FM09: Official Tottenham Hotspur Thread: Spurs

CLUB INFORMATION

Tottenham Hotspur, , is an English professional football club which currently plays in the Premier League. Commonly referred to as Spurs, the club's home stadium is White Hart Lane, Tottenham, in the London Borough of Haringey (N17).

Tottenham Hotspur were the first club in the 20th century to achieve the League and FA Cup Double, winning both competitions in the 1960–61 season. In 1963, Spurs became the first British club to win a major European trophy - the European Cup Winners' Cup. In the 1980s, Spurs won several trophies: the FA Cup twice, FA Community Shield and the UEFA Cup 1983–84. In addition, they are the current Football League Cup holders, beating Chelsea 2–1 in extra time. This victory means that Tottenham have won a trophy in each of the last six decades - an achievement only matched by Manchester United.

The club's Latin motto is Audere est Facere (lit: "To Dare Is to Do"), and its emblem is a cockerel standing upon a football. The club has a long-standing rivalry with near neighbours Arsenal and matches between the two teams are known as the North London derby.

WHITE HART LANE

White Hart Lane was originally a disused nursery owned by the brewery, Charringtons, and located behind a public house. The landlord realised the increased revenues he could enjoy if Tottenham played their matches behind his pub and the club moved in. They brought with them the terrace they used at Northumberland Park which gave shelter to 2,500 fans. Notts County were the first visitors to 'the Lane' in a friendly watched by 5,000 people and bringing in £115 in receipts, Spurs won 4-1. QPR became the first competitive visitors to the ground and 11,000 people saw them lose 1-0 to Tottenham.

In 1905 Tottenham raised enough money to buy the freehold to the land and became the permanent owners of the ground. As the club grew new stands were added. A new main stand was added in 1909, the East stand was also covered this year and extended further two years later. The profits from the 1921 FA Cup win were used to build a covered terrace at the Paxton Road end and the Park Lane end was built at a cost of over £3,000 some two years later. This increased the WHL capacity to around 58,000 with room for 40,000 under cover. The East Stand development was finishing in 1934 which increased the capacity to around 80,000 spectators and cost £60,000. The pitch was renovated in 1952 which uncovered a number of items from the old nursery on the site and one year later the first floodlights were introduced. These lights were upgraded in 1957 which required the cockerel to be moved from the West Stand to the East and then in 1961 floodlight pylons were installed.

The West Stand was replaced by an expensive (and far behind schedule) new structure and the stadium started its long modernisation process. Various developments and upgrades were implemented over the years and in 1992 the lower terraces of the south and east stand were converted to seating and the whole of the North stand followed to become all-seater the following season. The South Stand re-development was completed in March 1995 and included the first giant Sony Jumbotron TV screen for live game coverage and away match screenings. The capacity of the stadium increased to just over 33,000. In 1997/98 season the Paxton Road stand had a new upper tier added which included the second Jumbotron screen and increased capacity to 36,240 and was funded by a rights issue in 1996.[8]

KIT

The first Tottenham kit was navy blue shirt and shorts, but after the first season the club did not have one specific design for many years. In 1884 the club changed to a kit similar to that of Blackburn Rovers. Shortly after moving to Northumberland Road, the kit changed again to red shirt and blue shorts. Five years later, after becoming a professional club, they switched to a chocolate and gold striped kit.

At the end of the 19th century the club switched colours yet again, to the white shirts and blue shorts for which they are now well known for wearing, hence the nickname "Lilywhites". This colour choice is thought to be in homage to Preston North End who had recently done "The Double".

White and navy blue have remained as the club's basic colours ever since. Soon after the First World War, the cockerel badge was added to the shirt. In 1939 numbers first appeared on shirt backs, and in 1983 Holsten became the first commercial sponsor logo to appear on the shirt. When Thomson was chosen as kit sponsor in 2002 there was an outcry from Tottenham fans as the logo on the front was red, the colour of their closest rivals, Arsenal. In 2006, Tottenham then succeeded in securing a record £34m sponsorship deal with internet casino group, and present sponsors, Mansion. Although this ensured another red logo on the white shirt, the issue has attracted no further comment.

