I'm glad I missed this one.Had to have a Colonoscopy.Always nice.I was told they removed a polips shaped like a mushroom.How tasty!. Ok I'm sorry for that..... Anyway,our manager says we are well placed.Yes,so are the other three nonenterties! Come on Spurs.I'd love you to win this Cup.
I think alot is being expected of Hudd considering the position he plays and that these matches are, for him, mainly to get match fit after a lengthy lay off. Central midfield is the toughest position to play in with potential threat coming from 360 degrees at all times. No other position needs to worry about every angle. This requires mental sharpness which the sportsmen amongst us past and present will know , only comes with physical fitness. Only by playing meaningful games will he get match fit and then we will hopefully see the Hudd of 2 seasons ago. I hope we don't sell him...I like watching him make contact with that ball!
The BBC stats show them 10 shots to our 14 with both teams having 4 on target and 50/50 possession. That isn't my subjective memories of the match, regardless of what *should* have happened I thought we had the balance of play and were more threatening. I also don't remember them having anything like that number of shots!
This Sigs and Dempsey continue to disappoint against the standards that they were setting last year. Hudd is restarting his career, but it can only take SO long to get back up to speed - and he again looked well off the pace against the equivalent of a Championship team. Naughton did some good things but whether exposed or just on the 'wrong side' got caught a few times. Thought Caulker was excellent - his reading of the game is 'Ledley-like'!! Walker was better but still something missing. Disappointed with (and for) Townsend. Was a great opportunity for him and he didn't impress. Falque looked sharp and hopefully will develop. We are still in the competition but not impressing anyone.......
Hi Boss, I don't see him as a lone striker, then again I didn't see JD as a lone striker till this season, and unfortunately last night reminded me why I had that view. Looking at their attributes, prior to this season I would have felt Dempsey could have been better as a lone striker than JD. It's hard to call the situation with Clint as we haven't seen the best of him yet. I hope he is rested v Soton and returns v Norwich I'm a big fan of Dempsey and was delighted when we signed him, I hope he isn't going to prove a disappointment. He's already done one great thing though, scored the winner at OT, that's a massive, massive Spurs credential for him.
I've alway's said Caulker could be our next Ledley,we have been disappointing so far,but we are still in the mix,and i'm sure we will continue to get better,we still had as much possession as they did last night,and more shots,we just need to tighten up in defence and take more of our chances
Hi BS glad your op went ok. The other teams are not non-entities, Lazio for example are 3rd in Italy ATM http://soccernet.espn.go.com/tables/_/league/ita.1/italian-serie-a?cc=5739 above Inter and well above AC Milan, Maribor regularly win the Slovenian league and beat Pana 3-0 at home, andd only just lost in Rome. While Pana have some decent players and just drew away with Lazio. If you're serious about your comment, you will be like many others who get confused by our results in this tournament as you don't understand the strength of the oppo. The other teams aren't non-entities, they aren't push overs, especially at home I would expect us to beat pana and maribor at the Lane, but expect Lazio to beat us in Rome. 9 points will probably just do it for us.
As AVB has said it's a very tight group with no runaway leader and these things have to be balanced out. Well three draws now must be followed by a win and if so we should go onto win the other two. But if this group continues with the next leg of draws it will all boil down to the last match,brown trousers stuff.
on the money PNP. completely agree about how predictable we are. this will also start to show during prem games very soon, now that up and coming opposition will have studied us, seen what threat we offer and they will mitigate us very easily. we are going to get found out soon, unless we change things up. However, it's difficult if Ade's injured. - which then comes back to our conversations during the window about not having enough strikers for diversity and depth. another good performance in particular from Sandro, as you say. but again, without Dembele and Bale, we've shown how we're just not much of a threat. we seem to lose confidence and shape when either are not playing. even though in theory, we should have been ok yesterday with Townsend, it just didn't happen. I truly believe that the youngsters need chances, but I'm concerned about the quality of our depth in certain positions. we go from being extremely dangerous when at almost full strength (Bale + Dembele included) to nothingness when they aren't able to play. the lack of alternative options is going to cause is problems as the season unfolds. strengthening in Jan is an absolute must; capturing those targets we missed this summer. We need another quality CM asap; someone who can come in and command that midfield in an attacking and creative sense. Dempsey I feel for, he must be knackered with all the travelling and game time he's had recently. he just needs a break. Also totally agree with Relayer, Sigurdsson has been a real let down so far. he's a player with a lot of qualities and last night was an opportunity for him to command his position, play well, gain some confidence and perhaps build some foundations for the next game. Again, against poor opposition, it was like he wasn't even in the game. and then Livermore came on, which basically meant all chance of being attacking and dangerous in the closing minutes went out of the window. - (which I think someone alluded to in a comment last night the minute he was brought on.) However, we're still in it. great news that Panath drew with Lazio, that's helped the group massively. but again, we're relying on other results to prevent the group beginning to spread out because we're not impressing anyone, as relayer says. we just need more options. lots of squad players, but very few with real quality that can make a difference or offer an alternative option when we need it most.
