Tottenham Vs Liverpool: Match Thread

[Gaz_Gammon]

This is my only complaint, that he's obsessed by the EL, but I do see that he uses it to bed players. The problem is that we lost Bale and felt we needed to spend the cash on a load of players new to the EPL. AVB has a Herculean task to bed them in, produce a cogent style, and keep the fickle home fans happy. He likes to play the high line, but so do Dortmund and Man City, yet he hasn't had the personnel all fit to play this. Today's was a makeshift defence and it came up against the best player in the EPL. The result was inevitable.

Man City played 4-4-2 against Arsenal and Citeh destroyed them. AVB has not in any game this season, played all the signings in one game. Bang goes theory number two. He's spent one hundred million whether that be on one player or seven, it was his money to spend and his players brought in aside from Villa.

The EL is full of two-bit teams and a ruining ground for established players to get injured. Not unlike the early rounds of the FA or CC it should be taken with all the seriousness of one of your posts.

His only game is the high line, with a stiff of a center back who he wanted to sell. The record player is fine it's his record that's broken, but your unstinting support of the current manager is unsurpassed, very similar to the Liverpool defence today.

He should be given at least until the end of the season at the very least in the hope that any reputation that he may still have, is finally and irrecoverably done for. That way he won't be a dimension for any other team to waste their time and money on.

 

[cheeseman]

Liverpool certainly made the Spurs players' comments about our pitch being too small look silly. They made it look bloody massive today.

 

[2bearis2do]

not in the space of 4 games

Not ever, in one season - unless you're relegation fodder. We're Spurs FFS - I doubt it has ever happened in our proud history and therein is the reason for dismissal!

Liverpool certainly made the Spurs players' comments about our pitch being too small look silly. They made it look bloody massive today.

Makes me laugh, the pitch too small nonsense!
We've always had that pitch!

 

[Sweetsman]

Man City played 4-4-2 against Arsenal and Citeh destroyed them. AVB has not in any game this season, played all the signings in one game. Bang goes theory number two. He's spent one hundred million whether that be on one player or seven, it was his money to spend and his players brought in aside from Villa.

The EL is full of two-bit teams and a ruining ground for established players to get injured. Not unlike the early rounds of the FA or CC it should be taken with all the seriousness of one of your posts.

His only game is the high line, with a stiff of a center back who he wanted to sell. The record player is fine it's his record that's broken, but your unstinting support of the current manager is unsurpassed, very similar to the Liverpool defence today.

He should be given at least until the end of the season at the very least in the hope that any reputation that he may still have, is finally and irrecoverably done for. That way he won't be a dimension for any other team to waste their time and money on.

If he is given till the end of the season, then we can chat again. Meanwhile, trying to untangle your knotted thinking is becoming tiresome. You need to chat with your like minded spamming mates.

 

[hughy]

Not ever, in one season - unless you're relegation fodder. We're Spurs FFS - I doubt it has ever happened in our proud history and therein is the reason for dismissal!


Makes me laugh, the pitch too small nonsense!
We've always had that pitch!

But we had Gareth Bale, so it didnt matter...

 

[Kendall]

It is truly amazing how anybody thinks AVB will bring this club success. Give the man a top 4 club, give him more money to spend than all but two of the clubs in the same league and what happens? We get raped by teams who previously finished below us and spent considerably less.

Carragher hit the nail on the head. This isn't a one off battering we're talking about, AVB has tried multiple players in multiple positions and had the same outcome. Toothless, slow, no service to anyone, OH and a fucking shite defence whenever anyone has had a go at it. As Carragher says, we're in December now. This isn't bad form, this is something seriously wrong with how the team is set up.

Basically, if we haven't been fucking humped, we've played boring football and scraped wins, either by pens, worldies or own goals. We haven't put in a performance anywhere close to the style Liverpool put in today.

Against City you can at least say they will put most people to the sword there and they've spent a fortune on great players. Liverpool, however, are in our league. They're supposed to be on a par and this should've been a close, but entertaining game. We've been blown away.