TOP 20 MANAGERS

Manager

1 Frank Brettell

2 Arthur Turner

3 John Cameron

4 David Pleat

5 Bill Nicholson

6 Arthur Rowe

7 Fred Kirkham

8 Jimmy Anderson

9 Percy Smith

10 Doug Livermore*

Ray Clemence

11 Martin Jol

12 Peter Shreeves

13 Jack Tresadern

14 Peter McWilliam

15 'The Directors'

16 Joe Hulme

17 Keith Burkinshaw

18 Terry Venables

19 Billy Minter

20 Glenn Hoddle

* Doug Livermore and Ray Clemence shared the Manager's job

PLAYERS

1 GK Heurelho Gomes

2 DF Alan Hutton

3 DF Gareth Bale

4 MF Didier Zokora

5 MF David Bentley

6 MF Tom Huddlestone

7 MF Aaron Lennon

8 MF Jermaine Jenas (vice captain)

9 FW Roman Pavlyuchenko

10 FW Darren Bent

11 MF Gilberto

13 DF Paul Stalteri

14 MF Luka Modrić

15 MF Hossam Ghaly

16 DF Chris Gunter

17 FW Giovani Dos Santos

18 FW Fraizer Campbell (on loan from Manchester Utd)

19 MF Adel Taarabt

20 DF Michael Dawson

21 GK César Sánchez

22 DF Vedran Ćorluka

23 MF Kevin-Prince Boateng

24 MF Jamie O'Hara

26 DF Ledley King (captain)

32 DF Benoît Assou-Ekotto

33 DF Ricardo Rocha

39 DF Jonathan Woodgate

For me the best eleven is (playing 4-4-2):

GK: Gomes

DR: Corluka

DL: Bale

DC: Woodgate

DC: King

MR: Lennon

ML: dos Santos

MC: Modric

MC: Jenas/Huddlestone

ST: Pavlyuchenko

ST: Bent

I would definitely try and bring in a left winger, perhaps marcelo? and then drop bale back into left back, also try bringing in another striker, because i just don't feel bent is good enough, also a back up Goalkeeper? i dont rate cesar sanchez, and he's 37 now try Enyeama, class goalkeeper and very cheap

Key Players

Although the sporting journalists are currently complaining about Gomes, so far for me he has been class, he is a very good player, he makes the occasional blunder but he makes up for that with class saves.

Luka Modric is a class player, can excell anywhere in midfield, he is fast, he can pick a pass beautifully

MY BUYS

I bought Giuseppe Rossi for 9.25m to bring in a striker to play instead of Bent

I bought Lassana Diarra for 4.4m to bring in to play alongside Modric and Veloso

I bought Veloso for the same reason as Diarra

I finally brought in some loans, Balotelli (Backup/rotation), Cacares (backup/rotation)

TRANSFER BUDGET

I said that i could get into Europe by coming 4th/5th and i got 32m, but if you aim higher i'm sure you might be able to get about 40m, of course probably more if you ask for a bigger wage budget and then mix it around

I hope everyone enjoys playing as the mighty spurs, i got all this information of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottenham_Hotspur_F.C.

so i thank Wiki for that

ENJOY!!

Nice opener

You might want to unbold the information on the club after the sub heading "club information"

Nice OP but a little more info on the team would be nice. I mean who are the best eleven ..., where to improve ...

Was just making this thread

Good opener mate.

kk, thanks i will try to add a little bit morea about the first team

sorry for double posting, i have now added best eleven and what areas to strengthen, so what do people think now?

I signed Polombo ,Diarra ,Rossi and Jakolovski i keep you up to date.

Playing 4-3-2-1 rossi as lone striker

drew 1-1 with wigan

I'm trying out 4-3-3, it hasn't been that effective so far, drawing 0-0 with Wigan and tehn losing 2-0 to Arsenal

Just started and team looks like:

Gomes

Corluka, King, Radoi, Bale

Bentley, Modric, Veloso, Marcelo

Rossi

Pavlychenko

Bench of: Caesar, Zokora, Woodgate, Jenas, Baloteli, Lennon, Campbell

So far:

Spurs 6-1 Wigan

Spurs 2-2 Arsenal

Pompey 2-0 Spurs

Hull 1-2 Spurs

Pav with 6 goals so far!!! Will keep you guys updated

Yeah good start to the thread

So Nicolas are you playing 4-4-1-1?

gonna try and get balotelli on loan

already have marcelo to fill the left wing position and caceres for backup because corluka has to play rb until hutton is fit and i just dont trust dawson

ive signed

marcelo-loan

caceres-loan

falcao-7.25m

Moutinho-12.5m

veloso-12.5m

and a world class coach from napoli

Cool, tell us how it goes, what tactic are you going to be using?

