Pochettino using the words 'unlucky', 'positives', 'pleased' and 'we were better' quite a bit in his post-match comments. Please stop.
You could have said the same about the Arsenal Spurs game. Form goes out the window sometimes in these derbies.
I think it's rum time at my age I might even forget we lost to the west London minnows in the morning COYS
I think it's the same story as last season. There are too many games where you lack a goal threat - if Kane isn't in a run of goalscoring form, the goals dry up. In 9 of 13 PL games played, you've scored either 0 or 1. 19 in total in 13 games when the top three all have 29 or more - and Arsenal 25 in 12. Scoring when on top is obviously important - it doesn't seem to happen often enough for Spurs.
Every one above us has at least one £40m player who often get crucial goals. We have to rely on being a better team.
Usually we score goals but let them in at the other end.Now it's the other way around.We're tight at the back but can only score 1. I felt so proud with a lot of our players playing for their countries but because there's so many international games now,their getting injured and can't get it together when it comes to League games.
I kind of get your point but we have a £30m winger who put in the worst display in a tottenham shirt in the CL at Wembley since David Bentley disgraced the shirt in 2010 v Arsenal. Our first 11 is good but their is no real depth to the squad so out of form players keep their spot in the squad or first team (Son, Eriksen, Janssen, Sissoko, Dembele) and we can not cope with injuries to key players.
I'm not even angry. Just numb. It's December in a few days and our season simply hasn't got started. What a limp farewell to WHL this is turning into. Our summer strategy is looking more and more like a total car crash with every passing week. Got rid of useful but not quite good enough squad players in Mason, Bentaleb, Njie and Chadli, and replaced them with even poorer versions. Poch has overseen the signing of 16 players. I'd say that 8 of those have been worth the money we paid for them (Wanyama, Toby, Davies, Vorm, Wimmer, Dier, Alli, Trippier). Of those, how many actually improved the starting XI he inherited? I make it four. Four players across 3 transfer windows that actually noticeably improved the starting line-up: Alli, Toby, Dier and Wanyama. Therein lies our problem. Not nearly ambitious enough in the market - and signing Sissoko isn't 'ambitious', it's naive stupidity. 25% of all transfer under Poch have made a difference. The other 75% are frankly run-of-the-mill and pretty darn easy to replace at the drop of a hat. I know it's early doors for GKN and Janssen, but with CL football looming, we needed players of the caliber of VDV - players who would slot in and make a difference immediately, not need a year to settle! The squad overall is carrying far, far too many passengers for us to be an effective unit. Players who may still need more time to settle & develop (Son, Janssen, GKN, Winks, CCV, Onomah, Edwards, Harrison, Walkes), players who've been massively underperforming this season (Dier, Eriksen, Lamela), and players who just won't ever be good enough for a team with title aspirations (Carroll, Trippier, Sissoko). Out of a 30 man squad, the players we can rely on to consistently do a job are few and far between: Lloris Walker Rose Jan Toby Wanyama Alli Kane Dembele If those 9 players are fit and firing on all cylinders, we can bluff our way past most teams. If they aren't, cracks rapidly begin to show and we look inept and vulnerable. It's high time we had a recruitment policy that made sense.
Got back from the game about 45 minutes ago, was actually a great day out aside from the result. Thought our fans were brilliant, couldn't believe how quiet the Stamford Bridge home crowd was until they went 2-1 up (didn't exactly raise the roof then either!), I know we sing the "Mourinho's right" song but they really are a shocking bunch of home fans. Not just saying that because they're derby rivals but in all the grounds I've been too, I'd have to say the Chelsea crowd are the quietest. Was a very close game, we bossed the first half, they bossed the second. Was frustrating in that sense at how we just looked a completely different side after the break. Their goal against the run of play probably didn't help though and was a massive kick in the bollocks. Nkoudou offered some excitement when he came on, I think he deserves a run in the side now, that's the second time I felt he came off the bench and looked lively, that pace option can be key to improving the attacking side of things, especially once he gets in a rhythm in the team, it'd also be nice to switch things about a bit as the trio behind Kane have been too ineffective and inconsistent. Thought Dembele was ****ing woeful though and god knows how he lasted so long, he cost us the second goal through dallying on the ball too long. Good to see Eriksen finally remember he's a footballer, impressive goal and made some half decent passes, though he did back out of one or two challenges. Defence is worryingly average without Toby, obviously also not helped by Rose's suspension today either, honestly believe if those two were playing we'd have left there with three points. Disappointing to see the unbeaten run end, especially to them but hopefully it gives us a bit of a kick now to start racking up some wins. Just pray Toby can return in the next match.
You'll hear a lot about Chelski being title contenders, but really are they any better than us? If not for that wonder goal at just about the worst time for us I really think we would have gone away with the points. We really dominated them in the first half.
The issue that was glaringly obvious not just today but a few times this season is that the team seem to get tired and, as a result, press far less than they should be doing - which begs the obvious question why this is happening when the season has yet to reach the halfway point. While the obvious answer would be to point to how a lot of the first-choice players are playing twice a week compared to this point last season where several of them were rested for Europa League games, I can't see any reason why so many players seem to be lacking in stamina - and this is taking into account how some players are playing more than they expected due to injuries to regular players, considering Walker, Rose and Wanyama have played significantly this season and they aren't looking sluggish with twenty minutes to go like several other players I could mention. A fair amount of blame probably should be directed at another nonsensical pre-season, where due to various players being given extra time to rest saw our second string get a couple of matches worth of practice Down Under while the first team only had one match together, against Inter. So that's a total of three matches, plus a couple of behind closed door friendlies, where the second string and PL2 squad got significant game time while the majority of the first-choice team didn't even travel, let alone play. Looking at it that way, it's no surprise our match fitness has been suspect this season.
I think that other teams have upped their fitness levels having seen how it worked for us last season. We are having to run even harder than last year. We need to make better use of the ball when we have it. We saw again an occasion when a bad foul is committed (on Dele ), advantage is played correctly and we score, but the referee does not go back and caution the offender. In this case it was Luiz who later got a yellow and so should have been sent off. It happened quite a few times last season usually on Dele as well.
Stupid pundits only go on about our title challenge. We are not like most of the deluded Spuds either. Head over to our board - None of us look beyond Top 4 at this time.
Yes. This team (or most of it) won the league two seasons ago. You matched us in this game we just played and were unlucky to come away with nothing, I will agree. But thats one game. Most of the our current squad are proven title winners, as is our manager. Neither your team nor manager can claim the same, despite being a very good team. Defensively you are sound, especially when you get Alderweild back (sp?). You just lack creative players up front, like we have with Hazard, Pedro, Willian etc. You have a good forward in Kane, but he needs support. And if he doesn't perform (or isn't gifted a penalty ) then you guys struggle to unlock teams. We haven't had that trouble thus far, this season.
