Just how far have we come under 'Arry..

[Rackybear]

So we know that their has been a rebound effect of very good results since harry took the helm at spurs. On the most part we all agree that the football we have been playing has been a massive improvement on the dross that we were playing under Ramos that led to our poor start - BC will tell you otherwise.

Personally, I think the match vs United this saturday will tell us just how far we have come under Redknapp. We are on home soil and have a group of players who are currently buzzing with confidence at the moment, having already done the double on liverpool, drawn with chelsea & arsenal, will feel they must surely have a chance to get something from this game as well. Most importantly, we have very few injuries and go into the game with the chance of fielding as strong an 11 as we can.

Now...one concern many have had with 'Arry is that he isn't a tactical manager. Sure, he'll make the players give 110% and keep them going till the last minute with a never say die attidude, but when he is locked in a tactical battle on the pitch and needs to overcome a hurdle - can he do it?

On saturday I suppose we will find out. To some extent he has already faced such a test against liverpool, who in all honesty completely thrashed us in terms of dominating the game and creating chances, but the team in white was more clinical - I dont think man utd will be such a liability in front of goal.

Under Ramos we were absolutely brilliant against them at WHL. One of our best performances against a top 4 opposition without actually getting the 3 points. Is redknapps team capable of such a performance?

Roll on Saturday..

 

[jamesc0le]

clinical agaisnt liverpool? how about LUCKY

what have we learnt about 'arry? not much, we've always known he's a happy go lucky manager with an eye for an african talent or two

the players? some of them couldn't handle a different syle of management, threw their toys out of the pram and stopped performing..


all's well that ends well ehh

 

[Rackybear]

Against liverpool we had few chances. We stuck away the one oppurtunity that came to us in the dying minutes and got help from carragher who couldn't handle a pinpoint Bentley delivery as well as the pressure from King.

This game will be a test of Harry's tactical credentials because Man Utd like liverpool, chelsea and arsenal are teams that can come to your home ground and play you off the park because they have such quality and 4 very tactically good managers (in fergy, scolari and benitez at least).

Harry has already faced arsenal and liverpool in the league during his short spell at spurs, and lets be fair - we got outplayed on both occasions. Although no one can question the commitment and confidence that may be running through the players at the moment, I want to see if redknapp can learn from those games and perhaps set us up in a way, or give instructions that will make our 11 players go out on the pitch - take the game TO man utd, rather then comprehensively get battered in every department.

At the end of the day the result is what matters, and im not going to complain if we have 2 chances in the whole match and scrape a 2-1 win, but I feel our performance will be a good measure of maybe how far we could realistically go under this manager. Can he set us up so we can generally go into these games with the feel that we can outplay them, and thus get a positive result. A winning mentality, in which they REALLY believe they can beat anyone, and go out to win every game.

I dont want to draw to much on Ramos, but this is what I liked about him and believe why he will prove to be such an excellent coach, the guy went into every match trying to win it. Not with the idea that "O its man utd, they are much better then us, i'll be happy with a draw". He beat barcalona and real madrid numerous times with sevilla, and during his good spell at spurs proved that we can really compete and outplay teams like Arsenal (away - keano missed penalty :bang: + 2 CC legs) and Man utd (at home) and Chelsea (CC & WHL). He was also I believe tactically astute, and he proved that to me on many occasions, being 2-0 down to Aalborg, switching to a 3-5-2 and going onto win 3-2. Some of his substitutions, and formation turnarounds. One that also sticks out is the way he set us up away to PSV in the Uefa Cup when we were 1-0 from the 1st leg, I think he put Lennon on the bench and squeezed the midfield up by playing 3 center midfielders (Zok,Hudd & JJ) in a 4 man midfield - it got us the result - but we were unlucky on penalties.

Anywho, Ramos' start (and end to last season) was poor and it was the correct decision to sack him at the time.

To cut it short, can Redknapp (in his own way) get as good a performance from the boys as Ramos did. I believe saturday against united will be a test of that, so far we have got results against pool and arsenal by not playing that well, can we get a result against united with a potent and positive display?

