• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

What went wrong today?

Viper said:
Inverted wingers don't work unless you've got a Bale or a Ronaldo.
Click to expand...


from what we were being led to believe by many on here that person quite frankly was suppopsed to be lamela. They've since back tracked him into project status so we wont be getting it from him anytime soon probably. certainly not consistently

no we have to get it from people that are ready now...and you have to ask yourself who aside from siggy is the consistent goal threat from the wide position...

answers on a post card
 
SpurMeUp said:
I'd like to see all three - Sandro Paulinho and Dembele on when we need it. Did Dembele play midweek?

I'd also like to see us pass and move, getting closer to each other working the ball through a tight defence. This would suit Eriksen who didn't get a sniff.

Funking infuriating. The most important question: can we learn from this and come back better?

Over to you AVB.
Click to expand...

I think that are all too simular, Paulie is the better footballer and Sandro the best defensively, Dembele is a strange one hes strong and can retain possesion but he slows the game down is not creative or a goal threat, all imo though mate, we have to learn from this, patience is a virtue but the way we play is turgid to watch, the answer is Ericksen but he goes missing in games, we miss Rose big time as well.
 
That result had been coming. It doesn't mean we're a bad team or AVB is a bad manager. It's simply the result of a well organised team with a game plan getting a win against a talented but inexperienced side still finding their feet in the PL. Throw in a 2000 mile round trip to Russia .... I'm not going to lose any sleep over this result. I saw it coming a mile away.
 
billyiddo said:
More an attitude problem for me - played at 50%, thought we'd won the game before it began. Hopefully this will be the ultimate kick up the back side and we don't treat games like this again.
Click to expand...

This was it for me.

Sure there were tactical and line-up decisions that could have been made differently that could have made a difference, but that wasn't the main problem.

We just weren't there, you could see it in the opening 10 minutes, we weren't pressing the way we have been, we weren't passing with any tempo or purpose. We seemed happy to pass it around aimlessly and control the game at 0-0 and wait for something to happen. That's not good enough. It's the first of these performances we've seen this season, previously they have been a lot more frequent. Let's hope the players and the management team recognize this for what it was and do their utmost to keep this from becoming a habit as it has been in years past.

We looked sharper at the start of the second half, created some chances and looked by far the better side on the pitch (as we should). But quickly the intensity dropped off again and we looked more clueless.

Who is to blame? For me it has to be shared between management and the players. Part of AVB's job is to motivate the lads to keep this from happening, but some of our players are experienced and should be leaders, they need to shoulder some of the blame and make sure amongst themselves that they get their attitude, our levels of intensity and aggression right from the first whistle.
 
Pirate55 said:
We've just spent over £100m on new players. You can hardly blame the Chairman!
Click to expand...

Exactly. AVB has been backed in the transfer market more than any Spurs manager I can remember. He was given what he wanted it's up to him to get this team to gel.
 
Jurgen the German said:
Why the **** did we let Ekotto go on loan? Every season we do something brainless like this. Whether he is suited to our style of play now is a debate for another day but he's ten times better than Naughton.

I'm trying not to get too carried away as it's still early in the season and the side needs time to fully click, but we need to get a move on. 70 points will be minimum the to get top 4.

Dembele is going to have to make way for Sandro IMO. We bought Paulinho because we lack goals from midfield. It's one thing that he can't make the final pass, but most of the time he doesn't even see it. There was one occasion in the first half when he could have slipped Defoe through but choose to play the ball to whoever was on the wing.

I am still unconvinced about AVB when it comes to tactics. Last season wasn't really his fault as we didn't get Moutinho so we were sorely lacking in creativity. We relied on Bale's brilliance to win us games. But I've seen us play poorly at home under AVB at times and more often than not, if we start off bad, we rarely improve and we usually draw or get beat. He doesn't seem to know how to stop the other team from dominating.
Click to expand...

