Bassong keep ball to long and gave away a free kick 20yards out.No chance for Carlo,who was quite superb in goal.
Unbelievably frustrating match. Probably most frustrating game to watch in well over a season! Can't remember a Spurs team creating so little openings despite having so much possession. And to lose because of the goal we did just makes it worse. I was expecting a loss so not bothered about the result. Wasn't all bad though, I thought Carroll was superb again tonight - this guy really does have so much potential and I don't see why he can't be a starting CM in years to come. Another point, I don't think 10 points is going to be enough to go through (which is very rare, but possible). If we lose to PAOK and beat Shamrock, giving us 10 points, we'd finish below PAOK and if Rubin beat Shamrock (let's be honest....) we'd go out.
Can we just sell Pavlyuchenko now, please? It's like having ten men on the pitch. Kane did more in the short time that he was on, by far. Most disappointing point of the match? Gallas failing to complete 90 minutes. Hopefully it's nothing serious. Runner up? The ref's inability to spot really obvious fouls at times, especially in the lead up to their goal. No complaint about the result, great performance from Cudicini and a bit of work needed on our squad in January.
Disappointing game, if not unexpected. I'll rate the players but not score them below Cudicini rolled back the years and put in an amazing performance - very impressed! Gallas looked good till he went off injured again Bassong - oh dear, his first touch was off all night (usually knocking the ball 2 or 3 feet in front of him), his passing pretty poor and just his general play wasn't up to scratch. Directly responsible for the goal. Fredericks - pretty happy with his performance - thought he coped pretty well with his defensive duties and going forward looked alright. Townsend - clearly looks happier as a LM rather than a LB - got caught out a few times which allowed their #61 (whatever his name was) in a few times. Pienaar - having been out for so long, you'd think he lacked match practice...and he did. Poor passing although RK's midfield were quick to shut him down when he got the ball. Falque - good on the ball, but occasionally looks like he doesn't want to pass it when he should do. Nearly got a decent chance at the end. Carroll - solid all night. Good one for the future. Livermore - again pretty solid. Looking better with each game as he continues to get more experience. Pav - should've scored in the first half. Pretty disappointing overall - he seemed to always be offside and whenever he got the ball, rarely did anything with it. Defoe - barely in the game. Poor service all night - when he got the ball he was his usual self and it was great work to pull the ball back only to see that Pav had given up on it. Parrett/Kane - hard to evaluate as they weren't on for long. Rubin Kazan's goal was good and not many keepers could've stopped it but it shouldn't have happened if Bassong had had better control of the ball. All said and done, I thought we played reasonably well. Must win our last 2 though.
Well I expected us to lose and so it proved, this is a good European team, and it's no disgrace for our reserve team to lose there. In fact, it's quite an achievement that the home crowd were still nervous with 90 minutes on the clock. That's the best I've ever seen Cudicini play, I didn't know he could be that good! Poor organisation on the free kick, I don't think we had the wall properly set when the kick was taken. No excuses though, the better team won, and in fact over the two games they played very well and we were lucky to get three points and a 1-1 aggregaate. RK deserved four points from the two games, which would have left us struggling in the group. The big downer of the night was Gallas' injury, he looked really good, despite his long absence. Let's hope it's not serious. It was great to see Pienaar still running at the end after what, a six month absence?
Yes this is always a problem when one of the teams in the group lose all their matches,so will probably need two wins now.Think Harry may have to put a slightly stronger team out for the PAOK game.Can still do it with a win and a draw,but that will be more problematical.
Carlo Cudicini is still class and I wish he was still our number two goalkeeper,much better than the ****e we have.
No idea why you let him go to be honest, KKD. He's still better than a lot of team's first choice keepers.
I think we let him go as a way of repaying his loyalty to us,a great servant to Chelsea and he kept cech on his toes but tbh I think he probably went to Spurs thinking he would be first choice and as its turned out he might as well have stayed with us,would have him back in a heartbeat and you can have both Fukin Hilario and Turnbull !!