 

[nickchrissi]

Without reading your post, we'll find out this Saturday...

Put em to the sword!

 

[Rackybear]

Without reading your post, we'll find out this Saturday...

Put em to the sword!

Thats pretty much what I was trying to get across anyway :grin:

 

[paul_1979yid]

clinical agaisnt liverpool? how about LUCKY

what have we learnt about 'arry? not much, we've always known he's a happy go lucky manager with an eye for an african talent or two

the players? some of them couldn't handle a different syle of management, threw their toys out of the pram and stopped performing..


all's well that ends well ehh

And some awful ones!!!

 

[Rackybear]

And some awful ones!!!

thats just SpursKing

Ya kno..

Taiwo-King-Kaboul - potentially the greatest spurs defence of all time.

 

[Captain Spur]

About 5 or 6 places up the league!

 

[Shanks]

With the other games going on a result would be perfect, especially with the run of gasmes we have after.

I am not expecting us to win, and I'd take a draw now.
But if we do win, those 3 points would put us in a great position to really attack the top half of the table with the run of games there on after.

So, if we can get through the next 8 games with a similiar run of results, we could put ourselves in a bloody good position come february time (hopefully still in 3 cup competitions too!).

 

[mil1lion]

Consistency. The football isn't any better but the players are performing a lot more under Harry. Its still the same team though, so its difficult to say how far we've come as such. But we're playing well more often than not, and we seem to have more fighting spirit now. Which has resulted in some great away wins against Man City and West Ham. And i would also say that we look more solid defensively. A big part of that though is playing King in the League games. But we now have a manager who thinks more along the lines of a lot of the fans.

Wait until next season when Harry gets all the players he wants/need, and a pre-season build up, then we'll see how far we can go with him in charge.

 

[SoulDog]

So we know that their has been a rebound effect of very good results since harry took the helm at spurs. On the most part we all agree that the football we have been playing has been a massive improvement on the dross that we were playing under Ramos that led to our poor start - BC will tell you otherwise.

Personally, I think the match vs United this saturday will tell us just how far we have come under Redknapp. We are on home soil and have a group of players who are currently buzzing with confidence at the moment, having already done the double on liverpool, drawn with chelsea & arsenal, will feel they must surely have a chance to get something from this game as well. Most importantly, we have very few injuries and go into the game with the chance of fielding as strong an 11 as we can.

Now...one concern many have had with 'Arry is that he isn't a tactical manager. Sure, he'll make the players give 110% and keep them going till the last minute with a never say die attidude, but when he is locked in a tactical battle on the pitch and needs to overcome a hurdle - can he do it?

On saturday I suppose we will find out. To some extent he has already faced such a test against liverpool, who in all honesty completely thrashed us in terms of dominating the game and creating chances, but the team in white was more clinical - I dont think man utd will be such a liability in front of goal.

Under Ramos we were absolutely brilliant against them at WHL. One of our best performances against a top 4 opposition without actually getting the 3 points. Is redknapps team capable of such a performance?

Roll on Saturday..

Yes we have been getting results but playing nicer football under Arry, are you having a laugh? Everytime any of our players get the ball "Hoof" much more direct under harry and yes it is working, but it is nice to see the tottenham way of passing the ball, on monday I thought we played some better football in parts. Bring on Saturday!!

 

[AngerManagement]

Although this will be a Redknapp Spurs team minus Berbatov and Keane(£50m 'worth' of talent), I wonder if Ramos with the same group of players we have now would have produced a performance as good as he did last year at the Lane.

That's what we would really need for a direct comparison, I hope we put in a similar performance on Saturday. I do however believe we have come along way under Redknapp compared with this season's Ramos team, even if the same can not totally be said about how far we have come since the corresponding fixture last season.

 

[Rackybear]

Although this will be a Redknapp Spurs team minus Berbatov and Keane(£50m 'worth' of talent), I wonder if Ramos with the same group of players we have now would have produced a performance as good as he did last year at the Lane.

