Winning is a good habit, as is keeping clean sheets. No surprise surely that we struggled against a team that came for a point, not to play to win. We always struggle against those teams, especially when denied an important source of width (Rose) and with our front 4 not at all clicking yet this year. I agree that we'd have struggled even more if they had scored first. Thankfully we had enough about us to cope generally, and Walker was on hand for the goal line clearance. Hopefully Dier and Dembele are very minor issues and will be available for selection if needed on Wednesday, though I'm not sure I'd expect either to start. And hopefully Kane is back for City. Maybe an enforced rest will do him good. None of the mental knocks of being dropped, but all of the benefits of a few days resting up.
In the post-match press interviews Mauricio Pochettino hs revealed that Son wanted to leave this summer. "After the Olympic Games his idea was to leave to go to Germany. But one thing is what the player wants, and the other thing is the club's decision. In his mind, he would like to move but in the end he accepted the decision to stay and fight for his position. The truth is on the pitch. I say this to all my players. If you deserve to play, you will play. It's not about names it's about performances. I am happy for him. His performance was fantastic. That's why we waited for him." I don't know about Son and whether he really has it. I am happy to go with our manager's view that he is a 'keeper'. I am pleased to see him refuse Son's preference to leave. There's a view that we let Bentaleb leave unnecessarily and to our detriment. I just don't get that. If Mauricio Pochettino thinks he can get a worthwhile tune out of a player without sacrificing the collective good then he will do so. Son is worth keeping, Bentaleb and Chadli aren't. I get that and support the decisions because someone I believe in says it is so. I hope Son has a blinder this season and proves totally wrong my fear that he isn't going to make it. It would help if players made runs before he crosses the ball because he's playing into the space and we're not getting there in time to put crosses into the net.
It's like he wants conspiracy theories to start up. From Di Canio and his fascism confession and general lunacy on the sidelines, to Johnson and how badly the CEO handled that, to their constant battles with relegation...the club is a weird mix of farce and poor judgement. I know it's early but will be amazed if they don't go down.
I agree with Pochettino that players playing well deserved the shirt but he let himself down on this score by dropping Vorm after Lloris got over his injury imo. He was excellent in his 2 and a half games in charge and can not think of any mistakes he made. Plus, his distribution was excellent (unlike Lloris).
Yes, the same thought crossed my mind. Could be a good thing for all concerned as long as the injury isn't serious. I'd be quite happy to see Janssen start against Middlesbrough.
I can't argue with that especially whilst Hugo's current form is not his best. I was going to say that it's like Roy keeping Rooney in his team as captain but I'd rather go with something else when I think of it. Just give me a couple of hours ok?
It's because it's frustrating and tbh, a bit worrying. We've played 6 games in all competitions and only scored 1 goal in 5 of them. It's frustrating because the 2 games we'd drawn offered us good opportunities to do something we struggled with last season, win matches that we don't deserve. In both games we'd held on during the first half and then couldn't find the winner in the second half when we were on top. If we're going to have longevity towards the top of the table then this is something we need to pick up as the sides around us do it regularly. It's also frustrating because our squad really seems to struggle for energy at the end of the season, we really need to be able to put away sides like Sunderland and Palace early, if they're their for the taking, so we don't spend 90 minutes of every game running ourselves into the ground. It's worrying because, as Monaco showed, even if you're the better side, you can still lose if the other side takes their chances, or gets a bit of luck. Against Everton and Liverpool we could have also been 2 down in the first half had it not been for great saves from Vorm(from Deulofeu and Coutinho) whilst Sunderland could have left us chasing yet another game at half-time had Walker not been there to save on the line. You might think it's a bit of a stretch to worry about how it could have gone much worse if the opposition just scored a few more goals but that's exactly what happened to us at the start of last season with United scraping a win, Stoke being let back into the game and Leicester snatching a draw when we'd looked odds on to win. It's the difference between last season's 3 points from 4 and this season's 11 in 5 and that doesn't fill me with confidence.
Yes, I don't think Llloris deserves his starting place ahead of Vorm on current form. His poor distribution pisses me off more and more with every passing week. One of the very few chances Sunderland had today was a direct result of him passing it out to a player (I think it was Vertonghen?) who was under pressure and then lost possession. Not to mention the usual kick it straight out of touch bollocks that seems to happen without fail at least once or twice per game. FFS, we'd have a better chance of keeping the ball if he just hoofed it straight up the middle.
Lord! I hate sitting through these 1-0 games.I much prefer 2-0 at least! Talk about St Vitus'Dance.... But then,the Hammers fans were leaving after 57 minutes......admittedly a couple reappeared at 4-2.
City have looked seriously impressive when I've seen them so far this season, I agree. However I would argue that their keeper is prone to misjudgements, Stones has looked good so far but we all know he can make errors in his positional discipline, their back 4 as a unit can be made vulnerable, and their forward line, while potentially formidable, can be stopped. We did the double over this lot last season, and while I agree the Pep factor has to be considered and that some of our key players are a way off right now, the best way to beat a system is to impose our own way of playing on the other team. I believe that on their day our best 11 players can do that. Pep's City could well take us apart in a couple of weeks, but we could just as easily do the same to them.
Frigging dean is at it again 6 bookings against us and Junazaj was fouled outside the box yet gets yellow carded ! the last two games were fixed.
Some of the refs are quite evil!!!!!! I do wonder why the manager/coaches keep having a go at the third ref.He can't change anything (and probably wants a quiet life!).
We almost led 6-0 at half time. Your not going to go through a full game without giving up at least 1 chance
Listening to some journo or whoever on Talksport saying that their keeper had a worldie and one of the best performances he has seen from a young keeper. Well now that's a ****ing shock!
Kane's ankle sadly looks like a 4-6 week job which may actually be a blessing in disguise for both him and Janssen. Are you mad? in which parallel universe is this a blessing?? (apart from the one where Janssen comes in and starts banging in goals on his own like Kane)
