Terrible performance

[Damian99]

First 57 seconds we were brilliant forget the rest after that

 

[Dundalk_Spur]

Can anyone explain to me how Vidic stayed on the pitch???

 

[haxman]

Bad result but ive someone said to me "you'll win 4 out of your first 5 games and be 3rd by early september" id have snapped their hand off.

Not our day today, but in the long term we're looking good

I don't think united had to play well to win today and that's the disappointing thing. We were very very poor today and united were there for the taking even before the sending off.

Agree on both.

 

[Ledders Army]

Agree on the Vidic comment. 3 yellow card offences today and how the ref gave a corner for his cynical hack on Lennon on the edge of the area only Fergie will know. Just another example of how hard it'll be to crack the top 4. It takes years of intimidating refs

 

[ultimateloner]

I dont understand how people can blame Crouch. The reason we kept passing it long was because Utd defended well and gave us no space. We are not Barcelona. In the end we revert to long ball because with Crouch on have a chance (1st goal).

 

[Ledders Army]

Crouch has to offer us more than just the long ball though. As soon as united know that's all we've got they just have to defend the knock down. It's easy to mark Defoe when they know we're only playing for the 2nd ball.

 

[EmperorKabir]

hahaha and i get slated for thinking we are dodgy when we win.

some of our players were good today, but man u have excellent committment and are just so damn willing to make runs. the goal that anderson scored is something nearly none of our players would be bothered to attempt if they were attacking, but they are still good tottenham players.

fact is, tottenham hotspur are an effing awesome side, but not as awesome as the champions league calibre of players like madrid or man u. we are FAR from it as well, but i'm still, otherwise, happy to support spurs even if they aren't at the very top level. they are still damn good.

 

[Gambler]

Wilson was on a yellow and you could see a mile off he was going to pick up another.

Corluka was getting ragged by rooney and hutton could keep up with him (at least)

Keane was fadeing fast and needed to be subbed before the fans got on his back.

:shrug:

Fair point I forgot about Wilson's yellow.

Rooney was playing up front on his own and they were down to 10 men. Our back four should be able to cope and we should be thinking offensively. Sorry but swapping a defender for another defender doesn't make sense to me.

No problem with Keane coming off but I personally think Pav or Bentley would have been better offensive option.

 

[DeeJay_Yid]

First alarm - Gio not on the bench - Who's gonna be our impact player/sub?

Second alarm - Shit, our impact player/sub is in the first 11. Crouch.

Third alarm - Half time Jenas in. Good. for Palacios? Get the Hudd off FFS he was stagnant.

Fourth alarm - Still hoofing balls in after Scholes sent off. All pointy shouty bloke could do was pass horizontal. He gets into space to receive the ball BUT THAT'S IT. WHERE'S THE PRODUCT AFTER THAT?

Fifth alarm - All the title contenders stamped their class today. Pool, Chelsea, Man city (???), Man U. We lacked it.

Overall - 5-6th place still up for grabs. Europa League anyone?

PS: - Hutton was sent in so Lennon could get more feed. Corluka doesn't pass to him enough. Backfired, Hutton was the reason why Rooney scored.

 

[dax]

No Modric no creations :beer:

 

[alfiespurs]

My tuppence worth;

I would first of all like to say that Man U were different class today, they passed it well, they looked dangerous all over the pitch and when they went down to 10 they controlled the match and could have scored even more.

Now for our performance, selection and tactics;

Harry has been great and will continue to be, but today he got it very wrong. The decision to play Crouch up front and move Keano to the left was at the root of our rather inneffective performance today and shows you why he has played Keane and Defoe and left Crouch on the bench.

The first issue is that we completely changed the way we played and went far too direct which is a very low percentage ball when you have only got one player looking for the second ball;hence we gave the ball away constantly and couldn't get a grip in their half of the pitch. Crouch is dreadfully slow, he can't close down effectively, the ball into him has to be right at him or he just won't have the mobility to get there.

The second issue is that by playing Crouch we had 2 players playing on the last man, both Defoe and Crouch pushed right on and there was a gap between our front line and our midfield. We went back to the bad old days of passing it square across the midfield, back to the fullback or CB and humping it long to Crouch. Evra was able to nullify Lennon with good positioning because he knew the ball into him would almost allways come from the fullback, Lennon would then lay it off and have nowhere to go because there were no angles being made far enough up the pitch.

The third issue is that by moving Keane to the left and pushing Crouch and Defoe up was that we lost an extra man from our midfield in the form of a link player playing in the hole were Berbatov played so effectively against us. Again this leads to the isolation of the forwards and the midfield, Palacios is not a bad passer but he is no Fabregas and when he is being asked to make 30 yard passes through the eye of a needle it is going to end up going wrong a very high percentage of the time. He and Hudd simply had no options because the usual presence of Keane just ahead of them and Modric to the left was no available.

We were always going to miss Modric, but it wasn't his obvious brilliance that we missed today, it was the changes that were made as a consequence of his absence. I would 100% have gone with bringing in Nikofor Mods and leaving Keane where he was and leaving Crouch on the bench for when things got desperate.

