On the Rose one tonight . Surely if the ref doesn't give a penalty then it is a clear yellow for simulation.
I was on my knees saying "please don't give the ball to Sissoko!"....and nearly wet myself when they did,many times.Sell him.Shoot him.Do something! The commentator kept on about how brilliant Varney's goal was.Come on.He stretched his tiny leg to control the ball,not score.He wasn't even looking at the goal...and surprised him and Loris when it went in!
1) people are right to point out if a player is being consistently poor and imho both Dele and Eriksen are playing poorly and have been on and off for a big part of the past 6 weeks or so. They played extremely well against Liverpool and Madrid but have done very little else v United, Leicester, Arsenal, Crystal Palace, West Brom where we've lost 3, drawn 2 and scored just 3 goals. I do not think they are alone in playing poorly in these matches but discussing their poor form is not necessarily slating them. In my view one of the needs to be dropped (persisting with them is not working at the moment). I get the argument about it may affect their confidence but tbh producing substandard performances each week can't be doing their confidence any good either. 2) Re not trying...the team were not competitive enough in the first half v Arsenal, West Brom, Dortmund and Leicester and it is debatable if they were v palace in the first half. We were not closing down quickly enough, not fast enough to second balls and were not moving around off the ball to create space. That gives the appearance of not trying. Pochettino criticised the team for this yesterday after the match. Completely agree with the rest of your post though.
I agree completely. The problem with analysing football is that goals are very hard to score so while the number you score and concede over a season is driven mostly by tactics and skil, exactly when they are scored is driven mostly by luck. This was well illustrated yesterday. We created more and better chances than we conceded but the combination of bad luck in our finishing and good luck in their finishing led to a loss. That's happened three or four times in the league while the opposite has happened in the CL. Does that mean there is something fundamentally wrong - definitely not.
I've not spotted any lack of individual effort and Dele looks fine to me. He has about his normal level of goals and assists over the season so far and has also covered a lot of ground. Eriksen does look 'out of form' though. Let's trust the manager to sort that out.
On the whole I might agree BUT we had chances yesterday that were not hard-to put it lightly-2 were distinctly easy for the players they fell to. Both of them are very capable of putting them away. We had 4 very good chances and a good shout for a penalty. They scored two from non-chances in which more times than not they don't score. Call it luck if you will, but when luck is against you it is very depressing and when it happens over and over again then you feel ****.
Only saw the highlights ( lowlights) as I was out all evening. First goal, very clever imo. Vardy knew exactly what he was doing. Second, piss poor defending. You cannot allow Mahrez to cut inside on his left foot like that and then also fail to challenge him. More bad play and bad finishing than bad luck, IMO. If you fall asleep, allow yourself to go to 2-0 down and then miss a hatful of chances - some of them absolute sitters - you’re gonna get beat. Simple as!....
Leicester started the game with the attitude that they were going to be first for every ball and not allow a Spurs player any time on the ball. This is the tactic used by most teams that have beaten us except perhaps the two Manchesters. Liverpool, Arsenal and Burnley all did this. Of course this is the tactic that we ourselves use to win games. It appears if you come out fast enough you can knock Spurs out of their stride and it takes sometimes a complete half to recover. It is pretty obvious that we don't have the control and possession that we did have when Wanjama ruled the midfield for us and Toby protected everyone at the back. As good as Sanchez is, and he will only get better, and as good as Vertonghen is they both miss the extra Insurance provided by one of the worlds best defenders. It's not going to be easy with both of our rocks missing. On a more optimistic note Lamela can provide a big lift to our creativity and maybe that will help to get us through this period when we will miss two hugely important pieces in our team. Having said all that we still created enough chances in yesterdays game to have won easily, but the ball has to run for you.
Couldn't agree more we could have won that game with the chances we missed.on another day 2 or 3 of those would have hit the back of the net and all would be hunky dory.I just don't get why we start off most games so slowly it has become the norm lately. We don't start playing until we are 1 or 2 goals behind by then it's too late.all teams go through a bad patch during the season so I am not too worried we will recover our form .our players haven't become bad over night but poch needs to sort the team out and get them ready from the off not just 20 minutes from the end of the game.
I tend to agree that the problem isn't a fundamental one. We had similarly sub-par starts to the previous 2 seasons but recovered well during the xmas period and finished very strongly. Our current problems are down to a combination of factors, most of which should be solved with the passage of time. Others won't be. 1) Key players injured or half fit 2) key players off form (Eriksen and Dier being the worst culprits imo) 3) Wembley 4) Lack of depth in key areas (CM and CB) 5) Dembele's rapid decline 6) Failing to improve on janssen in the summer. Some.of those can be solved in january, others require a lot of patience and even more faith. The only factor that is totally our of our control is the fact that we're playing at Wembley. Poch needs to sort his tactics out too as 3 at the back with no midfield is suicide. More than anything, teams are just playing through us at the moment. They are able to transition from defense to attack in seconds because we have nothing in between. Back 4 and Dier in midfield from the off at the weekend please.
