I wonder if this will be a season when a relegation struggler has a long cup run ie do a Portsmouth. Looks like it might be Leicester. Now after today I'm guessing that we just might see a War of the Roses Capital final. To that gooner, not all of us said a revival.
We have a remarkable capacity to make a complete bollock of just about anything. It's, unfortunately, a long standing Spurs affliction.
I think this game is a prime example of our squad/second string players maybe having the ability to play well but not the desire sometimes, and sometimes really not even the former. While it would be great to see the likes of Mason and Kane playing every game (even though they both aren't perfect players as we all realise, they have fantastic attitudes) given the way the fixtures have fallen, with a huge cup game on Wednesday and hopefully a good run in the Europa League to come as well as the PL campaign, and with key players out at the minute like Bentaleb and Chadli, Pochettino had to rotate the squad, even if that means players who have bad attitudes and perhaps lesser ability have to play in impotent games like this one. If we go through on Wednesday putting out our strongest available XI, and the players look fresher because of the rest they've had over the weekend, then Pochettino is vindicated for today's disappointment in my eyes. If Wednesday goes tits up, then there is going to be a ****storm and rightly so.
Before the game I wouldn't have been too disappointed with going out while resting some players. Having seen the other results today I'm gutted. Currently none of the Premier League's top 10 are through to the 5th round of the cup and 5 are out! We only have ourselves to blame, the game was there for the taking and we didn't get a second goal. Paulinho and Soldado had great chances to make it 2-0 as well. Even so, I could see them nicking an equaliser but to score twice in the last 10 minutes the way they were playing was unbelievable. On the plus side, Vorm looks really good and hopefully we never have to see a partnership of Fazio and Kaboul again, especially with Chiriches and Rose in defence too! Anyone know whether Caramac dived or not? I expected the worst when I saw him go down. Anyway, it's not the worst thing in the World to be out of one cup at this stage of the season, there's plenty for us to build on in the other competitions. We really need another striker though, Soldado has had so many chances but offered us very little hope of ever seeing him scoring regularly and Ade's not been anywhere near good enough this season either. I'm not holding my breathe but if we could get a striker, a centre back and a centre mid in before the end of the window I think we'd be really well positioned to challenge across the competitions we're left in. Time for Levy to get out the cheque book and Baldini to polish up his loafers for a busy week.
First post on this site. Was 'Alfie Conn's Afro' on the old 606. Having attended today's debacle with my 11 year old daughter (her first game), my view is that the following players are not good enough and will never be good enough to wear the shirt: Vorm - Has started throwing them in already. No ability to tell the centre halves to stop going backwards all the time. Fazio - He is half the pace of Dawson with none of the fight or understanding of the game. A woeful piece of recruiting. His inability to kick a moving ball gave away the corner that led to the equaliser. Just hopeless. Kaboul - Can't read the game, can't pass, can't motivate his fellow players. Why in God's name is he captain? Without Ledley to talk him through games he is worse than useless. Chiriches - Just NO! Is never going to be a centre half (he's weak and can't head a ball to save his life) and just has none of the skills to be a right back. Never looked moderately interested, Capoue - Can't pass, tackle or shoot. We would be better off playing with 10 men rather than pick this bloke. Dembele - Can dribble. can pass backwards or sideways, Usually to a colleague who has no option or insufficient skill to do anything but pass backwards also. Can't control a pass even if his life depended upon it. Can't or won't shoot. Usually runs to the 18 yard line and passes sideways to the opposition allowing them to break at a pace we can't manage Paulinho - Has a knack of appearing invisible or disappearing on a football pitch. I'm not sure what he does. Should disappear somewhere else. Soldado - When we got the penalty my mind immediately thought - "Please God, don't let Soldado take it!" I have less confidence in him taking a penalty than I did when Defoe used to take them and I had no confidence in Defoe at all. I am going to excuse Rose, Lamela and Townsend, not because they were any good (nobody on our side except Eriksen was any good) but they gave the impression that the result actually mattered to them and expended some effort in trying to win the game. The others have no place at our club and if Pochettino retains any of them beyond this summer then I shall know that this is another manager whose stay is going to be a short one. Defeats to teams in the relegation areas are becoming a habit and result from having players who just don't belong at our club
Thanks for that Brian! I think you have hit the nail on the head.I just wonder why these players are playing professional football if a losing scoreline doesn't worry them. Just pick up their pay and go check their hairstyles.....and the players wonder why they boo the likes of Adebayor!
