Tottenham

Thursday night football on Channel 5......again. Sorry 'Arry. Mo England job, no UCL. At least you beat the taxman!

They can have no complaints. 10 point gap over Arsenal with a quarter of the season to go and they blew it. hell even 2-0 up at Arsenal and they blew it

I have a mate who is a Spurs fan. If you were subjected to his complete and utter crap you'd be happy Chelsea won the Champions League tonight.

Spurs fans... they kiss up to the Mancs, spit venom at every other team in the league, pathetic lot. Glad they will lose the CL.

I'm not a Tottenham fan but I think the rule is pretty stupid. The Premier League should get 5 teams.

This rule just punishes the Premier League for being competitive.

Its a good rule. Only 4 teams for the top 4 countries. Unless the allow spurs in and take one away from scotland. Face it, Celtic won't get passed the group stages anyway. Straight to thursday night football.

As pointed out above, if Spurs don't chuck away the big lead they had in 3rd place, they'd already be in the CL and it'd have been Arsenal sweating last night.

They can blame Chelsea all they like, they should blame themselves.

I reckon Harry Redknapp kicked Rosie across his living room when Drogba scored that penalty.

Arry' must be blowin'! Seriously what a shockin' couple of months and all the talk of being able to bring players like Hazard to the club seem like a distant memory now. One of Bale & Modric will now have to be sold to compensate for not getting champions league football. Arry' utterly detests the europa league and I am fully expecting the reserves once again being played on the Thursday nights.

I agree John, Modric will almost certainly be sold for 30m to Chelsea/Utd and that will have to go on a new striker with Adebayor leaving, he'll probably go to PSG or someone like that. Bale will be a tough one, they'll hold out for 35+ for him due to his age etc..

Feel sorry for Spurs in a way but they only got themselves to blame. On the verge of challenging for the title, only to finish in the Europa. That City game proved costly with the last minute penalty for Utd and Spurs.

Its a bit of a strange rule. On one hand you should be allowed to defend your trophy but then why at the expense of a team who has been miles better than you in a 38 game season, home and away. Interesting debate there.

I think Spurs may well cash in on Modric and Bale and look to build more of a squad, with a quality striker, try and find someone to replace Modric and probably a centre back also.

I would personally just settle it with a two legged tie between chelsea and spurs as the play-off in these circumstances. Having won their right over the entire 38 game season to just be told NO!, your going into the europa doesnt seem right. It's the bloody elite club level competition yet we're going to have to endure the dire group stages where you face the champions of like romania instrad of seeing a team of quality like tottenham.

I think it's going to be tough to motivate spurs players next season, even Van Der Vaart may be thinking about his future, I mean there not paying big at spurs and VDV could easily leave for well over 100k somewhere else in europe. Arry' fault at the end of the day, leaving a proven finisher like Defoe on the bench, irrespective if he doesnt suit the system has cost spurs. Turning those draws into wins is what Defoe has done his whole career.

John wrote:I would personally just settle it with a two legged tie between chelsea and spurs as the play-off in these circumstances. Having won their right over the entire 38 game season to just be told NO!, your going into the europa doesnt seem right. It's the bloody elite club level competition yet we're going to have to endure the dire group stages where you face the champions of like romania instrad of seeing a team of quality like tottenham.

I think it's going to be tough to motivate spurs players next season, even Van Der Vaart may be thinking about his future, I mean there not paying big at spurs and VDV could easily leave for well over 100k somewhere else in europe. Arry' fault at the end of the day, leaving a proven finisher like Defoe on the bench, irrespective if he doesnt suit the system has cost spurs. Turning those draws into wins is what Defoe has done his whole career.

Completely agree on Defoe, that's why I called for him to go to the Euro's. He never seems to get a fair crack at the whip at Spurs, despite scoring bags of goals its never good enough it seems. I mean the fact he has scored 16 goals this season, nearly all from the bench says it all.

