Europa League Match Thread - Tottenham V Lyon

We certainly didn't play poorly, we beat one of the best teams in Europe who are ranked well ahead of us.

http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/method4/trank2013.html

We played okay, against a very good team who defended very well.

We haven't been playing poorly recently either, I just don't get this idea. To me it's completely wrong. But each to their opinions of course.

I think Holtby Lloris and Dawson should start in France and that might be enough to get us over the line against a team who are CL regulars, are 16 places higher than us in the ranking table and have won the title at least twice as many times in the last 10 years than we've won it in our last 125 years. (I think they've been champions about five times out of the last ten. Certainly their record of title wins puts us completely and utterly in the shade).

 

In that pointless table, dortmund are ranked around 43rd, it has no real place in a debate when discussing current matches, performances or rating teams.

As for Lyon, this current team aren't league winners or near the quality of past lyon teams which graced the champions league.

So decide is this a debate on lyons history v our history or shall we just discuss the present?

We played poorly, lacking in ideas, playing the long ball but we had Bale to come to our rescue, which is great, hes our player yet as spurf pointed out there are areas which need to be looked at in terms of the balance.

 

Funnily enough, I was criticising Bale in the first half for roaming inside where it got congested, when there was space on the left. He stayed a bit further left in the 2nd - when we were arguably worse!!

Agree re Dempsey and hopefully Sig can start showing a bit more. Trouble is, currently when he comes on he just looks like a rather quicker Dempsey - and as I mentioned above, totally lacking in confidence.

Bottom line is, although bright for the first 45, we were ****e in the 2nd half and but for Friedels save would probably be going into the 2nd leg behind. We can only get away with 'winning when not playing well' for so long.

 

Disappointed with Ade again,how many more sitter's is he going to miss?,as a whole the team didn't play well tonight,thank god we had Gareth!.hopefully this score is enough to get us through,as long as we score over there.

 

Did you know that Spurs haven't lost a match playing in our all-white kit since the 0-1 home defeat by Wigan Athletic on 3rd November...

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...that's a run of 13 matches with 9 wins and 4 draws.

 

Hi lads, seems like ages I was last on here.

Gotta say, last night was very frustrating. IMO, we were poor. - But it's the first time for a while and is to be expected in football.

anyhoo, I'll start with the positives. - I thought Benny and walker had very good games last night. Benny looked good going forward and solid at the back. He made 1 or 2 errors, but soon corrected himself and showed 100% commitment. -Benny is back! Walker linked well with Lennon but the pair of them seemed to have a tough time second half. Defensively though, I thought walker was must better last night.

Brad was excellent when called upon, and made a great save.

and Bale produced moments of magic once again!

However, we cannot keep relying on Bale to win us games. The use of the term "1 man team" is unfair, as we have other players who have been in great form, but it's not unfair to say that we only have 1 match winner. - and this is concerning.

Dempsey just doesn't offer us enough. I know he's not in his preferred position, but all he seems to have in his locker is the ability to be able to "work hard". We need so much more than that. Ade's first touch was piss poor last night and he seems to need spoon feeding with everything. His hold up play was non existent and lazy to be honest. - As a result, Demps and Ade as a partnership poses no threat whatsoever.
I think this is why Bale's been given the "free role" (which seems to be a central one), because AVB jut doesn't have the confidence in the other central players to get us the goals.

IMO, we need to stop persisting with dempsey as the man between the midfield and Adebayor. It feels like we're playing with 10 men at times. He needs to be used as a player to shut the opposition down when legs are beginning to tire after 65 mins or so, and we need Holtby playing in his role from the start, instead. Holtby will provide us with more ideas and be able to give us that extra midfield man when we need it. - as well as being able to swap effectively with Bale at times.
Parker and Dembele struggled last night in what appeared to be a crowded Lyon midfield and we'll certainly need an extra man in there to deal with them away from home.

We'll also need to sort out the basics such as our passing. We were sloppy last night.

