Jol can't complain. The fans can.

[mawspurs]

SPURS NEWS

Martin Jol has responded to Spurs poor showing in the 3-0 loss to the Gooners today.

Source: Vitalfootball

'We can't complain about the result.'

Well the fans can Martin.

'I won't be silly and talk about the decisions because I want to focus on our performance. If we'd created five or six chances you could have said that the penalties cost us, but we gave them too much of the ball. Normally they create a lot of chances but they didn't this time - but we still gave them too much of the ball.'

'I think the big difference was their defending, they were aggressive and we started off a bit too casually. It's tough in the Premiership. If you want to win games, you have to get hold of the ball and that's our philosophy - if we haven't got the ball, we want to get it back quickly and keep it, but we didn't do that.'

'You can't say we haven't done well recently with only two defeats in the last 15 games but it's not about the games you win, it's about the games you lose.'

And who you lose to, especially when no passion or desire was shown on the pitch.

[Stavrogin]

I'm not sure about a lack of passion. King's reaction when they scored the first said a lot. Malbranque often looked fired up and you could tell Chimbonda was affected by what was going on.

What they didn't do was pressure the opposition. This is something we almost NEVER do. At the same time we lack the ability to breakdown or even create against resolute, aggressive sides. Our best (ie. commanding) performances in recent years have all occured when the opposition allowed us as much space to play as we allowed them.

Arsenal may have some skillful attacking players but they are also a thuggish, physical team - today more than ever. So we got caught in a vice; we allowed them to play whilst they closed us down all over the pitch.

Some of our long term weaknesses were brutally exposed today. A singular 'bad day' is not the whole story.

[longdistancespursfan]

i heard his post match interview and u gotta still love the guy, honest as ever, i hope he has kicked some asses today though. the team let down the fans and jol is ultimately responsible for that so i expect no demand our best performance of the season on tuesday against boro, its about time we walloped somebody by 4 or 5 goals, i cant think when we last did that in the premiership. at this rate were gonna have to win every home game this season just to finish in the top half of the table, think for next away game we should drop ekotto and zokora until they have adapte to the english game.

[Pillbug]

I have now taken a nap to sober up, and wish I'd died in my sleep (don't worry -- I'm certain I'll get my dream one day). This was pretty inexcusable... I'm not sure I remember a performace this bad in an important game in any recent memory -- excepting of course earlier this season with ManU and the Pool squids.

Someone needs to smack Jol around a bit. He continues his low pressure, 'flowing' game irrespective of consistant proof that it is not flowing, and we get hammered against any team that utilises anything ressembling defense, or say, walking within 3 feet of a TottenShirt.

This is not the fault of the players -- it is a tactical and stategic problem for this team that encouraging 'passion' won;t fix. Spurs look like a team that has never heard of the playing against or with defensive pressure. It was like 1952, Hungary v. England.... we were completely out of our depths and never appear even capable of countering on equal footing, as if we were watching a game we weren't quite sure the rules or tactics of..

[theMAXILOPEZpsycho]

We're absolute shit. We're simply never going to get near the scum, chavski, or manure in the Jol era or with anyone who comes after that, for the rest of my life or until the thames bursts its banks and finally puts an end to the whole farce. Take up water painting, I say.

[mawspurs]

I'm not sure about a lack of passion. King's reaction when they scored the first said a lot. Malbranque often looked fired up and you could tell Chimbonda was affected by what was going on.

What they didn't do was pressure the opposition. This is something we almost NEVER do. At the same time we lack the ability to breakdown or even create against resolute, aggressive sides. Our best (ie. commanding) performances in recent years have all occured when the opposition allowed us as much space to play as we allowed them.

Arsenal may have some skillful attacking players but they are also a thuggish, physical team - today more than ever. So we got caught in a vice; we allowed them to play whilst they closed us down all over the pitch.

Some of our long term weaknesses were brutally exposed today. A singular 'bad day' is not the whole story.

I have to say I agree with most of what you say. This is a long term issue, we struggle against hard working teams. Its about time we developed a work ethic of our own. Skill alone will not win football matches it takes graft as well.

This was far from a great gooner side yet they turned us over big time because they were prepared to out muscle and out hassle us and we had no response to it. We should have been doing it to them and forcing them into making mistakes, as they say they make your own luck and they did that and we didn't.

[PT]

There's a syndrome known to athletes which has them so hyped up for the event that they just don't have it when it's asked of them - think Gazza at Wembley all those years ago.

I've not seen Dawson play so poorly for a long time and Ekotto was taken off for his own good.

No supply, as usual, to the forwards and consequently neither Berby or Keane got a look in. Berb's head went down in the second half which tells me he's not a team man. But then neither is Defoe but he looked sharper in ten minutes than the two original forwards today.

