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Good Week/Bad Week

Krafty

Well-Known Member
May 26, 2004
4,768
2,099
Good Week

Jermain Defoe

A new three year contract, three Premier League starts, and no recognised striker coming in on deadline day. While he received little to no service on Saturday, and when he did get on the ball found himself easily outmuscled, the ninety minutes aside he has had a good week. With Andy Carroll also picking up an injury, a rare England start on Friday could be on the cards.

Moussa Dembele

A goal on debut, and no true playmaker signed, the Belgian looks set to be a first choice pick. Also having fellow Belgian and former team mate Vertonghen and ex-Fulham colleague Clint Dempsey at the club, he should settle in pretty quickly.

Clint Dempsey

Bet he’s glad he wasn’t signed in time to play.

Bad Week

Daniel Levy

Some good work was done on Friday, but the one player we need, the one player AVB wanted above all others, was not signed. Now we don’t know the ins and outs of the Joao Moutinho transfer negotiations, but there are three scenarios to my mind.

1. The player was not affordable. This should have been identified quickly, and another playmaker identified.
2. The player’s transfer rights were complicated. This should have been identified quickly, and time and effort spent on resolving this far in advance of the deadline.
3. Levy was playing a game of brinkmanship, which given how much AVB wanted this player, how there were no obvious alternatives, and the large gap Modric’s departure caused, was basically stupid.

We lacked a ball player in the middle of the park. As a result we had no tempo, we couldn’t exploit any gaps or get the ball to our danger players early enough, and apart from Dembele’s goal we had no goal threat. While Moussa looked impressive in the second half, he is not a playmaker like Modric, he offers threats further forward, but there is no one to give him and others the ball.

Gylfi Sigurdsson

A very, very poor display. While we don’t expect him to play delicate through balls or embark on mazy dribbles, he needs to show something other than nothing. Sure, the general team performance dragged everyone down, but Sigurdsson looked completely lost and worryingly tired. There will be more to come from the Icelander but with the signing of Dembele and Dempsey he cannot afford such anonymous performances.

Gareth Bale and the 4-2-3-1 wingers

It’s not really working yet. Bale didn’t play well, working out early that there was no point crossing the ball into the box when there is only Defoe and a couple of six foot plus defenders. That led to him inevitably coming inside too much, which Norwich were happy to do as they just crowded him out, and there was no space for anyone else to operate. Coming inside is fine but you have to start out wide – Bale’s starting position is too often too central, and he does not give Benny or others an option. Any opposition side looking to get a result at the Lane will be happy to see Bale joining the crowds in the middle of the park, rather than enjoying space out wide.

Things might change when Adebayor gets match sharp, but at the moment the side looks like it has a formation and set of tactics that are not compatible with the eleven men on the pitch. At home against Norwich we should be braver than that team set up was, speaking off which

Andre Villas-Boas

It’s déjà-vu all over again. We bring on a second striker, switch to a 4-4-2, get the lead goal, then switch back to the original system and concede. With all due respect, we should be taking on teams like WBA and Norwich at home. Hopefully AVB learned a valuable lesson on Saturday.

Brad Friedel

Brad pulled off some very impressive saves, but his inability to command his penalty area is very troubling and his team mates are more than aware. One long ball bounced in his box, and had Friedel read the situation he would have caught the ball under no pressure what so other. However, he was rooted to his line, the ball bounced a couple more times before Gallas had to sweep up, playing the ball to Walker who hashed a clearance out of play. Walker then turned to his keeper and urged him to take command.

Norwich’s equaliser was a carbon copy of WBA’s. The ball came across the area a couple of times, we didn’t clear it, Brad was stuck on his line, the defence fell so deep that people standing 16 yards out were able to be in five yards of clear space, and they scored with ease.

Lloris will come in as the number one and Brad will get a few cups games no doubt. He is a very good shot stopper but our struggles to deal with crosses is not helped by a keeper rooted to his line.


The Subs table

A new feature, we have a look at the points players involved in substitutions have earned/lost. For example, Jermain Defoe was taken off when we were winning for Huddlestone. The game ended in a draw, meaning Defoe is +2 and Huddlestone -2 for that match.

