HT. 0-1. I'm so ****ing pissed with Mikel for randomly deciding to revamp our system when there was nothing wrong with it. The reason for all these misplaced passes and lack of coherence is because the players aren't used to playing in a way that was very different from the previous 2 years. Why did he think this was the season to tinker with the formation when he, and we, are under pressure to compete for the league? He'd better ****ing rectify this at HT.
Sigh. I mean we've created more than enough chances to be winning this game But one of the worst games from Martinelli I've seen. Haverts is annoying me the same way Ozil did - he's too casual and plays like he doesn't give a ****. Partey looks uncomfortable in this system as does Kiwior. Please bring Zinchenko on and go to a reasonable team shape.
Zinchenko coming on Fabio Vieira also on...? Err, ok. At least Havertz is coming off though. Disaster of a performance from him.
Odegaard why did you shoot from there?!! He did all that hard work and ruined the attack with a horrible shot.
Penalty! Great run from the sub Fabio Vieira, who gets brought down by Tete and it's a stonewall penalty. Ice cold finish from Saka from the spot. 1-1. Let's try and win the game now.
GOAL! 2-1! Eddie! What a cross by Fabio Vieira and a crisp finish by Nketiah . Huge impact by the Portuguese sub. Fulham complaining that we carried on playing while Bassey was down injured, but it wasn't a head injury, so we were entitled to carry on playing.
Fulham down to 10 men. Calvin Bassey sent off. Was on a yellow and got a second yellow for blocking off Nketiah from getting past him.
Similar to Palace, after we got into the lead, we became passive and so negative. Dropped off and invited pressure, despite them being down to 10 men. It's like we've learned nothing from last season. We're not going to win jackshit the more we keep doing this.
Gutted. Showed good character coming back - but we were disjointed from the outset. Zinchenko, Nketiah and Viera improved us a lot. You can't tell me Gabriel and Saliba wouldn't have been a better defensive setup that the weird three at the back thing.
FT. 2-2. Fulham deserved the point. We weren't good enough in all phases and we got punished for stupid, idiotic mistakes. We did create a lot of chances, but we were very weak in defensive transition and didn't clear our lines properly. Arteta unsurprisingly decided to revert back to the system of last season in the second half and - imagine my shock - we looked like our old selves. We wasted an entire half with his ridiculous tactical experimentation that got us ****ing nowhere. I don't know why we're so passive every time we lead games, but our passiveness cost us and we got what we deserved for employing such cowardly tactics in a game where we had the lead and a man advantage. I know it's still early days, but based off the evidence I've seen, we are not ready for a title challenge this season. Which is unacceptable considering the progress we made and the investments in the squad. Not good enough, Mikel.
Arteta really not getting it right so far, with too much chopping and changing. It looks like Maddison will be the driving force for Tottenham this season and I still don't get why we didn't buy him instead of Havertz who looks like a little boy lost, just as he did at Chelsea
The more I think about it, the more irate I get. We've completely altered the blueprint that was working for us, shoehorned Havertz into the team that has shown no evidence as to why he should be starting, Gabriel has been dropped for reasons that are unclear to me, Partey at RB experiment doesn't work and then we keep changing our starting CF. It's just a catalogue of bizarre mistakes and decisions that has overcomplicated things when they never needed to be changed.
Look at the difference between Havertz and Fabio Vieira when he came on. Havertz could never do what Fabio did in those two instances to get us back in the lead of the game. Spending £65m on him should raise question marks about the manager's judgment for talent ID.
Gutted we didn’t get the win. Not sure WTF was going on dropping Nketiah. Really poor decision and made to look more so considering how good he was when he came on. Havertz certainly has not hit his stride yet. Again this year it looks like we’re going to be very shaky defensively.
let’s not forget half the fan base wrote off Vieira calling him ****. Havertz much more time for us to draw any conclusions.