I don't agree with your assessment of Vorm Brian, but I do agree with the rest pretty much, although I think Fazio could be decent if given a bit more time. You can definitely tell at times that he was perhaps Pochettino's second choice target in the summer. I'd rather have Dier playing than Fazio on balance. I said on the transfer thread that I expected a lot of movement in and out in this window a couple of months ago, but then we went on a decent run involving the Chelsea game and perhaps that stayed Pochettino's hand regarding a fire sale of Spurs players. When you're on a a good run with a good spirit in the dressing room, selling 6 or 7 players can disrupt that greatly. If we go through on Wednesday then I'll feel a lot better about yesterday, if we don't then the decision to rest players for yesterday is called into question, as is the lack of recruitment this month.
I don't think you can question something like that with hindsight. You can't compete across 4 competitions with just 13/14 players so either the backup players are good enough or they're not and we don't compete in as many cups. So far this is only the second game they've lost and I don't think it was really deserved, to be honest. They will need to improve though as the cups will only get tougher the further we progress. Frankly, if Sheffield United knock us out this week then the questions should all be about the team that played against them, not Leicester. As for Fazio, I think he was probably 3rd choice as Moreno broke his leg and Musacchio was silly money. Still, he has improved as he's started to settle, he and Kaboul together will always be a disaster though. If we could get another good centre back in then we'd have impressive options with Vertonghen, Dier, Fazio and another.
I don't think its fair to judge him in hindsight following Wednesday's result YV, but people will, particularly the press who love to have a pop at anyone. Wednesday's result will set the tone for the second half of the season - win it and we have a real shot at a trophy, lose it and we're left with a very outside chance of CL football and a slim chance of EL success due to the CL teams that drop down into it. The League Cup is now by far our best chance of a trophy or 'success' this year. Offer many of us a shot at a trophy at Wembley and a top 6/7 league position for this season and I think that would have been acceptable back in August in what was supposed to be yet another transitional year for Spurs. Cup success or even getting CL football somehow won't hide the issues this squad of players have, we can all see them and mostly agree on them too. But they will make us all feel an awful lot better, or at least I will.
Poch has sold a couple of players i didn't rate already so I really hope in the summer we will see the rest of the dead wood off loaded too.
I think he knows who he wants to keep and who isn't up to it but realises he can't sell too many too quickly. Selling the likes of Naughton and Dawson is a step forward, my worry is recruitment, Fazio & Stambouli are garbage imo but who signed them? Baldini or Poch?
I went to the game yesterday. Drove up from South wales and was deeply disappointed by what I saw. I agree with a lot of what has been written in this thread particularly by Brian. The one obvious thing we have lost in our game is the ability to break quickly. We had 4 or 5 opportunities to break quickly but wasted them all by slowing the game up. As soon as we took Townsend of we had no pace going forward. Lamela can beat players with tricks but is not the quick player we need on the break. Without Lennon and/or Townsend we simply have no pace and Poch must address this. We do not have the players to pass through two lines of 4 nor do we have the pace to get in behind. Some of our backwards and sideways passing midfield players need to have 'to dare is to do' explained to them. Sometimes you have to take a risk to create something. Yesterday, I thought they were all scared of making a mistake. Two other observations; I thought Soldado played OK. Lots of runs ignored by players who can only pass backwards and why do the crowd insist on booing Adebayor. I agree with a lot of the criticism but its not helping the cause to boo him when he comes on. Do people really think that's going to help. Lets hope we can put things right on Wednesday. COYS.
Fazio looks way too slow for this league. Stambouli looks as though he could turn into a useful squad player though, IMO.
Huddlefro, were you at the game? Having seen it myself it was obvious we intended to win it 1-0 and obvious that our luck would run out the way we were playing. The amount of backwards passing and inter-passing at the back gave Leicester all the hope in the world to get back into the game. The midfield should know that and drive forward and we can try and pen the opposition back and play a quick closing down game. In the second half the noise from the away fans grew and grew. It was odds on they'd get one goal and I was predicting we'd lose from 20 mins left. We didn't have the players on the pitch to make those tactics work. Pochettino should have been screaming this on the sideline and probably have brought Eriksen and Kane on much earlier. Lennon would also have been very welcome. What we got was way, way too late.