Didn't Falque make a difference Roo? Anyway our play was mediocre as was Chelsea's under AVB. I'm not vilifying him or wanting him out but he has to do something to improve it unless this is what sort of a manager he is.
I mentioned on here several times during the summer that Falque is a good footballer and he certainly livened things up when he came on. I still maintain that if AVB really does want to make a go of this competition, he needs to instill that mentality into the players because imo, half of them can't be arsed with these games.
The players we had out yesterday were not our strongest. Most people on here thought our best X1 last year was Friedel, Walker, King, Kaboul, Assou-Ekottu, Lennon, Parker, Modric, Bale, Van der Vaart, Adebayor. Yesterday we had only two of those playing and of the replacements we signed in the summer only Lloris, Verthonghen and Sigurdsson started. So we are five or six of our best players short. That has been more or less the case since the start of the season. Nevertheless we are fifth in the league, have a good chance of qualifying from the Europa league group and are still in the League Cup and we've only lost away to last seasons fifth placed team and at home to the full strength European Champions. A bit early to start jduging anything really.
yeah he helped TMT, no doubt about that. he played pretty well and looked like he was really trying as he'd been given the opportunity. but overall, IMO, we were lacking in areas where there are players with much more experience that just didn't perform.
I think all the teams are resting their top players in the Europa though so we aren't meeting these teams at their strongest either.
It was I agree, a point away is a point away, in the circs though its not a good point imo. In all the EL games so far, if the players on the pitch played anything like their potential we wouldn;t be relying on a bonus from Pana last night to keep us in it. Same as last year, its a poor group we're struggling for results in. I've also noticed Roo with the same point as me re. Jake. I said the same thing during the Chelsea game, after we went 2-1 up, AVB was lining up Jake as a sub, this to me said he intended to defend the lead, but that blew up in his face with Chelsea scoring before he got on. AVB still persisted with the change...baffling.
I like Jake and i will make the point again, so i'm not seen as someone who's got a hatred towards one of our players. But I just don't see him working in this formation and it certainly hasn't so far. I don't believe Jake has the required qualities to play the "defensive 2" role within this formation. It's completely different to the 442 we saw him in last year, which suited his game so much more. IMO, he's not good enough to start, ever. - not if we want to win the game, that is. As I've said, I don't think he's the type of player that could play alongside Dembele and give us the reassurance defensively, not in this formation anyway. If he's played alongside sandro, we look totally clueless about how to play the ball out and turn defence into attack. we end up giving the ball away, often through panic, which then results in us being under pressure. - then the same process happens again and again. he can be a useful player to come on with fresh legs to help us defend a lead, but if that lead is only by 1 goal and there's plenty of time for the opposition to score, we are left in a nasty position if they do just that. we essentially sacrifice a player for livermore and all chance of scoring another is gone, as we're thenso creatively short in the centre of the park. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what I mean. perhaps there's someone else who feels the same as me and might be able to explain it better? but what i've noticed so far is that this preferred formation is suiting certain players more than others. Sandro has been superb and seems to be adapting very well, but that's because he has the attributes to do so. IMO, i just don't think the style of play has much of a place Livermore and i don't think he's technically gifted enough for it, sadly. then again, i'm often wrong, so we'll see.
Look lads I know that we are all disappointed but Maribor are the Slovenian league leaders and they might just be better than we think they are. How would other teams have fared? We don't know do we? It's easy to complain but how much do we know about the Slovenian league? It's easy to knock our team when we know next to nothing about the opposition. We are still unbeaten in the EL and have only lost two in twelve overall.
true TMT, but despite all the points you make here, we were poor last night and should have done better. - playing better was one thing that was within our control, even if everything else you mention are "unknowns".
