Man City Vs Tottenham: Match Thread

THFCSPURS19 said:

Like who?

Click to expand...

I'm a big Lamela fan but Tadic is looking like a great buy for £11m. He's settled in immediately to what wasn't a settled side. I've been quite pleased with Lamelas progress so far this season but yesterday was a big setback and disappointment.

DEFchenkOE said:

I'm a big Lamela fan but Tadic is looking like a great buy for £11m. He's settled in immediately to what wasn't a settled side. I've been quite pleased with Lamelas progress so far this season but yesterday was a big setback and disappointment.

Click to expand...

He loses the ball and gives it away far far too often and has been the cause if quite a few goals against us. Yes we all want him to do well, but people can't be blinded by the transfer price

haydsmith said:

Lamela is just not a good player. Good players play well most games and he struggles to play well for a consistent spell of a game. It's not that he doesn't beat four men and smash it in the top corner that bothers me, it's that he gives the ball away SO MUCH

Click to expand...

How does a player who is not good get into the Argentina first XI alongside Di Maria, Aguero and Messi?

Or do you know more than Martino and Pochettino?

Spurger King said:

No that's not a football team at all. Once upon a time there was a club called Manchester City that could be called a football team, but they got replaced by Oil Money FC. It's not a team...it's a display of wealth that masquerades as a competitive sports team. Spend the sort of money they have on players and wages and all claims to success go out the window. Manchester City haven't won a single trophy since being taken over...instead Oil Money has paid what it needed to buy trophies in the official name of Manchester City.

It's the equivalent of turning up at a 'build-your-own-go-Kart' race in a Ferrari, then trying to be smug about winning whilst lapping the runner-up about 30 times. It's embarrassing for them to even pretend that they are 'competing', and it's certainly not embarrassing being beaten by such an abhorrent charade of a 'club'.

As far as I'm concerned, any supposed achievements by Oil Money FC are discounted straight away. The defeat means nothing to me, because they're not a real football team. I can honestly say the 1-1 v Sunderland bothered me more than this result, because common sense tells me that Oil Money have no actual competition other than their own commercial targets. Couldn't give a flying fuck about that ghost of a club, or any 'success' they pretend to achieve. There was only one football team on the field on Saturday, and it certainly wasn't the collection of mercenaries in sky blue.

Click to expand...

I agree with most of what you have said. But City's current squad costs less than Man Utd's. And about the same as Chelsea. Utd have been buying trophies for years. OK, Utd did it with their own revenue. But they were buying the likes of Ferdinand for £34 million 10 years ago. No one could do that in the PL back then.

City have arrived with Chelsea well and truly established and with UTD still having plenty of spending power. We certainly can't compete with the likes of Chelsea or City but I'm not convinced they are buying trophies so easily as Chelsea have in the past. We now have 3 teams who can spend 100's of millions on players and are now in the £200k a week player wages bracket. Then we have 2 teams on the £100k a week bracket in Liverpool and Arsenal with us in the next group.

You could say City are buying trophies if they were the only team with their level of spending power, but they aren't. They are going to toe to toe with Chelsea and Utd. City want to compete at the highest level and the only way to do that is spend big.

If you want Spurs to win trophies and compete in the Champions League then we will have to find our billionaire oil baron too. Unfortunately that's the way football has gone, for better or worse. City fans won't give a toss that's for sure.

millsey said:

He loses the ball and gives it away far far too often and has been the cause if quite a few goals against us. Yes we all want him to do well, but people can't be blinded by the transfer price

Click to expand...

I think some people are blinded about the transfer price in a very different way. Yes, you can argue that you should be getting a certain calibre of player for that price, but you also have to consider that the price has an effect to a player's game too.

Firstly, he did not value himself at that, it's Roma's valuation, much like our valuation for Bale was a whopping £86m. Over-inflated prices are common now and thus the valuation of player's in today's footballing market are skewed. We're the fools for buying him at such a high price, and that's not the player's fault. To Roma, he was worth that amount, and there were other teams in Europe, bigger and more powerful than us, that had their eyes on him as a result of how sublime he was for them.

Secondly, he suffers from what Soldado is suffering from. The weight of expectation. Yes, if you truly are worth that amount of money then you will perform as such, even if not straight away. We bought Modric for quite a high price at the time, but he proved worth it. Lamela, rather than Soldado, still has time on his hands and let's not forget that last season he was injured for most of it and played under inept managers, so this year is the fresh start. Both players are desperately trying to live up to an over-inflated price of them, knowing that the media and fans are scrutinising their every move. Every missed shot, every miscontrolled pass, every moment where they lose possession will be treated with moans and groans from the fans, and articles of them being massive flops and a waste of money. These guys are human and they are affected by morale. We cannot ignore the effect of a high price-tag on a person.

