Match Threads Palace vs Spurs - Match Thread - Day 4 - KO 12:30pm

[Gassin's finest]

Palace were rampant, but we were steady again. Tanganga I'm afraid has let the team down there. Fair enough he's pissed off because Lucas was down and there's an expectation around sportsmanship... But there's no actual obligation to do so, and Japhet needs to stay professional there.

From that point he's lost his head, got the second yellow, and from then on it's always a struggle. No faulting effort and workrate, but as soon as the penalty is given we were beaten.

Harsh lesson for many.

 

[Teddy Klinsmann]

Playing 3 CDMs is just inviting pressure, they all play sideways the majority of the time and never push up.
The amount of times we just play sideways inviting a team to press us is ridiculous. Emerson was available throughout the game and we never fed him once with a diagonal pass! Our defense looks worse than it is most of the time because we are always defending. Sooner or later its to be expected a mistake or an unfortunate deflection will happen!
As for today and having one shot on target and setting up like that, then not making an attacking substation.......
How is that remotely acceptable at our level? It is down right neglegent.

and in that defensive 3 you have a player who has just come from the championship and one who should be playing in the championship. Only PEH is at the standard required. And then you have Gio and NDombele both who have shown little to nothing in 2 years. We’re the makers of our own problems - should have sorted the midfield out in the summer.

 

[Harrier]

Zaha should have been shown straight red for this IMHO.

 

[slartibartfast]

and in that defensive 3 you have a player who has just come from the championship and one who should be playing in the championship. Only PEH is at the standard required. And then you have Gio and NDombele both who have shown little to nothing in 2 years. We’re the makers of our own problems - should have sorted the midfield out in the summer.

Agree. I think we're gonna have to do an Aurier with Ndombele and just cut our loses. Nobody is gonna buy him, certainly not for what Mr Levy wants anyway. What a massive waste of money, again.
Imo we should never break our transfer record again. We're utter shit at buying top end players. Our record is embarrassing.
Heres a few to make you weep.
Sergie Rebrov, Darren Bent, Paulinho, Soldado, Lamela, Sissoko, Sanchez, Ndomble.
Wtf are we doing lol ?

 

[guiltyparty]

Agree. I think we're gonna have to do an Aurier with Ndombele and just cut our loses. Nobody is gonna buy him, certainly not for what Mr Levy wants anyway. What a massive waste of money, again.
Imo we should never break our transfer record again. We're utter shit at buying top end players. Our record is embarrassing.
Heres a few to make you weep.
Sergie Rebrov, Darren Bent, Paulinho, Soldado, Lamela, Sissoko, Sanchez, Ndomble.
Wtf are we doing lol ?

The thing with Ndombele that I’ve never understood is his fitness issues and the fact he nearly gave up football due to lack of motivation/enthusiasm were well known.

For £20-25m I understand taking a punt on a player like that as anyone in that bracket is going to have some kinks that need ironing out. But the fee for Ndombele was so vast it had to be as near to a dead cert as it could be and it clear as day wasn’t.

This isn’t hindsight, it was well documented before he joined so it had to be on Spurs’ radar. Very talented guy when he can be arsed with a history of fluctuating weight issues, with one really decent season to his name. I just don’t see what made the notoriously questioning chairman sign off that risk.

Reminds me of old school Newcastle ans West Ham signings where they hoovered up injury prone players then moaned when they got injured. Same for Ndombele, it’s not bad luck, it was a very risky punt given all the info from a club that isn’t in a position to do that

 

[Timberwolf]

The thing with Ndombele that I’ve never understood is his fitness issues and the fact he nearly gave up football due to lack of motivation/enthusiasm were well known.

For £20-25m I understand taking a punt on a player like that as anyone in that bracket is going to have some kinks that need ironing out. But the fee for Ndombele was so vast it had to be as near to a dead cert as it could be and it clear as day wasn’t.

This isn’t hindsight, it was well documented before he joined so it had to be on Spurs’ radar. Very talented guy when he can be arsed with a history of fluctuating weight issues, with one really decent season to his name. I just don’t see what made the notoriously questioning chairman sign off that risk.

