Rival watch

If you're nervous and you lose games, then you're not better than the team that doesn't.

 

This highlights my point though - Stones has been there and done it multiple times now, this is Ramsdale’s first rodeo. The difference is striking.

 

I think that you were mentally gone in that City game.
You turned up expecting to get battered and that's what happened.
There was no fight there and I'm not sure what Arteta had in mind tactically, but it didn't work at all.

Failing to see out the Liverpool game was a big blow to the players and they didn't recover.
Holding on would've given them a boost and I think the mentality would've been different.
They were expecting things to go wrong and I think some of them are very tired, too.
I'm not convinced that you rotated enough or used some of your squad sensibly.

 

Arteta's been there at City though and won the title as a player with Rangers.
He knows how it works and should've prepared the players better for it.
There's no way that Ramsdale should be thinking like that. It's unbelievable.

 

Oh no

 

As is the case with life, you can reinforce a message to people as much as you want, but sometimes they need to experience it themselves to truly understand. Ramsdale’s gone from battling relegation to battling for a title in the space of 2 years. If he was getting complacent, then this will be a harsh (but necessary) lesson for him to learn.

 

Skyte Sports says that Odegaard is the top-scoring midfielder for a season with 15

Dele scored 17 in 2016-17

Le Tissier scored 19 in 1993-4

Facts, Murdoch, facts...

 

Oh really...?

 

But bottling means losing something you had the skill to win because you couldn't handle the pressure. If not being able to handle the pressure is a deficiency in the skill set then almost by definition nobody can bottle anything.
But my argument is actually that Arsenal are not as good as City so have done well to get so close.

 

Gerrard got 16 in 08/09, Lampard hit 22 in 09/10 and Fabregas got 15 for Arsenal that year.
Fernandes got 18 a couple of years ago, too.

 

Should've been more specific: non-penalty goals

Fernandes got, like, two of those

 

All true, but we "bottled it" by drawing with Chelsea even though winning that game would have changed nothing.
The following year we won 12 out of our last 13 games...the one we lost was v West ham and the sky football presenter (Rachel Riley I think) said we went spurs and bottled it.
Newspapers joined in...as did football fans, particularly gooners.

It's a stupid concept but like a lot of modern football has become a thing.

So get used to it my friend cos you got it coming your way big time!

 

For me (as a child of the 70s/80s) , the term
"bottle job" meant losing your composure due to fear

In sport, it means losing your mental
composure/focus to "see the day out" ,
when the stakes for failure are higher,
and the margins for error become smaller.

And at the same point of the season, for
two seasons running, that is precisely what
them lot have done.

 

I don’t really have an issue with rival fans talking about us bottling it, as it’s part and parcel of football camaraderie and banter. But when I see mainstream media outlets and journalists, who are paid to provide some insight and a higher quality of analysis than your average John down the pub, then I get frustrated when I see the same level of disingenuous reporting.

All these soundbites, clips and sensationalised headlines completely dilutes any meaningful diagnosis from individuals who are paid to know better.

 

Alkmaar won 5-1. More of that in the week, please.

 

There are/have been times when the term "bottling it" could reasonably been applied to certain teams but I really don't believe this is one of them.
I will take this opportunity to point out that at the beginning of the season not one person would have predicted you as the team to be challenging City for the title and the fact that you have is a credit to your team.
The biggest difference (and in my opinion the reason you look to have failed) is purely squad depth. When you loose players like Saliba and Party you simply don't have the same quality to bring in and it makes a big difference, when City loose players you hardly notice.

 

Hey lads, this is the spurs forum. Our sole aim is to revel in Arsenal’s misfortunes. Let’s not have this kind of talk in here!

 

What irks me about those two seasons is that we weren't top at any point in either of them, whereas Arsenal in 15/16 were top on six matchdays. It's quite difficult to accuse a team of bottling something they never had a grasp of in the first place!

Not sure anyone used the bottling label in 16/17 though. Chelsea were simply relentless that year. Most pundits and rival fans really developed a soft spot for us that season due to the quality of the football, best attack and best defence and unbeaten at home all season. We won admiration and plaudits more than mockery.

You're probably thinking about the 1-0 defeat to Wet Sham in the 'Leicester season', which was a chance to go top but we didn't take it. Fortune presented us with another chance to go top the following week but we failed to beat Arsenal despite them being down to ten men and us having home advantage. After that, we were simply playing catch up with Leicester and the Chelsea game was just the final nail in an inevitable coffin. So I do hear grounds for small accusations of bottling it in 15/16 but not the following season. In fact I'm not sure we were ever close enough to Chelsea to overtake them and if we were, it would have been very early on as they went top some time in November and stayed there for the next 6 months.

 

Definitely the 1 nil loss at their place in 2017...
https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a827655/sky-sports-rachel-riley-tottenham-hotspur-bottle-jobs-abuse/

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/rachel-riley-sky-sports-tottenham-16958653

Could add lots more too.

Was completely unprofessional and absolute bollocks.

Don't agree with the sexist **** thrown her way as a result.

 

Wow

"Bottle jobs" when we were already 4 points behind them having played a game more?

I thought she was meant to be good at maths?