I've just seen Adebayor's goal again, I thought at the time he was on but that offside was a farce. End of the day the second goal killed us and we weren't good enough.
To add insult to robbery, we had two Arsenal on MOTD talking about the disgrace that was Stoke and the officials.
So pleased that you got your cheap laugh, I'll be supporting City on Monday, and hope you get just half the injustices dealt out to us today. England will never get 86 back, which sickens me, and we'll probably never have such a good chance of winning the title again in my lifetime which sickens me so much more. Losing is awful, to lose in such disgraceful ways as today and 86, it hurts me to my very core. The first time I had my heart broken was in 62 by Benfica and terrible ref & lino decisions, today what's left of it got ripped a little more.
There was no reason to drop Brad, but I and others pointed out before the game that he was a disaster waiting to happen because of his 'stay on the line' policy. So it proved. You have to compete with Stoke, especially when our defenders aren't that good against high balls. I don't blame Brad in any way, but he and the rest of the team that Harry picked were always going to struggle against Stoke. See my 'stick or twist' thread for further analysis. Harry 'stuck', I don't blame him. Brad 'stuck' to his line, I don't blame him. We got beaten by the inevitable onslaught. I do blame the officials though, for not giving us a 'fair go'.
Brad did anything but stick to his normal conservative stance. He closed down Crouch for the first and got megged and for the second whilst he stayed on the line he tied himself up but I can't see any reason for giving Gomes the start.
Have to disagree with that, time and again he was rooted to his line as the crosses and throws came in - the Crouch thing came after the initial throw had happened and even then he was close to his line. It was the same old Brad, and the disaster happened, predictably. Not once did he venture from his line to go into the crowd of players as the throw ins came in. Gomes would have been better today I think, but I agree it was no reason to drop Brad, just the inevitable happened.
Yep, I don't know who has hurt me more in my life, Webb, Foy or the Arsenal players of that awful Graham era.
With regards to the bolded , I didn't see anyone say that. I think that Again I think it's Gomes withdrwal how inconsistenly that he thrashed about. He didn't go out for every ball. It was a toss up whether he would clatter through everyone or not.
Hi YV, it was always on the cards that Brad sticking to his line would lead to us conceding. I didn't want to be too doom and gloom before the match, given the enjoyable times we were having. But here's what Power Spurs and I wrote in the afore-mentioned thread. 'Hi HBIC, I get what you're saying re Gomes, as he did give us panic attacks, however he did at least compete for high balls, Friedel stands on his line, which is often high risk in itself. It's almost impossible to stop a header from two yards unless it's straight at you, so attempts at prevention can often be better than the 'cure' which doesn't happen.' 'I agree with that GH10 - despite Friedel making many fewer mistakes than Gomes there seems precious little evidence that he concedes fewer goals. He is very 'safety first' - I think Gomes would have stopped two or three goals that Friedel has conceded but it would look like he had made two or three more mistakes as well as he would have come and missed balls that Friedel never tried to get. Our defensive stats are quite similar to last year's despite Walker, King and Friedel playing almost every match and Parker giving more protection.' 'Fair comments PS. I think some people may be being over-optimistic that Friedel will deal better with the Stoke bombardment than Gomes did. I can see why they think that, but I also like a goalie that comes and attacks the ball against teams like Stoke. I only saw MOTD highlights of Stoke today, but they only created 3 decent chances on those highlights, scoring from one. Guess where each chance came from, yep a set-piece. They looked just like the 'old Stoke today' and were very physical, very big, and very combative. I do fear for us up there, but as been said, it seems we just have to go up there and play our game. As usual, much will depend on the ref. I remember Stoke kicking us to bits in an appalling display of fouls, time-wasting, cynicism, and complete and utter anti-football a few years back, when they won 1-0 at the Lane. The ref let them get away with 'red and white murder', and I thought our crowd was poor, as they just seemed to register very little protest, considering Stoke's antics. We'll have the crowd against us on Sunday, and I just hope the ref stays strong and clamps down on Stoke's 'over-robust' approach.' PS - I don't think when I wrote those lines I knew the ref was Foy. My actual thoughts were even gloomier than what I wrote at the time, but I didn't want to be too much of a party pooper, and lots of people in that thread and elsewhere were really gung-ho about how well we'd cope, so I thought maybe I was being over-pessmistic and so toned down my fears somewhat. When i saw the teamsheets this afternoon I thought we'd win, and of course we should have in a fair contest, but I always had those fears about our vulnerability to Stoke's attacks. As I said several times in various threads leading up to the game, our weaknesses are Stoke's strengths, and so it fatally proved on the day.
Sorry Ghoddle, I'm off to be but I'll leave you all with this: Stoke striker and man-of-the-match Peter Crouch: "It was a massive result. Against a team that have been on fire, we've got to take heart from that. We showed what we're all about. Everyone put a shift in and we defended from the front. The result's sweeter because it's my old club. I didn't think the ball struck my arm in the build-up to the goal. It was unintentional if it did." As close to an admission as you'd get, I reckon. I'll reply in the morning, GH
HI YV I'm perfectly in agreement that Crouch handballed for the first goal. I also want to stress that I'm NOT blaming Brad, or Harry or anyone for the defeat (except the officials). Just that the way Brad plays, the way we were set out in our 'normal stance' when the game started, was an open invitation for Stoke to batter us, and they duly did. King starting would have helped tremendously, but we know that dear old Ledley is always liable to be missing for any particular game. We tried to play our normal game and why not, but we failed miserably in that crucial first half to defend properly. To repeat, our weaknesses are Stoke's strengths, it was a match made in Hell and Foy & co helped light the fires under us to deadly effect.
I actually do blame Brad in part, I thought he had a poor game. To say Gomes would've suited this game better is just plain wrong, I think. He never looks assured with aerial balls coming into the box and Stoke bombard you with them.
Well I'm glad you finally seem to understand Brad's weaknesses, but you're just plain wrong about Gomes, not me. He did brilliantly in one of our 2-1 wins up there, and Pulis apparently said it was one of the finest displays against his team he's ever seen. There is a strong argument that Gomes deals with aerial bombardments on the whole better than Brad, as he is a pro-active keeper.
100% sure no one will want to save this game but here goes anyway: High Definition http://mukki.org/tv/epl-2011-12-11-stoke-city-vs-tottenham-hotspur-720p-hdtv-x264-fairplay-169525 Standard Definition http://mukki.org/tv/epl-2011-12-11-stoke-city-vs-tottenham-hotspur-480p-hdtv-x264-msd-169629
