Tottenham Vs Stoke: Match Thread

[ohwhenthespurs]

Bang on indeed...see below

Originally Posted by DEFchenkOE
We've had countless fa cup games against lower opposition and Gio hasn't had a look-in. Yet gets off the bench in a tight must win game. Just doesn't make sense. There have been so many other games where it would have been more suitable to give Gio some game time where he might have built up a bit of confidence and became a useful squad player in this important period.



This is just the main problem, sometimes we don't see a player like Krancjar for months, then all of a sudden he's expected to stand in for Lennon. Unfortunately in the modern game you must rotate so you have your players at their peak for the business end of the season. Imo Parker has looked fucked for the last 2 months, over-used in the 1st half of the season? I believe so.

Which all makes our business in January look absolutely ridiculous. Did we think we were already home and hosed to the extent that we could sell or loan out the majority of our fringe players and get by with a couple of free trnasfer old stagers? If so it was complacency and penny pinching at its absolute worst. I never thought we were going to win the league but we were within touching distance of the top two in January and we went and left ourselves with one right-back, one right winger, one left winger, three fit central midfielders and three strikers. We also had an FA Cup run to take into account and left ourselves relying on a squad of about 17 players, including aged and injury-prone players such as King, Gallas, Nelsen and Saha. Only got ourselves to blame.

 

[ethanedwards]

Which all makes our business in January look absolutely ridiculous. Did we think we were already home and hosed to the extent that we could sell or loan out the majority of our fringe players and get by with a couple of free trnasfer old stagers? If so it was complacency and penny pinching at its absolute worst. I never thought we were going to win the league but we were within touching distance of the top two in January and we went and left ourselves with one right-back, one right winger, one left winger, three fit central midfielders and three strikers. We also had an FA Cup run to take into account and left ourselves relying on a squad of about 17 players, including aged and injury-prone players such as King, Gallas, Nelsen and Saha. Only got ourselves to blame.

Good post, at the business end of the season we look jaded, letting Corluka Bassong and Pienar go appears daft, but there again would they get a game.
King is becoming a liability and has declined sharply since January, had to be said.

 

[Kingstheman]

[/b]
Good post, at the business end of the season we look jaded, letting Corluka Bassong and Pienar go appears daft, but there again would they get a game.
King is becoming a liability and has declined sharply since January, had to be said.

I love Ledley King, but if he continues, he may end up with a reputation akin to a boxer who went on too long.

 

[kaz Hirai]

Please, for the love of all thats good and holy in this world, no more Defoe. I beg you Harry.

Impact sub only for last 15 minutes, you do not shift a World class player to accomate the pinnacle of average in the hope he toe pokes one in

 

[Wirral Spurs]

Which all makes our business in January look absolutely ridiculous. Did we think we were already home and hosed to the extent that we could sell or loan out the majority of our fringe players and get by with a couple of free trnasfer old stagers? If so it was complacency and penny pinching at its absolute worst. I never thought we were going to win the league but we were within touching distance of the top two in January and we went and left ourselves with one right-back, one right winger, one left winger, three fit central midfielders and three strikers. We also had an FA Cup run to take into account and left ourselves relying on a squad of about 17 players, including aged and injury-prone players such as King, Gallas, Nelsen and Saha. Only got ourselves to blame.[/QUOTE

Agreed

 

[DEFchenkOE]

Which all makes our business in January look absolutely ridiculous. Did we think we were already home and hosed to the extent that we could sell or loan out the majority of our fringe players and get by with a couple of free trnasfer old stagers? If so it was complacency and penny pinching at its absolute worst. I never thought we were going to win the league but we were within touching distance of the top two in January and we went and left ourselves with one right-back, one right winger, one left winger, three fit central midfielders and three strikers. We also had an FA Cup run to take into account and left ourselves relying on a squad of about 17 players, including aged and injury-prone players such as King, Gallas, Nelsen and Saha. Only got ourselves to blame.

Yep, let's be honest. We all know it's difficult to sign players in Jan, but it's not impossible. From Oct/Nov we should have been identifying the weak spots in our squad and looking at where we could improve as soon as the window opened. Yet once again, incredibly we wait till the last friggin day to bring in Saha and Nelsen. We know the situation with King/Gallas already, we know that Krancjar or VDV can't play right midfield, we know that if Lennon gets injured there is no natural replacement.

I really believe we just don't plan like we should, this is not the first window that this has happened either. If we couldn't sign some cheap foreign talent, we would have been better off going into the championship and cherry picking a few of the best players to at least come onto our bench if they could play in positions that we needed, at least then we'd be able to swap like for like type of players even if the quality wasn't exactly the same.

 

[Spurrific]

This is why we didn't win.

Spoiler

We will this easy 5-1

Your reverse psychology was working so well.

