Well its all set to kickoff on Sunday for Spurs. We host Liverpool in the first game of a fairly harsh opening set of fixtures. So what are my expectations? Not grand. I don't see sixth as Manchester City and Everton should easily be better teams. Everton because Moyes is the best manager in the game outside of anyone dubbed Sir. And City because they, despite the remonstrations of other supporters, have built a very good squad and should easily contend for a European spot.
We are just below these two, on par with Sunderland, Villa and West Ham. And we should be fighting these three for that 7th spot that could mean Europe. I don't think we will make it, as 8th or 9th is probably as good as we will get.
And the reason for this is that the board is a mess. Daniel Levy, for all of his ability to make a profit, is a bit of a joke. He wasted millions of pounds on the lunacy of the Comolli era only to see Harry with little money to spend to strengthen the squad. And he continues to buy players as cattle futures (Walker/Naughton) rather than letting the manager get experience players to help us fight for a higher position, that he says is so important. The fact that we had to look at Bassong because he has a resale value rather than go for a Matthew Upson or Brede Hangeland, who could help our injured back line more immediately is quite telling. I am quite sure that Harry will be sacked by season's end for the inevitable mid-table position that is indicative of the quality of the squad we have.
But I do like what Harry has done when he's been given money. I'm not a fan, in general, of Crouch, but he is a #9, which we needed. We lost Woody and Dawson and he got Bassong on cheap, who I think has potential, but we've been burned by £8 million defenders before. He saw the need for steel and last winter brought in Palacios. But is it enough? I think its enough to land us where we ended up last campaign, in the middle of the table but not higher. We are a good team, but we are far from being a well built squad. Comolli bought players with no eye for a team and Harry will need a lot of money or a lot of time to fix the plethora of mistakes the DoF era.
The questions remain: is Jenas good enough? Do we need a true left winger for options? Can King continue to be good without training? Can we win with Bassong/Corluka as a central pairing? Do we still have too many forward of the same mold in Pavlyuchenko, Defoe and Keane and how will they deal with a rotation?
The key will be our away form. Harry has done a good job of locking down White Hart Lane to opposition, but we are a soft team away from home and we only have one man up for the fight in Palacios. And if he gets hurt, we go from mid-table to bottom six very quickly.
So I don't have grand hopes for this year. Hopefully we can nick a cup and get back into Europe, where Harry can complain about having to play in Eastern Europe. But I think mid-table will give us time to start rectifying the mess that Comolli left this club in and hopefully we will be able to vet the likes of Livermore (after his stint at Derby), Bostock, Parrett and Rose. At least, we can think realistically rather than envisioning a top four finish. Unfortunately Levy won't and that could cause us more upheaval come next May.