So I stupidly decided I would try my first ever lucozade tonight, right before I headed to bed. Looking at the label, it has 50% of your daily sugars; I was unable to fall asleep. To attempt to counteract this, I followed this up with about 4 bongs, and with my housemates in bed, this led to the inevitable pondering of Spurs, and in particular, the match today. We lost to a very strong and in-form Chelsea side today. We shouldn't feel too much shame about this - I read somewhere today (possibly even on our mighty Spurs board here) that their front 4 players today cost something like 125 -150 million (I'm too high to attempt to verify this). Maybe I'm getting caught up in the hype, but I'm really thinking that Chelsea are the most likely to win the league. We didn't have arguably 2 of our 4 best players this season playing today (the others being Vertonghen and Sandro IMO), and we still gave an ok showing of ourselves. Despite the loss, and Gallas and Walker's performances, there are other positives to take away. Lennon was superb I thought, constantly taking on his man and running at the defence. Plus, he came quite deep to get the ball a few times, and carried it up the pitch and skipped past a few people before setting up an attack (Modric-esque). Vertonghen once again was outstanding, and Caulker was solid if not amazing. Finally, also proud of the way we started the second half. People say AVB has poor man management skills, but he must have said something right? Even if it didn't last, we did so well to turn around a losing positon into a winning situation and I'm pretty happy about that. We should accept we lost to a better team, move on, and look forward to Southampton (which I'm going to!). P.S. I don't wish to sidetrack, but I happen to agree with GHoddle10 about the Lloris situation. On Cahill's goal, I couldn't help but wonder if Lloris might have got a hand to it. And Torres' chance near the end that just missed the right post, I thought Lloris have got a bit closer to it - Friedel seemed a bit lost for it. P.P.S I just remembered the Arsenal score today and now I'm again.
There were positives. No doubt about that but the concern for me are three issues 1. Our tactics leave us exposed at the back 2. Gallas is a liability 3. Walker is a liability So its clear during this season we will play some great football, have great moments and win some big games yet our manager is a one trick pony and has two 1st choice defenders that are a complete liability. So its hard to think about the positives when you can predict who will screw things up.
Kyles mare for the 4th - Walker had a 'thing' about pushing Juan Mata about. He did it earlier in the game, Walker was shielding the ball near the touchline, he shoved Mata clean off balance, not difficult, a physical mismatch, but Walker found it funny, then got side tracked throughout the rest the game taking every opportunity to push Mata about, made worse by drifting past him for his 2nd goal. Walker had plenty of time to clear/pass the ball away, but he clocked Mata and chose to run toward him and take him on to muscle him out the way again and it failed dismally. Schoolboy error getting distracted into a personal thing with an opponent. Hudds lack of mobility cost us too, he did ok, but ok isn't good enough. When Mata broke through the middle toward the end of the first half and had those two efforts, one saved and the rebound put over the bar instead of 2-0, Hudd was trailing in his wake, basically conceding and let him go. Hudd also failed to spot and get across tighter to the crosser for the 2nd goal of theirs, left floundering again. He was pretty much led a merry dance when we didn't have the ball by Mata, Oscar and Hazard. Hudd was ok with the the ball, but was atrocious in key moments off it. Anyone thinking about coming back at me cooing over sweetly struck passes, would do well to think again! Sorry about the negatives on your positives thread!...but Boss started it!
Isn't the fact that we had a lot more shots than them a positive? And before some glass half empty person says they don't count if they don't go in, all I'll say is that you can find a negative in just about anything if you want to find one. I'm looking for positives here, as in the title of the thread, and having a lot of shots against a team touted as possible title winners with a few first choice players missing *is* a positive.
We only ever looked dangerous when we ran at them, Lennon especially. That's our natural game. With modric & VDV gone, and Dembele missing, we were hardly equipped to play the pretty passing game that their midfield trio had us running around after. We always look far more dangerous when we attack with pace. Our fast counter attacking game is our best weapon. Unfortunately, far more effective away, than at home. When all is said and done, we conceded another 4 goals - at home too! The only positive I can come up with is, IMO had Bale been available, we might just have got a least a point. Apart from that, Chelsea looked a different class a lot of the time.
So our best play comes from counter attack.yet our manager wants us to play high. If we play high up the pitch then any team with a degree of talent will expose us on the counter. If dembele is injured were screwed. ......ok lets end this reply on a positive, we was one win away from having the best start to a season in 20 years so we must be something right!.........or all managers before started the season poorly..........
Yep, there were some positives yesterday. Here's hoping we can build on them. We're still in the top 4 chase, and I think Rangers won't lose to Everton today. We're also still in all competitions, and the Maribor game is just as important as the Southampton game to me. I back AVB's attempt at going all out to win the EL, but balancing the two competitions is a hard task. Not to mention the Norwich Lge Cup game soon.
Lennon was again (excellent) - positive Defoe ran his little legs off and did a top job throughout, despite having played on the sponge in Warsaw - positive Verts and Caulker again looked pretty assured tho' the lack of Bale in front of Verts was significant. (Surprised that Lennon didn't switch to put some pressure on the already booked Ivanovic) - so-so Sandro looked a bit lost at times - missing Dembele?? - so-so Gallas had a mare admittedly, but did score and has been excellent in recent games so would try and be more balanced in criticism. - Negative Dempsey, Sigs and especially Hudd looked off the pace and frankly lacking in confidence. All of them getting caught in possession and misplacing passes - Negative Friedel did nothing 'wrong'. Moving on...... Livermore has gone backwards and I am starting to wonder whether the top performances of last year were a false dawn - Negative Ade worked hard when he came on, but looked rusty and certainly not a 'smiling' Ade. But he has been out effectively for months so will take a while o get back to speed. Give the guy a break for now - so-so And then there is Walker....... Potentially a top player, but needs to sort out his defending and especially awareness of threats. By my reckoning he has cost us between 4 and 6 goals so far his season (not sure how many Points that equates to). Time for a rest IMHO and against Maribor and Soton would like to see Smith or Naughton given a game - Mega-negative
SouthWestSpur,I'm not going to fuel the fire about Lloris and Brad but how can you say what an absent goalie would do? Would Lloris have saved the ones that Brad did or not is another unanswerable question.
