Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Gent

If I was running things I would have taken Spurs off the pitch in Gent and told them to shove their Cup.

 

OK my comments are probably over the top I am just fed up with the European idea of Football and the very poor refereeing.

 

Reminds me of the old boxing joke that an overseas boxer fighting a local in
Italy had to do a KO just to ensure the fight would be a draw.

However you must play to the ref.
Not as if PL clubs don't know what is coming and cannot try to prepare their teams
accordingly for UEFA games.

 

Well ****.

I'll get the ref comments out the way first - useless prick who favoured the away side but take nothing away from Gent, they done their fans proud.

It's one of those where I can't actually be too disappointed in the team because many gave their all last night (although Dele can get ****ed at the moment) but our poor shooting is yet again becoming reminiscent of our earlier season form where we all talked about how un-clinical we are, it's costing us to ridiculous levels now, how on earth can we muster over 20 ****ing shots and hit only three on target?!

I thought Vertonghen ran himself into the ground, as did Wanyama, Dembele and Walker, those guys clearly didn't want to go out of Europe last night and I'm genuinely gutted for them and praise them for their efforts. Son also didn't stop running when he came on so fair play to him too.

Alli on the other hand, what an absolute ****ing dickhead. We know he has a fiery side and in some respects I like that because it plays a part in his confidence that allows him to do some of the stuff he can do but what he done last has no place in the game. From where I was sitting I immediately said that was a red card but I never noticed until when I got home just how horrible that tackle was, could've ended the guy's season, how on earth the bloke's leg didn't break I'll never know. This needs to serve as a massive learning curve, by all means keep the fiery side but lose that vicious, nasty side as that - as it showed last night - can really **** us over. I hope he's dropped from our next couple of games as punishment, now we're out of Europe he won't be affected until next season (providing we qualify for something) but he needs to be taught a lesson now.

Absolutely gutted to be out but now time to focus on the Prem and FA Cup, we've got a good chance to do very well in the latter, hopefully we grasp it.

 

I'm not blaming it on the ref, I just said he was rubbish.

If you think Eriksen's setpieces were bad then why were you praising Walker when his crosses didn't create a good chance all game? Ultimately, we were up against a side defending in numbers and making things difficult. Scoring early was great but once they got a fairly freakish away goal(against the run of play, not a corner, own goal) it was going to be about us remaining patient and playing well. Once we went down to 10 men that was made even more difficult but to go on and control the game and create a lot of chances means it was a good performance in my book. There's plenty to improve on but pretty much everything went against us last night, anf performance wise it was closer to the Fulham game than the Gent and Liverpool away games.

 

I'd pretty much agree with this assessment. The fact that in the 90th minute an onlooker still wouldn't have been able to tell that we were down a man speaks volumes about the effort and level of performance. Yes, the recurring errors were still present (awful at attacking and defending set pieces, wasteful in front of goal), but I've said many a time that I don't mind us losing as long as we give 100%. That differentiates our defeat at Chelsea to those we suffered at OT and Pool. The latter 2 were limp, pathetic performances. The former saw a depleted side run Chelsea ragged for 45 minutes before running out of steam as the game went on. There's a world of difference between the two even though the outcome was the same.

Even down to 10 men, we worked hard enough to create enough chances to win it. I think with one more true 'athlete' in the side (i.e. Rose), we would have won it. As it was, Davies looked extremely fatigued in the 2nd half and Eriksen's influence began to wane.

Disappointed about the result, proud of the performance given the circumstances and ultimately relieved to be out of this pointless tournament and the extra 7 fixtures it could've potentially added to our calendar.

 

And that is the problem.
An extra 2 games in the KO stage than the CL, a fraction of the financial reward, and
a guarantee of sunday PL KOs for each round you survive.

And people wonder why clubs like Spurs don't take the thing seriously.

 

I really can't add much to what has already been said here except to say that whilst we controlled long periods of the game I did we feel that once we got the 2nd goal we were much too rushed. I know that our set plays when we take our time leave a lot to be desired, but just putting the ball down and playing is not always for the best either and to me we created an impression of panic even though at 2-1 we were well in the game.

For me as someone who gets to very few matches I just enjoy seeing the players in the flesh and with exception of Dele (obvious reasons) and Harry K who I thought was off colour all night, I thought they all put in a shift and a performance that on a other night would have seen us comfortably qualify. I thought that Poch got the subs (at least the first 2) right though Son could actually have come on for Davies at half time, and both Son and Winks improved us when they came on Winks passing rather than running and Son just giving us more options. I did notice a couple of times in the first half an easy ball on out to Davies and I am convinced that had Rose been out there the ball would have played.

 

The impression I've got throughout the past 6 years is that we don't know whether or not we want to take it seriously. We end up with team selections and performances that are neither here nor there, then inevitably crash out in a mini blaze of glory. At least under Harry there was a clear contingency plan for the EL - don't take it remotely seriously, use it to blood the youngsters and whatever happens, happens. I'd much prefer that approach than the half-baked one we've been confusedly pursuing ever since.

 

Could it be that managers think Levy wants the revenue from Europe and feel obliged to take it seriously and struggle with the task of protecting the squad and winning the game

 

This annoys me so much. They often take a really quick free kick and pass it to someone heavily marked with nowhere to go. At least with a cross into the box (if it goes past the first defender) there is a chance of an own goal.

 

Makes me wonder how we won matches under Bill Nick in Europe and can't with the present players.
did Bill's team care more?
Did his teams have more desire? They certainly didn't have todays money (or is too much money the problem?)

 

With the current cash-rich PL, I doubt it.

The only rationale is to preserve/increase the UEFA pts ranking, so if you do get
into the CL not as PL winners, you don't suffer the fate of Citeh in their first couple
of seasons in the group stage draws (which could still happen anyway given the
creeping quality annually of UEFA tournament participants) .

 

For all the ties his sides had to play to reach UEFA finals, the total number of
games would still be less than those needed to be played in the current group stage.

 

22 team league though.

 

Number of matches Spurs played to win the 1971-2 UEFA Cup: Twelve
Matches played in the Number of matches Liverpool played to reach the 2015-16 Europa League final: Fifteen

While that may appear to be just three matches extra, that doesn't tell the whole story: first of all the 1972 final was a two-legged affair, something that hasn't been the case since the late 90s, and more importantly having the better results over six matches in 1971-2 meant you were in the quarter finals yet in the Europa League format that's merely enough to qualify for the round of 32.

 

They didn't have today's excuses.

 

I think there is evidence that short corners are actually more effective than crosses into the box.

 

I was more thinking of free kicks outside the penalty area. If there is a planned routine via a short corner, fine. But free kicks where they grab the ball quickly and just pass to the nearest player who might be surrounded by defenders is frustrating (to me anyway).

 

There were no group games back then. It was straight into the knockout phases.