Johan Lange - appointed

[eamonn]

Their injuries have hardly helped. If we bleat that "no other team could withstand losing McGinn, Tielemans and Kamara", I assume they feel the same about Maddison, Kulusevski, Hoddle and Waddle.

[Monty]

So...they should've been midtable?

[Dave]

What’s the justification for the ire towards Lange?  Is he responsible for transfers or doe she have a wider remit?

He's Sporting Director. So not just transfers, but all the big decisions that ultimately have put Spurs in 17th. Hiring Frank / not sacking Frank earlier. Not signing the right players in January (Gallagher was argually not what we needed, but definitely not what Spurs need), bringing in Tudor (which looks like a panicked "no idea what to do" move, given Tudor was apparently who Paratici, Lange's predecessor / co-Sporting Bloke wanted last summer in the first place), not sacking Tudor.

One of those "if it's going wrong under all the players and all the managers, maybe look at the person who is overseeing that operation" things.

[Somniloquism]

The thing about their injuries are that both players had a massive contribution in the league last season where they finished *checks notes* 4th from bottom on 38 points. Their current points total would still have kept them up last season.

TBF of the four teams vying for that other relegation spot, any one of them would be a good laugh if they went down although Spurs would bring the most hilarity.

[VILLA MOLE]

They probably should have gone for big Sam if just to stop those  crap adverts 

[SamTheMouse]

They haven't found adequate replacements for Kane and Son. I think that's their biggest problem.

[Dave]

They haven't found adequate replacements for Kane and Son. I think that's their biggest problem.

It is, but then - if you've lucked into having two of the best players in the world for ten years, it's not easy to magic up even adequate replacements for them.

[Somniloquism]

He's Sporting Director. So not just transfers, but all the big decisions that ultimately have put Spurs in 17th. Hiring Frank .....

Wiki had him as shared Sporting Director (with the Ex-Juventus guy) only from October 2025 so after Frank was appointed, although no one seems to be mentioned in the role before then so maybe he was doing that job anyway. When the "shared" role was announced Spurs had won 5 games and were 3rd after 9 games on 17 points and plus 10 gd.

[Dave]

He's Sporting Director. So not just transfers, but all the big decisions that ultimately have put Spurs in 17th. Hiring Frank .....

Wiki had him as shared Sporting Director (with the Ex-Juventus guy) only from October 2025 so after Frank was appointed, although no one seems to be mentioned in the role before then so maybe he was doing that job anyway. When the "shared" role was announced Spurs had won 5 games and were 3rd after 9 games on 17 points and plus 10 gd.

This is good on what was going wrong (in January specifically)

(stuff about why Tudor might work)

...yet here comes the next note of necessary caution for Spurs fans. Because while Tudor’s record and Tottenham’s current predicament mean that it’s obvious from the outside that this is the plan, it begs a further question: whose plan?

The only possible sensible answer to that is Fabio Paratici. This is Fabio Paratici’s plan to save Tottenham. And it is his last contribution.

The confirmation of Tudor’s coaching set-up this week, and with it the departure of Johnny Heitinga after being Spurs’ assistant coach for a month, sets off alarm bells.

Easy to jape about Heitinga’s Abe Simpson entrance and exit through the Spurs revolving door to complete an interesting nine months in the professional life of a man who was celebrating his part in Liverpool’s title win last season before deciding to find out what life is like as head coach and then again as assistant coach at clubs that are mental.

But it’s starkly revealing. We all assumed that Heitinga’s appointment to an assistant role in Frank’s team was a strategic move to place a viable interim manager inside the current, struggling set-up.

We now know it was not that. Which tells us a few things that we maybe should have more strongly suspected but can only now know for sure. What it tells us is that the people now in the very senior positions at a post-Levy Spurs really did not, even a month ago, realise quite how f**ked things were.

And that should terrify Spurs fans. They weren’t putting in a contingency, they really were trying to help out a manager that everyone who wasn’t a Spurs board member or senior football columnist could already see was beyond that help. A manager who was dragging Spurs into a relegation fight neither he nor they were equipped to win.

It also paints the January transfer window failure in new light. We’d kind of thought until now that Paratici had played Spurs, you see.

When Spurs announced Paratici’s departure for Fiorentina, they also said he was staying on for the rest of the January transfer window. When Spurs did no further business in January, while Fiorentina signed several new players for their own survival fight, it was understandable to think that the Spurs board had had their wallets inspected by a man with notable talents but, let’s say, not an unblemished record of propriety. Paratici is not a man who necessarily earns the benefit of the doubt in these situations.

But right now in this specific instance he does. Because now we know with some certainty that it’s actually worse than we feared. Paratici didn’t play Spurs; Spurs played themselves.

They didn’t sit on their hands in January because Paratici had checked out, but because the likes of CEO Vinai Venkatesham and sporting director Johan Lange really didn’t think they needed to gamble. He didn’t stop trying, the others stopped listening.

When they were publicly patting themselves on the back for being sensible grown-ups and not getting dragged into the silliness of the transfer window it wasn’t an act – they meant it.

They killed Frank with kindness, having decided that he – or anyone – could muddle on with a dozen fit players once they’d failed in their bid to sign Andy Robertson, the only footballer in the world who could improve this squad.

Paratici hadn’t downed tools; his voice just wasn’t being heard. Only after he’d left and Frank plumbed sarcastic levels of dreadful in defeat to a Newcastle side going through its own misery, only after Frank had contrived to continue his policy of conceding two stupid goals in every game even against a team with no forwards to speak of, did Vinai and Lange reluctantly acknowledge the situation had spiralled out of their control.

At that point they did the only thing they could, incapable as they appear to be of any independent action. It might be too late already. They put into place Paratici’s parting gift, the contingency plan he had lined up while they were genuinely trying to help an ailing manager by putting another head coach into his backroom staff seemingly oblivious to how that obviously looked.

Paratici’s record at Spurs is, at best, spotty. But it contains a few undeniable and notable hits among the misses. That’s the good news for Spurs fans, who must hope that his final contribution in identifying Tudor as the short-term quick fix they obviously and desperately need is another one for the hitlist rather than the sh*tlist.

The bad news is that bringing in a man to continue the proud Croatian tradition at Spurs (Modric, Corluka, Kranjcar… Pletikosa) is the last fling of Paratici’s now departed dice.

Everything that happens from this point on is the work of Vinai and Lange.

Even if Tudor does save Spurs from themselves this season, the relief is likely to be temporary. You wouldn’t even rule out Vinai making the most obvious mistake of all and handing Tudor the permanent job.

[Drummond]

Spurs aren't as big as they pretend to be, and the fans have been hoodwinked into believing the hype.

[Hookeysmith]

Spurs aren't as big as they pretend to be, and the fans have been hoodwinked into believing the hype.

This

London location and shiny stadium and that is it

[TopDeck113]

Exactly.  They - together with West Ham and pre-dirty money Chelsea - have all been long-term beneficiaries of media idolatry and a mythology based on nothing other than a few successful seasons in the great span of football history and being based in the metropolis that is London.

Whilst I still think that they'll beat the drop, Spurs being relegated would be the most satisfying demotion since Blues post-League Cup hangover.  Probably more so.  Even if they were to do what we failed to and bounce straight back, a season without the hubris around N17 would make the Premier League a better place.