I'm with Geri. The answer involves GKN or Son. However, I'd like to see one of them on the left of a 3 behind Kane. We need to exploit the space behind Moses and his lack of experience as a defender and try and get Hazard involved in defending against us. If we do that, I'm happy with Jan at left back in a 4. Personally, I'd give GKN a go. He'll be an unknown to them and he offers a lot of running defensively. We can't let Hazard have a free role and too many opportunities to run down our left side. I think we need to go at them as much as possible. Hopefully, Dele will be fit to play as his presence on the pitch was as important to us as Son's in the last minutes yesterday.
I love Lamela and think he brings an added edge to the big games...but as a full back? The guy would be in his club suit watching the game from the dugout by the 30 minute mark.
There's a few options in the U21s: Connor Ogilvie is the most senior option considering his loan to Stevenage last season, while KWP has been deployed there in the past. There's also Anthony Georgiou and Joe Muscatt are both dedicated left backs, but neither have any first team experience so chucking them in at the deep end could backfire horrifically.
How did one of the worst games in history end up being an absolute thriller? **** me, Spurs, you really do know how to mess us about! First things first, first half was dreadful, players are looking too tired already and that's a massive concern, our pressing game is nowhere near as effective as it can be. Neither of the full backs enjoyed their usual bomb it back-and-forth afternoons. Thankfully we were playing a **** West Ham, so they were able to score the one, had that been a half decent side, we could've been down by a couple because we were there for taking. Second half the tempo upped but there still wasn't really much oomph about us, Randolph barely had a save to make but when he did it was a world class one from Dier. Then Winksy pops up just when we needed him, he was also definitely our MOTM for me, was everywhere and looked like a player who'd played in a substantial amount of derbies due to his calmness on the ball and desire to be involved in everything, put a number of our more senior players to shame. Buzzing for him though, first league start and first league goal - in a derby! - doesn't get much better. But in contrast, as for Janssen... Well what do we do with him, I've tried to remain positive and suggest the goals will come but frankly, it just doesn't look likely, does it? To top it off he gives a (albeit soft) penalty away. I really had high hopes for him, he looked mustard in pre-season and started the campaign off promising, being so unlucky in some of his attempts while linking play superbly but now he's looking like another Soldado, it's all well and good to be working hard but we need an end product and sadly he just doesn't look like producing that any time soon. I get it's only his first season in England, so there's always the case for time, just look at Lamela but you still hope that for a £17m striker who topped the Eredivisie scoring charts last season, he'd have a bit more about him in that final third. Right now he just looks like a hard working attacking midfielder rather than a number 9. Another major concern is Eriksen, he's been utter dreadful. I'd hoped he'd raise his game for our derby matches but he was **** against Arsenal and even ****ier last night. The sheer fact he last 45 minutes was astonishing, let alone the full 90. There's literally nothing about him at the moment, no creative passing, no getting in to decent positions for a strike on goal (barring the offside one!), awful set pieces and a lazy attitude. Based on Winks' performance, I say go with Wanyama, Dembele and Winks against Chelsea, with the hope Alli and Son can feature on the wings behind Kane. Eriksen can sit in the stands for all I care, having him on the bench would just be like having only 6 players. Can't believe how one of my favourite players has turned to utter dross this season, absolutely gutting. The introduction of Son changed the game, funnily enough from the 72nd to the 88th, he offered nothing but then a fine cross into Harry's path and slick move to win the penalty ended up winning us the game, that's a superb impact from a sub and one of the first times in recent memory someone has come on and really changed the game for us, so massive praise for him and hopefully he'll be in the starting XI against Chelsea as I presume he wasn't in last night due to travelling around the place with South Korea. Kane showed that prowess of a world class striker, can be anonymous and then bang, he goes and scores. It's now apparent how much we missed him and I reckon he's still not even at 100% yet, so that's massively promising, especially as November is where he tends to go in a league of his own and starts smashing in goals for fun. On the whole a massively below-par performance but ends up getting us our first three points in a while and puts one over the Hammers yet again in superb, late, dramatic fashion. Noooiiice! COYS!
Wanyama and Dembele in the deeper roles, Winks further forward and Alli in one of the wide roles in the three? Probably not ideal, but it's possible.
A mate of mine loves the Mount Gay Black Barrel. Seems like a good choice. The stuff just sends me to sleep though, for some reason. No idea why. It's the only spirit that does.
We certainly could if we played 352 - although the obvious issue there is the players we'd be leaving out to play that system, notably Lamela and Son (I would've added Eriksen, but he's been leaving himself out of our system quite a bit lately...)
Early to be talking about personnel for next week when we've got Monaco first....but we have to think of Chelsea's formation and how to beat it. We saw what they did to Everton who tried to match it so in my mind we have to revert to either a traditional 4-4-2 or 4-1-4-1 but definitely need proper wingers and not wing backs. It's why we bought GKN, as a winger so this is his chance. We haven't a natural RW so Lamella if he's fit. (not even mentioning Sisokou). Lloris Walker, Dier, Wimmer,Jan Wanyama Lamela, Dele, Dembele,GKN/Son Kane
and http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38041129 Special RDBD for explicit acknowledgement of the Academy.
@Citizen Kane Should we remind everyone yet that we compared Harry Winks to Modric a few weeks ago, or wait and see if he has another good game first ?