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TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR VS CHELSEA - CAPITAL ONE CUP FINAL

Of course the first goal is important. No one said it wasn't. But it needn't be the end of the contest. We have done well from losing positions this season. Chelsea's game plan yesterday was to stop us scoring. They knew they had enough firepower up front to get goals either through their goal machine or from a set piece. And so it proved. I said early on during the game that we must stop giving away cheap free kicks. It was only a question of time before they made one count. We are not equipped to deal with Terry, Cahill, Zouma, Costa and Ivanovich in the air. At one point, I think it was Mason detailed to pick up Zouma!

I think a more prescient question to be posed is - "would we have stopped Chelsea scoring if we had scored first". I doubt anyone on here really believes we could keep a clean sheet against them at the moment. I agree with Steff that Chadli and Townsend needed to have big games both on and off the ball. Unfortunately, they didn't and as a result we looked relatively toothless. These areas need to be addressed urgently in the summer. We need someone who can provide a spark. We can't keep relying on just Eriksen and Kane. There is a massive lack of pace in our attack and hence we don't have a plan B.

Just to further add, whilst I think my mate Lamela added more when he came on, it wasn't THAT much more. So yes, Poch needs a couple better options than Andros anyway IMO... Shadily has not been the same since is father passed, but the one thing I wonder whether he can ever develop is that for a man of his build, he is a relative pussy! One thing which makes me confident about the future is that this manager is keenly, keenly aware of what needs strengthening versus what simply needs nurturing. I think he is a superb coach whose legacy and work for us will remain for a long long time. But the summer is a big one.
 
Of course the first goal is important. No one said it wasn't. But it needn't be the end of the contest. We have done well from losing positions this season. Chelsea's game plan yesterday was to stop us scoring. They knew they had enough firepower up front to get goals either through their goal machine or from a set piece. And so it proved. I said early on during the game that we must stop giving away cheap free kicks. It was only a question of time before they made one count. We are not equipped to deal with Terry, Cahill, Zouma, Costa and Ivanovich in the air. At one point, I think it was Mason detailed to pick up Zouma!

I think a more prescient question to be posed is - "would we have stopped Chelsea scoring if we had scored first". I doubt anyone on here really believes we could keep a clean sheet against them at the moment. I agree with Steff that Chadli and Townsend needed to have big games both on and off the ball. Unfortunately, they didn't and as a result we looked relatively toothless. These areas need to be addressed urgently in the summer. We need someone who can provide a spark. We can't keep relying on just Eriksen and Kane. There is a massive lack of pace in our attack and hence we don't have a plan B.

Did I say it needed to be the end of the contest? Did any of the players show signs of that? Do you think our manger though that?

The post I quoted directly said that we should stop this "if we had scored first" talk. I responded to that.
 
Just to further add, whilst I think my mate Lamela added more when he came on, it wasn't THAT much more. So yes, Poch needs a couple better options than Andros anyway IMO... Shadily has not been the same since is father passed, but the one thing I wonder whether he can ever develop is that for a man of his build, he is a relative pussy! One thing which makes me confident about the future is that this manager is keenly, keenly aware of what needs strengthening versus what simply needs nurturing. I think he is a superb coach whose legacy and work for us will remain for a long long time. But the summer is a big one.

I agree wholeheatedly that this summer is a big one! But then I thought that the January window was also a big opportunity!!!!
 
I agree wholeheatedly that this summer is a big one! But then I thought that the January window was also a big opportunity!!!!

Nah. January is a short-term game. Poch is long-term and the chairman is behind him. I think we are ahead of where I felt we would be right now, in terms of platform and cultural shift. The future is very bright, brighter than it has ben for a good 15 years IMO (and yes, I include the Redknapp days - those were wonderful but built on short-term)...
 
Did I say it needed to be the end of the contest? Did any of the players show signs of that? Do you think our manger though that?

The post I quoted directly said that we should stop this "if we had scored first" talk. I responded to that.

If I interpreted your posts correctly, you seem to have thought that it was a balanced and even contest - and that the first goal was crucial. I was arguing that while it was important, it is not critical - as we proved against them at the Lane. I however think there was a certain inevitability that Chelsea would score at some stage and therefore the negative way they set up was entirely designed to stop us scoring. That was the key difference from the game at the Lane when they tried to beat us at a game of football and came unstuck. With yesterday's Mourinho game plan we didn't have enough weapons to unlock them playing this way - and I don't count 40 yarders from Benetlab and Mason as realistic chances !!!
 