Cudicini was fantastic! Motm by a country mile. What p*ssed me off is the rest of the "experienced" players were actually the hindrance to the team. Bassong was at fault for the goal. Pienaar regardless of how long he's been out for was just sh*t, sooner we get rid the better and the same goes for Pav. Defoe, didn't get in the game enough. Gallas was solid until the injury. Think Townsend and Fredericks can go home with their heads held high, two attacking wingers at full back and I thought they gave pretty good performances. Carroll had another typically polished display, lovely passer of the ball and a joy to watch when he's on the attack. Falque put a decent shift in, would have liked to have seen him have a go on the left of midfield as his left peg could have been used to whip some crosses in rather than cut inside all the time. Livermore was ok, not his best performance but certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Overall I would have liked a bit more of a cutting edge from the lads but at the end of the day it was a great experience for our younger guys and hopefully they'll come back stronger from it. I wasn't expecting us to win and so to only lose by a well taken free kick after a mistake from an international centre back, not such a bad thing.
Falque's performance was just extremely varied. He won lots of tackles and challenges up the pitch, but didn't give his full-back enough cover. He beat people easily, but would often try to do too much and lose the ball. His left foot looks pretty decent and he looked very comfortable when he had the ball on that foot, but he's got virtually no right foot at all. I'd like to see him playing in van der Vaart's role. I think it'd be his best position. Maybe he'll get a chance to play there in the Nextgen Series thingy?
I'm afraid our possession in MF resulted in far too much sideways and eventually backwards. Although the MF lads did what they did well, sadly it didn't involve bursting forward. No creativity whatsoever, personally I don't think it was good enough, their keeper may aswell have had an early bath. The bigger picture is not so glum, a little surprised we're 3rd!, but should still qualify, CL drop-outs are **** anyway, and thats the worse case scenario for finishing 2nd.
Ensil - it looked like there was no one taking hold in midfield- I felt it should have been Livermore but he played too deep. Sometimes they played like scared rabbits- afraid to put the foot in. Bassong stayed out there because there was no one else. Harry picked the squad not ,Bond's fault he worked with what he had. Mind you we had some free kick decisions go against us that were kind of odd- like they made sure we weren't meant to get anything out of the game.
Rubin are a good European team, to come away with just a 1-0 defeat with the team we put out was not a bad thing at all. Our first team would have found this a hard game, it was too much for our 'second team' but that's hardly surprising. Good news is that apparently Gallas was just 'tired' according to Kevin Bond, he certainly didn't seem injured when he went off. “William came off late in the game but he was getting tired and he’s just come back, so we wanted to protect him.'' Gallas was described in various reports as 'limping off' but I didn't see a limp, just a slow walk. I was concerned that he was the one who seemed to do the 'sub me now' diagnosis, but maybe that was pre-arranged, that at the first sign of impending 'knackerdom', he'd get himself off the pitch. Guess we'll know more by Sunday, but hopefully he'll be fit and on the bench while Kaboul and King carry on duties at Fulham.
Harsh comments on Bassong here, for the 1st half hour, what did he do wrong?...nothing, he was really good, unfortunately from there, he and WG had abit of work to do, without much protection, Gallas got 'tired'!, and 2 full backs who aren't fullbacks! He was the the only fit defender in the back4, so what do you all expect? Its inevitable under a constant barrage, errors will be made, when the only relief is a bit of pretty sideways passing 10/20yds in front of you. I disagree with all of you, Bassong did aswell as could be expected given the circs.
Well said NSS, Bassong made a key error, but as you say it was a patched up defence. Two rookies who aren't even FBs at FB, and a returnee in Gallas who played really well, but couldn't last the pace. To keep RK down to one goal was quite an achievement, made possible mainly by Cudicini's brilliance, but it's wrong to make a scapegoat of Seb. Incidentally, why couldn't one of our Academy full backs/defenders play at full back? I'm not saying they should have, because I know nothing of the players concerned, but it seems strange. What really cost us last night was Adam Smith (and Caulker) being on loan, but I accept that in the long run, probably it's a good thing, etc, etc.