yes

won my first game 3-1

falcao, veloso and modric scored

I started a Spurs game a good few weeks back now, but purely to get an idea of what players to sign if I play as Spurs on the full version. Players to get rid of:

- Assou-Ekotto

- Huddlestone

- Zokora

- Gilberto

And I was looking to get people in the following positions:

- DLC: Armand £8m (Lescott £12m)

- DM: Emerson £3.3m

- MC: Veloso £10m

- ML/FC: Mutu £15m

That fits into the ~£30m you get at the start. If Enyeama is as cheap as I've heard he is, then he's worth it, but you might as well keep Cesar as a backup as he's not that bad. I think the defence is fine apart from left back, which is why I wanted someone to cover there and centre back and Armand looks very good for £8m.

The only problem with the midfield is that there's no good holding midfielders, so Emerson (who gets transfer listed) is a bargain and I thik everyone knows about Veloso. I'd also play Bentley as an MCa because of the quality on with wings with Lennon, Giovani and Modric. Mutu at £15m was a good price I thought. Mainly wanted a striker, but it's very useful that he can cover on the left as well. On my version all the big clubs came in for Marcelo so I couldn't get him, but you might as well if it's possible for ~£4m.

The striking options aren't great. I'd say Bent and Campbell need to play as the striker to run off a target man like Pavly, so I'm not sure about getting Rossi in, at least not at the start of the game, and why I'd favour Mutu.

Thandui,

It's 4-4-1-1 with Pav playing as a target man. Rossi with a free role. Veloso set to defensive mentality, with a farrow backwards. Modric attacking mentality and max creative freedom, and wingers with farrow's forward.

I think the key is to make sure that your defensive midfielder (veloso, Huddlestone, etc) plays like a holding player, and let the other attack.

Will keep you update ever 5 or so games

I've made some big-time signings. I've spent so much for the first time in FM that I feel guilty now

Tranfers In :

Veloso

Moutinho

Diarra

Rossi

Balotelli

Marcelo

Enyeama

Transfers Out:

Zokora

Jenas

Dawson

Bent

Ekotto(SP?)

Rocha

Ghaly

Stalteri

And a bunch of reserve players.

Also looking to ship out Gilberto as he can't defend as a full back and too slow to wing.

Now My team looks like this :

Gomes

Hutton Woodgate Corluka/King Bale

Veloso/Huddleston

Bentley Moutinho/Diarra Lennon(Retraining as AML)

Modric/Rossi

Pavy/Rossi/Balotelli

As you can see, I've got way too many good CMs there. Still trying to figure out a tactic where I can use Veloso, Moutinho, Modric, Bentley and two strikers. Season about to start.

Also looking to bring in Caceres(SP?) DC from Barca. Scouts say he'll be godlike! And also need a good DL/DR as backup.

Will update later. Off to Tactics & Training thread. Cheers.

how about 4-4-2?

Modric has played well for me at left midfield. Bentley right, moutinho centre with attacking settings and veloso centre with defensive settings.

I'm playing a simple 4-4-2 with that midfield and am doing ok. Beat wigan and arsenal 1-0, so good start. Then lost to portsmouth 2-0 and beat Hull 2-0. Might need to change my formation for away games because portsmouth dominated me, but in preseason I couldn't get a formation with one up front to work at all.

thats smart about retraining lennon because dos santos isn't that good on the game

Hi there, just signed-

Diarra- £4.8M

Marcelo- £4.4M

Arshavin- £14.5M

Emerson- Loan

Caceres- Loan- Future fee £12.5M

Out-

Zokora- £2.5M

Staleri- 50K

This is still the demo you are all playing right!!

Yup, why? (10 Letter)

thats smart about retraining lennon because dos santos isn't that good on the game

crazy gra

i know

but at the beginning he just has got the ability or expierence to star every game

he's only 19

How do people know dos Santos' PA?

Im having a nightmare as Tottenham manager.In FM08 i managed 2nd twice in the league only missing out the first time on goal difference but with FM09 demo i cannot for the life of me win a game.

Even in the friendlies im losing to team like Leyton Orient and my squad morale is awful.

Tried a 4-1-3-2 with one defensive midfielder and 3 attacking but no good.Also tried 4-4-1-1 but same results.

Injuries too are a nightmare.

