- Oct 19, 2004
- 39,837
- 50,713
The blame should never fall on one player - ever. It's always the manager's job to pick the right team. I'll never fault Lamela's effort, but his decision making at the moment is that of a small child that's wanderedNail on head. Read this Lamela knee jerkers. For the record I would not have picked him as he is struggling but to put the blame for our overall performance and result squarely at his feet is ludicrous
Couldn't agree more with every single bit of this! Spot fucking on mate.I've got very little sympathy with Poch, if he keeps up these brainless selections and tactics then my patience is going to rapidly wear thin. He's not helping himself here, he's certainly not helping us.
His tactics are not the result of joined up thinking, and if he feels that he is picking a team that can go out and win football matches then I worry. Yet again we got a 4-2-3-1/4-4-2 variant with no width and ultra conservative (non) fullbacks. Unsurprisingly we then get ultra narrow and very easy to defend against. When you ally to that awful movement and tempo, caused by what looked like a number of exhausted players, we were served up slow, narrow, static, sterile possession-ball of the worst kind.
Poch has to wake up and realise this. Yes we also lack pace, as well as width, and so to some Lennon may have seemed the logical answer (he isn't though) but he could have even instructed the players out there to stay wide and make the pitch bigger, commit defenders and try to open up space in other areas. Instead we just seem preoccupied with trying to play tippy-tappy stuff and waltz through the defence within the width of the centre circle. It isn't going to happen.
The team looked like an absolute rabble. No pressing game, no fight, slow aimless passing along the defence, no organisation... It's not even worth writing about. Everyone just has to do better. Yeah some of them were tired maybe, most noticeably the Bentaleb-Mason-Kane triumvirate which affected our ability to play, but the ones who were fresh though were arguably the ones who stunk the joint out the most and so I'm not completely buying the tiredness excuse. At no point did any of our players look like standing up and taking any responsibility.
One more random observation, there were 20+ (I gave up counting at 20...) times where a Spurs player, in time and space, aimlessly headed a ball back up in the air and almost always turned over the ball. All that was needed was a call from a team mate to take it down and get us playing again... How is this happening? These are professional players who work together every day, and yet can't apparently communicate. Its minute stuff like this that annoys me, because its preventable yet take all these 'small faults', and there's a lot of them, and they just add to the dysfunction. I wish I had the chance to go through a game with the coaches and players, highlight all these occasions and interrogate them as to why amateurish shit like it was happening. Someone needs to call them out on the little things, baby steps first before we try any big changes...
Fucking woeful. Must do better.
Lloris - After his blip midweek came back with an absolute stormer that saved us, again. Deserves better, I'd advise him to leave.
Dier - Yeah he did back off, which was annoying, but I thought he shepherded Bolasie ok. It wasnt as if he got mugged off really, he just conceded a lot of corners. Zaha was the one who caused him problems on occasion. Second half he was totally hung out to dry by Eriksen though and had little help. I blame Poch more than this kid, its as if they are trying their best to ruin him and destroy any confidence he has left.
Fazio - First half I thought he looked clumsy. Second half was better and some good bits of last ditch defending. Some of his distribution is aimless and pretty woeful.
Vertonghen - Ok. Didnt really notice him tbh.
Davies - Also ok. One good contribution in attack, otherwise offered very little and needs to be more adventurous in his positioning.
Mason - Seems to be running out of steam a bit. Couldn't fault his effort but is starting to lack precision with what he does.
Bentaleb - Also looked tired and second half really went into his shell and got very safe with his passes.
Lamela - The harder he tried the worse it got...
Kane - Game totally passed him by. Very poor. Should spend all week with his feet up. he's earned a rest.
Eriksen - Poor game, offered very little especially in terms of defensive contribution.
Soldado - I made my views clear earlier in the thread. Awful game.
Subs:
Chadli - Bambi on ice. He seemed incapable of changing direction and was all arms and legs. Wrong boots on?
Paulinho - Dumb sub from Poch if he was meant to sit and spray the ball around.
Lennon - If he is now the saviour, we are fucked.
Couldn't agree more with every single bit of this! Spot fucking on mate.
Only exception would be Fazio, I thought he had a really good game today some tiny optimism from a whole heap of shite.
Levy- Is not running the club well, hired bad managers, poor DOF's and wont get the stadium built and has an awful transfer structure.
Potch- Not a good squad to work with but so far is not filling me with a huge amount of confidence given his selections etc.
Team- So many average/poor players its unbelievable, I have never felt more disconnected or uninterested in a Spurs team, none of them excite me except Lloris and Eriksen on occasions. As you say if Lennon is our saviour we are fucked sorry but same with Kane, he's a fairly talented young striker but CB's seeing his name on the team sheet are hardly going to be shitting their pants.
