Manchester United Vs Tottenham Hotspur

[BorisTM]

Apologies, don't have time or inclination to re-do the post from FrontPage, but the points are there to make, so here goes:

The result was perhaps more or less expected, and of course 6 points out of 9 from the last 3 games is probably better than most people would have thought. But it is the certain selection decisions against Man U again that make one ask questions.

Strange that we bought Kaboul as primarily RB cover for Corluka, and yet decide to play the LB Assou-Ekotto there. Especially after Kaboul has just played quite well as RB against Arsenal and Chelski. BAE is a good defender, but gets understandably more edgy when under bigger pressure than usual and without a proper support from a RM - the utterly ineffective Bentley today.

Bale had perhaps his best performances this season in the last 2 matches and really relished the LM position ahead of BAE as LB. Why then tinker with the successful formula?

Palacios was quite shaky and again, after the last 2 big games, why wasn't Kaboul on for the 2nd half at least - seeing that Palacios was not exactly on the game today, to change the shape of the team back to the successful set up v Chelski?

Today was a perfect example of what Crouch factor does to the team performance.
Even just before 1-1, with Lennon and Gudjonssen on, we were beginning to play much more cohesively and effectively on the ground. But when Crouch replaced Pav, the team resorted to the predictable long ball to Crouch, for him to flick it on to a Man U defender 4 out of 5 times. So Lennon hardly saw the ball and the quick pass and move game disappeared, with Crouch offering much more inferior link up play and movement than Pav. We did not get a chance to see Modric, Gudjonssen, Lennon, Bale and Pav combine skill, vision and pace in the last 25 min, esp after equalising and gaining advantage. No, Crouch came on and the team went back to long ball.

Man U did not have to do much to neutralise Lennon threat; Harry did it for them by sending Crouch on.

Everything is spot on and this is how i saw it as well. As for Bentley, he looked like a someone on a death row - no matter how well he was going to play 20 mins from final whistle he was going to get subbed anyway and not allowed to play another game until the next time someone gets injured.

 

[DC_Boy]

I thought I'd done that a couple of days ago:-
"But you are reducing Modric by 50% just to fit Wilson in so there's no gain, how important is it to get him in anyway surely not enough to reduce the effectiveness of the team to that extent".

My case was:-
" if we really do need Wilson playing then play him without cocking up our main route to goal, our left hand side".

We appear to have cocked up our L/H side by a different route but it would have still been cocked up by putting Modric the wide right.

I'll repeat I've seen nothing of the game and still don't know the details but I think that is a constant.

yep - but you see your analysis is flawed because we cocked up our left side anyway as you say and then we had a weak right side on top of that - so it seems my idea had a lot more validity to it than your dismissal of it implied

 

[worcestersauce]

I take your point DC' as we'd already messed up our L/H side it wouldn't have mattered if we'd moved him across, I just wish we'd not done any of it.

 

[Wiener]

It wasn't a great game. We lost because of 2 silly defensive blunders. Not sure why people are going on about playing BAE at right back. Kaboul is not a right back nor is Palacios.

I really believe we could have put them under more pressure in the first 55 minutes by playing Gudjohnsen in place of Pavluychenko or Defoe. Overall we contained them reasonably well, but we were ineffective up-front with Pavluychenko and Defoe up-front. Playing those 2 was the error in my opinion and Manure ultimately exploited that.

 

[DC_Boy]

I take your point DC' as we'd already messed up our L/H side it wouldn't have mattered if we'd moved him across, I just wish we'd not done any of it.

fair enough

it was going to be a tough call for Harry - there were no easy solutions - the obvious easy one was same again as against chelsea - but i was in the camp we needed to include wilson for yesterday

unfortunately, not for the first time recently wilson wasn't very good to put it mildly

he's giving away too many pens for one thing

gonna be a big call for harry whether to bench him v bolton

also as wiener says pav and defoe were ineffective - i don't like that pairing away from home - but could see why harry chose them

for all that it took a moment of genius from nani to undo us - we were right in it until he got that one

 

[Spurs_Bear]

Apologies, don't have time or inclination to re-do the post from FrontPage, but the points are there to make, so here goes:

The result was perhaps more or less expected, and of course 6 points out of 9 from the last 3 games is probably better than most people would have thought. But it is the certain selection decisions against Man U again that make one ask questions.