You could try a 4-3-3 (a DM, 2 MCs, AMR/L, FC) due to the amount of attacking midfielders there are. Just have the DM staying back and helping out the defence and the FC holding up the ball to link up with the wingers and the two MCs who should be on FWRs often and mixed respectively to get enough players forward. Pavly might do the FC role well, but you'd need to buy another as I wouldn't use Bent or Campbell there.

In my demo game, I signed:

diarra

arshavin

marcelo

Interesting to see some of you chaps pick up Veloso and Moutinho. How do they fair?

Also, how good is Rossi? And Falcao too?

I'd suggest everyone sacks their physios and most of their coaches and replace the lot of them.

how about 4-4-2?

Modric has played well for me at left midfield. Bentley right, moutinho centre with attacking settings and veloso centre with defensive settings.

Thats a good idea. Modric is great at left wing. I won first league match aginst Wigan 1-0, beat Arsenal 3-0 at home coz they had all the players injured. Hull 1-2 away. Drew with Pompey 2-2 away, Defeated Chelsea 1-0 through a goal from Lennon. In Euro Cup, beat Sofi (Loko) 0-5 away. Birmingham 5-1 in league cup.

Modric is the top scorer so far with 4 goals. My best player has been Corluka along with Gunter. Also bought Caceres (DC) from Barca for 16M on deadline day and Bent wasn't sold. I removed him from transfer list to keep him as backup.

Ahh good to see the SPURS thread open already. Well I got my hands on:

Adam Lallana-Southampton kid going to be good. 3.3 mil US

Kevin Nolan-Needed a leader in the middle of the field. 20.5 Mil US

Ivan Rakitic-More croation flavor. 21.5 Mil US

Marcelo and Miguel Torres from Real M- Both extremely talented and young and got them at a discounted price.12 mil together roughly

Huntelaar- Well finally opened the bank account big and got him for 25 mil.

Total 82 mil spent.

I sold Rocha, BAE, Dawson(Always and still do hate him), Zoko, and Stalteri. 19.25 mil Us.

Hope I can do something in the league with this sqaud.

My Spurs game:-

INS:-

Diarra (Portsmouth - £5M)

J Garcia (Real Madrid - Loan)

Caceres (Barcelona - Loan)

Gudjohnsen (Barcelona - Loan)

Zhirkov (CSKA - £12M)

OUTS:-

Stalteri (Reading - £180K)

Rocha (Birmingham - Loan)

Ghaly (Wolves - Loan)

A bunch of youngsters released

Formation I play 4-3-3

Currently mid November, doing well in the lge and cups but struggling due to injuries and having to juggle the squad around every match...........well documented I know but a bit of a grind......

Gudjohnsen is playing well in the single striker role with 12 goals so far, it would appear Bent plays well as a single striker with run onto ball target man instructions.....Pavlyuchenko just isn't doing it for me........it might take him time to settle though....

Zhirkov is a great addition if your looking for an AML with pace.....

urbanjunkie

thats what i did i sacked them all and brought in two world class physios

also moutinho and veloso do well and u can get them for 12.5m each

I bought Gareth Barry and Ashley Young as first teamers, Lescott as a rotation player.

GK: Gomes/Cesar

RB: Corluka/Hutton

LB: Bale/Lescott

CB: King/Corluka

CB: Woodgate/Lescott

CM: Jenas/Huddlestone

CM: Barry/O'Hara

LW: Young/Modric

RW: Bentley/Lennon

AM: Modric/dos Santos

ST: Pav and Bent (they get equal playing time)

Undefeated in five games and beat Arsenal 3 - 1! Team is built around Modric.

Jeanas and bale are poor for me no matter what i say to them .

no higher than a 6.4 in any game and 1st half rating allways around 5

if ur playing as tottenham, modric has to be the centre of the team

Usually when i play as Tottenham, i dont want to sell many players because i want to "keep the real team". But this year, there have been so many changes anyway, so i have been trying to sell the dead meat and bring in alot of quality, and some cheap backup players.

I plan to sell:

Zokora, Dawson, BAE ,Huddlestone, Jenas, O´Hara, Boateng, Bent and alot of reserve team and youth team players. Also thinking about selling Taarabt and Lennon.

Going to replace them with Diarra, Marcelo, Zebina, Belletti, Palombo, Veloso, Saivet and Balotelli. Going to loan some quality from the big european teams like Barca, R.Madrid, Inter and Milan and maybe buy some youngsters like Fleck, Wijnaldum, Feghouli and Rodney Sneidjer. Also thought about Palermo, Pires and maybe Michael Owen, but he will eat up my wage budget.

