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*** Tottenham Hotspur v Saudi Sportswashing Machine OMT ***

In quite a few threads people are saying we did OK first half and were poor second half.

In fact we were good for the first 10 or 15 minutes and were then poor for ages in the first half. Let alone the second half shambles.

We really didn't get ticking with possession and passing on the deck and movement and feeling in control of the situation, we were just scrapping for the ball and playing head tennis and chasing around at 100mph, not enough class.
 
In quite a few threads people are saying we did OK first half and were poor second half.

In fact we were good for the first 10 or 15 minutes and were then poor for ages in the first half. Let alone the second half shambles.

We really didn't get ticking with possession and passing on the deck and movement and feeling in control of the situation, we were just scrapping for the ball and playing head tennis and chasing around at 100mph, not enough class.

Disagree. We had some nice interplay in the first half. Even though Saudi Sportswashing Machine tried to keep things tight and sit deep in the first half, when they did try and come at us we nipped their possession in the bud quickly and penned them back. If we'd gone in 2-0 up at HT that wouldn't have been harsh.

However, like last season they hung in there and pushed us back bit by bit second half. Two things would have helped us in that situation then:

1) an 'old head' in the middle to settle the lads down a bit and get us to hold onto the ball longer than we did; for all his faults Dembele would have made a BIG difference in this regard imo
2) Some genuine pace in behind as Kane and Lamela were being squeezed up bi by bit. Plus we could have played on the break again them (like they started to do to us)
 
I am surprised so many people thought our first half performance was anything but totally dominant.

Tottenham 1-0 Saudi Sportswashing Machine HT:
Shots(OT) 11(4) - 2(0)
Possession 58% - 42%

Tottenham 1-2 Saudi Sportswashing Machine FT:
Shots(OT) 20(8) - 8(4)
Possession 58% - 42%

However it just felt like deja vu when their goalie once again restricted us to a solitary goal; twice getting a hand to Lamela' efforts and especially after Rose squandered a golden chance to double our lead just before half time (he seemed to get caught in 2 minds being barely 8 yards from goal but with Kane and Lamela there to tap in a decent cross or Alli waiting for a pull back).

 
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i can see the team being completely knackered come feb/march.There is very little between 5th and 11th at the moment.We are a decent team but we are not the team that has been hyped up and we are short up front no question about it.
 
Ive suggested it over the past few weeks but I think the loss will help us. Get the monkey off the back, stop the hype and Poch may go ape brick. I think there will be a reaction next sat at Saints... I hope so, I'm going.

They're 4 games without a win and struggling to score goals. We all know what will happen.
 
Apparently I'm one of those ****s. And frankly today demonstrated (to me) that we should be rotating a bit more. Resting a couple of players and bringing in fresh legs with something to prove? I think we might have won today if we'd done that. But it's all just opinions, right?
That's a very good point. I was thinking after the game "what if we had played the team that beat Monaco? Would the hunger of the players to impress and make a case for first team be enough to win the match?" I guess we won't know, will we.

In any case, people need to understand that teams, even the best of them, have bad days at the office, or even go through mini slumps. There is no reason why we should be any different. Again, if we had put away the Stoke, Everton, and Swansea games, we'd be top of the league and this loss would have just annoyed us, instead of causing this unbelievable distress to so many GG posters.

All in all, we're having a good season, given the players the coach has to work with, given the youth of the team, and given that no one expected us to be doing so well. So let's calm down a bit and stop being so knee-jerk and OTT over ONE result!
 
Personally I don't agree with the need for rotation argument as we rotated half the side from midweek nor do I buy the tiredness issue this early in the season. The biggest miss was Dembele IMO. Carroll wasn't much use in there today and Alli was hardly better, he hasn't got the discipline to play in the deep midfield partnership. Poch got it wrong for me in not naming Bentaleb in the side alongside Dier from the start.

