Seeing a lot of comments that just don't do justice to Spurs performance. Shamrock were tired after 60 minutes being well into their season and being part timers. They had 44% posesion and could have scored more than one and they took the lead and showed they were actually better in posession at the back than spurs for the entire game. What did Shamrock was tiredness after 60 minutes and the pace of Townsend when they were tired. It was always gonna be a case of goals going in late. That was no B team, don't be so deluded, half a first tteam was in there.
100% spot on! credit to Shamrock Rovers, their players & their fans are unreal and were a credit to their club throughout. Thought they passed the ball around the back and used the wings superbly for a part time team.
So it's not just their own team that the Scousers are delusional about, then? Give it a break. The only reason that Shamrock were still in the game after the first half was because of their goalkeeper and the woodwork. They defended quite well and kept the ball pretty decently at times, but they offered virtually nothing going forward and their goal came from virtually their only noteworthy chance. 44% possession? I don't think so. Sky has it down as 33.4%, which sounds a lot closer to the mark to me. Not a B team? We had two first XI players in the side, in Walker and Defoe. Corluka and Bassong are our 5th and 6th choice centre-backs, Livermore and Carroll are probably 7th and 8th choice central midfielders and everyone else was back-up, at best. Shamrock did give us a much better game than Liverpool, though.
I have nothing but respect for the way Shamrock Rovers played last night and their supporters were absolutely incredible. But the truth is probably just one of the Spurs players who featured last night (Kyle Walker) will start on Sunday against Arsenal in the North London Derby. That doesn't take away anything from Shamrock's performance.
All credit to Shamrock and their fans, but a fair score would have been 4 or 5-0 to Spurs. We were way better than them in the first half which ended 0-0, and it was a stack of luck and brilliant keeping primarily that kept them in the game, backed up by them playing their hearts out against superior opposition. Please Shamrock fans don't spoil the brilliant impression you made last night by pretending you were unlucky, or not given full credit. You weren't unlucky, you were given masses of credit, but Spurs were four or five goals better on the night in terms of possession, shots on goal, danger from open play, etc. When did Shamrock seriously threaten Spurs from open play? Never. When did Spurs seriously threaten Shamrock from open play? All game long.
35p per minute to watch Tottenham Reserves V The Shamrock Arms. A restricted view high up in the stalls of a delapidated stadium that only sold mini cheese bagels from a rickety stall at half time. mmmmmm. They were nice bagels though.
I don't think anyone has really said a negative thing about Shamrock Rovers,in fact they fought to the very end.As for being a B Team, i think your right it wasn't it was a C or D team at best.
The first half seemed to be a repeat of too many games from last season, where we added a couple of million to the value of the goalkeeper, and every corner saw us politely give the ball back to the nearest Shamrock player. Some of the players seemed intent on choosing the wrong option, too - GDS constantly dribbling when he should've passed, Pav always seemed to choose the wrong ball in the area, too many players intent to play in front of Shamrock when they should've gone for the jugular (Walker and Rose being the notable exceptions), and Cudicini punching away the free kick he should've smothered before the goal. If anything, their goal was a better kick up the backside than any half time rollocking 'Arry could've given, and it showed by the way we stopped fannying about and started playing like we meant it. The best impression, though, was that Pav and Defoe scored from crosses, by GDS and Townsend respectively.