Our midfield was out- midfielded. Zokora looked spell bound by the team that he hoped to be playing for two seasons ago. Steed is still not match fit and Lennon didn't seem interested.

How bad was our short passing and ball retention? Needless self- inflicted pressure and break down of offensive play.

Given the value paid for some of our players on display today, they need to look within themselves and ask were they focussed on the job at hand today?

[devonte01]

Thanks for the fuck up today lads and for the tactical/selection fuck up!! Fucked up my week completely - thanks

[snake]

can't believe we didn't perform against the old enemy - the players oew the supporters 3 wins in the next 3 home games

[PT]

can't believe we didn't perform against the old enemy - the players oew the supporters 3 wins in the next 3 home games
And start performing on our travels too.:bang:

[Roscilous]

I've started to get used to the barrage of insults about players and managers recently. But i can honestly say i think it's just hit rock bottom. I agree we had a poor game, decisions went against us and they are not good excuses, but getting on every players back is not the right way to go about turning things around.
The players heads went down because we were playing what seems like 12 players with Graham Poll seemingly giving decisions against us way too often for my liking.
Another thing i have noticed is the constant slagging off of some of our players by OUR supporters! Assou-Ekotto has been thrown in at the deep end and for me has had some very good performances for us. Yes he's had some bad ones too, but he's young and needs time to adapt. Over the last few seasons ive seen this happen time and time again with players who some seem to pick on and no matter how good a performance, is slagged off until he is sold. Kanoute was very often called "lazy" and "selfish" and Atouba was "a threat to his own goal" and "too adventurous". Yet both players had lots of skill and did very well at times, but that never seems to be enough.
Today we played a very good team on a poor run of form. But the form book must be torn up when it comes to a London derby. They may have been without Mr Henry, but that doesnt make them a poor team. In my opinion we were just outplayed and decisions against us made it almost impossible to come back.
I hope we can start to get behind the players, cheer as loud as possible and try and help the players and manager. Supporters should support no matter what. Getting 25,000+ screaming fans getting behind the team can do wonders for a teams confidence, so lets see if we can do something about it on out part!!!

[MidnightCaller]

Can anyone tell me what happened to our holding midfield player in Tom (the Rock) Huddlestone, we have been unbeaten, when he has started a match. Also we do need to go for Matt Taylor (Portsmouth) now, he is one of the best left backs in the premiership and he is a spurs supporter. Come on you spurs, that us play our best players, Huddlestone is the best passer I have seen since Hoddle

[striebs]

That is the worst NL Derby I've witnessed in my 30+ years of supporting Spurs .

I had to apologise to a Gooner for the lack of sport today .

Learned everything I needed to know about Zokora . Sure he can be great but only King , Dawson , Malbranque and Keane showed any bollocks .

I want Zokora replaced and if Berbatov don't grow a pair then he can go and be skillful for another team too .

[Zapsta]

I had to apologise to a Gooner for the lack of sport today.
To be fair, we did kind of owe it to them after last season.

[parj]

for me the key points was zokora's lack of determination and inability to pass to a white shirt, and i found ekottos approach totally unprofessional. not sure about you guys but i play football and its extremely difficult to run around and win challenges with a chewing gum in your mouth. shit attitude from ekotto

[GenericID]

You can say it's a template for Spurs:

1) Look lackadasical in the opening phases
2) Concede a goal, shocked into awareness

Now at this stage against the lesser teams we might peg 2 goals back, then sit back and look uneasy about holding the lead. More often than not the opposition will score or put us on our backfoot constantly. Against the bigger teams...

[camaj]

Why do we keep posting stories from Vitalfootball? Aren't they a site like SC? By that I mean one that reposts stories from the mainstream sites? Why not credit the source instead of someone replicating us essentially?

This would also stop the same story being posted from various rehashers.

This is the original:
http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/articles/werealldisappointedjol021206.html

[N17paradise]

Up until their first goal I thought we performed OK and matched them, but after that offside blunder we had no reply and it went from bad to worse....No heart, no strength and no idea. King is a great player for Spurs but he is no captain we had no leader out on the pitch to drive them on it was Pathetichttp://www.spurscommunity.co.uk/forums/images/icons/icon13.gif

[SamioSpurz13]

I suoppose, party.. It's visiting the new stadium. At home we might have a differant ref and a differant game. But quite frankly.. I'm embarrased.

[BringBack_leGin]

Some of you may think i'm going overboard... but dodgy decisions aside, our manager is to blame almost completely for this as far as I am concerned. He changed a team that had played well and won well the previous weak just to accomodate his favourites. Keane came in and did absolutely nothing, while defoe did more in ten minutes while already 3 down than keane did the whole game. And why not bring in defoe on the 65th/ 70th minute rather than wait for them to get a third!