On Ekotto: if we are going to play Rose as first choice (and I think most can agree that he suits the system better, in terms of getting to the byline and providing width up and down) then you don't want an experienced pro that is unsuited to the system hanging round the club. It's bad for team spirit, it's bad for intensity. Naughton, for everything that he is, knows his place.

I think this result actually he buys AVB some 'fairness' points from the squad. He was as good as his word, Defoe played well in the cups, got his chance in the league and blew it. But players know they can now work their way in. I said in the match thread before kick off that a decision like this may be worth dropped points on the day because we may gain more in the future from the added motivation. I stand by that.

What went wrong today? Just an awful day at the office. We weren't at it. We lost the duels and our passing was awful. We couldn't do the basics. I don't think there was any magical tactic or substitution that would have changed it today, I think the squad was lured into complacency because everything had gone a little too well for them and it's cost us now. Hopefully it's the kick up the **** to not let it happen again, an experience that a lot of the new players need to go through to realise exact what it takes to win something in this league.
 
billyiddo said:
More an attitude problem for me - played at 50%, thought we'd won the game before it began. Hopefully this will be the ultimate kick up the back side and we don't treat games like this again.
Click to expand...

Would have to agree with this also. A lot of players just drifting through this game. I'm surprised Eriksen stayed on as long as he did, as not only was in ineffective, I thought he seemed quite lazy today. If we're going to be giving people a kick up the **** (like Soldado seemed to be getting today) then we should have hauled him off earlier and gave Holtby a chance. Preferably when it was 0-0 and we could still alter the course of the game.
 
Apart from just about everything, the roots can be traced to Thursday. I wanted no first team regulars there and we stupidly took and played far too many IMO. This in turn meant in our second half today, too many players looked lame. As I said at the time, it was madness - and we paid for it today big time.

Other major issues:

1. Two DM's at home against a team with no forwards. We only need one and preferably Sandro in these type games.

2. Tempo. We start slowly and get slower. We must press more up front with several players hunting down the opposition.

3 Inverted wingers. Only ok if we have width provided by overlapping full backs. Today we didn't.

4. Set pieces. Defensively poor with no man on the far post. re attacking, no invention or threat, see the corners thread.

5. No plan B. poor selection and poor subs again by AVB. As many on here pointed out, why not put Townsend on the left and use Walker as a right wing to try and deliver effective crosses to Defoe/Soldado.

6. No Bale to bail us out.
 
the dza said:
Would have to agree with this also. A lot of players just drifting through this game. I'm surprised Eriksen stayed on as long as he did, as not only was in ineffective, I thought he seemed quite lazy today. If we're going to be giving people a kick up the **** (like Soldado seemed to be getting today) then we should have hauled him off earlier and gave Holtby a chance. Preferably when it was 0-0 and we could still alter the course of the game.
Click to expand...

Really don't agree with that. We've taken him off twice already in the league, I don't want him to be the fall guy whenever we are playing poorly as a side or not creating enough. Holtby doesn't have to be a like for like sub for Eriksen. Never understood why we took VDV off so many times either, yes his fitness was a problem sometimes, but he was a match winner and Eriksen possesses the ability to unlock teams. By all means if it's not his day take him off every now and then though.
 
Naughton16 said:
No more ridiculous than blaming a manager who just achieved a club record 73 pts in the PL.
Click to expand...

How many times are people going to keep on repeating this in a desperate attempt to praise AVB. Last season was a FAILURE because we finished 5th - the "record" number of points was .........er..........pointless. Its league position every year that counts and its the total number of points that season against the total amount your rivals have got. Who cares that we got a record number of points when it meant failure.

Wouldnt we all rather get less points this year and finish top 4.
 
Pirate55 said:
Apart from just about everything, the roots can be traced to Thursday. I wanted no first team regulars there and we stupidly took and played far too many IMO. This in turn meant in our second half today, too many players looked lame. As I said at the time, it was madness - and we paid for it today big time.

