You said that it was depressing that our strikers couldn't take advantage of a old and slow defenders, I was merely pointing out that the way they played negated the usefullness of pace in their final 3rd. Fair enough if you already knew that, I didn't realise from your post. Basically what you're saying then, is that there's no difference to us doing the same under 'Arry? That style of play causes us problems and did for 2 seasons under Redknapp too. I didn't think AVB got it right today either and I think he should have been brave enough to switch away from playing both strikers awhile ago. The fact that he persisted with it annoys me, as did some of Redknapp's decisions and that's not to dig at 'Arry, every manager makes decisions that fans disagree with at times. You brought up Sigurdsson, I was merely stating that he hasn't been on the pitch much. And yes they are all capable of putting in good deliveries but this season they haven't done it often enough, this I'm sure we can agree on. We all know who's in charge of transfers at Spurs and it would be unwise for AVB telling the press about how we need more strikers, it wouldn't achieve anything. I didn't think Defoe did badly with his chance in the second half, it took a deflection from where Defoe wanted it to go and the keeper made a good save. Ade was the only one to miss a chance where he should have done a lot better but more important than missing good chances, I thought the problem was that we created very little in the way of chances. I don't think any of our attacking players had a good game but for me the problems in the game today stemmed from the midfield and wingers. We didn't have the control in the middle that we normally have, Bale and Lennon weren't getting past players on the wings and this was all compounded by us playing the ball around their 16 yard area and hoping their defence just opens up. The funny thing is, with playing poorly it would've actually been a good idea for us to just keep taking shots from outside the area, something we've done a lot lately to my annoyance. It's easy to say that other strikers would've scored one of the chances ours had today but if we continued to play like that they'd have to continue feeding off scraps like our strikers had today.
Spurs have had 274 goalscoring opportunities so far this season (the highest number of any team in the Premier League), yet we've only scored from 39 of them, giving us a conversion ratio of only 14.2%. There are only six clubs with a worse goalscoring ratio than Spurs... Premier League Results, League Table, Goal Statistics & Opportunities for Season 2012-13
I think I am correct in saying that Defoe has not scored this season when Adebayor has been on the pitch.
No - they both started and scored in the home game against Panathinaikos. Defoe scored a hat-trick at home to Maribor when Adebayor was partnering him. Defoe scored in the 4-0 win at Aston Villa with Adebayor alongside him. And Adebayor scored against Reading when Defoe was his partner... Tottenham Hotspur Results, Team Line-Ups & Fixtures 2012-13
This is not a pro or compare to Harry statement mate. Basically what I'm saying is what I wrote, please don't read anything else into it. Oh I see, so when out of his hat he brings a striker without telling anyone, how do the players feel about being lied to aswell, not good being told you're good enough one day in public, then finding out so and so's arriving next week in your place. The answer should be if someone becomes available who might improve us we'll have a look at it. Non committal and keeps everyone on their toes. On the game, once again a lack of intelligent front line movement was as much a reason as the others. When defences sit, the CF's have to really work hard on runs to pull opponents out of position, makes holes and spaces, not necessarily for themselves to benefit from. Thats what should have happened the way we were playing, didn't see any of that. Ade was definetly in injury and energy conservation mode, are you surprised? was it the best decision to bring him back for this game in light of recent events? Like you, I do find it odd that people have said we were **** with one up top, I'm not really sure then how JD improved beyond recognition playing there, as plenty of people have said, funnily enough in some cases, the same ones!
He didn't tell the players that though did he? I think our priorities lie elsewhere in the transfer window, for me we need competition on the wings and proper creative midfielder more. Our strikers moved all over the pitch today but I thought it was in vain because QPR kept their shape and stayed disciplined. Personally I like my forwards running channels when they're looking to relieve pressure on our team and think the players around them are better for knowing where they will be when they're in an attacking position, the runs should be coming from the midfield and wings to cause them problems.
