He was one of their better players tonight.
The Spurs thread | 2016-2017 season | Serious thread - wummers/derailers will be threadbanned
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He was one of their better players tonight.
Remember arguing with somebody who said they had a good draw. Draws like those end badly a lot of times, 3 other teams at a similar level. A few feck ups and youre out, with no gimme wins.
Balance has been restored.
In Premier League. Not good enough to translate that onto Champions League against good teams like Monaco and Leverkusen.
Of course we have belonged, it's childish in the extreme to say any club doesn't belong in a competition that they've qualified for over 38 games.
Anyway, we aren't playing well at all, I've been saying it all season, it's been a case of mediocre performance after mediocre performance:
Man City - Outstanding
Stoke - Excellent
Middlesboro - excellent for 60 mins
Arsenal - ok, didn't play well but I thought we did enough to be the better team
Every other game - mediocre to poor
I have no idea why we have abandoned our front foot aggressive football in favour of a more laboured approach, I'm baffled by it. Last season we went straight after teams right from the off, this season we start on the back foot, are over playing in the wrong areas and City aside our full on in your face aggression has disappeared.
Kane, Alderweireld and a struggling for fitness Dembele have been massive misses or problems for us. But in addition and although plenty don't rate him the absence of Lamela too much this season has also been a big problem. He has been the leader of our press and in offensive areas never gives opponents a second to breathe and it invites everybody else to join in, without him our aggressive style has been replaced with the lower intensity and at times almost going through the motions work of Son and Eriksen, who are missing the catalyst to step their work up.
We need to start improving our performances and quickly.
The rise of Spurs? What rise is that? To the level of an in decline United?
Jesus.
Calling it now. They'll win after what happened last season they'll give everything to get a result against them.
Apologies to Spurs fans but this is epic, troll of the highest order (Tottenham can win the Champions League). Why on earth would you give such a statement ?
This is why so many of us despise Glaston, because whilst they have improved on and off the pitch they still aren't noticeably better than United.
I bet Glaston feels a little silly about his Thursday night taunts now. I've never understood the idea of bragging about being in a competition when you have zero chance of winning it.
That applies to Arsenals long run in the comp too, do Hereford brag that they are in the fa cup, course not.
What's more Alderweireld aside I wouldn't want their squad over ours /their future over ours any day of the week. But the Spurs fans would have you believe they are suddenly >United
I'd love you to find somebody who actually said that because I can assure you the vast majority of fans were just happy to have qualified and in no way thought we could seriously win it.
Having said that I certainly thought we were good enough to get to the knock-out stage.
I'd take Alderweireld, Eriksen, Kane, Dembele, Wanyama, Alli. Rose, Walker would be excellent Squad players as would Son. Vertonghen wouldn't be bad either!
Once again I have to make the point that when you say 'Spurs fans' I just read 'Glaston' because I certainly do not think that and I dont know any Spurs fans who think that either. Although we do have players in both teams who would get in both sides - Id say the teams are comparable in quality at the moment at least in terms of first team, Utd have a much better quality squad though imo.
Moving away from WHL has cost Spurs, 4 points from 3 away games was a good return and even if they'd taken 2 draws from the home games against Monaco & Leverkusen they'd be in poll position to qualify. You'd have to say they were unlucky in that they were forced to play away from WHL and its probably cost them qualification.
Levy's penny pinching has come home to roost though, I extremely doubt Jansen & Sissoko were the players Poch wanted last summer.
Levy's penny pinching has come home to roost though, I extremely doubt Jansen & Sissoko were the players Poch wanted last summer.
My son is an Arsenal fan and he is just loving it. I appreciate Arsenal's beautiful football (when they turn up) and DO NOT hate spurs but rather appreciate their effort. Credit to them where they are and I was thinking their style of play is perfectly suited to Champions League. They just couldn't compete with the intensity of Champions League and the decision to play their home legs at Wembley was mental.
Now they have to be careful as EL can hurt their Premier League and Top 4 chances.
So @GlastonSpur what were you saying about Thursday nights?
Our squad is not strong enough to compete in European competition and to remain competitive in the league. We have a lot of young players, which I really love, but this does mean a lack of experience and I think it has showed up big time.
I'm not totally disheartened as although we have yet to really play well this year (apart from the Man City performance) we have become extremely difficult to beat in the league and that is saving us right now, it's also a good spot to build from. Poch also is under a bit of pressure now I think to turn things around for us.
Having said all that, we are unbeaten in the league and remain only 3 points from the top which is really very impressive despite not playing well.
I honestly think they were much better under Redknapp.
Probably better to watch and certainly better going forward with some really fantastic players but this is a better team imo and with potential to improve. I'd rather be difficult to beat and build from there rather than win 4-0 one week and get beat 5-2 the next. That's just me though.
Mind you, wouldnt half love the likes of Bale, Modric and Rafa in our team now. We lack a top level talent apart from Lloris imo (although Kane is well on his way to that level).
I think they were definitely better to watch under Redknapp, not sure if they were actually better as a side, though. I do prefer the way Redknapp set them up -- more of a traditionally English side with wing play and counter attacks. They have better squad depth now, though.
