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OMT Tottenham Hotspur vs Chelsea, WHL, Sat 28 Sept

Good game but a slightly disappointing result. Would have taken a point at the start if I'm honest. By half time I expected us to win easily. By the hour mark would have gladly taken a point again, and by the end I felt we were hard done by.

Torres should have been sent off long before he was, even if the actual sending off incident was unfair.

I love scanning through the OMTs just after the match and seeing how completely different other people's views of the match were. Personally I thought Dembele was great today (and I'm not usually his biggest fan) and yet there are a few here slating him. I don't see what everyone else sees in Townsend... he's had a couple of outstanding games against weak opposition but he seems to think he's Gareth Bale and right now; he's just not. He gets the ball into dangerous positions and for that I love the guy, but 95% of the time he then balloons it into orbit and completely wastes possession. He didn't do as much of that today as he usually does, but I still don't get the excitement he's generating among other Spurs fans. So I wasn't upset to see him leave the field today but I would have brought on Lamela instead of Chadli personally.

But that's fine - we all see the game differently. And I think there's a lot of positives to be taken from the game today, I really do.

Shame we didn't nick a goal at the end (or capitalise on our first half domination by scoring more than once) but I'm not as ****ed off as I usually am after we play Chelsea and for that I'm thankful.
 
Very much a game of 2 halves and am content with a point all things considered. Perhaps if Paulinho' shot at the end of the first half had crept inside the post at the end of the first half we could've held on for the 3pts but Mourinho won the tactical battle in the 2nd half and we were fortunate that the ref wrongly sent Torres off (albeit he should've gone for the scratch) when Chelsea were dominant.
 
This is a game we could have won. Second half was shocking and the subs were shockin but I'm sure AVB will take notice. Coulda been so much more
 
I thought we did well until the goal, but then Chelsea changed the game with their niggly fouls and winning a few cheap free kicks, somewhat helped by the ref, who bought most of it. The momentum gone, they then stepped up a gear as we know they can, and we didn't really have an answer. Mata coming on made a huge difference in the second half. Torres was in great form too, dirty fouls apart.

Paulinho and Soldado haven't been in a Premiership game of this intensity before, which showed, and I really doubt that Lamela would have coped with it either had he come on. Bringing Sandro on to play alongside Dembele might have helped shore things up, but perhaps he's still not 100%.
 
Dembele, Townsend, Walker, Eriksen, Siggy and Lloris all had great games. Paulinho, Daws, Verts and Soldado were in the middle, while Naughton had a bit of a sub=par performance. Again though, it is making a wee bit too much of what is in the end a decent point.
 
We could have had the game done and dusted in the first half hour. We didn't take our chances. That's why i feel gutted.

and Chelsea never took theirs. I'm not gutted, we played well in the first half and we withstood Chelseas dominance in the second. A draw was the fair result and we never lost. 13 points from possible 18, outstanding start.
 
2nd half was a shambles till Torres was sent off. We couldn't put our foot on the ball and control the midfield. I think if AVB held out a few minutes till torres was off, Lamela would've come on. Shame we didn't win it, but also a tad fortunate not to lose it.
 
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feel a bit deflated after that, such a poor second half showing. Poor subs, poor performances, poor refereeing. Lucky to come away with a point in the end.

Disappointing, but a point is a point, not a disaster.
 
Dembele, Townsend, Walker, Eriksen, Siggy and Lloris all had great games. Paulinho, Daws, Verts and Soldado were in the middle, while Naughton had a bit of a sub=par performance. Again though, it is making a wee bit too much of what is in the end a decent point.

For me Naughton just isn't good enough at left-back to play sides of Chelsea's calibre. He's a fine right back and it's great to have him as a back-up for Walker, but if he never plays LB again I'll be very happy. Bring in Coentrao in January and we'll have a title-challenging squad IMO. But if Rose isn't fit, then play Verts at left back ahead of Naughton (even if that is a waste of Vertonghen).
 
