Losing aint the issue imo But there are many other issues...not in any particular order 1) we were awful in the first halfand and have played like this all season...the second half was better and the last 30 minutes was good... if we had played like the second half all season and were where we are and have the same points I wouldnt have written this 2) why are we using a 27m striker in a way that doesnt play to his strengths? 3) why is our 30m player on the bench and not used as a sub 3 days after his brilliant performance in the EL while erikson who played poorly on thursday started? 4) we dont seem to have learnt lessons....everyone comes to the lane and plays the same way and we continue to struggle to break them down 5) why are we now complaining that our football is being negatively affected by having the smallest pitch in the league? It has been big enough for us to play with wingers for decades 6) why attack the home fans for creating a nervous and quiet atmospgere and then continue to serve up slow tippy tappy boring football with no end product? I was at the first hull match ... the fans were patient but quiet after 15 mins cos the football was uninspired...avb used the fans to detract from a disappointing performance by himself and the team. 7) football is supposed to be about excitement, it is supposed to be about passion and fun but what we have seen this season is anything but...and in truth the same came be said about parts of last season. 8) wtf is the REAL story re lloris...he was ok to come back on minutes later but not to play 7 days later, yet you made the right choice? I genuinely dont believe that we should be beating any particular team but I do believe we have a ream capable of playing exciting attacking attractive football and it is the managers tactics that are stopping this. We should fail trying, that I am used to but we are simply playing a version of football by numbers. We hide behind statistics... krull made 14 saves...the game of his life...the truth is apart from the deflected free kick and the save with his leg he would have have been disappointed if any of the other 12 attempts beat him and the header on the bar was covered by him. We always have grwat posession stats but the truth is we keep the ball where the other team are comfortable with us having it. We have lots of attempts...most are long distance and at the keeper...look at townsend, hundreds of shots and only 1 goal...from a cross! Southampton play a high game, they close down, they play to their players strengths, they are exciting, they scare teams...thats how we should be playing...the winning or losing aint the point...if I cared about that I would never have been a spur...the lack of attractive football is THE issue and nothing looks like changing I have NEVER thought a manager should be sacked, not even gross! I have NEVER booed the team or even left early ( I was there when we lost 4 1 to the goins and still stayed to the bitter end) so am uncomfortable with thinking we should change manager...and like I said I really hope I am wrong
1) I didn't think we were awful in the first half at all, we had a poor 20 minute period but we still created some good chances, Soldado had a free header from a corner at 0-0, there were a couple great crosses flashed across the face of goal and it took a great save from the 'keeper to keep out Soldado's second header. Not brilliant by any means but I thought we'd played well enough and created enough to feel that we should have scored by half time. Second half we couldn't have done much more, certainly AVB couldn't have. If you're going to criticise his tactics in other games you've got to credit him for getting us dominating Newcastle so well, especially since he was robbed of 2 subs by injuries at half time. He can hardly be blamed from players not finishing well enough. 2) What is his game then? I saw a number of good crosses go in that were just begging for him to nick in front of the defender but he was never there. He also had a free header which he should've done much better from so frankly, I don't see what we could've done to accomodate him moree, he simply should've done better in front of goal. 3) I agree with that and AVB should take the blame for it although considering we only had one sub AVB had much choice about I think he was right to bring Defoe on. I'm not defending AVB on this one though, it was a poor decision. 4) I thought we did break them down on several occasions, It's not like Krul spent the whole game saving speculative shots from distance, these were real chances we were creating but we just couldn't get the bastard ball over the line. 5) I thought it was only Dembele that complained, no? There are plenty of times even under 'Arry where we've come up short at home against a stubborn defence too. I don't think AVB's innocent in all this, mind you, his slower build up is certainly guilty of exacerbating the problem though which is why I think we've seen it more this season. 