A two legged play off is a great idea. I mean, 38 games and you still don't get in the champions league, ridiculous.

atleast we have the comfort of knowing chelsea have become yet another english club to win the BIG one before you gunners

At the end of the day, the defending champions must be able to defend there trophy. I think that both should be in it but with Chelsea entering the first qualifying round

i actually disagree about defoe. most his goals have come either off the bench or in other comps. i expect if i had a look at games hes started in the league, our win percentage will be quite low.

its when weve gone 4-5-1 with ade up on his own, that weve won most our games, and when weve struggled with injuries in midfield and weve reverted to 4-4-2 weve struggled

5 English teams in the competition would be a farce. It's the Champions League for cryin' out loud, you can't have a quarter of the division qualifying for it!

4 is bad enough...

Everyone knew the rules at the start of the season. Spurs have been unlucky with Chelsea winning it, but they can have no complaints.

?- why would it be a farce?

dont get confused by the name 'champions league'- the competition benefits from a stronger line up.

I'm not implying that only the Champions should qualify, Mystiroakey. I understand that the competition has moved on from the old days!

But a full quarter of the division qualifying for the primary European competition? Surely that can't be right. 4 places is more than enough, in my humble opinion!

its very harsh luck on tottenham- its that simple, the competition would have been better quality with them in it and if you finish top 4 in the pl you deserve to be rewarded. I would rather have a club competition that has the best 32 euro teams in it rather than champions from all the leagues. its a european cup not a champions league . It really is the ultimate club cup competition in the world and i am all for having the best play in it- europe has 15 or so clubs in the world cup and so it should(it should probally have more in fairness)- because it is the ultimate international cup tourny

So you'd want a Super League made up of the Top 5 Nations and a smartering from other countries Mystiro?

I know it's going that way, but there doesn't seem any need to speed it up

Vodka dude that is the case anyway. I just think we should put the best teams in the comp- if that means haveing to put 5 teams from the pl in then so be it!

I think the way they (UEFA) looked at is that champions are automatically given a spot (be that the PL champions, Spains or Romania's) so for the PL to have 5 spots you'd have to take away 1 spot from a country who has 2 or 3 spots (Portuagal, Italy, Spain or Germany) and those countries would more than likely argue that their teams are as good as if not better than Spurs (subjective I know) but also why didn't they get the additional space when they won (if they had 3-4 teams in the comp)

you get the extra spot only in these incredibaly rare situs. fair enough for me. if barca had won this event but finished 6th in there league and they were granted the extra spot due to winning the thing then trust me i wouldnt have any issue with it either.

and we are not talking about taking a spot of spain or germnay or infact any nation- we are talking about adding chelsea or totenham in the comp at a lower level and just creating an extra game!

mystiroakey wrote:you get the extra spot only in these incredibaly rare situs. fair enough for me. if barca had won this event but finished 6th in there league and they were granted the extra spot due to winning the thing then trust me i wouldnt have any issue with it either.

and we are not talking about taking a spot of spain or germnay or infact any nation- we are talking about adding chelsea or totenham in the comp at a lower level and just creating an extra game!

But you'd need to add 2 teams (or more) into the comp to create an extra game in the comp

This is not like the Liverpool scenario when nobody knew what would happen if Liverpool were to win and finish out of the top 4, which is of course what happened. The rules were clear at the start of the season, top 4 qualify unless.......and the unless happened. Nothing to moan about, its just the way it is.
You could actually make a good case for the relative strength of the Premiership that the only two timest his has happened English teams have been involved. Good enough to win the Champions League but only finish 6th in the EPL....what depth and quality we must have.....

Smirnoff have a look at how the champions league is set up. there are 53 teams in the event.You could just create a round with this extra team and the 53rd(last) ranked team- however it would be abit pointless in putting a PL team in the stage 1 or stage 2- so the 4th best team or the cl winner should go in at stage 3 and just stick the 17 teams that have made it into the 3rd round with the teams ranked 14-15 and the extra club rather than the 17 go in with the 14-16th ranked sides.