I can't believe people thought everything was OK after we beat relegation fodder in the last week or so.

 

[spurslenny]

You had me until you mentioned Townsend!!!!!

Whatever any of us think of player 'A' or 'B's' rights and wrongs for being in the team, you cannot deny that AVB has chopped and changed players regardless of form or not.

That was my point.

 

[cwhite02]

I still can't believe they didnt show the 1st half highlights today at half time!!

 

[sligospur]

I didn't read all the posts but my view is we should stick with him I don't think there is anyone available at the minute,my problem is his team selection is all wrong we all know it every expert knows it I just hope AVB isn't too stubborn to change his system which clearly isn't working,because this cant go on. And if he doesn't change things my view on him staying will change but I am just sick of us changing managers every few seasons it would be great to have someone in charge for years and years to come .Just thinking big martin jol is available we should never have gotten rid of him might be an option if in the next few weeks things don't improve but I really hope they do although im sure there are some fans who will be hopeing we get beat in the next few games so they can get him out.COYS

 

[13VanDerBale13]

 

[Joeyboey]

BEST POST EVER!

 

[SpurSince57]

This is my only complaint, that he's obsessed by the EL, but I do see that he uses it to bed players. The problem is that we lost Bale and felt we needed to spend the cash on a load of players new to the EPL. AVB has a Herculean task to bed them in, produce a cogent style, and keep the fickle home fans happy. He likes to play the high line, but so do Dortmund and Man City, yet he hasn't had the personnel all fit to play this. Today's was a makeshift defence and it came up against the best player in the EPL. The result was inevitable.

Sorry, but you can't have it both ways. He and Baldini brought these players in, so if he has a Herculean task on his hands he surely only has himself to blame. And if he hasn't had the right players available to play his favoured system, why persist with it?

Yes, we had a makeshift defence, and I daresay a few of us were less than wholly optimistic about our chances today. But where was the protection? As someone pinpointed a few pages back, Rodgers identified Naughton as the weakest link (no great tactical genius required there) and set Sterling and Johnson on him; at the same time, Dembélé—who looked out of sorts in any case—was being very effectively closed down. Liverpool were passing through our midfield pretty much at will, and Dawson and Capoue were horribly exposed. Those two hardly distinguished themselves, but I'm not convinced Verts and Vlad would have done a great deal better (and if Kaboul's showing at the Etihad is anything to go by, he certainly wouldn't). You say, 'the best player in the EPL', but it wasn't just Suarez who was making us look like monkeys in the first half, was it? Or did you mean Jordan Henderson?

I think you're glossing things over here. And it's not so much the fickle fans AVB has to keep happy as the Dear Leader.

 

[StartingPrice]

We absolutely cannot use injuries as an excuse.
At the start of the week, when Liverpool fans were trying to get their excuses in early by referencing inuries,I said that it is a squad game and an important measure of how good a squad is is how deep it is and how it copes with injuries. The same standard has to apply to us - and our defence couldn't cope, ergo we are just not as good as we thought we were.

AVb wanted two quality players for every position, and players who are versatile. part of the purpose of Capoue was that aside form offering cover/competition for Sandro, he can also play as centre-half. he was called on to play centre-half, we got biatch slapped.

If Kaboul is broke beyond repair, which is a sad, sad thing as he was shaping up to be a lynch-pin for us, then we should have replaced him. AVB didn't want Dawson and he can't play a high-line. Chiriches is one of the players we are trying to gel (no matter how impressive he has been). Therefore, any injury to Vertonghen, or playing him out of position, and we are down to a newbie and a player that can't play the high-line. Any injury to the newbie and we are left with a midfielder and a centre-half who can't play the high-line. In this situation, when everyone on the planet could see from the team-sheet that a high-line would be a disaster, is it wrong to expect AVB to abandon his dogma, or take the blame is the centre is waltzed through with impunity? Yes, it's harsh having three centre-halves out, but there were strong rumours in the summer that Kaboul was baked, and two centre-halfs being out isn't that unusual. Whatever the case may be, AVB played a high-line with two players who were patently going to struggle to cope with it against a team eminently qualified to take advantage of any flaws.

