Sorry YV but can't bring myself to agree with the first part of this at all. I thought Dembélé was his usual nonchalant self where he'd casually flick little passes sideways here or there with little thought or vision as to how they affect the build up play or put his teammates under pressure and for most of the game, I'd have my head in my hands after he's touched the ball! Going sideways he's fine (for the most part) but when he decides to do his usual by going forward with the ball to walk into a wall, he tends to lose possession in crucial areas of the field and have us racing back to defend whilst he continues to jog! In the several years he's been at Spurs, he's the one that's frustrated me most. Silky skills and strong in one-to-one situations yet never seems to learn to look up or improve his understanding of the game. If he had a better footballing brain, I'd think he'd be a hugely impressive player but I think he's a classic case of someone who's comfortable at a decent club and has no burning desire to really push on and improve. Take the paycheque and be happy! I've been pretty harsh to Lamela in the past. In fact, I think it was probably myself that gave the poor guy the "show pony" label within days of him joining us but at least Coco's now putting in a shift and you can see his work ethic in every game. He's trying his heart out to win the fans over and that hasn't gone unnoticed. Mousa on the other hand is the exact same player we signed 3 years ago and I don't see that ever changing.
I would have seen this as a positive last season, but it is rapidly running out of credit this year. The bottom line is that we currently have too many regulars who by all means 'put in a good performance' without actually contributing anything from their actual job description. I said this after the Liverpool game - the only reason we were all salivating over his performance at the weekend was because he was brought in for Dier. And, as we've seen time and again, Dembele's strength, balance and poise on the ball mean that he can and does break up opposition attacks and possession with ease. i.e. he looks great as DM. But the thing is...he wasn't signed to be a DM. When we bought him, we had Parker, Sandro and Livermore on our books. Demebele was signed to be the midfield catalyst, not the fire brigade. So when, as in yesterday's case, he replaces someone like Alli or Mason, he does sweet FA. Why? Because he isn't contributing what he was singed to contribute. Same goes for Lamela. He wasn't signed to be a James Milner. He was signed to be a show pony! Of all those signings, he was the one hailed as 'Bale's successor'. Bale did absolutely nothing defensively because we didn't want him to. The fact that Lamela's 'work ethic' is touted as his most positive quality is a tragedy as far as I'm concerned, and an excuse that - since the City game - no longer washes with me, as we saw the tenacity, drive, creativity and threat that Bale brought to the table years ago in a superb all-round performance from our Argentine pony. Since the City game, he's been back to square one. And the same, very sadly, goes for Kane. The fact that he has no back up is inexcusable, but the reality is that he does look fully fit, is certainly putting in big 'shifts' every game and showing tremendous 'work ethic', but that ain't what we pay him to do. I hate to use them as a point of reference but they are sadly the most in-form team in the league at the minute. Sanchez, Giroud, Ozil, and Walcott hardly put in 'shifts' defensively, nor do they have anywhere close to the best 'work ethic' in the league. But that doesn't matter, because they do what they're paid to do, and they often do it well. This is the prevailing lunacy at Chelsea. Why sell Mata and insist that Hazard constantly tracks back when you have two of the best deep lying midfielders in the world on your books? Just give them licence to attack at will and you'll be slaughtering teams! Mourinho's stubbornness will be his ultimate undoing. I'm willing to cut these players some slack because below them is another sub-category of players who don't do their job and don't really put in a shift, namely: Fazio, Townsend and Trippier. But things do need to change.
The trouble with playing Dier & Dembele as a midfield duo is that although they're both strong, win the ball, etc, neither is much of a playmaker. Oppositions sense this and know that neither is likely to produce a killer ball if they are pressed. Consequently, pressure can be put on them to harass them, fairly safe in the knowledge that you're not leaving themselves open to a swift counter from a pinpoint pass.
