I'm sick of this 'giving Lamela a chance' bollocks. When you pay 30mil for somebody a settling in period doesn't apply. He's as bad now as the first day we got him
Lamela shouldn't be playing at the moment. He was at the Copa America and missed the pre-season. He's not match fit and it showed. Gave away multiple fouls and looked miles off the pace.
i get what you mean...however when you have a player that cost £30 million, he is going to be seen as a bigger risk than a £10 million player. Therefore the gamble is going to be given more time to prove that the investor made the right purchase. It's the way it has to be whether anyone likes it or not. but based on his return, he deserves to be benched
We seem to be playing to many risks in the transfer market, 12 million for n'jie for example, a player who might be the next big thing, but will probably turn out to be the next lamela. We could have spent the same amount of money and bought konoplyanka and shaqiri 2 proven club, European and international players, there's the left and right side sorted and you know your buying quality.
"I think we need to add some more players but don't worry, I think that today we deserved to win but the problem was not with the striker but our defensive players." - Pochettino Will you add a striker? "I think so, yes." Sounds like he's not satisfied with our options, to me.
Any reason this konoplyanka is regarded so highly? as I saw some of his impressive performances in Europe, but he isn't proven as a club player performing in a mediocre Ukrainian league. He moved to Sevilla anyhow and Shaqiri wasn't looked at by Pochettino, unless the manager is excused for not having any say in which players are looked at?
exactly Spurfect, but we as a club try to be too smart at times, and i blame Levy and ENIC for that philosophy regardless of the good things they have done for the club. always big risk purchases or absolute unknown tosh but never the obvious signing thats proven.
I would respect him more if he said "we need to sign more players and I'm worried. If Kane is injured then I'm ****ed" But at least he accepts the defensive issues, Stoke created 3-4 clear cut chances when hardly being in the game, and there will be no excuse if the defence is crap this year considering most of the signings have been defensive players, and its the managers job to organise the defence.
The problem today wasn't actually the defence, in my opinion. When Ireland came on and started to dictate play there was nobody in there to deal with him and his dangerous balls into the box. We needed a good defensive midfielder to stop him and we also needed a striker to hold the ball up or run in behind and give us an out. Alderweireld didn't cover himself in glory for either goal, but the problem was more to do with the supply. If you give a decent player that much time to keep lining up balls into the box, then someone's going to get the better of their marker at some point.
Pochettino was happy to play Mason/Bentaleb for most of last season with stambouli arriving (labelled a Pochettino player) but never given much of a chance. Now Pochettino has decided to pick Dier in Midfield (he isn't a DM) while today he blames the defence. Of course, I agree that we need cover for the back four, you could see that from last year when Mason/Bentaleb offered little protection, but where is this DM? unless Pochettino believes Dier is that player?
The Lamela I saw today looked exactly the same as I've seen in the last 2 seasons, nothing to do with pre-season or fitness issues. He simply isn't good enough
konoplyanka almost single handedly got dnipro into the Europa league final last season, not to mention the 2 games he played against us were he ran us ragged, he is quality player. As for shaqiri, he been one of my favourite players since I saw him play for Basel against us in Europe as well, he's got all the attributes to play in the premier league and will know doubt have 1 or 2 good seasons and will move on to Chelsea or man city for double the money.
Yeah, I'm not doubting he has shown quality, just he isn't proven or guaranteed to solve an issue with the squad, as remember Soldado was viewed as proven. But I will keep an eye out on konoplyanka to see how he develops now he has moved to a proper league.
The BBC found this stat. Spurs had won their last 74 Premier League home games when they had gone two goals ahead before this game.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33949342 Aside from the mumbling nonsense, he looks like a beaten man, reminds me of AVB when he was facing the sack, yet maybe he is concerned about facing title contenders Leicester City in the next game?
