It was outside the box, the offside was debatable and Eto'o put the ball well wide. Wrong, wrong and wrong. Oliver bottled a bunch of yellows for your players in the first half too, despite being happy to dish them out for exactly the same things to ours. He was ****.
Still a red though. Offsides aren't debatable you either are or you aren't and as the replays showed he was ON.
Too much backpassing. Simple formula for defeat today. The more you pass it back, the more the other team will tend to anticipate it. The biggest f up wasn't Vertonghen, it was whoever sent the ball backwards to him, trading in a good chance for a break for a Chelsea goal. Too bad, because we were playing well aside from that. Sherwood's plan looked well-conceived at the top level. I would have put Soldado in in Lennon's place, and probably put Lennon on the right, Townsend on the left, with them switching sides. But to be fair, Ade was isolated against Newcastle and it worked. I like pairing Sandro and Bentaleb. We finally had a DM and a deep lying playmaker. Playing Walker farther forward looked like an excellent choice. Both he and Naughton had very good games. But Ade needed some help, and the only two who give it to him are Soldado and Eiriksen. Gylfi was completely anonymous. Looked like a dive on the red card, though I didn't get much of a look. What a surprise. Still, all for naught because we just can't convince ourselves that booting it out of bounds or forward when in trouble is the default option.
I think we should actually now concentrate on the UEFA tin cup. With another tough game coming up against the Goons following Benfica, our chances of a result are thin. The Europa League is our only chance of success this season so why not just go for it now? Top 4 is out of our reach for sure.
Our goal difference is crap for two reasons. We don't take advantage in games when we're clearly on top, often leaving out our more creative players for no apparent reason, and we keep getting hammered when wrongly reduced to 10 men. Both need to be addressed, but the latter's quite difficult to do.
I'm sorry but we can't blame the ref or having 10 men for those ridiculous mistakes by our players. Time to be realistic and accept this is a mentally weak Spurs side that is average when good and absolutely crumbles when bad.
The replay showed that his legs were on. His body was ahead of them. How is it a red if the ball's played wide? It's not a goalscoring opportunity.
No, it just comes naturally to him. He's immensely smug and annoying, but he writes the journalists' articles for them over here, so they love him.
Cant say I disagree tbh. He even has us Chelsea fans rolling our eyes at times. Excellent manager, but seems to revel in being a headliner. We can see the funny side, though I can see how opposition fans may not
Well, the replay I saw showed him offsides. TBF, it's the kind of offsides I think shouldn't be called: he looked offsides by a couple of inches, and when it's that close it's luck as to whether he gets the call right or not, so it should be a play on. Keep in mind that when it's that close also, a fraction of a second of when they freeze the frame makes all the difference. So we both could be quite accurate in our views. What'd you think of the pen? I hardly had a look at it, but what I did see made it look like a dive.
Spurs have wilted under pressure and made mistakes. You're not alone. At least you've only done it against the top sides and managed to get results against most of the rest. Uncharacteristically, Utd have done it against lesser teams. 2-1 up in injury time against both Cardiff and Fulham and conceded soft goals when defenders lost their heads. Drawing at home to Everton, Newcastle & WBA and ended up losing all three by capitulating under the pressure to win. It proves what I kept saying in Utd's defence of winning the title last season - talent only gets you so far; you need character, strength of mind, the ability to cope with pressure and the will to win. So much of the game is played between the ears.
"It proves what I kept saying in Utd's defence of winning the title last season - talent only gets you so far; you need" The FERGIE FACTOR (TM) .
HTML: Never said kaboul. But the others lost it, a lot, repeatedly. Sherwood is a goner after that interview
50/50 decisions are often given for/against a team, in particular marginal offsides. Cheating is different. I'm sure Kaboul will win his appeal against the red but that didn't help us today. However, today we paid for trying to run the clock down at 2-0 down and down to 10 men. Rather than bothering to try to win the game we tarted around with it and look what happened.
On the highest level, quite a good plan for Sherwood. My only criticism is that I would have had Soldado in instead of Gylfi. That, and someone has to tell this team to quit passing it backwards under pressure. What really annoying is that last year was destroyed by a back pass too, Walker's to Lloris against Liverpool. And it wouldn't have happened if he would have played where he did today, in Lennon's place. Lennon was hurt, and AVB juggled a successful lineup rather than making the 1-1 switch of trying Walker farther forward.
Sherwood's post match interview was very revealing just now…. looked forlorn, slated the players for lack of leadership and guts, pretty much said they weren't good enough and he seemed out of ideas. Certain messages need to stay in the dressing room. That showed weakness and for me, this is his inexperience being totally exposed. For Levy and co to expect Sherwood to get fourth this season is plain delusional. Yet he will still lose his job in the summer and we'll keep buying dross, year after year. When oh when will we learn?