Nah. January is a short-term game. Poch is long-term and the chairman is behind him. I think we are ahead of where I felt we would be right now, in terms of platform and cultural shift. The future is very bright, brighter than it has ben for a good 15 years IMO (and yes, I include the Redknapp days - those were wonderful but built on short-term)...

Hope you are right Steff. I thought we were one world class player away from really taking off under Redknapp. The January window when we were sitting third in the table and still in the Champions League. What a missed opportunity. Just imagine if we had signed a Suarez then. Oh well....what might have been...
 
No I believe that Campbell started out as a midfielder, not sure actually. You are right about Naughton. But I think Chiriches, Dier etc dont look that great at full back. I just feel that a modern day full back should be able to play both positions. One not so well of course but still.

Have to disagree with you there. I have vivid
i remember watching Twuntball play left back on quite a few occasions early in his career

Yep, checked it out on Wiki, he had spells at both RB and LB in his early days.
 
Watched this on the box with Chelsea-supporting Dad.

Towards the end, Maureenio and some scrote had a happy hug-in. Dad asks "who was he hugging with" .... "The Ref's agent!", says I.

So many naff decisions made it harder work for us. Couldn't believe Verts? booking when Costa came into him from behind. If Costa had been the tug victim instead of Kane, Rose would have got a red.

General post-match press has made it all so 'to be expected', but their performance wasn't much above average.


One wider point.... I can't ever remember a period like the last few weeks where we hadn't the excuse of a long injury list. Football's a funny old game, but I'm not laughing much now.


PS - keep Judas in his own thread rather than taint this.
 
Sarcasm. Probably needed some sort of emoticon. Apologies for confusion.
Got the sarcasm. Just wanted to see why you thought any one of our political parties (barring those on the extreme right) was more racist than the others.
 
I've been on a bit of a bitterness-tinged video binge over the last few days. This one was the one that stood out, if anyone's interested.


Strangely enough, it left me feeling a bit better. Sure, Sunday was utterly gutting...but that year was so much worse, and the ending of that poignant video is made all the more bitterness-tinged given that it doesn't elaborate what happened after the season's end: it just hints at it, while closing on a sad but defiant note.

Hit the lows, slowly gain in confidence, belief and purpose, deliriously savour the highs, dream of radiant glory, and finally, inevitably, throw it all away in the most horrific, painful way possible.

Everything this club has done since then has been tinged by the ghostly echoes of that season, imo. So close. So goddamn close. And we f*cked it up: from the boardroom's cowardly shrinking at the last hurdle, to the management's dreams of bigger things, to the hitherto magnificent players slowly losing their way amidst a storm of recriminations, anger, despair and fatigue. And like that, a great team, probably the most technically-skilled, brilliantly intense and exciting we ever had in the Premier League era.....just like that, it was dismantled, vanishing into the mists of nostalgia and thoughts about what might have been. It was brilliant, relentless, full of life and vitality, utterly unplalayable when on form and utterly unpredictable and quirky in terms of the characters and personalities that inhabited it and shaped it. Rafa, Assou-Ekotto, Ade, Bale, Modric, Parker, Sandro, Ledley, Harry f*cking Redknapp....what a combination of fiery characters and world-class talent, backed up by a bouncing White Hart Lane and a roostertail of heady dreams of great things waiting just beyond the golden horizon. And it all slipped away into the mists of time.....relentlessly and tragically, as our horrific failure let the vultures descend, the accusations fly and history be rewritten.


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So, compared to that, losing this CC final is small potatoes. We have a new team now, a more quiet, more predictable, more low-profile side, led by a manager who lets his work do the talking and spearheaded by a bunch of young academy lads who (mostly) bleed blue and white. And in the future, we will probably ascend back to a level somewhat comparable to the one we were at during that epoch-defining season. Probably this time we'll do it more professionally, more consistently, and ultimately more successfully.

And we'll hopefully avoid redoing what we did that season. We hit the heights, we crashed to the lowest lows, and we lost everything we'd been building towards for the past few seasons. It was brilliant, exhilarating, ultimately tragic. Quintessentially, indubitably Tottenham Hotspur FC, summed up in one unforgettable, rollercoaster year.
 
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This popped up on my twitter feed which reminded me of Costa' gamesmanship in last week' final... Hopefully it'll be our seasoned pros Bentaleb, Dier and Walker doing the winding up next time Spurs play at Wembley!

 
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