Moving on.

[notsosmartspur]

Well thats what AVB says http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/spurs/News/we-move-on-andre-01112012.page? I will, but not before a few things are pointed out.

Still not sure how we lost tbh, but clinical finishing is one thing, and Dempsey was given his chance and over the course of the game didn't take it. I listened to the Norwich keeper Bunn this morning, and he said he'd watched vids of all our pen takers and found that Demps took his always to the same side. A Fulham poster popped up on the match thread to say how bad he was there too. So, a 2nd string keeper has done his homework, yet Mr. Clipboard missed that valuable bit of data. I'm struggling to think of any other side so poor at penalties...repeatedly! The only bright side I can think of is that had Demps scored, we may have had to endure another ballsed up shootout, so at least we were spared that!

Having had a good look at the 2nd goal, shocking defending. Hudd and Sig static, just watching two Norwich players go to the rebound off Lloris (could he have done better?).

The events of the last 10mins was brought on ourselves with dodgy subs. See media today! There again I said this some weeks ago re. his defensive substitutions. Don't expect to see 9 against Wigan, he'll shut up shop at 1-0!

We have our injuries yes, but this was a changed Norwich team we failed to beat with our changed team, not good enough really, though Norwich deserve credit for taking the opportunities presented to them.

The glass half full brigade may now fill yer boots!

 

[Dier Hard]

Don't think Hugo could've done any better. Holt was only about 7 yards away from him, the fact he managed to save the initial header is credit to him in my opinion.

I was surprised Dempsey took the pen anyway, Vertonghen and Sigurdsson have both taken pens for their respective sides before and like you say, the Fulham poster mentioned last night that Deuce is not a good penalty taker. Made it worse for him that he had such a sh*t game too.

I've mentioned how annoyed I get with AVB's subs. I'm sorry but even though I've never been a fan of his so some may so my opinions are biased, his decisions when we take a lead are f*cking dreadful.
Nearly cost us against Southampton when he brought Jake on at 60 mins to play two proper DM's, we all know how sh*t we are at CM/ DM when Sandro & Jake play together. Brought Vertonghen on last night at CM which was a joke and unless Jake was injured in the first half, wasted a sub at half time as Jake was having his best game of the season thus far.

Baring in mind the guy is supposedly a tactical genius and very attack minded, I'm failing to see where this rep has come from, nearly all of his substitutions have been defensively minded. I appreciate we're without a number of key players but he's still made some hugely questionable decisions.

Everyone used to moan at Harry for not being a master tactician but he never tried to close out a game, always wanted us to grab another which I (and I hope many others) loved. Please take note Andre!

 

[notsosmartspur]

As I've said, I'm not saying the 2nd goal was Lloris's fault, it was a catalogue of errors. Holt is good in the air and our best two on the pitch (I'll come back to that) were marking him and he bested them, fair enough, sometimes you have to credit a striker. Lloris could then only palm the header down into the 6yd box, could he have palmed it away? Not sure, but thats what you'd hope a keeper to do. If it was all he could do in the circs, you'd hope your defenders are first to it to clear. sadly Hudd and Sig, just watched the whole thing allowing their markers to give them the slip and one picked up the rebound. Thats how I see it.

Back to our CB's, I questioned JV's aerial ability in the first few games getting caught out of position and/or not judging flight too well. The PL is not a forgiving league with set pieces, they are a major part of some teams attack. The rest of his game is excellent, but his heading is a worry for me atm.

 

[Dier Hard]

As I've said, I'm not saying the 2nd goal was Lloris's fault, it was a catalogue of errors. Holt is good in the air and our best two on the pitch (I'll come back to that) were marking him and he bested them, fair enough, sometimes you have to credit a striker. Lloris could then only palm the header down into the 6yd box, could he have palmed it away? Not sure, but thats what you'd hope a keeper to do. If it was all he could do in the circs, you'd hope your defenders are first to it to clear. sadly Hudd and Sig, just watched the whole thing allowing their markers to give them the slip and one picked up the rebound. Thats how I see it.

Back to our CB's, I questioned JV's aerial ability in the first few games getting caught out of position and/or not judging flight too well. The PL is not a forgiving league with set pieces, they are a major part of some teams attack. The rest of his game is excellent, but his heading is a worry for me atm.

I think it's hard to call as to whether he could've it palmed it away, it all happened quickly so it's a tough call but I agree, Hudd and Sig were just ball watching.

Yeah I've noticed Jan isn't much of an aerial threat too, that's why when Benny returns and I presume he goes back to CB, he'll need to partner Dawson or Caulker until Kaboul's back otherwise we're f*cked with him and Gallas in the middle.

