The Defence

[Spunkmonkey]

We need to play a consistent centre back partnership, ideally next season Kaboul and one other. Walker really needs to learn to concentrate during games, as he will drift off for one split second, and then its 50/50 whether or not his pace will get him out of it. Ekotto for all his lovely languid style, is a bit of a ball watcher, and at least once a game someone will make a break past him.

Today's defeat also stemmed from the goalkeeper who looked a bag of nerves from the first minute.

Whilst Friedal has done well for the first part of the season, I think age has caught up with him in the last few months, and should be kept on at the club for the next season, to help get the new goalkeeper to adapt to the Premiership...ideally one of Lloris, Mandanda or Sommer (Basle)

 

[kitchen]

Think it does mate

The best defence IMO is Graham's Arsenal and it took him at least a couple of season to wrok it to perfection

Everyday working on the training pitch working on the system over and over again

Shame he couldn't do the same with us

OK point taken, that was a long term project. But look at Mourinho's first season in charge at Chelsea, his chelsea team conceded 15 goals all season. Only 15! That was a better defensive record than Graham's Arsenal, and it was his first season with them, although admittedly they already had good defenders. But it does show that defensive organisation can be drilled in a fairly short space of time, and merely proves the point that winning starts with the defence. That was the team that beat the so called invincibles by the way

 

[fortworthspur]

the defense played well first half of the season, we conceded fewer goals/game (not counting the first two) than we had for several years. The biggest difference I see is King was better - maybe he just cant hold up for a entire season. In any case, we need to spend for a quality CB this summer.

 

[Kingstheman]

I am quoting cookiemonster's post.

You are right, of course.

But whilst King is available and no other defender steps up or is available, Redknapp is going to pick him.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

We have had some OK defensive line ups since Jol's first season. The trouble is, now we don't.

But defence is not a back four only game.

Our midfield has to contribute too.

 

[penfold_99]

The defense was shocking today, ledley's legs were gone at half time and harry did't do anything, gallas was trying his best but there were so many times when king gave up trying to run with a player, this was the main reason for the 4th and 5th goals.

Ledleys legs have gone, we all knew this 4 or 5 games ago but harry still plays him, yes he is a good defender but not now when he has lost 3 yards of pace.

I'm orry to say it as he have been the king for so long but the king in dead and should not under any circumstances have his playing contracted renewed, coaching yes, playing hell no.

Gallas needs to go at the end of the season aswell as we need regular CB paring now, not one that never played together in training.

 

[kitchen]

the defense played well first half of the season, we conceded fewer goals/game (not counting the first two) than we had for several years. The biggest difference I see is King was better - maybe he just cant hold up for a entire season. In any case, we need to spend for a quality CB this summer.

Agreed. Instead of salivating over the next Loic Remy or Eden Hazard, let's hold on to our best players and build a winning team, starting at the back.

 

[SugarRay]

Take away Walkers pace and he would do well to make it in the championship. Promising but he is poor defensively at times. He was awful today. BAE is our best defender.
Kaboul is over rated by spurs fans. Good player but he still has his moments and he is not going to become our Kompany figure. Dawson has his limitations but I like him. He would be a better player under a coach like Graham. Gallas was pony today, doesn't have long left. King is finished sadly. Great player in his pomp. Nelsen? Deemed not good enough for Blackburn so not quite sure what he is doing at our place. Triffic "lad" no doubt...( guys in their mid 30s are not lads Arry )

I thought Harry bringing in these old wiseheads and triffic lads to have round the place was to prevent embarrassments like today? You know, show character etc. All it's done is leave the next manager with at least 2 defender positions to be improved upon when he comes in ( along with a midfielder and at least two forwards...don't forget the keeper situation either, ignore what the media will say, Arry is not leaving us in that great a position this summer, the squad needs a lot of work )

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Defences win titles...

I don't post on here often but after possibly the most depressing loss of the season so far, I feel the need to vent and express my opinion as to the real reason we're experiencing this poor run of results and the main weakness of this potentially great Spurs team.

Early on in the season, we were attacking with flair and freedom, scoring lots of goals, and winning games with good football. The pundits were singing our praises and we were allegedly 'the best team in London'.