I am not saying any of those scenarios are fair- however you can add a team without any major hassle or having to add an extra team onto the extra team

http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/301795_393198837385685_154754394563465_1085855_371313049_n.jpg

i think its fair, every team should have a chance at defending the trophy. spurs only have themselves to blame. theres also only this league where it could happen anyway.

dont see why spurs should be let in and kick out some of the smaller nation clubs, hows that fair? how they suppose to improve then? and theres always a place in cup competetion for the underdog its why the fa cup is such a great competition. shall we kick out apoel, there from a rubbish nation... remind me how they did again?

why do we have to kick out a smaller nation. ok a change up in the tourny structure is needed- but its still possible

I would even be happy for totenham to play arsernal first.

fact of the matter is that totenham knew the crack before so it is fair enough. however its such a big deal to the underdog totenham- and there are gonna loose out because of something out of there control. thats my problem with the situ. These teams like totenham have done so well with realatively limited resources and know it was for zip all

it was in spurs hands though, finish in top 3 and champions league was guaranteed

yes that is true. we all know that

Diggers wrote:This is not like the Liverpool scenario when nobody knew what would happen if Liverpool were to win and finish out of the top 4, which is of course what happened. The rules were clear at the start of the season, top 4 qualify unless.......and the unless happened. Nothing to moan about, its just the way it is.
You could actually make a good case for the relative strength of the Premiership that the only two timest his has happened English teams have been involved. Good enough to win the Champions League but only finish 6th in the EPL....what depth and quality we must have.....

This happened in La liga first, also just proves what resting up can do for you.

did it - when was that ent?

Mystiroakey - Tottenham limited resources? They've spent a fair few hundred million in the last few seasons certainly much more than anyone other than Man U, Chelsea and Citey. I'd be very suprised if any team outside of Spain and maybe Italy have spent as much as Spurs have on their side.

i didnt say limited resources did i, i said comapritively. its not about spending in the past either , its about what they have in the locker to spend,and its not just money- CL football allows teams to be more marketable to get top players, they can also pay them less if the get em, they can buy em for less an all.Anyway point is very simple well basically they have alot less now.

This could and probably will hit Spurs very hard. The excuses are now there for their top players to jump ship. Gareth Bale, being Welsh, is not going to play in a major international tournament so the CL is THE top stage for his talents.

I can see Luka Modic leaving in the summer for starters and then there is VDV who appears quite a prickly character so he may get the hump and look towards pastures new.

Spurs should have cemented a top three place by Easter bearing in mind they were in the title reckoning going into February. They have only themselves to blame.

Harry Redknapp will have to hit the ground running next season because if they lag behind early on he could be out of a job by Christmas.

mystiroakey wrote:i didnt say limited resources did i, i said comapritively. its not about spending in the past either , its about what they have in the locker to spend,and its not just money- CL football allows teams to be more marketable to get top players, they can also pay them less if the get em, they can buy em for less an all.Anyway point is very simple well basically they have alot less now.

You said Reletively limited resources - if you'd compared their resources to Barce or Man C then it would have been fine.

Yes Tottenham have a lot less money now then they would if they were in the CL but the same can be said for every team whove missed out on the CL including the 4th placed team in Spain and Italy and the 3rd/4th team in Germany and any teams that might be knocked out by Spurs if UEFA restructered the competition and changed their rules for Spurs to compete.

I'd say it's likely that Spurs have got more money to spend than 75% of the clubs in the CL, prehaps more, though of course they can only attract the better players by being in the CL but that's not UEFA's fault. It's also not a great business plan to budget to buy players on the strength of being in a competition, as you never know you might not be in the competition the next year but will still have wages/transfer payements to pay.

i dont really understand what you are trying to argue smirnoff in fairness.

i would like totenham in the comp- you dont.

what is there to say- or do you want me to just pick at your posts as well, to be honest its to late for that - maybe tommorow dude

mystiroakey wrote:did it - when was that ent?

1999-2000 season.

Real Madrid won the Champions League and finished 5th in La Liga.

cheers crimey