Who sanctioned the signing of Fazio? We've spent more money to downgrade massively on Dawson. Shocking.
Um - Dawson doesn't have a "z" in his name. That's not very exciting is it? If you keep players like Dawson and Caulker and Huddlestone and Livermore and Defoe and Sandro then you can't spend 100m on replacing them with players who pundits and bloggers will trip over themselves to declare have made us championship contenders based on a nice photo in the paper and a transfer fee of 10-30m. I really hope some Spurs fans learn something from what's happened at Spurs over the last couple of years. "Next level" my absolute, cast iron, arse. And you know what? This was always going to bloody well happen. Next level? When we're finishing in the top four? The overwhelmingly most likely next step from there is a step down. Next time people are pissed off with finishing only fourth I hope they remember this glaringly obvious fact. (Sorry Pavon - just gone off on a rant. Not aimed at you!)
I don't think it's the individual players, I think it's the system, the coaching and our lack of consistent selection. Fazio played on Thursday alongside Vertonghen and with Dier and Davies at fullback and with Stambouli in front of him and Vorm in goal. He was on the right of the central pairing. He's then picked on Sunday alongside Kaboul with Naughton and Rose at fullback and with Capoue in front of him and Lloris in goal. He was on the left of the central paring and switched at half-time. Probably not surprising that he's struggling to settle in, really. We need to try to pick a sensible, balanced side for the league and either stick with it for the cups or leave out the entire XI and pick a different sensible, balanced side. I'd go with the latter and give them a similar run, despite it risking our progress in those competitions. We're constantly switching players, systems, tactics and everything else, whereas the sides doing well are making minor changes, if any.
No offence taken. Is really worrying looking at our squad. There are about 13/14 players in our squad at the moment who are distinctly average. Poch has made some frankly bizarre decisions but he has a choice of Kaboul, Vlad, Vertonghen and Fazio to form a centre back partnership. I'd even argue that Kaboul, despite being a liability all season is our second best centre back ahead of Vlad and Fazio. Even Vertonghen isn't exactly a top centre back. Everyone always talks about building teams from the back. We are miles away.
What's odd is the results you've had. You'd never have beaten Southampton or West Ham in this form but would probably stomped all over Liverpool.
It's pretty clear that we need to change the system in order to protect the back four, as Capoue's been having one 'mare after another since the City game and that's leaving us exposed. A short term fix would be to go something like 4321, so for today we'd have likely had a trio of Capoue, Stambouli and Mason behind a pairing of Chadli and Eriksen. It may not be the best choice for a free-flowing game, but it stops our opponents having a free-flowing game at our expense. Time and again we have the same problem with our central midfield being weak... George Graham saw our midfield was weak, so he signed Freund Martin Jol saw our midfield was weak, so he made Carrick central to our team (something Santini outright refused to do) Harry Redknapp saw our midfield was weak, so he signed Palacios - and with Palacios' influence on the pitch waning due to personal reasons, Sandro and Parker were brought in AVB wanted a stronger midfield, so he signed Dembele to partner Sandro The question is whether we have the personnel to stiffen our central midfield, or are we going to have to wait until January to sort this out? And if it's the latter, who do we bring in?
Sherwood doesn't look too bad now does he. Given a chance over the summer he wouldve got rid of the deadwood
MAYDAY.MAYDAY! Dear Harry, Please,please,pretty please.Come back and save us. I think the ghost of Ramos has been haunting us. Love, Daniel.
Remember before Redknap came to us, just before Ramos got the boot, we had Woodgate giving an interview in which he clearly expressed the fact that he was utterly pissed off with the manager and the club, and almost pleading for something good to happen? Well, who do you think is going to give that interview this time round? My money is on Kane.
