The starting line up was spot on. We took a few minutes to settle but up until Bentancur went off we were all over them, playing beautifully and should have been 4-0 up but for better finishing. Even after he went off I still think we created more chances. I said before the game the plan looked like catching Villa by surprise with a bold line up and then bringing on Dier, Hojbjerg and Skipp to see out the game and tbh until the injury it looked like that plan was masterclass in the making.
Emerson and Davies as CB is never the answer regardless of who’s missing. I seem to be in a minority of Spurs fans that haven’t fallen in love with Ange yet and maybe that’s why I’m not as forgiving as many of you are when he makes mistakes.
I’m largely loving Ange but equally I don’t think he should be exempt from criticism which I feel some are doing. Conte used to make defensive subs despite losing the game and we lambasted him for it, Ange done that today with Skipp on for a forward… just stupid in my eyes. I also don’t like his lack of faith in the academy, something that seems to be a persistent theme with our managers in recent times. Our U21s and U18s are both top of their leagues yet not a single player has been rewarded with any first team minutes despite the fact a number of individuals are amongst the best in the country for their age. If Miley can get games for Newcastle and Mainoo can get in the Utd XI, then the PL2 POTM is definitely good enough to at least come off the bench for us - especially when we were in need of some attacking/ creative injection and Donley has 6 goals and 11 assists in 11 games. Dorrington almost certainly wouldn’t have been any worse than Davies or Emerson either. Think it sends out a really poor message to the academy as it’s basically saying “don’t matter how good you’ve been, I’m still picking the poor squad players to start or come on ahead of you”.
I'm not sure why your frustration is aimed more at Ange than at Levy, who once again failed to properly back his manager and signed one CB when we clearly needed two.
I don't think we could afford to spend any more....in fact it looks like we had to take the risk of selling Davinson Sanchez to top up the coffers.
We were massively better than Villa throughout the game yesterday despite missing six of our starters for most of it. How anyone can describe that as the manager making mistakes is beyond me.
I said at the time it was a mistake to only sign one as it meant Spurs are only one injury or suspension away from being significantly weakened. Ange should be pushing Levy for new players (maybe he is behind closed doors)
Starting Emerson and Davies as centre backs were mistakes. The goals conceded show that. The subs yesterday were a mistake. Continuing to play a high line against Chelsea when you’re down to 9 men also a mistake and resulted in a humiliating 4-1 at home. The cup game against Fulham, the manager made mistakes too.
As far as I can tell we always spend nearly every penny we can afford each window. If we were signing another CB we couldn't have afforded Johnson. So with the same injuries we would have looked weak up front.
Most/ all fans more or less knew Davies and Emerson was a disaster waiting to happen. Davies especially put in a stinker of a performance, because not only was he at fault for the first goal and jointly at fault for the second, he gave away a very sloppy pass in the first half that could’ve lead to another Villa chance. We don’t know if Dorrington would’ve been amazing or not but I think fans would rather see chances given to promising youth and a natural CB than see mediocre players being played out of position instead.
I hadn’t even noticed that, I knew we stupidly had two keepers on the bench but didn’t realise we didn’t even fill the quota. We didn’t have any youth games over the weekend either so it’s not as if players had any other commitments. As that response also says - why are we as a football club so anti-youth nowadays? We used to be one that prided ourselves on it. It’s made worse at the moment knowing we’ve got some of the best performing young players in the country too. Very disappointing.
I want to see youth given a chance in situations were they are likely to prosper. Given Dorrington a debut against a team like Villa is much more likely to do harm than good. Nearly every attacking player made one or two mistakes that led to us not scoring yesterday...does that mean they were poor selections too?
How can they prosper if they never get given a chance? Now is the time to do just that because they’ll never get chances when the likes of Romero and van de Ven are fit, which is understandable too. But to not be selected at CB when the backup RB and LB are instead sends out a very poor message. The attacking players missed chances and Son especially has been criticised for a poor game by a number of the board. But before the game you’re always going to select Son in the XI because he’s a key player, you wouldn’t anticipate he’d miss a bunch of chances or be offside multiple times. Selecting mediocre players however to play out of position will give you the impression before a ball was kicked that you’re already fighting a losing battle and it proved as such with the pair costing us both goals that were preventable.
They need to play alongside one of Romero or Van de Ven ideally. But we should have signed another CB apparently so that would mean they would never get a chance. I think we might have selected Phillips and Dorrington if they were both fit as they are used to playing together.
Chucking a youth CB with zero first team experience into a makeshift backline isn't giving them a chance, though - if anything it's running the risk of shattering their confidence right out of the gate There's a certain irony that starting with a Phillips/Dorrington CB pairing could have actually been preferable to starting Dorrington alongside either Davies or Emerson given they have a degree of experience playing along side one another in the U21s - but that wasn't happening either thanks to somebody stamping on Phillips' foot on youth international duty in the week Dorrington starting alongside Romero or Mickey van? Absolutely fine as there would somebody experienced in the system alongside him to nudge him in the right direction for his positioning and maintaining tempo coming out from the back, but somebody playing out of position alongside him wouldn't be a good partner for him for obvious reasons
Every player that contributes to that statistic was bought for money and not developed by the club. We are anti-youth. Or anti-academy to put it more accurately.
Of course we should’ve signed another CB. Just about everyone could see we needed to and Ange himself even said in public that he wanted another in. But the fact we didn’t means we should then provide opportunities to the likes of Dorrington and Phillips.