So to sum up, Crouch is not a starter because he ruins our system of play and feel that this above all other factors that cost us the game today and led to such a poor performance.

I would also like to add that playing 3 strikers was suicidal and on reflection I can't actually believe that Harry not only started that way but left it that way at half time. On a positive note, JJ looked very good in flashes and he should be brought in for Hudd against Chelsea.

:clap::clap::clap: WWYID, what a fantastic account, I have highlighted the killer points !!! We need to look at GIO or Niko in the next game ! Anyway in Harry I trust !!!

 

[Ledders Army]

Palacios had been booked which is why I think he was taken off. Agree with the rest though. Remember the game when united scored in the 6th minute of 3 mins of injury time under Ramos to get a draw. Hutton looked class then and seemed like the perfect link up to Lennon. Not seen it since, very poor for the 3rd goal. Liked the substitution today thought against 10 men Hutton and Lennon would terrorise them, didn't work at all though. Could be time for Naughton as 2nd choice.

 

[Gambler]

Palacios had been booked which is why I think he was taken off. Agree with the rest though. Remember the game when united scored in the 6th minute of 3 mins of injury time under Ramos to get a draw. Hutton looked class then and seemed like the perfect link up to Lennon. Not seen it since, very poor for the 3rd goal. Liked the substitution today thought against 10 men Hutton and Lennon would terrorise them, didn't work at all though. Could be time for Naughton as 2nd choice.

Hutton has hardly had agame since then.

 

[spurslenny]

i won't single any one player out for critism, just our general lay in certain situations.

1. too many aimless, long diagonal balls up to Crouchy. Fine now and again to catch out the opposition, but not as the be all and end all of our tactics.

2. distinct lack of movement off the ball from virtually everyone. No one tried to create angles or little triangular patterns of play to create time and space, which is what we've been doing so brilliantly so far this season to great effect.

3. the fear of trying to create an overload on one of their defenders. Always seemed to be just one on one situations. Even when they were down to 10 men, we seemed more concerned about what they could do to us, instead of what we could do to them.

4. the midfield lacked the understanding of who was to break forward when and where. Too often we'd win the ball back in midfield, only to find no forward pass option to another midfielder. Time and again i witnessed Hudd and Palacios effectively say 'after you claude'. Seamed to be better once JJ came on.

5. Substitutions. Not one of our subs made any kind of impact. At all!

6. But, above all else, it was all too painfully obvious that we had absolutely no belief whatsoever that we could go on and win/draw the game at any point. And that is the most dissapointing aspect to the loss of todays game.


We have no excuses, we just have to believe that we are capable of beating any team in this league. But far too often this is the very reason that we don't win games like this. A shame really, because we undoubtedly have the personnel to beat anyone, just not the mentality.

 

[riversmonkey]

Bringing on Hutton made sense because he is a more attacking full back then Corluka, however it was never going to work against a team of 10 men that are masters of the counter attack. The game needed Pav, somebody different who could unlock the United defence since Plan A (Crouch) was being thwarted.

I don't think we believed we could beat United, the equaliser knocked so much out of the team, and whilst the scoreline suggested we were still in the game after United went ahead, effectively the 2nd goal killed the game, the 3rd was just more salt in the wound.

 

[markiespurs]

Bringing on Hutton made sense because he is a more attacking full back then Corluka, however it was never going to work against a team of 10 men that are masters of the counter attack. The game needed Pav, somebody different who could unlock the United defence since Plan A (Crouch) was being thwarted.

I don't think we believed we could beat United, the equaliser knocked so much out of the team, and whilst the scoreline suggested we were still in the game after United went ahead, effectively the 2nd goal killed the game, the 3rd was just more salt in the wound.

Agree, i think the ref's performance today also ate away at any belief we may have had of beating utd. Almost from the off utd where doing their best to intimidate the ref and with the weak ref we had today, it payed off for them.

Don't think you can blame Harry's substitutions today. For me, Palacious was well below his best and would probably have got himself sent off judging by the refs performance. Keane looked tired when he came off for Nicko and Hutton coming on for Corluka was a simple case of Harry trying to pressure manure by bringing on a more attack minded RB.

 

[spurslenny]

we can debate team selection all day long, but if the mentality is wrong and we play without belief then personnel becomes largely accademic.

in my humble opinion, i hasten to add.

 

[Gambler]

Agree, i think the ref's performance today also ate away at any belief we may have had of beating utd. Almost from the off utd where doing their best to intimidate the ref and with the weak ref we had today, it payed off for them.

Well said Markie, yes Utd are a good team but they are constantly moaning about every decision, really gets on my tits.

 

[markiespurs]

we can debate team selection all day long, but if the mentality is wrong and we play without belief then personnel becomes largely accademic.

in my humble opinion, i hasten to add.

I think though that last seasons events at OT, coupled with the poor performance of the ref today, really ate away at the players belief.

 

[tippspur59]

I think it was a mistake taking Wilson off,Hudd and Jenas got slaughtered in midfield.Corluka got a roasting from Rooney and not for the first time,and BAEs crossing was awful today.