Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v APOEL Nicosia

Oooh arrr.

 

Not a team that plays their entire season fixtures in August.

 

Good win, goodnight all, roll on Huddersfield but I'm always wary of a Euro hangover.

 

August.
No school.
No Kane goals.

 

Post-match stuff ...

Manager :

Players :

 

I caught a bit of TalkShite earlier, and I don't know who said it but a pundit was comparing the quality of our bench tonight with that of Citeh's. So unfair and not comparing like with like. First he's comparing us to a club that effectively has no spending limit whatsoever, secondly what would Citeh's bench look like with six starters missing? Maybe a bit stronger than ours, but certainly not as good as it was tonight.

 

You did well Spurs,glad you made the travelling fans happy.As for that boozer in Devon......God I envy you!!!!!!!

 

As a Spurs fan, I'm very happy we won, but Apoel deserved the lead in the first half. We looked out of sync for the most part, and every single counterattacking move Apoel had seemed to end with someone in on goal. It was almost as if our defenders didn't know where they were supposed to be. Pochettino has done a brilliant job overall, but he has his weaknesses like the rest of us. He'll pound square pegs into round roles periodically, and he seems to take out an extra heavy sledgehammer for the left back slot. Tbf, Trippier should have had an assist for an early goal, but the defenders as a group looked at sea for most of the game, and sticking a right back in at left back certainly didn't help, nor did moving our regular LB over to CB. I was wishing from the beginning we'd gone with the 4-4-2 and bombed crosses in to Kane and Llorente.

However...if that Harry Kane would just move to Real or Man U, he might just make something of himself. Alderweireld's through ball was brilliant, and Trippier's cross was as perfect as Dele's cross on Saturday. Sissoko was decent on the right, which surprised me as his good games for us have almost exclusively been in the center. Winks was fine. Our problems were at the back, not in midfield. Aurier had his moments, but was more a ramblin', gamblin' man than he should have been against Apoel FC, and nearly let them score a couple. The moment Llorente came on and players went back to their natural positions we looked much better, and put the game away in short order. It's been a couple of good efforts for Llorente this week. Son should have scored at least one. He's become very valuable to us for his goal scoring, but when he doesn't create goals his poor ball retention makes him a liability. The thing is, there's a disconnect between how we judge players moment to moment--we want them to retain the ball well and make good decisions--and what we need attacking players to do to help us win, which is try a dozen low percentage ideas, fail badly with most, and produce a goal with one. The team has both quality and toughness, but needs consistency and concentration.

 

I was thinking that since we were down to bare bones, it was time for the 4-4-2.

 

I did think to myself early on that our best chance to score was when they have the ball in our half for a bit. They get some confidence, let the bus roll away from the goal, and...

 

I doubt anyone can.

 

Great result last night. We knew that the line up wasn’t particularly inspiring, but we did the job, and that was the most important thing.

Winks was amazing, and just slots in seamlessly when he’s called up on.
Sissoko had an excellent game, and even produced a decent end product on at least 2 occasions. FINALLY!
Kane was superb, as was Davies.... AGAIN.

The table is looking very interesting and we should be feeling confident going forward.

Dortmund have still got to go away to RM, and are already 6 points off the pace.
If we assume we’ll beat APOEL at home (with a side much closer to full strength), Dortmund are going to be forced to get a win against us at home, or madrid away, and that’s presuming they beat APOEL on both occasions. That’s a lot to ask.
If we beat APOEL as I’ve said, and can manage 1 point from 9 from the 2 RM games and Dortmund away, Its going to be extremely difficult for them.

Exciting times ahead, just gotta keep our heads and set ourselves up accordingly. COYS

 

(Adopting a Mouser-accent) 'Calm down, Calm down'!!

 

I don't think it is as easy as that. Assuming everyone beats Apoel then there is a horrible scenario where we narrowly lose in Dortmund and go into the final match with Madrid already qualified and Dortmund needing to beat them to go through at our expense. I'm not sure I want to have to rely on Real trying in those circumstances. To keep everything in our hands we need to get three points from the Madrid games.

 

Again I find myself agreeing with Pochettino's selection and tactics. He seems to share my views that keeping the shape and tactics is more important than exactly which player plays where. So he would have wanted to stick to a back three and Davis was a much better choice than Foyth or Dier to fill Verthonghen's shoes. So that leaves a hole at left wing back and a choice between playing Aurier, Trippier or Walker-Peters on the 'wrong' side. I too would have gone for Trippier as he is an experienced member of the squad and should be able to cope better than the other too. We didn't actually suffer too much from Trippier being out of position, it was more that Aurier played very badly which eventually forced a change to plan B.

 

Translation: "He doesn't theatrically fling himself to the turf every time he's within thirty yards of goal"

 

Or not lose in Dortmund

 

WHO CARES !!??

The quality of their bench IMHO was far better than Spurs
during the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons. Yet they STILL
FINISHED BELOW Spurs in the PL.

If people have not learned from the last two seasons that
tis not large wage bills or player stockpiling that will
determine your fate at the top end of the PL table, then
they never will.

 

Yes - that works too....I was more trying to deal with the theory that we would be safe if we had a better head-to head record against Dortmund after a loss. That's not true even if we got a 0-0 draw in Madrid and a 1-1 at home!

 

To add onto my slightly merry post from last night, I thought Dier and Davies had great games.

Davies has been so consistent it's frightening, I always considered him a terrific back up option to Rose but I'm now finding myself thinking that Rose isn't - or shouldn't - get back in the XI when fit. Davies doesn't have the speed but he's so much smarter than Danny that he more than makes up for that half a yard of pace Danny has over him. The versatility of also playing LCB is also a major asset.

Dier I feel is somewhat underappreciated. Don't get me wrong I know we all rate him on here but I seriously love the guy, like man-crush love the guy, **** I even changed my username for him . He's no nonsense and goes about every job the manager asks of him without any bother. I also feel, that like Davies, he's incredibly smart on the pitch, you get to really notice this when at the games because naturally the cameras won't always be focusing in on him but his understanding of football and tactics for me is up there with the best in our side. I think that intelligence partly comes from his versatility and understanding of different roles, while the fact he grew up in a foreign country is also a big factor as I feel it really matured him at an early age. There's many a time where I see him positioned so well when another is out of position that it looks effortless but in reality it's an incredible attribute to have and he done that so many times against Apoel last night, covering FBs and CBs. I know that as an out and out DM, Big Vic is probably better as he's more efficient/ stronger in the tackle but I think as an overall player, Dier excels far beyond him, his passing is underrated, he has an uncanny ability to cross well, a very good tackler in his own right, can hit a decent set piece, can play in multiple roles and has all the ingredients to be our future captain in my eyes.

Also, a shout-out to young Winksy, what a performance, good to see him back to full fitness again. He has such a mature nature about him on the pitch that you'd think he was far older and more experienced than what he is. Absolutely gem of a player.