Personally the lack of squad depth and a poor transfer season (both of which Glaston vehemently denies) have come back to bite you. No cover for Kane (and no, Janssen isn't quality cover at the moment whatever may happen in the future), players not living up to last season's form (Alli, Eriksen, Kane early season etc.) and no-one has stepped up when Dembele is out. When he's missing it seems to me Spurs go missing too (though I can't remember all of the matches he's missed). Chadli was one of your top scorers last season but you ditched him and didn't replace those goals. The lack of firepower in the team is critical and could well be your downfall this season.
This doesn't look the same team as last season and it's more by good luck than good play Spurs are still hanging around the CL slots. Considering how they've played 6-7 points off the pace would be a fair reflection. Still lots of time to go but I would be shocked if they go anything at all out of Chelsea at the weekend, I can hope though.
I have to say Poch has to shoulder much of the blame, especially as far as the CL is concerned. Why rest three of your key players (Vertonghen, Eriksen & Walker) when you're on the verge of elimination from the Champions League ? Even worse he's held them back for a PL game in an effort to ....... try to secure CL football. Unfathomable.
People who see the Europa league as an excuse should take note.
Playing West Ham at home on a Saturday and then going away to a decent team like Monaco is just as hard as the Thur/Sun scenario.
I thought you were better back then as well. Certainly better going forward. I wouldn't say your record against the top sides is better now as well. Back in the days you might lose 5-2 but also win against Chelsea, City, us, Pool, Arsenal. Last year you were tough to beat and true got a lot of draws but only 3 wins in 12 games against the likes of Chelsea, United, Pool, Leicester, Arsenal and City. It's similar results for me with less exciting football.
That is a fair point to make and one that I'm struggling to understand. I guess he thought the likes of Wimmer and Trippier would be good enough but to me it seems obvious he values the premiership over the champions league right now which as you rightly point out is very strange given the effort being put in to get into the competition in the first place. Maybe he knows we are not good enough to do both right now and is banking on the league position.
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Less star quality and difference makers tho.
And he took a pasting for that too. In some ways it was more excusable though .. away at Real, no matter what team we put out, we'd likely have lost. Not so Spurs at Monaco.
Pointless Wummery. See comment above.
He had Bale and Modric, give Poch even a young Bale and Modric and we'd be at a completely different level.
I am genuinely surprised at how poor Spurs have been in the CL, although playing at Wembley wasn't a good idea, takes home advantage away and means the "home" games are almost like Cup Finals on a neutral ground. As poorly as Spurs played last night in Monaco, they could still have got something, had Son scored his one-on-one it might have changed the game completely, also had they managed to stay level for more than a minute after equalising. LLoris was outstanding, but the back four looked ill at ease most of the game, Delle Ali and the rest of the midfield were generally mediocre. Honestly thought Spurs were nailed on for second at least in that group.
I definitely agree with this. To be honest I find the comparisons with yourselves this year vs last far more interesting in any case. As you've said in this thread you can count your genuinely good performances this year on one hand (reminds me of us, unfortunately) and you've looked poor in the CL against competent but by no means world-beating opposition (again reminiscent of us in Europe). I agree the woes of the four players you highlighted earlier (Kane, Alderweireld, Dembele and Lamela) are significant but I still must wonder why you've gone from blowing teams off the park to this in such a short space of time. Arguably every single player, with the exception of Lloris, is markedly beneath the level they were at last year.
They had better players but I think Pochettino is a better manager.
As someone has said, give Pochettino Bale, Modric, Van Der Vaart etc and I think he'd get more out of them than Redknapp did.
I don't think they had a very good transfer window in the summer though. They're missing a creative spark somewhere I think?
Definitely agree with that too. But Redknapp's side was both more talented, and more successful than the current lot are on track to being.
Spurs are the polar opposite of Leicester this season. If the pattern holds maybe they will get a result against Chelsea after all. I'm expecting a 0-0.
One thing is clear Spurs, like Leicester, do not have a squad to handle both competitions. Before anyone says no shit sherlock I was saying this when the transfer window shut. My poll vote that Spurs will definitely not finish top 4 was one of the very first and it was a firm vote mostly based on the lack of goals they were about to experience first hand.
They miss pace and creativity in attack from what I can see. Outside of the full backs there's no-one who can beat a man, and no-one who seems to change the pace of an attack. Lamela would help with that but he's not enough on his own.
No it wasn't. It was much worse. A Liverpool team, one that almost won the league the previous season, basically saying "we will not pretend to compete with the big boys."
It was a devastating blow to the stature of the club and squad morale and one the worst mistakes of Rodgers career. Loser mentality.
I think most Spurs fans would rather have Chadli and Townsend in the squad over Sissoko and Nkoudo.
It was also the 'best' game we played in that diabolical campaign. Dropping Gerrard gave the others (Henderson, Allen) freedom to play a more mobile brand of football. And we actually looked like a half decent team again despite the eventual loss. But that was Brendan for you, just falling into situations yet never quite grasping the good from the bad.
However, I agree with your sentiment. From the outside it probably did look like loser mentality.
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