More desperate stuff. Rose shoots way over the stands from a good position that we could have developed. So frustrating.
Well, for all those eternal optimists out there, at least it's a clean sheet. Maybe another toothless, and now goalless performance will convince Levy that we must get more quality in by Tuesday. 3 points from 4 games. Hmm... rings familiar. It can only get better from here.
You can also say we're unbeaten in 3! We played decent enough today - if any team deserved to win, it was us. There was just no creativity and no service for Kane, aside from that 1 chance where he should have scored. Howard played well in truth as well. I look forward to Njie and Son being integrated as well as a backup striker with pace (hopefully Berahino). There were so many times where we'd be 30 yards from goal and the 3 players in front of our man would be stood still.
Same story, chapter 4. Created the better chances and didn't win the game. Mark this one down to poor finishing and good keeping. With by far our best creative player out, we’ve now scored one goal in two games. Easy to find fault with three points in four games. But once again, while there was too much passing on the edge of the box at times, overall I thought it looked like a reasonable attempt to mix up attacking approaches. Someone just has to put the ball in the net. There were quite a number of excellent chances where the shot was missed. Dier was excellent. I liked Mason and Bentaleb as well. Vertonghen and Alderweireld had good games. Rose isn’t back to his best yet. Walker was good except for one awful giveaway. The ref for some reason called every incident against Spurs, which didn’t help, but both teams looked pretty toothless, tbf. .
Thought we played well but needed at least a striker on the bench....kane does not look particularly fit and is off form so could do with a break so not bringing in a striker has and is costing us. Thought that we could have been bullied by Lukaku but weren't and defensively we were good. The difference in the last 4 games have been small ... if we can keep the defence solid and improve the attack then it could be a good sept to xmas for us
You know what it looks like? It looks like we need a couple of decent attacking options to come in. Oh look! They just did! We need to start integrating N'Jie and Son asap. Overall we dealt with Everton today but really the stats of that game will flatter Spurs - we had a general toothlessness that gave way to a desperation. Noticeable that with over 10 mins remaining Kane is taking a corner rather than us organising and him getting in the box. Thought Dembele going off was going to be a blessing in disguise though it didn't play out that way. Dele and Pritchard may be promising but looking at our bench we're going on optimism more than expectation when a couple of youngsters just in from the lower leagues or Lamela are our only options to change a game. In the circumstances, given the team that played and the options on the bench and the fact that we have a couple of attacking options to come into the team (as well as Eriksen to return) then I guess a 0-0 isn't so bad. Low expectations though...
The irony and the frustration is we specialized in grabbing three points late where the other team got the better chances last year. This year we look like a good, if somewhat dull team, but can’t get three points despite being a bit better. I continue to have patience with a young team, but this is hurting our position in the table. It’s killing me that I have no idea what’s wrong with Eriksen and what the prognosis is. The Guardian’s time waster was comparing teams to cereals. One cereal Spurs are not is Lucky Charms.
How's about this for a ludicrous way to spin stats - this is a tweet I saw: "Tottenham still chasing their first win. Current points total equivalent to three defeats in first four games." Total BS
We deserved to win out of the two but its all our own fault we didn't. Nobody really replaced eriksen, would have thought it the perfect game to give Pritchard a go from the start. No striking option from the bench. At the pooint we were dominating I would have liked to have seen 2 up top. What sort of prem team doesn't even have the option of playing 2 strikers ffs? As I think fla or Lenny said, they came back into it as they grew confident wed never score.
I was afraid Dembélé plus Bentaleb would equal too little going forward. I think we all were. I would have kept Mason where he was and added Alli, and Pritchard otherwise. I have to say everyone who says Pochettino is too conservative and dull will have ammunition with the lineup and the 0-0 draw. The problem, to me, was more the finishing, though. Kane and Chadli should have scored, at least, and there were a number of other good chances. Mason kept doing the ostensibly right thing in getting a quick shot off on goal when he had the chance. But they were all too close to Howard. I really don’t get the short corners on a team that’s been successful on set pieces.
While the team played more consistently than we have so far this season, the match demonstrated the issues that come with starting the season as a work in progress. The obvious issue was the lack of pace on the wings, which may have been addressed with the signings of Son and N'Jie - but since neither was available today (Son as he waits for his paperwork to get sorted, N'Jie when he's match fit) our attacking trio lacks a cutting edge. Mason being moved onto the right when Dembele had to go off also didn't help, as he pretty much vanished from the game when we did that. Having a dedicated DM would also help. Dier's performed well in the role so far, but as good as he is at breaking up play he's less effective at getting the ball forwards when we're in posession, something that a player like Bender or Kramer would help with. Also, seriously...another striker would be nice.
The most frustrating match yet. I thought the set up worked very well. Lukaku hardly got a kick and one advantage of Dier and Bentaleb as the midfield 2 is that they cover the attacking full backs well. I thought Mason did fine in the Eriksen role. We created four or five decent chances and gave up very few. If we play like that every week we would win most matches 2-0