No, far from it imo, Wigan had twice as many shots as Chelsea http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19231340 so I'm struggling to see the validity of this angle. More to the point, they have stuffed 4 or 5 goals past us in the last two meetings. Of course there's a few positives in every game for every team in general. Our shot count is only high because the of the selfishness of JD, blasting it hopefully or perhaps hopelessly! at defenders legs when a layoff is the better option. Cech had work to do agreed, Brad had more. The main negative no one wants to admit too, is our squad isn't as good as people think. Same story of the last few seasons, outside of our first 11-14 players, the quality isn't there against top opposition. We'll get by against lower half teams, but top 6 clashes...nope!
TMT it is an unanswerable question, but going from all known data Lloris would have done better than Brad yesterday, that's all that can be realistically said.
A positive worth remembering about our overall play is that we were the more attacking team. Chelsea had more possession but we had more territory meaning that we were much more positive on the ball despite their counterattacking philosophy. That's what I saw too when I was at the game so I was surprised to see such negativity after the game. Just to touch on the negative sides that Notso mentioned. I felt Vertonghen was responsible for the Mata goal when Huddlestone was out on the left as he should've tracked straight back as soon as he lost the ball. It was very lazy from Jan. Huddlestone also wasn't the only one to struggle with the pace at times so I think it's unfair to single out his performance when he's clearly improving. Yeah Walker had a total 'mare for the last goal but he wasn't totally wrong in what he was trying to do, clearing it into the stands in injury time when they've got men over in attack is the opposite of what you went when you're chasing the game. Sigurdsson's finishing was probably the main negative from the players, he didn't have a single good strike all game. As much as we missed Bale and Dembele, when we went ahead it was clear we really missed Parker again and I think we'd have had a much better chance of closing the game out but the team shouldn't have become so disorganised like we did in that period of the game.
YV - I would be kinder on Walker if he wasn't making the same mistakes consistently at the moment. The 3rd goal was not directly down to him, but he again appeared to show a lack of awareness of the threats around him and allowed a forward to 'ghost' into space. The 4th you could argue was an attempt to keep the ball live but frankly I think it had more to do with his ongoing childish spat with Mata - a battle of skill he was never going to win. Inexperience or over-confidence? Not sure, but it is costing us consistently - not just yesterday. However, I would be the first to defend the lad from the abuse he has suffered on Twatter. That is totally unacceptable and not going to help address the situation.
Cheers for the replies guys. Agree with the comments about Walker, but not sure how AVB should handle it. We could drop him for a couple of matches and give Smith/Naughton (if he's fit again) a go, but not sure how Walker would respond to this. On the other hand, maybe we should be supporting him through this bad patch, and should stick with him? I guess only AVB knows. I know people are tired of discussing this so I'll try and be brief. I agree that it is unanswerable, all I can do it state my opinion having seen Lloris play only a few times. Thought he looked good for France against Spain, especially the penalty save. This would have given him a lot of confidence that he would have brought into the Chelsea match. I think most would agree his reactions are faster than Friedel's, which may have helped him to save Cahill's first.
There were very few positives from our game, yesterday; and the negatives were not only numerous, but critical and depressing. AVB got his tactics wrong in both halves. That's the most serious of the negatives for me. If he couldn't get them right against Chelsea, what hope do we really have going forward with him? Our defence, so solid against United at OT, looked flimsy and clumsy. Defoe was still preferred over Ade, despite the fact that Ade would clearly have been the better starting option against Chelsea. Bale was permitted not to play. Yes, I know his GF had gone into labour, but this was an important match. If Bale absolutely had to be absent, then why not play Townsend? THudd was a mistake, pure and simple. Gallas should have been taken off in the first half. Walker needed the "hair-dryer" at half time, and clearly didn't get it. Why didn't Lloris start? Positives? Oh, there is one: we conceded only 4 goals to Chelsea. We beat United on their own turf after a decade of disappointment, and yet AVB could not use that to motivate the players to at least grab a point, at home, against Chelsea. I'm not saying we had any expectation of winning, but I am disappointed that we didn't play as well as we could have done, even without Bale and Dembele.
On the whole, they defended far better than we did (not difficult!) plus we were completely outplayed in midfield. You can't keep giving the ball away to the likes of their midfield trio, and expect to escape unscathed.
Yeah, I know what you mean and the worrying thing for me is that Walker doesn't seem to be very aware that he's making a lot of mistakes, or if he is he's not working on it. The positive side was that he dealt well with a number of attacks down his side even when they threatened to over load us down that side but his awareness of the player he's marking, particularly in our defensive 3rd, is really lacking and his aerial ability is also. Another positive(/straw to clutch) is that we're making goals from freekicks this season
To be honest, there weren't that many yesterday. To me, it just demonstrated once again that pace is the best weapon we have. We have now conceded 12 goals in 8 games.
