WHAT is German for ‘Dr Tottenham will see you now’?
That self-deprecating phrase is used by Spurs fans to poke fun at themselves when their team somehow lose to a side in hopeless form.
Getty‘Dr Tottenham’ have treated Crystal Palace, Ipswich and Everton already this season[/caption]
GettyPressure is building on Ange Postecoglou as he faces calls for the sack[/caption]
GettyChristian Ilzer is also having a nightmare at Hoffenheim[/caption]
They wheeled it out after Crystal Palace earned their first win of the season against their side on October 27, and then again following November’s shock home defeat to winless Ipswich.
Need to find a win from nowhere? Doctor Tottenham’s office, please.
Expect a repeat prescription if boss Ange Postecoglou’s walking wounded come a cropper at Hoffenheim tomorrow.
Because if you think Spurs’ season has been a nightmare, take a look at how Thursday’s Europa League opponents have been faring.
Christian Ilzer’s side have managed only seven victories from their 27 games in all competitions this season.
Rival fans may be having a good laugh at Spurs’ perilous league state right now.
But few believe they will actually be relegated — although the same cannot be said for Hoffenheim.
The Germans were winless in nine, having netted just THREE times in those fixtures, before Saturday’s much-needed 3-1 victory at drop-zone rivals Holstein Kiel.
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They are three points above the Bundesliga dotted line after that huge win in their six-pointer, which came off the back of an epic X-rated rant from club stalwart striker Andrej Kramaric.
The 33-year-old, in his tenth season at Hoffenheim, blasted after last Wednesday’s 5-0 pasting at Harry Kane’s Bayern Munich: “This is one big, s*** season, I’m going to be honest.
“And I’m still soft because if I want to say the truth and some things which are on my mind about the club and the situation, probably I will get the biggest punishment in the history of the Bundesliga.”
England fans may remember Kramaric from the heartbreaking World Cup semi-final loss to Croatia in 2018, with the forward coming on in extra-time.
He also netted the opener when Gareth Southgate’s Three Lions exacted some revenge with a 2-1 win in the Nations League a few months later.
Three years before that the 102-cap forward had a brief stint at Leicester — including during their historic title-winning campaign — but if you blinked, you may have missed it.
Brought in for £9.5million from Rijeka in January 2015, there was a four-game period a month later when he was keeping Foxes legend Jamie Vardy out of the team — but it did not last.
He ended up with just three goals in the second half of that season, then was frozen out by boss Claudio Ranieri in the next, unforgettable season.
Kramaric made only two league appearances during the campaign in which Leicester shocked the world, both off the bench, leaving him well short of the required ten to win a medal.
That January he was shipped off on loan to Julian Nagelsmann’s Hoffenheim — and has stayed there ever since.
Action ImagesAndrej Kramaric had a brief stint at Leicester[/caption]
He was shipped out by Claudio Ranieri during the title-winning seasonGetty – Contributor
Kramaric has enjoyed European football — including the Champions League — in almost half of his seasons at the German club as a permanent player.
Which explains why he is so incensed at their failings this term.
His eye-catching comments went down well with frustrated fans, but less so at board level or in the dressing room.
One of Kramaric’s digs was that the club “invested so much money for nothing”, after a £56m spree on eight players this term — the fifth-highest spend in the Bundesliga.
Slaughtering your new team-mates and those who bought them seemed risky, yet after 309 appearances and 109 goals, clearly Kramaric felt he deserves to say his piece.
None of the incomings have been hits, with defender Robin Hranac and forward Haris Tabakovic particularly poor.
That was not helped by many of them being signed by an interim sporting director in Frank Kramer, stepping up briefly from his academy manager role.
Former Spurs target Gift Orban arrived this month under the new recruitment team but is not deemed fit enough yet to play Ilzer’s lung-busting style of play.
Similar to Postecoglou, Austrian Ilzer favours an intense pressing game and while it worked in his first game — a 4-3 win over RB Leipzig — it has been disastrous most of this season.
Kramaric has threatened to go “a little harder” with his criticism if things do not pick up, which is hard to imagine given his comments so far.
So, amazingly, Hoffenheim are in even more of a mess than Spurs going into tonight’s clash.
But as any travelling fans up with the Deutsch lingo might say, ‘Doktor Tottenham wird Sie jetzt empfangen’.
EPAKramaric has enjoyed plenty of success at Hoffenheim[/caption]
ESPNHe let rip in an astonishing outburst about the club[/caption]
AFP or licensorsKramaric was part of the Croatia team that knocked England out of the 2018 World Cup semi-finals[/caption] Creator – [#item_custom_dc:creator]