Reminds me of old school Newcastle ans West Ham signings where they hoovered up injury prone players then moaned when they got injured. Same for Ndombele, it’s not bad luck, it was a very risky punt given all the info from a club that isn’t in a position to do that

He was the one Poch really wanted and, for all his failings, Levy really stuck his neck out to get him his man.

I guess we were blinded by the talent and just did everything we could under the assumption we could fix his attitude issues later if they arose.

Reminds me a bit of when Rodgers brought in Balotelli thinking he could tame him. Maybe if Poch had stayed things would've been different, but it was a hell of a risk for such a huge contract.

 

[guiltyparty]

He was the one Poch really wanted and, for all his failings, Levy really stuck his neck out to get him his man.

I guess we were blinded by the talent and just did everything we could under the assumption we could fix his attitude issues later if they arose.

Reminds me a bit of when Rodgers brought in Balotelli thinking he could tame him. Maybe if Poch had stayed things would've been different, but it was a hell of a risk for such a huge contract.

Yeah sticking your neck out for a manager you bin off soon after is very odd. I guess it was the two transfer windows of no signings that accumulated to that but it’s very frustrating when we sniffed at much lower fees for the likes of Tielemens (pre-Leicester) and even Grealish. Doesn’t historically seem any rhyme or reason to what we’ll spend, on who and why.

 

[SPURSLIFE]

We've played some poor games over the past couple of seasons but to me that was the worst I've seen for a very long time. No desire, no creativity or unity just 11 guys.....eventually 10....running around like headless chickens. Nobody seemed to have a clue at what to do about it or even care. We go on about the missing players in Croatia but Lo Celso hasn't been a regular starter and would have been on the bench, the same with Romero. The only one of the three that would have played was Sanchez. We certainly missed Son but the manager had enough talent available to win this game but he got it all wrong from the start with his team selection and then compounded it with not subbing 2 or 3 players early on when the game could have been salvaged. The team is crying out for a leader and Kane isn't the answer, you never see him getting stuck into the players and shouting the odds when things are going badly.
The manager has got a big job on his hands to get something out of this season with this team only time will tell. I just hope he has learnt from his mistakes yesterday. My concern is when I look at him and listen to what he has to say there doesn't seem to be that fiery determination about him and he seems to laid back and unconcerned, almost as if he is just happy to be here and what will be will be.
I hope not.

 

[Russ1201]

Can anyone explain what it is that managers see in Harry Winks? Seriously would like to know. Maybe I don’t understand something. What qualities does he bring and what is the role he is asked to play?
I used to love Dele, but he is clearly the icing and not the cake.
The midfield is the problem, and we are worse than last year having lost Sissoko, who would have brought more athleticism and dynamism than Skipp, Winks and Adele combined.

Agree with most of this except mentioning Skipp he had one bad game as did the whole team and he wasn't fit.

 

[danielneeds]

So far Nuno’s football reminds me most of George Graham’s.

 

[Aphex]

It’s going to get worse I’m afraid. I look at our squad as a football fan, not a spurs fan, and I don’t see much quality.

Our best player doesn’t want to be here, he will no doubt get injured soon too. Son already injured. Where are the goals going to come from? I said this in the transfer window, I just don’t know who the club feels and thinks will weigh in with goals and why we didn’t sign more goals.

We are miles away from top 4 now and Levy will realise far too late that the squad is miles off. It could even be far worse this season because Kane and Son had a freak output last time out.

Now we’ve got a manager who picks three defensive midfielders. Just how he thinks Winks deserves to play. Skipp is a kid who is more championship quality than CL quality at this stage. PEH is solid but not spectacular. Reguilon has been pretty poor for us really hasn’t he? Still not seeing it with him. The only improvement we’ve made is CB with Romero but he seems more interested in playing for his country even if it means missing our league games. Alli back in the side despite showing us over three years now that he is not good enough.

Nuno is getting a lot wrong at the moment and I am fast losing the little faith I had in him.

Our squad is weak but the manager shouldn’t be picking the usual suspects. Jose wisened up to it but by then it was all toxic anyway.

I think we will face a period in the doldrums, I genuinely think we are a mid table side and teams like Villa etc could very well overtake us this season. Leicester already have.

