Just on my way home from the game, and thought id get this over with asap. Today reminded me of our last time at the top table of English football - no desire, no effort, no ability, and no team spirit. I cant work out why today was so different from last week, albeit the same end result - No points. From the very first minute Spurs were better than us and wanted it more. Every 50/50 challenge they won, and they were cleverer than us with and without the ball. Frustration grew in the stands as the game went on. I am sitting here in disbelief at our poor performance, it really was a disgrace. We sat off them the whole game, and never looked up for it. How on earth can our supposed new recruits who are the 'right sort' put in such a lack of effort!!!! Our only chance of note in open play came at 1-0 we had a chance to level the score, but Phillips wasted a superb chance. A few chances came from corners which were wasted as usual. And whilst we are talking about corners - my god! We still cant defend them. Last season we were joint top for conceding the most, and now have 2 in 2 games this season! Playing 3-5-2 you have to work hard otherwise you get punished, and today we didnt work hard enough as a team. THE RATINGS Green - 5 - distribution was ok, although a number went to Isla who was too short to win the headers. Perhaps should have done better with a couple of the goals. DUNNE - 3 - time and time again he was caught in posession and made a number off poor and clumsy clearances. Awful. FERDINAND - 5 - let down by those around him tbh. Had no protection. Had a half decent game. CAULKER - 3 - at fault for the 2nd goal making a crazy run away from their attacker. Missed 2 good corner chances and was generally poor. Not solid at all. TRAORE - 3.5 - awful. Defensively he was shocking, and attacking wise made little attempt to run at the defence. Crosses poor and passing worse. ISLA - 5 - had a half decent game. Looked comfortable on the ball but had little passing options. Some decent crosses but nobody in the box. BARTON - 5 - only player who clearly gave his all imo. He tried but had little support and often found himself closed down quickly. Corners much better, but Caulker wasted them. FER - 3 - awful debut. Clumsy in posession, lazy without it. Lost many tackles and didnt know where to be at times. Didnt close down at all. MUTCH - 3 - did we spent 5m on him? Really poor, lazy and off the pace. Didnt close down at all. PHILLIPS - 2 - meant to be playing alongside Remy but he was so bad he may as well not have been there. Wasted a perfect chance and was the laziest player on the pitch. I have said in the past I havent been impressed, and today he proved it again. So poor on and off the ball. REMY - 4 - had the ball a few times but had so little support all he could do was win corners or throw ins. So isolated at times it was worrying. SUBS: ONUOHA - 5 - came on at half time for Duune and we switched to a 4-5-1. We looked a little better and Onuoha did all he could. Won his battles. FAURLIN - 6.5 - came on for Fer and instantly we had a little more intelligence in our play. Was a calming influence and ran into spaces. ZAMORA - 5 - again, came on and gavd Remy a little more support. Someone to win the ball and hold it up. We created a few chances, one which Zamora wasted. So there you have it, we were that bad. Whether it was a collective team issue or individuals bringing the rest down its hard to judge. But our fans were not happy for sure, and many went at 4-0. As i said, we switched to 4-5-1 at half time, and whilst we were SLIGHTLY better, thr damage was done. I see Harry is refusing to blame the system - but the players. To an extent I agree, but we were so easy to play through I wonder if 3-5-2 is wise away to the better sides. To add to our superb day out Harry decided to show us a conplete lack of respect. Not once, but twice responding to Spurs fans "harry give us a wave". At 2-0 and 4-0 down. Now it might seem petty to you, but for me, at 4-0 down esoecially that is a disgrace. And our fans (not me I must add) duly let him know our feelings to that with a chorus of boos. Seriously cant believe we were that bad today.. I could probably say much more, but I will stop now to save it ruining my evening!
Don't buy that at all...he has sat in those dugouts countless times before as Spurs manager, he knows where the away and home fans sit.
He tried to explain that one away by not recognising which 'punters' they were. The sensible thing to have done was to have ignored them all. But that's Harry for you. He does things his way. Some we like. Some we don't.
Cheers Judo. Your player ratings and comments suggest that it's a no-brainer that Dunne must be dropped for Ned. Something most of us have been saying all along. Also, I think it's obvious that Harry doesn't rate Faurlin or Yun, otherwise they should be starting. Huge pressure now on next week's game.
