Would you though if the next sentence was:
"oh, and i got Torres too"
?
... Then I'd resign!
Would you though if the next sentence was:
"oh, and i got Torres too"
?
Surely he deliberately set us up with no width to go like for like with City and make sure we were not over-run in midfield. When we needed a goal he changed it and it worked. It is quite possible that if we had started 433 we would have done a lot worse. It always amazes me ho many people on here think they know what would have happened in what would essentially have been a different match.
Completely agree.
Coming to the defence of PowerSpurs who seems to have been hammered twice for expressing a contrary view, I agree that it's easy in hindsight to critisise the set up from AVB at the start of the game. We were always going to suffer a width issue without Lennon and Bale has made a huge impact playing through the middle so it was understandable for him to start in such a way. What you can't do is ignore the opposition and the impact they have on a game. IMO it wasn't working for us simply because player for player City were better, despite which we were not being overun but we were being stopped from making any serious threat to them. So it appears AVB made changes at half time to the way we were set up and when that didn't work made subs that did. To critisise the manager after such a result against a team with a superior squad is churlish to say the least IMO.
? Tevez was carving us open at will, only poor finishing from Dzeko and Nasri's near miss prevented 2-0 and the game dead by HT.

Vim, are you serious??... power seems to think we 'needed' a goal when he changed it after an hour...we'd been 1-0 down since the 5th minute, would you not agree we needed a goal from the 6th minute!
Chasing a goal after 6mins against a quality team like City is suicide. They were ripping us apart without us chasing a goal and it could have ended embarassingly.
Leaving it til 65mins ish and hoping we might pinch something is a valid tactic. When we hadn't he threw the dice and it worked. If we had played for 90mins like we did for the last section of the game we may well have been beaten regardless
Spurs weren't playing to contain City. You were looking to break them down, but the change of personnel was the solution. AVB had been trying to employ the right tactics from the outset, but the players were messing it up. Adebayor, Dempsey and Sigurdsson had been tripping over each other in the centre, there was no width other than from the full backs, who had no outlet ball when closed down and there was no creativity in midfield. When Bale started to play wide, Dempsey went to his best position as an inside left and Huddlestone picked out some passes, you had a purple patch, which proved decisive.
And that is down to the skill of Tevez rather than the set up.
Lets go back to your other post. Easy to criticise with hindsight??, give over, 36000 in the stadium knew it during the game, and millions watching the box too, funnily enough every pundit said it at HT...but we're all churlish obviously!
Spurm, where have i recommened we 'chase' a goal, of course thats stupid, needing one and chasing one are entirely different. Power based his comment around changes after an hour because we needed a goal then, I've merely pointed we needed one a little bit earlier than that!
If a few AVB police here want to ignore this game could and should have been out of sight by HT due to poor shape then carry on. The team that beat United then struggled against Wigan, not a very good argument.
Luke of course we were playing to contain despite being 1-0 down, don't be churlish!

Hence the changes AVB made at half time, or are you suggesting the only one who did not see it was the man paid millions to manage it. When btw has the majority EVER made sensible decisions on ANYTHING!
I'll stick by what I said earlier, which (I think) means I agree with Spurf, Spurm and PowerS. Just because something worked when AVB tried it doesn't mean it would have worked from the start. We should instead be applauding him for making the right changes at the right time. As was said earlier, you can't go chasing the game from the time we went 0-1 down, which was of course down to very clever play (which IMHO we would have been more open to if we'd been chasing more). As was said, just because something worked later on doesn't mean to say it would have worked from the start.
???
Calm down notso it's just a debate.![]()
21/04/2013, 02:30 PM #252
Spurf
Time for AVB to show his tactical nous.
