Simply put, we had better creative players in the Europa League - Sigurdsson in the first leg, Carroll and Holtby in the second leg.
You lost 1-3 to Villa and beat a very poor Fulham but you like us are scoring more freely in Europe so I don't know which way or what how to measure form.
I personally felt Walker was awful today. I don't rate him at all, poor defensively and attacking today.
A deserved win for arsenal. They looked solid and defended very well. There was an excellent understsnding between their attacking players and they could have scored more if it hadnt been for lloris. I am sick and tired of seeing us line up without a play maker. ****ing sick of it. The minute I saw capoue, dembele and paulinho as our midfield 3, I knew soldado was going to be isolated all afternoon. I'm also fed up with this tactic of getting it to the wide players who cut in all the time. It's so ****ing obvious. Without a play maker we are sussed out in no time. It was like there was a Barrier between the midfielders and the forwards. The set up was too defensive, we didnt stand a chance of making opportunities for soldado. There was no fluidity to our game at all. Holtby should have started today and Dembele should have been sacrificed. Once again dembele was below par. Walker was also shocking and capoue was caught in possession and gave the ball away too much. It's gutting getting beaten by arsenal, but when you've given everything you've got, you can't ask for any more. -However, that wasnt the case today.What annoyed me today was the set up. I'm sick of moaning about it, when it's so obvious. PLAYMAKER!!! And what's also annoyed me is all these bandwagon muppets who are all creaming over lamela's 14 mins. He did nothing to justify the positivity because he was brought on far too late and didnt have time. Rant over. Fair play to arsenal, a hard fought result, which was deserved over the 90mins.
All that proves is the poor quality of europa league opponents. Don't tell me that you wouldn't have rather scored 8 in the premier league.
Most of us did not feel good about this game. We need to have patience and wait at least a couple of months, I would say, before we judge the team or the manager too harshly. However... I was just wondering if everyone else felt we should have brought Holtby on at halftime, or started him. I was actually okay with the starting lineup, on the theory we were trying to scratch out a draw, considering we haven't had enough time to develop a cutting edge. But the moment we went behind (and it was an excellent finish from Giroud), we should have changed tactics. The lack of a playmaker is mystifying, particularly as Holtby excelled in that role last game. Another thing which we should have in our toolkit is the ability to break at speed. Put very simply Arsenal created better opportunities because they got the ball down the field before our defenders could settle, whereas we patiently waited for them to get good and ready. Hard to name players for us who were good, except for Lloris, who was superb, as he's been all season. Paulinho and Dembele didn't do enough. Townsend did get himself free and shot on goal, but they were pretty tame shots. Lamela looked good in a cameo, I thought. Rose was decent. It's easy to say Walker was awful. He certainly made a lot of mistakes. But I was impressed with how much he had the ball. He certainly didn't go hiding. AVB got outmanaged, setting up defensively and then getting hit on the break. Still: having most of the ball away to Arsenal is something of an accomplishment. I thought it might be 0-0, and it would have been if hadn't been for a combination of horrible defending and excellent finishing on their goal. We're already difficult to score on and to beat. The proof of the pudding is whether we can score. So I'll continue to be patient, while hoping we both start a playmaker every game, and learn to break at speed. Were there really people who thought we were title contenders this year? Integrating this many new players means we'll be taking steps backwards to go forwards.
Blimey! Looks like Liverpool to win the league and Spurs and United relegated...... No.Not really!A slight hic cup for both of them.....but someone had better show their forwards where the goal is!!!!! No need to make Arsenal look good. I did like the smirk on Whiners face after.Looked just like the mayor in the USA who's been molesting women!
Holy cow; thought I'd logged on the Arse board by mistake with the amount of plastic flying around. Don't recall hearing any Wenger out today. 5 of our front 6 had never played a NLD and Dembele is adjusting to playing in a new position from last year. Deliberate was definitely the word for Spurs - a lot of thought going into what they were doing rather than just doing it and you could see how sluggish we were on the ball compared to Arsenal. This match at WHL will be a completely different story and, if Arse sign Ozil and a notable striker, the game of the season.
