Swansea Vs Tottenham: Match Thread

I wonder if the result has reached Togo/Ghana yet...and is anyone bothered?

haydsmith said:

Lamela was stunningly, head-shakingly bad again. The fact he keeps getting picked becomes more of a mystery every week.

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He wasn't great. But he wasn't that bad - I've seen footballers have far worse games of football than that.

The main problem we have with this kid, IMHO, is that both him and Eriksen are at their best sitting behind a main striker - but after acquiring them, somebody at the club suddenly discovered that that is Harry Kane's best position as well. They could have saved themselves the bother, under-21 watchers have been saying this for about four years! It was also the best position for Sigurddson, who never really got the chance to play there and is finally showing what he can do when a team plays him there and then builds around him.

And that, really, is the whole point. I also stood for Sigs on here, but he got slagged into the ground with overblown criticism even though he was out of position, and still managed to do some good stuff and chip in with important goals. I'd bet a fair few of those who slagged him off on here, if their memories were wiped clean and saw him only from the start of this season at Swansea, would love to have him at the Lane in his preferred position.

It would likely be the same with Lamela. He joined a team that began floundering before he isn't got in the team. Three managers later, no matter what good things he does, certain fans are just watching for the bad things and the poorer performances just to put the boot in, even though he is being played out of position.

My personal opinion, is that football is about hard choices, and the manager/head coach gets paid a fahook loada money to make them. In this instance, we need to get viable alternatives to play the wide roles, and then either move Kane forward and tell Eriksen and Lamela to compete for the central role (with Eriksen the player in possession), or have Kane and Eriksen to compete for the central role, and either sell Lamela or find him another role in the squad. And it doesn't look like playing our wide will be that role. Maybe we could play 4 - 3 - 3, with Lamela playing the central offensive pivot in midfield, linking up with Eriksen and have Kane and Chadli playing off Eriksen (just a suggestion). If we have to let him go, we have to let him go - but any such decision could come back and bite us on the arse because he is a bluddy talented kid.

But what we don't need is our own supporters carrying out a senseless and quite obsessive vendetta against him, magnifying everything he does poorly, ignoring anything he does well, and superimposing the former on the latter to try and portray it as his sole contribution. THB.

jezz said:

http://epl.squawka.com/swansea-city...-2014/english-barclays-premier-league/matches

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You don't play for Spurs mate. You can't convince me of that.

One of the few positives today was Poch pulled off Mason, Lamela and Soldado, who were shite and have been shite for weeks. With luck, he'll keep Stambouli, Dembele and Chadli ahead of these three next week.

iluvsteffenfreund said:

Kane scored and held the ball up for us and won his headers. Eriksen scored 1 and set up one. Soldado offered nothing. Lamela worked hard and....... Well what else ?

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When your team isn't playing well you work your arse off.
It's a team thing, something you should know being a pro.

DiscoD1882 said:

I honestly don't think I can lay the blame at Pockys door for how we play. It's almost like AVB is still in charge. I don't know if he has hypnotized our squad. But we are brutally risk averse. The football hasn't changed since he left. Is that down to the personnel still at the club? I'm not sure? But we just don't have any spark. We have effort. By the bag full. But that isn't going to get us into the champs league. We desperately need two worldies. Striker. And a creative midfielder. Modric-esque

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It's confidence. We play scared.

It will all come together.

January window is a crucial start to a very important 8 months for us. If we get it right with a mix of quality, youth; pace, power; mentality, application. We'll be setting ourselves up well for the next few years.

This 11/12 players poch has found to start games is only phase 1. He's only just found a platform to work off of; that alone took a while. This will still be a long - and sometimes painful - process.

He's now got a good idea of what is really going on here and we can start to edit the squad and begin on phase 2.

dontsalebale said:

you are incapable of admitting he had a bad game. Which is patently obvious to everyone. He just hasnt got it.

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I didn't say he had a good game, I said he worked his socks off.
Can you tell the difference?

I'm so disgusted with Lamelas performance I cant enjoy our victory

THFCSPURS19 said:

You don't play for Spurs mate. You can't convince me of that.

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????????

There's not really a great deal of point in having 8+ posts that announce that Lamela is shit and then ... don't say why. Indeed, they don't say anything else at all, just 8+ ways of wording a sentence that Lamela is crap and loses the ball too much. Seriously, guys, we don't give a shit what you think unless you tell us why you think it. It's just spam. Or perhaps the modern word for spam is 'opinion'.

