Fine margins that killed AVB this season

[mattdefoe]

As everyone on here we have all been discussing where things "went wrong".

I have been thinking of our season so far and some of our performances... I have noted down 4 key moments in which I feel with a little bit of extra luck ( which you need in football sometimes) this sacking would not of taken place.

There have been games where we have actually been excellent, for example cardiff away.... however we do not bury teams and we aren't clinical it should have been 4-0......

1. Arsenal 1-0 Spurs

All over them, I don't care what anyone says but we were. We had them on the ropes... unlucky with a shot off the line and again we were not clinical with out early play.

We looked a team that day albeit a new one.

2. Spurs 1-1 Chelsea

Outstanding in the first half and if paulinho had not hit the post and made it 2-0 I think to this day we would have won. It shows what a difference Eriksen makes to our team.

3. Spurs 0-1 Newcastle

Tim krul enough said.... again not clinical but also a miraculous block off the line.... we should of secured all 3.

4. City 6-0 Spurs

Let in a goal after 11 seconds.... would we have still lost 6-0.... lets not forget the open goal missed by lamela moments after.


I do not think we have been as bad as people make out... and for me these are 4 moments that killed avb disregarding his final fixture on sunday.

 

[dontcallme]

Papering over the cracks I'm afraid. We could just as easily drawn 0-0 with Hull.

Losing 5-0 and 3-0 at home to Liverpool and West Ham and 6-0 to Man City and looking completely despondent suggests this was coming.

Didn't want to believe it but it was.

 

[Rout-Ledge]

We've been lucky in many more games this season than we've been unlucky in.


Arsenal: We may have been 'all over' Arsenal with our possession but we did not threaten them. You think it's a coincidence we didn't score? We've barely scored from open play this season! Arsenal punished us on the counter like they always do, there was nothing unlucky about that result.

Chelsea: The only reason we were on top of Chelsea come the end of the game was due to the (rightful) sending off of Torres. If Paulinho had scored before half time who knows what would have happened, but the fact is Chelsea mauled us in the second half and could equally lay claim to missing out on a win by a fine margin.

Newcastle: The Newcastle game was a perfect example of us needing to go behind in order to properly start playing. That is another lamentable issue with AVB's reign and this game is a stick to beat him with for that reason rather than yet another example of us being 'unlucky' not to get one fucking goal at White Hart Lane.

City: You really included City's 6-0 demolition in your list of fine margins? Seriously?

 

[Azazello]

I had a feeling that when the goals started leaking and we still weren't scoring, it was just a matter of time. AVB may well go off and be brilliant somewhere else, but dress it up how you like, we weren't that good with him at the helm. I was sucked in for a while with the defensive solidity we had, but I really had to convince myself that he was a good hire.

The fine margins angle is a good spin, but if everything else was hunky dory, then we wouldn't need to be talking about fine margins, I guess.

 

[Wardy]

Losing 3-0 to West Ham at home, considering how dire they are this season.

Losing 6-0 to Man City, although they are ridiculously good at home, as a 'top team' we shouldn't be losing by that margin.

Losing 5-0 Liverpool... again, shouldn't be losing by margins like this, especially at home.


It wasn't just the results, it was lack of ideas/bore fest we had to sit through. I honestly thought we'd turned the corner after the game at Sunderland, which showed a lot of attacking moments and lots of creativity, but sadly it wasn't to be.

 

[Bobbins]

As everyone on here we have all been discussing where things "went wrong".

I have been thinking of our season so far and some of our performances... I have noted down 4 key moments in which I feel with a little bit of extra luck ( which you need in football sometimes) this sacking would not of taken place.

There have been games where we have actually been excellent, for example cardiff away.... however we do not bury teams and we aren't clinical it should have been 4-0......

1. Arsenal 1-0 Spurs

All over them, I don't care what anyone says but we were. We had them on the ropes... unlucky with a shot off the line and again we were not clinical with out early play.

We looked a team that day albeit a new one.

2. Spurs 1-1 Chelsea

Outstanding in the first half and if paulinho had not hit the post and made it 2-0 I think to this day we would have won. It shows what a difference Eriksen makes to our team.