Soldado is an awkward one. Yesterday he got his very first game in a Spurs shirt with our chosen attacking midfield trio, under a manager who seems to have some sort of a positive, attacking gameplan. Despite missing what he does best, which is taking pens, he had a good game, better than Adebayor has had recently. He looked on their wavelength, got an assist and could've had another had Mason slotted his away. It was very promising against one of the best defences in the world. Let's see if he is allowed a run of games and see how he does then.

Lamela, on the other hand, has time. He's had 3 assists from 8 starts in the league this season and, despite dropping off for a couple of games, has made positive contributions in every game. Even yesterday he was involved in the goal. He's clearly got talent and is still young enough to continue developing. You can see that he's over-doing it at times, but I think that's just pressure getting to him. He's desperate to be a £30m player, and I do believe he's showing the potential to be that. He just needs to iron a few things out and find his confidence, but that will come with time, like it did for Modric and Bale.

THFCSPURS19 said:

How does a player who is not good get into the Argentina first XI alongside Di Maria, Aguero and Messi?

Or do you know more than Martino and Pochettino?

Click to expand...

not that i'm debating lamela's quality but you and others used this exact line with paulinho and now look at him.

Blake Griffin said:

not that i'm debating lamela's quality but you and others used this exact line with paulinho and now look at him.

Click to expand...

I still stand by Paulinho but there's a difference between playing with Fred, Oscar, Gustavo and Hulk and playing with Mascherano, Di Maria, Aguero and Messi...

Spurger King said:

No that's not a football team at all. Once upon a time there was a club called Manchester City that could be called a football team, but they got replaced by Oil Money FC. It's not a team...it's a display of wealth that masquerades as a competitive sports team. Spend the sort of money they have on players and wages and all claims to success go out the window. Manchester City haven't won a single trophy since being taken over...instead Oil Money has paid what it needed to buy trophies in the official name of Manchester City.

It's the equivalent of turning up at a 'build-your-own-go-Kart' race in a Ferrari, then trying to be smug about winning whilst lapping the runner-up about 30 times. It's embarrassing for them to even pretend that they are 'competing', and it's certainly not embarrassing being beaten by such an abhorrent charade of a 'club'.

As far as I'm concerned, any supposed achievements by Oil Money FC are discounted straight away. The defeat means nothing to me, because they're not a real football team. I can honestly say the 1-1 v Sunderland bothered me more than this result, because common sense tells me that Oil Money have no actual competition other than their own commercial targets. Couldn't give a flying fuck about that ghost of a club, or any 'success' they pretend to achieve. There was only one football team on the field on Saturday, and it certainly wasn't the collection of mercenaries in sky blue.

Click to expand...

Well said sir. I wish I could give an "agree" and a "like" to the same post. So very true what you say. Having that Russian mafia money-launderer buying trophies for the Chavs with money he stole from his own people was bad enough. Then along come a bunch of camel-shaggers who, I bet, hadn't even heard of Manchester's "other club" and begin their own "project." Anyone who knows the wealthy Gulf Arabs know that they know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Classless and tasteless, the lot of them.

scottlag10 said:

Are the people that are writing off Lamela now the same people that were writing off Gareth Bale at the same stage in his Spurs career?

Click to expand...

Did we pay 30m for Bale?
Ridiculous defence of Llamela.
And as for the comments saying price tag doesn't come into it????
Of course it bloody comes into it, same as the price for anything comes into getting what you pay for.
We were mugged for 30m and thats a fact. Is that Llamelas fault? Of course not but it doesnt mean you can watch him and kid yourself he's either better than he is, will come good based on f all or that the price we paid doesn't matter.
Id like nothing more than to be proved wrong but see nothing that remotely resembles a 30m player and those hoping that come the end of the season he will have shown what he's about and have 20 odd goals are kidding themselves imo.
Just where is this optimism coming from???
I'm not saying he's a bad player and won't get better. I think he will get better.
But a 30m player? I don't think so. 15-20m at the outside.
As I said, hope he proves me wrong.
This conversation would not be happening if we'd paid 10m for him so not sure how anyone can say price is irrelevant.
Actually thinking about it, we may still be having this conversation if we'd only paid 10m for him which I feel goes some way to explaining the arse ache some of us have with him.

THFCSPURS19 said:

How does a player who is not good get into the Argentina first XI alongside Di Maria, Aguero and Messi?

Or do you know more than Martino and Pochettino?

Click to expand...