Lamela is gradually working through his shortcomings as a player in English fooball, but two of them seem to be intransigent, resistant to improvement. He's addressed the body-strength issue and improved his closing-down enormously.

Unfortunately, the first hasn't been effective because he still lacks the judgment to know when to pass - he will reliably try to beat one too many opponents - often trying to dribble through a crowd of three opponents - and that is why he loses possession so often and thus ruins so many promising attacking moves.

And the second isn't effective because his tackling, while enthusiastic, is too often wild and reckless. He was fortunate to avoid a couple of yellow cards today.

The result is that he remains a net liability in our squad. We usually play better when he leaves the pitch. He is being played regularly despite this and the reason is unlikely to be because he was expensive, it's because he is talented and young. There's a post some pages back on this thread that recommends giving up on Soldado and Lamela as a pair of expensive mistakes, as if they were comparable. They aren't: Soldado is nearly 30 and Lamela is only 22. Even if Soldado does overcome his brain-block and recover his finishing ability, he's still never going to be a long-term success in England, because he hasn't got enough upside, enough future. I wouldn't be upset if we cut our losses on Soldado, but we have to persevere with Lamela because of his age and visible talent. Most of what's wrong with his game is in his head: bad decisions.

Wheeler Dealer said:

We don't win ugly, we win luckily..

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We seem to be making a habit of it, long may it continue.

dontsalebale said:

you are incapable of admitting he had a bad game. Which is patently obvious to everyone. He just hasnt got it.

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You are in denial. He can only be being selected because we are looking to ofload him. Baldini needs shooting

davidmatzdorf said:

There's not really a great deal of point in having 8+ posts that announce that Lamela is shit and then ... don't say why. Indeed, don't say anything else at all, just 8+ ways of wording a sentence that Lamela is crap and loses the ball too much. Seriously, guys, we don't give a shit what you think unless you tell us why you think it. It's just spam. Or perhaps the modern word for spam is 'opinion'.

Lamela is gradually working through his shortcomings as a player in English fooball, but two of them seem to be intransigent, resistant to improvement. He's addressed the body-strength issue and improved his closing-down enormously.

Unfortunately, the first hasn't been effective because he still lacks the judgment to know when to pass - he will reliably try to beat one too many opponents - often trying to dribble through a crowd of three opponents - and that is why he loses possession so often and thus ruins so many promising attacking moves.

And the second isn't effective because his tackling, while enthusiastic, is too often wild and reckless. He was fortunate to avoid a couple of yellow cards today.

The result is that he remains a net liability in our squad. We usually play better when he leaves the pitch. He is being played regularly despite this and the reason is unlikely to be because he was expensive, it's because he is talented and young. There's a post some pages back on this thread that recommends giving up on Soldado and Lamela as a pair of expensive mistakes, as if they were comparable. They aren't: Soldado is nearly 30 and Lamela is only 22. Even if Soldado does overcome his brain-block and recover his finishing ability, he's still never going to be a long-term success in England, because he hasn't got enough upside, enough future. I wouldn't be upset if we cut our losses on Soldado, but we have to persevere with Lamela because of his age and visible talent. Most of what's wrong with his game is in his head: bad decisions.

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Don't agree with it all-but good post.

nightgoat said:

Maybe so, but still, Pochettino did something to change the game, which was what @Spurger King was refuting.

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'Denying'. Not the same thing as 'refuting'. If you say he 'refuted' it, you are saying he was correct.

Fazio is a real worry, I know he hasn't been here long but I've seen enough.
IF we have the funds to upgrade in Jan I would love to see Hector Moreno and Bony for Kaboul and Ade.

nightgoat said:

Maybe so, but still, Pochettino did something to change the game, which was what @Spurger King was refuting.

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How did it change the game?

davidmatzdorf said:

'Denying'. Not the same thing as 'refuting'. If you say he 'refuted' it, you are saying he was correct.

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He knows what he's saying

Cheers people

thinktank said:

It's confidence. We play scared.

It will all come together.

January window is a crucial start to a very important 8 months for us. If we get it right with a mix of quality, youth; pace, power; mentality, application. We'll be setting ourselves up well for the next few years.

This 11/12 players poch has found to start games is only phase 1. He's only just found a platform to work off of; that alone took a while. This will still be a long - and sometimes painful - process.

He's now got a good idea of what is really going on here and we can start to edit the squad and begin on phase 2.

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Thanks for the update mr baldini

beats1 said:

The issue is Kane isn't a striker yet and has struggled there in the past.

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With Ade gone and Soldado being so poor we have no choice. I think he can handle it, certainly won't do any worse than Soldado.