So after 4 matches what do we make of our start? Positives; 1) the football has been good to watch apart from liverpool match 2) chadli and lamela seem to be finding their feet 3) Dier has settled in 4) we have 1 more point from the same matches than last season ( west ham = +3; qpr (norwich) = equal; pool = equal and sunderland = -2) 5) we have had no luck .... outragous red card in west ham match, 2 stupid penalty decisions in pool match, a stupid pen decision today and hit woodwork twice and an own goal....that has got to change Negatives 1) liverpool performance 2) defensively suspect 3) inexperienced manager making mistakes ... think his subs today were a mistake I think its been a steady start and I woukd have taken this at the beginning of the season. Pochetinno will hopefully learn from his mistakes and as the players get more used to him and visa versa we should see bigger and better things. I do worry about us against the better teams and think we are at risk of getting a beating against the goons in a fortnight but hope everyone especially levy keeps their nerve with the manager. I think we will come 5th or 6th but I fancy us to win a cup
Scratchy at best against West Ham and we should have scored more against Hoops, Liverpool I think was an aberration and are on a roll against us and we should have won today. The fact that we didn't means we have made an inconsistent start . Europa also a touch hampered. We languish 5 points behind Chelsea which says it all. I'm not too pleased with the start but feel we will improve. I stated that I thought Poch is a bit immature and I think we are seeing it. There needs to be more stability and more self belief instilled into the players. Also too much is being placed in Ade's ability.
Good performance today and could have won easily on another day, and almost certainly would have done but for being denied another blatant penalty. Four games in and already we have had a player incorrectly sent off, conceded a penalty to a dive when the player should instead have had a second yellow and had two certain penalties denied, our rotten luck with referee decisions seems never ending. I like the football we have played barring the Pool match though, and we should slowly improve as the season goes on.
Billy, I'm not one to lecture but please try and get away from the dependence on being awarded a penalty to win a match because there's nothing to say that the penalty taker will score it, a penalty as you know is not a guaranteed goal.
If I was to grade it, I'd give it a C+/ B-. Positives: The football has improved a lot - major tick. As RCL mentioned we're a point better off from the matches than last season (should be more but bad luck and s**t reffing cost us). Chadli is finding the Twente form, Lamela is slowly finding the Roma form. Dier has settled in really well, especially considering I don't think most expected him to play much so early on. With Chelsea aside, no other top side has looked totally convincing nor much better than us which still gives me the belief we can have a much better season than many believe. Sounds silly but the body language of most players seems more vibrant and happy, there were so many times last season where players looked uninterested. Poch seems to have a genuine philosophy which I like in a manager. AVB always spoke of an idea/ project yet it never showed on the pitch and Sherwood just thought throwing everyone up front would win a game. Poch's style is already being seen, we seem a lot fitter, we press more and we seem more confident in our ability to attack. I think we're at about 75% capacity under him and that's hugely promising for me. Negatives: Failure to kill teams off/ finish easy chances, yesterday was a prime example and had we came away with the 3 points, I'd have given a B+/ A-. We should've also got 2 against Pool which would have changed the game. Kaboul's form, just looks a shadow of the player. Defence overall is still shaky, considering that on paper we have real quality, we just seem to struggle to be a proper unit. Selling Sandro. Was gutted to see him go regardless of prior injuries and the reported fee is shocking. Referees still seem to have it in for us. Liverpool result was a blow but as I said in the match day thread, I thought the game was pretty poor overall but Pool had the all important finishing touch (and the luck of a pen).
The 2nd half of the 1st half against pool wasn't that bad i thought. It wasn't that penetrating but we looked good and really should have scored. That pen decision derailed us completely. Haven't seen anything of Sunderland. I think we're on par or maybe a couple of shots under, but we're not dominating the course.
I'm focused on the quality of football, because I think we ain't getting fourth or for that matter winning a cup this year. So I'm pretty happy. I'd give us 7/10 so far. The football was excellent in two of our games, better than we saw almost all of last year. Considering how little time has gone by since Pochettino took over, we're doing very well on the quality of play. As to the refs: yeah, as usual, we really seem to be getting the short end of the stick. My explanation is that our fans just don't have the knack of making that really furious whining sound at every decision we don't get which the Goons specialize in and everyone else seems able to pull off reasonably well (including Sunderland Saturday). I think it's because we have too small a number of self-righteous, whining twats among our support.
I'd rather hold the moral high ground. After all, if we do not behave better than them, than what makes us better than them? If it were down to me I'd even fine Rose for diving in the last match. Guess I'm old fashioned that way.
So close to an impressive start, even with the loss to Liverpool, 3 wins from 4 would've been a very positive start. As it is it's slightly disappointing as a start but when you look at the teams that we expect to be around or above us(top 5 + Man Utd and possibly Newcastle and Southampton) we're far from in trouble. It is strange how it goes though, isn't it? United were the laughing stock of the league at the start of the season yet one win later and they're within touching distance of 3 of last season's top 4, and us. I guess that highlights how you can't take too much from the early results but there is a bit of pressure now , we don't want to head into the Arsenal game on the back of 3 games without a win. The real negative is that our defence still looks very vulnerable and we're lucky if they can even come out of a game looking competent. At the other end it's coming together nicely, the 4 most attacking players are looking better by the game, they don't just look like talented individuals, they look like a talented team. In deeper midfield it's a bit mixed, Dembele looks a player reborn and could be the key to making this team tick, his defensive work has always been good but he's showing signs that he's really going to be able to impose himself going forward too now, not so sure about Capoue, he's been a bit mixed so far bt hopefully there's more to come from him and perhaps Stambouli will be able to offer an improvement if not.
Here's my take on the penalties and other ****e ref decisions; we are too passive about it as a club and have been so for years...a few examples; 1) 1st NLD at the emerates...Goons get 2 incorrect penalties (for the first Chimbonda clearly got the ball and the player fell over him and for the second there was a clear gooner handball just before the foul) and an offside goal in a 3 nil win for them....Martin Jol said the decisions were wrong but said we were ****...very honest but can you imagine any other club in the top 5 or 6 responding like that. 2) THAT goal at OT by Pedro M...we should have gone nuts but again were to mild in our criticism. there are plenty of others I could mention... Now look at the Goon v city match on saturday....both managers have put pressure on future refs by going ****ing nuts over tiny decisions. We should have slaughtered the ref after the west ham match for being a clueless cock, after the liverpool game for being a biased fat useless cock and after the sunderland game for being incompetent. I don't want our players diving but I do want our managers slaughtering refs who refuse to give us decisions while giving every ****ing decision against us
Only if we want to win. I hate whining so much, though. Any chance we could have some kind of a hatchet man to do it while Pochettino takes the high road? But it's not just the manager, it's the crowd. Listen to a Spurs crowd after an incorrect decision. There's much less of a bloodcurdling shriek of outrage than from other fans.