And, though Tainio wasn't our worst player by any stretch of the imagination, why dorp Huddlestone... and don't give me this physical aggression bullshit, Hudd is built like a boxer and when he tackles you, you know it! And unlike Zokora he may have found a white shirt every now and then because Huddlestone ahs the rare quality of being able to pass quite well, while Zokora can't pass at all.

And why take Malbranque off for Jenas, i know he wasnt doing great but at least he was causing some trouble, Jenas did have a positive effect but it should have been for the inept Zokora everytime.

And still on the midfield, if huddlestone had started the first goal wouldnt have Happened because the ball King came out to head away is a ball that Huddlestone has been heading away form midfield every time he's played, so King would have been in positions and Adebayor would not have had such space.

Having said that, footballs a funny old game, and we now have Middlesboro and Charlton and Southend at Home over the next ten days so they'll be able to get confidence up with hopefully a string of wins ahead of our next aways game and maybe, just maybe, an away win is soon to come. just maybe!

[GDG]

Well this fan would like to complain, and complain loudly, about the decisions that went against us. It was a gutless performance from Spurs, I would agree, I have rarely seen such a lacklustre show in a North London derby and we were outplayed in every department.

BUT, the first goal was offside, the second goal came from a penalty that should never have been awarded, and although JJ brought Van Persie down for the third, it was only after Van Persie had batted the ball forward with his hand - so once again, a penalty that should not have been given. You can live with one bad decision in a game, and we've had plenty to live with, but three? That's not getting a fair crack of the whip, is it?

[StokeSpur]

'I think the big difference was their defending, they were aggressive and we started off a bit too casually'.

We didnt even press their defence to test them out, we invited them on to us and made it easy for them, the tactics of sitting back with Keane making 5 in midfield and trying to break were wrong combined with the some players worst performance in history = disaster. Even i could have given a pre match team talk that would have fired em up more than they were yesterday and for that they should all be ashamed of themselves.

[Zapsta]

the first goal was offside, the second goal came from a penalty that should never have been awarded, and although JJ brought Van Persie down for the third, it was only after Van Persie had batted the ball forward with his hand - so once again, a penalty that should not have been given. You can live with one bad decision in a game, and we've had plenty to live with, but three? That's not getting a fair crack of the whip, is it?
The way I look at it is, they're decisions that shouldn't have even had to be made. Yeah, the first goal was offside, but it was so close, how can you criticise the linesman for getting it wrong? The fact is, offside decisions should never be that close in those circumstances. The defence stepped up in installments and it was absolutely shocking. Step up as a line or don't step up at all. There seemed to be absolutely no communication.

The first penalty - brilliant recovering tackle from Chimbonda, but why were we recovering? Oh right, I remember now - because they had runners going unmarked all over the place. About 5 passes back you could see things probably weren't going to end well for us. Disgraceful. We deserved to concede, just to teach us a lesson.

As for the 3rd goal, I didn't think it was a penalty in any way. Even if you ignore the fact Van Persie handled, you can see Jenas is making no attempt to trip him, he just catches his trailing leg as it comes up. It's a tangle. But we weren't coming back from 2-0 down anyway, so it's kind of moot.

[GDG]

The way I look at it is, they're decisions that shouldn't have even had to be made.That's why we have refs and linesmen, Zap, to make decisions. Regardless of whether they were tight decisions, they were there to be called and all three were called wrong. If ever there was a case for a fourth official with a video, yesterday was it.

We know that with the pace of the modern game no group of officials will get it right every time, but the technology is there to make it virtually impossible to get it wrong on crucial decisions, why not use it?

[sligospur]

to many of our players just wern't interested yesterday,when they lost the ball they would just shrug their shoulders and give up lennon and berbatov being the main offenders.At least when jenas came on he showed a bit of fight,i can take loseing but when players don't even try i wont accecpt that.And as for ekotto a new left back come jan is now a priority

[Zapsta]

That's why we have refs and linesmen, Zap, to make decisions.
You're missing my point. I'm really glad Jol said he didn't want to look at the decisions that went against us because we deserved to lose anyway. I wish everyone could hold the same point of view. We were unlucky, yes, but we were so much more shit that our lack of luck doesn't merit discussion, and I think to look at it as if it does is a little bit pathetic.

[GDG]

I'm not missing your point and I acknowledge the fact that we were shite and didn't deserve to get a point - I'm merely pointing out that despite playing shite we were on the wrong end of three poor decisions, which is unacceptable. Boro could have been 5-0 down at half-time to Arsenal earlier this season, but nicked a 1-1 draw. Points make prizes and even when you play shit you deserve to get the correct calls on decisions, which in this case may have ended up with us robbing them of two points.

