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*** OMT: Tottenham Hotspur vs. Leicester City ***

No this present team has not, i think most of us accept that when Pooch went this team was in a mess, not only were players passed it or downed tools and with a manager who seemed to have lost the plot. Since then we have had season that has been messed up with covid breaks and a lot of new players being added to the squad. We have had a bad week for sure but i and many fans i know never really thought/think we are going to win the Prem.

We ARE a work in progress under Jose and any fan who thinks we are not needs to get a grip. I do believe though we have a great chance of winning a cup but the title is just a dream at least for this season. To be honest anyone who really believes we have a chance of winning the title are letting themselves open to being dissapointed leading to them throwing their toys out of the pram when we fail to do so.

Not saying you are one of those "DeanoAustin

Sorry mate, and in the spirit of debate, I cannot take on the "toys from pram" trope again.
Not a chance.
Mourinho gets my support.
I wanted Levy to back him. He did.
On paper, we have a squad more than capable.
Mourinho agreed.
He is a specialist who specializes in being special, and he has quickly developed his style and approach into one which makes the best of what he has. That's him. We play Mouball. I don't love it, but like us all, I love it when it works.
When it doesn't, it is flat.

I don't think anyone NOW believes the title is in grasp, but let's not be shy here, if you're going to TRUTHFULLY tell me that heading into the 90th minute at Anfield, knowing that a point from that match would be a major disappointment given what we created, that you would not have expected a title-tilt for real, then I'd say you're either a guru of immense omnipotence or simply a gun-shy supporter who could not grapple with what we all grapple with (past vs present). Understandable. But we were told Jose is a results man. And he was getting them.

Wednesday was unfortunate.
Today was awful off the back of it, a side feeling sorry for themselves. Unacceptable. Add this to the curious inability to finish off Palace, and the fact that worryingly for a Jose team we are simply too nice at the moment (not going down in the box under contact, not able to physically stand up to Leicester) and it is going to require a the best we have of Jose to turn the switch back on.

Of course the conclusion is that we are, indeed a work in progress...but IMO, given our squad and remit of manager, plus being top for 4 weeks, we should be expecting a title push if only because we were there.

At what point are we entitled to expect it? If you can't after 4 weeks on top -however thin the margins- then IMO we will never move our club culture on because we are married to the history of Cookism!!!!!

Again, in the spirit of debate my friend; we all want the same thing. COYS.
 
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p.s. if we are to still be a "work in progress", let me say that I would rather that "work in progress" was with a Pochettino MkII team. If we're looking to win things, then Jose Mourinho, do your funky fabulous stuff! Right now!

3-2-1 GO! :D
 
There seems to be a curious lack of energy in out team over the last few games. We aren't bombing forward with any intensity and our midfield and full backs are no longer running in behind as the were earlier in the season. Are we just cream crackered?
 
There seems to be a curious lack of energy in out team over the last few games. We aren't bombing forward with any intensity and our midfield and full backs are no longer running in behind as the were earlier in the season. Are we just cream crackered?
It’s the set up with certain players that can’t pass IMO
Your a full back and you run forward but the midfield can’t get you the ball it’s a waste of effort
It then either creates a big hole in front of midfield or a place we have a forwards drop into there by negating their opportunity to get forward
 
p.s. if we are to still be a "work in progress", let me say that I would rather that "work in progress" was with a Pochettino MkII team. If we're looking to win things, then Jose Mourinho, do your funky fabulous stuff! Right now!

3-2-1 GO! :D
FWIW... despite this miserable week, Mourinho is still ahead on league wins plus goals at the same stage of his tenure!

Pochettino (first 40 PL) won:19 drawn:8 lost:13 for:60 against:56 points:65

Pochettino (last 40 PL) won:19 drawn:7 lost:14 for:69 against:48 points:64

Mourinho (first 40 PL) won:20 drawn:10 lost:10 for:68 against:44 points:70
 
I always try to wait until the next day to be able to offer some sort of rational explanation and analysis (good or bad) and most importantly stay away from social media to avoid reactionary knee jerks.

There's no doubt yesterday was a complete brick show from first to last whistle. We were slower to everything and generally laboured through the 90 minutes. The biggest disappointment was that Leicester didn't even have to work for the two goals they scored - they were gifts. I suspect even without these we still wouldn't have won - it was just one of those days. Impossible to conclude exactly what was to blame for this....set up tactically badly? Mental and physical fatigue from Anfield? Aurier? Leicester tactical application?

We've had days like this in the not too distant past (this felt very reminiscent of the Everton defeat on opening day and for me also had shades of the Chelsea loss just before xmas last year; going back further remenber losing at home to Leverkusen at Wembley etc etc) and we will have days like this again in the future.

