Tottenham Vs Leicester: Match Thread

[Sweetsman]

MOTD highlights show that we were unlucky. The thing is that Pochettino has had to build up both Son and Janssen. The team last season was settled at the front due to lack of options and everyone knew each other's movements, so we were much quicker in our forward play.

 

[Phomesy]

We're going to get hammered next week. 5am kick off here, not sure I'll bother though.

That's the spirit!

"COY... ah fuck it, it's late I'm going to bed" , makes for such a catchy chant

 

[Wellspurs]

We're going to get hammered next week. 5am kick off here, not sure I'll bother though.

With Toby and Harry back we will be fine... look on the brightside we've got an extra hour sleep tonight but you haven't

 

[Sweetsman]

Sounds like my girlfriend. Moody cow.

I've never managed to drive someone to do cleaning, so must apologise. You don't wish that on even your enemies.

 

[The Feet of Hoddle]

 

[BuryMeInEngland]

That's the spirit!

"COY... ah fuck it, it's late I'm going to bed" , makes for such a catchy chant

If I was up, I'd stay up but as I have to get up at 5:15 on weekdays, I'm less inclined to do the same thing on a Sunday.

 

[djw1973]

Just watched the whole game. Dominated possession and a mistake by Wanyama cost us. Hit the woodwork twice. However, we just don't look like scoring. The transition is way to slow from defence, to midfield to striker. Also, we didn't make any changes until the last 10 minutes. Ranieri threw 3 subs on by that time and it almost turned the game. We are playing a lot like the AVB team and we don't know how to fix it. Finally, can we please practice corners and set pieces!

 

[Monkey boy]

I'd be surprised if Pochettino didn't ask Ferguson about how to manage a season. He will have been told that where you are at this time of year means very little. Then again, what does the opinion of the most successful manager in the EPL matter when you have the sages of SC?

So now you are making up conversations that may or may not have taken place and presenting them as fact ok

 

[ajspurs]

Thing is what's that now, the last 4 games (not counting the League Cup or whatever it's called now) where we haven't really looked like scoring. Actually I'll say 3 because we definitely should have scored 2 or 3 in the WBA game IMO but Bournemouth, Leverkusen and now Leicester have been very very poor showings in a creative sense. It's still a case of if we click and do get it right that we are deadly but as we've found out the last few weeks, there are going to be times when it doesn't all perfectly click together.

Thing is, Dele will chip in with goals, it's still really unknown if Son had just a purple patch or not but Eriksen and Lamela will not chip in with enough goals, neither will Dembele (be surprised if he got just 2 or 3 league goals which is crazy for someone of his ability) and from what we've seen Sissoko definitely won't be adding goals either. Chuck in the fact that Janssen is desperately struggling for goals too and I think the team is lacking in confident and maybe slightly selfish players with an eye for goal.
Our team play is good and as a unit, opponents will fear playing us but I'm not sure we have those players that can really scare the opposition, not like when we had Bale, Lennon and VDV.

I just hope our approach in future transfer windows is different in that we look for different types of players. Spending £30m on Sissoko just says it all. I'm not dismissing that he could be good for us but despite that he's just really not the type of player we're crying out for at the moment.

 

[guiltyparty]

Just watched the whole game. Dominated possession and a mistake by Wanyama cost us. Hit the woodwork twice. However, we just don't look like scoring. The transition is way to slow from defence, to midfield to striker. Also, we didn't make any changes until the last 10 minutes. Ranieri threw 3 subs on by that time and it almost turned the game. We are playing a lot like the AVB team and we don't know how to fix it. Finally, can we please practice corners and set pieces!

You look at the willing runners for Arsenal against Sunderland and it's kind of embarrassing

I know Sunderland are awful but they're constantly probing them, giving the passer options. We're just so static

 

[Vincent30]

Thing is what's that now, the last 4 games (not counting the League Cup or whatever it's called now) where we haven't really looked like scoring. Actually I'll say 3 because we definitely should have scored 2 or 3 in the WBA game IMO but Bournemouth, Leverkusen and now Leicester have been very very poor showings in a creative sense. It's still a case of if we click and do get it right that we are deadly but as we've found out the last few weeks, there are going to be times when it doesn't all perfectly click together.

Thing is, Dele will chip in with goals, it's still really unknown if Son had just a purple patch or not but Eriksen and Lamela will not chip in with enough goals, neither will Dembele (be surprised if he got just 2 or 3 league goals which is crazy for someone of his ability) and from what we've seen Sissoko definitely won't be adding goals either. Chuck in the fact that Janssen is desperately struggling for goals too and I think the team is lacking in confident and maybe slightly selfish players with an eye for goal.
Our team play is good and as a unit, opponents will fear playing us but I'm not sure we have those players that can really scare the opposition, not like when we had Bale, Lennon and VDV.