Saying that Vergini of Sunderland started for Argentina the other day! Has Lamela played many competitive games for Argentina? (Genuine question)

slartibartfast said:

Did we pay 30m for Bale?
Ridiculous defence of Llamela.
And as for the comments saying price tag doesn't come into it????
Of course it bloody comes into it, same as the price for anything comes into getting what you pay for.
We were mugged for 30m and thats a fact. Is that Llamelas fault? Of course not but it doesnt mean you can watch him and kid yourself he's either better than he is, will come good based on f all or that the price we paid doesn't matter.
Id like nothing more than to be proved wrong but see nothing that remotely resembles a 30m player and those hoping that come the end of the season he will have shown what he's about and have 20 odd goals are kidding themselves imo.
Just where is this optimism coming from???
I'm not saying he's a bad player and won't get better. I think he will get better.
But a 30m player? I don't think so. 15-20m at the outside.
As I said, hope he proves me wrong.
This conversation would not be happening if we'd paid 10m for him so not sure how anyone can say price is irrelevant.
Actually thinking about it, we may still be having this conversation if we'd only paid 10m for him which I feel goes some way to explaining the arse ache some of us have with him.

Click to expand...

slartibartfast said:

Did we pay 30m for Bale?
Ridiculous defence of Llamela.
And as for the comments saying price tag doesn't come into it????
Of course it bloody comes into it, same as the price for anything comes into getting what you pay for.
We were mugged for 30m and thats a fact. Is that Llamelas fault? Of course not but it doesnt mean you can watch him and kid yourself he's either better than he is, will come good based on f all or that the price we paid doesn't matter.
Id like nothing more than to be proved wrong but see nothing that remotely resembles a 30m player and those hoping that come the end of the season he will have shown what he's about and have 20 odd goals are kidding themselves imo.
Just where is this optimism coming from???
I'm not saying he's a bad player and won't get better. I think he will get better.
But a 30m player? I don't think so. 15-20m at the outside.
As I said, hope he proves me wrong.
This conversation would not be happening if we'd paid 10m for him so not sure how anyone can say price is irrelevant.
Actually thinking about it, we may still be having this conversation if we'd only paid 10m for him which I feel goes some way to explaining the arse ache some of us have with him.

Click to expand...

If Bale had been sold to us today, he would cost about £15-20million

Christian Eriksen is looking like the real deal IMHO, and showing up Lamele who is struggling. Townsend and Lennon need to be given more match time.
The clock is ticking for many of the squad.

Wellspurs said:

Yeah and the same ones who wrote off David Bentley? Pathetic aren't they?

Click to expand...

At 21 Gareth Bale suddenly started to play at a level that nothing he had done previously at Spurs indicated he could reach. For the next 2 years he developed into a player that Real Madrid were prepared to pay £85M for. Lamela is 22 and who knows how he will develop over the next 2 years so its way too early to write him off. But comparing him to Bentley (whose problems are well documented) is indeed pathetic!

A lot of half truth and selective memory going on about different things in here.

We paid £30m for Lamela because that was what Roma were asking for the player that they saw as their natural heir to Totti's throne. He was worth that much to them, we had the money and wanted the player so paid. He'd just scored 15 goals in Serie A from a right forward position at the age of 21 and remained one of Argentina/South America's brightest prospects. People are still cutting him slack because this is effectively his first season having been out injured for most of last and he's already provided a few assists and seems determined to succeed.

A strange game, I was worried about the midfield at kick off, thought we should have had more steel in there as it proved we were too open. That said we got ourselves into a great position to level at 2-2 and get at least a point from the game, then we self destructed.
A couple of great city goals but Kaboul going to ground for the second pen & Rose & Fazio's defending for the third was really poor so we have to look at ourselves as much as refereeing decisions.

As for this Lamela sub plot that's developing today, the best thing to do when judging him is to forget the price tag if possible as it was an unusual summer & not his fault, just judge him as you would any young talent. It is however fair to be on the fence at the moment about how good he will be for us. Facts are he's been ok this year, better but not great. Saying this does not make you a bad fan etc just honest. Some on here take it too far in either their criticism or praise of him. At the moment, we just don't know but I'm glad he's getting the run of games so we can find out.

SteveH said:

Christian Eriksen is looking like the real deal IMHO, and showing up Lamele who is struggling. Townsend and Lennon need to be given more match time.
The clock is ticking for many of the squad.

Click to expand...

Sure, the clock is ticking for Townsend but the clocked stopped for Lennon about 17532 hours ago.

Gbspurs said:

Saying that Vergini of Sunderland started for Argentina the other day! Has Lamela played many competitive games for Argentina? (Genuine question)

Click to expand...

They were playing their second team

Gbspurs said:

Click to expand...

You just reminded me of Llama Man from Steve Wright show on radio 1 years back lol.
Llama Man
Llama Man
Does whatever a Llama can
Edit-get that from my Dad. He calls him Lambie. I also have to put up with Chumblie (Chadli) lol.

THFCSPURS19 said:

If Bale had been sold to us today, he would cost about £15-20million

Click to expand...

Sorry but what's your point?
Not being pissy, just dont see where you're coming from.