Forgot that capoue had to drop back from being a dm...so ignore my we need to look for a new one... This is why I am a fan and not a manager
Capoue, Bentaleb and Dier were the only ones to come out of the game with any credit, for me. Actually I'd add Townsend as he did well when he came on. Rose did well going forward but Downing caused him far too much trouble.
Lets not forget that although we did have our moments at the back, Adrian had to make a couple of very good saves from Townsend and when Kane blasted into one of their defenders on the break we had Rose over in space on the outside left. On another day, with some different luck and some better decision making in one or two key moments we could have had margin of a couple of goals! Fine margins in football eh?
Thanks, YV. If there is one thing I cannot stand, it is effing guilt-ridden "redress the balance" cards by refs. I will wait for MOTD, but the Football Focus crew are saying Naughton was off balance and looking away when the ball hit him. But the boys survived 10 vs 11 for 30 mins at the Academy of Hoof, Nemesis with the penalty, and a win with a clean sheet. Was going to say Pochettino has a few months break before thinking how to deal with the repeat tactics at WHL, but Allardyce will probably be gone by then.
Agreed KH, I think he is currently the only player in our squad that can even come close to being one of the best in his position in the world. After the game today I would put the players into 3 classes: Done well and can be pleased with their days work: Dier, Lloris, Capoue, Bentaleb Good in parts but could + need to do better on occasion: Rose, Eriksen, Lennon, Lamela, Adebayor Poor and need to improve drastically: Kaboul, Naughton (although he was a tad unlucky with the Red Card) In terms of the subs, Townsend injected pace and tested the keeper well, Holtby provided his usual industry, and Kane did shoot IMO a bit prematurely on a breakaway but more than made up for that by providing a neat assist for Dier. Overall they had a very positive impact.
Just looking at the BBC stats for the game, less fouls committed and no cards other than Naughton. Being 10 vs 11 for 30 mins in a Foy fest I would have expected far worse than that. So credit also to the boys for not letting any frustrations boil over on-pitch.
Got yoinked into work today, so missed all the footy, but that was a cool finish for a defender. Odd URL Inda, is that to dodge the Prem copyrighters, that have even pulled Young's birdcrap incident from youtube already?
It's funny what gives you the most pleasure when you watch football. In this case it was the moment Dier slid to ground to get better leverage on his shot and the camera showed the Tottenham end already jumping up and down with their arms raised. A pretty ugly game, but very, very pretty in the end. The first time I saw Dier play I thought he was going to start here for a long time. Now I'm not so sure how long it will be till Real or Barca put in a bid. If necessary, what's not to like about him at right back. All he did was defend flawlessly, make a very clever run and score on a ball 3/4 strikers would miss. His first touch was absolutely perfect. Lloris still pushed him for MoM, though. I hope we'll get to see the Pochettino system next game. I wasn't really surprised. We looked equally crap against Chicago, a bunch of League One level players who also clogged. I even think this was intentional to some degree. Trying to play a very aggressive game against a West Ham type team when your team can't quite know what it's doing was always a questionable strategy. As it happened, the in between thing we were doing was probably even worse, but things somehow worked out. The problem looked quite simple, really. Time after time we lost the ball trying low percentage through balls when we needed to simply pass to the open man and move. Excellent showing by Kane, assisting for the winning goal after being brought on at the 80 minute mark. Okay, let's stop the season right now. This is too perfect. Hangeland hadn't scored in 97 games till a minute ago.
Looking at the goal, that was 7 vs 3 with all the Spanner players in a 10 yd band. So nice to slice the bus apart like that.
It's not my link. The uploaders, who often upload a dozen video clips a day, run out of free space quickly. They use applications to create multiple accounts with random names.
"The equivalent of nipping on through the middle doors and jumping out the emergency exit" And when two prat mothers have jammed the middle aisle with massive kiddy buggies.
I actually thought Naughton was, again, OK until the sending off. Mind you he did manage to take a throw-in which went out for a West Ham throw in! I'm actually more comfortable with him as back-up RB nowadays though I'm not sure it'll be necessary: we may well have unearthed a gem with Dier and with Yedlin coming in January and we need to make spaces in the squad this might be his time to go. We had already glimpsed how composed and confident Dier seemed in defence but now we see how composed he is in front of goal. Also good to see the effect that the subs made. That and the fact that a late goal, undoubtedly assisted by high levels of fitness, will help Pochettino get players to buy into his methods. It all feels so positive right now, despite the fact that we were a bit crap again and got an almost AVB-like 1-0. Strange...
I don't think Yedlin comes in until the start of the 2015/16 Season lennypops, but I agree that Naughton is a decent enough backup RB. Considering what we're paying him, I'm happy to keep him on the books as a backup, as long as he doesn't play LB ever! And quite how he managed to throw that ball out I don't know. Its still early doors with Dier but he's looking very promising. He's even got a turn of pace about him which is an excellent asset at CB. If he can keep these early performances up I can't see any reason for him to be dropped from the team, even when Verts comes back into the fold and Chiriches comes back from his (supposed) injury. Thats a big IF he keeps performing of course.
