***TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR vs Palace OMT***

[FolkestoneSpur]

Jan Paul van Hecke’s goal was the first header scored from a seated position in Premier League history
Stat via Squawka

....... you'll never sing that

 

[Surfless]

Yeah, think the days have passed when Mitchell and Rico Henry would be current strong homegrown additions to our squad. We seem to be in the next phase now.

I think we all can see that we've put LB into transition mode with Udogie, Robbo and even Davies as we buy ourselves some more time. We have Souza out on loan grabbing some experience as well.

I couldn't even predict our next move at LB.

Our next move is don't move I think. Robertson will think himself capable for two seasons (we will see of course), Udogie needs to just get fit and stay fit and Davies is a long way below what we need as a regular full back - I'd prefer to see VDV played there and Sensesi brought in to the backline if we had a proper shortage.

I've seen very little of Souza to know if he can do it in the PL

 

[K.D.D.D.D.Soc]

Our next move is don't move I think. Robertson will think himself capable for two seasons (we will see of course), Udogie needs to just get fit and stay fit and Davies is a long way below what we need as a regular full back - I'd prefer to see VDV played there and Sensesi brought in to the backline if we had a proper shortage.

I've seen very little of Souza to know if he can do it in the PL

Has anyone seen much of Souza?

 

[FatBloke]

Loved the game but was left wondering what we could do better to get that second goal earlier in these types of game. I don't mean this in a negative way. Perhaps we were just unlucky that it didn't happen earlier anyway. Perhaps these less than clinical mid-range shots we had will improve as well.

I was lucky cos I watched the game on repeat. I'm sure those of you watching it live had some anxiety about the 1-0 scoreline for a reasonably large period.

Anyway 10 points from 12 in October is great. I don't think anyone could see that coming. 9 from 9 in November would be great before te tough December comes along.

The simple, if flippant, answer, is to get a proper bloody striker!

Us Spurs fan have been spoilt for so long. In my time as a fan, no matter how brick the rest of the team has been, we've never been far from a proper goalscorer to paper over the cracks. Sheringham, Ferdinand, Defoe, Keane, Berbatov, Bale, Son, Kane. Sure we've had some dross in that position but, up 'til now, there's usually been someone half-decent as well.

Replace Solanke with any of the above and yesterday's game would have been settled a lot sooner.

Solanke was bought for his pressing stats, Richi because...well, I guess he was available. Decent blokes, and I can't fault their effort or heart, but they're not in the same league as Kane and Sonny. To be fair, not many are.

 

[revlis]

It’s been largely ruined by FIFA imo.

It’s now bloated, overly-long, primarily a money-making scheme, and the ridiculous amount of qualifying (and non-qualifying) international games in the years preceding the tournament lead to overkill.

I watched very little of this year’s World Cup, and I watch very little international football nowadays.

Despite FIFA attempts to turn it into a joke, it's still quite obviously the biggest event in the world.

 

[Surfless]

The simple, if flippant, answer, is to get a proper bloody striker!

Us Spurs fan have been spoilt for so long. In my time as a fan, no matter how brick the rest of the team has been, we've never been far from a proper goalscorer to paper over the cracks. Sheringham, Ferdinand, Defoe, Keane, Berbatov, Bale, Son, Kane. Sure we've had some dross in that position but, up 'til now, there's usually been someone half-decent as well.

Replace Solanke with any of the above and yesterday's game would have been settled a lot sooner.

Solanke was bought for his pressing stats, Richi because...well, I guess he was available. Decent blokes, and I can't fault their effort or heart, but they're not in the same league as Kane and Sonny. To be fair, not many are.

Richi was bought to provide cover for Kane, at a time when we'd tried non proven overseas backups and the only one who has been even close to being decent was Llorente. We needed someone who could actually score and in fairness to Richi vs say Janssen or such who were terrible as they came from outside of the PL. Richi was not bought to replace Kane, that is for sure!

 

[Muttley]

The simple, if flippant, answer, is to get a proper bloody striker!

Us Spurs fan have been spoilt for so long. In my time as a fan, no matter how brick the rest of the team has been, we've never been far from a proper goalscorer to paper over the cracks. Sheringham, Ferdinand, Defoe, Keane, Berbatov, Bale, Son, Kane. Sure we've had some dross in that position but, up 'til now, there's usually been someone half-decent as well.

Replace Solanke with any of the above and yesterday's game would have been settled a lot sooner.

Solanke was bought for his pressing stats, Richi because...well, I guess he was available. Decent blokes, and I can't fault their effort or heart, but they're not in the same league as Kane and Sonny. To be fair, not many are.

I'd sort of forgotten about Ferdinand to be fair. The QPR or Saudi Sportswashing Machine Les was some striker. The Spurs one, not so much. Clive Allen in this setup would have some fun. Lineker and Archibald. Now that would be great.

