I'm not going to go on about it cos players, managers, fans and pundits alike are seemingly fine with watching people cheat and come up with the most bizarre and clearly false arguments to defend their players and clubs but I would just like to remind Lucaaaas what the word "grab" means: "grab verb: grab; 3rd person present: grabs; past tense: grabbed; past participle: grabbed; gerund or present participle: grabbing 1. grasp or seize suddenly and roughly. "she grabbed him by the shirt collar"" If you can actually read that definition of the word "grab" and still think that it applies in this case then there is no reasoning with you and you're clearly happy to watch a bunch of cynical cheats week after week and not complain just so long as your team cheats better than the other team. I'd rather something, anything, even just fans disapproving of their own players on forums like this for a start, was done to try to push the game in a more sporting, honest and skillful direction. But not many fans seem to care and instead talk of "contact" and "good" dives and "bad" dives and how defenders are at fault for allowing attackers the option of having a good, old-fashioned cheat. 20 years ago all football fans in this country would be condemning behaviour which nowadays is excused and approved of in frankly embarrassing ways. Ask any fan of any other sport what is clearly **** about football and they'll tell you - the farcical diving like what we saw today. Try telling a fan of rugby that contact like that is enough to go down or, indeed, have ANY effect on your physical movement. Try doing that and not feeling like an absolute grade 1 tosser.
It's because we're a '' big club '' look at Ryan Shawcross, if he performed to the standard he does at Stoke for us ( if we signed him) fans would be calling him world class and the future of English football. dier is OK but honeymoon period is over now and he will probably turn out to be just a decent defender and no better then James Collins ( who scores from corners by the way).
Dier's a 20 year old playing out of position in his first month of english football. He is going to be quality.
To rate Dier one way or the other at the moment, is ridiculous! He is a 20yr old, who looks to be a genuine prospect. He obviously has much to learn still ( just hope he's not been watching Kaboul today! ) Similarly, it's ridiculous to judge Pochettino on a handful of games with a squad he inherited. He will need time to get his ideas across. For perspective, Van Gaal has spent a net £149mil so far, from published figures. And how are Utd doing??
The last two teams we played both start with LI and finish with OL and 3-0 but in opposite directions, hey ho.
Players can perform very differently from club to club, manager to manager, season to season, but I do take your point, Shawcross should've been given a proper chance with england when Terry and Rio's days were over. Zaha got called up as soon as he signed for United even though he was far from ready. Wes Brown's callups ended as soon as he left United for Sunderland. I've no idea what this magic is that makes someone suddenly much better just for having a squad number at a bigger club.
Of course we wouldn't. There are five teams with much more financial clout than us. Harry inherited our best ever squad, did some reasonable work strengthening it and getting the best out of the players and got fourth while Liverpool were nowhere, and either City were not yet out of the blocks or Chelsea were having their worse season for years. He left no legacy in terms of signings or young players coming through. I shudder to thing how he would have spent the Modric or Bale money. The only way we can compete with the five clubs above us is to a) get lucky with signings and b) get lucky with the manager. We've done pretty well on a) except for the time Harry was in charge. On b) Levy is right to keep trying out new managers until we get a special one.
We finished 4th twice in 3 years under Harry so who to say we wouldn't have managed it again in the two seasons since he has gone.
You are right - nobody really knows. But he would have to have got more points than he ever did against better opposition with a worse squad so I'm not sure why he should.
Saints lost 0-3 to Liverpool last season and didn't give up on him but well, we are Spurs so we probably will.
2012-13 (minus Modric and VDV) then he probably would have got the same mileage out of Bale as AVB did (difficult to see what more could have been squeezed out of that stone) . 2013-14 is IMHO pure speculation as Arry would not have had a DoF, and which players would have come in to offset the loss of Bale is difficult to say (and I mean outside of the "triffic family man" candidates/jokes) .
Indeed they did, but the difference was we actually outplayed them in that game to the extent that Gerrard is quoted as saying they couldn't believe they'd won it let alone by 3. The same 2 weeks ago, never in a million years were Liverpool better than us, we dominated most of the game. Doesn't sound like you out played them?
Whatever squad Harry Redknapp inherited, whatever any of the circumstances either before or since, the reality is he took us to where we wanted to be. In addition to achieving that, he also took us on an unexpected run into the latwr stages of the CL and at the same time, playing an entertaining style of attacking football. There was a time when Keegan's Newcastle side were dubbed everyone's second favourite team because of their entertainment. The very same was said of Harry's Spurs team and rightly so. Ever since, we have stumbled through a season and at times have looked a million miles from those days. Ever since we have lost over 1000 season ticket holders through frustration at the crap we have had to endure since Redknapp left. It is inappropriate to say Redkapp wouldn't have done this, he wouldn't have done that. What is appropriate is to admit we are a long way today from where we were on the day Harry left.
Can't argue with any of that. He must have been very frustrating for Levy though, as our Chairman is a very logical businessman and I can see the attraction of managers with more financial understanding.
Personally, I would credit Harry with bringing Bale on. However, I believe that only happened when he had to play Bale from necessity. But, do I think he would have done as well as he did previously minus the 3 players I mentioned? No, I don't.
It was a soft penalty but its one of those where people will regularly come out with one of two statements: 1) "If you're going to award them we'd see six or seven penalties every game" and 2) "If it was anywhere else on the pitch it would have been a freekick" All I'll say is, the defender put his arm out forcing the referee into making a decision, blame him!