This is not a Tottenham i'm enjoying at the moment one bit.
Are you having a laugh?Soldado is awful, but as everyone likes him as a person he gets a pass on here. Adebayor can't come back soon enough.
I hope he is!Are you having a laugh?
More significant, for me anyway, would of been a fresher looking side who could of got closer to what we saw on Sunday - pressing the ball high up the pitch etc.
For me, that's the daftest match report I can ever remember from you, BC.
What would your side have been Pinky? Is Poch coming up short?
JH what's your assessment of the game?
There were no positives for anyone from this game.
Individual stuff:
Lloris - Great game
Davies, Fazio and Lloris good, the rest poor
He's not the Messiah, he's a very insipid boy
Here is the golden rule of football. If Tony fucking ****y headed Gale says it, then it's 24 carrot bollocks. Here's the silver rule. If the fuckwitted, we want our tottenham back, he plays on the left, WHL crowd sing it, it's almost certainly also 24 carrot bollocks.
This game presented us with the fucktardial trifecta, we had a terrible performance, Tony fucking ****y headed Gale punditing on about Aaron Lennon and the crowd singing "one fucking Aaron Lennon".
Like Aaron Lennon is Lional Messi riding in on a white charger with a face mask and a couple of shiny pistols. This is Aaron Lennon. Aaron Lennon. Aaron insipid invisible quick flick the ball to no one in case some one kicks me I can't beat anyone anymore gangsta ant Lennon. He of 5 assists and one goal in the last two seasons. He of 15 passes a game. Fuck me people, get a fucking grip. If we are holding out for Lennon to save our season we have officially reached the point of being fucked. Up the football creek without a paddle.
Lennon has one decent game in 6 months - and that was mainly without the ball - and everyone forgets the utter nothingness that has gone before, for months on end. Or even the shit game he had against Chelsea the very next game.
If he'd have started or come on sooner I wouldn't have minded, it wouldn't have been the end of the world, but it wouldn't have saved it either. If the body of his oeuvre is anything to go by.
Even though our last two results weren't stupendous, there had been really encouraging signs, so it was immensely disappointing to witness the turgid mess served up today.
Palace aren't a terribe team, they have a good spirit, had a great result against Liverpool a couple f weeks ago, and have the pace and enthusiasm to give teams a tough time when they've got their dander up. What's disappointing is how easily we let them rattle us. Gone was the cohesion and unity we'd shown in the last two games. Back was the laziness, incoherence, ill discipline and carelessness.
I just don't get Pochittino continuing to pick Dier at RB. It does not work with his 4231 inverted wide strategy. It is counter intuitive. We have two very promising attacking RB's in the development group. They cannot be more of a compromise than Dier as a RB. I thought Pochettino was all about the youff.
Davies isn't much better offensively, he seems very reluctant to attack. And this system really, really needs full backs to provide the wide threat.
Just don't get it.
Apart from that decision I don't have too much problem with bringing Soldado back in. I wouldn't have minded him going off at half time though. As it was I thought Pochettino's subs were really poorly thought out and made things worse not better. Lamela wasn't having a great time - who was - but we didn't need another forward and one less creative player to create for them.
The Paulinho for Mason just made things even worse, with it's tactical alterations. Terrible sub that saw the game degenerate even further, when that hadn't seemed possible.
There was no pressing, this stretched the CM's and exposed the defence. And proves that it wasn't all Capoue's fault.
There were no positives for anyone from this game.
Individual stuff:
Lloris - Great game
Dier - It's not his fault, he's not a RB. Terrible game though.
Fazio - Actually OK amidst all the detritus around him. Go figure.
Vertonghen - Not great, not terrible that I can remember.
Davies - Defensively OK, offensively stunted.
Mason - He wasn't having a great game, but as with Capoue before him, it wasn't all his fault. Those ahead and around were not pulling their weight.
Bentaleb - Tried hard but like Mason was left exposed too much by sloppy and lazy play around him.
Lamela - Same dwelling on the ball problem a couple of times, but I don't think he should have been tugged at half time. He was doing no worse than Eriksen, Kane or Soldado. He is also always an outlet for the CM's as he never hides.
Kane - Poor game.
Eriksen - Really timid and poor first half. Improved slightly second, but needed to.
Soldado - Credit for getting into the positions but has got to be doing much better with a couple of those chances. Piss poor finishing, especially the one when put through on the right.
Poch - Really poor subs made things worse. two steps forward, one big stride backwards.
What was yours Steve ?