Now the goals have dried up, the real weakness of our team has been exposed. Our defence, or lack of, is leaking goals left right and centre. We conceded 5 against Arsenal, another 3 against Man Utd, we've let in 8 in total against Man City. Another 5 against Chelsea today. Even the 2 against Norwich should have been avoided (City exposed them as the team they are yesterday...) Winning teams just don't leak goals like we do. Our team now is undoubtedly better than the 2010 team that qualified for the Champions League on paper but we qualified that year because we defended well.

Who or what is to blame? A small part bad luck, a large part bad coaching and management. Let's start with the coaching... I'm sure I'm not alone that I assume the worst every time opponents have a set piece. We don't defend them well, and our back 4 always seems disorganised and unsure of themselves in open play. Today was a clear example, Mata was threading balls through our defence and the Chelsea players were running past our two centre halves and fullbacks like they weren't even there.

As for the luck and management, we've been very unlucky that our two best centre halves are injured (Dawson and Kaboul) but we should not have been left short of decent replacements. It's been clear in these last few games that King and Gallas are past their best, but what was the point of bringing in Nelson if no faith is to be shown in him? We have a good young Centre Half in Caulker, but are unable to recall him. This will be controversial I know, but Bassong was loaned out and was actually a big part of the solid defensive partnership formed with Dawson in the 2010 season - perhaps with consistent games he could have retained that level of form.

Why is it that Utd can cope without their talisman Vidic and/or Ferdinand? Because they have good backups, and good, solid coaching. Their team on paper is in no way the best in the premier league but they're still top. They have 18 clean sheets (4 more than City) and it's that solid base that allows their attacking players to play with confidence, which no doubt contributes to their clinical finishing.

Our twelve (still arguably, not bad) clean sheets this season may be a stat one can use to argue against our shoddy defence but lets not forget that we're a team that largely dominates possession. If the opponent doesn't have the ball, they can't attack us, but when they do, we invariably look shaky. This in turn affects the mindset of the whole team and confidence drops hence the contrast in our and Utd's fortunes.

I pray for Mourinho (best case...) or any other defensive minded manager to be our next manager as our attack I believe can take care of itself. We have enough flair in Bale, Modric, Lennon, VDV, Adebayor to hurt any team. Players like them can be left to 'just facking run around a bit' but defences can't. They need to be organised, disciplined and work as a unit. Only when we sort out our defence will we have a chance of winning title.

It is the team that defends, and when you have Bale, Lennon, Modric in a midfield 4 you are never defending very well.

 

[striebs]

Take away Walkers pace and he would do well to make it in the championship. Promising but he is poor defensively at times. He was awful today. BAE is our best defender.
Kaboul is over rated by spurs fans. Good player but he still has his moments and he is not going to become our Kompany figure. Dawson has his limitations but I like him. He would be a better player under a coach like Graham. Gallas was pony today, doesn't have long left. King is finished sadly. Great player in his pomp. Nelsen? Deemed not good enough for Blackburn so not quite sure what he is doing at our place. Triffic "lad" no doubt...( guys in their mid 30s are not lads Arry )

I thought Harry bringing in these old wiseheads and triffic lads to have round the place was to prevent embarrassments like today? You know, show character etc. All it's done is leave the next manager with at least 2 defender positions to be improved upon when he comes in ( along with a midfielder and at least two forwards...don't forget the keeper situation either, ignore what the media will say, Arry is not leaving us in that great a position this summer, the squad needs a lot of work )

Agree . Kaboul is OK for cover but not first choice if we want to get anywhere . Not that he was to blame today , any more than Jenas that is .

Caulker is pretty much our only CB hope at the moment along with better coaches .

Pity we could not have afforded Gary Cahill .

 

[StartingPrice]

Ramon Vega...come, hom...COME HOME...all is forgiven...

 

[Kingstheman]

Ramon Vega...come, hom...COME HOME...all is forgiven...

Calderwood, Wilson, Tramezzani too!

 

[StartingPrice]

Calderwood, Wilson, Tramezzani too!

