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Tim Sherwood Testimonial OMT Spurs v Aston Villa 11th April

Funny how people use losing the cup final as yet another excuse for how bad we are. I remember when our form plummeted under Ramos after the cup final WIN, people used winning the damn thing as an excuse too. Either way, win or lose, Poch defenders have a ready made excuse.


Offering reasons as to why things have happened/are happening is much more constructive than just slagging everyone/everything off.
 
It was clear that one team wanted it more than the other

It was also clear than a so called useless manager has the ability to motivate players to perform whereas a more tactical manager didn't manage that yesterday

If your playing a game relies on a system you still need to motivate the players to perform in that system otherwise it falls over. Alternatively you can rely on the talent and allow them to perform (Redknapp style)

The best solution is to combine all three but were no where near that at moment and yesterday that was really clear
 
Funny how people use losing the cup final as yet another excuse for how bad we are. I remember when our form plummeted under Ramos after the cup final WIN, people used winning the damn thing as an excuse too. Either way, win or lose, Poch defenders have a ready made excuse.

the league cup final thing should be no excuse whatsoever, i mean back in 2010 we lost to Man Utd in the league cup final but still went on and qualified for the CL by finishing 4th

not even the embarrassment of losing the Fa cup semi later on against Portsmouth had a negative effect either, we still beat Arsanal, beat Chelski, went to Emirates Marketing Project and won

there are no excuses for what is happening now....yes we didnt expect to be doing so well this season, but fact is we were, kudos to the players and Poch, however it would have been nice to make a real attempt to finish the season just as strongly.
 
Yesterday has reminded me, to quote Tim Sherwood 'football is a simple game'. There are occasions when if you are more motivated, aggresive and luckier than your opponents you will win. The smart suits and tactical genius are important for giving you an edge on occasions but a lot of the time if you want it more than the opponents you will have a better chance of winning. Whilst I don't think Sherwood was up to the level we needed he understood the league and was able to put out teams who won matches.

We have about the 6th best squad of players in the league. When we play the teams beneath us as long as we are 'up for it' and prepared to 'run around a bit' we'll win most of them. If we rely on a powerpoint presentations we won't. Would be interesting to see a comparison with Southampton last season but i suspect that Poch doesn't have a proper appreciation for the ugly side of playing in the Premier League and yesterday was a case in point (along with Stoke, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Palace, West Brom). Those who backed Poch and AVB regardless must base their views on playing FIFA and Championship Manager.

If you had Sherwood running the team against the bottom 13 and Poch for the other 6 opponents we'd probably do very well!
 
Oh come on! I understand we are sore today but this is f******* ridiculous and pathetic. Both were the most senior players in the squad and there obviously was acceptance by the other players (I personally believe the rumours that many did not want Verts, who was the other option). I suspect he wanted to give Ade some responsibility, based on his performances under Sherwood. However when he saw the mistake, he immediately rectified it; this is the mark of a good manager.

I am making a call on fact, hardly a judge of a good character is he, his first big decision and marker at the club and he made an incredulous choice, perhaps its not his but the tea ladies fault that we have lost all momentum and have poor team selection and tactics, oh wait a minute that is down to the manager ! lets face it we are a mess at the moment with no balance or structure we just wait for individual flashes of brilliance to get through, no brilliance from Kane or Ericksen and we are stuffed, in the next game we should play a diamond formation and get some confidence back, when you look how we waste possession and give the ball away in bad areas I reckon our defence is bloody fantastic.
 
I wonder how much of this is Poch getting a clear view on the squad.

We can't get 4th, so keep playing players and see how they react when thinks to wrong, see what they are really made of.

Include the players we know we cannot shift (Paulinho) to see what use they are.
I so hope that you are right and that he is proving a point to Levy.
 
It seem like we're very much in the minority here.

But no amount of facts or statistics will ever change some people's pre-conceived opinions - not even when the bloke comes here and beats us on our own patch.

...and makes it 3 wins out of 3 against Poch!
 