3. Spurs 0-1 Newcastle

Tim krul enough said.... again not clinical but also a miraculous block off the line.... we should of secured all 3.

4. City 6-0 Spurs

Let in a goal after 11 seconds.... would we have still lost 6-0.... lets not forget the open goal missed by lamela moments after.


I do not think we have been as bad as people make out... and for me these are 4 moments that killed avb disregarding his final fixture on sunday.

Yeah, er, massively disagree with almost all of that.

1 - you may not care what anyone says (brilliant point to start a debate on by the way) but we were not 'all over them' at all. We dominated the middle of the pitch and Wenger made a deliberate decision to sit back and hit us on the break. If it hadn't been for a brilliant Lloris display that would've been our first spanking of the season as they could easily have scored 4 or 5.

2 - We played well against Chelsea and yes if we'd scored we may well have won - but Mourinho schooled AVB in the second half, completely changed the game and AVB had no answer.

3 - I have never been of the opinion that Krul was particularly amazing in that game. Almost all our shots bar Soldado's brilliant back-header were straight at him and we lost mainly due to our awful finishing. That's not a fine margin, that's been plaguing us for 18 months.

4 - Yeah but erm, no. 6-0 is not a game of 'fine margins' and if Lamela's shot had gone in we likely would've lost 6-1.

Anyway, AVB wasn't sacked for these results (bar the City one). He was sacked because we lost 3-0 to West Ham at home, because we scraped wins against Palace and Hull through dodgy pens, because we were playing terrible football most of the time, and because we showed few signs of improvement. The Arsenal result likely had very little bearing on AVB's future, but looking back the performance was indicative of those to come, where teams would allow us to dominate the ball and look to hit us on the break.

 

[gregga]

We were poor on Sunday but we were unlucky in some respects in that game too.

Soldado should have had a goal in the first half and a pen in the second.

Also if Chadli hadn't missed a point blank free header in the first half I'm sure things would have panned out differently and AVB would still be here.

Fine lines indeed.

 

[Spurvert]

Football often comes down to fine margins. That's life at the top level of any sport. For me, it's not a good enough excuse. Might as well say 'If only we scored more goals than the other team we wouldn't be in this predicament'

 

[CowInAComa]

We cant attack, and we cant defend.

thats pretty unlucky.

 

[Rout-Ledge]

We were poor on Sunday but we were also unlucky in some respects in that game too.

Soldado should have had a goal in the first half and a pen in the second.

Also if Chadli hadn't missed a point blank free hear in the first half I'm sure things would have panned out differently and AVB would still be here.

Fine lines indeed.

But in many ways the fact that the game could've panned out that way is even more damning. The moment we start capitulating to teams 5 and 6 nil in quick succession (especially at White Hart Lane) because things aren't going our way is the moment everyone starts to lose faith, passion and pride.

 

[CowInAComa]

As everyone on here we have all been discussing where things "went wrong".

I have been thinking of our season so far and some of our performances... I have noted down 4 key moments in which I feel with a little bit of extra luck ( which you need in football sometimes) this sacking would not of taken place.

There have been games where we have actually been excellent, for example cardiff away.... however we do not bury teams and we aren't clinical it should have been 4-0......

1. Arsenal 1-0 Spurs

All over them, I don't care what anyone says but we were. We had them on the ropes... unlucky with a shot off the line and again we were not clinical with out early play.

We looked a team that day albeit a new one.

2. Spurs 1-1 Chelsea

Outstanding in the first half and if paulinho had not hit the post and made it 2-0 I think to this day we would have won. It shows what a difference Eriksen makes to our team.

3. Spurs 0-1 Newcastle

Tim krul enough said.... again not clinical but also a miraculous block off the line.... we should of secured all 3.

4. City 6-0 Spurs

Let in a goal after 11 seconds.... would we have still lost 6-0.... lets not forget the open goal missed by lamela moments after.


I do not think we have been as bad as people make out... and for me these are 4 moments that killed avb disregarding his final fixture on sunday.

