He still pretty much covered their games. He was useless.

Le Tiss had to go, I liked him until recently when it turns out he’s a complete and utter idiot - see his Twitter.

Merson although with some times some bizarre views on football is good.

Micah will be a great addition, wouldn’t mind Charlie Adam as well.

Forget Messi.

Pogba has teh COVIDs:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53932853

So does ndombele

Yea Chelsea have a problem with it too.

https://www.theguardian.com/football...-in-quarantine

He spent most of the afternoon leaning over to whoever was watching the Liverpool game and ignoring his own match.
Not that Liverpool had that many Saturday 3pm KOs

I’ll maintain my theory that these sackings are really sackings and it’s just that Soccer Saturday isn’t producible in the current situation.

Eh?

Not sackings as in they just haven’t had their contracts renewed for the start of the season. They’re not on full time Sky contracts.
With social distancing, they won’t have 3 or 4 pundits all sat in a line alongside Jeff so there’s no point in signing them up for a job they can’t do.

The media love to overdramatise it and refer to them as ‘sackings’ though.

tbf Matt Le Tiss was due a sacking anyway

Thought you were a Saints fan?

Aye I am, but I'm also anti-conspiracy theories

Yeah, he didn't seem to know what the line was between healthy scepticism and full blown conspiracytarding

Spurs fans mostly optimistic because #Mourinho2ndSeason but I just don't see it. We were BAD and just ran super hot from when he took over, we gave up 20+ shots multiple times to teams like Newcastle, were just clinical in our finishing. This was not the performances of Mourinho bus parking where they just throttled the teams attacks, our opponents just couldn't finish for whatever reason.

Obviously this being (nominally) a poker board people understand the dangers of results orientated thinking, whereas casual football fans basically only care about short term results. I maintain that our ppg/win% record is not sustainable if we play anywhere close to how we did since October (not saying we were better under Poch).

That said, lots of people think the complete lack of a DM is the reason, I think that's optimistic at best. We'll see.

Also the revisionist history that's happening about the Poch era is infuriating, so much derision of him and his management ability and bigging up of Jose.

I think Jose more likely to be sacked before end of 2021-22 season than us winning a trophy under him.

Matt Doherty will be a good signing. Granted, no Gary Docherty, but good.

i was strongly of this opinion but hojberg signing has me more 50/50. hojberg is perfect guy for mourinho, does all the little things and seeks no credit. will help their mid a lot. and doherty coming in is very interesting also. mourinho is getting guys that work in his system. i think his sacking before 2022 equity has gone down by like 50% in last month. v easy to see a squad like this coast into 5th/6th in table and have some carabao/fa sweats.

heck last year was basically a nightmare for them and they still finished 6th. wolves selling off. leiecester sells chilwell and is on bad end of age curve.

so yeah theyll prob battle arsenal for 5th.

I've been so out of the loop with all sports I didn't realize the season was starting this quickly and the Community Shield was this weekend.

Are they just doing the empty stadiums thing again until further notice?

Not sure what I'm more excited about. Season starting or tottenham doc release on monday

Yeah definitely. Höjbjerg and Doherty are perfect for Mourinho.

and not only is doherty good, he replaces aurier, who is high offense zero defense non mourinho guy

Arsenal said they were targeting October 3rd with some fans returning.

There’s a Brighton reserve game with fans this weekend apparently.

They’re aiming for 30% capacity in October, which basically means a standard crowd at the Emptihad (until Messi turns up)

They were saying today that Man City only get £10 from each shirt sale, so they’ll need to sell a **** tonne of them.

Doherty >>> Aurier, but that still pretty much describes him as well. I don't remember seeing him play RB much either. He's basically closer to a RM than RB in Wolves system.

hmm i could be wrong then, i just know from the games i saw of wolves doherty at wingbackmid (w/e) seemed strong at holding shape (i mean they all did but hey)

i reckon they will try a 4/2/3/1 w davies and doherty on the wings, lo celso and hojberg mid, moura/son/alli and kane. but that could be super wrong.

You can't look at the attacking output of Doherty and compare it to other RB's as he plays a much more advanced role in that system. Spurs playing a back 3 wouldn't be the biggest surprise given how meh their wide options are. Son is a quality player but you can argue he'd be best used in a more central role given how good his movement/finishing is.

Not saying it's a bad signing btw just that I'd bet heavily against his attacking numbers repeating at Spurs in a back 4.

I get what you're saying, but also, weren't Mourinho a guy who got the 3rd or 4th most points in the league since he took over. From a team that had shown borderline relegation form for a full calendar year (I remember reading the last 25 games or so, they had gotten 28 points).

I mean, as a chelsea fan am afraid of both Arsenal but certainly also Spurs because I think while Mourinho has kind of been the leftover old guy, is definitely still a manager who will do things well.

I think he will do quite well, and I would not be surprised to see ending up in the top 3 or 4 next season.

Ofc I agree the total alternative is also plausibel, that everything fails and he'll be sacked halfway through. But I do think he'll get it rolling.

Isolating the stints of both Poch and Mourinho has Spurs 11th in xPTS but they don't account for half time team talks so take it with a grain of salt.