Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal

There's an interesting article in yesterday's standard (pre match) about Arteta as City's coach telling their players to comitt fouls to break up play.

Holding seemed to think that meant he could do what ever he wanted.

 

What a shame this thread is ruined by

He probably thought he was playing for Liverpool.

 

He probably saw Son getting away with a red card offence and thought it was open season on fouls

 

Was he a ****ing time traveler?
He kicked Son in the back (a red card offence) in the first 10 minutes....

 

Course it was

 

Son flung out a flailing arm to shrug off the persistent fouling, he made virtually no contact and to compare that to Holding deliberately kicking and elbowing is just nonsense. You are looking for excuses, just like your sad and pathetic manager.

 

Bit of a contradiction here. You either don't like people looking for excuses full-stop or you're looking for excuses for Son. Can't really have it both ways. Or you could just admit you like it that you got a bit fortunate. Let's face it, I would if Arsenal got the rub of the green!

 

He looked very leggy and nervous in the opening stages which is understandable given how little game time he's had this season.

What I liked was our overall pragmatism last night which included using Royal and in his absence, Bentancur to double up on Martinelli and help Sanchez deal with his threat. We kept that up until the game was gone, at which point Sanchez was playing on the halfway line.

Not a bad performance but he is levels below Romero so I hope the latter is back for Burnley.

 

It takes a lot of work to make that gold.

Lurking here before KO. Watching the game.
Couple of hours of post game "forensic" analysis
to get your comments ready for posting.

 

To thank Spurs for taking 6 pts off Citeh
(thus preventing their PL title win being a procession) .

Your thanks are graciously received.

 

Rob Kanda. < Sponsored by Rwanda >

 

Scousers seem to forget this bit

 

Too angry that they couldn't beat us.

 

Simple: because he didn't elbow Holding in the face

Notice the complete lack of contact between elbow and face from this angle

Once again, you really need to stop believing everything you read on Twitter...

 

Pass map time

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The most obvious thing that sticks out is the pre-match concerns about Davos did not come to pass, because while he didn't have the mobility of Romero he was moving the ball between Emerson, the pivot and Dier comfortably, and the thick slugs between him and Emerson show how he settled into the game, which in turn is why Emerson had a much better game than anyone would have expected of him even a month ago

Now, compare that to the mess of the Runners' pass map

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While there's the obvious x-factor of Holding getting his marching orders to explain Elneny and Tomiyasu being in such odd positions, the rest of that is a ****ing mess. Why is Xhaka playing as a winger? Why is Cedric so high up the pitch that Saka has to play as a CF? Why do I need a microscope to see Nketiah? More than anything else you can see how we shackled Odegaard as he's getting a lot of the ball from Cedric and Elneny, but he can't do much with it

But, of course, the one thing it shows more than anything else is that North London is Lilywhite

 

Frankly even if there was contact, the guy was holding on to Son and was being shrugged off. If someone grabs you from behind, what are you supposed to do?

 

They are clutching at straws with this to say the least, Son was provoked into throwing an arm out, it was not an unprovoked and deliberate attempt to elbow him and there was minimal contact with his neck. Son being deliberately kicked when laid on the floor was far worse, as was Holding deliberately and dangerously elbowing Son in the face. Fabinho`s elbow on Son was just as bad, but there was no way Oliverpool was giving that decision against the Dippers.

 

1. The primary intent of a defender getting that physical with an
attacker is the former letting the latter "know that you are there" .

2. A beneficial by-product for the defender is that repeated #1
may provoke the attacker into responding stupidly (ie yellow/red card) .

A job of the ref is to ensure the line that goes from #1 to #2
is not crossed (which also as a by-product sets the "tone" of the game) .

Yesterday, Holding misread where the line was, and he and
his team paid the price.

 

Just on the train back home now, what a night, honestly what a night.

Sore throat and banging headache but it was so worth it.

That might have been the best atmosphere I’ve seen at the Lane, certainly one of anyway.

Thought the whole team were great, couldn’t fault a single man from Lloris in goal to Kane up top. Passion, grit and determination from all of them and I loved it, that’s what I want to see and that’s what I think Conte and Paratici want to see too. The difference the two new boys in January have made to this side can’t be spoken of enough either, they’ve added some stellar quality coupled with hard work. I thought Arsenal came out of the blocks quickly but we settled not long after and once the second went in I felt almost certain Conte wouldn’t let us throw away a lead, let alone when the 3rd went in.

Kane - aka Mr North London Derby - was always gonna score too weren’t he? He hadn't scored in his last two games against them (his biggest NLD “drought” ) and it felt like he was never gonna let that reach three. Good luck to any player, Spurs or Arsenal, at breaking his NLD record.

Great moment at HT with young Riley taking a pen against Jennings.

Emerson picking up a smoke bomb during celebrations as well was brilliant. Hojbjerg came over at full time and gave a few roars to the south stand that was reciprocated back, Hugo also threw a few punches in the air.

As for the south stand, after the game it was absolutely rocking in the concourse, I’ve not got strong signal at the moment but if I can upload a video along with some pics when I’m home I will do.

I can hand on heart say that I honestly don’t care if we finish fourth or fifth but we absolutely couldn’t let them seal fourth last night at our place and for once it was nice seeing Spurs getting the job done on that front.

As has been said so many times over the weeks and months; keep Conte, keep Kane and then back Conte/ Paratici and I’m certain we’ll be in for a good season.

A DH Awayday has been ordered and scheduled for broadcast in due course