I didn't want to talk too much about negatives today but I've highlighted the two major points I completely agree with. I expected them 3 mids to start today but did say to my mate that this is likely to be Dembele's last start unless he pulls a rabbit out of a hat. Without sounding big headed, I think I'm right and this was Dembele's last start (for a while at least). I'd be extremely disappointed if AVB sticks with that sort of midfield again. Dembele has worryingly become very innefectual... I'm not sure from now on, why we'd need him to start in league games providing Paulinho and Sandro/ Capoue are fit. Dembele is supposedly an attacking mid or can dip in with a little defensive duties, yet Paulinho was doing most of our bombing forward from CM while Capoue/ Sandro AND Paulinho were tracking back and breaking up play, I'm not sure what Dembele is currently offering that we don't already have in the other two players. This now brings me to the point of needing a playmaker, we've got a destoryer - Sandro/ Paulinho and we have a player capable of running with the ball over 20/30 yards and popping up with some goals - Paulinho, adding a playmaker to that list - Eriksen (or Holtby/ Sig), will result in a very diverse 3 in the centre of the park, all with different jobs to do. Soldado was yet again isolated, the fact we now seem to play with two wing forwards means their needs to be creativity from the centre of park and today, there was jack ****. Eriksen MUST start against Norwich for me, I don't want none of the bedding in bullshit AVB done with Lloris last year otherwise we have a £26m goal machine not getting service. Then onto Lamela, I was pretty peeved that at 1-0 down, we decided to bring on our record signing with only 15 minutes left. Yes I appreciate he's only had 1 or 2 training sessions with the lads but we've forked out a **** load of money on this kid, giving him 15 minutes was a bad call from AVB. I thought when he came on he showed a few neat touches, especially at one point making 3 or 4 Arsenal players go one way after dropping his shoulder, unfortunately his shot was lame but it was nice to see the sort of skill we can expect. If only he'd been on the pitch longer to allow his confidence to grow, we could have left with a point today as he's clearly a player with immense skill and potential and capable of doing something magic. Tactically today, AVB had a nightmare. Like I said in a previous post though, we now have pretty much two weeks to A) Get the players to know one another B) Get tactics and formation sorted and C) I can't think of a C but it just looks good to say C). I'm very optimisitc for the season ahead, I do believe we have a special squad and with time, we'll see performances that'll be far superior to anything we've seen over this season and last.
How can you be so embarrassing, Tblisi were utter ****e, as poorer side in both legs as I've seen. Our open play scoring in the PL is the issue here, and thats eveb more ****e. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Townsend wasn't so odd as a sub, went outside Gibbs in the first two minutes then never tried again I don't think, cutting in and shooting whilst ignoring teamates was getting predictable. It was less effective this week as the Goons appeared ready for him. My issue with him is not much of a plan B. Lamela going on was another odd one, unless he did something in one training session that surpassed Holtby, not sure why he got the nod there. I've been challenged recently on Dembele's worth, watch it again and count the sideways/backwards passes, actually no, just the forward ones, you'll only need one hand. As for the tactician, same mistakes, same performance, different names, whats the common denominator? Cue time to gel cliche for the next months. Title challengers!...
We haven't looked like a proper team yet all season against Premier League opposition, let alone an established CL team like Arsenal. Chadli staying on the pitch was mystifying when you compare his performance to Townsend's. Its painfully clear as everyone has seen and said that we need a playmaker and we need the players to get to know each other sharpish and we need those two factors to combine and allow us to support and create chances for Soldado. Thankfully it looks like we have the personnel at the club to produce these results and produce a balanced midfield. I'm glad to see that most of the reaction on here is not knee-jerk, everyone realises that we will need time to gel and I reckon we'd all be saying this even if we'd scraped a point or three. There is more to come from this squad, far, far more. EDIT: just read notso's post above mine and I'd like to clarify that I'm not saying we'll gel (yes I know its a bit of a cliche) and then win the title...not by any means! What we do have is a serious squad and once it's key components have got to know each another's game properly then I think we'll see the performances markedly improve. I'm not dismissing AVB's mistakes during the game or at any other point during his tenure here either.
Thank goodness we signed Eriksen - the squad is in dire need of a bridge between the striker and the midfield. Dembele needs to take a long hard look at his performance too as it was so far off acceptable. Arsenal played well and were first to every 50/50 ball - they were far more up for the game than we were. Deserved win. Also - for all the talk about Lloris playing so well - yes he did but the goal beat him at his near post. Bad game, bad result - but the squad do need a long time to gel - people are being unrealistic if they thought we could sign 7+ players and instantly expect the team to form naturally.
Sorry Hudd, it may look like a dig at you but I had no idea you'd put it. Site's been off so when i came back on I just wrote my post without catching up reading everyone elses....shows I was right though! My concern is the creativity we crave has been put on the shoulders of two 21 yr olds with...15 minutes combined PL experience. Some players who've attempted it in 3 matches so far, are so bad its scary. There will be more dodgy results, we will fall behind and won't catchup, is one scenario.