No matter how lackadaisical Benny was, it was AVB's decision to get rid of him. That's fine, and I backed his decision on the basis that he believed Rose/Fryers would be sufficient - but that decision rests on his head. The fact that Rose got injured so early on (which is damned bad luck) is neither here nor then; when he did, AVB preferred drafting our best centre-half in or Naughton - so, clearly, he didn't actually believe Fryers was adequate cover for Rose. Verts should have been third choice, not second choice for full-back, which should hopefully take him away from the centre for a couple of games, at most. In which case, we should have sold Benny and bought a replacement in, kept him, or, at the very least had the option and/or the gumption to recall him. Failure to do any of these things rests with the committee, but ultimately AVB, because he was adamant that it was sufficient.

AVB has a reputed style of play, that includes a destroyer (Sandro/Capoue), a box-to-box player (Dembélé/Paulinho) and a creator (Ericksen/Holbty - or Lamela). As soon as I saw that midfield I was less than enamoured. He could have played with one of each. Or, having Dambélé/Paulinho fulfilling both roles, which can work up to a point, behind Holtby would have been a downsight better option IMHO, seen as Sandro was truggling with an injury and had to come off anyway. Between and playing Naughton, he wasted two of our substitutions before a ball had been kicked.

Whatever is going on with Ade, we could do with that option.

The referee was dreadful - but that didn't make them look hungry from the off and first to every ball, and it sure as hell didn't force us to misplace pass after pass.
Maybe Soldado's goal should have stood, from what I saw it looked like Mignolet barged into Bobby who had every right to reciprocate with his shoulder - but that would have been one goal (and one that our play hardly deserved, only Soldado's persistence), it wasn't to blame for us being opened like a tin of kippers time after time.
Maybe we could have got one of our half decent penalty appeals, but that and Soldado's goal combined would have just made our score look like the Goon's yesterday, and anyone who watched that game would know that Citeh carved them open at will, were positively profligate in front of goal, and could easily have hit double figures.

There are no excuses, and AVB ultimately has to carry the can. I am as far from a knee-jerker, or an anti-AVBer (or any of our managers, I always support our managers) as you could hope to find. And up until today I have argued vehemently that gelling etc., league position, results (aggregate), points total last season, end-goal, etc., all combined to say it was crayzee to want AVB gone. And I am not saying I want him gone now - but questions really do need to be asked. That is a list of key decisions that combined to heavily influence us producing an embarrassing performance at home (another embarrassing performance) and they rest ultimately with AVB.

I fear sacking him: we could be on the cusp of kicking off. Lack of continuity isn't necessarily a good thing, blah blah blah. But I can understand why so many fans are so royally pissed. Liverpool are not even that good, and had key injuries of their own. If they get CL this season, and all the revenues and kudos that that entails, it could put us right back to where we were 6 years ago. AVB bears ultimate responsibility for this, and I am not sure I could muster up too much defence if he is sacked,TBH (maybe a good sleep will mellow my mood).

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

I fear sacking him: we could be on the cusp of kicking off. Lack of continuity isn't necessarily a good thing, blah blah blah. But I can understand why so many fans are so royally pissed. Liverpool are not even that good, and had key injuries of their own. If they get CL this season, and all the revenues and kudos that that entails, it could put us right back to where we were 6 years ago. AVB bears ultimate responsibility for this, and I am not sure I could muster up too much defence if he is sacked,TBH (maybe a good sleep will mellow my mood).

What i fear is that if Levy get's shot of AVB then the next manager will want player x, y, and z and that after Levy has spent one hundred million. That said i feel sure that anyone of a dozen managers here in the PL could at least get us scoring goals, with what we already have.

 

[nate247]

One minute I'm hoping I'm going to switch the TV on & see that AVB's slung his hook. Then a minute later I'm thinking to myself, show me a manager that could blend a team of 7-8 new (arguably) first team players together in 3 months and I'll show you a pig that flies.

