Match Day Thread General Match Thread

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
Having just watched the brief highlights of the Spurs Women 0-0 draw against United, it looks like it's not only a contagious injury problem at the club. Their finishing made Richarlison and Solanke look like World-beaters <doh> <laugh>
 
Key take-aways for me from yesterday?
Tel must start over Muani.
Palhinha must start over Bissouma.
Kinsky must stay as No1.

We aren't down yet, but less than 4 points from the next two games will likely mean the last weekend is irrelevant.
Another thought...
The physios and De Zerbis management of the Xavi injury deserves some serious criticism.
It was pretty clear from the outset that he had suffered a bad knee injury, more than likely an ACL or similar, so he should never have been allowed to try and run it off on the touchline. They should have played safe and stretchered him off ASAP. All they have achieved is likely make the damage even worse. (As I recall the same fate befell Odobert, although the players initial reaction may not have been so clear)
 
Another thought...
The physios and De Zerbis management of the Xavi injury deserves some serious criticism.
It was pretty clear from the outset that he had suffered a bad knee injury, more than likely an ACL or similar, so he should never have been allowed to try and run it off on the touchline. They should have played safe and stretchered him off ASAP. All they have achieved is likely make the damage even worse. (As I recall the same fate befell Odobert, although the players initial reaction may not have been so clear)

Yeah it’s just another shambolic bit of medical drama that Spurs didn’t need.

It’s another thing that needs to be overhauled in the summer regardless of survival or relegation.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Left on the Shelf
Frank should have probably been dismissed earlier but the real issue for me was appointing Tudor. It was a disaster of an appointment.
Tudor could have worked if he had the January window available to him, given the players seemed to actually listen to him compared to how it was increasingly obvious they were tuning out Frank since the end of October, so if he had a steer on squad building things could have looked different. I'll certainly give Tudor credit for seeing that Frank was building stamina rather than fitness and sought to remedy that PDQ

That being said, Tudor fatally undermined his own system by starting Palhinha as a CB, which is why our midfield got overrun in far too many games so that fitness was all for naught
 
Tudor could have worked if he had the January window available to him, given the players seemed to actually listen to him compared to how it was increasingly obvious they were tuning out Frank since the end of October, so if he had a steer on squad building things could have looked different. I'll certainly give Tudor credit for seeing that Frank was building stamina rather than fitness and sought to remedy that PDQ

That being said, Tudor fatally undermined his own system by starting Palhinha as a CB, which is why our midfield got overrun in far too many games so that fitness was all for naught

We could play a midfield of prime Matthaus, Rijkaard and Busquets and we'd still be overrun. The real problem is how bad our front line is.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dier Hard
We could play a midfield of prime Matthaus, Rijkaard and Busquets and we'd still be overrun. The real problem is how bad our front line is.
Quite simply, no we wouldn't

Plenty of teams have had weak frontlines but the midfield being solid meant they always had a chance of grinding out a win, as both the winners of Euro 2004 and the team currently sitting second in the Premier League ably demonstrate
 
VAR is basically legalised match fixing, I`ve seen enough now and refuse to believe these officials can be so bad and useless without having some kind of agenda.
 
VAR is basically legalised match fixing, I`ve seen enough now and refuse to believe these officials can be so bad and useless without having some kind of agenda.
VAR isn't our issue this season, the issue is that officials make their decision and refuse to use VAR when thousands of people can see they got it wrong, such as
- Ekitike shoves Romero out the way to score, VAR not consulted
- Gabriel dives when RKM scores an equaliser, VAR not consulted
- Jimenez shoves Dragusin out the way to let Wilson score, VAR not consulted

There is no reason to not check VAR for any of these as the ball had gone dead, what with it sitting in the back of the net, but instead the official knew better than anyone and we had to eat **** every single time
 
VAR is basically legalised match fixing, I`ve seen enough now and refuse to believe these officials can be so bad and useless without having some kind of agenda.
Actually VAR fixes more mistakes than it creates. Rarely does it recommend something wrong to the ref. We've been on the wrong end of a number of close decisions this season but I can only think of two where VAR got it wrong.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Diego
Which players that actually moved should we have signed though?
That’s sort of a moot point, we should’ve signed players that we lack. Who other teams sign is of little relevance other than perhaps envy to us fans if there’s a good player you like going elsewhere.

Lange and co are paid a small fortune to strengthen and improve this squad and the best he could do was a painfully average, overpriced player who is almost a carbon copy of about 4 of our other midfielders and a young kid none of us had heard of and who most of us have already forgotten about.
 