 

[Roo]

it would have been almost impossible for Lloris to come for it and palm it away. the ball was swinging outwards by the time it got to Holt's head. Lloris could have easily got caught in no man's land or made a "gomes" style cock up.

SOS, you mention AVB being supposedly "attack minded" , but that he keeps making defensive substitutions. - perhaps due to a combination of injuries to players such as Ade, not feeling that Sig or Dempsey are performing to their capabilities and even lack of confidence in the squad overall, he feels that it's safer to protect the 1 goal leads we have? let's be honest, Demps and Sig have been pretty poor so far. some games, sig might as well not even have been on the pitch. - i wouldnt have any confidence in them to deliver right now.

I agree and also dislike the defensive choices he makes (especially pairing up livermore with sandro. drives me insane as you're all aware. Bit like GH10 with his constant Brad/Lloris argument )... but perhaps this defensive tactic has been his only option for us at the moment, with all of the above considered?

 

[notsosmartspur]

I agree an awkward cross to come for, I meant palm away Holts effort, maybe its a little harsh on him, but thought it was worth a discussion at least.

 

[Dier Hard]

it would have been almost impossible for Lloris to come for it and palm it away. the ball was swinging outwards by the time it got to Holt's head. Lloris could have easily got caught in no man's land or made a "gomes" style cock up.

SOS, you mention AVB being supposedly "attack minded" , but that he keeps making defensive substitutions. - perhaps due to a combination of injuries to players such as Ade, not feeling that Sig or Dempsey are performing to their capabilities and even lack of confidence in the squad overall, he feels that it's safer to protect the 1 goal leads we have? let's be honest, Demps and Sig have been pretty poor so far. some games, sig might as well not even have been on the pitch. - i wouldnt have any confidence in them to deliver right now.

I agree and also dislike the defensive choices he makes (especially pairing up livermore with sandro. drives me insane as you're all aware. Bit like GH10 with his constant Brad/Lloris argument )... but perhaps this defensive tactic has been his only option for us at the moment, with all of the above considered?

Yeah I did say he's had some bad luck with injuries but even so, I still think he's had other options to choose from rather than the Sandro and Jake partnership. Sigurdsson could've been given ago at CM to partner Sandro and I'd have Hudd start over Jake 99% of the time, I'd even gone as far as giving Carroll a chance after we saw how dreadful the partnership was after the first game or two. Two DM's are just not efficient for a team like us unless.

In fairness to G10, I agree with his actual view on the Lloris situation, it's just he goes a bit OTT on it...

He's also constantly chosen to bring DMs or defenders on most of the time as his subs. I'd rather he gave the likes of Townsend more of a chance from the bench and judging from the past couple of games, Falque more than deserves a chance to come on at times to try and finish off a game. I'd much rather, at 1-0 say, with 15/ 20 mins remaning, try and get a second and keep the opposition pinned back in their half rather than encourage them to come forward by bringing on a defensively minded player, which so far, has either cost us or very nearly cost us games.

 

[PowerSpurs]

Everyone used to moan at Harry for not being a master tactician but he never tried to close out a game, always wanted us to grab another which I (and I hope many others) loved. Please take note Andre!

How do you think that worked out for us over Harry's reign, even with the whole squad available? No better I expect

 

[Dier Hard]

How do you think that worked out for us over Harry's reign, even with the whole squad available? No better I expect

It got us two 4th place finishes in three full seasons in charge, a final of the Carling Cup, a Semi Final in the FA cup and a memorable win at the Emirates while being regarded as the best team to watch in the league in terms of entertaining and attacking play. We were also 20th when he actually took over.

 

[Roo]

Yeah I did say he's had some bad luck with injuries but even so, I still think he's had other options to choose from rather than the Sandro and Jake partnership. Sigurdsson could've been given ago at CM to partner Sandro and I'd have Hudd start over Jake 99% of the time, I'd even gone as far as giving Carroll a chance after we saw how dreadful the partnership was after the first game or two. Two DM's are just not efficient for a team like us unless.

In fairness to G10, I agree with his actual view on the Lloris situation, it's just he goes a bit OTT on it...

He's also constantly chosen to bring DMs or defenders on most of the time as his subs. I'd rather he gave the likes of Townsend more of a chance from the bench and judging from the past couple of games, Falque more than deserves a chance to come on at times to try and finish off a game. I'd much rather, at 1-0 say, with 15/ 20 mins remaning, try and get a second and keep the opposition pinned back in their half rather than encourage them to come forward by bringing on a defensively minded player, which so far, has either cost us or very nearly cost us games.

