After the 4-0 mauling by Liverpool on March 30th that completed an aggregate 9-0 loss to Liverpool this season, Tottenham's problems can no longer be ignored by the footballing world.
What went so wrong for the Lillywhites to find themselves in this humiliating position? They did lose a very great player in Gareth Bale but does the departure of one player mean a club of this stature has to crumble? After raking in towards 100M for the Welshman and spending it on a plethora of new exciting players, what is not happening at White Hart Lane?
One man has all the answers.
The 12 Tweets that summarize Spurs' 2013/14 predicament:
Observations on Spurs (summer signings, coaching situation) coming up in multiple tweets, I apologise in advance for hijacking your feed
— Tor-Kristian Karlsen (@karlsentk) March 31, 2014
1) more than anything, there's been no basis for new (any) player to thrive this season. Unsettled environment, no clear structure post AVB
— Tor-Kristian Karlsen (@karlsentk) March 31, 2014
2) even players that performed well last season have had negative trend this term, which shows something's fundamentally wrong
— Tor-Kristian Karlsen (@karlsentk) March 31, 2014
3) which Spurs players have improved on last season? Townsend? Adebayor? Majority of the rest looking confused, unmotivated, out of sorts
— Tor-Kristian Karlsen (@karlsentk) March 31, 2014
4) in such a context, how can one expect any new signings to flourish? I'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way
— Tor-Kristian Karlsen (@karlsentk) March 31, 2014
5) from the summer signings, I've seen enough of Paulinho, Eriksen, Lamela (pre joining) to know that they'd strengthen Spurs significantly
— Tor-Kristian Karlsen (@karlsentk) March 31, 2014
6) I was unsure/unconvinced about Chadli and Capoue back then, but Chriches - if anything - has surprised me positively
— Tor-Kristian Karlsen (@karlsentk) March 31, 2014
7) Soldado has become a problem, starting to look like a lost cause, but he'd profit from clearer structure to the attacking game
— Tor-Kristian Karlsen (@karlsentk) March 31, 2014
8) but point is: with seemingly no clear plan, strategy or stability it's completely naive to expect new signings to prosper
— Tor-Kristian Karlsen (@karlsentk) March 31, 2014
9) as pointed out at the time of AVB sacking, why didn't Spurs go with a manager whose system would get the best out of the summer signings?
— Tor-Kristian Karlsen (@karlsentk) March 31, 2014
10) by appointing an inexperienced manager Spurs seemed to give up on £60-70 million worth of player investment after five months. Bizarre.
— Tor-Kristian Karlsen (@karlsentk) March 31, 2014
11) and finally, what's the point of appointing a technical director when he seemingly had no influence in appointment of new manager?
— Tor-Kristian Karlsen (@karlsentk) March 31, 2014
12) with all these factors in mind, there's no wonder why Spurs is having a disappointing season. Lack of coherent club strategy
— Tor-Kristian Karlsen (@karlsentk) March 31, 2014
Kristian Karlsen's analysis is a very refreshing look at things. Perhaps, even if they lost Bale, some proper structural organization could have given Spurs a better season.
Or was GB11 simply everything Tottenham was? - because that's what The Mirror and Oliver Holt professied when Real intensified their interest in him last season.
