You seem concerned at something pretty non-existent though Thor and I still disagree about beating teams by a certain margin of goals, if you look throughout the League no one is really demolishing teams on a regular basis, even if you look at Chelsea who are top, they have beaten a lot of teams by just a one or two goal margin and they possess a team full of world stars, if we're meant to be winning by two goals in certain games then Chelsea should be winning 4-0 in most of theirs. We were as good against Burnley as we were vs Newcastle, the only difference was that we missed a couple tap-ins, it wasn't poor shots or lacking confidence in attack we just fluffed some great chances which on another day we'd have buried, that happens to every team on certain days, it's actually encouraging that we're making these chances though because for the most part of this season we've created very little clear cut scoring opportunities and yet against Burnley we had I'd say a good 5 chances to stick the ball in the net; Lamela's cross which Kane & Chadli missed and then Eriksen blazed over being one of them, had Kane been an inch taller he'd have got on the end of another cross, Vertonghen had a header cleared of the line (or at least it looked like that from where I was sitting) and Heaton had to make one or two saves too. Burnley looked troubled, not only were they struggling to contain us but more often than not, when they had the ball, they couldn't get a string of passes together due to our pressing game. We're finally starting to look like a Poch team, I don't think it's a coincidence either that this is because Poch is selecting pretty much a consistent XI, the likes of Lloris, Davies, Verts, Fazio, Bentaleb, Mason, Eriksen and Kane have all been starting a run of games, Walker and Chadli are now back from injury and Lamela had his best game in the Prem for us. There is so much promise now compared to a couple of weeks ago that I'm genuinely surprised people are still being critical rather than optimistic. We might be coming into form at one of the most important and gruelling parts of the season. If we play like we did against Burnley and Newcastle then I'm confident we'll be leaving the King Power Stadium with a positive result
I'd say that Burnley were better defensively, too. Newcastle fell apart in the second half and it could've been anything, while Burnley made it tough and hung in. Their balls to Ings on the break caused us problems, but their main aim was to stay in the game, be compact and try to nick something. When we went two up against the Geordies early in the second half, they had to open up and attempt to get something back, which left holes at the back.
lenny you misunderstood my remark about 4-0 and 5-0. That 5-0 a couple of years back was out of sync with all the other results, it was back to the dross after that and now we do similar to the same team and it's back to the dross again, history repeating. I usually listen to the matches but watch when I get the link.
you can never say we should beat a team buy a certain number of goals,regardless of league positions.that is like saying,a team in a lower league should never beat a bigger team in a cup tie,you can never predict what will happen,that is why so many people like to watch games
Burnley had only lost one in five games, and played well, I thought. Their manager thought so too, and talked about seeing through the result to understand they played a good game, and will stay up if they play every game that well. Newcastle were coming off a drubbing and looked tired, partly due to injury problems.
One other point regarding tiredness is that it was our third game in the space of a week and the fourth in ten days, so that might factor into our drop in performance in the second half. We've got another run of games closely packed together, so Pochettino's fitness focus might become very important.
I agree we looked a bit ragged in the second half. It will be interesting to see what rotation (if any) Pochettino makes now that his starters look more settled. I'd at least want to see Chiriches and Rose at fullback for 1/2 games, and Stambouli and Mason split time, since they've all looked good. In theory we might start the less favored players versus Leicester, though there's an argument for starting them against Man U. Townsend and Lennon on the right, Dembele almost anywhere, and maybe even Soldado in for Kane or Chadli also seem like possibilities. I keep hoping Dier will get a game but can't see it happening.
Pleased to hear that Ryan Mason's ankle injury might not be too serious and he may be back soon. That's a relief!
Yeah, i thought we suffered quite badly when we lost him. Especially his attempts to actually run forwards at pace and help out the attackers.
