Re youth players... 1. He sees them in training. 2. The PL2 is no where near comparable with the standard of premier league football. 3. I suspect he doesn't think they are yet up to it. On another day we'd have been 4 up by time Villa scored and then this discussion would be happening. The big picture is that with over half our first team out and half our bench out we pushed inform villa all the way, we did not play on the back foot as we did against wolves and we are watching exciting attractive football. We start getting players back soon and judging what Ange has said we appear to have a plan for January so I'm optimistic that we may get EL football next season and may be in the fight for a top 4 spot.
Santiago is closer to a like-for-like replacement than Donley Dorrington is a tougher one, as on paper starting a youth CB makes sense - but by the same token there's a world of difference between starting a youth CB in a scratch CB pairing and bringing one on to see out a match we're winning comfortably alongside an established CB partner (or to put it another way, Dorrington starting next to Romero does sound a better option than starting alongdide Emerson/Davies) - though one thing just popped into my head, namely Dorrington coming off the bench as a midfield spoiler, as he'd likely be less conservative with his passing than Hojbjerg and would be under less pressure there Also, thanks to the berk who stamped on Phillips' foot on U21 duty the other night, really appreciated...
It’s more a case of being annoyed that the manager picked that makeshift partnership when we’ve got one of the best youth defenders in the country. Emerson’s awful and Davies is average and neither is a CB for a back four system. Just like most agree Skipp for Gil was stupid, so too was Emerson and Davies as a CB partnership. As for learning/ building, I don’t think we’ve learnt anything from the game to be honest other than our squad is **** and there’s a huge gap in quality between them and the first choicers. Now with three losses on the bounce and a trip to the Etihad on the horizon, our morale could take a massive beating, if it hasn’t already.
I was specifically saying the season rather than the game was a learner/builder. And my point was that we didn't lose the game because of our 2 makeshift CB's - whose lack of appropriate quality I fully accept.
Davies’ marking of Torres was horrendous for the equaliser. Watkins also ran right in between the pair for the winner. They were as much, if not more to blame for the loss as the Bentancur injury and our inability to find the net. But Ange picked them so he has to shoulder it just as much too, they’re two players that shouldn’t be starting for us, let alone out of position.
Just had a weird dream, we had 18 shots at goal, had 3 goals disallowed hit the post twice ,our play maker kicked out of the game , had a nailed on penalty ignored by the all seeing VAR and although their equaliser you could see the goal scores hand clearly OS VAR missed it we lost 1-2
Never stopped Maradona and if Bryan scored with his left foot and his right was OS would that count ?
https://www.skysports.com/watch/vid...-silly-boy-diego-carlos-escapes-red-for-elbow Same ref for our matches at Brentford and the filth. We've won none of them.
I actually thought that all things we considered we played pretty well today, we were better side in all aspects apart from finishing. We have played worse than that this season and won the game. Villa were very ordinary and gave our makeshift defence very few legitimate problems. Losing Bentancur was huge he ran the game in the first 30 minutes and Villa new it and started kicking out accordingly. Son has to do better with the timing of his runs, Johnson and Kulu also missed chances that they have to be taking if we want to win matches. Luck has run out on us in the last 2 matches should have come away with at worst 2 draws and we have lost both.
Judging by various sites on You Tube most Spurs are pleased with the direction Ange is taking us. Personally I have little to complain about on Spurs today. Villa were very lucky to come away with that win. Lucky not to have been down to 9 men. That's football and luck plays it's part and we have had our share this season. The appointment of Johan Lange and Ange's comments suggest we can expect new additions in January. The upside of all the injuries shows why we need them.
Having said that I would mention that we were caught out by offside too often today. It was like having Defoe back. Our attacking game means we have to pay special attention to that rule. It cost us the 3 points today.
So far the only match where Ange deserves criticism is the Wolves match, as that was the one match where the team we started the match with was reactive, where instead of being in line with his philosophy instead the lineup was chosen to protect the makeshift backline and, as a result, we were overly cautious yet also couldn;t control the match
Even with a second string team and no CBs, it’s evident that Ange’s philosophy is being implanted in the squad. Today was all about the missed chances by our forwards and why the duck is Son standing in offside positions all the time? If we’d got our second goal before they scored, we might have seen a different outcome. I was pleased with Lo Celso. Let’s hope he can kick off from here. I can’t fault Royal or Davies as they aren’t CBs and apart from the two goals, they did okay. We have been begging to play a different style and we are getting there. No-one truly expected great things in the first season under Ange and we were spoilt in the first 10 games which may have enhanced our expectations. Gutted about Bentancur. I really hope this injury is not as bad as feared. Still dreading Man City.
The style of football has mostly been very pleasing. When you look at the table then 5th and ahead of Man Utd, Chelsea and Newcastle then you have to be happy with how it’s going. My issue is that the manager seems inflexible and doesn’t have much variety in how he wants to play and that once a couple of players are missing (Van de Ven & Maddison) then it all falls apart.
Playing that high line against Chelsea with 9 men was borderline criminal for me. Today he made some strange subs and even the starting line up wasn’t correct for me.