What I keep coming back to though is the importance of considering the macro climate we are in - we are one of about 6 other sides (Chelsea, Man C, So'ton, Everton, Man U) who win more than lose but lack the consistency to remain unbeaten. It's incredible how much the league table is changing in such a short space of time. It is a shame because up until last week it appeared that we might have the staying power to hang onto Liverpool's coat tails and to match their consistency (which isn't even as high as last few years). The last 3 games would suggest that this was just our turn to have a bad 7 days whereas many of our adversaries have dipped in and out of good/bad patches since September.

We have to remember that even under Poch glory days of 2015-16 and 2016-17 we had those indifferent spells and disappointing results. I agree with Jose in saying that you can't just look at 1/9 points you have to consider that we have 25/42 for a truer reflection of where we are.

I think we all recognise that the way we play at the moment relies on fine margins (rightly or wrongly) and as a result we sit on the edge of our pants to an extent. It feels brick because this time last week we were sitting pretty at the top and that was a false position - just as 1 point from 3 games is also.
 
Gutted about the performance yesterday. Absolutely shambolic.

Now, there may be a discussion about the choice of gameplan from the start, but I'm not so much concerned about that. I'm far more concerned about the way it was effectuated, or to be more precise, how it was _not_ effectuated. Our midfield was clearly in trouble from the start, and bigger adjustments should perhaps have been made within the first 15 minutes.
Also, as the game progressed, we made some adjustments in the first half, improved somewhat, and got blasted in the face by a stupid brainfart by Aurier.
This is when the game should have changed 100%. And to be fair, Mourinho tried to do changes. And while I can see what he was trying to do, I thought it were the wrong changes at the time. (well, obviously now, hindsight and all...)

Leicester is just as good at counterattacking as we are supposed to be. They are equally adept at staying compact, denying space and half-space, and they are excellent physically.
If you watch what Liverpool did to us a few days ago, they kept their fullbacks very high up the pitch, and _very wide_, and they kept Mane and Salah out wide as well.
What did we do? Both Moura and Bale worked almost as inverted wingers, and worse, Reguillon and Sissoko also got sucked in towards the middle. Aurier was slightly better at this while he was on, but he had a whole different set of problems yesterday, and should perhaps have been substituted way before half time.
Also, if you needed a further proof that something was wrong, it became clear as day when we saw Harry Kane taking a leisurely throw-in 5 meter into our own half, throwing it straight to a Leicester-player almost sending him through 1-on-1 against Lloris. What business did he have being down there taking throw-ins, not even being a break-away-opportunity? Reguillon (or whoever it was) was standing _right_there_ ready to take the ball and take the throw-in. So what does that tell us? Well, for one, Kane was clearly frustrated, and perhaps, had no confidence in the midfield being able to do its job.
Thus he would have to do it for them. That is quite seldom a good idea.

Now, I'm confident that Mourinho saw these things too. I'm quite certain that he didn't instruct them to do so.
I can also half way understand why he took off Ndombele at halftime and brought on Bale. And we could not have anticipated that Gio would break down just minutes after, thus leaving us without a creative central midfielder. And at that point, bringing Winks on was perhaps the sound option, we needed someone to transport the ball better from defence to offence.

Now, what I can't understand is this: We know how it is done. Liverpool gave us a lession in it, just days ago! The bleedin' obvious change would be Doherty on at half time for Aurier, with orders to push high. If you need to take Ndombele off due to injury or whatever, put on Ben Davies or Joe Rodon, and switch to back three, push Reguillon and Doherty high and wide.
I'm a huge fan of Sissoko's effort, physical presence, his work ethics and all that, but I'm telling you, moving him to right back was not a very good move yesterday. It was almost back to Sissoko version 1, the one we all enjoyed so much. And it just didn't make sense, since we have a perfectly good right wingback available on the bench!
Leave Sissoko in the middle, doing the "simple" stuff alongside Højbjerg, or, as we start to push them back, replace with Winks.

So i'm placing this one 100% at Mourinho's feet, for failing to take the appropriate measures when the game plan clearly failed.

Everything now hinges on how we respond to this! We have a cold wednesday in Stoke coming up, the very symbol of a difficult away-game, before we face Wolves (A), Fulham (H) Leeds (H) and then Marine (A) in the FA-Cup. Apart from Wolves, these should be very much given results, and wolves should also be quite within our capabilities. If we manage that, we will emerge from the Christmas period with +9 points, a semi final and advancement to 4th round in the FA Cup. Not perfect, but decent.

Lose either one, and it is bad. Very bad.
 
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Possession is great with capable players
We have some players players who you wouldn’t trust with the ball IMO
we can address part of that by dropping Sissoko and playing Lo Celso and Ndombele with Hojbjerg (although I wasn’t impressed with either of those two yesterday). I’m not sure how we address the other part of that at the centre of our defence though? Who could we swap Dier out for?... Sanchez is even worse on the ball than Dier, is Rodon ready?