Dice-Head Kevin Scott

But Ramon was my (anti) hero...he engendered one of the funniest lines of commentary I've ever heard: "And it's Ramon Vega, a real goal threat...at both ends!"

 

[shelfsidespur]

Have we not played some exhilarating football this season? Were the defence playing their part?
Did we have 5 CBs ( plus one out on loan) that for some period in the last 2 years have all played pretty well?
Have our RB and LB been amongst the best in the Premier? Have they all suddenly become irreversibly crap ?
Are the defence solely to blame for our sudden downturn?

Instead of looking at individual games and errors, we as fans, surely need to try and determine what has gone wrong and come up with solutions. I am too tired and deflated by today to try and do that online now and anyway don't want to come up with kneejerk ideas.
My gut instinct tells me that apart from the rapid fading of a legend, two untimely injuries and some poor planning with loans there ain't too much wrong with our defence. The team's inherent weakness is the inabilty to score when we have great deal of possession and the farcial attempts to remedy this that leaves the defence unprotected.

The sum of most of the comments on the site tonight, perhaps understandably, would be that we need to replace the whole team or teach them how to play. This team has played some of the best football I have seen from a Spurs team having watched as much as possible for nearly 50 years. It would be mad to substantially dismantle it and totally unrealistic in both playing and financial terms.

 

[Teddy Klinsmann]

Corluka anyone?

 

[kitchen]

Have we not played some exhilarating football this season? Were the defence playing their part?
Did we have 5 CBs ( plus one out on loan) that for some period in the last 2 years have all played pretty well?
Have our RB and LB been amongst the best in the Premier? Have they all suddenly become irreversibly crap ?
Are the defence solely to blame for our sudden downturn?

Instead of looking at individual games and errors, we as fans, surely need to try and determine what has gone wrong and come up with solutions. I am too tired and deflated by today to try and do that online now and anyway don't want to come up with kneejerk ideas.
My gut instinct tells me that apart from the rapid fading of a legend, two untimely injuries and some poor planning with loans there ain't too much wrong with our defence. The team's inherent weakness is the inabilty to score when we have great deal of possession and the farcial attempts to remedy this that leaves the defence unprotected.

The sum of most of the comments on the site tonight, perhaps understandably, would be that we need to replace the whole team or teach them how to play. This team has played some of the best football I have seen from a Spurs team having watched as much as possible for nearly 50 years. It would be mad to substantially dismantle it and totally unrealistic in both playing and financial terms.

My point in the original post was never really to criticise the quality of the individual players. I questioned the quality of our backup but my main concern was the coaching of the back 4 unit. I was also making the point that winning teams don't ship goals like we have done several times this season and a good defence makes for a title challenging team. It's the defensive unit, starting with the back 4 that I feel needs better coaching

 

[StartingPrice]

Mr Kitchen (you won't always find me in the Kitchen at parties )...tonight is not the time to expect reason, me ol' China

 

[alfiespurs]

Never a dull moment with our defense ... We do like to give goals away

 

[Spurs_Q8]

our defence become real issue, we must invest there next summer .

 

[sbrustad]

Perhaps we could invest the money we'd get for a certain player with a name that begins with L and ends with uka Modric in a top class centreback, a goalkeeper and a midfielder that actually wants to play for us?

 

[THFC_67]

Agree with what BC said earlier, the defence is not just about the back four. Our work rate all over the pitch has dropped off hugely in the last few months which has put a lot more pressure on the back four. Taking the teams that have been mentioned on here like Arsenal, Utd and Chelsea under Mourinho, they all had midfields that worked hard with and without the ball, their wide players tracked back and the centre midfield players protected the back four, yet they still attacked and the teams scored enough goals to win league titles, we just don't work hard enough. We need to make it hard for teams and shouldn't be afraid to have a player or two sit in front of the back four, today was such a day for both Parker and Sandro.

I think that in Kaboul, Caulker and Dawson we have 3 solid centre halves, so a fourth is needed, Walker and Benni are ok but need competition and we'll need a new keeper soon as well. Overall we have good enough defenders but we just don't defend we'll, good coaching on the training pitch, a proper formation which makes it hard for teams to get at the back four and most of all a higher work rate would go a long way to improving us defensively.