Other major issues:

1. Two DM's at home against a team with no forwards. We only need one and preferably Sandro in these type games.

2. Tempo. We start slowly and get slower. We must press more up front with several players hunting down the opposition.

3 Inverted wingers. Only ok if we have width provided by overlapping full backs. Today we didn't.

4. Set pieces. Defensively poor with no man on the far post. re attacking, no invention or threat, see the corners thread.

5. No plan B. poor selection and poor subs again by AVB. As many on here pointed out, why not put Townsend on the left and use Walker as a right wing to try and deliver effective crosses to Defoe/Soldado.

6. No Bale to bail us out.
Click to expand...

1. was true against Cardiff and Norwich (accepting your definition of a DM for the sake of argument). 3 was true against Cardiff. Obviously Cardiff was away, but it played out quite similarly to today with us dominating possession and them being happy to sit back.

Those performances to me illustrate that we should be able to play well with the line-up that started the game today. We didn't, something other than the tactical and the line-up was the problem.
 
Jurgen the German said:
Really don't agree with that. We've taken him off twice already in the league, I don't want him to be the fall guy whenever we are playing poorly as a side or not creating enough. Holtby doesn't have to be a like for like sub for Eriksen. Never understood why we took VDV off so many times either, yes his fitness was a problem sometimes, but he was a match winner and Eriksen possesses the ability to unlock teams. By all means if it's not his day take him off every now and then though.
Click to expand...

It's a fine line between taking players off to try and change the game and leaving them on to build their confidence/hope they produce the moment of quality that they are capable of. For me, Holtby came off the bench really late v Cardiff and changed the game. Today just seemed like Eriksen was playing with a lack of intensity, once it became apparent that it was going to be a hard day at the office. He's a young player though, and he can bounce back and learn from such experiences. IMO, Holtby deserved a chance to build on his pretty decent form and, as a team, we needed players to be at the races.
 
shaney said:
How many times are people going to keep on repeating this in a desperate attempt to praise AVB. Last season was a FAILURE because we finished 5th - the "record" number of points was .........er..........pointless. Its league position every year that counts and its the total number of points that season against the total amount your rivals have got. Who cares that we got a record number of points when it meant failure.

Wouldnt we all rather get less points this year and finish top 4.
Click to expand...

I would rather get a record low for CL qualification of 55 pts and 4th rather than 73 pts and 5th.

Does nothing to undermine the achievment of that level of consistency.
 
Gotta love these posters who never show their face when we're getting results but can't log on soon enough when something goes wrong.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
On Ekotto: if we are going to play Rose as first choice (and I think most can agree that he suits the system better, in terms of getting to the byline and providing width up and down) then you don't want an experienced pro that is unsuited to the system hanging round the club. It's bad for team spirit, it's bad for intensity. Naughton, for everything that he is, knows his place.

I think this result actually he buys AVB some 'fairness' points from the squad. He was as good as his word, Defoe played well in the cups, got his chance in the league and blew it. But players know they can now work their way in. I said in the match thread before kick off that a decision like this may be worth dropped points on the day because we may gain more in the future from the added motivation. I stand by that.

What went wrong today? Just an awful day at the office. We weren't at it. We lost the duels and our passing was awful. We couldn't do the basics. I don't think there was any magical tactic or substitution that would have changed it today, I think the squad was lured into complacency because everything had gone a little too well for them and it's cost us now. Hopefully it's the kick up the **** to not let it happen again, an experience that a lot of the new players need to go through to realise exact what it takes to win something in this league.
Click to expand...

Naughton knows his place, but he isn't good enough. If AVB can't see that then I worry for us whenever Rose is injured, how sad is it that we are all desperate for Danny Rose to come back?

I don't know if one substitution would have magically saved the game, but there's a number of examples of home performances where we played poorly in the first half and barely improved in the 2nd half, in some cases we got worse:

Norwich last season
Wigan last season
Fulham
Today obviously

I hope you are right about this defeat motivating us. Our next game is very winnable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back