In answer to the thread, it's going to be a long time until we go into a game against one of the top 5/6 teams not fearing a battering if it goes wrong. Arsenal beat us 3 times last year but they never battered us, in the league games they spent the second half back to the walls defending. Doesn't mean it won't happen this time, the Goons beat us 5-2 twice when things were actually going well for us, I'm always excited for our derby with Arsenal though, there's always a lot at stake but that's why it's great. Hopefully Kaboul will pop up with another late winner!
Man U away and Everton at home were the closest we came to beating a favored team last year, but both games were in the toss-up category for me. It was Man City the year before last. Huddlestone to Defoe. Bale to Dempsey. Funny how they're all gone now... Lloris Naughton/Dier Kaboul Vertonghen Rose Dembele Eriksen Lamela Capoue Adebayor Kane I'm expecting 4-2-3-1, but that hasn't worked against top four teams, so why not try to give their defenders some worries? I'd prefer Kaboul with Vertonghen as Vertonghen is in form and Kaboul is the faster of our two defenders who win a lot of headers. Capoue may be our best player so far. Dembele has a history of being a big game player, though neither he nor anyone else was last year. Naughton would be the only player who played tonight.
We need a league win to kick start us again and when that happens I'm confident of a good run. Naturally I'd like a win against Arsenal but I feel we would need to beat another team to be confident of the run to start. Derbies are matches where anything can happen simply because they're derbies so a win against a non neighbour is what I'm looking for.
If you ask the goons about which period and which manager they hated playing against, there is only one answer, Harry Redknapp ,as aside from the 5-2 result, overall the goons had respect for the fact Redknapp made us competitive in the north london derbies, he had character, the team had character and we had players who went into these matches feeling part of a team and ready to show the fans they care about the club and where fired up for performing against the goons. Now. all we have is a squad with no personality, they all say the same rubbish such as "the manager works hard, he is one of us, he gets on with the players" all that tells me is that the squad is young minded, naive, we have a lack of character but I guess there is a slight chance we could pull of a shock and scrape a draw.
