Ok, you've redeemed yourself. I've just been given a website reward but if there was a punishment table you'd have just been punished.
It's easy to see a team go on a run of victories and play well (like City) and assume that form will be maintained. So whilst they only pipped Utd to 4th place on goal difference in May, some pundits are calling them a shoe-in for the title less than 5 months later. The truth is that yesterday exposed their weaknesses, especially defensively. Other teams will take encouragement and Pep has had a reality check. Liverpool have already be shown to have a soft centre too (no change there). With 31 games to play and all the usual variables to take into account, nobody can have any real insight as to how it will pan out. As I said above, there are questions which need to be answered by all teams. City led the table this time last season; Leicester were 4th. Who predicted that those would swap places by the end of the season?
You do realise that teams aren't always at their peak every single game? There will be times where we can crush teams and totally outplay them, like we did against Chelsea and Basel, and there will be times where we struggle to break teams down, like we did with Burnley yesterday. If you expect Spurs to be playing free-flowing, fast-paced football every week, I don't know what planet you're living on. Like all teams, no-one is going to be at their best every single week. So long as we don't perform like that regularly, we shall be fine. Burnley are an extremely tricky team to break down when they're at home. Liverpool found that out and so did we. I'm sure all the top teams will struggle to get 3 points there.
I thought a weakness had been exposed in the Swansea match and even the first match against Sunderland. Celtic exposed it for Spurs to exploit.
They have the same defensive issues as last season. He's brought in Stones, who can bring the ball out from the back and is comfortable in possession, but has yet to prove he's a good defender when the opposition are pressuring his team.
Apart from Stones, their current back line is too old and too slow. Celtic ran them ragged, we ran them even worse!...
Since losing to Liverpool on the opening day, we've drawn 2 games and won 7 in all competitions. That's pretty consistent to me.
Maybe we were - and on the balance of play, Burnley definitely didn't deserve to lose that at all - but the facts are that we won the match. Even the two draws we've had were against the current Premier League champions away from home, where we didn't even have a settled side, and against a PSG team who (in Europe) have only lost once in their last 40 matches on home soil. We may have been fortuitous in a few matches, but results wise, there is no denying that we've had a pretty good start to the season following the shambles against Liverpool.
Oh there's every chance you can go to Turf Moor and turn them over. I'm just saying if you do win, it will be hard work because they defend so deep and shut down space very well. Don't expect a game like your previous couple of visits to the Britannia. It'll more than likely be a tight, cagey affair.
But everyone bar the PL top 6 do that when playing Spurs. Even our CL opponents do it. In our upwards progression tis something we will have to get used to overcoming without too much effort.
We were somewhat fortunate against Liverpool and Everton, so we can hardly throw stones at Arsenal for that. Yeah, we could have easily won both games in the end but similarly we could have been 2 or 3 down in both too
We started slowly in both games, but conceded to a cross and a penalty that shouldn't have been given. Combined with Mane getting away with murder and I'm struggling to call either result lucky. Finished both on top, too.
What's with all this reasonableness? That American sun getting to you. And they were playing Burnley, not Pool. And we murdered da bums! (put into Americanese for you).
Luck with decisions is not the only kind of luck people. On the balance of play in both game we were fortunate not to be more than 1 down. And i still disagree with the pen vs 'pool. I would have given it and been livid had it not been given the other way around.
