Tottenham Hotspur: 2024 Summary
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00:00Well, James, it is the Spurs 2024 calendar year in review.
00:07It's fair to say it's been an interesting year from a Tottenham point of view.
00:12I mean, obviously, looking at the back end of last season, qualifying for Europe, that's positive.
00:18And Prostokoglou perhaps, you know, fulfilling some sort of an achievement there by getting Spurs back into Europe after what was a very poor season in 2022-23.
00:29And then perhaps a poor summer. And now we're coming into the back end of 2024, going into 2025.
00:35And it's, well, obviously, all the injuries, everyone knows about that at the moment.
00:40Some fantastic results of late, beating Manchester City 4-0 at the Etihad.
00:44Then also some really poor results, you know, for example, Ape Switch at home springs to mind.
00:48And it's just been a Spurs are just sort of living into their stereotype of being very Spursy, very up, very down.
00:56Some fantastic results, some dreadful results, lots of injuries.
00:59And, you know, unfortunately, it just can't seem to find any consistency.
01:04I think that's what's really missing for Spurs.
01:06So if we go back to the start of the year when 2024 first came in, Spurs were, of course, embroiled in a battle for European places.
01:13And they ended up getting them towards the end of the season.
01:16And so things seemed, I presume, positive enough at the start of this year.
01:21Yeah, I mean, I think if we look at the back end of last season, we always started off so well.
01:25The start of the Postacoglu era started with such a big bang.
01:29You know, we were top of the league. We were absolutely flying, playing some scintillating football.
01:33You know, players in really, really good form.
01:36Then came the fateful night against Chelsea when it all fell apart.
01:40That was the sort of start of the injury and suspension disaster, really.
01:44We then wobbled, mixed results pretty much like this year, to be honest with you, through that period.
01:50And ultimately sort of fell over the line to get into Europe at the back end of last season.
01:54And, you know, most Spurs fans undertaken that.
01:56So I think, you know, a really solid start to the Postacoglu era.
01:59The football was a lot better from the likes of the Conte and the Mourinho eras.
02:03And everybody was in such a positive frame of mind going into the summer.
02:07You know, let's kick on.
02:08Always, you know, Ang does better in his second season.
02:11He's gone on record as saying that.
02:14And then, you know, the summer transfer window.
02:18And, you know, great in terms of buying Archie Gray for the future.
02:21And Lucas Bergwald, you know, two really, really promising teenagers.
02:25But I think we've been left woefully short in terms of recruitment by only bringing in Solanke as a first-team striker.
02:31And a first-team player.
02:33I mean, he's been very good, Solanke, a really, really good solid signing.
02:36And, you know, we put a little bit of money on the line for him, £65 million.
02:40Bit of a slow start with the injury.
02:42But he's really, really come good.
02:43And, you know, he leads that line really, really positively for Spurs.
02:47But, you know, we knew we were going into a potential 60-game-plus season.
02:52And he was the only real first-team-ready player that we brought in.
02:55And, you know, what's happened has happened.
02:58You know, the injuries have kicked in.
03:00You know, you've got to look at all sides, I think, there.
03:03You've got to look at the recruitment failures.
03:05You've got to look at the medical department.
03:07I mean, bringing Romero and van de Ven back for the Chelsea game and losing them both, you know, is just criminal.
03:13And you've maybe got to look at Postacoglu as well in terms of the way he trains
03:16because players are just getting consistently injured all the time.
03:20So, yeah, it's been a very, very up-and-down year, I think it's fair to say.
03:26Yeah, I think that's...
03:27You've summarised sort of what happened towards the end of the last season
03:30and coming into this season with the summer quite well there.
03:33It must be frustrating.
03:35I think that's the main point of view because, of course, you know, on the surface at least,
03:39you have a really good first team.
03:40And when they're firing and all clicking, it's so good to watch.
03:44They're so exciting, so attacking football.
03:47You saw what we did to Man City, for example, albeit they've had their own problems.
03:51But scratch below the surface a little bit and that's when the issues start to come in.
03:55And the problem is that's happening too often because, as you say there,
03:58the players are getting injured far too often.