Have we improved?
I look at our team and how we play every week and I don't see a team coming off the back of a title chasing season. I don't see a team that's grown in experience and learnt from anything that happened last season.
What I do see is how other teams around us have stopped performing like shit and now have some of the worlds finest managers managing them, sorted them out and are showing us exactly where we are in the pecking order really.
2015/2016:
Played 13
Won 6
Drawn 6
Lost 1
For: 24
Against: 11
2016/2017:
Played 13
Won 6
Drawn 6
Lost 1
For: 19
Against: 10
Pretty similar from last season. Obviously, if we keep this up and we match a lot from last season we'd end up on 70 odd points again. Which is usually about good enough for 5th place, sometimes 4th obviously depending on other teams performances.
Now let's look at the results from last season in the same fixtures we've played this season and have a look and see if we've improved at all:
2015/2016:
26 points from the exact same fixtures we've played this season
2016/2017:
24 points so far this season.
Our best unbeaten run this season was our opening 12 games. Though a lot of those games were draws. Our best unbeaten run last season was 14 games which come directly after our loss on the opening day of last season. That also harbored a lot of draws. Once again, we haven't really improved that aspect of our game.
I think we're a great team, I think we have a great manager but I just wish expectations of the team weren't so high basing everything from last season. It was a FREAK season. Chelsea, Liverpool and Man Utd ALL finished outside of the top four, when was the last time that happened? Man City finished FOURTH and Leicester won the fucking league.
Funnily enough, this year the norm returned. We have Leicester on the verge of battling relegation much like the season before. We have Man City and Chelsea back at the top of the table. Liverpool are hitting their stride and are on a 15 game unbeaten run in all competitions, Woolwich are on an 18 game unbeaten run in all competitions. We aren't better than ANY of the teams above us and that fucking pains me. Last season was the best oppertunity we had to win the league and it saddens me that we couldn't do it, nor could we capitilise on such a great season with a smart summer and a real crack at the Champions League.
You fast forward from April (when we were competing), we have managed to stagnate. Liverpool, Man City and Chelsea have all improved (two of which have since employed two of the best managers in world football to coach the team), we haven't really improved our squad, knocked out of the League Cup and Champions League without even really bothering and all we really have to look forward to this year is a hope that the FA Cup is treated with more respect and the hope that we keep our players fit and manage to compete for fourth place.
Fans need to grasp that. I've seen talk of Poch being under pressure? Really!? We are in the EXACT same position as we were last season and he wasn't getting such talk. In fact, he got us knocked out of the League Cup at home to Woolwich last year (one stage earlier than we got knocked out this season) and he was playing youth in the Europa League yet I don't rememer any of this talk last season.
We are in a position our spending allows us to be. We overachieved last season mixed in with the fact that the top teams that outspend us under-performed. I've said it before, I'll say it time and time again, our squad is FULL of 7/10 players but we have a system and manager that when in place sees our team perform at a 9/10 (at times a 10/10 when it all clicks). The problem is, the players themselves need to step up. Dier, Alli, Dembele, Eriksen for example are all below par this season, all four at times were CRUCIAL last year.
I'm almost glad that unbeaten run is over. During that unbeaten run we got knocked out of the League Cup and Champions League and all it proved in the league was that we were better then the likes of Everton, Southampton and Man Utd. Hopefully the loss kicks some sense into the players, play like we did in the first half against Chelsea and we'll be a force. We PRESSED, which we have hardly done all season, our passing was very good and we constantly cut Chelsea apart, for whatever reason that stopped in the second half but we know we can do it, the players cared.
The expectations this season were raised significantly based on our position last year (despite fans not looking at the bigger picture as well as realising that our total points haul was below par), this has made things challenging whenever we fail to beat a team we should beat (despite also not beating them last season), we are a young team, one thats experienced injuries and we need to understand this is what happens.
But...
We are Tottenham. We have a very young team, an inexperienced manager who has improved our team and style within the 3 years he has been here. We are raising our profile, we have a new stadium coming within the next few years and we're ONLY going to get better.
My question at the start of the post was 'Have we improved?' - you answer the question.