I'm old school I loved it when we had the likes of lennon and ginola on the wings .we don't seem to want to play that way in modern football these days.I don't like picking out players for criticism but I am starting to lose patience with sissoko now he's a headless chicken who runs well until he gets the ball.I would love to see young Edwards get his chance because he can't do any worse than him.maybe poch doesn't think he is ready I don't know.poch sees him in training I don't so I guess I'll have to trust his judgement as to when he is ready.
I completely agree about the old school formations, watching wingers in their prime was devastating, especially when they had two strikers in the box to aim for. I think the problem these days though however is the evolution of fullbacks. Fullbacks were generally just wide defenders, now they're essentially a form of winger in their own right and thus manager's likely see them as capable of performing both roles. Tripps is a prime example, he's already got a bunch of assists that would've made any top winger jealous 10 years ago. The added factor of fullbacks now generally being quite quick is another point to look at, take Rose's form of last season or 15/16 and would the likes of Lennon have had much success against that sort of player? It's hard to say but I'd be inclined to think he'd struggle more than when up against a lump. Generally Azza used to roast his opposition but with players like Rose, Walker, Bellerin, Clyne, Mendy, Valencia etc able to keep up with the fastest of wingers, it makes a wingers' job a lot harder to get crosses in or beat a man which is why I think we see a lot of inside forwards as they're generally played to dribble to the weaker side of a fullback and get a shot/ through ball off - or in our case, we rely on our fullback to be the provider of crosses while the likes of Alli/ Eriksen/ Son assist Kane more centrally by creating space or drawing players out of position.
Dele has not been his usual self this month. While kane may not be at his best you still watch him closing down, making himself available to team mates and doing all the other basics that we associate with spurs nowadays but in the matches I have watched this month (Madrid aside) I think that both Dele and Eriksen have let these levels drop. On Saturday Dele was not switched on in the first few minutes and it cost us a goal. I am not anti anyone and find it ludicrous that any spurs fan would suggest we sell any of our top players (other than Rose cos of his comments pre season...I would let him rot on the bench then sell but accept that other people's views are way more realistic than mine) but we may need to drop one of them because it is like we are playing with 10 men at times. It is very telling that Pochettino was publicly critical of the team last night after the final whistle ... saying we were not aggressive enough and we need to learn to fight from the 1st minute...he also said we should compete more. I have no issue with losing or a bad performance but sometimes I am reminded of the old Bill Nick saying about if you come off the pitch and you are not exhausted then you have not given your all. And in my honest opinion not many players can claim that they have given their all in recent games.
Correct me if I'm wrong I think we are only 3 points behind this time last season and we have vastly improved in the champions league so my glass is half full rather than half empty.overall considering we are playing all our games away from fortress white hart lane I think we can be proud so far.just my opinion others may think differently
Completely agree...we all knew a title challenge was a non starter so this season was all about getting into last 16 of CL at least and a top 4 finish and a cup...we need to sort out our league form but I do think that with Llamela back and Wanyama and Toby back in January that we could really push on 'e top 4 and progress in CL or FA Cup Coys
100% agree with this. I found myself ranting for the first time in a couple years last night because I'm getting seriously frustrated with what seems a lack of effort coupled with sloppy mistakes. Some of the lack of effort may be down to fatigue but some I think is down to being too comfortable in the XI. This January window is the first one in a while where I'll be seriously hoping we get some business done. For me, a top class CM has to be the number one priority (would love Seri) while a CB (probably a 30+ guy to add experience), LB (Sessegnon) and possibly another ST wouldn't go a miss either.
Definitely, in the grand scheme of things we're doing considerably well when taking into account injuries, the tough CL group and Wembley. It's just frustrating knowing we could be doing so much better. To go from getting four points against Real and doing the double over Dortmund to then drawing with the likes of WBA, Burnley, Swansea and losing poorly to Arsenal, Utd and Leicester just shows that level of consistency we need to improve on in order to be considered one of the very best.
I can't help but feel that the players are disappointed that there is no chance of a league challenge before we've hit December. I'm not too certain that many fans are surprised by that. Wembley was always going to make that difficult. Add in the massive strengthening by Citeh, our injuries and CL group and we're where we are now. The players and manager need to regroup and get back to concentrating on the next game. I've never been a fan of talking about title challenges, it diverts focus. Let's try walking again before thinking of running. No more ****ing stupid interviews. We're in a hole. Stop digging. We're a million miles ahead of where we were 3 years ago and if we had a larger number of senior players and/or less injuries, we'd be doing much better this season. However, as RCL rightly says, nothing that we could realistically achieve this season is lost. Cool heads, strong hearts and we can turn this round. We need to stick together and stick at it. COYS.
Totally agree. I was in a foul mood last night partly driven by some of the posts reminding me of a nutter who sits in the row behind me at Wembley. He spends the whole match shouting abuse at our players especially Davies who he says isn't fit to tie Rose's bootlaces and Dele and Eriksen who are 'over rated'. He constantly berates Pochettino for not making changes.