This however is only a small part of the problem as I think we have looked poor these last two league games and have failed to break down what has been put in front of us. The buildup play from the back has been lacking and that was best shown by the number of long balls we ended up hitting to Kane. Ultimately though our two main creators (Eriksen and Kane) have been pretty ineffective and Alli despite the goal at the Hawthorns has failed to find the spaces he was being afforded earlier this year.

Things aren't clicking together at the moment as teams savvy up to our style of play so now Poch is going to have to sit down and tweak some things in order to remedy this.
 
My point is that there were various people on here saying that Saudi Sportswashing Machine was virtually a walkover and we could rest players and still win. No PL game is easy. The PL is the priority, I would imagine, for Poch and most people so we should be playing our first 11 in the league and resting players in the EL and domestic cups. Unfortunately a number of our first teamers have played large chunks of our first 6 EL games. Irrespective of ability, playing Carroll today was surprising given that he played the whole game on Thurs
With Dembele and Mason out, and Bentaleb still looking shaky, who would you have played instead? Alli with Son further forward? Son hasn't proven he's back in form yet and Carroll put in a great performance against Monaco. So what would your alternative have been? I'm not a Carroll fan, but I think that after Thursday's game he was the logical choice.
 
This is typical Spurs. Every time we have a chance to move up, we always feck up. It seems like we can never overcome the bad habits regardless of how many managers or players we change. We have a mentality like a small club. After being unbeaten in 14 league matches, what a way to get beaten like this ! It would have been more acceptable if we had lost our unbeaten record to a "big" team like Arsenal, ManCity, Liverpool or Chelsea. But to lose to a shyte team like Saudi Sportswashing Machine at home is really unacceptable !

Annoyingly, we seem to have found ourselves a new bogey team as this is the third consecutive season that we have lost to Saudi Sportswashing Machine at home. Even more annoying is the fact, this is the 8th time this season that we have failed to win despite scoring first. Last season, we finished matches strongly getting many late winners in the process. But it is the opposite this season as we start matches promisingly and getting early goals but end up conceding far too many late goals that costs us the wins. Not sure if this shows we are getting complacent after taking early leads or we are getting tired easily.

I think Pochettino has to take large part of the blame as he picked the team. Felt he got over confident and under estimated Saudi Sportswashing Machine. Thought it was risky to start Carroll in midfield as he lacks experience and has not played much this season. The tried and tested partnership of Dier and Delli should have played together while either Son or Chadli could have started further up front. But both Son and Chadli did look very poor after coming on as subs. Chadli hardly touched the ball while Son is still struggling after his injury problems. In fact, it is getting annoying to see Son trying those long range shots again and again despite all his shots going way out of target.

We only seem to win league matches when Kane scores. But unfortunately, Kane was very poor and didn't look like scoring apart from a long range shot. Lamela played much better and was one of our better players. In fact Lamela was unlucky not to score atleast 1 goal as he had 2 shots saved by the goalie in the first half. Thought it was a mistake by Pochettino to take off Lamela as he was playing well. Pochettino should have taken off Eriksen instead. Credit to Dier for getting our only goal and Eriksen for the assist. But both Dier and Eriksen were very poor apart from this moment. In fact, Dier was one of the reason Saudi Sportswashing Machine came back in the second half as he made too many errors in midfield. Similiarly, Eriksen had a poor game and even wasted a glorious freekick in the second half. Even Delli played very poorly. Rose had a golden chance to score in the first half but annoyingly wasted it.

Really annoying the way we conceded both the goals. Rose has to take the blame for conceding the stupid freekick from which they scored their first goal. But Lloris and Alderweireld have to take their share of the blame for both the goals as well. They should have been more alert for both the goals, especially the second goal. Lloris should have saved the shot but disappointingly let it go under him. Lloris seems to struggle at shots that come direct at him or under him.

