Tottenham v Besiktas Match Thread

[shelfboy68]

Did you see the punch up in the East Lower after the Besiktas goal? I thought some Turks got into our end as they looked middle eastern but after what you said i'm wondering now.

There was a turk in front of us funny enough but he was quiet and kept a low profile

 

[SonicSarr]

I was quite impressed with Townsend tonight. He chased back much more than I had noticed before and he also looked up to see where his team mates were. It certainly wasn't one of his best games, but if he is trying to put Poch's lessons into practice it wouldn't be. If he carries on in the same vein we will have a real winner!

Funny how people can watch the same game but see different things. I thought Townsend was awful. Same old stuff, like a wind up toy, legs pulling his body around until he runs into something or launches a missile into the crowd. Absolutely brainless footballer. I'm done with him.

 

[TheHoddleWaddle]

Not terrible, but provides little attacking threat, and is poor defensively.

I don't disagree entirely, but overall I thought he was less wasteful than he has been in other games this season. Far from accomplished, granted. But he did give them something to think about pace wise and tracked back on a couple of occasions to help defend. I don't see him breaking first team until his all round game improves though, as you say, his attacking lacks end product most of the time and he could do more defensive work. However, overall, I felt he'd improved.

 

[Shadydan]

Funny how people can watch the same game but see different things. I thought Townsend was awful. Same old stuff, like a wind up toy, legs pulling his body around until he runs into something or launches a missile into the crowd. Absolutely brainless footballer. I'm done with him.

And yet last night was one of his best games for ages.

 

[parklane yid]

I was at the lane and this was my view of it ,

Positives: dier, fazio lloris, stambouli, Kane , bentalab, these players played well, team seem mentally strong, we did press and work hard against a strong team.

Negatives: Chiriches, Lennon , Townsend, paulinho, disappointed with these players, lots of mistakes and no creativity.

We played well at times and defended well when they pushed us for an equaliser, I thought we are progressing well and are arsenal and besiktas game shows we are becoming stronger mentally and harder to beat

 

[scottlag10]

A midfield consisting of Bentaleb, Stambouli and Paulinho offers no creativity whatsoever, im not slagging them all individually (well yes Paulinho I will because he is bloody useless) but the balance is wrong with those three, and we have nothing going forward.
Plus Chiriches is stopping Dier playing in his natural position (Walker injury aside), that is nearly as annoying as Vlad's crap performance last night.

 

[Chimbo!]

It's early days and our reserves should be beating CL teams.
This is what's wrong with our fan base.
Unrealistic expectations.

That's a complete exaggeration. Besiktas aren't a CL team because last time I checked they were playing us in the Europa League. People say Besiktas have a good team: which one of their players would get in our squad? Demba Ba?

Would Besiktas spend 18 million and play them only in the Europa League? Playing our second team isn't an excuse - most of them have had stints in our first team and are capable of playing there.

 

[Reece]

West stand today. Some of the most miserable supporters I've ever seen and heard. 90min of moaning and almost disappointed when Kane scored.

Soldado was a class above on the pitch and got no service. And poor Paulinho spent the evening on the wing. Odd.

Yep, I was trying to start some chants there and basically ended up getting on people's nerves.

 

[YiddoInPoland]

Was at the game, first one in ages. Pluses for me, lloris is amazing, would have conceded 3/4 if not for him. Kane took his goal very well, not sure what type of striker he will be but i like him a lot.

Soldado, we are ruining him, kinda feels like Rebrov all over again, poor chap gets zero opportunities to do anything and many in the team just dont work with him, taking him off for Ade stopped any attacking threat for us, my father in law put it nicely (not a spurs fan but his first ever match) "that number 10 is pointless he hasn't done anything" now i get that ade has it in him but we have the rubbish ade this season and poch should have brought on Lamela to play with Soldado, we at least need to see if it works.

If Ade starts at the weekend the spiel from Poch about dropping under performing players becomes another manager not following through, because for whatever reason he is woeful at the moment.

Bentalab is clear to me cannot play with a similar player next to him, as he improved after Dembele came on. For me he really slows the play and managed to kill our momentum a few times. Just a kid so long way to go for him but he needs to be much more bullish as direct for the position he is being asked to play.

I am going to be honest and maybe being the stadium is not the same as on tv because of the angles and shizzle but i really didn't see any implementation of any philosophy, pressing bar soldado was poor, and side to side passing we do makes us so predictable its unreal and its frustrating to watch.

All in all not a bad result as Besiktas are a good team but this comp should be high up our priority list considering the prize at the end.

 

[VegasII]

Kane's goal was excellent - he must be very pleased with that one. Quite funny when Kane shouted at Fazio to get back in position after Faz had been booked and was pissing about with Ba.

I can see things coming together but it's quite slow progress. The new lads seems decent but Pauli and Vlad have to go. Seems like Poch has half the players he needs and the other half of the squad filled with players he doesn't.

Draw was fair but they could have won. We need 3 points at the weekend.

 

[Time for Heroes]

I make that the last 4 or 5 games Paulinho has been hooked around 60 mins.

Here's an idea Poch, don't bother playing him at all.

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

I was at the lane and this was my view of it ,

Positives: dier, fazio lloris, stambouli, Kane , bentalab, these players played well, team seem mentally strong, we did press and work hard against a strong team.

Negatives: Chiriches, Lennon , Townsend, paulinho, disappointed with these players, lots of mistakes and no creativity.

We played well at times and defended well when they pushed us for an equaliser, I thought we are progressing well and are arsenal and besiktas game shows we are becoming stronger mentally and harder to beat

If it wasn't for Lloris we'd all be saying the defence was shit last night though!
They really should have scored 3 at least.

