Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Bournemouth

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I think Poch was remarkably upbeat about his team which struggled to a win against the second bottom club. I along with others here am now a tad concerned about Alli and also Son who was substituted, both have lost effectiveness recently. I'm happy Lamela is returning for this very reason.

For me we MUST improve our Wembley form because I don't know for how long this polarisation between "home" and away form will continue. Had we beaten Swansea and Burnley we'd be top of the league and we're where we are because of our away form which is saving us from mid table nowhere. We all know we have a weakness or two so as I said, welcome back Lamela, he just might be the answer.
 
Reading many of the posts here, if I didn’t know the score from yesterday I could have thought that we had lost the game so much negativity here. A couple of good seasons and people seem to think that we have divine right to turn up and not just beat but thrash every team we play.

Successful teams (something we are striving to become) win matches when not playing at their best, and we weren’t that bad yesterday, not at our free flowing best for sure but better than Bournemouth, who are a better team than their league position suggests, the goal scoring machine that is Man City also only beat them a by a single (hugely dubious in their case) goal.

So Hugo made a couple of saves yesterday the first one off of the deflection was incredible, but that is what he is paid the big bucks for, you have a goalkeeper for a reason and Hugo owed us that for the 2nd Chelsea goal. Let’s not suggest that save was the result of Bournemouth carving us open it was a lucky deflection from a corner that could have gone anywhere. The 2nd save from Defoe was not really difficult, but still needed making and Hugo deserves credit for his overall performance.

Great results elsewhere mean that we strengthened our position in 3rd and we have not really hit top gear yet, I am certainly not going to criticise the manager or worry about him to too upbeat about us winning, I feel sure that he knows we can play better and the players will be made well aware of this, but equally they did not need a public a dressing down after a match that we won and dominated in every facet of it.
 
After an international break, a win and a clean sheet is not to be knocked. However, we were bang average in the first half in what was an almost silent stadium. Dreadful atmosphere today. Second half we were much brighter without ever being convincing.
I never thought I would see Eddie Howe set up a side like he did today, but I guess we'll see more teams do that against us before the season is out.
The result was more important than the performance.

I thought we set up the right way with 4 at the back and looking to outmanoeuvre the opponent's defence in the centre. There was 3 or 4 occasions early on where a player had broke free only for the ball to be a few feet too far ahead of them. I think it was just a lack of quality that has inflicted us in most games. Maybe it's the pressure playing at "home", I hope not though and it's just part of us struggling to get to form. 3 goals in 4 home games and 12 in 4 away games is a worrying disparity though.

I was more disappointed with how we played after the goal, we had the advantage and switched to a more solid 3 at the back yet we didn't keep the ball well and were useless at repelling their attacks.

The atmosphere's ****. I think fans just see this as a season to get through. If we were staying permanently then I'm sure there would be more effort but at the moment it feels more like wasted energy trying to make a **** designed ground our own for such a short amount of time. That's the way I feel anyway. I don't think I've heard a really good round of "oh when the Spurs" at Wembley since the group opener against Monaco last season and I think that's barometer for our fans.
 
Personally, I don't think we should look to injuries as an excuse but since Jose was whining about only being able to pick an £80mill midfield pair and Antonio "you have to spend to be ambitious" Conte is complaining about an injury crisis...

Today we had Davies, Rose, Wanyama, Dembele and Lamela all out. That's our starting midfield, both left backs and arguably our starting right winger(if we're playing 4231). Not easy for an unambitious side like us to cope with that.
 
Personally, I don't think we should look to injuries as an excuse but since Jose was whining about only being able to pick an £80mill midfield pair and Antonio "you have to spend to be ambitious" Conte is complaining about an injury crisis...

Today we had Davies, Rose, Wanyama, Dembele and Lamela all out. That's our starting midfield, both left backs and arguably our starting right winger(if we're playing 4231). Not easy for an unambitious side like us to cope with that.

Definitely missing both Wanayama and Dembele. The midfield just doesn't look as secure or dominant without them.

Miss Rose's pace down the left at times too. Handy attacking weapon to have.
 
Definitely missing both Wanayama and Dembele. The midfield just doesn't look as secure or dominant without them.

Miss Rose's pace down the left at times too. Handy attacking weapon to have.

I thought Winks and Dier did pretty well. Jan tried but didn't have the skill when he got forward, as much as we missed Rose's pace, Davies was just as big of a miss given how well he was playing.
 
Spurcat you really dont like Pochetinno do you? You barely say a kind word about him.

Our win rate under him is excellent and we had the best defence and the best attack last season and have amassed more points than ANY other side over the last two seasons. All this done with a transfer budget that is dwarfed by the likes of the two Manchester clubs and Chelsea.
I know he makes mistakes from time to time, all managers do, he is still young and learning.

On a personal level he always comes across as polite, charming , happy to speak to other fans and the media and a real gentleman.

I know you often remark about his scruffiness, i let my stubble grow from time to time and im pretty good at my job. I think Poch has been a revelation for us and we are lucky to have him.

I just dont know who you think could be doing a better job for us right now?

I wouldn't worry mate, Spurcat still loves Kyle "The Snake" Walker more than any current Spurs player so you can tell the logic the fella has.

The Pochettino jibes are just laughed off by most of us now, pretty much to the point where when you see Poch's name mentioned in his post, an automatic motion of "skip the comment" occurs in your head.
 
Reading many of the posts here, if I didn’t know the score from yesterday I could have thought that we had lost the game so much negativity here. A couple of good seasons and people seem to think that we have divine right to turn up and not just beat but thrash every team we play.

Nonsense.

What is happening is that PL teams are coming to Wembley
and all effectively playing the same way. And after 4 games
the team is still not dealing with it, even though the measures
are obvious.

So I expect Pochettino, as COACH and MANAGER, to be
working effectively on the means to overcome this one problem.
 
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First 45 minutes of the game should probably never be mentioned again. It was pretty painful.

Second 45 was much better and we should've ended the game with probably two more goals.

Slick stuff from the Viking to slot into the bottom corner with his left foot, funnily enough I was talking before the match about how Eriksen, Kane and Son are very ambidextrous and thankfully the Great Dane made it look like I actually understand a bit about football :biggrin:.

Thought Jan played class in his secondary role at LB and was MOTM.

Sissoko too again impressed, two great runs when he came on that should've resulted in assists for Alli and GK - on that note, hope GK is good, I sit right behind that goal and you could see the impact of his head smacking the ground.

1-0 or 5-0, I'll take them all, especially at Wembley.