Tottenham Vs Stoke: Match Thread

[Roscilous]

I hope you're right. But I seriously seriously worry about his substitutions. Chadli up front with rose at left midfield would of been my decision. Even Ali on. But basically keep it tight and keep possession. Give the fucking ball to Dembelle for 20 minutes! Anything but put a underperformance under confident Lamela on! I swear that lads got some good pictures of a naked Levy.

Must be the same ones that Adebayor sent him, lol.

 

[millsey]

Let's not forget though.'best transfer window we've ever had'

 

[mattie g]

I think we should take the result of this game in isolation and make sweeping comments on our relative quality and the kind of season we're going to have. That's the best way to prove what good fans we are.

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

It's ok saying pushing for a 3rd goal but the reality with Kane our only striker going off, it wasn't going to happen. And Lamela still struggling for form is an understatement!

Poch to blame for this one I'm afraid

I can thin of no other professional British side that would go into a new season with one recognised striker. Not one.

That is the state of this club's transfer policy and has been for many, many years. Terrible when you come to think where we are in stature and what the clubs ambitions are. This season seems to be a case of Groundhog day.

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

Things that concerned me yesterday in order

Our style of play - over coached, lacking in creativity, guile and positive approach when 2 up

Poch - really is responsible for the point above so arguably could be the biggest concern. He seems to have got lost in a tactical maze with players being over coached to the point where the approach is all about the system and the shape rather than any self expression. The guy next to me, who wasn't a regular, hit the nail on the head 'we look like a mid table Seria A side, competent technically but nothing more'

The result

That comes directly from the manager, some call him a coach.

Two nil up against Stoke, yes that Stoke, and he strengthens the defence. At ho,e to Chel$ea or Man Citeh maybe, but Jesus H Christ what was the man thinking.

 

[o1fozzybear]

I can thin of no other professional British side that would go into a new season with one recognised striker. Not one.

That is the state of this club's transfer policy and has been for many, many years. Terrible when you come to think where we are in stature and what the clubs ambitions are. This season seems to be a case of Groundhog day.

This ^

It's like our first 3 games are still friendlies. Fuckin ridiculous! But Levy aspires to champions league football.

 

[Francis Gibbs]

and whose fault was that?

Levy for being cheap and Poch for spouting bull that players likely Chadli can play there and not banging on Levys door demanding he gets one in before the season started

 

[TonyWant]

A few comments I have not really seen made about yesterday's performance.
All will agree we dominated the first quarter of the match and played really good football and deservedly went a goal up. Unlike most observers, I would argue that after that Stoke progressively won the key midfield battles and overwhelmed us. In other words we did not unexpectedly lose this game out of the blue in the last fifteen minutes or even in the second half. We were consistently second best after Dier scored. Stoke should have been level before half time. Diouf missed a sitter just before we got our second against the run of play.

The reason all this is important is that we are unfairly blaming our defence for what happened Sure Alderwerield made a foolish mistake to give away a penalty but truth is all defences will make errors if put under pressure relentlessly for 60 minutes as we were
Our real problem is we lost control of the midfield mid way through first half and never regained it
Dier and Mason and Bentaleb are promising young players but could not cope with Stoke and got insufficient help from Dembele Eriksen and Chadli
We need most of all an experienced defensive midfielder with leadership and character All good teams have one. Eriksen is superb as a creator but not a leader and goes missing when we are under sustained pressure Lamela was a hopeless intervention given the pressure we were under Point is that when teams can't keep clean sheets the problem is more often the midfield rather than the defenders
Don't know who the answer is but we have 2 weeks to find him

 

[Larryjanta]

This may have already been discussed so apologies but what formation did everyone think we played yesterday? To me, it looked like

Back 5

......................Dier....................

....Dembele...............Mason....

.....................Eriksen................

.............Chadli........................
...............................Kane.........

Basically, a 4-4-2 diamond

I actually really liked it & think that, as bad as it was Kane being replaced by Lamela, Mason was a bigger loss.

I really hope that this is a move Poch goes to as Dier allows our three other midfielders to rotate and it also allowed Eriksen to drop deep and influence play from there which he doesn't get when he's playing as a 10 with one striker.

If Poch does want to do this, we're a DM and a striker short (even with N'Jie) for me (though you could argue that whatever formation we play)

 

[kaz Hirai]

When the second goal went in yesterday I looked round our team to see how they were reacting - who was angry and determined to get on the front foot and get our lead back? Jan and Toby were looking at the floor in their own little world. Hugo was silent. The rest of them were milling about plodding back into position for kick off. The only one actually doing some shouting, geeing others up was Eric Dier.

To me this just shows how fundamentally flawed our approach to squad building is. There seems to be a theory that we can just buy a load of talented young players and throw them together. But you need characters in a team, people who get angry when goals go in and actually dish out some verbals to the people at fault.

For all his (many) faults this is one thing Redknapp understood about football. At the moment we look a team devoid of leadership and backbone.

Spot on.

Went out and got gallas, the type of guy who would let everyplayer know what he thinks on and off the pitch.

Our squad is filled with sugar puff personalities

 

[THFC 1882]

COYS News ‏@CoysNews 4 min
Alderweireld: "I want to prove myself and it feels very bad for me when I make a mistake in my first home game"

 

[Syn_13]

COYS News ‏@CoysNews 4 min
Alderweireld: "I want to prove myself and it feels very bad for me when I make a mistake in my first home game"

Hopefully he'll make up for it then.

 

[Show Pony]

I didnt get to catch the game on Saturday but my biggest concern as it has been since Parkers first year, we really lack on pitch leadership. Whilst its good getting the younger players in, I really think we are missing someone who grabs the team by the collar and keeps them focus.

Was this an issue on Sat:?

 

[Khilari]

I'm really enjoying the pieces written by Cartilage Free Captain. Here's a nice summary (with GIFs) of some of the problems we suffered from vs. Stoke and some telling comments by Toby Alderweireld regarding the roles of Wanyama and Schneiderlin at Southampton.

http://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnatio...y-tottenham-hotspur-draw-analysis-gif-tactics