The stadium myth..

Drink!Drink! said:

terrible stadium, a scandal that it cost so much money and yet was designed so badly

our supine, spineless sports journalists should call out wembley for what it is, the king is naked, why do they have to pretend it is a "special" venue?

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Because it would be disloyal and because if they said anything bad about Wembley they'd have to have their testicles removed by a ceremonial pair of rusty pliers operated by Princess Michael of Kent and Romeo Beckham, in the time-honoured fashion.

Whilst it can be said on tho one hand that Conte has a bit of a point when he says that Wembley will inspire teams that play us there it can equally be said that Chelsea had something of a point to prove.

They were absolutely slated by the media last week at home to Burnley for their performance and rightly so, and we were also laying into them, and maybe some of us fell into the trap of underestimating how they would fare against us yesterday especially with some notable absentees. They were too easily being written off by sections of the media and some of our fans and perhaps their own fans to the extent that it was being predicted that they would capitulate in their title defence in the same way they did in 2015/16 under Mourinho.

It's true that they did appear to adopt something of a siege mentality on the pitch yesterday, and they did what was necessary to get a result to stick two fingers up to the doubters and those who had already written them off and sometimes they bordered to the margins of crossing the line with constant niggling fouls and gamesmanship and slowing the play down and soaking up pressure. Was it down to the Wembley pitch or Wembley itself ? Who is to say it definitely was ? It could be argued that they could just have easily been as motivated and stung into action by the criticism they received all last week if they had been playing us at WHL and /or Stamford Bridge. They have adopted similar tactics in the past against not just at Wembley and unfortunately it has worked against us not just at Wembley.

So I'm not entirely convinced it is all down to Wembley as there were other factors at work. They were motivated anyway regardless of Wembley. We lacked pace and a real cutting edge even if we did not lack in effort and a willingness not to give up, and we need to learn how to capitalise on advantages we initially created and earned. We won 14 corners to their 3 yet nearly almost all of them were wasted because Poch and the team insist on using the same man to take them all when its obvious that most of them are either failing to beat the first man or not going into danger areas for us to attack.

ljinko888 said:

We played well against Chelsea today and in the S/F. We played well against Monaco and Genk. Yet we didn't win any of them.

I don't think it's our attacking play which is a big issue. We would greatly benefit from a pacy forward who stretches the play but for the large part our passing and movement is fine.

Defensively we are more vulnerable. The pitch is bigger which even the slight difference means players have to get used to covering more yards and get conditioned for it. We will get better there with time.

However I have noticed with the high line we play, opponents are breaking away into open spaces too easily. Hopefully Sanchez who looks a great athlete will help nullify that.

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Agree so we need to change how we play and not play with such a high line. Dembele said they have a new game plan for Wembley so was hoping I would see something different

theShiznit said:

Didn't see it mentioned on Sky yesterday.
Did we break the attendance record?

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my commentary said they didn't release all of the seats for sale since the game was deemed to be high risk as we were playing Chelsea.

They said next week will have all seats available and should break the record.

Clark28 said:

my commentary said they didn't release all of the seats for sale since the game was deemed to be high risk as we were playing Chelsea.

They said next week will have all seats available and should break the record.

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The record is 75k. We will not be breaking that against Burnley

So obviously there is not a Wembley curse but this is a challenge for us.

Football is a game of small margins and the benefits of playing a genuine home game helps a lot.

Last season we had 3 close games with Chelsea. We each edged our home game and they beat us at Wembley.

I said at the beginning of the season that our form at Wembley wouldn't be terrible but would be worse than WHL and this would affect us.

We have a good side and will beat many teams in the league both away and Wembley but lets not kid ourselves by thinking playing at Wembley isn't a problem.

dontcallme said:

So obviously there is not a Wembley curse but this is a challenge for us.

Football is a game of small margins and the benefits of playing a genuine home game helps a lot.

Last season we had 3 close games with Chelsea. We each edged our home game and they beat us at Wembley.

I said at the beginning of the season that our form at Wembley wouldn't be terrible but would be worse than WHL and this would affect us.

We have a good side and will beat many teams in the league both away and Wembley but lets not kid ourselves by thinking playing at Wembley isn't a problem.

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The problem is that we set ourselves very high expectations last season by winning 17 out of 19 matches and going undefeated at home for the whole season, we were never going to match that in a million years. The season before our home record was won 10, drew 6 lost 3 but people are very quick to forget that. Yes we made find it different to play at Wembley and takes some time to get used to however we just played the Champions who sat deep, frustrated us and totally nullified our threat so people using 1 match to as a sample size (not sure if you're doing this or not) should wait until they declare the Wembley project an absolute failure.

spursfan77 said:

Apparently we've conceded 12 goals there from 15 shots on target. That seems a high proportion. Almost freakish.

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How many have we had in that time? Would be interesting to know. Iirc we had 30+ against Portsmouth!!

Everlasting Seconds said:

True and not true, I believe.
The way larger pitch caused a possession obsessed team to very often be off timing-wise.
Large pitch -> inferior timing and connection as a team unit -> arriving too late to situations or missing out slightly -> making mistakes.

I think to navigate Wembley, Pochettino must consider putting possession on the back burner in order to save and manage energy consumption throughout the game.
Less possession -> fewer passes and movements -> better use of energy -> reduced risk of grave mistakes.

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Not having any excuse about pitch dimensions.

