Tottenham Vs Chelsea: Match Thread

[Ginolas_Hair]

BTW Chelsea played the system perfectly today, their game now has transformed from slow and progressive to quick and incisive. The CB's stayed wide from goal kicks and Mikel became their 3rd CB whilst Cole and Ivanovic pushed up and became wing backs, The ball retention was great and pressing game was spot on.

This is the system that AVB implemented and at Chelsea only to be sacked because a couple of spoilt ****s got dropped from the team and decided not to listen to the manager. Now they have the players that AVB asked for and those players who he dropped aren't in the team funnily enough yet they're sitting top of the table with a limited and somewhat lucky manager who doesn't even deserve to be managing a top flight team.

Football really is shit sometimes

Completely agree with you Shadydan - I noticed that Chelski were playing a very high defensive line and it would appear Di Matteo has just used AVB's theory and brown-nosed the senior players who rebelled. Chelski have the majority of the players AVB wanted for his system and are now employing it - it is any surprise they are much better this season than last. They've been given time to gel and made some crucial additions in positions they were lacking i.e. Hazard.

Feel for Marko Marin - does he fit the bill of a Modric-replacement? I've never seen him play...

I've never felt the AVB-bashing by the media was ever warranted - I remember some Chelski-supporting mates even stating they liked what they were seeing at the time and thought in time it would come good.

I honestly think / hope that given the time and funds - AVB will come good.

Just need to work on those corners

COYS!

 

[only1waddle]

Completely agree with you Shadydan - I noticed that Chelski were playing a very high defensive line and it would appear Di Matteo has just used AVB's theory and brown-nosed the senior players who rebelled. Chelski have the majority of the players AVB wanted for his system and are now employing it - it is any surprise they are much better this season than last. They've been given time to gel and made some crucial additions in positions they were lacking i.e. Hazard.

Feel for Marko Marin - does he fit the bill of a Modric-replacement? I've never seen him play...

I've never felt the AVB-bashing by the media was ever warranted - I remember some Chelski-supporting mates even stating they liked what they were seeing at the time and thought in time it would come good.

I honestly think / hope that given the time and funds - AVB will come good.

Just need to work on those corners

COYS!

Agree with a lot of this except feeling sorry for Marin, he plays more on the wing or AM which suggests he will have his work cut out replacing Oscar/Mata/Hazard, he chose the Chavs over us because as he stated 'their style suited him more than ours', he would have got games at Spurs and a middle 3 of Bale/Marin/Lennon could have been good.
He may just disappear at the chavs, a talented bench warmer at the moment..

 

[Blackcanary]

Yes mate, stats can be misleading but, when coupled with the pundit commentaries, I think there's more than a few positives to take from the game. I rarely watch recordings of our defeats but I'll be watching this one so that I can make my own judgements.
One of the positives I see is how we weren't outclassed by, arguably, one of the best sides in the league, currently, when we were missing over 40% of our starting line up, which included probably our 2 most influential players in Bale and Dembele. Couple that with Verts playing out of position and Thudd being quite ring rusty and you'll see why I remain positive. 4 - 2 flattered them, by the sounds of it, and that was more due to Gallas and Walker having some nightmare moments.
It will be painful but interesting viewing I suspect.

What i'm most interested by is what was said at half-time - we were outclassed in the first half and Siggy in particular looked awful. We came out for the second half like a different team (and Siggy seemed to have been swapped by his evil and more talented twin).

I think the most frustrating thing about us currently is that we're so patchy. Excellent in parts, completely lacklustre in others. Why can't we play a good 90 minutes? We looked less tired though yesterday, which was good.

 

[guiltyparty]

Yes mate, stats can be misleading but, when coupled with the pundit commentaries, I think there's more than a few positives to take from the game. I rarely watch recordings of our defeats but I'll be watching this one so that I can make my own judgements.
One of the positives I see is how we weren't outclassed by, arguably, one of the best sides in the league, currently, when we were missing over 40% of our starting line up, which included probably our 2 most influential players in Bale and Dembele. Couple that with Verts playing out of position and Thudd being quite ring rusty and you'll see why I remain positive. 4 - 2 flattered them, by the sounds of it, and that was more due to Gallas and Walker having some nightmare moments.
It will be painful but interesting viewing I suspect.

It really didn't flatter them. If anything our two goals flattered us, as we only seemed to have our brains engaged for 20 of the 90 minutes, and one goal was a Vertonghen rescue mission from a nothing free kick and the other was assisted by a mishit shot

Chelsea never seemed to get out of 2nd gear, they missed 2 genuinely open goals and a hatful more, and had the run of White Hart Lane. They oozed class

Of all his saves, only Walker's 35 yarder required Cech to be anything more than competent and even then it was very close to him. Defoe's speculative lob shot was going wide. Everything else was straight at him and from fairly far out

Positives are we weren't fully fit and were missing two if not three of our best players. I fancied us for a point with Bale & Dembele, so when the team was announced what resulted came as no surprise. It didn't seem to for the players either

 

[spud]

Before the game yesterday, standing at 14 points with 6 played is our second best start in the league EVER (09/10 we had 15 points from 6), so all and all we're doing good, except for the Norwich and WBA results.

No it isn't.

Football wasn't invented in 1991.

 

[faymantaray]

Selection wise - I understand why he's stuck with Friedel, as booting him out too easily would have too many echoes of his Chelsea clusterfuck, and could lose him respect of the players.

I'm not really sure this is comparable.. players like Lampard and Terry were iconic at Chelsea.. while Friedel was just a Harry Redknapp stop-gap signing. Friedel has been fantastic for us at times and we all appreciate that, but come on, playing France's international keeper and captain should not be viewed as a subjective decision..

As for Defoe.. Redknapp never played him anyway, so it's not like he's being booted.. although after these last few games it will seem like it..

 

[chinaman]

It's good that the loss didn't cost us too much as Arse, Everton and Newcastle all dropped points.

 

[sweyid]

No it isn't.

Football wasn't invented in 1991.

Meant the premier league.

 

[Sweetsman]

Watched the last 10 mins of the match in Crete with some other Spurs fans. According to them, a draw was a fair result and that Gallas was at fault for two goals. I think that Friedel should have done better for the first goal, Gallas at fault for the second and Walker for the final two. I was heartened by the fact we had gone two-one up and with two major players missing their goals were gifted to them. With such an unbalanced team, 2-3 was not a bad result. While I am concerned with Walker's positional sense, abusing him won't help him. That loss could be the best lesson he is ever given. I think some Spurs supporters are fast becoming the morons of the league with their booing. Hopefully, Gareth can wet the baby's head with a performance against his old team next week.