Amazing how people have turned on our squad and AVB because we lost to Arsenal. We were still missing our 2 most creative players, Lamela and Eriksen so what were people expecting? If anything I was encouraged, we dominated possession and just lacked someone that could turn it into chances, that is something Eriksen and Lamela can do in abundance. You could see in the 15mins that he played Lamela can do that. As for people gushing over him, come on he only had 15mins and was decent but did nothing incredible, but I do think he showed glimpses. Also it frustrates the living **** out of me that people think Townsend played well. Yes he looked decent on the ball but has the football brain of a ******ed chimp. He either tried to beat too many players or pops a shot at goal; granted he has a decent shot but he needs to be aiming them better. At the minute he beats his man and hits it as hard as he can in the general direction of goal when there are players wide open in the box, that players like Lamela & Chadli tried to pick out. Townsend was decent but nothing better than that, desperately need to loan him out and get him some experience playing in a first 11 week in week out as we have better players (Chadli, Lamela, Lennon even Holtby out wide) I am pleased with our performance with the knowledge that we had a lot of new signings, it was away to an Arsenal team that know each other inside out and they only managed 1 goal (that says a lot for our defence today even with the mistake for the goal) we were also missing our 2 key creative players. People acting like the world is ending and we are going to get relegated this year just because of a 1-0 defeat to an Arsenal side that defended and counter attacked extremely well.
Ok so we lost by a goal to nil to our biggest rivals today and it was disappointing to have the double blow of Bale's confirmed departure but let's be pragmatic about out season so far, with only three games played... On the plus side, we didn't get blown out of the park. You can see that AVB wanted a solid midfield to protect the back line and all decent teams are built on a solid foundation. But it takes time... The weak link in our team is without doubt Danny Rose who was caught out by Walnut and that allowed the cross for Giroud to score. Rose clearly isn't good enough and a new LB or a reconciliation between Benoit and AVB can't come fast enough. But I am not so concerned as some others are. We just signed 7... yes 7 new players and our midfield is unrecognisable compared to last season. I remember when Man City signed the same sort of numbers a few years back and they huffed and puffed to fourth playing solid, dull and safe football. The following season they were a totally different prospect and won the title. The point is my fellow yids is this team needs time on the training pitch to gel. Yes, it's a very obvious statement to make but a defeat is in my view exactly what we needed today. Why? Because we have two solid weeks to take a hard look at ourselves, get to work on our creative play and get guys like Lamela and Eriksen integrated, ready and eager to impress. There could still be more to come but AVB wanted to go to the Emirates today and not get totally blown away. I can understand his mentality but it just didn't quite work out. He will come good. Yes it was frustrating to see such a lack of creativity but I bet a huge sum that the first eleven that plays the most come December will look a lot different than it did today in terms of names and playing style. We can improve. We will improve. Keep the faith. Keep behind the team. Have a rant or two on here but frankly, I feel the signings we have will blossom and improve massively given the time they need. They're too good not to. These guys won't know the true pace and power of the Premier League until they've played a good 6-8 games and even then, they will still have much to learn. I actually feel Capoue could develop into a towering midfielder. Almost our own version of Vieira dare I say it. Paulinho needs to find his footing and get forward more. Dembelé will be on the bench more and more as the weeks pass by I am sure and we'll see better, more direct players take our game forward. Saldado will get the service he craves. We've have a new generation of Spurs players in our squad and I have never seen so many new faces come into the club in one transfer window in my lifetime. We can't expect them to have that instinctive, sixth sense that only practice, training and match wins will bring. It will come given the time they need. COYS!!!
Well there we go then. The first real test against a tactically astute premiership manager, ends in disappointment. Spurs looked strangely pedestrian, as if encumbered by the handicappers top weight. In addition the back four (defense) appeared to be lacking in any sort of cohesiveness, behind AVB's crowded midfield. The management has spent a shed load of money to bring in a lorry full of fresh midfielders. Today, it looked as though AVB had intended to pack them all on to the pitch, at the same time. This is not a tactic that will win games against experience premiership managers like Masseurs Wenger and Co. As we know, Spurs have not scored a single solitary goal from open play so far this premiership season and struggled to break ordinary teams down last time around. It is patently obvious, to some, that team tactics and methods are not working in terms of scoring goals, so why AVB persists with this lone striker business when up against well drilled defensive units is beyond me. And why play a high-line back-four against a set of quick, attack minded players . This more often then not is tantamount to competitive suicide. AVB has to put his faith in these players and give them the space to perform. A change to an uncomplicated 4: 4: 2 should be tried. I'm now forced to check my stock of rum.
Just to clarify my position well away from your assumption, my post is based on 3 games not one for some, and a season and 3 games for others, the only person with an end of the world attitude is you at something you disagree with. State your case, but less of the derisory comments about views wider than your own.
C What derisory comments have I made in that post? All I did was give reasons why I don't think it's the end if the world we lost today!?!
