I wasn't saying that I'm worried about lamela or that I think he's ****, lol. It was really for those who know more about him to explain to me what he offers as I know nothing about him. I banged on about eriksen because he was a player I genuinely thought was (is) quality. But like I say, I know nothing about lamela. Hopefully he'll adjust sooner rather than later. - same goes for a couple of others too.
"If you think about it we are MUCH better than when Harry was coach". I think about it a lot. I feel we look as if we might turn out to be better than when Harry was with us. No more than that at the moment.
Yeah Its all potential, but some of our players have a long way to go before they can match the quality of King, Bale, Modric, Vdv, Lennon.....even Adebayor for that season. On paper and performance Redknapp had a superb team, more exciting and balanced then our current one. Yet on paper this current team has players with potential, if all their reputations are matched with performance and they turn out to be great, we could have a better team, but to say its MUCH better is a tad OTT. If Avb fails to get 4th this year, then I think overall our fans will view it as a failure as they put too much pressure on a new team to match what Redknapp done.
We are third in the PL, way on top of group K and conceding very few goals, I'd say that we are much better but hey it's only a word.
But then when we was 3rd, few points off the top and widely seen as the most exciting team in the country, things changed very quickly Thor! Avb has the luxury of big money investment, deep squad, Redknapp never had that luxury so I expect Avb will be able to field better teams in certain cups but ultimately he still hasnt achieved what Redknapp done so if really has a much better team then I would hope he can at least get us top four.
"Personally I blame AVB for taking us from 4th to 5th last season. Maybe after tonight's fiasco, those who were dancing in the streets at gaining a record points total, will realise he significance of missing out on CL and pissing around in a joke competition." We didn't get CL because we weren't good enough. Just like the season before. Failing by 1 pt makes it just more painful. I subscribe to a 'battery life' theory, wherein the squads only had so many PL points in them over a season. And that whether they were gathered in Arrys' glorious P11 W10 D1, or the steady plod of last season, is moot. This summer the squad battery life looks on paper to have got a serious upgrade. If you subscribe to a view that the squad was capable of much more, and the managers blew it, then of the two, Arry deserved capital punishment for the collapse of 2012.
Right Boss, you've just admitted it haven't you? We have better players because of money, we have a deeper squad too so all in all we are better than we were under Harry. I think AVB will achieve better than Harry because there'll be no tax cases or Portugal manager speculation to distract and I'm certain we'll make top four judging by how the Manchesters are playing. Also Chelsea and Arsenal are capable of slipping up as are Liverpool as we have seen.
Lamela wasn't great tonight but like Boss said, lets not forget the lad has had a horrible personal issue to deal with so you can't blame the guy if his head hasn't been right since joining. Plus from what it looks like, the lad knows no English whatsoever which is also a tough ask, especially as we have no other Argentinian in the squad to help him settle. He's 21 and English football is so much more advanced than the Serie A, he seems a very slight of frame guy as well so he could definitely do with a couple of gym sessions with Capoue, Sandro and Kaboul. PLUS in all the games he's started, he's been with a team playing at about 60% capacity, our Europa/ Cup squad hasn't over exerted themselves to ensure they're as fit as possible for the league - and massive credit to them for scoring plenty of goals and still yet to concede while clearly not hitting top gear. When Lamela came on against Cardiff, where we were all guns blazing so to speak, it was he who set up the winner for Paulinho. I think Lamela needs a couple of starts in the league where the intensity is full on, only that way will het get to know "the real Spurs", I know Townsend has impressed in most of his games but we need to make sure we bed in our new signing as quickly as possible, I'd hate it if some fans turn on him because he hasn't produced any "magic" - and lets be honest, there can be some right knobheads in the crowd if players are having an off day. As for the game overall, I was impressed with how easily we nullified Anzhi, Hugo only had to make one or two proper saves, the pitch was horrible so getting our passing game going was a real toughy. Going to Russia and coming home with 2 goals, 3 points and yet another clean sheet while (going back to my previous point) playing no where near top gear, it's a satisfying result. Chiriches looked a bit headless in the opening spells but came to life after about 30 minutes. Such a shame Kaboul went off, I love the guy and was desperate to see him back in league action soon... Doesn't look like it'll be happening for a while now. Delighted for Defoe, 1 away now from becoming our leading European scorer, for me he more than deserves a start against West Ham. Happy for Chadli too, he's come in for a bit of stick lately yet has grabbed 2 goals since returning from his little injury, hopefully we'll soon be seeing the Twente player that caught the eye of a lot clubs last season. MOTM for me though was Holtby, bar one of two stray passes, his passing overall was great and he's notched another assist, he also deserves a star in the league now I think, only problem is who drops out!?
Anzhi haven't won a match in any competition all season so for me 0-2 against them is a bit forlorn. Had we lost or drawn to a team which hasn't won it would have been a catastrophe. I hope for a 4-0 easily at home.
The football under Harry was much more of a joy to watch than it is under AVb but I think AVB has sacrificed some of the flair too add some steel. 9 clean sheets in 11 games is very un-Spurs like and very impressive. Everyone knows I was very "pro Harry"/ "anti-AVB" but I won't deny AVB has massively impressed me. Still makes some really stupid decisions but all in all, this is the most excited about a Spurs team I've ever been and AVB has played a huge part in it... To think that in the last 2 years we've lost King, Modric, van der Vaart, the on form Adebayor and Bale, it's incredible how well we've done. If we can just get some of our new signings to reach their previous club's form and push on, I think we can be a major, major force.
We didn't lose or draw though TMT, the Spurs of last (and previous) seasons might well have done so. This season (and I hope I don't jinx it by saying) we're killing off the teams we should be with relative ease. 2-0 away from home in Russia is a very good result, take into consideration the tiredness from flights, wanting to conserve as much energy for West Ham and the horrendous pitch, coming away with 3 points is all that matters.
Eh. Thor where did I say we have better players? deeper squad yes, but that doesn't mean we have better players in terms of the 1st team, as I just told you my views about how this team is just potential and doesn't have the quality of players Redknapp had. If you personally believe we now have a much better team then top four is minimum, but my view is currently the team Redknapp had was more proven, exciting but we never had the deep squad to help deal with tough periods.
We won. Another shut-out. Another game for the newbies to settle in. And a pitch that could have been an injury pit but wasn't. Not much more to ask for IMHO.
SoS : Once Lennon is back, and Townsend tries to play like Bale 2010-11 rather than Bale 2012-13, we have more of the football of 2011-12. Together with the oppressive MF that AVB seems to like.
Yeah, can't complain. This was about as blah a game as we'll have all year, and we got done what we needed to do (unlike all those draws we had to kick of the Europa last year). Interesting record this year: we've had a bunch of winnable games, and won them all. We've had two tough ones, and got one point from six. The former is more important than the latter to get fourth, just the reverse to win cups. I'm not worried about Lamela either, but it looks like he may have a problem adjusting to not being the focalpoint. He'll get over it eventually, I think, and then again he may become the focalpoint.
Yeah I think given time he will become a key/ main player. The prospect of an on form supporting trio of Lamela, Eriksen, Chadli right behind (an on form!) Soldado, it's a mouth-watering thought!
