*** Tottenham Hotspur vs. Saudi Sportswashing Machine Utd *** OMT

[heinoe]

Clearly. But then again , I note you are hardly objective when it comes to some players, particularly Bentaleb, who you have already marked down as a future Real Madrid target.

Bentaleb was quality today, so intelligent and composed.He bossed the midfield, he should have had an assist or two if we could finish better .Except from that missed header and a couple of stupid freekicks he had an absolute spotless game.MOTM for me . If ou think he had a bad game you don't understand the game known as football.

And the same goes for those on this forum that actually thinks Lamela had a good game. Shocking game from him,Imean how many times can you actually lose the ball ?? And no goal threat. I was glad he started over Townsend, and thinks he should start next game, because there is a footballer in there, but today he was grusome.

 

[braineclipse]

Paulinho any time over Mason. Mason is limited. Pauliho has a better passing range, and is more of a goal threat. Think he proved that yesterday. Started with a magnificent pass in the 2nd or 3rd minute, and had an all round good game. Won the ball back and fed it to Chadli for the 1st goal. MoM? Well I thought Bentaleb was good and MoM for me, but he did waste a few chances. Paulinho OK choice for the award. Hope he continues those sort of performances!

Wouldn't mind either one against Southampton.

Mason has showed enough this season that we know going into the next one that he will be an important part of the squad. His form has dropped recently and I'm not sure it's even to his benefit to keep playing every game.

Paulinho has showed in recent weeks that there's definitely still a player in there. Giving him some more games could give Poch some answers for the summer and next season, meanwhile he's putting in performances. Poch has also showed that when he introduces a player he's willing to give him a good handful of games.

 

[Spurs7891]

It was nice to get back to winning ways. After the poor results in the last 2 matches, we badly needed to win this match. Saudi Sportswashing Machine were very poor but still we had to make use of our chances which we did fortunately. But too bad, this win won't help us much in the top 4 race. Not surprisingly, we only tend to do well when we are no longer under pressure. If only we had beaten Burnley and Villa, we would still be in the top 4 race now.

Well done to Kane for scoring his 20th league goal and 30th in all competitions this season. It was nice to see him scoring against after failing to score in the least 2 matches. It was a well-taken goal as he had to race from the half-way line to beat the goalie. He also should have scored another goal but hit straight at the goalie. It was even better to see Eriksen scoring his first goal in 14 matches. It was a fortunate goal as the goalie should have stopped the harmless freekick. But don't think Eriksen will complain as he badly needed that goal. Credit too for Chadli for the well-taken goal to put us ahead in the first half. It was a crucial goal as it helped us to settle down.

Thought our midfield did well but then Saudi Sportswashing Machine's midfield didn't give much problem for us. Still felt we should have started Dembele-Stambouli in midfield. But atleast Paulinho had a good game and was voted as the man-of-the-match. Still not convinced of Bentaleb as he makes too many mistakes. Wish we will have a much better midfielders next season. Thought Lamela had a good game, especially in the second half. He had a poor game in the first half but had much impact in the second half. In fact, it was his inch perfect pass which allowed Kane to score our 3rd goal. But Lamela too should have scored his one-on-one chance which the goalies saved in the 2nd half.

Still not convinced of our defending. Despite having probably our best defensive partnership of Vertonghen and Fazio, it was really disappointing the way we let Saudi Sportswashing Machine score their goal. Fazio should have cleared the ball instead of letting them have all the time in the world to score. Our defence have really become much worse this season. Pochettino better do something about our defence if we want to do well next season.

It was great to get the winning feeling again. We were helped by the poor Saudi Sportswashing Machine team. But still it was nice to see us taking our chances. We could have won by a bigger margin if we had been more ruthless in front of goal. Hopefully this win will give us much-needed confidence when we face Southampton.

 

[DubaiSpur]

It was nice to get back to winning ways. After the poor results in the last 2 matches, we badly needed to win this match. Saudi Sportswashing Machine were very poor but still we had to make use of our chances which we did fortunately. But too bad, this win won't help us much in the top 4 race. Not surprisingly, we only tend to do well when we are no longer under pressure. If only we had beaten Burnley and Villa, we would still be in the top 4 race now.

Well done to Kane for scoring his 20th league goal and 30th in all competitions this season. It was nice to see him scoring against after failing to score in the least 2 matches. It was a well-taken goal as he had to race from the half-way line to beat the goalie. He also should have scored another goal but hit straight at the goalie. It was even better to see Eriksen scoring his first goal in 14 matches. It was a fortunate goal as the goalie should have stopped the harmless freekick. But don't think Eriksen will complain as he badly needed that goal. Credit too for Chadli for the well-taken goal to put us ahead in the first half. It was a crucial goal as it helped us to settle down.

Thought our midfield did well but then Saudi Sportswashing Machine's midfield didn't give much problem for us. Still felt we should have started Dembele-Stambouli in midfield. But atleast Paulinho had a good game and was voted as the man-of-the-match. Still not convinced of Bentaleb as he makes too many mistakes. Wish we will have a much better midfielders next season. Thought Lamela had a good game, especially in the second half. He had a poor game in the first half but had much impact in the second half. In fact, it was his inch perfect pass which allowed Kane to score our 3rd goal. But Lamela too should have scored his one-on-one chance which the goalies saved in the 2nd half.