Seems like unless we win, AVB is ****. It's not such a bad result against a team who will have been extremely confident after a 0-1 win at the ground of their rivals, that being Chelsea. Not only that but who probably were fired up by our former manager who no doubt knows the strengths and weaknesses of our team better than any other manager.
It always seems you can't swing a cat on the QPR ground unlike the "open spaces" of The Lane. So that's one up to Rangers.It's not much of a surprise we failed to score.I can just hear Harry telling his lads "This is one I don't want to lose so out you go and if any of you mess up,I'll set Joe on you!" Nice to have another clean sheet so somethings working in the defence! What a Jekyll and Hyde team Rafa's got.4-0 at Stoke of all places after losing to Rangers.......and you've just got to laugh at Big Sam's excuses! Funny old game this football.......you'd think the FA would start a rest home for grief stricken managers......
I agree with much of what you say, but THFC6061's figures make the striker issue a bit more important than most think, so why is it not unreasonable to suggest what a clinical striker like Hernandez would have done with 274 opportunites? I was coming to 'the channels' but you've covered it . Yes, runs should come from others when strikers take defenders with them on a run. Already we've talked about some variations to try, but didn't do it, what we saw was the same ol thing. As you can see, I saw a lot wrong today. For the information of those using the pitch size as the next excuse... WHL 110 x 73 yards Loftus Road 112 x 72 yds
LOL, so true Dona. been on the QPR board.. and they seem to be disappointed that they didn't get the 3 points, or go all out for it at least! - erm.. hello? you're bottom and you're playing the 3rd placed team in the league, who's counter attack will rip you apart in seconds. How is a point not a great result?! This game just had too many factors involved in it yesterday, with the whole ex-manager thing, London derby, one club fighting for their lives and the MOTM curse. It showed in the football as both sides were tense. not at all surprised it was a draw, and a very fair one at that, IMO.
Fair enough. Also since Spurcat mentioned it earlier, Defoe has scored one league goal with Adebayor on the pitch at the sametime, the opener against Villa. The rest have come in the Europa League against the similarly **** defences of Maribor and Panathaniakos.
I think that those Loftus Road pitch dimensions are out of date, Notso. The Premier League Handbook has them in metres though, which doesn't help. The length is the same as WHL, but it's a little narrower. I think that the way that they played, the closeness of the stands to the pitch and the camera angle made it seem worse than it was, though. Villas-Boas had some slight concern over the standard of the surface, but I don't think that either the quality or the size of the pitch were particularly relevant. Had we scored the early goal, then it wouldn't have been mentioned. On the few occasions that the game opened up, it seemed that the pitch did too. It's strange that the Premier League standard for pitch dimensions is smaller than that accepted in European competitions. Stoke and Bolton both had to change their standard set up when they entered the UEFA/Europa and I believe Arsenal were given special dispensation to play at Highbury, too. You'd think that a league famous for it's attacking, pacey play would like to encourage it by giving teams plenty of space.
Not at all SL, attention is being drawn to our perpetual failure to get past bottom 3 teams that sit, using excuses ranging from Harry knows our players (yes he does, and AVB said as much before the game, so do something different!) to the pitch being smaller when in actual fact Loftus Road is bigger! These teams sit against other clubs too, but are broken down, thats why they're bottom. No-one but myself has tackled issues like not being up for a scrap against teams who are, Sandro excluded of course. Dembele who all agreed had a poor game was roughed up by Mbia to the point he wasn't in his usual place, he was taking positions up as far away from Mbia as he could get as the game went on. PNP - this is QPR fans talking about their pitch one year ago... http://qprreport.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=27544&page=1#265550 Like you rightly say, largely, I'd say wholly irrelevant, yet its been mentioned here more than once. I also agree about an early goal changing the game, I said the same in an earlier post. My main gripe is the lack of invention and reacting to problems that develop in front of you, before the subs our only tactical switch was swapping Bale and Lennon. If at the end of thye season we miss out by one point as usual, games like this will be among the those we'll be moaning about about dropped points, even though we got one, but you know what I mean.