Oh I agree that it didn't help us but I think both Dier and Dembele's performances were hindered by playing alongside the other. When one of them plays alongside a more positive midfielder it looks much better because Mason and Alli can both move the ball forward quickly and are more suited to pressing the opposition. On Saturday Dembele thrived against an opposition that was pressing and trying to quickly win the ball back. That suits Dembele down to the ground as breaking past a challenge with the ball is bread and butter for him and once he got past one or two challenges the whole pitch opened up for him and when it didn't, a simple pass sideways or backwards keeps the opposition chasing shadows. When the opposition is more compact, like yesterday, you're unchallenged in the middle of the pitch so if you bring the ball forward you'll find yourself up against challenge after challenge with no easy passes on as you're playing through a smaller space. If Dembele had pace, like Messi, he might be alright but each challenge slows down an already slow player so the opposition has more time to react and get organised. Infact, frequently you'll see the player who Dembele first takes on will catch him up by the time he gets past a second player. He has his uses as the more defensive player in midfield, his positioning is good, he doesn't lose the ball often and he can tackle. When he has to be more attacking that goes to ****, he's frequently caught too high up the pitch so his positioning and tackling become useless and his lack of pace/energy is exposed.
One positive is that this game will silence the fans demanding Trippier be our first choice right back, while picking Walker up on every mistake. Trippier so far looks to be out of his depth.
Personally I think walker has been a much better player this season...seems to be getting back to his best
Only just returned home from this one. My goodness what a disappointment and what an intimidating atmosphere throughout the entire pre match and afterwards. Monaco was brilliant experience, last night was just so scary off the pitch and so Spursy on it. Looking forward to Bournemouth now where the natives and local Plod are a million times more civilised.
At the risk of chucking some Narrative at it, last night's game reminded me a lot of the match with Lazio which also saw our fans attacked before the game: a bright opening ten minutes, but then the team lost their nerve and seemed to be in a competition to see which player could have the biggest non-performance of the night and/or their Spurs career.
nothing to do with getting richer, spurs are already rich and can compete with most teams in transfer fees, the problem we have is the top players wont come to us because we're not in the champions league we get in the champions league - buy better players - we get in the champions league again - buy better players - we win cups all we do at the moment is pick up the players none of the top teams want Don't you want spurs to win the Premier league? because I can guarantee you now no side will ever win the premier league that's not currently in the champions league it or been in it regularly
We certainly did the last time... Pavlyuchenko, Dos Santos and Bassong all started in the first leg against Young Boys Jenas in the opening game with Werder Bremen Pav, Bassong and Hutton in the first match with Twente Hutton and Jenas in the first game against Inter Hutton in the second match with Inter Jenas, Hutton and Pavlyuchenko in the second match with Werder Bremen Bassong, Jenas, Kranjcar and Pavlyuchenko in the final group game against Twente Sandro and Pienaar in both legs against Milan Jenas and Sandro in the first game with Los Ladrones do Madrid
But if the CL is such as pull why did Eriksen and Vertonghen join us from a CL regular? Money talks the loudest. Playing in the Premier League not only do you get much bigger wages but you get far higher exposure, leading to bigger sponsorship deals and potentially one of the mega money clubs coming in to give them even more money. We're miles off City, Chelsea and Arsenal in terms of ability to spend on both transfer fees and wages. Even Liverpool spend about £20-30mill a season more on wages alone. Our best chance of competing is to continue what we're doing, keep our players on long contracts, spend sensibly in the transfermarket and try to get young players coming through.
Players like Eriksen join us as part of their career development. Same as Modric and Berbatov, join a big club with a great history, possibly achieve great things, earn a great wage, perform well and if so they will move to a team that offers them real success once they outgrow us. Once a big champions league club attempts to sign Lloris and Eriksen, they will go, just a matter of time. Whether champions league football would delay their departures? Unsure, as would you rather play for a team like spurs in the champions league or a team like Madrid or Utd? You can argue no English team can win the champions league due to the foreign dominance but I would expect players like Modric and Eriksen to soon have a real interest in signing for champion league clubs that have the potential to win the tournament, especially as we can't even qualify for the group stages.
