Tottenham vs Bournemouth: Match Thread

[Gaz_Gammon]

Little bit of daylight between us and the chasing pack, which in fairness after looking at out next half dozen games is welcome.

 

[Spurs' Pipe Dreams]

Little bit of daylight between us and the chasing pack, which in fairness after looking at out next half dozen games is welcome.

If we're close come December there's another title challenge coming, will be tricky but I think we'll be City's big rival this year

 

[TropicalYid]

Should we play Llorente more against these teams coming to wembley and parking the bus?

 

[RicOfPeace]

Maybe because teams tend to bank uo and put 10 men behind the ball at Wembley...

Tbh they do it against us away from home a lot and did at White Hart Lane too but the football we play & our tempo is very slow and lethargic & in general at Wembley we have been very boring to watch also other than Dortmund game really.

 

[jonnyp]

Should we play Llorente more against these teams coming to wembley and parking the bus?

More pace on the passes, less touches, more movement. That would be a huge start... Playing Llorente won't help if you can't even get the ball in the box.

 

[Dundalk_Spur]

Are they using some tropical sticky grass for the Wembley pitch??

The ball just doesn't seem to travel as it should or how the players are expecting it to.

 

[elDiablo]

He meant they looked unbeatable last season and a class apart, then we beat them and finished above them.

Long way to go.

I'd say you're telepathy levels are more defoe/mido than keane berbatov....

I disagree. We will have chances against a team that wants to attack. Not hang on for the draw. Not one team so far this season has come to play us at Wembley never Chelsea sat back. City will come to play. And this will open up the game. Which will in turn give us oppotunities. Whether they score more than us remains to be seen. But. We will look better against teams that want to play football.

 

[Ionman34]

He meant they looked unbeatable last season and a class apart, then we beat them and finished above them.

Long way to go.

Fair point but, maybe it's just me, there's a different "feel" about City this season.

I don't think the wheels will fall off for them this time around.

 

[Shadydan]

Tbh they do it against us away from home a lot and did at White Hart Lane too but the football we play & our tempo is very slow and lethargic & in general at Wembley we have been very boring to watch also other than Dortmund game really.

Teams have never done that away from home against us, they always leave us space to counter ad the only is on them to attack. At WHL they tried to bank up but we were just imperious at home last season, we're just gonna have to find a way to break teams down at Wembley.

 

[shelfboy68]

Fair point but, maybe it's just me, there's a different "feel" about City this season.

I don't think the wheels will fall off for them this time around.

Agree that's what I feel pep has had a full pre season with them and along with the big buys look really really good, their football is quicker and and exciting to watch.

 

[shelfboy68]

But they did last season and we beat them
2-0 without Kane. I’m really positive that we are only going to get better. Our away form is electric. And we are only going to get better at home. (Hopefully). Don’t get me wrong. I don’t underestimate City. But I also don’t underestimate our progression and the fact we have kept the same team for nigh on three seasons. We have a good chance to do something special this year. Just keep the consistency. And see where we end up.

Yeah we are consistent and have been for a couple of seasons now but we do look slow in our build up play at times we could do with a spark in the side.

 

[shelfmonkey]

Should we play Llorente more against these teams coming to wembley and parking the bus?

Agree. I don't know why we don't pair him up with Kane in a 3-5-2, two reasons, Llorente would be the spearhead with Kane buzzing around him and it would give us an option to vary our attack, I do feel though that without Wanyama it'd be a bit too risky.

 

[slartibartfast]

God awful 1st half. Was AVB sideway backwards sooooo fkin slow in build up football. Their keeper never had a save to make. Was awful.
Thank God we got early goal 2nd half when we went at them. We kept going for about 15min and then seemed to slow down again and just took foot off gas.
Never looked like losing but at 1.0 it was bit nervy even though Bournemouth never looked like they were gonna score.
I was actually hoping anyone would score 1st half just to liven the game up.
Still, we won and thats all that matters.
Just amazes me how a team that can and do play such amazing fast creative pass and move football can look so fkin dull and frankly uninterested.

 

[Sweetsman]

God awful 1st half. Was AVB sideway backwards sooooo fkin slow in build up football. Their keeper never had a save to make. Was awful.
Thank God we got early goal 2nd half when we went at them. We kept going for about 15min and then seemed to slow down again and just took foot off gas.
Never looked like losing but at 1.0 it was bit nervy even though Bournemouth never looked like they were gonna score.
I was actually hoping anyone would score 1st half just to liven the game up.
Still, we won and thats all that matters.
Just amazes me how a team that can and do play such amazing fast creative pass and move football can look so fkin dull and frankly uninterested.