1st paragraph. "Unless........" go on, SOS, finish it off... LOL

the defensive 2 works, but as I've said before, IMO we don't have the correct personnel for it at present. Sandro and Dembele seems to work pretty well. no one else does. which is why i think you're spot on in the wigan thread SOS, that we go for a 442. certain players are under performing and we need to change it up. As of January, I'd like to see us sign another creative player which could allow Dembele to push further forward and give us another option.

again, with Townsend and Falque, perhaps he hasn't got the confidence in them just yet, that they could come on and replace Bale and/or lennon and do what's needed? those two have been 2 of our strongest players. - it's a tough call if you take them off and it goes to ****! looks even worse! I don't suppose AVB can take that sort of tactical risk right now.

 

[Dier Hard]

1st paragraph. "Unless........" go on, SOS, finish it off... LOL

the defensive 2 works, but as I've said before, IMO we don't have the correct personnel for it at present. Sandro and Dembele seems to work pretty well. no one else does. which is why i think you're spot on in the wigan thread SOS, that we go for a 442. certain players are under performing and we need to change it up. As of January, I'd like to see us sign another creative player which could allow Dembele to push further forward and give us another option.

again, with Townsend and Falque, perhaps he hasn't got the confidence in them just yet, that they could come on and replace Bale and/or lennon and do what's needed? those two have been 2 of our strongest players. - it's a tough call if you take them off and it goes to ****! looks even worse! I don't suppose AVB can take that sort of tactical risk right now.

Oh f*ck ! Didn't even mean to put "unless" there!

Yeah agreed, definitely need another creative player. Hopefully if we got Mertens he'd add pace, trickery, goals and assists which would work great, otherwise I'd like to see us go for Christian Eriksson of Ajax. Very talented playmaker in the number 10 role, wouldn't come cheap but I reckon he'd be just in our price range.

I see what you mean with the confidence issue in the two but the only way he'll truly find out is by trying them out. Townsend got 5 mins vs Reading and set up a chance for Defoe within a minute... It's an "IF" but what if he was on for longer, we COULD have finished with 4 or 5 goals if he had more time on the ball to create things. Sometimes a manager needs to take risks, I can appreciate at times they won't always come off but just to see the intent from a manager to go out and win a game is good enough for me.

 

[Moorpheus19]

Moutinho would've worked in the Dembele role as well I think.

Out of the 2 DMs, you need 1 who's willing to go forward and 1 who's happy to stay back. That's the only way it works - both go forward and you get opened up, both stay back and you don't open them up.

Parker and Sandro both do the same thing (Livermore does too - just less well). Dembele is really the only one who does the more forward role well. Hudd doesn't fit so well into this new system unfortunately.

I don't get Dempsey and Sig at the moment - they're both off form in my book and that's why I'm glad to see Falque slowly being introduced as I think he could be v good.

 

[Ghoddle10]

Lloris wasn't primarily at fault for the second goal, although you always want your keeper to do better with the save than he did, it was some save to get to the header and get it out.

In the larger sense AVB was the main culprit. In the more immediate sense JV was for failing to stop Holt. However, IMO it should have been Dawson marking Holt, not JV. Don't know who to blame for that, but I'll blame AVB as JV shouldn't have been on the pitch at the time.

 

[PowerSpurs]

It got us two 4th place finishes in three full seasons in charge, a final of the Carling Cup, a Semi Final in the FA cup and a memorable win at the Emirates while being regarded as the best team to watch in the league in terms of entertaining and attacking play. We were also 20th when he actually took over.

That wasn't my point - we won't know the full comparison of Harry v AVB for a couple of seasons. The question was - did Harry's tactic of going for it give better outcomes when we were 1-0 up than AVB's so far. I love watching attacking football but I would also like us to win things and sometimes that means we need to grind out a win. AVB's changes have not worked well so far but at least he has a Plan B....

 

[notsosmartspur]

Agree with what you say there moorpheus. Jake has come in for a bit of stick, a little unfair imo, as you say he needs to be in the right pairing, and only Dembele suits him atm, and the rest it would seem! Him being injured is a pain, Hudd's reluctance to carry the ball forward, go past players, means he's no replacement for Moussa either. The CM area needs a re-think and a revamp, in its present state and in this system its not working, Sig and Demps have added nothing so far.

 

[Dier Hard]

That wasn't my point - we won't know the full comparison of Harry v AVB for a couple of seasons. The question was - did Harry's tactic of going for it give better outcomes when we were 1-0 up than AVB's so far. I love watching attacking football but I would also like us to win things and sometimes that means we need to grind out a win. AVB's changes have not worked well so far but at least he has a Plan B....

Most of the times it did in my opinion. Harry knew/ knows that for some reason, we can't defend as a unit like Chelsea/ Stoke etc so our best form of defence is trying to attack and keep the opposition pinned back.

