one of the things about spurs has been a lack of a nasty streak. I don't mean thuggish, but more of a "you kick us we'll kick you back, harder" attitude. It has been like that for years...occasionally we'd have 1 such player but not since the 1991 cup team can I remember us having a collection of players with that attitude.., Segley, Edinburgh, stewart, gazza, Pat VD Hawe, mabbutt, etc. our 1987 team had Gough, Mabbutt, hughton, Hodge, Paul Allen, ossie who would all get stuck in. our 1981-86 teams had perryman, hughton, roberts, miller, ossie, archibald, galvin, clemence, hazard, mabbutt, Falco etc. This season it has been much more noticeable...instead of simply whining to the ref players now exact revenge on behalf of a team mate, stand their ground, refuse to back down and don't back out of tackles. all of our decent teams in the past 10 years have lacked this quality so we would crumble more often than not. Now I ain't claiming that we are now winners etc. but Bentaleb, Mason, Rose, Kane, Walker,Vertongen, Lamela, Dier, chadli, Fazio etc. all have this traight...Coquellin, wellbeck mertisacker would have intimidated some of our previous players imo but they ended up being intimidated by us. they whined about every tackle and every challenge...they basically did not want to be there. My big concern with MP was his lack of a plan B and wether he was a flash in the pan. We look far fitter, are playing football that has me excited (not happened since harry left bar 1 or 2 matches) seem mentally stronger and have more than one style of play. Guess he and the team have won me over...and judging by the atmosphere at the lane since December I'd say that goes for the majority of fans. We went behind yesterday but all you could hear was us singing...it was so noticeable that BT sports never shut up about it. You might be amazed to find out that I ain't a very optimistic fan result wise but MP has got me optimistic that the vast majority of the time our team will get me on the edge of my seat and make me smile...so I for one am a very happy bunny!
Yeah, they're certainly more fiesty, Rose has always been like that but Mason, in particular, seems to be the same. In general though it's just nice to see the players all fighting for eachother and not taking crap from the opposition. I think Kane should've taken issue with Cahill kicking and stamping on him, it seems to be the only way to get an incident properly discussed and acted on retrospectively. Then again I don't want all our players to be arseholes so there needs to be a line The atmosphere's definitely better and was terrific on Saturday but it still doesn't take much for us to go back to grumbling, like with Leicester and Sunderland at home.
What impressed me was the intensity of the performance. The desire to win the ball, etc. Yes, the Goons - Ramsay especially - spent half the game appealing to the ref about Mason, or somebody, having the nerve to hustle them off the ball. If we can keep that intensity going, and when I say that, I don't mean headless chicken type of just charging around, but controlled intensity. They have a saying in Rugby, "body on fire, head the refrigerator" a kind of controlled, cool headed aggression.
Referees seem to be allowing more 'aggression' now and are perhaps passing through that phase of pulling play up for the slightest of tackles that we have seen in recent years. Football is a contact sport and strength is very much a part of it and if you do not use strength it will be used against you. We do look a bit tougher now even Eriksen has toughened up and he looked a bit shell shocked in his early days at Spurs. The Belgians have always played the game a bit like us so their contingent helps. Stil too much diving in the game but, dare I say it, it seems to be lessening a bit.
Paul Scholes was asked before the game what Ferguson said to the players before games against Arsenal. He said that the best way to beat them was to get into them, close them down and impose yourself on their game. That's exactly what the team did on Saturday and they simply couldn't deal with it. We weren't playing with an extra man in midfield, but it certainly looked like we were for large chunks of the game. Welbeck and Ozil didn't offer much defensively, so our fullbacks could get forward unchallenged, especially Rose, who also put his man off his game. He really upset his England colleague, who gave away a silly foul at the start of the second half and lost his head. I wouldn't call it a nasty streak exactly, as that suggests a Stoke-style attitude, to me. More a bit of steel in the side to go with the ability that a lot of our teams have had. Mourinho's teams tend to have it in spades, though he does go a bit too far. Ferguson knew it was essential, too.
I have to say I did enjoy Rose's constant wumming of Arsenal players on Saturday, Welbeck in particular.
Rose getting under people's skin is fine as long as he doesn't go down the Diego Costa road and start lashing out physically. Ultimately the best way to annoy other players though is to just be better than them - work hard, be everywhere on the pitch, and outdo them every time you clash.
Dembele is so tough, Arsenal players fall over when they're over a foot away from him... please log in to view this image
In his first few games other players came up with the brilliant tactic of giving Eriksen a two handed shove to knock him off the ball. It was a blatant foul, but since he was new and foreign the refs didn’t call it. It’s striking how much he’s evolved from there in every way, including toughness. He’s gone from a lightweight rookie to a veteran general in months. Five MOTM this year, joint top with Sanchez and Hazard. Leading midfleld non-pen scorer, 2014, and quite possibly in 2015 as well.
Arsenal stopped challenging for the title when they lost Vieira. They've had the touch players, but have never replaced that combative element in the team, which all successful teams need. When things are not going your way and you need to dig in and stop the opposition playing, you need at least one of those type of players, who will fight for every ball and cajole the rest to do so and organise them into an effective team. I'm not sure who you would say fits that role for Spurs at present, but there is some evidence in these never say die performances of late that the spirit exists within the team.
Dier really seems to enjoy tackling. Dembele grinds other players down. He was a very good choice to play against Cazorla, who I’ve always rated, but who is both small and 30. The edge on this team seems to be pretty well distributed, even though no one stands out, with the possible exception of Mason.
