Ratings vs Chelsea in Capital Cup final

[Spurger King]

I watched the game in a pub in Bristol, and I'm pretty sure I still contributed more to the game yesterday than Townsend.

 

[Jimmypearce7]

Yes Bentaleb was great, love him and Rose too but i went for Walker, i thought he did a great job up against Hazard and kept it up even after taking a bad knock.

 

[cliff jones]

I'm not sure how to title this one. Maybe as I'm writing this one will come to me. The problem is there was no clear overriding narrative. There was some things to criticise, but some to praise. The bottom line is, no single facet cost us today, just football. Football doing it's thing, and somethings that thing favours you and sometimes it fucks you. Ultimately, though I think Poctettino got his selections a bit wrong, his tactics a bit wrong, and though we do show frustrating ineptitude at crucial moments, and we were up against an arch tactician and his very talented and well drilled team, it was really mostly football that fucked us more than any other factor, because for all those things to criticise we didn't play badly today, we were never embarrassed and with a bit of rub our way could easily have come out with more than we did.

Managers are a puzzling breed. Anyone who watched the Arsenal game would say "There's the blueprint". So I really don't understand why he didn't go with that team, including Lamela and Dembele in the ARM and ACM and try and fuck up Chelsea like we fucked up Arsenal. Set about them, rattle them higher up before that impenetrable Mourinho bus gets into it's parking bay.

It baffles me that after nearly 40 league games and 73 first team games of largely futile clucking Townsend was given this gig. We all know Lamela is flawed but against a team like Chelsea his willingness to operate the press high up could have made a difference, and the admittedly small but real chance he may have produced something tangible could have also made a difference. An example of the pressing thing arrived early in the first 10 or so minutes, Kane and Eriksen go to press Cahill and Terry, but Townsend is off message, he's stood still 10 yards from Azpillicueta and Chelsea can easily escape to pincer movement. Townsend wasn't idle but there were occasions where he just doesn't work with the group or its a late dash afterthought. I wouldn't have had Chadli either because he's too erratic and not great for the high press either but I could at least make a case for him as he does produce sometimes. The other thing is that neither Townsend or Chadli show up for the ball as much as Lamela and Dembele do. And on tough days this is also important. Another example of this was early on when Walker was desperate for an out ball but Townsend actually ran further away and stood behind Azpillicueta as a result Walker was forced to hump away possession. Both Townsend and Chadli seem to struggle with their first touch when under pressure too. They both had moments where they got the ball and ran at Chelsea, but neither created anything you could tangibly call "good". And defensively they can both be mentally lazy. This was evidenced by the free kick Chadli gave away for the first goal. Just mental laziness, thinking I won't make the extra bit of effort to position myself properly.

I think these two selections made a difference to the way we played. Maybe Pochettino liked the 5-3 WHL Chelsea blueprint, but I thought that although we played well, that game was vey messy and open and we were very lucky that night that we buried our chances and they wasted more of theirs.

I wanted that ferocious strangle we put on Arsenal and Liverpool, not the slightly more stand offish open version we got today.

That said, after an iffy first 15 minutes I thought we grew into the game and pretty much dominated the ball, bar little pockets of the game, for the majority of it. Part of that was of course Mourinho's penchant for shelling once his team are a goal (and especially 2) to the good and also his very defensive selection of Zouma. But a big part of it was also how well Mason, Eriksen and Bentaleb played. Eriksen faded a bit second half but was everywhere first half.

Some of our approach play was very good, the ball gets moved around and we worked players into some half promising situations but unfortunately we do some mind numbingly stupid things once we get there. Rose and Walker wasted their usual quota, Kane chose to run into crowds instead of a couple of times playing simpler more effective options, Townsend and Chadli created knish and Eriksen, great everywhere else, just doesn't seem to be able to pick an incisive pass this season.


Not for the first time I thought Pochettino's subs were banal and added nothing at best and made us weaker at worst. I just do not get the tactical notion of effectively swapping mason for Dembele as CM's when you are desperate to get the ball forward quicker. And playing Soldado and Kane hasnt improved us once. He should have left Dembele in the attacking midfield and added Lamela and finished with Erikisen left, which would have also got him away from his man marker Zouma.

There are qualities I am liking about this young team, and despite the grumbles I have I thought there was plenty of honour in our defeat today. Even in this less diligent mode we are still much more tenacious and competitive than in years gone by, and we keep working to the bitter end. These are qualities that have come from Pochettino and are worth applauding because they aren't really in our DNA. 5 months ago people were making relegation threads. Here we are with the youngest team in the league playing cup finals and duking it out at the right end of the table with a load of pretty decent teams in the toughest every EPL.

The End is possibly not nigh.

Individual

Lloris - No chance with the goals. Decent game.