I think it's stretching credulity somewhat to say that we played reserve teams in the CL. Even if those players you mention above were not first-eleveners and they weren't playing due to injuries or suspensions then you're talking about, at the least, subbing in our reserve right back or, at the most, 4 players, all of whom were fairly regular picks for the first 11. And that was in the last game when we had already qualified (?). I'm pretty sure that it's just not true to say that we played reserve teams in the CL. What was the first 11 that year? Gomes, Corluka, King, Gallas, BAE, Lennon, Jenas, Modric, Bale, VDV, Crouch? Though looking at the playing stats for that year I see that Hutton featured more often than Corluka and Palacios played a surprisingly high number. More than VDV, Gallas, Dawson, Bassong...
That season our first xi was Gomes; Corluka, Dawson, Gallas, Assou-Ekotto; Lennon, Palacios, Modric, Bale; VDV; Crouch - while the main rotation options were Ledders, Kaboul, Huddlestone and Defoe. During the 2010-11 season Pav and Kranjcar were options off the bench rather than starters, Dos Santos was eventually loaned to Racing Santander, Bassong had gone from a regular starter to the fifth-choice centre back (amid rumours that he was being punished for dumping a cooler on Harry's head after the win against City the previous season, as was Bentley), Jenas had slipped behind Palacios and Modric with Huddlestone also edging ahead of him, Sandro wasn't a first-choice player by any means, and Pienaar...nope, still can't work out what the hell that signing was about even now, but he sure as hell wasn't a first team player. It's the same argument as saying we play reserve teams in the Europa League: Lloris, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Davies, Dier, Eriksen and Lamela all started on Thursday and they're hardly reserve players, Trippier was the only understudy to start against Monaco...although Qarabag obviously saw a whole bunch of changes to what our usual starting xi would be.
I would think bigsmithy (and others) mentioning us playing a reserve team is based around the fact our best (well only) Striker was on the bench, while our most exciting young talent this year (Alli) was also on the bench. Any manager is entitled to adjust the team, bring in squad players to implement a new set-up, or deal with a specific player from the opposition and if they use squad players, that doesn't have to be viewed as a reserve team, if its done with the intent to give us the best possible chance of winning the game. A good example is the 1-0 win against Milan, Redknapp had Modric on the bench, but it was done for a specific tactical reason with Paacios/Sandro in midfield, to give us the best chance of winning the game, a plan which of course worked. Pochettino attempted to win the game by dropping Kane/Alli, only he knows if he was more to do with squad rotation or a tactical plan which he believed would take us to victory, but I suspect it was more squad rotation and fans that believe we can win the competition want to see Kane/Alli start every game, which sends out a statement that we take the competition serious. My own view is that we can't win the competition, so I'll go easy on Pochetinno for his line up as I can understand rotating the squad, especially as he will see Chelsea having a shambolic start, is an opportunity to finish 4th.
"Makes one wonder....would we be playing a reserve team if we were in the CL.The hell we would!" Actually we played some on paper quite weak starting XIs during the CL adventure. Out of necessity (injuries - squad breadth/depth and ticking over no different to now) , but done nevertheless. I was so proud of the boys in the AC Milan away leg. Hardly a starting XI any of us would have picked in terms of ability, and match time in their collective legs, but they all to a man fronted up and wrote another chapter in the Spurs UEFA annals.
Haha I survived it OK thanks mate, I went out there early Thursday morning anyway so missed the trouble that happened on Wednesday night. Leading up to the game though I've never seen so much police in my life, must have been a good 300-400 on the stretch that were watching and escorting us Spurs fans too and from the stadium and these police were no joke, they had padding that made them look like batman without the mask, riot shields like what Vikings would have used and massive canes/ rasps that would do serious damage if hit, plus they had dog squads every 100 yards or so. It was impossible for any trouble to erupt from what I could see so fair play to their force for keeping things peaceful. For what it's worth I'd recommend anyone who hasn't been before to go Belgium, went Brussels and Ghent and loved both cities.
