Why are we such a pushover against the top sides?

[King of Norway]

I agree that we are too nice, and we have been for as long as I can remember. On the other hand, I don't think it has the same effect if the manager and players of a club that hasn't won the league post "Love Me Do" kick up a storm about refereeing decisions. We'd probably just be hit with a lot of bans and sanctions from the FA instead.

We also do not have anyone in our club who referees are likely to fear a la Ferguson or Mourinho. Referees knew that it could potentially ruin their careers if they made a mistake disfavouring Man Utd when Ferguson was in charge. And most referees, I think, are careerists rather than idealists. I am sure it is in the back of their minds how controversial decisions might affect their careers. And making a mistake disfavouring a top club with someone like Ferguson in charge would cause a much bigger stir than making the same mistake against Hull, or indeed us.

 

[Jurgen the German]

Whilst we are moaning about the officials, can we please just ban the phrase " the decisions even themselves out" because they ****ing don't, not even close. We benefit too btw, I'm sure the likes of West Brom, Southampton, West Ham etc could moan about poor decisions they've had at WHL. The better/bigger you are, the more decisions you get that's the way it works, I wish people would just admit it.

 

[Shelfie]

We should have played today more like the Arsenal game imo. Yes, we did well going forwards in terms of creating chances, but we allowed far too many to City and much of it was from simple football on their part.

Play more conservatively against the best attacking teams in the league ffs, it's not rocket science. Look to stay in these games and earn a point, instead of pushing high up the pitch and getting our pants pulled down. The way we played Arsenal away is the way we should approach all these games (infact, wwe could do worse than to play against most teams in a similar fashion).

Well said, Poch got it badly wrong today both in selection and tactics.

 

[Shelfie]

Whilst we are moaning about the officials, can we please just ban the phrase " the decisions even themselves out" because they ****ing don't, not even close. We benefit too btw, I'm sure the likes of West Brom, Southampton, West Ham etc could moan about poor decisions they've had at WHL. The better/bigger you are, the more decisions you get that's the way it works, I wish people would just admit it.

Deffo agree that decisions don't 'even themselves out'. Utd under Fergie were the living proof of that, the times we and many other teams were robbed against them by incompetent/fearful refs was a disgrace.

 

[Nezza]

Well said, Poch got it badly wrong today both in selection and tactics.

I think this is *******s. We can't defend as well as Chelsea so we can't go to the Etihad and play the same way as them. Emirates Marketing Project are a far more potent team than Arsenal so we couldn't really play the Emirates style game either.

We saw today that their defence looked creaky when we went at them, and yet you'd rather we hadn't done that?

If we had gone there and sat back and done nothing we'd still have lost, but there would be far fewer of the reports saying how much better we were this time around.

 

[glasgowspur]

I agree nezza, we almost struck a good balance today. Kaboul was poor, clearing needlessly into the stands when he had time inviting city back onto us. I put that down to a lack of understanding with fazio which us going to take time. For me Poch has earned the right to that time.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using Fapatalk

 

[El Guepardo]

Had Soldado scored the penalty, when we were 2-1 down, the game could have finished very differently.

I thought that we played well but conceded too much space defensively. Every time City attacked it seemed like we only had three players defending and all the others were too far upfield. City were playing aerial balls over the top and picking us off.

No wonder we made defensive errors that contributed to the goals.

My one change would be that I wouldn't chase the fans heavily whilst only a goal behind. In seemingly do that, we have City an opportunity to exploit our weak defence and they did just that.

I think there were positive signs to take from today. We just need to learn to be more savvy defensively and we'll make large strides forward. If we play like we did today then we should be on for three points next weekend.

 

[Robspur12]

I agree nezza, we almost struck a good balance today. Kaboul was poor, clearing needlessly into the stands when he had time inviting city back onto us. I put that down to a lack of understanding with fazio which us going to take time. For me Poch has earned the right to that time.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using Fapatalk

Agreed. We will not get results against the likes of chelscum and City until we get in a decent centre half to replace Kaboul, cannot believe this guy is captain, shows you how desperate we are for leaders, and a centre forward who can consistently play lone striker and put the ball in the net.

 

[glorygloryeze]

Sounds like we had a mare at CB again. I assume Capoue had rings run round him again, a la vs Liverpool at home?

For these big games, is it time for us to either drop him for Stambouli (who seems to be faster and able to get around quicker to put in tackles) or rejig the CM slightly to play him alongside Stambouli AND Mason, who seems to have the knack of winning possession and setting up quicker counter-attacks?

Not a total disgrace to lose to City (yet again!) given our performance going forwards (imagine if Soldado had actually done the main thing he has done with us so far: score a penalty! Ahhh, that must the only one he's ever missed!),

However, if we follow it up with nothing but a win vs Saudi Sportswashing Machine at home next week, then I fear that we maybe are heading for less than a top 6 finish...

 

[the dza]

"If we had scored the penalty..." well if City had scored their missed penalty, that would have been 3-1 and we'd probably have got beat by a bigger margin.

We don't want to be so stretched out in an away game against the best attacking side in the division. Not sure how many pastings we want to take before we get the message. I think being that aggressive will be fine against teams who can't hurt us so much, but we surely should be treating ateam like City a bit differently? We should have played like we did againt the goons -- we probably would still lose, but we'd give ourselves more of a chance to sneak a draw or win imo.

 

[Shelfie]

Sounds like we had a mare at CB again. I assume Capoue had rings run round him again, a la vs Liverpool at home?