This defeat has really affected us in many ways. We had a chance to move into 4th place but have wasted it. We not only lost our 14 match unbeaten record in the league but are now 7 points behind Arsenal as well.
 
Bad loss, on paper this was a home banker, as someone else said, probably good it wasn;t a draw, the loss will wake a few people up, get rid of any complacency that has taken root, all the top 4 have had surprising losses this season, this is our first, all teams go through peaks and troughs, its how you respond that defines what you're made of.
I know Poch rested some players Thursday but 4 or 5 still played today, in today's high tempo game, its such an advantage for a team like Saudi Sportswashing Machine to arrive fresh, look at all the other teams who played in europe midweek, most struggled.
No-one came out of this match with any credit, the two goals were very soft, nobody has mentioned 2 gilt edged chances that Lamela should have scored, their keeper is a bit of a showboater and made it look like it was a great save. Worrying how anonymous Kane and Eriksen were but like I said at the start, they'll come out of their rut.

Don't lose the faith quite yet
 
Disagree. We had some nice interplay in the first half. Even though Saudi Sportswashing Machine tried to keep things tight and sit deep in the first half, when they did try and come at us we nipped their possession in the bud quickly and penned them back. If we'd gone in 2-0 up at HT that wouldn't have been harsh.

However, like last season they hung in there and pushed us back bit by bit second half. Two things would have helped us in that situation then:

1) an 'old head' in the middle to settle the lads down a bit and get us to hold onto the ball longer than we did; for all his faults Dembele would have made a BIG difference in this regard imo
2) Some genuine pace in behind as Kane and Lamela were being squeezed up bi by bit. Plus we could have played on the break again them (like they started to do to us)
OK fair enough GGE I've had another watch of the full first half on full matches and shows.

The first 15 we were really dominant, the next 15 was scrappy as Saudi Sportswashing Machine put in some big tackles and broke play up. That is what stuck in the memory for me. Neither team were playing well but it was much more even. And then in the final 15 Lamela had his two good efforts and Dier scored and we were dominant again, so fair enough.

I don't know if it is coincidence, but Kane was OK until Coloccini stood on his foot around 12 mins in, then he faded away. Similarly Rose was getting up and down the flank until he hyperextended to tackle Sissoko and jarred his hip/back. Then he spent 15 mins sitting deeper whilst play was scrappy, then Rose got forwards again and we were on top again. I'm not sure if Rose pushing forwards is cause or effect for our dominance.

I was also struck how well Eriksen and Alli played, both had lots of good touches and efforts, it just wasn't fully working but they put in a good shift and tried lots of good things.
 
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Will all those ****s on here who were saying things before this game such as 'if you cant rest players against Saudi Sportswashing Machine then when can you' now admit they were wrong?

GB is one who was spouting cr@p like that

I'm pretty sure we would have done better if we'd started Onomah and Njie, in place of Eriksen and Kane, as I suggested.

I wasn't saying it because I simply thought Onomah and Njie needed some game time. I was saying it because Eriksen and Kane have been getting poorer and poorer for weeks, and clearly need a fortnight off to refresh. We're just running them into the ground/into burnout, and these December fixtures were the ones to use some fresh energised legs.
 
This is typical Spurs. Every time we have a chance to move up, we always feck up. It seems like we can never overcome the bad habits regardless of how many managers or players we change. We have a mentality like a small club. After being unbeaten in 14 league matches, what a way to get beaten like this ! It would have been more acceptable if we had lost our unbeaten record to a "big" team like Arsenal, ManCity, Liverpool or Chel53a. But to lose to a shyte team like Saudi Sportswashing Machine at home is really unacceptable !

Annoyingly, we seem to have found ourselves a new bogey team as this is the third consecutive season that we have lost to Saudi Sportswashing Machine at home. Even more annoying is the fact, this is the 8th time this season that we have failed to win despite scoring first. Last season, we finished matches strongly getting many late winners in the process. But it is the opposite this season as we start matches promisingly and getting early goals but end up conceding far too many late goals that costs us the wins. Not sure if this shows we are getting complacent after taking early leads or we are getting tired easily.