I think we’re going to be stuck with the low block, counter attack until Jose can find a pacy central defender with some ability on the ball.
 
Its not spacegoating, he's awful and is a major cause of the lack of controlled possession his selection is a major cause of that porousness in midfield.
The lack of controlled possession comes from our team being so deep. It is almost impossible to play football from where we have to start out. Yesterday though, I thought we were out worked.... Ndombele and Lo Celso played an equal part of that.
 
We've relied on getting ahead early and setting the tempo to manage the game. Rodgers alluded to this post match; coming off the back of the disappointment at Anfield on Wednesday he set up to ensure that they didnt let us score in the first 15 minutes - as such it was a really boring match to watch.

We got better as the half went on and then suffered the perfect storm of Aurier having a brainfart and then in trying to remedy and react to being 1-0 behind by replacing Ndombele with Bale Lo Celso then gets injured within 2 minutes of the second half. To a large extent you cannot legislate for these moments.

If we are living on the edge at 1-0 or when level we absolutely need everything to fall for us when behind; by law of averages we were due for the ball to run against us and it happened yesterday.
 
we can address part of that by dropping Sissoko and playing Lo Celso and Ndombele with Hojbjerg (although I wasn’t impressed with either of those two yesterday). I’m not sure how we address the other part of that at the centre of our defence though? Who could we swap Dier out for?... Sanchez is even worse on the ball than Dier, is Rodon ready?

I think we’re going to be stuck with the low block, counter attack until Jose can find a pacy central defender with some ability on the ball.
Dier really isn’t the problem IMO
Nothing came yesterday that was his fault
Is Toby yet again getting no criticism and it all going diers way. Sure someone will say the offside goal was diers fault but of course that doesn’t count as he was offside
The issue IMO remains that midfield is where games are generally won and players who are allergic to passing are a problem
I don’t disagree a pacey capable CB wouldn’t be a good addition but Leicester don’t have one and their defence looked fine.
 
The lack of controlled possession comes from our team being so deep. It is almost impossible to play football from where we have to start out. Yesterday though, I thought we were out worked.... Ndombele and Lo Celso played an equal part of that.
We have players who get the ball and their first thought is to get rid of it. You don’t control possession like that. Possession is over rated but you do need the ball to score (unless you give away penalties or put it in the net for the opposition). Moura, sissoko, Davies give the ball a way constantly, and it’s not always under pressure so enforced. Teams wait for them to give them the ball
 
He is no where near the worst midfielder at spurs. He does his job better then lucas, winks, bergwijn does their jobs. Is as reliable as Lamela and Lo Celso.
Bergwijn always seems to do his job IMO. Always tracks his runner and completes very high number of sprints to get into attacking positions as well....

Keep him higher up the pitch, as a less conservative manager would be likely to do, and you’d probably see more in terms of attacking output.
 
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The lack of controlled possession comes from our team being so deep. It is almost impossible to play football from where we have to start out. Yesterday though, I thought we were out worked.... Ndombele and Lo Celso played an equal part of that.
It is a valid point but we also have too many players who just aren’t good enough on the ball. It might be a bias as I mostly watch us play, but I’d don’t see individuals with technical weaknesses in the top teams. There’s a couple of our players who I’m sure people think twice about passing to or making a run for as there know where is a very good chance the ball won’t come back. That said the players I am referring to are being picked by 2 different managers, so maybe that’s a damning indictment on the work rate / tactical understanding of the players they are still ahead of.
 
Dier really isn’t the problem IMO
Nothing came yesterday that was his fault
Is Toby yet again getting no criticism and it all going diers way. Sure someone will say the offside goal was diers fault but of course that doesn’t count as he was offside
The issue IMO remains that midfield is where games are generally won and players who are allergic to passing are a problem
I don’t disagree a pacey capable CB wouldn’t be a good addition but Leicester don’t have one and their defence looked fine.

Sadly I don't see an answer to our current shortcoming from within our current squad.
 
Dier really isn’t the problem IMO
Nothing came yesterday that was his fault
Is Toby yet again getting no criticism and it all going diers way. Sure someone will say the offside goal was diers fault but of course that doesn’t count as he was offside
The issue IMO remains that midfield is where games are generally won and players who are allergic to passing are a problem
I don’t disagree a pacey capable CB wouldn’t be a good addition but Leicester don’t have one and their defence looked fine.
Dier is poor on the ball. Toby is much better on the ball, indeed the best of our centre halves in this respect. Personally, I think we need better than both if we want to win trophies, I think both would make decent backup players for us (like Winks).
 
We have players who get the ball and their first thought is to get rid of it. You don’t control possession like that. Possession is over rated but you do need the ball to score (unless you give away pelanties or put it in the net for the opposition). Moura, sissoko, Davies give the ball a way constantly, and it’s not always under pressure so enforced. Teams wait for them to give them the ball
As does Dier, yet you seem to like him as a player?
 
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