For these big games, is it time for us to either drop him for Stambouli (who seems to be faster and able to get around quicker to put in tackles) or rejig the CM slightly to play him alongside Stambouli AND Mason, who seems to have the knack of winning possession and setting up quicker counter-attacks?

Not a total disgrace to lose to City (yet again!) given our performance going forwards (imagine if Soldado had actually done the main thing he has done with us so far: score a penalty! Ahhh, that must the only one he's ever missed!),

However, if we follow it up with nothing but a win vs Saudi Sportswashing Machine at home next week, then I fear that we maybe are heading for less than a top 6 finish...

Good points. For me we should have started with Stambouli, Capoue and Mason in the mid, and scarificed Lamela. Poch got it badly wrong yesterday, and as for the Fazio decision, wrong, wrong, wrong again. This was not the place to give him his Prem debut.

Also well said DZA, we were far too gung ho yesterday, great for the TV and doubtless once again Hammers, Arsenal and Chelsea fans were in hysterics about yet another comedy collapse from us But as a Spurs fan I don't want open-ended games like this and the Liverpool game where we give the better teams loads of space and they waltz right through us.

Okay maybe waltzes weren't Mozart's strong point, (and I'm not too happy about Poch's bigging up his fellow countryman before the game). How about pizzicato, cos that's that's how I feel after yet another beating in front of the TV millions

 

[Spur of the moment]

Whilst we are moaning about the officials, can we please just ban the phrase " the decisions even themselves out" because they ****ing don't, not even close. We benefit too btw, I'm sure the likes of West Brom, Southampton, West Ham etc could moan about poor decisions they've had at WHL. The better/bigger you are, the more decisions you get that's the way it works, I wish people would just admit it.

Very much this. The Bigger you are, the more decisions you get.

 

[DHSF]

Im really not sure with this obsession of blaming referees constantly and feeling that good ol spurs have been hard done by. Its all so small time, even a whole entire thread on a referee that we have is so so small time. The ref did have a part to play but in reality if we were stronger we would have won that game, we had the chances we even had some decision eg our penalty.

I can imagine some going into a debrief about the match and just shrugging shoulders going oh well what can we do against 12 men - the ref was all against us - poor us.

 

[Spur of the moment]

Im really not sure with this obsession of blaming referees constantly and feeling that good ol spurs have been hard done by. Its all so small time, even a whole entire thread on a referee that we have is so so small time. The ref did have a part to play but in reality if we were stronger we would have won that game, we had the chances we even had some decision eg our penalty.

I can imagine some going into a debrief about the match and just shrugging shoulders going oh well what can we do against 12 men - the ref was all against us - poor us.

Fair comment.

 

[Stiff_Swede]

Poor and slow CB who cant handle pacy forwards. We only have one CB (Vertongen) who is good enough for PL.

 

[Jordinho]

Poor and slow CB who cant handle pacy forwards. We only have one CB (Vertongen) who is good enough for PL.

Vertonghen could well be our slowest CB, so how would he solve that?

 

[indianspur]

I agree nezza, we almost struck a good balance today. Kaboul was poor, clearing needlessly into the stands when he had time inviting city back onto us. I put that down to a lack of understanding with fazio which us going to take time. For me Poch has earned the right to that time.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using Fapatalk

you have to question Poch for throwing in Fazio for his debut at City, its just rank bad decision making, nothing to do with earning the right for time to get things right. Why expose a totally new centre back partnership up against the likes of Aguero and Silva and the rest. Just asking for trouble imo

 

[Stiff_Swede]

Vertonghen could well be our slowest CB, so how would he solve that?

Bull**** Vertongen is the only CB we have with some class, none of the others is good enough för PL, and no other team would be interested in them. Kaboul standing on his heel for the first goal yesterday and a stupid late tackle for the second, it happens every game with him. We will never be a top PL team with so poor CB. About Fazio I will give him some more games before writing him off completely but not been impressed so far.

 

[VolSpur]

Well said, Poch got it badly wrong today both in selection and tactics.

Nezza and glasgowspur are right, Poch got the selection and tactics correct.

What are you suggesting we do better for Aguero's first? We had 6 men within 10 yards of our own goal. Fat Frank was offside/affecting Lloris' vision, and Aguero did what Aguero does. Not much more you can do about that one. And if you think we shouldn't have been in that position in the first place well your right, we were in possession looking to get forward until Lamela's poor touch. That doesn't come down to tactics. If anything we were set up well to get up the pitch and get at them.

His high press tactics led to our first goal. His tactics also led to giving us a chance at going ahead if Mason could've finished his early 1 on 1 with Hart.

Second city goal, we had 7 men in the box, in good position, frank falls, obvious penalty apparently, 2-1 city.

Third city goal, stupid back header by Rose (honestly just head it out of play), a stupid pull down by Fazio, and it's all over.

4th goal we're down to ten men against title challengers at their own place. Not sure what you're expecting here..

Now I'm going to need somebody's help here to show me where any of this is Poch's fault. In all of those situations we had enough men to adequately deal with any dangers that presented themselves but a few individual errors just ripped us apart. If anything he set us up to take them on and the times where City looked most dangerous were when we were defending with 7 or 8+ men in our own box. We looked most secure when pressing them and breaking up play in midfield.

 

[Jordinho]

Bull**** Vertongen is the only CB we have with some class, none of the others is good enough för PL, and no other team would be interested in them. Kaboul standing on his heel for the first goal yesterday and a stupid late tackle for the second, it happens every game with him. We will never be a top PL team with so poor CB. About Fazio I will give him some more games before writing him off completely but not been impressed so far.

Vertonghen IS slow. He's also got a touch of Ade about him, rarely looks like he's giving more than 70-80%.