I just hope our approach in future transfer windows is different in that we look for different types of players. Spending £30m on Sissoko just says it all. I'm not dismissing that he could be good for us but despite that he's just really not the type of player we're crying out for at the moment.

Come on how can you blame our transfer window, we signed Wanyama for 11m, most other clubs will be looking at that thinking fuck, what a signing. We signed Janssen for 17m, whilst some don't rate him already. I really like him as a number 2 to Kane and he was the half the price of Michy who has done zero. That's two very good and needed signings.

Sissoko is an easy one to just lament and say it was a crap signing, he's rubbish etc (it seems the cool thing to do currently just laugh at him based on nothing - which is weird when i actually think the guy needs our support as a new signing). But against Man City, one of our best games this year he was excellent, he hasn't started a run of games and has struggled with fitness. But people are being a little crazy and start questioning our transfer dealings when you look at what we do in the transfer window and our budget it's actually quite remarkable.

 

[buckley]

can anyone explain why after commiting eleven fouls Leicester did not receive one booking and the first fou we commit its a yellow card ;huth in particular had made four fouls before our first booking yet he did not get a yellow on the rule of topping up fouls
if the ref had issued yellow cards in the first half as he should have done the Leicester players would not have did those last ditch fouls as they woul have meant a red card also then huth tried to take verts head off because he had both arms round his neck with the ref looking straight at the incident he decided to ignore the assault by far the the most inept ref this season

 

[Vincent30]

It's balance pure and simple. Pace is a factor yes, but all of our attacking mids that seem to start currently - Alli, Eriksen, Lamela, Son aren't slow players, they are quite nippy and have some pace. It's all about timiing and transition. A few people have already commented on this and i completely agree.

I also don't blame Dembele or Wanyama, i feel they give the ball relatively quickly to the AM's, i just feel our AM's don't really have any direction currently, swapping positions alot, floating around etc. No real directness to them.

I still think Wanyama needs to be the deep one and it was frustrating that Dembele and him were swapping that. Wayama is the DM and should do that. Dembele needs to be 5 yards further up the pitch, that probably sounds trivial such a small distance, but that then means Alli isn't dropping back 5 yards and we shift as a whole team. I feel Poch is struggling to get his attacking unit in their correct postions, with Dembele back he needs to sort this. Wanyama and Dembele in the middle could be truly amazing for us, but it is pivatol to our team that Poch gets them working more like Schnid and Wayama of Southampton, with Dembele further up the pitch, with his close ball control aronud the box it could be devastating and the amount of players he attracts it can open up teams for others - I honestly just don't know if Dembele (who i believe is one of our best players) has the confidence to play that high any more as he seems to love the deep role. This will be crucial to us.

My biggest frustration yesterday though is two fold.

The lack of crosses our wide players and FBs put in. The amount of times we get to those postions, we check, dummy cross and go back (Janssen must be pulling his hair out), you put ten crosses into a box, you'll get 1 or 2 good chances (look what Janssen did for the penalty, he loves being in the mix and roughing it up, get the bloody ball in there), you put no crosses in the box, you'll likely get a few blocked shots from the edge of the box.

Way to slow in feeding the ball to Janssens feet, constantly he holds off the defender giving an option for it, we then take 17 more touches and put the ball into him when they are fully set up. It blows my mind that our players don't realise yet that this is one of his best attributes. Surely they know 8 out of 10 times he will hold off the defender and be a great feeder to runners. Yet our players play stupid, it annoys me.

But the positives are:

We are solid at the back.
Wanyama has been a revelation.
Dier is looking way better at CB than the previous seasons and gives us a lot of squad depth due to the postions he can play.
Kane and Toby will be back very soon.
Janssen will make a great number 2, thought he was excellent yesterday considering how slow we are to get near the opposition goal.
We are still a couple of points off the top and we haven't found any form going forwad.
Winks looks a very good prospect.
GKN will do a job from the bench this season (use him earlier POCH)

 

[Sweetsman]

So now you are making up conversations that may or may not have taken place and presenting them as fact ok

What did you think they talked about, the price of Argentinian Rioja? You know where I wrote "I'd be surprised" and "if", that would've been clear enough that it wasn't fact. It's very simple, but apparently not for you.

 

[sak11]

Agree completely. We played well today against the champions, completely dominated and were very unlucky not to win. We weren't at our best but considering we were without our 2 best outfield players, that wasn't unexpected.

I'm sorry but by calling them the champions you have completely weakened your argument. Leicester are a mid table team who got lucky with a once in a lifetime streak. Nothing more. Nothing less. There is nothing about them that is worthy of being called champions.