Will use atleast one DM to tighten up my defensve, and build my offensive play around Gio (loads of potential), Modric and Bentley. Pavlyuchenko is a bit dissapointing, but if you get some players with good crossing he might be ok. Palermo is a much better targetman. Planning on playing Pavlo/Palermo alongside a faster striker like Balotelli/Owen/Saivet.

Ahh good to see the SPURS thread open already. Well I got my hands on:

Adam Lallana-Southampton kid going to be good. 3.3 mil US

Kevin Nolan-Needed a leader in the middle of the field. 20.5 Mil US

Ivan Rakitic-More croation flavor. 21.5 Mil US

Marcelo and Miguel Torres from Real M- Both extremely talented and young and got them at a discounted price.12 mil together roughly

Huntelaar- Well finally opened the bank account big and got him for 25 mil.

Total 82 mil spent.

I sold Rocha, BAE, Dawson(Always and still do hate him), Zoko, and Stalteri. 19.25 mil Us.

Hope I can do something in the league with this sqaud.

How did you manage to get 82 million?

I've started a Spurs save 3 EPL games, i onyl bought 3 players ..

Veloso

Moutinho

Falcao

Falcao was a a bit random but I needed cover up front plus he has decent potential. I've had an poor start though won 1 draw 1 lost 1. And I agree with the comments about Bale and Jenas, they are both pretty crap, unlike IRL.

How did you manage to get 82 million?

He's talking in US Dollers not UK Pound Sterling.

Okay. I chose the Continental qualification prediction and was given 32 million and a wage budget of 925k. This is what I did with it:

Sold:

Taarabt - 2.7m

Bent - 5.25m

Stalteri - 450k

Rocha - 1.1m

Dawson - 3m

Jenas - 5m

Zokora - 2.9m

O'Hara - 2.5m

Assou-Ekotto - 3.1m

Total - 26m

Bought:

Marcelo - 4.4m

Veloso - 12m (15% sell on fee)

Diarra - 5m (15% sell on fee)

Palombo - 13m (20% sell on fee)

Rossi - 9m (15% sell on fee)

Caceres - Loan: initial fee 2.5m, future fee 10m

Balotelli - Loan: initial fee 4.2m, future fee 10m

Total - 50m

I'm 50k under my wage budget with a transfer budget of 139k remaining. I missed out on Enyeama as he was offered 1st team football at Hertha. Otherwise I'm chuffed with my transfers. As you can tell with Diarra, Palombo and Veloso I like to have a dominating centre of the midfield (something that Spurs lack unfortunately!). I managed to re-negotiate Hutton, Huddlestone and Bale with rotational contracts. Would like to sell Hutton in Jan and get Srna for right back. I find that Corluka is better at right back than Hutton anyway for some reason.

As I frequent contributor & starter of these threads in the past, i'd like to wish you all good luck & enjoy playing as Spurs managers in FM2009.

I've quit now as Spurs researcher so there could be a vacancy, check out the data thread.

Nothing dramatic, I've just fallen out of love with the game & I was always going to quit the post after this last round of research.

I must admit though that the new game being unplayable on my poor old laptop has removed any chance of FM sucking me in again.

I think Spurs files are in pretty good nick & i wish the next researcher all the best.

this is my tottenham squad so far

Paulinho

Many yhanks for all your hard work as researcher.

I did run the Demo on my 4 year old laptop. 3D is naff anyway and even now game is on newer laptop only use 2D.

Only played 2 games so far but 6pts and 1 better than Harry's lads.

knap

how did u get the screenshot in

so annoyed

my save game file has been deleted have to start again

Use the Form link at bottom of image page.

How did you manage to get 82 million?

Well I started with 61 million and sold almost 20 million more and adjusted the budget. We won 3-1 against Wigan in our first game and lost 1-0 to the scum. Bale scored a vicious strike from about 30 yards out had curl on it and everything. Was beautiful. I don't do 3D only 2D. Can run it but I like old faithful. All in all I think I went around and got the best players for the money.

He's talking in US Dollers not UK Pound Sterling.

Correct. That is what I was talking about.

How people using Modric i tried him as a left winger and amc/support striker getting around 6-7 avr .

Tried free role and playmaker still cant seen to get him to perform.