Defoe + 4
Sigurdsson 0
Sandro 0
Kane 0
Jenas – 2
Huddlestone -2
 

UbeAstard

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2005
3,354
2,413
Andre Villas-Boas

It’s déjà-vu all over again. We bring on a second striker, switch to a 4-4-2, get the lead goal, then switch back to the original system and concede. With all due respect, we should be taking on teams like WBA and Norwich at home. Hopefully AVB learned a valuable lesson on Saturday.

To be fair to him we still werent creating good chances whilst stopping Norwich from looking threatening so after we scored when he reverted back to a tactic to restrict them it was not surprising.
 

ParkLaneUpper

Active Member
Feb 6, 2004
210
152
Bale's job is to get the crosses in. He should just concentrate on doing that all day and let it be Defoe's job to get on the end of them.

if he decided early on there was no point, then that is his failing. He should just keep the crosses coming.
 

topaz

Active Member
Dec 7, 2006
104
32
Others will be mystified by your dubbing this a bad week for Brad Friedel after his series of excellent saves but I must say I agree with your analysis in general. He is rooted to his line and this puts the defence under enormous and unnecessary pressure - particularly in the absence of a commanding figure in the air such as Younes or Daws. For this reason Lloris was one of the signings I was most grateful for, whether he takes a few weeks to settle in or not.
 

JimmyG2

SC Supporter
Dec 7, 2006
15,014
20,779
Word from AVB is that Lloris won't make the team until Friedel really cocks it up.
We now have 4 keepers; 5 centre halves,1 left back, 3 right backs and 2.5 strikers.
Make that a bad week for the planning department.
 

Oracle

New Member
Aug 17, 2008
1
0
Word from AVB is that Lloris won't make the team until Friedel really cocks it up.
We now have 4 keepers; 5 centre halves,1 left back, 3 right backs and 2.5 strikers.
Make that a bad week for the planning department.
Pretty accurate report I'd say with only one tiny omission
I know it's early days but we really cant afford the luxury of starting with Livermore, the first three games have shown he's just not up to it
 

JoeT

Well-Known Member
Jun 7, 2005
3,813
935
I think of your three"bad week"screw-ups by Levy, the third scenario was more than likely the truth; the "brinkmanship" scenario.Why? Because he has done this (more than once) before....by basically trying to squeeze every penny out of a major player selling negotiation that does not leave enough time to sign a replacement.
Some will point out how he consistantly makes a profit from selling players on, but fail to recognize the harm it does to football team play.
Levy may have hung AVB out to dry on this one......just as I suspect he did to Harry on more then one occason.
 

Gaz_Gammon

Well-Known Member
Apr 16, 2005
16,047
18,013
Levy may have hung AVB out to dry on this one

No "may" about it.

Pretty poor outcome rearding the fiasco that was the Moutinho transfer attempt. You could have given any of the other PL Clubs the money we had from the Modric deal and the transfer would have been done. Does anyone truly think that if Man Ure would have wanted him the deal would have been attempted an hour after the time had passed for the transfer window to end? Seriously?
 

UbeAstard

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2005
3,354
2,413
Well considering the resources this club has compared to the ones finishing above us this chairman has been giving his coaches and managers pretty decent squads I say. How many average players have we wasted money on since Sugar? Very few and he has delivered players bequeathed by clubs with bigger resources.
Nobody gets everything right all of the time. I admire the guy for the way he goes about a lot of the necessary business and keeps out the limelight. Which other chairman is there you would believe can bring this club more success?
 

tevezito

In the cup for Tottingham
Jun 8, 2004
925
1,536
Love the subs table! You can't beat a bit of random statisticalising to throw a new angle on things (and, my, do we need new angles at the moment) :).
 

vuzp

Well-Known Member
May 18, 2004
1,446
1,311
No "may" about it.

Pretty poor outcome rearding the fiasco that was the Moutinho transfer attempt. You could have given any of the other PL Clubs the money we had from the Modric deal and the transfer would have been done. Does anyone truly think that if Man Ure would have wanted him the deal would have been attempted an hour after the time had passed for the transfer window to end? Seriously?
yes totally agree with you, look at man utd with RVP inside a week or less and it is done,
ok i know we are no Man Utd and i do not know the ins and outs of the Moutinho deal,
but by all accounts the player wanted to come and has said so before so that is half the battle over, just need to get the deal done, and we could not do that inside 2 months. WTF :mad:
 
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