know, there's a broadcast section, which means any question and answer said in that section can be published immediately. And then there's an embargoed section, which means that content is normally held until half ten at night. So now I've got that legal explainer out of the way. In the broadcast section on Tuesday, Postacoglu said that...

Van der Men, Romero and Slanky, you're looking at around 7-10 days. When he was pushed upon it in the embargoed section, he said that there's an outside chance that they'll play against Alkmaar next Thursday, but that they probably would all be available for the Bournemouth game that weekend.

So if you're expecting Solanke, Van de Men and Romero to magically start for the first time in months against Outmar on Thursday, wouldn't get your hopes up. Best case scenario is that they're probably on the bench. What's more likely to happen, I think, is that they come off the bench against Bournemouth.

And hopefully one or two of them might be in a position to start the second leg against Artmarg. And even then, you don't really want to do that and thrust them into action. Oh, no, no. Especially with Romero. That's not the point I'm making. You know, we've seen other clubs do it as well. But Spurs have pushed players to come back as soon as they're ready and that we're playing...

Not just... People will say, I suppose they're playing such a high-intensity game. The point is everybody's playing a high-intensity game except Southampton in the Premier League. You're involved in very high-intensity sporting activity. You could get injured again. No, that's the last thing I want. And I certainly don't want to come back against Bournemouth. Maybe, as you say, get a run out when we're three up. You don't want to... What's the point against Bournemouth?

And even if Spurs are in a good position against Altmar after the first leg, and there's a chance they might be, you don't want to be pushing any of these people. You want them back at their very, very best for the latter stages of the Europa League. It's interesting, isn't it, with modern football clubs, James, that you, again...

I'm always amazed at how much attention is paid to them by really good journalists like Jay, and yet how little they actually let us know. I want the major media outlets, including the Athletics, to campaign that the club's doctors do a press conference once every three weeks so we can find out what the hell's going on with these people. You want NFL style where they make it very clear...

About what's happened. And same with the NBA. I think there was a... Yes, what you mean? Those two incredibly successful sporting organisations. Yeah, I'd go with that. I think, if I'm right, in the NBA earlier this year, Philadelphia 76ers' Joel Embiid got fined for disguising slash hiding why he missed a game. I think they said it was he was rested, but actually he was injured. I don't know. I can't see...

I can't see that happening anytime soon. I understand your frustration about it, but I just can't see that happening. Part of the reason, I understand in American sport, the reason why you have an injured reserve and all the rest of it, so players have a very...

legal status of where they are in their recovery. This was to do with betting. People pretending that people were injured and getting them into the team. It's affecting the betting market. So it wasn't done with the best of intentions, or it came out of something rather more sleazy. But it's actually very refreshing when you're told, if you're a supporter of a team, he's out for four and a half weeks. We'll expect him back on the grass in about 27 minutes time.

or the synthetic surface, whatever they're using. I do get frustrated with, and of course, people recover at different speeds. Let's be told that by somebody who's qualified because the managers can turn around and say, well, I'm not a doctor. And that's exactly right. All right, well, get someone who is down up there. Get him up here. We want to know.

Listen up, listeners. Start digging through your attics. I want to know what kind of odd bits of Spurs ephemera you have. I'd say there's a reason for this, and I'll tell the full story in the next podcast. When I moved from one country to another, goodness, nearly seven years ago, I lost something. I thought that something was lost. I mean, it's a meaningless mail collection of something.

And the other day, clearing out something else in passes for a garage, but in fact a junk room here in Ireland, I found it. It was like being Howard Carter at Tutankhamen's tomb. And the contents of this find includes at least, you know, something...

Why I still got it five decades later, just something weird and beautiful about Spurs. But I'll tell you all about that in the next podcast, and I want you to start digging up to show us on social media so I can talk about them here on the podcast. Anything, it doesn't have to be important. I mean, in fact, the more unimportant, the better. Spurs stuff that you've got. I will tell you, James, while Jay is still doing this, I did something a few years ago on eBay called

somebody had put up what were clearly the leftovers from somebody's life who had died. And I own somebody's Spurs life. And I'll come on to that another time as well. At first, I thought, it's all right. There's season tickets and invitations to dinner dances, all Spurs-related, you know, with the Cockerell and all the rest of it. Then I realised...

This is the remains of somebody's Spurs supporting life. We'll talk about that perhaps in the next few from the lane. I don't forget you get great coverage of Spurs. And if I'm honest, everything else in The Athletic. So I advise you to get a subscription there. You can also get in touch with us here on social media, xstroke Twitter, blue sky, et cetera, at VFTL podcast. And you can email the show, the program, us, the people, vftl at theathletic.com.

No game this weekend, which given the schedule Spurs have been on, is probably very beneficial to players. I'm not sure how it'll affect me physically because I'm really in the, mentally, I'm in the groove now seeing Spurs play very, very regularly. We'll be back early next week with another view from the lane. Until then, God bless you all. Come on you Spurs. The Athletic.

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