I think Pochettino has to take large part of the blame as he picked the team. Felt he got over confident and under estimated Saudi Sportswashing Machine. Thought it was risky to start Carroll in midfield as he lacks experience and has not played much this season. The tried and tested partnership of Dier and Delli should have played together while either Son or Chadli could have started further up front. But both Son and Chadli did look very poor after coming on as subs. Chadli hardly touched the ball while Son is still struggling after his injury problems. In fact, it is getting annoying to see Son trying those long range shots again and again despite all his shots going way out of target.

We only seem to win league matches when Kane scores. But unfortunately, Kane was very poor and didn't look like scoring apart from a long range shot. Lamela played much better and was one of our better players. In fact Lamela was unlucky not to score atleast 1 goal as he had 2 shots saved by the goalie in the first half. Thought it was a mistake by Pochettino to take off Lamela as he was playing well. Pochettino should have taken off Eriksen instead. Credit to Dier for getting our only goal and Eriksen for the assist. But both Dier and Eriksen were very poor apart from this moment. In fact, Dier was one of the reason Saudi Sportswashing Machine came back in the second half as he made too many errors in midfield. Similiarly, Eriksen had a poor game and even wasted a glorious freekick in the second half. Even Delli played very poorly. Rose had a golden chance to score in the first half but annoyingly wasted it.

Really annoying the way we conceded both the goals. Rose has to take the blame for conceding the stupid freekick from which they scored their first goal. But Lloris and Alderweireld have to take their share of the blame for both the goals as well. They should have been more alert for both the goals, especially the second goal. Lloris should have saved the shot but disappointingly let it go under him. Lloris seems to struggle at shots that come direct at him or under him.

This defeat has really affected us in many ways. We had a chance to move into 4th place but have wasted it. We not only lost our 14 match unbeaten record in the league but are now 7 points behind Arsenal as well.

You can't win every game. Everyone has been saving we've been overdue a slip-up for weeks.

We're also not competing with Arsenal. Liverpool are still our mini-league at this point in our development.
 
OK I've just watched the second half again on full matches and shows.

It wasn't as bad as I feared. It was scrappy, Saudi Sportswashing Machine had a little flurry but we were in control, just not making clear chances.

Lots of huff and puff but nothing incisive enough, no brilliance to split them open.

Carroll was poor in the first half and poor again in the second half and was rightly removed.

We were playing 4-1-4-1 so a lot of onus on Dier... one time he tried a mazy run on the left wing and lost the ball and we were wide open but otherwise he stayed in there pretty well.

Near the end, Perez beat Toby but Jan put in a good challenge to clear... felt like that was Saudi Sportswashing Machine's big chance ... then at 89 mins Saudi Sportswashing Machine were hanging on, trying to bring on Gouffran to kill time.

Then they broke through again, Mitrovic missed a sitter from Sissoko's square ball... phew I guess that one was actually Saudi Sportswashing Machine's big chance and they fluffed it for no reason... then on 93 mins they scored from a simple bit of head tennis, header forwards, flick on, control and finish from nowhere... very disappointing. Spurs were really pushing forwards and they were sitting deep... so suddenly they got a flurry of chances near the end. We should have had things covered but Mitrovic and Perez made the difference.

Lloris was bad for both goals. For the second goal his leg was there but he dived out of the way to try and use his hands... if he had just stood there like a statue it would have hit him.
For the first goal, when Coloccini headed it back across goal Lloris was instinctively moving backwards, falling behind his line, so when someone (Wijnaldum I think) headed it forwards at 1 mile per hour he was already flinching and falling and scrabbling and just flapped it past Toby and onto Mitrovic. I don't know why Lloris is scared in situations like that but he does have a tendency to fall back into his net which makes it almost impossible to save anything, he should be moving forwards like an angry starfish.
 