What about the fine margins by which we beat Cardiff (last min) and Hull (non penalty).

No 6 though was very amusing.

 

[THFCSPURS19]

What about the fact that we were shit in every game in the PL apart from the Norwich game?

 

[dontcallme]

What about the fact that we were shit in every game in the PL apart from the Norwich game?

Fine margin.

 

[Shea]

It really wasn't fine margins

We couldn't attack we created so few chances and resorted to long shots all the time

Our high line didn't suit us and was overly reliant on Lloris saving the day just as AVB's whole attacking style was dependant on successful long shots or lucky penalties to win games

We saw the worst performances since Jol took over under AVB (in terms of dullness)

We were poor in defence, weak in attack

It seemed he failed to motivate the players

He certainly failed to learn from and correct mistakes

What killed him this season was his own stubbornness and inability to deviate from his plan a which wasn't working

And the OP is ridiculous straw grabbing - first we didn't dominate Arsenal, they sat back and let us pass backwards and sideways and then hit us on the break and ripped us to shreds at will, if it wasn't for Lloris they would have given us a beating same way City and Liverpool have (the only reason we came on strong toward the end is Wenger went negative because he was under pressure following the Villa result and got a squeaky bum to hold on to their lead - not because we pressured them into the negative subs which finally handed us some attacking prowess)

As for using the City game as a fine margin - give me a break, I suppose you also wanna call the Liverpool a fine margin because if the ref had allowed Soldado's goal we'd have been back to 2-1......the fact is we were played of the park by both Liverpool and City nothing fine about the margins of either match

We were also played off our own park by flipping West Ham under AVB for christ sake

The man well and truly earned his sacking in my opinion, he wasn't unlucky with fine margins

 

[Spurz]

Not to mention he fell out with everyone from the chairman to the tealady, but it's everybody's fault not his.

He is also our 1st manager since maybe the late 80s to clear half the stadium before the 60th min. And of course the 1st manager to polarised the fans down the middle not seen since the US elections.

 

[Rout-Ledge]

I was sucked in for a while with the defensive solidity we had, but I really had to convince myself that he was a good hire.

Yup. I was pleased with our defensive solidity too...I thought that we'd build on that with better attacking play. Instead we started to actually lose games whilst shipping loads of goals, all the while not massively improving going forward.

AVB was done.

 

[hodsgod]

As everyone on here we have all been discussing where things "went wrong".

I have been thinking of our season so far and some of our performances... I have noted down 4 key moments in which I feel with a little bit of extra luck ( which you need in football sometimes) this sacking would not of taken place.

There have been games where we have actually been excellent, for example cardiff away.... however we do not bury teams and we aren't clinical it should have been 4-0......

1. Arsenal 1-0 Spurs

All over them, I don't care what anyone says but we were. We had them on the ropes... unlucky with a shot off the line and again we were not clinical with out early play.

We looked a team that day albeit a new one.

2. Spurs 1-1 Chelsea

Outstanding in the first half and if paulinho had not hit the post and made it 2-0 I think to this day we would have won. It shows what a difference Eriksen makes to our team.

3. Spurs 0-1 Newcastle

Tim krul enough said.... again not clinical but also a miraculous block off the line.... we should of secured all 3.

4. City 6-0 Spurs

Let in a goal after 11 seconds.... would we have still lost 6-0.... lets not forget the open goal missed by lamela moments after.


I do not think we have been as bad as people make out... and for me these are 4 moments that killed avb disregarding his final fixture on sunday.

What about the other fine margins? Cardiff, Swansea, Hull, Sunderland, Fulham.these were all close games in which we got something from the game, and all games if I had been the opposition I would have been gutted.

 

[Geyzer Soze]

Massively disagree with most of the OP tbh

Yes, we can talk of margins. But the margins we could talk of are the narrow margins by which we got many of our points! Last gasp lucky winners & pens that never were that give us a position which flatter our performances to be brutally honest!

 

[rsmith]

Our GD is -6. That's a lot of fine margins

 

[tiger666]

Not playing Adebayor seemingly.