Mistake - We were being overun by them and Sandro never came on.

Mistake - Townsend having a great game and taken off for Chadli which was baffling.

Mistake - Lamela not getting on at all.
 
Eh. Decent point, all things considered. Have to be a wee bit disappointed at the way the second half played out, though. Jose out-thought AVB to an extent: by putting Ramires in the lumbering Mikel's spot, he instantly dispelled most of the superior levels of energy and movement we were mustering, due to Ramires' seemingly limitless stamina, speed and agility carrying him around and into our central duo with ease. And by putting Mata on and putting Hazard central, he forced Dembele and Paulinho to come a bit deeper to counter the overload Chelsea had in front of our back-four (with Lampard, Mata, Oscar and Hazard all drifting into central pockets), which then again played into his hands because Ramires was freed up even more and began bursting through the central midfield with ease.

Because of this, our centre-backs had to watch more players than just Torres, which forced them to stand off rather than stick close, which then led to Torres getting a lot more space to turn and run at them, which led to us conceding space and impetus.

All because of one change. And, to be honest, I never felt AVB got a hold of the situation from that point onwards. Dropping Sandro into that spot in front of the back line felt like the most natural thing to do: sure, we would concede attacking movement, but we wee 1-0 up in a difficult derby game with things starting to go against us, necessitating and anchor, and anyway we could have added Holtby and Defoe later to reintroduce some attacking spark. Sandro would have tracked the runs of Torres better than Daws or Verts did (due simply to his agility and pace) which would have freed up Daws and Verts to concentrate more on stopping Chelsea's playmakers dropping into holes in front of our back four.

But AVB waited too long, which led to us surrendering possession time and again, surrendering our tempo and surrendering the impetus, which led to their goal from a free-kick. And even then, his changes were somewhat bemusing. Holtby wasn't that much more solid than Eriksen was, and Defoe failed to impact the game after being given only fifteen minutes. Chadli for Townsend killed our direct running. This is not because those players aren't good or attack-minded, but because we simply couldn't get the ball often enough to give them options. Ramires would recover it time an time again, which thwarted our nascent attempts at restarting our first-half machismo. That could conceivably have been avoided had Sandro come on.

So, in the end, it felt like we were saved by the sending-off, and Chelsea's increasing vigor would probably have seen us concede again before the end had that card not happened. And after leading 1-0 at half-time, having played some fabulously fluid football, it felt like a bit of a let-down, that.

It is a decent point in the end, and puts us top for a few hours. And certainly, we deserved a draw based on our fantastic first-half performance, so no complaints are needed. But, it is important to take away two lessons from that: namely, that we have a long way to go before we learn the tricks of the trade necessary to become title contenders (Chelsea's riling up of our lads and the resultant motivation it gave them was admirably effective, albeit ****ish), and that our lovable AVB still has a little while to go before he can justifiably claim to be on Jose's level. Hopefully the next time we meet them, AVB will show Jose a few twists of his own, and then we'll be the ones turning it around and starting to batter them.

Haven't got past the first paragraph yet mate but what does that say about Mourhino that he started a player like Mikel!?
 
This is a game we could have won. Second half was shocking and the subs were shockin but I'm sure AVB will take notice. Coulda been so much more

Very disappointing. Especially the lack of urgency or guile in the last 10 minutes. Demonstrates that we currently do lack that something special that title winning teams have.

However, it is very early days in the league and we haven't gelled yet and it's good that we are not losing whilst we are gelling the team together.

Mourinho certainly gave AVB a small lesson. Is it a coincidence that the oncoming subs were the ones that played well/scored during the week against Villa? Was it simply in AVB's mind to give those three players a run out today regardless of how the game was going?
 
great point, i'd have taken that before the game so it's a great result

top of the league, sweet.

sweet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

f ing sweet.....Why don't we ever take advantage......eWhy doesn't the coach empahasize this was the chance to go TOP

......50 odd years.............sweet..............
 
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