Just to remind everyone, Benteke beat a CB today who hasn't played for over a month and who wouldn't have played today if it had not been for two injuries forcing a reshuffle at the back. I happen to think Benteke has great potential and is a decent 9, but he is not 'the answer'...we have that...we just need to find upgrades on Chadli and Andros.

Sorry Steff, I admire your optimism but you are simply wrong on this.

It is not like it is an isolated incident, our back four has been shaky all season.

Benteke monstered us at Villa before his sending off( and did this while he was just returning from a major injury and consequently in a poor run of form) and he did so again yesterday. He is scoring freely again. I

Is it Sherwood's influence? He got our non-functioning Centre Forward scoring again last season and has introduced youth at Villa like he did with us (Bentaleb and Grealish)

I am glad at least that you acknowledge that Benteke has great potential and is a decent no 9 ( unlike some on here who just think he is a big lump and this years Michael Ricketts!). Even our own manager thinks he is one of the best centre forwards in the PL. Nuff said.

However, the biggest issue I have with your post is when you say "we just need to upgrade Chadli and Andros". Sadly our problems are a lot greater than that. I am most worried that the much hailed "high tempo, high pressing" game seems to have completely disappeared.
 
pardon?

it was a general comment aimed at the tired cobblers of 'excuses' directed at anyone who dare offer up an opinion that isn't "the manager is crap" "player X is crap" etc

You said reasons are more constructive, yet I didn't see you offer any. That is all.
 
the league cup final thing should be no excuse whatsoever, i mean back in 2010 we lost to Man Utd in the league cup final but still went on and qualified for the CL by finishing 4th

not even the embarrassment of losing the Fa cup semi later on against Portsmouth had a negative effect either, we still beat Arsanal, beat Chelski, went to Emirates Marketing Project and won

there are no excuses for what is happening now....yes we didnt expect to be doing so well this season, but fact is we were, kudos to the players and Poch, however it would have been nice to make a real attempt to finish the season just as strongly.

Back in 2010, we had a prime mix of youthful and experienced players - the latter picked up the former when their heads went down, and the former put in the effort that allowed the latter to shine. The average age of that squad was somewhere north of 27, if I remember correctly, and to top off the mix, it had a selection of truly world-class talents like King and Modric, exciting potential stars like Bale, and steady, significantly talented players like Crouch, Defoe, Keane, Corluka and Pav to fill out the roster.

Later on the squad got older in profile, but I think we hit the sweet spot between experience and youth in 2010.

Now, I think we're very unbalanced on that front. We have the youngest matchday eleven in the league on average, and while that brings us some benefits (our energy over the first fifty games, for example), it's also fraught with implications when it comes to collective on-field character and leadership. Experience brings wisdom. It also brings knowledge of when to conserve your strength and when to use it, and the ability to keep your head in difficult situations. And while Bentaleb and Mason, for example, have leadership traits and aggression in abundance, I don't see them having the wisdom to pick their passes in difficult moments, or the credibility to pick up their team-mates when things aren't going our way, or the calming attitude that experienced heads like King and Gudjohnsen displayed in 2010.

All that can only come with time. And since a record sixty-five million pound profit is infinitely more important to Levy than any of these considerations, I expect that we'll only see more temperamental displays like these as the seasons roll by and our squad gets even younger (and of course cheaper). Gutter Boy seems earnest in wanting the likes of Winks and Onomah to come into the side immediately, but if Poch is given a squad like this next season (and it's very, very, very possible) -

--------------------------------------(Lloris/Vorm/Archer)------------------------------

(Walker/Yedlin)---------(Fazio/Dier)-------------(Verts/Wimmer)----------(Rose/Davies)

-----------------------------(Bentaleb/Alli)-----------(Winks/Mason)------------------

(Lamela/Townsend)------------------(Eriksen/Onomah)----------------------(Chadli/Pritchard)

-------------------------------------------(Kane/Soldado/Ings)---------------------------

.....and is then expected to get that squad performing consistently, I can't see how anything other than disappointment can result. That is a stupendously young and inexperienced side, and on top of that is shorn of an awful lot of quality in key areas. And yet, with a full season under his belt, Poch will be expected to achieve results and consistency with a squad like that, results that will be expected to at least match those that Redknapp achieved with a far better, far more expensive, far more experienced side in 2010.

