Mauricio Pochettino, speaking to BBC Sport: "I'm very proud because it was a really tough game for us. "We showed great character and I'm very proud and pleased because the performance in the second half was very good. "This win is massive for us - we have to be there if Chelsea fail and we are there. We are fighting for the Premier League. "When you reduce the gap to seven points it's completely different to 10 points - we just have to be there if Chelsea fail and want to be there until the end of the season. "We're still waiting on Harry Winks but Victor Wanyama got a big knock on his back and hopefully it's not a big issue for him. "Harry Kane is good, he's doing things on the pitch and may be back in a few weeks."
One thing worth mentioning from this afternoon's result: it guarantees that the lowest we can finish this season is tenth. Somebody might want to tweet this statistic to Karrunt Brady...
She probably won't read it for a while. She'll be too busy writing Bilic's contract termination notice!
On the general board, I have posted an alert on the Missing Persons thread, asking posters to keep an eye out for a missing board - the Gooners' board! Not even Pixie is posting on it! It's worse than the Chelsea board was, just before Bodi took over.
Such bad luck for Winks. Just imagine how the young man has been dreaming of starting in the PL for Spurs and this happens. Very best wishes to Harry Winks.
Today showed that there remains hope for Vincent Janssen. Against a physical opponent he battled well and had a couple of decent attempts on goal. I think Sonny's more suited to playing Swansea and I wouldn't read too much into a return to the bench for Vincent. However, starting today and a good win will have done his confidence no harm at all.
We had 3 promising counters in the first half and more in the second(although the goal helped with that). I still feel like Son's pace would've helped us on those counters more. It wasn't a bad performance from Janssen but it does continue to underline why he isn't suited to playing for us. Like Soldado, he works hard and seems like a nice bloke but we need much more than that from our players.
The problem is those players get ever more expensive as United buy them to play full back and Citeh put them on the bench. We get to sift around what's left. MP works on improving players. Go back 3 years and imagine turning down £100m for Danny Rose and Kyle Walker? VJ is a fixer upper. However, he can finish and he's no slower than HK. However, he shows little confidence in his movement off the ball. If MP believes he can improve that, then he'll get another go next season. However, I want us to blow our entire budget on someone fast and deadly, whether he stays or not.
We could have had Celtic's Dembele in the summer and I think we just have to keep on looking. I'm pretty sure he is slower than Kane and I don't think he's as good when dribbling to make up for being less pacey than other strikers, as Kane does. He also hasn't shown that ability to create goals out of very little. Son has that kind of ability so whilst he isn't as good at finishing in the box, I think he's the better option upfront for us. I hope he does prove me wrong but Janssen seems more like a target man and we don't play that way so I can't see us getting the best out of him. I think our best hope is to get a Muller type player, a quality backup striker who can also start elsewhere when the main striker's fit. We kind of have that with Son but we need one that finishes better. I've said it before and ridiculous as it sounds, I think it might be Barkley that could do that for us. He'd need a fair bit of work and I'm not totally convinced he's bright enough to provide the intelligence that Kane has but he's a great finisher, has a good long range shot on him, is strong, quick and good on the ball. He might well want a lot of money though which could scupper the deal. Ultimately, I'll just be glad if we don't sign another bloody french winger that no one has ever heard of.
Dembele wanted to come in January but as he wasn't allowed to do so, he decided to wait and see what he could get in the summer. How he ended up at Celtic is a head scratcher but I'll bet the answer has a load of noughts in it, about seven or so, I would guess. We have to find someone who doesn't see HK as fatal to a move to Spurs. As we can't offer enormous amounts of money in wages when compared to others, that's a problem. I wanted Wissam Bin Yedder who can play left side behind the main striker and has done very well in Spain. I'm not sure who we'd want now? I'm not sold on Barkley. he's been greeted as 'the new Messiah' and seems to expect to be treated as such irrespective of performance. I think it's likely to be a youngster. Maybe Rashford will get bored of being thrown under the bus by that prat?
[QUOTE="Ultimately, I'll just be glad if we don't sign another bloody french winger that no one has ever heard of.[/QUOTE] With N'Jie only on loan we might have 2 of them next season!
The most obvious thing with Janssen is that he represents a Plan B, as his game is noticeably different to Kane's - but the issue is that the only other players that fit into this Plan B are Son and Trippier, and that's not enough. On paper it makes sense to switch from our regular style of play to having Trippier crossing so Janssen can either score or knock the ball into Son's path for a tap-in, but that can be nullified either by having a defender dedicated to mopping up the second ball (a tactic which nullified the Crouch/VDV combo a fair number of times in 2010-11) or just have someone force Trippier into the more conservative pass. Another way to look at it is to look at how Man Utd used their squad in the late 90s/early 2000s: they had solid options on the bench in Wes Brown or John O'Shea, as well as reliable options in Solskjaer and Sheringham - but the problem is that, at this moment, Janssen is more of a solid option than a reliable one, which means he's behind Roman Pavlyuchenko in The Grand List of Second String Tottenham Strikers.
The Sun (yes, I know...) claim he failed a medical at Spurs in January. Given he ended up at Celtic, I'm wondering what that medical turned up. A pre-existing heart condition that meant he couldn't play top-level football without the risk of his entire body imploding after forty minutes?
Thanks for a great thread guys Just got home from a trip abroad so didn't manage to catch any of the game although the stewardess did politely ask me to not to shout when we landed and I switched my phone on. Seeing the Spurs, Chelsea, Wet Sham and United results lined up in a row like that was a VERY nice welcome home present! Real shame to see Winks like that. He has been crucial to our fortunes this season: in our discussion about 'solid' versus 'reliable' options off the bench, he is one of the few who has shown himself to be firmly a member of the latter category. His absence means that we are badly short of options in CM. If Wanyama is out for the Swansea game I would move Dier up to DM next to Dembele and play WImmer in the 3 at the back. This was easily one of our toughest remaining fixtures on paper, so to come away with all 3 points and a clean sheet is an amazing feeling - especially with the injuries just piling up at the minute. And with at least one more of our rivals set to drop points tomorrow (followed by another one on Wednesday), this has been a brilliant weekend for us. I'd like a draw tomorrow and then City to beat Chelsea on Wed. If that happens and we manage to beat Swansea, we'd be 4 points clear of City and just 4 behind Chelsea.
