The Italian press, the only county he's managed in where the press don't have any club bias, saw through his bullshit very quickly - which led to him having a long-running sulk with them, that didn't do anything to improve their image of him.
We're disappointed with another chance to beat them and fluffed it. Paulinho's shot against the post a real turning point, 2-0 at the interval and its a different story. Didn't happen and once again let them off the hook with the all too familiar chalk and cheese halves. We don't adjust well when other teams change tactics during the game. Similar view on Soldado, the lad thrives on chances from crosses and throughballs playing off the shoulder of defenders. BS (very unfortunate initials!) although in the side from the start, has only had a couple of games with the new signings capable of giving him that kind of service. The cut in merchants till now do narrow things up and if they're not clever with reverse passes to mix it up with shots, its predictable like you say. If we can ever get Lennon fit I think he may work well with Bobbys ability at finding little spaces in the box. He needs a goal before it becomes an issue though, last thing he needs is loss of confidence. Judgement put back on hold for Townsend, he played some good passes in, first time I've seen it, and if he's not going to cross with his right, shouldn't we try him on the left more, crazy idea for a left footed player I know!, but his pace and a cross would help the above. If this isn't his best position??? then on the right he quickly needs to add variety to his game. Sig, I'm kind of with you, kind of not, can't workout his best spot, but he's scoring a lot of right time right place goals, while he's in this form he has to stay in, I don't care who or how as long as they go in. AVB's tactics and subs are no different/improvement (choose as personally applicable!) from last season, some ok, most not. I said a few days ago this game would be a far better indicator, and it was, no nous in the big games so far, the Goons and Chelsea the weakest for years and still can't do them. Some way to go yet, meaning that for now we are top4 contenders. The only thing to notice is that all the top sides have their problems and there's normally one or two ahead of us with a small gap by now, not the case this year. Weird season ahead imo with the Jan TW playing a big part for the top clubs for a change, meaning very much a season of two halves.
Good summary Notso, its demoralising how once we fail to get that 2nd goal, we allow teams to boss the game, we just dont have that inner belief yet as a team to really match the top teams. As for soldado, if you was Bobby who would you rather have behind you? Players like Townsend, Chadli or Siggy or players like Lamela, Eriksen, Lennon or Holtby. This is why I see where Roo is coming from about Siggy and also why I agree we need Lennon back. Avb still hasn't got the mix right, will he ever? not convinced but at least we never caved in like last year!
We are still adapting to AVB's approach I think. It's all quite logical and consistent it seems to me but not exactly new. Spain and Barcelona have been doing it for years and people tell me that Spurs were doing it in 1950. You can't score if you don't have the ball and you can't concede if you do have it so keeping the ball is paramount, and if you lose it getting it back is the only priority. Everything else follows from that. You play wingers on the 'wrong' side because then they don't have to cross the ball (which nine times out of ten gives the ball away so is a bad tactic). You press the opposition ceaselessly and especially when their defenders have the ball because they are likely to have the worst control and be the poorest passers. This necessitates a high defensive line or the opponents have too much space for their creative players in midfield. To make it work you need fast, powerful, athletic players with good skill levels and one or two creative ones. We've got most of that now and are learning to be patient in possession. Still too many crosses, shots and long balls though. And we've been lucky a couple of times when the pressing hasn't worked and the defence is in the wrong shape. I'm pretty confident that this is the way to beat the dross. If we can do that without slip ups and get a reasonable haul from the rest of the top 6 we will do very well.
One of our main problems is our lack of suitable cover at left-back. Naughton's got no left foot and we basically lose that whole side when he's in the team. If Fryers isn't seen as being good enough to challenge for a start, then he needs to go out on loan in January and someone else needs to be brought in.
I dont believe he was ever good enough, but Levy thought we was signing a great young player from Utds youth system but in reality hes fairly useless.
He's only young, but I haven't been overly impressed by what I've seen so far. Albrighton is just coming back from a long injury and he tore him to bits.
He was torn to sheds in Utd youth games also, Im not sure what anyone at our club saw in him? As we never had Baldini so can only assume that our youth scouts saw potential, just hope it wasn't the scout who rated Anthony Gardner!
I've seen the subs mentioned a few times on here but I think the first 2 were fine. We had a problem to start with when we could only name Sandro and Chiriches as our defensive options on the bench. Some have said Sandro should've come on, presumably for Paulinho, to tighten things up but Dembele has had a lot of problems with picking up knocks and struggling later on in games so we'd be taking a big risk by assuming both Sandro and Dembele would be able to finish the game. I'm not bemoaning the depth but to leave Chiriches on the bench as our only defensive option for the majority of the second half would've been a bad idea. Holtby seemed like an obvious one to me, he and Eriksen are very similar and do a lot of closing down(anyone noticed how we pretty much go 442 when we lose the ball?) so whoever starts will tire early and get replaced with their fresher equivalent who can add that energy back into the team. Chadli was a good idea too, we needed some width and Lamela wouldn't provide us with that and I think Chadli's more trusted defensively so I don't think it was that surprising. What I would've definitely liked to have seen though, is Defoe come on for Sigurdsson not Soldado. It wasn't a very tactical battle by that point and it really just became a bit end to end and messy which made it more about physicality(going back to Lamela/Chadli there too) so I think we could've done with giving their tiring defence another problem to think about Holtby was popping up all around the pitch and we weren't having any joy down the left anyway so it was worth looking at changing things around. Ultimately I'd rather we had 2 strikers on incase we conceded than scored and had only 1 striker on.
It was about as even a game as could be, IMO, though I agree Lloris did very well. With my Spurs colored glasses on I thought Gylfi had the best missed chance, one I was sure was going in. I think we're making good progress overall. The long spell of patient work before Gylfi's miss was particularly encouraging. So I like what AVBis doing with the team. The biggest problem seems psychological, as others have said. We seem to not quite believe we're as good or better than anyone at this point. The second problem is subs/tactical adjustments. AVB has never done this well,and I've come to believe he never will. If he didn't bring on Holtby at halftime against Arsenal when every single Spurs fan wanted him on, what hope is there? The mitigating factor here is that most managers won't come up with what they need to turn the tide most of the time, so AVB's MO of getting it right rarely isn't that big a liability.
Just to avoid confusion, it was THST who reported that, apparently they chased the matter up with the hospital. Hopefully the club will make an announcement at some point, though judging on their record of releasing info on our players' medical conditions it may take a while! Good news though
wasn't it pleat who refused to give sheringham a new contract because he thought he was finished, so he went to man united instead ?
Another poster here may well fill in better as to who Pleat has identified for us, I think Capoue is down to him, he was a target being watched by us way before Baldini arrived.
I've just had a rather disturbing experience. I read an article by Graham Poll on the Fail website and I found myself agreeing with most of it... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...disgrace-Chelsea-v-Tottenham-GRAHAM-POLL.html In related news, if Torres does get suspended for his face scratching, then he'll miss their League Cup game with the Goons.