Did enough to win; saving ourselves for bigger game at Bernebau. Anyway, only just seen the score, having flown after first half; Goons and Nazis lost, and I'm looking out at The Med: heavenly!

 

[davidmatzdorf]

More pace on the passes, less touches, more movement. That would be a huge start... Playing Llorente won't help if you can't even get the ball in the box.

I think the notion is to take advantage of Llorente's excellent hold-up skills, positioning him on the edge of the box for players like Winks to ping vertical passes to feet or chest. People keep criticising our lack of energy or ideas, but in yesterday's first half there were just no gaps. You could see our midfielders looking eagerly for opportunities to play an early ball, but everyone was marked and Bournemouth had most of the spaces into which they could have moved covered as well.

The difficulty with that approach is that it's rare to be able to sustain it perfectly for 90+ minutes. And so it proved. They lost. We had a lot of the same issues in the first half of last season. But it is certainly impinging more on the quality of entertainment at home matches this season.

Are they using some tropical sticky grass for the Wembley pitch??

The ball just doesn't seem to travel as it should or how the players are expecting it to.

I certainly noticed how slow the pitch was yesterday, even more so than usual at Wembley. Passes from both sides were not reaching their targets. The grass looked rather long and perhaps it wasn't watered thoroughly. It makes swift, one-touch football very difficult.

I thought it especially affected Harry Winks. I reckon one reason he gets compared to Iniesta is because his passes, in the style of the tiki-taka Barcelona team, usually travel along the pitch surface without bouncing, as a result of his unusually precise touch (reminiscent of Huddlestone). The slow surface was making it especially hard for him to zip the ball in to feet with attacking passes.

 

[jonnyp]

I think the notion is to take advantage of Llorente's excellent hold-up skills, positioning him on the edge of the box for players like Winks to ping vertical passes to feet or chest. People keep criticising our lack of energy or ideas, but in yesterday's first half there were just no gaps. You could see our midfielders looking eagerly for opportunities to play an early ball, but everyone was marked and Bournemouth had most of the s[aces into which they could have moved covered as well.

The difficulty with that approach is that it's rare to be able to sustain it perfectly for 90+ minutes. And so it proved. They lost. We had a lot of the same issues in the first half of last season. But it is certainly impinging more on the quality of entertainment at home matches this season.



I certainly noticed how slow the pitch was yesterday, even more so than usual at Wembley. Passes from both sides were not reaching their targets. The grass looked rather long and perhaps it wasn't watered thoroughly. It makes swift, one-touch football very difficult.

I thought it especially affected Harry Winks. I reckon one reason he gets compared to Iniesta is because his passes, in the style of the tiki-taka Barcelona team, usually travel along the pitch surface without bouncing, as a result of his unusually precise touch (reminiscent of Huddlestone). The slow surface was making it especially hard for him to zip the ball in to feet with attacking passes.

Ok, but I think Kane has pretty excellent hold-up skills as well, I don't necessarily think this is the issue. The issue is we're just so slow and static against sides who park the bus and that is why there are no gaps. If the pitch is slower than WHL they need to cut the grass shorter and water more, but the team as a whole need to realize that just having the bulk of possession and hope for a gap to appear is not enough, it's all too clear that we need to up the tempo in everything we do to create gaps for ourselves against these kinds of tactics.

 

[shelfboy68]

God awful 1st half. Was AVB sideway backwards sooooo fkin slow in build up football. Their keeper never had a save to make. Was awful.
Thank God we got early goal 2nd half when we went at them. We kept going for about 15min and then seemed to slow down again and just took foot off gas.
Never looked like losing but at 1.0 it was bit nervy even though Bournemouth never looked like they were gonna score.
I was actually hoping anyone would score 1st half just to liven the game up.
Still, we won and thats all that matters.
Just amazes me how a team that can and do play such amazing fast creative pass and move football can look so fkin dull and frankly uninterested.

I think we are more of a fuctional team rather than exciting although we do have moments of that, usually away from home when we can counter attack with the space that becomes available.

 

[Grey Fox]

Are they using some tropical sticky grass for the Wembley pitch??

The ball just doesn't seem to travel as it should or how the players are expecting it to.

Been told they keep the grass longer and don't water it as much as we would normally because of Rugby League NFL games Etc. Apparently Dortmund players complained after our game how slow it is and England players always go on about how different it is to PL pitches in general

 

[hughy]

Been told they keep the grass longer and don't water it as much as we would normally because of Rugby League NFL games Etc. Apparently Dortmund players complained after our game how slow it is and England players always go on about how different it is to PL pitches in general

Surely this will be of some kind of advantage to us as the season goes on.

 

[Grey Fox]

Surely this will be of some kind of advantage to us as the season goes on.

Hopefully the problem is how long in the season before we get used to it?