Quite simply, no we wouldn't

Plenty of teams have had weak frontlines but the midfield being solid meant they always had a chance of grinding out a win, as both the winners of Euro 2004 and the team currently sitting second in the Premier League ably demonstrate

Correct. Which is what Frank realised pretty early on and started to set us up like early evolution Brentford.

But that was never going to wash with a club of our philosophy.

What pees me off more than the money wasted is how we block off the development of promising academy products in order to prioritise bang average expensive alternatives.

Mikey Moore has been revelatory for Rangers this season. In all likelihood he'll be back here next year and expecting first team football. Do we persist with Tel, Simons and Odobert, who cost a combined £98m? Or do we do the sensible and popular thing and just let Moore get on with it?
 
Correct. Which is what Frank realised pretty early on and started to set us up like early evolution Brentford.

But that was never going to wash with a club of our philosophy.

What pees me off more than the money wasted is how we block off the development of promising academy products in order to prioritise bang average expensive alternatives.

Mikey Moore has been revelatory for Rangers this season. In all likelihood he'll be back here next year and expecting first team football. Do we persist with Tel, Simons and Odobert, who cost a combined £98m? Or do we do the sensible and popular thing and just let Moore get on with it?
Lankshear also hit 11 goals for a relegated Oxford side.

If we go down, he has to be the starting striker.

If we stay up, he has to be the second choice striker behind a new first choice after we sell Richarlison and Solanke.

If we persist with the current two either way, we deserve shooting.
 
Correct. Which is what Frank realised pretty early on and started to set us up like early evolution Brentford.

But that was never going to wash with a club of our philosophy.

What pees me off more than the money wasted is how we block off the development of promising academy products in order to prioritise bang average expensive alternatives.

Mikey Moore has been revelatory for Rangers this season. In all likelihood he'll be back here next year and expecting first team football. Do we persist with Tel, Simons and Odobert, who cost a combined £98m? Or do we do the sensible and popular thing and just let Moore get on with it?
If anything the issue is Frank realised the midfield wouldn't be much of a barrier, most likely after the Bournemouth match where they cracked his system within the first half and we were overrun pretty easily, so he doubled down on No Losing above all else - which is how we got our nonformances against Arsenal and Chelsea, and from then it was a cycle of prioritising Not Losing over winning and to nobody's surprise Not Winning happened more and more often

Could his system have worked? Honestly, no - because it needed Gibbs-White (or a player with a similar profile) capable of forcing turnovers and creating attacks in the same move and he was left high and dry in that regard and the closest option was to try and cast Archie Gray in a more conservative version of that player...which of course didn't appear to occur to him - which is why Tudor gets some credit, given he seemed to have identified Archie as somebody necessary to making his system work

As for our academy, there is an obvious problem there: Mikey Moore just turned 18 at the start of the season and already had 21 appearances for us in the PL and Europa League, meanwhile Yusuf Akhamrich was 19 at the start of the season and wouldn't play a minute of first team football anywhere until...January 2026, several months after he'd turned 20

Not that I'm saying that Akhamrich has a bright future for us, after all he's in and out of Bristol Rovers' side at the moment, but it does seem to be a thing with us that we debut U18 players such as Moore, Jun'ai Byfield, Callum Olusesi, Troy Parrott or Oliver Skipp far more often than U21 players, which does mean that we regularly have a bunch of 19-21 year olds in the U21s who aren't trusted to fill in a squad place due to injury given they haven't played first team football yet somebody in the U18s has been dripfed into the team
 
Another thought...
The physios and De Zerbis management of the Xavi injury deserves some serious criticism.
It was pretty clear from the outset that he had suffered a bad knee injury, more than likely an ACL or similar, so he should never have been allowed to try and run it off on the touchline. They should have played safe and stretchered him off ASAP. All they have achieved is likely make the damage even worse. (As I recall the same fate befell Odobert, although the players initial reaction may not have been so clear)

ACL confirmed. As I've mentioned on the physio watch, that's our fourth since Dragusin in Feb 2025.

There is clearly something drastically wrong and now pundits are openly questioning the club's policies and practices in this regard.

I hope we get to the bottom of it in the summer.

Heads need to roll.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KingHotspur
Which players that actually moved should we have signed though?
Ademola Lookman is r/coys' fixation, as he moved from Atalanta to Atletico Madrid in January

This ignores
a.) He was trying to Isak his way go Inter last summer, which is enough reason for us to steer clear
b.) He's had four seasons in the PL (two at Everton, one each on loan at Fulham and Leicester from Monster Energy Dusseldorf) and didn't really write headlines