I think this defeat could be the most significant thing that has happened this season. For the first time in 16 games, Poch and the team are under scrutiny as the hordes of Liverpool supporting pundits ask: how will this young manager and his young squad react? I for one welcome the pressure as I have yet to see anything this season that suggests we can deal with pressure. Three golden opportunities to go 4th and we bottle it every time. It's as if we're scared of our own success. The only thing that worries me is that in a normal season, one that isn't complete anarchy, 26 points at this stage of the season would have you sitting in 7th or 8th. I appreciate that you can only beat what's in front of you, but the absolute root of the complacency we saw today is the fact that our successes and strong league position have been premised on an illusion created by other teams' crapness. There's no question that we've improved this season - our GD tells that story. But then again the rest of the league has decreased in quality alarmingly, and we have failed to take advantage of it. I stand by what I said earlier: this team with a proper, experienced captain wouldn't have lost today. Stick a Roy Keane in the middle of the park to bellow at everyone until the crucial second goal is scored. People conveniently forget that the famous 'you can't win anything with kids' team contained the likes of Bruce, Robson, Pallister, Cantona, Irwin and Parker.
I'm afraid that for all his skill, he doesn't have the physical attributes to compete in a premiership midfield. Far too frail.
Oh, and I think Poch was 100% correct to hand Tom a start. It sends a massive statement to the likes of Onomah, Winks, Carter-V and Pritch, and indeed to young players around the world watching the Spurs under-23s every week: We aren't Chelsea or City. We won't sign you then send you out on loan to some Belgian hamlet. We won't leave you to rot in the reserves. We'll give you a chance to impress. Take that chance and your future is golden. It's just a shame that Tommy didn't take his.
Not for me... Play your best team. When you consider the prize of 4th on offer, the decision looks even more suspect now. It's not the notion of playing young players, just that particular one.
In a way I agree. I think Onomah deserved the nod more as he was simply better against Monaco. But there was a gap in CM but not AM so Tom got the nod instead. One of the reasons Modric was so brilliant was that he had Sandro and then Parker protecting him. The latter in particular allowed him to truly flourish, which resulted in the interested party being upgraded from Chelsea to Real. Dier is a good player, although he was poor today. But even on form, he absolutely doesn't read the game well enough yet to do his job as a holding mid AND protect his partner in the pivot. Parker was excellent at it because he did it after a decade of experience.
It's like we watched different games... I though Dier ran his heart out and gave us the nessecery steel in the first half. Modric is a different class to Carroll, with or without a Sandro / Parker around. He's 23, got his first starts under Redknapp, can you ever imagine him as a first team starter? Anyways, this result stung but that's more of a reflection on how I've felt about the progress than anything else.
Sorry, I agree with your comments about Carroll, but I thought Dier was, well dire today. Having said that, he was far from the only one. It was like watching some collective malaise!
I didn't even watch the game Shark, I'm relying on a blow-by-blow account from my brother, who was sat in the Shelf and shares a very similar footballing philosophy to me. I think it's more that we're making two completely different points rather than disagreeing. I'm saying that even if Dier were to give a 10/10 display, it wouldn't help a player like Carroll be more effective. That is because a Parker-Modric pivot requires a different job description to a Dier-Alli pivot. When the latter half of the pivot is a lightweight player, it isn't enough for the DM to 'run his heart out'. He also needs to run his brain out and be clever about how he defends. In essence, he has two jobs that require his undivided attention: protecting his back 4, and protecting his pivot. Dier lacks the experience to do the latter. More than that, he hasn't had a chance to gain the experience this season because Alli is no twig and League 2 taught him the rough side of the game. Dembele obviously doesn't need the protection. The only other partner Dier has had semi-regularly this season back there has been Mason - the slightest of the 3 but again, a player who never pulls out of a challenge and certainly isn't afraid to get hurt. Dier has been a revelation this season, but his job description has basically been: win possession back and use it to either build an attack yourself or release it quickly to your pivot. When you're playing next to a Carroll or a Modric, the only way to bring the best out in them is to release it to them when they have time and space to thread the pass that no-one else on the pitch can see. Give it to Dembele or Alli with two players bearing down on them and they'll drop the shoulder, dig in the standing leg, and either look to glide past, out-muscle or hold the ball up until help arrives. Carroll can't do any of that. Neither could Modric in his first season here. A great example of this point is the regular occurrence that Dier drops back next to the CB's when Walker and Rose push forwards. You can't do that when your pivot is a Carroll because your pivot is your outball to get things going again. Give him the ball when you're 30 yards away and he'll be steamrolled. I don't recall ever once seeing Parker drop back as deep as Ledley or Daws, because he understood that more so than Ledely needed his protection, Modric needed it. Now someone please play the music from 'The Bodyguard'. That was the s***.
I don't think the results this year show the standard is lower: its more that the smaller clubs have got stronger so there are fewer easy games and more opportunities to drop points. This is a good thing in general. We are doing better relatively versus last year's top 6 (both in games against them and in all games) than we did last year. We should be very pleased and hope for more improvement. If we do as well over the last 22 matches as we have over the first 16 we will have a very good chance of being 4th.
That is definitely true. We all complain about the dominance of TV and corporate deals ruling the game and causing bizarre fixture lists (e.g our noon kick off against Chelsea), but ultimately TV money is making this the most unpredictable league in the world by a country mile. There's no way 5 years ago the likes of Palace, West Brom, Watford would be able to drop over £20m in a single transfer window. But by the same token, there's no question that Chelsea and United have regressed terribly. Both of them are losing even when the opposition doesn't play particularly well.
Young team.....getting our backing all the way hopefully. Hope this is the shake they needed to start winning a few more..instead of drawing. Kind of glad to lose the unbeaten run....think it was making the team play out for draws to preserve the run. These things happen. COYS.
It doesn't matter how much money is available in the sense that the ultimate quality of players will vary. How good our top teams are will depend on the quality of players available to them and this will of course vary from year to year and generation to generation. It does matter how much money is in the game world wide when it comes to leveling playing fields. Couple that with the growth of very wealthy clubs world wide competing for the top talent and it follows that the top is very finite. Look how Italy, once the top league in the world now struggles to compete with England and Spain. Consider also how this season or perhaps next Bournemouth will have a bigger income than Glasgow Rangers, bearing in mind that Rangers are in the top 2 or 3 in terms of support in the UK. The great teams of Holland Anderlecht and Ajax are another example of now struggling giants. When I was at school (yes I know in the 16th century) Crystal Palace and Millwall players used to take us for football. We boys were impressed to mix with Millwall players but Palace we thought of as a joke team. I would not have believed that one day Palace would be a richer club than the mighty Ajax. Dulwich Hamlet had more street cred than Palace FFS
To have a team that can beat most of the teams in the PL regularly you need to have a lot of money but even then its quite easy to turn a lot of above average individuals into an average team. What is much harder is to turn average individuals into an above average team but it does happen from time to time and we may be seeing it now. But until we can develop three or four 'world class' players we won't usually be able to compete with Man City, Man Utd or Chelsea who can always afford to buy another couple if they get their transfer spending wrong.
Been away a few days since the game so not had chance to be on here. Was really disappointed on Sunday, first half we pissed all over them and should've been 3 up by half time. Second half a different team came out, completely capitulated, the hard work, team ethic and enjoyable football went away in those 45 minutes and Newcastle took advantage of it. No one done themselves any justice and I hope Poch grilled them after the final whistle because it was a massive let down on the first 45 minutes and in fact the season so far. Here's hoping we can get back to winning ways against Saints.
