How do you know that he didn't? Footballers are like children, sometimes. You can do everything right and yet they choose to act like twats anyway. I agree with your point about playing two up front, though. Starting without a recognised striker allowed Leeds to seize the initiative. Picking Obika from the start and leaving Dempsey in his usual role would've been a better choice, in my opinion.
it's all well and good saying that now, but who would have said "we need to be starting Obika" prior to the game? - if we'd started him and still lost, we'd all be sat here saying how it was a silly mistake as he's had no first team football, so why did we start him? It was a difficult position for us to be in and I guess the more recognised players had to start. The fact is, they simply didn't step up and it's not good enough. Sigurdsson is an attacking midfielder FFS and should have been able to support Dempsey, but once again he was complete ****e.
Exactly. There's an awful lot of comment on here on the lines of "I thought of something obvious that the manager (or chairman) didn't". I would expect thought that most of the time the manager and/or chairman have thought of these things but they don't always work! The real world is like that, a lot of things don't.
Villas Boas didn't really need to say much as sending out a weakened team is basically saying to the players this game isn't important.
That doesn't change the fact that playing a weakened team sends out the message the game isn't important. Remember you said we may be missing a trick by not taking the FA cup serious? if we want to win trophies then playing pur best team in tough away games should be in the managers mind.
I do and I don't feel he sent out a weak team it should have been enough. If a game against a Championship side does not allow the use of squad players then we have to play the 'first eleven' for every game and THAT we would criticise.
Yeah on paper it should have been enough and it wasn'tessentially weak but it was weakened and i'm sure Warnock would have told his players to take advantage and increase the pressure. I mean on paper every premier league team could field a weakened team that should beat leeds but we all know how hard a game it is, especially with their crowd.
I am still very angry about our timid exit from the Cup, but that will subside eventually. The one real disappointment which will stay with me is how we showed such good determination, effort and a fair bit of mental strength to get a result against Man United, yet a week later we showed absolutely none of these qualities. Everyone involved has to take responsibilty for that, those who played and those who managed and coached.
I think we see this all the time OS when players are 'up for it' and when they are not. Every game should be played as if we were playing Man U but it's not and some of our players really don't like it when it gets physical. That's my impression.
i think we saw enough from the upsets to realise that all pro footballers are fit and can play at a high tempo for the whole 90 minutes. Liverpool made the mistake of thinking that inexperienced, young defenders would have too much quality for their lower league opponents. Wrong. Spurs made the mistake of thinking that they could get away with using players out of position and in an unfamiliar partnership up front. Were Dempsey and Sigurdsson likely to suddenly hit it off? Dempsey is a good player, but he's no experience of playing as a lone striker in a physical game. Leeds defenders are used to playing against out and out centre forwards of a good standard. Look at some of the players performing in the Championship this season (and in recent years). If Defoe was injured, then AVB may have had limited options, but that raises issues about the strength in depth of the Spurs squad. Obika may have been a better option, simply because he was more familiar with the role. All the PL teams who got knocked out were a little too complacent, perhaps arrogant. Play your best side, win the game, then rest players or tinker with formations.
Exactly. that is merely the point I was making, before Roo jumped in with his usual anit-HIAG commet (<yawn> so boring). I still think "Roo" is PESKIE's Spurs alter-ego.
It's a shame that if the Football Association and League thought a team played so badly,they could have points taken away,players fined (managers shot!Kidding.I think!!!!!?) heavily and fans of that team given their money back! Okay! I like Star Trek too!!!!!
Usual anti Hiag comment? What r u talking about? I can't actually remember a time I've ever been "anti Hiag." Absolute nonsense. I was simply asking you what you would have done? You made a comment about us needing to play 2 strikers but we didn't have any. Yeah you've found me out, I'm actually peskie.