 

[stevenurse]

Firstly, I thought Fazio was excellent in the air as he should be and made corners, free kicks etc much more comfortable than in recent times.

Secondly, I've gotta say well done to Levy. Turns out he's a decent chap after all. There's no other explaination for Chiriches other than he's won a competition to play. The guy is genuinely, without kneejerk, the worst player I've seen at spurs for years.

I've seen people crow over one but of skill he produced, that could have, and usually does, go completely wrong. I don't want my defenders flicking the ball over someone's head when last man.

I can't work out if he's got a massive ego and just gets ahead of himself, or he's a brain dead mong.

Why do most managers have this feeling that central defenders are immune to being subbed? If soldado or bentaleb had been having the same level of performance, they would have been riding the pine by half time.

Unfortunately it's fuck ups like this that lose us points and considering Poch lost the most points from winning positions last season I hope this is a lesson well and truly learnt

 

[worcestersauce]

Have to say I am optimistic if our reserves can satnd up against Besitkas as well as they did.
Personally my priority isn't the Europa and so I see some real positives, not least Bentaleb, Kane, Dier and Fazio who held up his end well, just wasn't able to do both CB jobs as well as put right the disaster that was Ciriches last night.

 

[parj]

Now, please don't take this as a dig fella but I'm getting a bit narked off with this whole 'system' bollocks.
I really don't see anything different to what we were doing under AVB, there is a 'high press' which we do in fits and starts but for the majority of a game we are too narrow and worry about the opposition as opposed to concentrating on our strengths.
It's almost like there is this belief that we have to play some half baked barca system in order to succeed as opposed to actually taking the bull by the horns and actually trying to hurt the opposition from kick off

Whilist i agree with system talk being bollocks, you have to look at the defending 5 and attacking 5. In the defending 5, there are only 2 players i trust on the ball, Dier and Stambouli. So thats 3 players who, when they have the ball, are a massive risk of giving the ball away. This is why the ball usually ends up back with Lloris to punt away.

The 5 attacking players, only come into play if the 2 that are trusted on the ball manage to get past the halfway line. And thats our problem, we cant play the way we want to play, if 30% of the outfield players cant be trusted with the ball. If they cant play with the ball at their feet, we know what the opposition is going to do... block the space to the good players and encourage Chiriches or Fazio to bring the ball out and lose it. Managers know the opposition weakness and look to exploit it. If Vertonghen was playing, he would have been closed down on the dge of our area.

Lets give Poch time. He needs to teach the "crap" players to be confident on the ball. That will only come with game time. Remember, Lallana wasnt an England player at the beginning of last season, Lovren was one of the worst centre backs in Ligue1, nobody knew Schneiderlin - but Poch got them playing. Not guaranteed to happen with Chiriches but Poch still needs time.

 

[JUSTINSIGNAL]

That's a complete exaggeration. Besiktas aren't a CL team because last time I checked they were playing us in the Europa League. People say Besiktas have a good team: which one of their players would get in our squad? Demba Ba?

Would Besiktas spend 18 million and play them only in the Europa League? Playing our second team isn't an excuse - most of them have had stints in our first team and are capable of playing there.

I guess you missed it when they nearly put Arsenals first team out of the Champions League?

They are a good team, unbeaten in their league and would give our first 11 a good game. The fact our second string side gave them a good match is a positive.

People really need a sense of perspective. We aren't going to smash every team that comes to the lane in the europa league with our second team. Grinding out a point, which moves us closer to qualifying for the next round and giving squad players a run out to keep them sharp shouldn't be underestimated.

 

[Supersi32]

I guess you missed it when they nearly put Arsenals first team out of the Champions League?

They are a good team, unbeaten in their league and would give our first 11 a good game. The fact our second string side gave them a good match is a positive.

People really need a sense of perspective. We aren't going to smash every team that comes to the lane in the europa league with our second team. Grinding out a point which moves us closer to qualifying to the next round and giving squad players a run out to keep them sharp shouldn't be underestimated.

We will do well to qualify from this group to be honest, the next two games against the Greek side are crucial, I know nothing about them tbh but I`m thinking we need to beat them home and away or we will struggle to qualify.

 

[JUSTINSIGNAL]

We will do well to qualify from this group to be honest, the next two games against the Greek side are crucial, I know nothing about them tbh but I`m thinking we need to beat them home and away or we will struggle to qualify.

We will beat them home and away. Besiktas are the next strongest side in the group and we were only a few minutes from victory.

Don't let the fact we tailed off during the last 15 minutes of the match cloud the fact we were very competitive for the most part and had chances to increase our lead.

 

[Mr Pink]

We don't need to make big changes in the next games coming up.

I'd bring Vertonghen, Dembele and one of Eriksen or Lamela in and that should do nicely.

 

[thinktank]

I guess you missed it when they nearly put Arsenals first team out of the Champions League?

They are a good team, unbeaten in their league and would give our first 11 a good game. The fact our second string side gave them a good match is a positive.

People really need a sense of perspective. We aren't going to smash every team that comes to the lane in the europa league with our second team. Grinding out a point which moves us closer to qualifying to the next round and giving squad players a run out to keep them sharp shouldn't be underestimated.

No chance.

I don't know what's going on this season but the expectation level is proper fucking retarded.

People need to realise poch has literally broken everything down to build it back up again from scratch, into his image.

Considering everything, our second string was very good last night and there was tons of positives in that game.

Again, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Very positive about the coming weeks/months.