Walker - Started early with one of his trade mark careers up the pitch that's all promising but ends up, under no pressure, fizzing the ball to their CM and creating a counter attack that has everyone back peddling frantically. After that he had a pretty decent game until the second goal where he drops two yards behind the defence and plays Costa onside. As ever Wasted the chance to put a couple of decent crosses into the box. A pretty standard game.

Dier - Good game, big future.

Vertonghen - Good game.

Rose - As Walker, wasted 2 or three great chances to put a telling cross in, but apart from that had a very decent game.

Mason - He still loses composure at those vital forward moments but I thought he had a very good game and should never have been taken off.

Bentaleb - Outstanding game.

Townsend - Poor. See above

Eriksen - Saw shitloads of the ball, and I appreciate that he's often involved in setting up the setting up, but we really could do with him finding his creative boots and actually creating some quality chances for others. That said, had a very good game overall and worked extremely hard with and without the ball.

Chadli - More involved than Townsend, but ultimately pretty disappointing.

Kane - Disappointing really. Needs to get his head up sometimes and play the simple pass instead of trying to plough through traffic.

super read, agree with every word, except your usual under valuing of walker and oddly negative recollection of the 5-3, i shat all thecway to the end but we really were better than them in every respect that day.

 

[Supersi32]

I watched the game in a pub in Bristol, and I'm pretty sure I still contributed more to the game yesterday than Townsend.

Townsend has a terrible first touch.

 

[Main Man]

Bentaleb was our best player yesterday, and I thought Mason complimented him well too. It's nice to see two midfielders who predominantly move the ball on quickly (or certainly try to anyway)

Rose showed an incredible amount of heart and courage, even if very little quality. But that level of performance needs to be his base line from now on.

Walker defensively isn't great - although he isn't as poor as people make out - but I thought he handled Hazard as well as anybody can do really.

Verts and Dier handled Costa pretty well, although considering he was largely an isolated lone striker he got more joy than he should have. All things considered though, I think Dier should be very proud of himself.

I thought Eriksen threatened to be the difference, but in fairness to him I just don't think he has the supporting cast to make that a reality against the better teams.

The two wide men were quiet, but I really do think our system negates the impact our wingers can have. I don't think it is a coincidence that every single winger we have played in this position over the years has struggled. It's only the one's that are predominately central players who have excelled when playing wide because they drift infield so much a la Eriksen, Siggy and Dempsey even (although Chadli has, can and should do it).

Harry Kane is still in John Terry's pocket but we left him so isolated it's untrue, and in his frustration he tried to do too much when he did get the ball - that is something he needs to learn if we wants to progress imo.

The substitutes added nothing yet again (this is becoming a common theme) and Poch's stubbornness to change is proving far more detrimental than AVBs imo.

The biggest disappointment, and it has been all season for me, was our set pieces - both offensively and defensively.

Direct free kicks are OK because we have the brilliance of Eriksen, but beyond that we are utterly clueless. Defensively, we failed to defend the same corner over and over again. Chelsea kept hitting it to the back post, and we actually didn't win the initial header once. Not once!? They even found a central midfielder on the edge of our box twice when we have everyman back and nobody stood on posts etc! Suicidal.

Mourinho came with a game plan, and its a game plan every team should deploy against us.

'Defend properly, keep a clean sheet and we will win, because Spurs will gift us goals'

And that is what happened. The second goal was a bit unlucky, granted. But the first goal summed our defence up perfectly. Literally four people had the opportunity to tale control of the initial ball in, but obviously nobody did which forced Rose to have to try and deal with it. Would a John Terry team have conceded in that situation? Ledley, Woodgate, Mabbutt? Or even Perry, Gardner and Doherty!? We need a leader at the back, somebody who will take control and not allow for Jan's casual (imo disgusting) defensive attitude - dare I say it... Michael Dawson even...

Hoddle and Henry saying we were the better team etc, no we weren't. Yes we had more of the ball and threatened to do something on a number of occassions first half. But we never did. Chelsea were in complete control the whole game from a defensive point of view. Their keeper didn't make a single meaningful save in the entire match.

Yesterday actually provided a very frank, accurate and solid assessment of our strengths and weaknesses as a team imo. I just hope Poch is willing to learn the lessons dished out by Mourinho, whom by playing a centre back in midfield completely dismantled the way we play.

 

[StartingPrice]

SP i look forward to your blogs and this again is a good one, i especially like the narrative about seeing what you want etc.
I think your blog covers it superbly with the officials who did a good job overall considering Mourinho won this last week when he went on sky tv moaning and groaning, the siege mentality started then.
I see you have mentioned eriksons freekick on this thread more than once which i can understand why as we didnt have a shot on target in open play absolutley shocking.
We were never going to beat them twice in a season you must have known that your a clever fella,beating them once is worth a DVD on its own.
And as for Our defence well since beating Arsenal we have been conceding two goals a game, if thats not shit i dont know what is the question is what the Fuck is poch doing about it.
When pullis when to palace he had them keeping clean sheets within a few weeks so why cant we, i would say our players are not good enough.
However its good to see your blogs whether i agree with them or not.