Credit to Lyon, they closed us down well and prevented us from playing our game, but we didn't help ourselves at times. We lacked creativity, but that's due to the way we were set up. This needs addressing for next week. There seems to be a brick wall between the midfield and the strikers. IMO, it's due to the chosen personnel.

 

We would have won 2-0 if it wasn't for a universe class goal.

 

I think that Walker and Lennon struggled after our full-back picked up a ludicrous booking that should've seen their goalscorer picking up his 2nd yellow for a blatant dive.
It left the young defender with doubts in his mind about getting caught out going forward and getting sent off, so he stopped overlapping as much and it allowed them to double up on Lennon.

I'm with Roo on Holtby coming in for Dempsey, but I'm sure that a lot of other people are, too. The American seems to be quite an effective impact player, anyway.
Adebayor would seem to have a couple of games left to get his act together before Defoe returns from injury. If that's the case, then I hope he'll up his game dramatically.
All strikers miss chances and struggle with form, but he seems to be miles off the pace and he utterly failed to hold the ball up last night, in stark contrast with Gomis.
I doubt that their forward's contract situation has passed Levy's attention, especially as we were in for him in January, so he might be a summer option for us.
We could even sort it out now, theoretically, but we all know that's not how we do things!

 

Enjoyable game last night, both defences were on good form and yeah, going forward there was never much fluidity for either side but who cares when you see 3 goals like that! It's funny, a lot of the people I know that used to criticise Bale mocked him for trying to play like Ronaldo and take freekicks like him but after scoring 3 in a row I think they'll be shutting up. I have to hold my hands up, that left back was always going to Worldie after I spent the first half talking about how crap he was so apologies for that

Aside from talking about the obvious like how good Bale is, I thought our defenders were very good with Gallas being the standout. When he's not at the races he can be a bit of a disaster but once again we've seen an excellent defender at his best, he moves the ball intelligently, plays his way out of trouble rather than hoofing it and generally read everything perfectly last night. If only he was a few years younger, he'd be able to play like that for us on a regular basis. It's going to be a shame to see him leave at the end of the season but I think the time will be right, we've had too many seasons where we've been relying on injury prone defenders, next season's a great chance for us to have a settled defence and move on from that. Although he's still got the ability to play in Europe, unless he gets a good offer from France, I think he'll be off to America.

 

I thought that abut Umtiti too, PNP. It wound me right up. He shouldn't have been on the pitch to score their goal. - And Lennon is as much to blame. The one chance he gets to go on a blistering run past Umtiti, with space behind the defender, he get manages to get him booked for a cynical foul. But does Lennon try the same tactic again? NO. and he never does! it amazes me how lennon gets so many full backs booked, but then stops running at them for the rest of the game!

I really hope Ade sorts it out. He and Holtby have the chance to form a partnership like Ade/Rafa, which could be special for us, especially at the business end of the season.

Defoe's been pretty good this season despite the goals drying up recently. However, his partnership with Ade is also ****e IMO, as is his with Dempsey.
Ade and Holtby is the only one we've not exhausted so far, so fingers crossed.

can we call Townsend back?

put him out on the left and shove bale up front with Holtby Behind!

 

Oh yeah and left field key contribution to the game? For me it's got to be Livermore putting the captain's armband on, I think he was supposed to give it to someone but instead of that he just put it on himself, had he not we might not have had time for the freekick right at the death

 

I thought that, YV. He ran on with it in his hand and looked for someone to give it to, then appeared to think '**** it' and put it on!
It felt like Villas-Boas was just trying to rest Parker with that move, but Livermore went into a pretty advanced position and got involved immediately.

 

Can I just mention BAE?

In the corner, shielding the ball, he made that sidewards back kick, nutmegged Lyon's player and made a forward run.

I love watching individual moves like that. I could watch that particular BAE move over and over.


I'll have to look out for the game on download.

I beleive there are highlights tonight too.