Again, I've talked about this before, but this is the danger of giving a chairman like Levy the option to force the manager to adopt youth team players en masse in lieu of buying players on the market - given his history, there is next to no chance that he won't use the undisputed talent in the youth side as an excuse to stop buying pricey players entirely. As long as the record profits keep piling up, of course. And Poch will pay for that mentality, as will the next poor schmuck that replaces him, and the next schmuck after that.

At a club like ours, with pretensions of dining at the top table and absurdly, ravenously high ticket prices charged far out of proportion to our actual status as a football club, there must always be a balance between the youth we are willing to bring through and the experienced, quality players we need to guide those young players through the difficult stages of maturing into great footballers. Sadly, our enthusiasm for the youth team lads (and I'm equally guilty of this, I think) and pride at seeing local lads like Kane and Mason come good will give Levy the excuse he needs to dump that balance, and we'll see more performances like this as a consequence of that resulting imbalance.

These processes seem inevitable to me. But we shouldn't lose perspective over it, and start blaming Poch for these things - they aren't of his making, and they largely aren't within his control.
 
Or else only someone with an obvious and crystal clear agenda would state that Villa, and their manager, did nothing right and won because we just sat down on the turf and let them have a shot into an empty goal.
We pretty much did.

We gave them the ball, stood off the men on the ball and then our defender didn't jump to try and stop the cross or block the shot.

There's not a lot more we could have done to help them score - we even had Townsend on the pitch for most of the match.
 
really? then fcuk them all off then........with that attitude we are on the road to nowhere. Sell them all, sack Poch, i mean why not if anyway its just "typical Spurs in self-destruct mode".

It doesnt matter who manages, who plays, we are just a bunch of lillywhite losers and forever will be :)
I wouldn't write them all off yet. Although the attitude is absolutely wrong and there should be some kind of punishment.

An inherent culture is a very difficult thing to shift. Changing personnel usually doesn't do it unless you change everyone at once. The last two PL matches have been so much like UEFA matches it's unreal. Our players have had the same attitude that if they just stroll about and put in half a shift it will be enough.

If this had developed under Poch I'd be concerned but it's been around since at least Redknapp's time, if not longer. It'll take more than a season to breed put that kind of mentality.
 
We pretty much did.

We gave them the ball, stood off the men on the ball and then our defender didn't jump to try and stop the cross or block the shot.

There's not a lot more we could have done to help them score - we even had Townsend on the pitch for most of the match.

They did also hit the post and miss an absolute sitter 1on1 with Vorm. Think they deserved it and it was a familiar loss to a lower table side willing to scrap and hit their forwards quickly.

As for mentality, I think the players are in a bit of a rut rather than just dossing around. This is the first full season for a few of them, I think they are fading and they feel it's all a bit of a struggle right now. Get the games under their belt, I think we'll be ok next season.
 
We pretty much did.

We gave them the ball, stood off the men on the ball and then our defender didn't jump to try and stop the cross or block the shot.

There's not a lot more we could have done to help them score - we even had Townsend on the pitch for most of the match.

Like anything else in life, the truth is neither black nor white but a shade of grey...

Yes we stood off, yes we gave them the ball, but they also put in a good shift, played with a striker who we couldn't live with and came prepared with an excellent game plan.

But knowing you, you will never admit the last three.
 
Like anything else in life, the truth is neither black nor white but a shade of grey...

Yes we stood off, yes we gave them the ball, but they also put in a good shift, played with a striker who we couldn't live with and came prepared with an excellent game plan.

But knowing you, you will never admit the last three.

Woah slow down, giving the opponent's manager credit is not allowed on this site, we must only blame the incompetence of player x or player y.
 
really? then fcuk them all off then........with that attitude we are on the road to nowhere. Sell them all, sack Poch, i mean why not if anyway its just "typical Spurs in self-destruct mode".

It doesnt matter who manages, who plays, we are just a bunch of lillywhite losers and forever will be :)

...I suspect if the manager has his way, half the side you saw yesterday will not be here next season...
 
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