I take your point though. We do miss a scary striker. What's more interesting is that we lost the 30 goal Kane and scored more goals in Ange's first season. Not by much to be fair but we demonstrated that the goals can be shared around in the right setup, and of course the distribution of workload on the players and the roles changed with that as well. I'm hoping we are now starting to see that with Roberto with Gray, JPvH, Tel, Maddison, Marmoush and Solanke scoring our October goals.

We also need our midfielders to sharpen up their shooting. Too many shots go high or wide this season. We need to work the keeper more.

It will be intriguing to see what strikers we do go for to be fair. El Kroupi probably tops the list.

 

[Surfless]

I'd sort of forgotten about Ferdinand to be fair. The QPR or Saudi Sportswashing Machine Les was some striker. The Spurs one, not so much. Clive Allen in this setup would have some fun. Lineker and Archibald. Now that would be great.

I take your point though. We do miss a scary striker. What's more interesting is that we lost the 30 goal Kane and scored more goals in Ange's first season. Not by much to be fair but we demonstrated that the goals can be shared around in the right setup, and of course the distribution of workload on the players and the roles changed with that as well. I'm hoping we are now starting to see that with Roberto with Gray, JPvH, Tel, Maddison, Marmoush and Solanke scoring our October goals.

We also need our midfielders to sharpen up their shooting. Too many shots go high or wide this season. We need to work the keeper more.

It will be intriguing to see what strikers we do go for to be fair. El Kroupi probably tops the list.

I recall Ferdinand saying that the place was a nightmare when he arrived and I don't think he really enjoyed being at the Club - sad as he was a boyhood fan.

We're creeping towards being the finished article at the moment, and one of the hardest things in football is scoring - this team have been shy on that front for about 2 years now - bar the season where Johnson was set up to finish on the back post from the marauding wing play from Sonny etc. It will go one of two ways honestly - either Solanke will find his shooting boots by January or we will be in the market for a new one - a process that has three caveats - 1 - its hard to do this time of the year. 2 - we don't actually have room in the squad without shipping someone else out, and 3 - the best prospect in the lower divisions was owned by us a few weeks ago and will likely decide he does not want to come back if asked.

I think we may end up in a Firmino/Salah scenario soon where the player who plays furthest forward is a false nine or a ten who drops deeper and has two wingers and a AM run past him. In which case Marmoush becomes our main forward. We need Savio, Odobert and a fully fit Deke before we will fully understand what Robert Downey Zerbi has in mind for the front line.

 

[Raziel]

I recall Ferdinand saying that the place was a nightmare when he arrived and I don't think he really enjoyed being at the Club - sad as he was a boyhood fan.

We're creeping towards being the finished article at the moment, and one of the hardest things in football is scoring - this team have been shy on that front for about 2 years now - bar the season where Johnson was set up to finish on the back post from the marauding wing play from Sonny etc. It will go one of two ways honestly - either Solanke will find his shooting boots by January or we will be in the market for a new one - a process that has three caveats - 1 - its hard to do this time of the year. 2 - we don't actually have room in the squad without shipping someone else out, and 3 - the best prospect in the lower divisions was owned by us a few weeks ago and will likely decide he does not want to come back if asked.

I think we may end up in a Firmino/Salah scenario soon where the player who plays furthest forward is a false nine or a ten who drops deeper and has two wingers and a AM run past him. In which case Marmoush becomes our main forward. We need Savio, Odobert and a fully fit Deke before we will fully understand what Robert Downey Zerbi has in mind for the front line.

We have to be in the market for a striker, Richi is effectively gone, I suspect if Savio/Tel/Marmoush are all capable of playing LW and Wilson is continuing to recover, we should send back Mudryk in January as well.

My preference would be someone obviously a little more clinical, but also some pace.

 

[Surfless]

We have to be in the market for a striker, Richi is effectively gone, I suspect if Savio/Tel/Marmoush are all capable of playing LW and Wilson is continuing to recover, we should send back Mudryk in January as well.

My preference would be someone obviously a little more clinical, but also some pace.

I don't know if RDZ will accept that Mudryk is a failure - we are likely stuck with him for the whole season I would say.

I need to check what happens with Odobert at this point - not sure of his status. EDIT - he's homegrown, just checked. So not as big an issue integrating him. How we add players now though I don't know as most of the squad is for keeps...

 

[totalspurs]

I really like El Kroupi, but the only way that I see we can have a chance to sign him will be out bidding (over bidding) the other teams. The question is are we prepared to play that card?

I think Arsenal will bid max £80m according to reports and others big teams like Barcelona or PSG will test Bournemouth with 70-80m and flex their brand name muscle. It means we probably need to open with a 100-115m bid and blow everyone out the water. Because I don't think we would be an attractive option coming in with a matching bid.

It's a strategy of intent, similar to what Fergie did in his first few seasons at united when they have been shiyte for decades. And what City did when they got suddenly rich overnight. It's a crazy move but a move of intent to get one of the hottest in demand young players. I don't think city or Liverpool will go for him. Maybe Chelsea might match our bid out of spite but I can't see it happening.

I wonder if the board has balls to try it, otherwise we have no chance of getting Kroupi anymore. His stock is too high now.