 

BAE is an entertainer, we need more footballers like him in the game.

 

One Benny is enough I think I'd have a heart attack if anymore of our players started doing stepovers and flicks on the edge of our own box!

That said it was good to see Gallas sell one of their players for a fool near the end of the game.

 

And that skill from Benny, was just after he'd ****ed up a pass in Lyon's half which left us open. he sprinted right back to our corner flag and won it back with his signature move... The Cruyff Turn Nutmeg!

But seriously, every player makes mistakes and gets stuff wrong, but it's about how you recover. Benny set a fantastic example last night.

Also agree with YV on Gallas. I forgot to mention him. He was brilliant.

changing the subject slightly...

I have mentioned how bemused I was/am at letting Townsend out on loan (pacey winger, keeps the width, helps us to play to our best attacking style, Demps and Sig not proper "wingers", etc etc).
As it seemed like an odd loan move, does anyone think that this is because he is going to be our left sided player next season, so therefore we needed him playing regular prem football elsewhere? Is he what the club have in mind as Bale's replacement?

 

Yup, all around me people were complaining about making a sub so late in the game when we're pushing for the win. He actually played a key role in the build up to the free kick so to me.

 

Getting loaned out to a Prem club gives the opportunity for Townsend to show he's ready to become a dependable player in our squad. Walker, Naughton and Caulker have all been given the chance to prove themselves with us after and I'm sure Townsend will be the same if he has a successful loan spell. AVB likes him on the right wing too though and I don't see any connection with Bale leaving.

I think it's a shame for Livermore that Sandro got injured as he could have benefitted from some regular football to prove himself and Parker might be moving in the summer so he could've followed the others who have come back from loan and been given a real chance.

 

If you like your downloads, the folder name for this game is UEFA.Europa.League.2013.02.14.Round.Of.32.1st.Leg.Tottenham.Hotspur.Vs.Lyon.720p.HDTV.x264-FAIRPLAY

Private tracker (soz) http://www.torrenting.com/details.php?id=45122


I'm going to rip out Benny's move. It needs to be shown again

 

I think it was an OK game to watch. Luckily we were presented with 3 magical goals but overall, the game itself was more about solid defending from both sides rather than fluid attacks.

Yet again we relied on Bale to deliver the goods though and it is a little worrying, it would be really nice if one of our strikers actually done their primary objective for once. Adebayor was shocking to watch, his first touch more or less went to the opposition as did many of his passes and his one chance on goal resulted in a miss-kicked first time shot that went wide, a few started to jeer and sigh rather loudly at him in the crowd which I didn't like but then what can he expect when he's been so poor and can't even come back on time after internationals. Thought our two full backs were in good form, Walker (MOTM for me) especially, he FINALLY put in a performance that was similar to what we saw many times last season. Gallas and Vertonghen were also very solid and Friedel didn't have much to do in fairness but dealt with what he needed to do well. Dembele's form post-injury, as I've said a few times now, has been poor and although he made a few nice dribbles, he just isn't impacting the games, same for Parker in my opinion. Bale was very quiet for most of the game, delivered one or two deadly crosses and obviously hit two smashing free kicks but as a whole, a quiet game by his standards. Lennon made some very good dribbles, especially in the first half and Umtiti ( what a name ) looked troubled by him. Holtby came on and looked lively, I love his enthusiasm and tenacity to win the ball and make something happen.

On another note, was great to see Steed get a brilliant reception, when he came over to take a corner he got the complimentary "Steeeeeeeeed" chant and applauded us all which was nice.

Also, anyone else at the match notice the commentary was on the speakers for a minute or two as the second half kicked off? Was actually quite good watching the game live with running commentary! Ha.

Delighted with the win though, we needed it. I did think at the start of the night we'd have been more in control of the match but end of the day, even if Lyon aren't strong as they have been in previous years, they're still a great team and to head to France next Thursday in the lead is a nice feeling.