The training pitches at the Training Centre are replica's of Wembley's. Zero excuse.

Shadydan said:

The problem is that we set ourselves very high expectations last season by winning 17 out of 19 matches and going undefeated at home for the whole season, we were never going to match that in a million years. The season before our home record was won 10, drew 6 lost 3 but people are very quick to forget that. Yes we made find it different to play at Wembley and takes some time to get used to however we just played the Champions who sat deep, frustrated us and totally nullified our threat so people using 1 match to as a sample size (not sure if you're doing this or not) should wait until they declare the Wembley project an absolute failure.

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Not using yesterday's result as a sample.

I am not declaring our home form at Wembley as a failure but making a prediction that it will be in comparison with our competitors.

Im glad we are playing at Wembley. At some point we are gunna start winning and the mental block will be gone. We might actually be able to win something there further down the line!

Everlasting Seconds said:

Exactly, I agree. Spurs fans have a long history of being seduced by possession, overlooking that the opponent might very well be in cruise control. "Chelsea hardly even saw the ball, we outplayed them". Chelsea didn't even want to have the ball. They wanted to win the match, which are two different concerns. Let Spurs do the running and the fiddling and the wasteful attempts. Force them into making mistakes, be ready to exploit said mistakes to the max, and seal the deal.


When you don't play for possession, you also don't have a feeling of need to win the ball back all the time because what are you to do with it? You don't play to win the ball back, you play to have the opponent make mistakes. That's the moment when you grab the ball and seize the day. It's a reverse way of being in control. Cruise control, as I call it, that Spurs fans very often fail to notice when it's deployed against Tottenham.

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I can't see how us changing to that kind of tactic would be helpful. We came second last season playing a particular way. To try and turn into a completely different team now, employing almost the opposite tactics would surely cost us more points than trying to continue playing in a way that's almost second nature to us now. By all means try and tweak the tactics slightly to allow for a slightly bigger and slower pitch, but there's no need for wholesale changes.

If our first fixture at Wembley was Swansea or Burnley or Brighton and we lost, I could understand this level of whinging about the stadium. We lost to the defending champions. The world is not ending, the team is not cursed, fucking relax.

nailsy said:

I can't see how us changing to that kind of tactic would be helpful. We came second last season playing a particular way. To try and turn into a completely different team now, employing almost the opposite tactics would surely cost us more points than trying to continue playing in a way that's almost second nature to us now. By all means try and tweak the tactics slightly to allow for a slightly bigger and slower pitch, but there's no need for wholesale changes.

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1) Wembley Stadium is a huge difference from last season
2) Pochettino is supposedly adapt at pinpointing the exact tactics for each match
3) I'm using it more as a way of describing why I don't believe we were "good" or "best", not necessarily describing an actual change we should do

guiltyparty said:

My mate who went just messaged me: "Hour and a half to get there. Two and a half hours to get back - it takes an hour just to get to the tube because they filter you (necessarily, I realise) going back. Atmosphere is dead. The affordable seats are so high up it's like watching your favourite team of ants. I'm thinking I may give Spurs' season at Wembley a miss. Not a fun day out. (Obviously a good deal of my negativity here is due to us losing, but still...)"

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I thought the atmosphere was alright in the lower tier.

It was dead after Chelsea scored their first but when we sang, it wasn't too bad. I should imagine being up in the gods wouldn't be the same.

I liked that we kept the Park Lane/Shelfside chant going.

bigfrooj said:

Blimey that could have been me. My experience exactly. Its going to be a long season.

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I'm not aiming this at you - for most of us, me included, it will be a long, expensive, time-consuming and energy-draining experience but people need to put it in context. This is the first time it's happened in 118 years, and probably won't happen again and certainly not in our lifetime. Hopefully it will only be a year but even if it isn't, then in the grand scheme of things it's not that bad.

I can't understand the anger and resentment the likes of the THST generate over this.

dontcallme said:

So obviously there is not a Wembley curse but this is a challenge for us.

Football is a game of small margins and the benefits of playing a genuine home game helps a lot.

Last season we had 3 close games with Chelsea. We each edged our home game and they beat us at Wembley.

I said at the beginning of the season that our form at Wembley wouldn't be terrible but would be worse than WHL and this would affect us.

We have a good side and will beat many teams in the league both away and Wembley but lets not kid ourselves by thinking playing at Wembley isn't a problem.

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As far as I can remember just about every team struggles for a while in a new stadium, and we have it for two seasons! Very spursy to have our best team for nearly sixty years and to hamper its progress. However we need the stadium for long term, just have to swallow and get on with it.

We just need to figure out how to mostly fill the stadium and improve the atmosphere. Should be doable, it's not like it's a proposition to go to Jupiter.

saw this on twitter

"Moved to a 90k stadium and I'm still sat next to the same miserable old cnut who irritated me for years at the lane

just fuck off...

Dad"

I have been bagging this drum for a while now and would love for our club to get rid of some disturbing bad/poor habits. The constantly losing to Chelsea had been address somewhat at WHL but everywhere else unfortunately its the same old story we play extremely well however find ways to draw or lose whenever we play them.

Other poor records we have are against Liverpool at Anfield of late we haven't been able to beat them, Old Trafford had been addressed a few season back with consecutive wins however it seems we haven't won there for a bit. The Emirates welll we've only won once there since built now Wembley.

Wembley
Anfield
Stamford Bridge
Emirates
Old Trafford


Places this season I'd like to see improvements