I'm glad to hear you say how hard he's worked to get fit, O.S. I've always admired his talent, but for me, he's never lived up to his potential - never looked like he took it all seriously enough. He lacks pace - that won't change - but I hate to see potential talent go to waste. Especially when it's self inflicted.
For a dose of reality....whichever way we look at it, the facts are, The Goons won, The Chavs won, and we didn't. If that situation carries on!.....
Blame that silly Europa League. Why so many games? Who is interested in a mini-league for teams who haven't made it to the Champions league (or CL knockout stages like Chelsea)? Have 64 teams, straight knockout over two legs and exclude the drop-outs from the CL.
Everton was always going to be a tough game for us in the run-in, whereas both the others would have been expected to win this weekend (Arsenal less so, admittedly). Certainly wish that our overall form was more positive, but not giving up on anything yet.
Chelsea had Europa League as well, and the FA Cup game on the Monday. For me, the Europa League should only be 32 teams straight knock out. None of this group stage bollix. Nonetheless the Europa League is a competition, ask Forest or Villa fans whose shoes they'd rather be in now? Spurs or theirs? You never know what you've got till its gone. Europa League can be a platform for greater success.
Agreed. I remain a big fan of Tommy and his performances earlier in the season meant I couldn't defend him as much as I wanted, but when he came he was the best player on the pitch today and deserves to be involved for the rest of the seasom.
Yes, we'll Chelsea also have Sugar Daddy's billions to rely on , don't they? So it's all a bit easier for them.
I'm frustrated because this team just does not have a winner's mindset. Surely if any of our rivals had gone ahead in seconds at home in a huge game like this, they would have rolled to a badly needed easy win. We roll out the red carpet marked, "It's your turn to score now!" go into a shell, and only come out after they have scored. Well, we've got a few games left to acquire a winner's mindset, and we're going to have to do it. Rant over. Decent performance overall. I was afraid the team would still be exhausted, but they outbattled an energetic Everton side. The stats tell the story they were telling until a couple of weeks ago. Ade and Gylfi were good, again. Dempsey was poor and Holtby looked lost--he may need to be in the middle to be worth playing, which is a problem. But why is it now that we're able to score at a decent clip, we suddenly can't defend? Vertonghen and Dawson, who'd looked so good recently, suddenly look poor. A million things can happen over the last few games, actually. But I still think it's a matter of will and psychology. Spurs have to become more determined to win than Chelsea or Arsenal, preferably both. On paper, a win over Chelsea would help a lot. A losing streak by either of our closest rivals would help more, but looks like a very distant hope at this point. But anything can happen.
It's true. We just don't have a Champion's mentality. Without that, it will never happen for you, be cause that's where it all starts.
Chelsea have spent £100M since the end of last season. Wow! please log in to view this image Marin £7M, Hazard £35.2M, Moses £10.1M, Azpilicueta £7.7M, Wallace £4.7M, Oscar £28.1M , Ba £7.5M
I didn't think our manager had a "winner's mindset" today. I thought at half-time that it would be interesting to see whcih manager wanted it most in the second half. Everton came out of the blocks better, gained a quick initiative and credit to Moyes, he then threw on Jelavic to try and capitalise on this. He was rewarded with a 1-0 deficit being turned into a 2-1 lead, whereas AVB continued to persevere with at least 3 completely out of sorts players including the headless chicken that is Dempsey and was rescued by a rather fortuitous goal from Sigi. And even after that, Everton had two good goalscoring opportunities.
On the bright side, I'm pleased to see Gylfi hit his stride. He may have had more great saves against him than anyone for most of the season. But he almost always seems to either score or come very close, and he reminds me of Lennon in how hard he works to close the other side down. It looks like he can play on the left or in the middle equally well. I think you just write his name on the lineup sheet and forget about it.
I'm relying on tranfermarkt's figures. Wallace is a teenage Brazalian right back- a sort of pre-Rafaelite, not a braveheart.
I agree with you about the second half. We needed to get the jump, we didn't, and it seems fair to blame AVB. I also groaned when I saw Dempsey's name. But who else do we have? Dempsey' s looked like he doesn't belong in the side the whole year, but he's also scored some big goals. And when I look for culprits I keep coming back to the fact that AVB has won a league and the Europa, and Spurs haven't won anything except small cups in recent times. I think it happens in every sport that rising players or teams have to will themselves past new hurdles, and keep falling at the same one until they do.
Not an option that Villas-Boas had available, though. Our only attacking option from the bench was the extremely inexperienced Caballos. Should he have taken off Dempsey? I think so, yes. Some people would have seen that as a negative move though, as we could only have brought on less attack-minded players.
