"Injury problems and no Moutinho leave Villas-Boas' Tottenham midfield rudderless"

[MisterC]

Finally an article which makes sense and just states the obvious facts. I hope this shuts the boo boys up.

I was hoping this was going to be put Posted. I agree totally. I still think like most until Van dar vart and Mordic are replaced that we won't move forward.

 

[eddiebailey]

Siggurdsson may have his faults but "slow and immobile" he is not; and if he is such deadweight why did we sign him? And this is the first game we have played him and Huddlestone in midfield and it is certainly not the first time we have looked poor. As the article is forced to admit, Huddlestone has proved he can be effective with a beast like Palacios alongside him, and most of the time this season Huddlestone has had the beast Sandro alongside. And even with both Sandro and Dembele avaialble we have looked unconvincing.

God, yes we miss Modric and VdV, but we should still be playing more fluently by this stage in the season. Once we actually start hitting a run of hard matches, i.e. next week, it is difficult to see us hanging onto a top six spot.

 

[AngerManagement]

Siggurdsson may have his faults but "slow and immobile" he is not; and if he is such deadweight why did we sign him? And this is the first game we have played him and Huddlestone in midfield and it is certainly not the first time we have looked poor. As the article is forced to admit, Huddlestone has proved he can be effective with a beast like Palacios alongside him, and most of the time this season Huddlestone has had the beast Sandro alongside. And even with both Sandro and Dembele avaialble we have looked unconvincing.

God, yes we miss Modric and VdV, but we should still be playing more fluently by this stage in the season. Once we actually start hitting a run of hard matches, i.e. next week, it is difficult to see us hanging onto a top six spot.

Yea this is the real question, people have been getting excited because we have been above Arsenal for a little while but really we should have produced far greater results from the relatively easy run of home fixtures we have had and Arsenal to be fair have played quite a few of their tough fixtures already (although in truth they've also had a disappointing season so far)

I am actually hoping that we play better against the tougher teams because the opponents will motivate our players to perform (as I think currently AVB is failing to do so)

Or at least perhaps his backs to the wall defend for your lives tactics may look less out of place away to Man City and the like than they do at home to relegation fodder

 

[mano-obe]

Brilliant article, was it written by a Spurs fan perhaps? I seemed to nod my head every 20 seconds reading it. Not done that for any article in the past.

Thanks for the post, rep given!

 

[THOWIG]

Yep. Nothing more to say.

Support the team.

 

[MisterC]

I'm in complete agreement with that article. Only bit I would have changed is how although not what we possibly needed on paper, Dembele has slot in and would make a great midfield 3 with the likes of Parker and Mourtinho.

Let's see what Levy does in January. I have to give him credit for the team his put together behind the scenes to push us forward from a commerical and infrastructure sense - but he does need to give his manager the team he wants or come out and say we haven't got the budget and have to settle with what we got - rather than let AVB take the blame.

I'm confident we'll come good but it would require a bit of investment.

I gave your reply some thought and I think this is what's needed, everybody backs Everton over us for this reason! Ok we're not the same as Everton but we not a top 4 side, I'm sorry but were not!

 

[guiltyparty]

Yea this is the real question, people have been getting excited because we have been above Arsenal for a little while but really we should have produced far greater results from the relatively easy run of home fixtures we have had

But isn't this very much the Spurs of recent years? Under-performing against supposed minnows but producing against the big teams? Not sure that's necessarily an AVB-introduced trait. Annoying, yes, but not new

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Siggurdsson may have his faults but "slow and immobile" he is not; and if he is such deadweight why did we sign him? And this is the first game we have played him and Huddlestone in midfield and it is certainly not the first time we have looked poor. As the article is forced to admit, Huddlestone has proved he can be effective with a beast like Palacios alongside him, and most of the time this season Huddlestone has had the beast Sandro alongside. And even with both Sandro and Dembele avaialble we have looked unconvincing.

God, yes we miss Modric and VdV, but we should still be playing more fluently by this stage in the season. Once we actually start hitting a run of hard matches, i.e. next week, it is difficult to see us hanging onto a top six spot.

I don't whether it's forced to admit effective EB, I think this line is the most telling:

"Huddlestone especially is a player that needs to be carried, protected and compensated for."


This is even more prevalent now EB because of the way AVB wants to play and because of the way football in general has moved. Hudd slows us down, drags us deep and stretches the gaps between attack and midfield and defence. He is not conducive to passing, moving, pressing, tempo and playing the game a little higher up the pitch.

 

[eddiebailey]

Difficult to believe though that the game has moved on so much that a player who was an integral part of a team a successful team four years ago could prevent us from putting out an effective side.

 

[jonathanhotspur]

Difficult to believe though that the game has moved on so much that a player who was an integral part of a team a successful team four years ago could prevent us from putting out an effective side.

Gomes can't even get in the squad, Bassong's at Norwich, Crouch and Palacios are at Stoke, Bentley, Charlie and Pav are are in Russia, Kranjcar's in the Ukraine, Daws only plays in two bob competitions, Jenas is in the Championship, Gudjohnsen's in Belgium, Keane's in America, Ledley's retired.

The only one who has apparently gone on to bigger and better things is Modric.

 

[eddiebailey]

Just go to show what a good manager can achieve with the resources available...

 

[jonathanhotspur]

Just go to show what a good manager can achieve with the resources available...

Shame he couldn't repeat the trick with a better squad, eh?

 

[eddiebailey]

yes we never reached fourth again...

 

[jonathanhotspur]

yes we never reached fourth again...

Are we in the CL this season?

 

[eddiebailey]

no, and not likely to be next, regardless of who wins this year...

 

[jonathanhotspur]

no, and not likely to be next, regardless of who wins this year...

You never know. Arsenal are having all sorts of problems at the moment, for example. We could finish the season strongly if we get over this injury crisis and AVB stops making really stupid mistakes regarding his team selections.

 

[Blake Griffin]

good article, but i don't quite think moutinho is the difference between us looking great and us looking like cat sick.

 

[Misfit]

Knocked it out of the park really. He won't last too long in journalism if he keeps that kind of balanced, researched and well written work up.

 

[SugarRay]

I hate it when people point out that we had many 'one of them days' type games under Redknapp at the lane. We had them yes, but nowhere near the ratio we are experiencing them now. We have played 5 home games now and been consistently good in one. That was against Villa who look diabolical. Norwich was awful, West Brom was great for an hour, Chelsea was embarrassing in the first half and Wigan was virtually unacceptable.

Under Harry we had these type of games at home about 3/4 times a season. If we keep going at our current rate I dread to think where we will finish!

Seriously need to buck our ideas up. The away games in the cup competitions have been very poor too.

I have lost a bit of faith in the team already this season and when it comes to making decisions regarding on field stuff I have zero faith in Levy after the past two years.

 

[Blake Griffin]

I hate it when people point out that we had many 'one of them days' type games under Redknapp at the lane. We had them yes, but nowhere near the ratio we are experiencing them now. We have played 5 home games now and been consistently good in one. That was against Villa who look diabolical. Norwich was awful, West Brom was great for an hour, Chelsea was embarrassing in the first half and Wigan was virtually unacceptable.

Under Harry we had these type of games at home about 3/4 times a season. If we keep going at our current rate I dread to think where we will finish!

Seriously need to buck our ideas up. The away games in the cup competitions have been very poor too.

I have lost a bit of faith in the team already this season and when it comes to making decisions regarding on field stuff I have zero faith in Levy after the past two years.

you forgot qpr, which was crap bar a 15 minute spell in the 2nd half.