Still not convinced of our defending. Despite having probably our best defensive partnership of Vertonghen and Fazio, it was really disappointing the way we let Saudi Sportswashing Machine score their goal. Fazio should have cleared the ball instead of letting them have all the time in the world to score. Our defence have really become much worse this season. Pochettino better do something about our defence if we want to do well next season.

It was great to get the winning feeling again. We were helped by the poor Saudi Sportswashing Machine team. But still it was nice to see us taking our chances. We could have won by a bigger margin if we had been more ruthless in front of goal. Hopefully this win will give us much-needed confidence when we face Southampton.

a) Ho, ho, ho.

b) To be fair, Krul's save was fantastic: arm came up in a flash, even after he'd already committed to a sliding challenge. So don't think Lamela can be blamed too much for that miss.

 

[Maltese Falcon]

Thought our midfield did well but then Saudi Sportswashing Machine's midfield didn't give much problem for us. Still felt we should have started Dembele-Stambouli in midfield. But atleast Paulinho had a good game and was voted as the man-of-the-match. Still not convinced of Bentaleb as he makes too many mistakes. Wish we will have a much better midfielders next season. Thought Lamela had a good game, especially in the second half. He had a poor game in the first half but had much impact in the second half. In fact, it was his inch perfect pass which allowed Kane to score our 3rd goal. But Lamela too should have scored his one-on-one chance which the goalies saved in the 2nd half.

Still not convinced of our defending. Despite having probably our best defensive partnership of Vertonghen and Fazio, it was really disappointing the way we let Saudi Sportswashing Machine score their goal. Fazio should have cleared the ball instead of letting them have all the time in the world to score. Our defence have really become much worse this season. Pochettino better do something about our defence if we want to do well next season.

So much I have to disagree with that...

1. Game was probably one of our best defensive performances - their goal was a fluke but otherwise we were the most sound we have been all season; obviously Saudi Sportswashing Machine's performance must be taken in perspective

2. Won't even go to discuss Lamela's "good game". Ten pages or more have done that. Inch perfect pass? Really? Kane was in space, Mason was in space. The only Saudi Sportswashing Machine player in front of Lamela was in no man's land. Three quarters of us would have played the same pass. If Lamela f****d even that up he would really have needed shooting!

3. Bentaleb had a poor game but Lamela had a good one? You must have been seeing a different game than me then

4. Stambouli?? What has he done to justify selection? Every game I have seen him in, even in crud Europa games, he looked slow and half a yard off the pace. Again can only assume that the clamour for his inclusion is one a mixture of romanticism, desperation at our current performances and wildly optimistic hope.

 

[Pirate55]

He missed three tackles in the match. I wasn't sure if that was a lot so I looked it up against a defensively solid team - Chelsea. This weekend, Matic missed three tackles. That Lucas chap is meant to be pretty good at tackling isn't he? After all, that's his raison d'etre. Against Saudi Sportswashing Machine (at home) he missed 9 tackles. Bentaleb's average in the PL this season is under two missed tackles per match - that seems pretty much on a par with some of the league's better players from what I've seen.

EDIT:
I think that maybe you need to realign your expectations for tacklers. It's very common (even amongst the best) for players to miss more tackles than they make - http://goo.gl/FWQWHR

One thing that did stand out in looking this up is just what a good match Schneiderlin had at the weekend:
2 shots (both on target), 88% pass completion, 6 tackles (100% completion)...


He gave the ball away 8 times in the match, none of which were received by our opponents in our half. The closest he came to that was giving away a throw just inside the halfway line. Schneiderlin gave the ball away 7 times, Joe Allen 10, Lampard 8, the list goes on.




He gave away 3 fouls in the entire match. Two were on the halfway line and one was in a dangerous position. I won't bother looking that up as I'm very certain that's on a par with some of the better players in the league.


Do you want me to list some of the misses this weekend? Some very, very good footballers (strikers at that) missed chances.


What makes you think he'd have played the same way against a better team? Surely a good team/player will adapt?

I am not saying he is a bad player, in fact I rate him quite highly - although certainly not as a future Real Madrid player any more than a whole host of other good prospects. I also accept he is young and has lots of potential to improve. I certainly hope he does and I think that his eventual best position is not as the last line of defence but more as a box to box midfielder. I was encouraged to see him get forward a lot more than usual against Saudi Sportswashing Machine and hope this trend continues. I do not think that Mason is the best partner for him as we need more defensive cover to compensate for Bentaleb's forays further forward.

What I did take exception to is some peoples description of him as "excellent" for the reasons I have given. He was playing against a team that gave us a lot of time on the ball and still he made quite a few needless (in my opinion) challenges. I stand by the fact that he didn't make a challenge on several occasions when he should have done. Therefore, it was either a foul or "after you Claude" defending. We were punished once, against a better team we would have been most likely been punished more - as we frequently have been on a number of occasions this season.

While I accept I may have been a bit over the top in my reaction to this by calling his performance dreadful and a defensive liability, I do not for one minute accept that his performance against Saudi Sportswashing Machine was "excellent".