Yes it is and one of them pointed out their current dimensions, Notso. "Our pitch last season was 100m x 65.85m". That's the same length as WHL, but a metre and a bit narrower. Not enough of a difference to actually have any impact, in my opinion, but it is a little smaller. Much ado about nothing, frankly. I'd suggest that Villas-Boas has a problem here though, as he can't bring on a creative player without taking a big risk. Huddlestone would've struggled with QPR's quick closing down and Carroll would've been flattened by their physicality, though he wasn't on the bench in the first place. We also lacked a direct replacement for either of the front two, with Dempsey playing a little deeper. The American did win a couple of dangerously positioned free-kicks, but they were wasted, unsurprisingly. Like yourself, I didn't really see the point in the wing swap. We seemed to congest things even further and sticking Sigurdsson down the left late on did the same, especially as he wasn't allowed to take any set-pieces. A frustrating day, all in all, but not a real disaster. Hopefully it'll motivate Levy to do something about our slightly wonky squad. My opinion on the HRQPR argument earlier is that it's actually an apt description. Playing HRQPR seems a very different prospect to playing MHQPR. Some of the players should be ashamed of the lack of fight that they put up under the previous regime, though the Welshman's got to look at himself for a large portion of the blame. He failed to motivate a group of players that should be more than capable of staying in the top-flight over the course of 38 games. Had Redknapp been in charge from the off, then I doubt they'd even be in a relegation battle with a few games to go.
Again I agree with much of what you say PNP, I'm just fed up with seeing the same dumb look on everyones face when its a game like this, the Uniteds, City's and others have to play these games too, but they roll their sleeves up, get stuck in and keep going to the end, we mock Fergie time, but its more the players attitude to not want to lose or draw, but win. There was almost a feeling of resignation about it, 'ah, another team parking bus, bugger, now what!?' Games like that gave us the saying, 'it had nil-nil written all over it!' Like I said, its not all about the game yesterday, its the trend. On the pitch, you're right, further down the link there is something about having to move a goalmouth up or something since, I only looked at what appeared on the screen, which seemed enough. At least we agree its a daft thing to mention.
I agree somewhat Notso, but I think that it's down to a lack of creativity, rather than a poor or resigned attitude. Man Utd have Carrick and Cleverly in the middle for a lot of their games, plus the likes of Giggs and Scholes on the bench. They also have a lot of strikers. If things aren't working, then they have a ton of options to shake things up, whereas we lack a bit of depth.
It was interesting to see the wing swap as when Arry done that, he got slated, as did he for allowing Bale to drift( which he done yeaterday). As for us failing to break teams down, We're a natural counter attacking team trying to adjust to a new system without a creative link, so this boring predictable football isn't going to change until our manager takes a greater risk and also signs a creative CAM.
I think it was west brom away last season, that was the only game ive seen defoe and ade link up effectively in the premier league, yet ade was playing with a smile. Also when we thumped newcastle 5-0,ade was superb with saha. So on his day,Ade can play in a 442 with a defoe/saha, but for me thats not good enough,as it may work now and then or agaisnt crap defences, yet Villas Boas should see it doesn't work as an option to take us forward and i was surprised to see Ade start as he clearly doesnt want to be here and is counting down the days until his flight to africa nations.
Boss - not here to defend Ade, as he clearly isn't firing on all the cylinder of last season, but that is a bit excessive. I watched the body language with the team yesterday and there were no negatives form what I saw. In particular, he and Defoe seem to have a really good interaction.
Fair enough relayer but i didnt think they linked up that well and in general Ade for me looks like he wants to be elsewere. There seems to be a lack of urgency from Ade and am not sure if Villas boas really wanted him, as i get the feeling levy pushed it through as it was a great deal. Reason i mention that is because Ade is one of them players that needs complete confidence from his manager and how well do villas boas and ade actually get on?