Well we agree, at least, that Mourinho manipulates the officials with consummate ease.

It's not true that we didn't have a shot on target - the stats will tell you that. Straight off the bat, I remember Eriksen having a low shot to the near post. They did restrict us, though - you would expect Mourinho to do that. But their cause was helped by Chadli still looking like he is in mourning and not fully match fit, and Townsend...well, Townsend!

The point about the free-kick is that if it had went in it would have been a different game altogether - and it missed by a whisker. So you can't really say we were never going to beat them twice in a season - just that they were favourites. I might buy the DVD of the 5 - 3, though

There are clearly issues with the defence. But don't forget we do play in a way that can expose the defence - occasionally we will hit a brick wall in attack. The main problem, however, is that the goals we conceded yesterday were just a bit soft, a bit sloppy and, ultimately, unlucky. So, I agree with Harry Kane - we were unlucky with the Eriksen free-kick, Chelsea were lucky twice. The price to be paid with hiring a Tony Pulis is that the defence tightens up...but usually at the expense of expansive football. Need I remind you that the defence tightened up under AVB (before unravelling in three big games in quick succession) but the support wasn't happy because they wanted expansive football. It's a trade-off. And, hopefully, that trade-off will seem more worth making if/when the defence gets more settled, more experienced and more mature. Don't forget, this is a very young squad.

 

[Shanks]

I can't really score the team from yesterday.

Thought overall we played well enough, but just didn't do anything in the final third. We hardly created anything, Chelsea on the other hand did so when it mattered.

All of this - we bossed them in the first half, it's all a bit meh to me. Cup finals aren't for playing well, they are there to win - at all costs.

Costa is the prime example of this, winds people up, cheats, harrasses, moans and bitches, dives etc.. but it works, because it riles people up - some will say we don't want that, but there is a distinct difference in winning (champions) and playing well with potential.

We have the latter in abundance, and the future is looking much better than it did in Aug/Sep, and I really hope the team learn from this.

Lets take Kane for instance - the amount of times, I saw a Chelsea player dive when someone was behind them, was ridiculous. Harry Kane gets the ball on his chest, gets an actual knock from behind, then loses the ball, a chelsea player would have gone down, Kane stays on his feet to fight.

Now I prefer the staying on the feet appraoch, but it's those little areas of 'gamesmanship' which we don't do very well, and often cut the mustard from the beef...

Overall, I have no complaints about the result, Chelsea were the better team, and bar a little luck it could have been different, I'm just happy that it wasn't a bad decision that cost us the game.

Lots to go on and move forward with, we now have no distractions for the last 12 games or whatever it is, so I expect 12 cup final efforts in pushing us up further in the league.

Top 4 - probably not likely this year, it would be great if we got it, but I want to see progression.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

super read, agree with every word, except your usual under valuing of walker and oddly negative recollection of the 5-3, i shat all thecway to the end but we really were better than them in every respect that day.

I did actually say in between the usual Walkerisms he had a decent game but the problem is those Walkerisms are relentless and often costly, as per yesterday.

 

[shelfboy68]

Well we agree, at least, that Mourinho manipulates the officials with consummate ease.

It's not true that we didn't have a shot on target - the stats will tell you that. Straight off the bat, I remember Eriksen having a low shot to the near post. They did restrict us, though - you would expect Mourinho to do that. But their cause was helped by Chadli still looking like he is in mourning and not fully match fit, and Townsend...well, Townsend!

The point about the free-kick is that if it had went in it would have been a different game altogether - and it missed by a whisker. So you can't really say we were never going to beat them twice in a season - just that they were favourites. I might buy the DVD of the 5 - 3, though

There are clearly issues with the defence. But don't forget we do play in a way that can expose the defence - occasionally we will hit a brick wall in attack. The main problem, however, is that the goals we conceded yesterday were just a bit soft, a bit sloppy and, ultimately, unlucky. So, I agree with Harry Kane - we were unlucky with the Eriksen free-kick, Chelsea were lucky twice. The price to be paid with hiring a Tony Pulis is that the defence tightens up...but usually at the expense of expansive football. Need I remind you that the defence tightened up under AVB (before unravelling in three big games in quick succession) but the support wasn't happy because they wanted expansive football. It's a trade-off. And, hopefully, that trade-off will seem more worth making if/when the defence gets more settled, more experienced and more mature. Don't forget, this is a very young squad.

