Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Olympiakos

It’s poor team selection because there’s too much rotation.
It always happens in the Carabao cup when we rest about 8 of 11, and witness a dire performance. Except this isn’t the Carabao cup.

A CL game, and we play Sanchez at RB, but also play our weaker left sided option, too!
It’s madness. Saturdays game was won because of the threat our wide players had in their locker, and the space they created centrally.
Tonight, despite Sanchez standing out wide and yelling for the ball like a school kid that no one passes to, he not only became the kid that no one wants to pass to, but he didn’t put a single cross in, did he? Absolutely no threat. - and they knew it.
Just a mess all over the pitch and too much change/imbalance.

 

Why do we have Dier and Wanyama in the squad, on the bench and never playing?
If they're shot, then get rid of them or at least let someone take their place.
They're getting no minutes and no opportunity to regain sharpness and prove their fitness.
Chuck them in the U23s, if that's what it takes. Waste of a sub place at the moment.

 

Pochettino said several times in his pre match conferences that he was going to rotate. He seems to have put rotation before selecting a balanced team. He appears to be becoming very stubborn. Maybe believing his own publicity as the media keep insisting he is the best around.
You don't rotate as a policy you rotate when it's needed surely. You need to asses who is playing well and who needs more limited appearances. It looks to me like he underestimated Olympiacos quite badly.

 

I don't mind rotation, but it needs to be done sensibly and not involve picking players out of position for no apparent reason.
Was Walker-Peters fit? If not, then why was he in the squad? Same goes for Dier, who can also play right-back.

Need to rest Sissoko? That's fine, but put in someone with similar qualities that can win a ball and offer some physicality.
Dier and Wanyama aren't going to get any sharper with splinters up their arses.
Ndombele's new, just back from injury and he needs someone to sit deeper and break up play next to him.
He doesn't and won't work alongside Winks, in my opinion.

 

I was just being brief. I thought Dele and Eriksen were much better second half, Jan was our worst player. The frustration with Sanchez is that there was so many opportunities for a full back to get forward and cause problems but that's not what Sanchez is and once we brought Sissoko on for Ndombele(who was poor) we effectively gave up any chance of getting any decent deliveries in from the right, as he and Sanchez both showed with bad crosses floated well behind the attackers.

 

The difference Dybala would potentially have made in all our games this season is exactly the bit that's missing from our team. Eriksen doesn't have the sparkle in his play anymore that I expect from "our best player"...he's not the bravest, strongest willed of soldiers I'm afraid

 

Impressed by the Greek crowd. 2-0 down and still going bananas!

 

I didn't realise that anyone could drink that much at half-time!

 

Eriksen just goes missing in far too many important games for me.

As a flat track bully he’s fine, but when a real challenge shows up he doesn’t, more often than not

 

No they weren't. They were off the pace throughout, lost possession countless times, Dele squandered a chance to play Kane in for a tap-in and Eriksen conceded the possession that led to their penalty.
But apart from that....

 

A good game from the ref. Such a difference from the idiots in the PL

 

Conceded possession is a euphemism! He passed it back to where there were two Greek players and one Spur, giving Jan a major headache. It was a moronic pass that even a park footballer would not be expected to make.

 

Fòotball is weird.
Last year we had 1 point from our first 3 games after playing well with out a lot of injured players...this year we have a point from 1 game after playing terribly!

My main concern is how much Pochettino is reminding me of Redknapp in his last 5 months ... bizarre formations, repeating previous mistakes, poor in game management and refusing to commit to the club.

Like I said...football is weird!

 

It’s more AVB than Redknapp for me.

Dour, slow-paced football with too much emphasis on playing meaningless sidewards passes in generally a narrow formation. The fact that managerial selection brainfarts are becoming too much of an occurrence is also adding to the poor football.

Really not enjoying it. Already had one season of it under Poch, do not want another, especially as we’re not sacrificing style for substance, we’re sacrificing style for nonsense.

 

Tonight was nothing about rotation, and everything about dogma verging on hubris.

 

How has he seen that Palace game on Saturday and then thought, "Nah. I'll go back to that other ****."? Madness.

 

Aaah yeah, like that pass back to Aguero that led to their offside goal in the Quarter final

He's got peanuts for bollocks

 

He's not brave enough...needs to listen to his own mantra sometimes

 

Well, we got away with that one. A terrible, terrible, horrible performance. At half time, I fully expected us to lose.

Picking a team with players who have had almost no football recently - Ben Davies, Davinson Sanchez (at right back), Tanguy Ndombele and Dele Alli and playing a midfield with no enforcer was a ****ing catastrophe. We looked out of shape and should have lost, if there was any justice in football.

A draw isn't the worst result. On to the next one...

 

Sloppy and too many of our players were off it.

Ndombele was dire, did not look fit or maybe he just isnt that good. He`s nowhere near a peak Dembele on tonight`s evidence.

Davies was steady enough but is too slow and offered fack all going forward, but we already knew that.

Eriksen had an off night.

Sanchez isn`t a full back, and Bambi on ice at times.

Dele looked like he is still returning to match fitness.

Our best players were Winks and Toby.

However, it`s not all bad, all in all it was a decent point away in Europe, against a team that looked decent in their own back yard.

Disappointing to let a 2 goal lead slip, but if we had been 2 down and came back to draw, we would have been very happy.

We just have too many players either out of form or not fully fit at the moment, and some square pegs in round holes does not help.

Our defence is a worry though, it`s a shadow of a couple of years ago and we concede too many chances these days.

The main thing is though, we didn`t lose.

COYS