Bale is gone matey I'm 99% sure considering the pics of him in Spain and no sign of him watching the game today.
As much as another win is satisfying, we can't continue to expect to get away with this for the long term. I'm sure we'll improve as new players start to gel but we still seem to suffer from playing in front of defences with this predictable shape. Last season, games like this would have been won by a piece of magic by Bale. This season won't be the case. We need a playmaker to give Soldado service who has looked extremely isolated up front. Not convinced that Danny Rose is ready for this level. Hopefully a much improved LB is still to come in. Chadli... unsure what this guy offers us so far but early doors. We need someone in midfield to give us that spark. Too flat for my liking.
Thanks for that. (Didn't want to get up and type during the game). Think I deleted StreamTorrent when I installed AceStream a couple of weeks ago. Not sure why. Damn. Just installed it. Took about ten seconds...
We still need more creativity from central areas, a player who can thread cute passes and open teams up.
And on the game: Not much to say really. Not a single buckle was swashed but we won and we've got some big strong lads in the centre and the most isolated-looking striker I've seen at Spurs for some years. Can't remember too many touches inside the box for him aside from his penalty. We need what we needed even when we HAD Bale - to replace the creative spark lost when VDV and Modric left. And for BAE and AVB to make up.
It's funny how quickly and thoroughly the footballing landscape has changed with regards to the general opinion about playing a partnership up front. If we'd seen that game just five years ago we'd all be wondering what the hell the idea is of playing Soldado on his own up front and aghast at how isolated and bereft of service he was all game. Nowdays it's a fairly common sight to see the striker having such a thankless task. Guess it must work or everyone wouldn't be doing it. However I also wonder if, in a few years' time a few excellent teams will emerge somewhere with two up top and suddenly everyone will be talking about how dangerous a PAIR of players receiving the ball high up the pitch in central areas can be. And everyone'll start doing that again.
Its clearly not his game (nor is it Dembele's, nor Sig's), I haven't seen it from him in a Brazil shirt either. Its a massive concern to me the best throughballs from us have come via defenders!
AVb is starting to piss me off when it comes to Tom Carroll as there is no point in having him as part of the bench if you're not prepared to risk him, all Avb has to do, is put the lad on and immediately you will see he offers something Paulinho/Capoue and Dembele can't offer (who cost near to 40 million combined) and that is VISION, the ability to pass the ball FORWARD, if the manager truly believes he isn't ready don't include him in the squad. We have players like Siggy who is limited, getting games and he does nothing to warrant much game time, other then a desperate option. I guess its going to take an injury crisis and even then Avb will probably recall Livermore. Anyhow, I guess at least its encouraging we're trying to sign creative players, so Baldini or Avb must be aware of the issue, but we can't carry on at this rate and expect to bulldoze our way through games.
Would assume that we might have seen the point of seeing him on the bench if we were 3-0 up. Give him a run out once the game is won. Thin pickings for him at this stage but he'll have to be patient and impress once (IF) Spurs ever get a decent lead.
It would be easy to find fault with the performance today, but to have maximum points and two clean sheets from our first 2 games, is not to be dismissed lightly. We were good at times and other times we were not so good, although we never really looked as if we would lose the game. The defence fully deserved their clean sheet, Soldado will soon get pissed off with being so isolated, Capoue looks a real find and as others have said, we definitely need more real creativity, and Dembele continues to drive me nuts.
Dembele seems to have a real problem with deciding what to do with the ball that he so skillfully wins. He is an enigma!
I really like the look of Capoue a lot. Sort of a shame that it was not a position we were that desperate for but I'll take having both Sandro AND Capoue available. Not exactly solving our creativity problems in midfield but against Chelsea away (say) a midfield featuring those two could be a great option. For me Capoue's the signing of the summer so far. Difficult to judge Soldado as he's touched the ball about thirty times in his entire Spurs career I think. Talking of Capoue there was a run through in the first half and then a shot from him but at that exact moment my stream died. What was it like? Another Zokora-like effort? It's about the only flaw in his game that I've spotted so far. Let's hope the crowd can resist the urge to shout for him to shoot when we're one-nil up. I could well imagine Soldado wondering what the hell he's got himself into, thinking to himself "How the hell is this supposed to be working? Am I supposed to just drop deep, take a touch, lay it off and then run towards goal where there will be no final ball and just hope we get a penalty?" Cos that looks like the plan so far. During one attack towards the end of the first half he sort of made to run, then made to run then just stopped and gave up as it became clear that Paulinho didn't want to just slide the ball through to him. Maybe Paulinho was just trying too hard to impress a couple of times. Someone speculating on the transfer thread about Sneijder being available for a good price (transfer fee-wise). We would look an entirely different prospect with someone like him in there. What? I can dream! It doesn't happen often.
The swans think that was one of the most one sided ref performances ever? What do the guys here that watched think?