 

[shelfboy68]

It’s going to get worse I’m afraid. I look at our squad as a football fan, not a spurs fan, and I don’t see much quality.

Our best player doesn’t want to be here, he will no doubt get injured soon too. Son already injured. Where are the goals going to come from? I said this in the transfer window, I just don’t know who the club feels and thinks will weigh in with goals and why we didn’t sign more goals.

We are miles away from top 4 now and Levy will realise far too late that the squad is miles off. It could even be far worse this season because Kane and Son had a freak output last time out.

Now we’ve got a manager who picks three defensive midfielders. Just how he thinks Winks deserves to play. Skipp is a kid who is more championship quality than CL quality at this stage. PEH is solid but not spectacular. Reguilon has been pretty poor for us really hasn’t he? Still not seeing it with him. The only improvement we’ve made is CB with Romero but he seems more interested in playing for his country even if it means missing our league games. Alli back in the side despite showing us over three years now that he is not good enough.

Nuno is getting a lot wrong at the moment and I am fast losing the little faith I had in him.

Our squad is weak but the manager shouldn’t be picking the usual suspects. Jose wisened up to it but by then it was all toxic anyway.

I think we will face a period in the doldrums, I genuinely think we are a mid table side and teams like Villa etc could very well overtake us this season. Leicester already have.

Yet many fans on here think we were good enough for top four absolutely no chance.

 

[cjbyid]

It’s going to get worse I’m afraid. I look at our squad as a football fan, not a spurs fan, and I don’t see much quality.

Our best player doesn’t want to be here, he will no doubt get injured soon too. Son already injured. Where are the goals going to come from? I said this in the transfer window, I just don’t know who the club feels and thinks will weigh in with goals and why we didn’t sign more goals.

We are miles away from top 4 now and Levy will realise far too late that the squad is miles off. It could even be far worse this season because Kane and Son had a freak output last time out.

Now we’ve got a manager who picks three defensive midfielders. Just how he thinks Winks deserves to play. Skipp is a kid who is more championship quality than CL quality at this stage. PEH is solid but not spectacular. Reguilon has been pretty poor for us really hasn’t he? Still not seeing it with him. The only improvement we’ve made is CB with Romero but he seems more interested in playing for his country even if it means missing our league games. Alli back in the side despite showing us over three years now that he is not good enough.

Nuno is getting a lot wrong at the moment and I am fast losing the little faith I had in him.

Our squad is weak but the manager shouldn’t be picking the usual suspects. Jose wisened up to it but by then it was all toxic anyway.

I think we will face a period in the doldrums, I genuinely think we are a mid table side and teams like Villa etc could very well overtake us this season. Leicester already have.

Can't really disagree with any of that.

Our top 4 days are over for a few years at least.

 

[shelfboy68]

Can't really disagree with any of that.

Our top 4 days are over for a few years at least.

No good when you want to attract sponsorship or rake in the coin like enic want mid table is bollocks but they are in large parts to blame for this wreck.

 

[Yiddo1982]

We would have lost to every team in the league yesterday - and probably a few clubs in the Championship. The performance was that wretched.

 

[shelfboy68]

We would have lost to every team in the league yesterday - and probably a few clubs in the Championship. The performance was that wretched.

The Tottenham way I'm afraid

 

[glacierSpurs]

Tactical mess with Winks and Dele basically in same position.
View attachment 96551

Winks positioning is atrocious. He's one of the reason why Skipp was so poor yesterday as he was also drifting in and out of Skipp's zones.

 

[glacierSpurs]

N

View attachment 96564
Zaha should have been shown straight red for this IMHO.

No idea why there was no VAR review on this. Or was the review done discreetly now?

 

[chrissivad]

Tactical mess with Winks and Dele basically in same position.
View attachment 96551

Back line and cm 3 are close to where you expect them (even if they were poor)
Front 3 offered very little outlet. No width (I think Jenas mentioned this multiple times) and very congested with the midfield.

 

[Northernspurs]

So far Nuno’s football reminds me most of George Graham’s.

God I remember those days... I was a season ticket holder then!