6) He said the crowd were nervous and they were, it's something that 'Arry approached with less diplomacy before too. As I said at the time, his assessment is right but I questioned what could be gained by bringing it up, it looked like he was just venting about a frustration to me. 7) You're right football should be fun. Entertaining? Depends on what your view of entertaining is, I'd argue most sides we've played this season haven't looked to make things particularly entertaining, they've often set up to stifle us for long periods and try and nick a goal as we run our of idea. I wouldn't say their football has been entertaining either but when they've got a result their fans have enjoyed it. So why can't our fans enjoy a result when playing unattractive football? Equally, when we do play attractive football and lose, why are the same dissenting voices as loud as ever? Krul himself said that it was the best performance of his career, as did his manager and most pundits recognise he's made a string of excellent saves too. Sure there were some you'd expect him to save but I'd question our finishing for some of the chances first. Infact good numbers, or not, you missed out the save he made from Soldado's header in the first half, which was the best of the lot as well as some good saves which were made better by the fact he palmed them just beyond Soldado and Defoe who were looking to follow up. Oh and whatever you think of whether Kaboul should've finished that follow up chance, Krul showed excellent reactions to block a shot from 2 yards out, infact I think he saved twice as it came back off Kaboul again. Anyway, the main beef I have is with what I see as a lack of balance in the negativity. AVB's nothing like Ramos, he's got us winning games for a start and the squad actually seem to like him. When AVB's making a point about the atmosphere that people have been saying long before he got there, the reaction is it's his fault for playing boring football. After being accused of not creating enough chances we then force a 'keeper into having the game of his career, the response is that he only had to make a couple of quality saves and we were only good for the last half hour. He just can't escape people criticising him can he? I think there are problems with the team and there are decisions AVB makes that are poor but that doesn't mean that absolutely everything's going wrong and it's all AVB's fault. Our away form is really rather good, for example.
Disagree with this YV. Personally I think the improvement in the second half was largely down to the introduction of Sandro, which as you say, wasn't AVB's choice, it was forced upon him. I doubt we would have dominated the second half quite so much if AVB hadn't been forced to put Sandro into the mix, it was hardly tactical astuteness, more luck. Secondly, why can't AVB be criticised for players not finishing well enough? Surely he ought to be teaching them how to put the ball past the keeper every day in training, ie not shooting directly at him, which is where we fell short. This isn't an isolated incident, we have the most shots on target of any team in the league and one of the lowest goal tallies.
Fair enough on Sandro he did make a big difference but you can't assume that we wouldn't have upped the tempo anyway and had some success, especially since he could've made an attacking sub much earlier on if he wasn't already down to 1 sub after half time. Criticise him for the players not finishing properly if you want, I don't agree as these players have been taught by other coaches for many years before he arrived. If you criticise him for that then you've surely got to praise him for every player that does well too. Personally I'm inclined to think that Dawson, Vertonghen, Lloris, etc were already putting in great performances before AVB had anything to do with them, just as I'm sure the attackers that missed on Sunday weren't doing it because AVB hadn't taught them how to score. Players have to be held responsible for their mistakes too, just as when they do something excellent they should be praised, not AVB.
This isn't an isolated incident though, we have the most shots on target of any team in the league and one of the lowest goal tallies. Surely that's an indication of a fundamental flaw in the coaching set up, it's been going on for ages and seemingly nothing has been done to rectify it. For that there is only one person who can take the blame.
The only flaw I can see is that up until yesterday the argument was that the shot stats weren't important as they were speculative shots, the trouble was that we weren't creating enough real chances, surely one game on it can't now be because players aren't being taught how to shoot well enough. If it is the case, how come we're scoring so many in the cups, is it all down to the 'keepers diving out of the way of our shots in those competitions?