I'd love to win things too and I hope AVB is the man to do it but the decisions he's made against Norwich and Southampton (can probably name others but can't be ars*d) have been poor. At Southampton he tried shutting up shop at 60 mins by bringing Jake on, leaving Southampton to attack for a good 25/ 30 mins and we were lucky in the end to leave with 3 points. Then against Norwich he made a stupid sub by bringing on Jan into CM which allowed them to come forward more as Carroll was having a tidy game making forward passes and contributing to attacks, Jan was arguably at fault for both goals too and we ended up losing a game that we controlled with ease. With all due respect, both these teams are the type we should be beating comfortably without the need to sit back and grind out a win.

What's the point in having a plan B if it's not effective?

 

[Moorpheus19]

We need a whole new shape to our midfield.

I'm going for this:

The 4-2-1-2-1.

Sandro & Parker
Dembele
Bale & Lennon
Defoe/Adebayor

Let's confuse it all some more

 

[Spurlock]

Hudd has been at the centre of a few of the 'silly' goals being scored by the oppo. Hes well off form. Dempsey isnt reacting well to not being a big fish in a small pond.

Ive backed AVB all the way and still will....this is still part of his learning curve.


The subs are baffling me also. I did not follow AVB much whilst at Porto. Only watched the matches televised for the Europa and his teams seemed quite more flexible and dynamic, compared to what we are seeing at Spurs. I hope in January and then the summer he gets to bring in the players he needs because i believe he can take us places. We are not going to win every match and his appointment cant be questioned everytime we screw it up. I think he is trying to put square pegs in round holes due to his squad limitation. over the 14 or so games we have played i think hes done great.

Our spine is missing in the team with Kab,Parker,Ade out..this cant be overlooked.

 

[Dier Hard]

Agree with what you say there moorpheus. Jake has come in for a bit of stick, a little unfair imo, as you say he needs to be in the right pairing, and only Dembele suits him atm, and the rest it would seem! Him being injured is a pain, Hudd's reluctance to carry the ball forward, go past players, means he's no replacement for Moussa either. The CM area needs a re-think and a revamp, in its present state and in this system its not working, Sig and Demps have added nothing so far.

Admittedly I've been critical of Jake but it's more down to the manager the reason I'm so critical. In all honesty, as much as I'd love a local lad like Jake is to become a top star, he's not on the same level as Sandro, Parker, Dembele or Huddlestone (can change with time but at the moment he's our 5th best). So when he's starting the "important" games and looking out of his depth and performing badly, naturally I'll criticise him even though it's the manager's fault for chucking him in at the deep end.

Mousa has become the new Modric (in terms of importance! He's not a rat faced, toy throwing, unprossional tw*t! ), whenever Luka was out of the team we looked flat in the centre of midfield and the same is now happening while Mousa is out... Quite worrying really.

Agree 100% with the Sig and Dempsey part. I've mentioned a few times at how glad I was at their signings but they've been a massive disappointment so far.

 

[Roo]

Oh f*ck ! Didn't even mean to put "unless" there!

Yeah agreed, definitely need another creative player. Hopefully if we got Mertens he'd add pace, trickery, goals and assists which would work great, otherwise I'd like to see us go for Christian Eriksson of Ajax. Very talented playmaker in the number 10 role, wouldn't come cheap but I reckon he'd be just in our price range.

I see what you mean with the confidence issue in the two but the only way he'll truly find out is by trying them out. Townsend got 5 mins vs Reading and set up a chance for Defoe within a minute... It's an "IF" but what if he was on for longer, we COULD have finished with 4 or 5 goals if he had more time on the ball to create things. Sometimes a manager needs to take risks, I can appreciate at times they won't always come off but just to see the intent from a manager to go out and win a game is good enough for me.

agree with all this mate, I'm just trying to look at it from a slightly different angle, and one that AVB might be coming from. The guy has so much pressure on him at the moment. although us fans can see that we should bring on a certain player or two, in order to keep the attacking momentum going, perhaps right now AVB feels that he just wants to get the results to get the monkeys off his back. I think he's right to do what he's doing. Loads of teams bring a defensive minded player on to shut up shop. However, again, the problem lies with the actual player and the type of player that is. back to my point about incorrect personnel.

Moutinho would've worked in the Dembele role as well I think.

Out of the 2 DMs, you need 1 who's willing to go forward and 1 who's happy to stay back. That's the only way it works - both go forward and you get opened up, both stay back and you don't open them up.

Parker and Sandro both do the same thing (Livermore does too - just less well). Dembele is really the only one who does the more forward role well. Hudd doesn't fit so well into this new system unfortunately.

...and Moorph has summed up exactly what I mean in 1 post. it's taken me about 4 across 3 different threads