Think we have just gotten so used to the good times, but a vast majority knew that to push on we needed to make wholesale changes after Redknapp. I mean in comparison to our opposition today, Rodgers went through the same transitional period with Liverpool last year. Today they were simply fitter, more tactically aware & shaper in the pass. To my mind that's because they have been playing together for 16-18 months and have developed as a team, (as opposed to being better individuals in every position across the pitch).

After much deliberation, I think give AVB the season. I don't think there is an outstanding manager on the open market to replace him as of yet. Ironically my choice last year would have been Rodgers, however despite a couple of recent thumpings, I think AVB is a credible coach & if there's a lesson to be learned from this summer (with our scumbag neighbours), it's that fickleness gets you nowhere & patience can be a virtue.

 

[dagraham]

What i fear is that if Levy get's shot of AVB then the next manager will want player x, y, and z and that after Levy has spent one hundred million. That said i feel sure that anyone of a dozen managers here in the PL could at least get us scoring goals, with what we already have.

Yep, Levy has put all his eggs in the Avb basket and if he turns out to be a turkey (which is looking more than likely) then we are a bit fucked.

 

[13VanDerBale13]

 

[nate247]

In fairness, Holtby looked like the only player with any determination tonight in that short 20/30 minute spell.

On a side note, the more I think about things (rationally), we are still above Man Utd who by and large have exactly the same title winning team as last season. People saying Moyes hasn't done brilliantly, but not quite calling for his head yet. We have made wholesale changes & in fairness AVB has been under massive pressure for a couple of months now.

I'm certainly not professing to be happy & I've not quite worked out if I'm an AVB fan or not. But there is a little truth in the witch hunt thing. Made all the easier for the press I'd image given AVB's arrogance & a couple of thumpings. I'm really on the fence here, but the more I think about it, the more I think he has to see out the season really.

 

[DFF]

Even though I was sad to see Sandro go off, I loved that Holtby was coming on. You just know he'll get stuck in for the cause. He is the epitome of defending from the front, and he chips in with some creativity and goals to boot. I think he could go on to become a folk hero at Spurs. In fact, I hope he does.

 

[SpurSince57]

One minute I'm hoping I'm going to switch the TV on & see that AVB's slung his hook. Then a minute later I'm thinking to myself, show me a manager that could blend a team of 7-8 new (arguably) first team players together in 3 months and I'll show you a pig that flies.

Think we have just gotten so used to the good times, but a vast majority knew that to push on we needed to make wholesale changes after Redknapp. I mean in comparison to our opposition today, Rodgers went through the same transitional period with Liverpool last year. Today they were simply fitter, more tactically aware & shaper in the pass. To my mind that's because they have been playing together for 16-18 months and have developed as a team, (as opposed to being better individuals in every position across the pitch).

After much deliberation, I think give AVB the season. I don't think there is an outstanding manager on the open market to replace him as of yet. Ironically my choice last year would have been Rodgers, however despite a couple of recent thumpings, I think AVB is a credible coach & if there's a lesson to be learned from this summer (with our scumbag neighbours), it's that fickleness gets you nowhere & patience can be a virtue.

Martin Jol managed it in 2005, with Davids, Jenas, Lee, Lennon, Stalteri and Tainio, plus Dawson and Mido, who had been bit-part players the previous season (and also Routledge and Rasiak, over the latter of whom we shall draw a discreet veil).

Whilst people have been saying, 'There's no-one available' and then threatening to throw their legs off the nearest high building if Capello's appointed (funnily, when Jol was being shafted Capello was top of many SCers hit list), there are probably more capable managers about than many people think. How many of us were aware of Pochettino, for example?

I don't think anyone held a gun to AVB's head and forced him to accept all these players, so he's made a rod for his own back. It's worryingly like the situation five years ago, except that this time we've at least scraped together a few wins that have papered over the most obvious cracks. I'm still very much in two minds, but my feeling is that unless there's a very marked turn-around over the next few games AVB will be gone in the New Year.