Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Sporting Lisbon

It took a few goes with the Etch-A-Sketch, but they finally got a line that looked about right

 

Kane was ahead of the ball from Emerson’s assist, I think

 

Didn’t the ball go backwards, too?!

 

Said it many times but there has to be a time limit on VAR. If it takes longer than, say, two minutes (which is probably too long anyway) then clearly it isn't clear and obvious is it?

 

Any reason why we can't play like that second half every game?

Asking for a friend.

 

VAR is horrendous. If it’s taking 3 minutes to decide it’s obviously not clear and obvious.

That’ll be the main talking point but our first half and tactics were a joke yet again. I’m no longer bothered about the manager now, not standing for this tedious bollocks any more. Second half showed we know how to attack but it’s always too late. If Gil don’t start the next few games Conte can definitely **** off too.

 

Where was that 2nd half performance 1st half!

 

personally I hate all this knocking of our players but I do not understand why we go out to play at a snails pace for the whole of the first half. If they are tired, which would be understandable, where did the energy come from in the second half. It's all very strange.

 

You only need to avoid defeat in Marseille to go through

 

Emerson’s no look pass or the var decision.

Which was worse

 

I get the idea of conserving energy in the first so we can try to dictate the second, but there's conserving energy and then there's hibernation

 

That's a dangerous game. Get the game won before you start conserving energy.

 

Tactics, simple as that.

Conte’s holding us back and that’s not a sentence I thought I’d be saying this season.

 

That's what you get for turning up late to the football game.
Learn to play during the first 45 mins and stop trying to be like the cowboy cavalry.

 

Exactly

 

The length of time it took for the decision suggests that the semi-automated system wasn’t used here as that’s supposed to be near-instant. Not sure about that though.

 

The Emerson for Lucas sub killed it for us. We actually dropped a level after that change, Royal really is that useless.

Spence and Gil down that flank for the last 10mins when we had them completely pushed back would have finished them off imo.

Once again, we suffer thanks to a horrendous start, bizarre tactics and ill-judged substitutions.

That second half shows that these players can do it if they are allowed to.

 

There's a balance, and there's two wrong ways

Our wrong way is to sit back too much too soon, so we surrender momentum pretty early and it's a hell of a lot of effort to get it back
Leeds under Bielsa, on the other hand, went all-out from the off and if they didn't score they were knackered when the opponents may not have been

Sunday and tonight were both examples of trying to rope-a-dope, as we were getting at them early - but then they adjusted their press around the 150-20 minute mark and we retreated until half time. The fact this sums up both matches, and this had similar results by half time, says something