It could of course be argued that our performance was not helped by the fact that we went 2-0 down to two dodgy decisions - had they not gone the way they did we may have seena completely different game.

Easy to say that we should have been battling away, but I've played in plenty of games where bad decisions knock the stuffing out of a side, and who's to say that if we'd gone in at half-time 0-0 BMJ couldn't have given them a grade one kick up the arse that galvanised a better response? 2-0 down and there's not much left to say, is there?

[Zapsta]

Even at 0-0 though, we weren't battling. I missed the first 10 mins, but at no stage that I was watching did we look like we deserved anything other than a loss. And if the players are going to play like that, I'd prefer for us to lose so they can learn it's totally unacceptable. Nose, face, whatever, but I genuinely feel that way. The performance, for me, is of far, far more concern than the result, to the point that I don't even care that we lost.

[xzander]

This was a dark day, but we need to see how the team reacts to it over the next five games and the rest of the season to establish what effect it will have on Jol's team mentally. I hope that they lose their tempers completely, thrash Middlsebrough and go on a charge that sees them establish their European spot by spring while winning the league cup and making the final stages of one or both the others. We're all angry now but this is part of the big picture that is the season completed, it's one result out of about 60 which will colour, not define, the end result.
This is a big test of the 'top mentality' Jol wants to see and I for one want performances like that one to be-offs, not regular occurances.

[ultimateloner]

The game just shows the gap between them and us. You have to admire Wenger's tatical genius he got everything right, and when you add to that the brilliance of Van Persie and Fabregas there's just no way we could have won. We could hardly string 3 passes together and had one shot on target the entire match.

The shocking thing for me was the technical ability of our players. Zokora was terrible and couldn't pass his way out of trouble. He reminded me of Mendes but worst still he never got himself into an attacking position. Berbatov looked brilliant against lesser opponents but had Kolo Toure dealt with him easily.

Jenas was the best Spurs player and he probably wouldn't start at Arsenal. This game just shows the difference in class and quality between the 2 teams.

[MidnightCaller]

why cannot Martin Jol see it, he is saying he is the best holding midfield he has seen, and the best passer of the ball in the world, and If he were a sweeper, he would be outstanding, then he drops him for the big match. This guy is great, look at the results when he has started for us, we are unbeaten. Please play your best players and please buy Matt Taylor

[sidthegasman]

this is my 1st post hi everyone
rubbish never will i be this unhappy (i hope) again mid field was shot to shit i have seen more bite from a 90 year old man with no teeth lennon must have had lead boots on AND jol what was he thinking to try and soak up the arse pressure was a very poor mistake by a man who is surposed to be a GREAT manager this is the way the arse play week in and week out and we had no answer..........


p.s thankyou for reading my post i hope my next is more positive.

[RogerTCB]

i ... think for next away game we should drop ekotto and zokora until they have adapte to the english game.

Let me get this right. We drop two players from playing English football until they have got used to playing English football... :think: :duh:
Either you or I are missing something here.

[mortonfc]

I cannot believe that we lay down in such a spineless way against Arsenal, and that I would question MJs tactics or substitutions. Arsenal got at Ekotto right from the start and a better substitution would have been to bring on Jenas and Huddlestone for Zokora and Malbranque, with Tainio moving to the left to provide better defensive cover for Ekotto than Malbranque provided on the day. And, will Ekotto's confidence be that high having been dragged off @ ht? By bringing on Lee it really slashed any options he had afterwards, because Zokora was the standout change needing made.

Zokora was a disgrace and was so inept that i almost hankered for Davids, almost i pray things don't get that bad... Zokora had better start showing more interest and at least take a forward pass rather than standing by watching proceedings and offering at best, a sideways pass ! £8.2 million? Not on that showing.

As for dropping Defoe for Keane?? MJ, what was that all about?

It was nice to see him be have in post match intervciews and not be turning into an Arsene Whinger, or Tearfull Henry,,, we got what we deserved on the playing side, but the supporters deserve more than what was on offer. Effort should be a given.

[spurs_viola]

Zokora was a disgrace and was so inept that i almost hankered for Davids, almost i pray things don't get that bad...


Davids was one of the best players in last season's 2 derbies, in no small measure helping pressurise Arsenal's midfield and not letting them settle. He also made the run on the left and provided the killer pass to Keane to score our goal at Highbury.
I am sure we would have more bite and determination with Davids in this match than with Zokora and Tainio combined (although I would excuse Tainio to an extent, as he still seems to be trying to overcome the injury-caused layoff).