Strange that we bought Kaboul as primarily RB cover for Corluka, and yet decide to play the LB Assou-Ekotto there. Especially after Kaboul has just played quite well as RB against Arsenal and Chelski. BAE is a good defender, but gets understandably more edgy when under bigger pressure than usual and without a proper support from a RM - the utterly ineffective Bentley today.

Bale had perhaps his best performances this season in the last 2 matches and really relished the LM position ahead of BAE as LB. Why then tinker with the successful formula?

Palacios was quite shaky and again, after the last 2 big games, why wasn't Kaboul on for the 2nd half at least - seeing that Palacios was not exactly on the game today, to change the shape of the team back to the successful set up v Chelski?

Today was a perfect example of what Crouch factor does to the team performance.
Even just before 1-1, with Lennon and Gudjonssen on, we were beginning to play much more cohesively and effectively on the ground. But when Crouch replaced Pav, the team resorted to the predictable long ball to Crouch, for him to flick it on to a Man U defender 4 out of 5 times. So Lennon hardly saw the ball and the quick pass and move game disappeared, with Crouch offering much more inferior link up play and movement than Pav. We did not get a chance to see Modric, Gudjonssen, Lennon, Bale and Pav combine skill, vision and pace in the last 25 min, esp after equalising and gaining advantage. No, Crouch came on and the team went back to long ball.

Man U did not have to do much to neutralise Lennon threat; Harry did it for them by sending Crouch on.

Managers usually replace ineffective strikers during games, it's what happens. Pav has scored once in his last 8 games and that was at home in the cup. Added to that he has scored 2 goals away from home in the league in his whole Spurs career and missed at least 2 sitters against Chelsea he his lucky to have even started the game.

I would ask if you actually watched the game as usual, because we were going long to the strikers way, way before Crouch came on, as we were getting smashed in midfield. But it's a lot easier to spout the same, boring shit against the manager and Crouch, and I see one of your old favourites Bentley gets a mention too. You must love it when we lose with Crouch and Bentley on the pitch, all your dreams come true at once.

 

[StartingPrice]

It wasn't a great game. We lost because of 2 silly defensive blunders. Not sure why people are going on about playing BAE at right back. Kaboul is not a right back nor is Palacios.

I really believe we could have put them under more pressure in the first 55 minutes by playing Gudjohnsen in place of Pavluychenko or Defoe. Overall we contained them reasonably well, but we were ineffective up-front with Pavluychenko and Defoe up-front. Playing those 2 was the error in my opinion and Manure ultimately exploited that.

Exactly. We were hardly outplayed. In fact, for the first 25 minutes we looked in control of the game.
BAE at right-back is clearly a bad idea. Kaboul may have been just as bad, and is not a right-back, either. Walker was on the bench...but was he fit? Anyway, it was bad, but the options were limited.
Defoe has not looked the same payer since he came back.
Think 'Arry's kidology backfired on him re Bentley/Lennon...as someone commented, above, DB had the look of a condemned man, yesterday.
But, the performance wasn't that bad...we lost due to two defensive errors...nothing more, and showed some spirit to come back from a goal down in the first place.

 

[BorisTM]

Managers usually replace ineffective strikers during games, it's what happens. Pav has scored once in his last 8 games and that was at home in the cup. Added to that he has scored 2 goals away from home in the league in his whole Spurs career and missed at least 2 sitters against Chelsea he his lucky to have even started the game.

I would ask if you actually watched the game as usual, because we were going long to the strikers way, way before Crouch came on, as we were getting smashed in midfield. But it's a lot easier to spout the same, boring shit against the manager and Crouch, and I see one of your old favourites Bentley gets a mention too. You must love it when we lose with Crouch and Bentley on the pitch, all your dreams come true at once.

Pav offers more than Crouch does, and the shoots he takes are not described as "spooned it away". He has the speed and power Crouch will never have.

In the Chelsea games he provided Bale with an assistance for his goal, and set Defoe very well for a one-on-one with the goalie that he missed. He can tackle too and won us few balls in that game.

He is much better player than Crouch is and we play much much better with him in the team than with Crouch.

 

[southlondonyiddo]

I was happy with the starting XI

It was always going to be very difficult at Old Trafford with Man U having to win

Very easy to blame this and that after the game but Man U would have thrown the kitchen sink at us had we kept it level for longer or not conceded silly penalties

A team that HAS to win is very dangerous especially when it's away at Man U!!

A point was always going to be a fantastic result for us the way the league table looks so it was a dilema for us and that's exactly how the game panned out