 

[wallyjakeman]

Rose was on the bench, has looked decent lately. Don't get me wrong here, I'm happy to see Gio being given a chance, but surely there is a time and a place? Just makes no sense to me and makes me really question HR's judgement. All season it seems gio is not good enough right? Has probably played less than 100 league minutes. And I think played against Cheltenham in the 3rd round and that's it.

Good point. I think the decision to bring Gio on yesterday was right, Saha was having a bad night and we have been crying out for a backup to Lennon with similar qualities. Gio is far from Lennon, but he has speed and he stayed out wide, stretching the Stoke defence.

The problem is exactly what you point out. There's a lot of differenting opinions about Gio's abilities, but I think we all can agree that not playing at all since january isn't helping. I'm a fan of Gio, but there was no way he would have gotten through yesterday being more than decent at best.

 

[CosmicHotspur]

Don't just blame Ledley King. We have been ragged and sloppy of late even though there have been times when we've played good football, unfortunately without the desired results.

The defence has had too many holes in it and the finishing has left much to desire. All the pretty midfield passing possession in the world won't win us games if it ends up going nowhere.

However much people here may dislike, or even hate, Stoke their blocking and defending last night was workman-like and paid dividends for them. Like other teams who've taken the points off us of late, they knew that we were now beatable and vulnerable.

I noticed on the stats at one point just after Stoke scored that we had had 15 shots on target and they had only 2 but they capitalised on one of those shots and that's what really counts.

Having said that, Gareth Bale was unlucky with that bar-juddering strike and we had other near misses.

Thank goodness for Rafa saving a point for us. I can never understand adverse criticism of the man. He is pure class and works his socks off, never giving up.

Watching the game online in utter misery until he equalised and there was a glimmer of hope, I thought about this turnaround and the only thing I can think of that has caused such a change is the upheaval the team anticipates will happen when Harry goes, as it seems he inevitably will.

Making a statement that he won't leave before the end of this season has to be really unsettling for the players and perhaps some of them will already be considering moving on. If other members of the squad know this to be the case, how much more disturbing can that be for their own futures with Spurs?

I'm not making excuses for our current downfall, but searching for valid reasons for it. There are nine games to go, there's the FA Cup and a place in the CL still to fight for and I would dearly love to see the enthusiasm, fluidity and sparkle return to my beloved football team but I fear we are now in for an uphill struggle, especially with the Gooners having edged ahead which makes it even more of a blow.

All such bad timing for Tottenham, when things were going so well for us for the first time in decades. I'm truly disappointed with the way things are going now but I still keep hope in my heart. You have to if you support Spurs.

 

[dav3j]

I noticed on the stats at one point just after Stoke scored that we had had 15 shots on target and they had only 2 but they capitalised on one of those shots and that's what really counts.

Barely counts as a shot does it? I just hate the way half of Stoke's goals seem to be the result of piling a bunch of 6-foot plus heavies in the opposition penalty area and flinging the ball into the box in the hope it somehow gets bounced in, Plinko-style.

 

[CosmicHotspur]

Barely counts as a shot does it? I just hate the way half of Stoke's goals seem to be the result of piling a bunch of 6-foot plus heavies in the opposition penalty area and flinging the ball into the box in the hope it somehow gets bounced in, Plinko-style.

True, but it got them the goal. What do goals make? Goals make points and we are sadly lacking those lately.

 

[Super Tottenham]

Where is the enjoyment in being a Stoke fan? Why would you pay your hard earned money to watch them week in week out?

 

[dav3j]

True, but it got them the goal. What do goals make? Goals make points and we are sadly lacking those lately.

Of course, we've played as nice as you like the last couple of games, in fact I think it's a fairly safe assessment of last night to say we completely dominated the play, we just haven't had a cutting edge in front of goal since the Newcastle game.

I just, for the life of me, cannot understand how the Britannia sells out every game, I really can't. It's horrible, dull stuff, I'm all for teams being physical, good at set pieces, or whatever, but Stoke do literally nothing of interest in any game. Hell, at least when we were crap in the 90s, we still tried to play the game. It's just incomprehensible to me.

EDIT

Where is the enjoyment in being a Stoke fan? Why would you pay your hard earned money to watch them week in week out?

Yes, this, exactly this.

 

[whitelightwhiteheat]

Where's the enjoyment in watching clueless Spurs performances knowing that we're capable of better?!

The enjoyment doesn't come from wondering where it all went wrong cos I've tried that...

The enjoyment doesn't come from thinking about the next game either, cos I've tried that too... I can't see us beating Chelsea on Saturday. Can't see us beating anyone on this form!

My head hurts just thinking about it.

 

[CosmicHotspur]

I suppose if 'Arry can't understand why or how we've "lost our way" as he puts it, there's not much chance of us coming to grips with it.

At my lowest ebb last night, I thought our season is over. At my most optimistic, I thought we still might be able to turn it around.

If we do lose to Chelsea...

 

[Misfit]

It's easy to lose your way when you've got no direction.