Yeah Im aware that its a young squad in part and is developing so maybe i might have been a tad harsh with some of my comments.
Although the defence does concern me as like Ive said already on here that since the NLD we are letting in about two goals a game, now whether your playing expansive football or not that imo is too many.
It was once said goals win games defences win titles and that adage is true, to see that a strong defence wins silver look at Our opponents yesterday they continue to win cos they let in very little.
However it might seem Im a negative **** which is not true i just say if somethings shit or good i dont dress anything up, but its to the future we look and maybe we will get these fuckers back in another wembley final when we are on the up and they are in decline( see i do positivity).

 

[Phomesy]

We desperately need someone with genuine pace and acceleration to make the fullbacks back away. Hopefully Yedlin is that missing piece.

 

[Mullers]

When the opposition bring on Oscar in the 80th Minute it puts everything into perspective .

A couple of deflected goals against and we tried hard but they are obviously much better .

Looking around at the end Eriksen looked gutted .


The problem now is that the club is in limbo .

Eriksen and Lloris have outgrown us and must be allowed to go in the Summer for the sake of their careers - we've got nothing to offer them anymore . The best we can do is enhance our formidable reputation as a stepping stone club .

Soldado , Lamela and Adebayor cannot be relied upon even as squad and need to be let go .

Our D.O.F. system which was supposed to provide stability has lead us to the "crew change" problem of all time .

I wouldn't have any complaint if Lloris left, he's a world class keeper who saved us on many occasions. I think he deserves to play champions league and win trophies, Eriksen still has to develop more, I'll think he'll be here for two more seasons.

I believe there will be little to no spending in the summer because I don't believe that we can get rid of the deadwood, so I don't think we will improve much if at all.

 

[spurious1]

Even just after the game, and when I should have been sinking into the depths of depression, and would have, in years past, I didn't. As many noticed, we were beating by a team of the world's most expensive (bar Man City) players, drilled in a very practical and effective way, to win the match. We have not just a young team, but even the youngest team in the Prem if I'm not wrong.

We were extreme underdogs and for good reason, but we never looked overrun or afraid. Of course we lost, and that's the only thing that ultimately counts, but I don't imagine there's any team in the PL, and hasn't been for a while, with the quality we have considering the age of our players.

It's nice to see the well-deserved appreciation of Bentaleb, who plays a somewhat unglamorous and technical role - maturely at a very young age - makes me want to believe Spurs fans are football connoisseurs

 

[Wirral Spurs]

Their wage bill is around £1.5m per week more than ours. They have very strong players in every position because the best players want to play for them for the money. This match showed their quality was above ours, not by much but enough to make the difference. It's the way football is, we all know it. We can beat anyone, as we proved on New Years Day but to consistently win we need to have marginally better players and to do this, the cash to pay them. It's the definition of buying trophies I suppose.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Apparently Mourinho was very complimentary about Pochettino in his post match, has anyone seen or read what he actually said ?

 

[Spurs 1961]

Hard game to score. I thought no one player played really well and a lot were decent in parts. I was concerned when I saw we started with Townsend and Chadli. But all is not doom and gllom, just a reminder that we are inexperienced

 

[Main Man]

Apparently Mourinho was very complimentary about Pochettino in his post match, has anyone seen or read what he actually said ?

Yes.

It was nothing other than the expected, all said to try and big up his own achievement.

But seemingly everybody is falling for the Poch effect, even though he is achieving no more (infact I would argue less) than our three previous managers.

Let's hope it is the start of a revolution though.He would speed it up considerably by working on set pieces mind!

 

[THFCSPURS19]

Yes.

It was nothing other than the expected, all said to try and big up his own achievement.

But seemingly everybody is falling for the Poch effect, even though he is achieving no more (infact I would argue less) than our three previous managers.

Let's hope it is the start of a revolution though.He would speed it up considerably by working on set pieces mind!

Yeah, I remember those great finals we played under Sherwood and AVB. He's already made us play better in certain games than we did under those 2.

 

[Main Man]

Yeah, I remember those great finals we played under Sherwood and AVB. He's already made us play better in certain games than we did under those 2.

I am not really sure of the point you are trying to make?

But, AVB and Sherwood would have navigated the piss easy route we had to the Capital One Cup Final just as Poch did. If you think differently you are just plain deluded.

 

[THFCSPURS19]

I am not really sure of the point you are trying to make?

But, AVB and Sherwood would have navigated the piss easy route we had to the Capital One Cup Final just as Poch did. If you think differently you are just plain deluded.

We lost to West Ham at Home under Sherwood, and Norwich away under AVB.

 

[cliff jones]

I did actually say in between the usual Walkerisms he had a decent game but the problem is those Walkerisms are relentless and often costly, as per yesterday.

think hecwas far better than decent. whether hazard admits or not, walker is the bloke he gets no change out of. he murdered us in the league game at their gaff, no walker then. agree maybe a fraction short in blocking costas winning shot but who was close to fabregas? he had an age to pick the pass from a v dangerous position.