 

[Shea]

We're really not getting enough players in and around the box when we attack

This means we can't stretch defences and they can easily set themselves up to mark the one or two we actually have ahead of the play and deny any real space in dangerous areas

We also don't play and forward balls from midfield that are directly looking to create a chance (like Henderson's pass for Liverpool's fourth yesterday for example)

Is this a chicken and egg situation? are the balls not played because there are no runners to play them to or do people not run because they know them passes will not be made? I think the latter because at the very least we should be seeing more attempts to find Janssen's runs off the shoulder of his marker

So we need someone in the middle of the park capable and willing to thread balls directly in to attacking areas rather than just wide or to feet, Time for young Harry Winks?

Are our attacking players so worried about their off the ball defensive duties that they are unwilling to commit to bombing forward when we attack? they don't want to give themselves too much to do to get back to their defensive duties once possession changes

Maybe we've over thought this part of our play and while we've become hard to beat and score against we've given ourselves too many problems when it comes to our own attacks. Maybe once Toby is back people will feel more comfortable semi neglecting a defensive duty and truly commit to an attacking play

 

[Shea]

I'm sorry but by calling them the champions you have completely weakened your argument. Leicester are a mid table team who got lucky with a once in a lifetime streak. Nothing more. Nothing less. There is nothing about them that is worthy of being called champions.

Aside from the fact they are the current champions

It's a bit like when we played Inter in the CL I suppose - they were the current champs but clearly not the best team in Europe (or even close to) when we played them

Leicester aren't one of the best teams in the country of course but they are the Champions still and you can't take that away from them. Nor can you completely dismiss the quality that won them the title - much of which they retained and are still displaying in the CL currently

They're not just a mugging midtable team despite their poor start to the season anymore than they are an elite team because they won the league last year

 

[ajspurs]

Come on how can you blame our transfer window, we signed Wanyama for 11m, most other clubs will be looking at that thinking fuck, what a signing. We signed Janssen for 17m, whilst some don't rate him already. I really like him as a number 2 to Kane and he was the half the price of Michy who has done zero. That's two very good and needed signings.

Sissoko is an easy one to just lament and say it was a crap signing, he's rubbish etc (it seems the cool thing to do currently just laugh at him based on nothing - which is weird when i actually think the guy needs our support as a new signing). But against Man City, one of our best games this year he was excellent, he hasn't started a run of games and has struggled with fitness. But people are being a little crazy and start questioning our transfer dealings when you look at what we do in the transfer window and our budget it's actually quite remarkable.

Who said I'm blaming our window? Wanyama is becoming one of the first names on the teamsheet, Janssen I really like and is nothing like Soldado for me in terms of how they're performing. Each time I see Janssen play I like what he gives, only thing is that he's a striker and he'll need to start scoring sooner or later. But they're positions that needed to be filled and don't really have anything to do with the point I'm trying to make anyway. I'm mostly talking about the 3 behind the striker. On some days Alli will look like scoring but some games he won't and if he doesn't look like scoring then that's 3 players (adding in Lamela and Eriksen) who won't look like getting on the scoresheet either because they're 2 players that don't score enough.

My point is that I hope we go for players with creativity/pace and a real eye for goal. I'm not berating our recent dealings but more so trying to point out what I think we should be looking for from now. I singled out Sissoko because he occupies one of those positions and I don't think he's the type of the player that the team is really lacking. If you actually read what I said I did say that I'm not dismissing the fact that Sissoko could be good for us.

 

[Monkey boy]

What did you think they talked about, the price of Argentinian Rioja? You know where I wrote "I'd be surprised" and "if", that would've been clear enough that it wasn't fact. It's very simple, but apparently not for you.

Frankly, who knows what they talked about?

you may have said the id be surprised and if in the first part of your sentence but then the way you finished it id swear that you were sat there with them the whole time sharing their nachos or something.

Anyway, whatever mate. You seem to be angling with a fight with just about everyone at the moment so I think ill put you on the ignore list.

 

[Monkey boy]

Aside from the fact they are the current champions

It's a bit like when we played Inter in the CL I suppose - they were the current champs but clearly not the best team in Europe (or even close to) when we played them

Leicester aren't one of the best teams in the country of course but they are the Champions still and you can't take that away from them. Nor can you completely dismiss the quality that won them the title - much of which they retained and are still displaying in the CL currently

They're not just a mugging midtable team despite their poor start to the season anymore than they are an elite team because they won the league last year

I was with you right up until this point. Sorry but in my eyes they are exactly that, a team of mid table cloggers and I will be flabbergasted if they finish above 10th IMHO. If you had put a West Brom or Stoke kit on them yesterday then nobody would have been able to tell the difference. They literally plonk 10 men behind the ball and then lump it forward to their one striker. If you do get passed that first line of defence then you get either the cynical little foul to break up the play or the worst kind of foul for me which is the blatant rugby tackle like that prick Simpson did on Son in the closing minutes.

Current champions they may be but they are a mugging mid table team all day long.