I though we didn't play to badly some of the one touch stuff was top draw,the one thing is we don't attack at pace which gives them time to organise,we need to move the Ball faster,fly down the wings,like we used to and put crosses in
7)You're right football should be fun. Entertaining? Depends on what your view of entertaining is, I'd argue most sides we've played this season haven't looked to make things particularly entertaining, they've often set up to stifle us for long periods and try and nick a goal as we run our of idea. I wouldn't say their football has been entertaining either but when they've got a result their fans have enjoyed it. So why can't our fans enjoy a result when playing unattractive football? Equally, when we do play attractive football and lose, why are the same dissenting voices as loud as ever? I think you are right...Palace, norwich, West Ham, Newcastle, hull, villa didnt play attractive football against us But none of them spent £100m on players this summer ...tbh I would be suprised if they spent that much between them! I havent moaned at us being boring until this thread...in my opinion the poor quality of the football, entertainment wise, is unforgveable given the type of players we spent 100m on
They also didn't lose a player who's amongst the best players in the World. Newcastle are an interesting example though because they brought in a few new attackers in January last year but have only recently started to show any kind of consistency to their side. This is kind of what I mean though, every Spurs fan on here seemed to feel it was unfair to talk about our gross spend rather than our net spent yet now it's for criticising AVB it's suddenly £100mill again. The point was that we can shoot, I know they're not particularly tough opponents but we've scored some good goals. It just seemed ridiculous that everyone thought the lack of goals was AVB's fault as we weren't creating enough chances but then on Sunday we create loads and don't finish well enough, and their 'keeper has a blinder so someone says it's AVB's fault for not teaching them how to shoot. That just seems like criticism for the sake of criticism to me.
We scored eight against Tbilisi and then four against Sheriff, a mark down of 50% and yes we haven't played any team of quality yet. I don't think you can compare AVB with Ramos because the latter started during the season and just worsened until the season's end and then started off badly whereas AVB started at the beginning of the season and has kept us up in the top positions. This is his first full second season in the PL and he started off well for Chelsea and then faded so are we seeing his traditions now? I say we wait until we play two strikers ie Hernandez with Bobby because a lone striker has never suited us. Ade isn't the answer and neither's Defoe and it's time he left. I say we let him see his contract out.
AVB vs Ramos. Both spent near (or over) £100m and have failed to get the best out of their signings. Both have so far failed to entertain the fans with style of play (though Ramos did get a trophy, albeit with most of Jol's squad bar 1 or 2). Both came with exciting reputations yet failed to live up to the hype. Worryingly seem too similar to me.
Ramos won the Europa league in style with a team that was known for closing down. Avb won the Europa league in style with a team that was known for its closing down. Both managers come to us and haven't a clue about team tactics, make odd subs and then turn us into boring Tottenham. However Ramos won a cup and AVB has got us near top four. So one is a boring manager that wins us a cup, the other is a boring manager that helps us fail to get top four. But all '' jokes'' aside, there are similarities and Ramos was highly regarded, when he came here every pundit told us he would transform the team, turn us into a team of warriors, high fitness levels. In many ways Avb is doing what Ramos failed to do with a squad better suited to that style but they both shared the same belief in team setup. I remember Real Madrid hired Ramos after he left us, his confidence was fairly shot by then and he was nothing more then a stop gap. He probably regrets ever taking the '' dizzy offer'' made by us.
Yeah definitely, I think his appointment got the most excitement out of Spurs fans in years. We all genuinely believed he was "The One". Career went down the pan with/ after us.
Think I remember him being exiled to some poxy Russian club after Madrid...? EDIT: Yup, CSKA. And now at Dnipro
We won't know now but I thought that if Ramos had stayed he'd have put it right. I'm going to stick my neck out and say there'll come a turning point this season that when AVB knows his best team it'll come right. There's already been gloom about our prospects at City but I don't know.
Ramos must take some credit for his time at Sevilla of course, but imo he was fortunate to have a nucleus of players that fitted and were in peak career form, Kanoute is one that springs to mind. A lot of managers have this happen, you get a group of players that just click, if you're honest you don't know why, they just do. If the manager can replicate this at another club, like say Mourinho who's built, tweaked and refined more than one title winning side then you can dismiss luck and be happy you have a good manager. It was very short-sighted of our board to think Ramos would continue in this vein. Ramos was only at Sevilla the 2 yrs they won the Uefa, suggesting he'd inherited much of that team, before that he was changing clubs as often as his underpants, Espanyol for example having enough of him after 5 games (4 defeats and a draw).
15 managerial jobs in his career and never stayed at one job longer then 3 years. That would get you blacklisted at most recruitment agencies!! , but not THFC, we done the dirty on Jol. Worked out in the end as we won a cup and his screw up in the league got rid of Commoli and Brought us Redknapp.
I still think the jury's out on Mourinho - he's always had one of the top 2 squads in the league and has always had outrageous sums of money to spend. Put him in charge of a Spurs or Everton and he'd be no better than the rest have been, I'd wager.
