Down to 10 men a 2 down they gave up trying to win the game and tried to play the clock down. We deserved what we got. We aimed low and finished lower.
Basically turned on the dressing room and said the whole club needed a wake up call if it thought top 4 was possible
Tottenham manager Tim Sherwood speaking to Sky Sports: "You can't legislate for the capitulation - you can't have that. Lack of characters, too many of them too nice to each other and you need to show a bit more guts and not want to be someone's mate all the time. They need to drag it out of each other. "It hurts me and I won't forget about this when we hit the motorway, but some might. "It's not a penalty and not a sending off but the game was finished after that. We've got the Europa League on Thursday and we owe the fans a performance. We let them down again on the big occasion. You won't finish in the top four if you don't beat top teams. You're miles away unless you beat the top teams. "There have been too many blips. The club talks about fourth, wake up." Nice of him to accept responsibility, seeing as it's his side. Doubt that's gone down well with either the players or the chairman.
No other "top team" would roll over and concede 4, 5, 6 like we do, even with 10 men. Drubbings like these are detrimental to morale. Losing 2-0 with 10 men you can say "bad decisions" or "bad day at the office" but the fact it keeps happening, to me, says "no fight or belief" and "heads drop". Both are managerial problems, avb and sherwood
The ref was not the problem. ..the players were vertongen was appalling for the 1st goal and a ****ing disgrace for the 3rd one...he has been **** yet mouths off about wanting CL football...his attitude somes up everything I hate about modern footballers
To paraphrase another well known poster on here, we've replaced a cheap manager with a bargain basement manager (who now looks lost as the pressure mounts and results have taken a dive), and yet we expect top prizes. Anyone else think this is an unrealistic expectation for our club? I have to agree with Sherwood to a degree. Time to get real!
Obviously a very disappointing game. But the problem I would say, is definitely not the talent level of the players. They had mildly the better of it until a big f up, and this was a new group out there. Lots of things happen in sports, but the most predictable is that teams tend to beat lower ranked teams and lose to higher ranked ones. This makes one point in six games against higher ranked teams. It's the same reason players lose in four sets six million times in a row to Nadal, even though they won half the points. They went out deep down in their hearts expecting to fall short, and they did. To be fair, Spurs have turned around some old hoodoos, but the Stamford Bridge one is still holding firm. Yeah, Sherwood shouldn't be saying what he said to the media, even though it's a fairly accurate assessment. A nice formula is: "I wasn't good enough today."
He's right. We sacked the only manager to get us top four and are returning to the system that Redknapp had to fix, which is Levys obsession with a Dof and dodgy signings that the manager isn't comfortable with. I believed when Sherwood was appointed it would be asking too much for top four so in many ways falling away, finishing sixth or seventh, is sadly the best way to progress next year.
Not 100% - but tending to side with Sherwood on this one. We were let down by some abject performances today - particularly an allegedly star defender. There comes a time when the truth needs to be said and whilst the coach has to take responsibility for the style of play and in some cases the players picked, the repeated capitulations on this grand scale are the responsibility of the Muppets on the pitch.
I like the human side of him. There's nothing to gain from hiding emotions. Tim was pissed off, just like all us here. He was like a father showing disappointment to a child. Jose sulked at half time last week and got the plaudits, Tim sulks this week and get chastised. Spurs players didn't seem as pissed off. Adebayor, as friendly as he is, should have been pissed off. He should have earned a yellow for something, but didn't. Lloris, Walker and Dawson were the only ones who genuinely looked pissed off with the team's performance. We spoke about casual violence on the pitch a week back. Where was that today? We would have got away with it. We should have used it.
Losing is ok....being spineless aint and we have been spineless on so many occasions this season West ham, city, liverpool, city and today...non of those performances were acceptable yet we have had 5 since oct...we play benfica twice, arsenal and liverpool this month...I can well see another 2 humiliations coming... But hey ho...at least verts and lloris will get their dream of CL football next season But sherwwod should never have been in this position...if we had appointed a proper manager instead of avb then he would not be our rookie manager waiting to be sacked
Without any casual violence, we are never going to get top 4. Arsenal, 'Pool and Chavs tends to use cheating to gain their advantages in tight games, which I would rather us not do. I'd much rather see see the likes of Daws, Verts, Kaboul, Dembele, and Sandro get stuck in to opponents early on in games - let them feel some pain and know that there'll be plenty more where that came from. It's what Leeds and 'Pool did in the 70s, and was the only reason why those sides won what they did.
We should never have had to appoint Avb. We're going to suffer years of failure to get back into the top four as punishment for removing Redknapp and subsequently VDV. Plus added years of feeling more humiliation for depressing us with Dembele and Dempsey. And don't get me started on Chadli!! Although I'm sure some foreign manager is waiting in the wings for a big pay cheque.
I'm too pissed off to say much. Suffice to say a disgrace of a second half performance by highly paid professionals who should have a lot more pride in themselves, and their club.
I've just seen that interview with Sherwood and he was living up to his Redknapp-lite reputation, in my opinion. Throwing the blame around at everyone other than himself, then making out that a top four finish should be considered an impossibility to protect his own failings. Really not impressed.
There's no point blaming Sherwood, blame the idiot who appointed him - who, incidentally, appointed his predecessor also!....
"The club talk about fourth. Hmmmppphhhh….. wake up!" Tim Sherwood, Saturday 8th March 2014 About time someone said it. Will probably cost him his job sometime soon though.