I agree with most of that thanks Judo. I did think that Traore had a far better 2nd half when he seemed to be playing LB and won the ball well a few times, than his poor 1st half as Wing Back when he gave it away badly a few times.
I have just spent a few hours digesting the performance and have been trying to find some glimmer of hope. Hopefully Remy won't attract any additional attention after that match. Richard Dunne is a Championship player at best. Premier League strikers are too fast and skilful for him. I really don't want to see him start again. Faurlin looked ok. I think given our performance 4-0 was a let off. Harry should issue an official apology to our fans for being stupid enough to think we would want him to wave at 4-0 down. Utter rubbish of an excuse. Fingers crossed for Saturday - I'm hoping this is a blip.
Good analysis. Dropping Faurlin after being the best player on the pitch last week seems strange at best. Playing both Dunne and Ferdinand continues to be a very odd choice when up against pace. Pretty random choices from HR.
Despite wearing our shirt and being on the team sheet, I had to keep checking to see if Fer was playing for us or Spuds! Barton was playing by himself in the middle, hardly any help from anyone. Why do managers have to wait until Half time to changed things ? It was obvious we were in trouble. I was so positive before this, didn't expect us to win but thought another good performance and we can carry on building. Gods know what was going through Vargas's mind watching, this. Only bright side I could see was Isla looked Ok and Ale looked good again when he came on.
Judo, before seeing who started this thread, I was going to post that the title was possibly an over reaction. However, you are a level headed poster and it's hard to disagree with what you wrote. Hoping for a reaction on Saturday.
Cheers. I did try not to overreact when writing it, especially as I was on my way home at the time, its easy to get carried away after a game like that! But I do stick by it, it was a disgrace at times. The players were booed off at half time (not by me, as personally I don't think it helps), and there were many frustrated and shocked fans in the stand. At half time I think we were all in disbelief at what we had seen. I can take losing, even 4-0, but not in a manner like that. As long as I see 100% effort and commitment from the players I can't ask much more - I feel that quite a few didn't give us that today. As you say, next week we will look for a reacting - it is important now - no goals, and no points yet. That has to change very soon.
What shocked me the most was that a number of players clearly didn't give 100%, Mutch, Phillips, Fer. Coupled with that Traore was hopeless, quite awful. Dunne was simply out paced and Caulker poor (defensively and attacking). Because the midfield was so bad, our defensive frailties were badly exposed and Remy had no service. The manager then thinking it was a good idea to wave to the Spuds, once at 2 nill down, and then again at 4 nil down was the icing on the cake. He was roundly booed by large numbers of Rangers. I would have thought he'd have more important things on his mind than waving. I don't buy his comment that he didn't know who he was waving to either. Idiotic thing to do when we were taking a hammering and giving less than full commitment. All in all, a poor day at the office, best left behind us (I hope)
I think that's an accurate assessment. Hollet poses more threat than Phillips ((particularly this pre season) and Mutch seems less able than O'neil or Henry (it is early days for him tho, but he hasn't ripped up any trees in his first two games).
OK, so this was a bad day for us in the office. I had us down on the Prediction League – Match 2 as Spurs 1 - QPR 0 so was not personally expecting anything for today's match but still gutted anyway. I will stick to my guns and wait until we have played three or four more games before I turn into Flyer's disciple. I just hope our coaching staff have learnt from today's game and earn their money putting things right.
Totally agree with that. It is just madness that Dunne is playing ahead of Onuoha. Gary Neville said Dunne looks completely out of place on the left of the back three. I also really do not understand why Harry won't play Yun or Faurlin and give them a run in the side. Both should be in the team, especially Faurlin. He made an instant impact today.
Thanks Judo. That agreed pretty much with my match report. Next saturday is now so important. The least we require is to compete. Something that we didn't do yesterday. Harry, please ask yourself if your own fans are likely to be asking you to wave when losing 4-0 & very unhappy with your team selectiom & tactics. Having sat through that performance, his gesture was irresponsible & disrespectful. Only a man full of his own self importance would not understand that.