That's what we would really need for a direct comparison, I hope we put in a similar performance on Saturday. I do however believe we have come along way under Redknapp compared with this season's Ramos team, even if the same can not totally be said about how far we have come since the corresponding fixture last season.

Point well made.

What about how far we could have come from when we got comprehensively outplayed by both arsenal and liverpool (league) under Redknapp. Will he have learnt anything from those performances? or was it 4 points gained and moving on? They are two totally different teams, but they are opposition that are closest in quality to Utd.

What im trying to say is, perhaps he made errors in those games in terms of team selection / formation or anything else that might have helped swing the game in their favour, could he now learn from such errors and play a team that can go out onto the pitch tommorow and compete with united, create chances, and get a result?

 

[fazza]

I have a funny feeling we are gonna win this one, 2-1 almost like a repeat against Liverpool.

 

[AngerManagement]

Point well made.

What about how far we could have come from when we got comprehensively outplayed by both arsenal and liverpool (league) under Redknapp. Will he have learnt anything from those performances? or was it 4 points gained and moving on? They are two totally different teams, but they are opposition that are closest in quality to Utd.

What im trying to say is, perhaps he made errors in those games in terms of team selection / formation or anything else that might have helped swing the game in their favour, could he now learn from such errors and play a team that can go out onto the pitch tommorow and compete with united, create chances, and get a result?

I think in all honesty the teams in 'the big 4' simply have better players and better squads. Currently they are good enough to beat anyone in Europe (on their day) so we are somewhat in a postion that if they play to their potential there is very little we can do about it.

This makes these games hard to judge, because much of our result/performance depends on how well they let us play and wheter they are on top of their game or slacking slightly (as all the top four have done so this year on occasions)

Maybe I am being overly pessimistic about the quality in our own club, I would like to think that own our day we can beat anyone (but I am not so sure)

I will settle for a competitive performance and I Would much rather steal a win like we did against liverpool then play great and be pegged back with the last kick of the game like last year.

EditFor the record, I don't actually think we were outplayed away to Arsenal)

 

[Rackybear]

So what have I learnt?

Well to be honest, nothing that we didnt know already.

We got 110% commitment from each player, and proved a tough nut to crack, that just about sums up our performance.

On a tactical level, their was nothing to really shout about, zokora / bae eliminated the threat of ronaldo very well, but that isn't really down to Redknapps tactical genius. Going forward we weren't great, although it is hard to be against united, we created no clear cut chances, although we had a handful of attempts on goal.

 

[AngerManagement]

So what have I learnt?

Well to be honest, nothing that we didnt know already.

We got 110% commitment from each player, and proved a tough nut to crack, that just about sums up our performance.

On a tactical level, their was nothing to really shout about, zokora / bae eliminated the threat of ronaldo very well, but that isn't really down to Redknapps tactical genius. Going forward we weren't great, although it is hard to be against united, we created no clear cut chances, although we had a handful of attempts on goal.

Modric's Diving header was as clear a cut chance the whole game had. Huddlestone's shot was created well by the team and if Pav hadn't got in the way who knows what would have happen. Lennon created himself a chance with wonderful skill and but for a great save by VDS would have score as with Bentley's tie up and Volley.

 

[hughy]

It feels nice the transformation from being the team that other clubs know they have a huge chance of getting 3 points from, to a a team that's hard to beat, and will play untill the final whistle. I think our real problems went when Robinson did. No co-incidence that Blackburn happen to have the worst defensive record in the league, with a similar back four to the squad that was hard to score against last season.

 

[tony_parkes]

What Harry has done is shore up the defence. That's 4 clean sheets in the last 6 matches and only 2 conceded in that time. If we can add a little more in the final third then I believe we will rocket up the league over the next few months.

I'm very positive this evening, a top 8 finish and a cup is my prediction. COYS.

 

[Partizan]

The shot from Huddlestone was going to the top corner no doubt