OK I've just watched the second half again on full matches and shows.

It wasn't as bad as I feared. It was scrappy, Saudi Sportswashing Machine had a little flurry but we were in control, just not making clear chances.

Lots of huff and puff but nothing incisive enough, no brilliance to split them open.

Carroll was poor in the first half and poor again in the second half and was rightly removed.

We were playing 4-1-4-1 so a lot of onus on Dier... one time he tried a mazy run on the left wing and lost the ball and we were wide open but otherwise he stayed in there pretty well.

Near the end, Perez beat Toby but Jan put in a good challenge to clear... felt like that was Saudi Sportswashing Machine's big chance ... then at 89 mins Saudi Sportswashing Machine were hanging on, trying to bring on Gouffran to kill time.

Then they broke through again, Mitrovic missed a sitter from Sissoko's square ball... phew I guess that one was actually Saudi Sportswashing Machine's big chance and they fluffed it for no reason... then on 93 mins they scored from a simple bit of head tennis, header forwards, flick on, control and finish from nowhere... very disappointing. Spurs were really pushing forwards and they were sitting deep... so suddenly they got a flurry of chances near the end. We should have had things covered but Mitrovic and Perez made the difference.

Lloris was bad for both goals. For the second goal his leg was there but he dived out of the way to try and use his hands... if he had just stood there like a statue it would have hit him.
For the first goal, when Coloccini headed it back across goal Lloris was instinctively moving backwards, falling behind his line, so when someone (Wijnaldum I think) headed it forwards at 1 mile per hour he was already flinching and falling and scrabbling and just flapped it past Toby and onto Mitrovic. I don't know why Lloris is scared in situations like that but he does have a tendency to fall back into his net which makes it almost impossible to save anything, he should be moving forwards like an angry starfish.

It's an interesting point you raise; was it similar to the goals he conceded vs Monaco away and Arsenal away?
 
OK I've just watched the second half again on full matches and shows.

It wasn't as bad as I feared. It was scrappy, Saudi Sportswashing Machine had a little flurry but we were in control, just not making clear chances.

Lots of huff and puff but nothing incisive enough, no brilliance to split them open.

Carroll was poor in the first half and poor again in the second half and was rightly removed.

We were playing 4-1-4-1 so a lot of onus on Dier... one time he tried a mazy run on the left wing and lost the ball and we were wide open but otherwise he stayed in there pretty well.

Near the end, Perez beat Toby but Jan put in a good challenge to clear... felt like that was Saudi Sportswashing Machine's big chance ... then at 89 mins Saudi Sportswashing Machine were hanging on, trying to bring on Gouffran to kill time.

Then they broke through again, Mitrovic missed a sitter from Sissoko's square ball... phew I guess that one was actually Saudi Sportswashing Machine's big chance and they fluffed it for no reason... then on 93 mins they scored from a simple bit of head tennis, header forwards, flick on, control and finish from nowhere... very disappointing. Spurs were really pushing forwards and they were sitting deep... so suddenly they got a flurry of chances near the end. We should have had things covered but Mitrovic and Perez made the difference.

Lloris was bad for both goals. For the second goal his leg was there but he dived out of the way to try and use his hands... if he had just stood there like a statue it would have hit him.
For the first goal, when Coloccini headed it back across goal Lloris was instinctively moving backwards, falling behind his line, so when someone (Wijnaldum I think) headed it forwards at 1 mile per hour he was already flinching and falling and scrabbling and just flapped it past Toby and onto Mitrovic. I don't know why Lloris is scared in situations like that but he does have a tendency to fall back into his net which makes it almost impossible to save anything, he should be moving forwards like an angry starfish.

Has anyone else been on the pitch at WHL?

I actually think a problem is the slope of what is a relatively small pitch... so when Hugo steps back into he goalmouth he has a problem with this...
 
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