Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Gent

The same 'blip' happened earlier in the season for a run of 8 games. Add to that our past 5 displays in all competitions and you've hardly got a 'blip'. More like a rash that you probably should've showed the doctor months ago but didn't bother, and now it has spread.

We are slightly better off now than we were at this point last season. Same round of the FA Cup. Slightly poorer performance in the EL round of 32. Two points better off in the league with +2 in the GD department. I mean, we're really digging the bottom of the trough here for comparative positives.

As for being in 'better shape'...the squad looks weaker and shallower now than at any point last season. We removed useful players in Chadli, Mason and Bentaleb and replaced them with unproven, seemingly incapable alternatives.

The bigger worry for me - as it should be for any sane person - is that United, City and Liverpool are all far better off this time this season than they were a year ago. We need to get our act together and fast as these 'blips' could well end up costing us top 4.

 

Reading that I have never been so glad that my birthday is outside the football season. You'd think you could just have one bloody day a year when you're not a Spurs fan...

Glad the rest of it was better.

 

This is just getting sadder and sadder. It might be a measure of how bad that performance was that the thing I'm most upset about is the previously-unimagined capacity for Spurs to totally **** up a good birthday.

 

My glass is rarely half full PS.

I'm more worried about every season, we all have the same kind of conversation after we get knocked out of the cups or when we fluff the 6 pointers. That's another season where we got nothing to sell to this 'Golden Generation' of stars we have at our club. That's how we lose players. We have to start winning things its as simple as that or this crop of players (I mean the core of the squad) will find pastures anew. Then we will spend the next decade dreaming about what potential the next set of youngsters have....rinse repeat.

1 FA Cup in 25 years, a couple of League cups, massive underachievers. I know its not easy to win trophies and we have to balance books etc....but this is football and as a fan I'm under nourished to have only had 3 cups to celebrate in 25 years. Yes we are not entitled to win anything.....but this is Spurs....I'm afraid I expect more.

Why are we devoid of confidence after a loss to Pool, according to MP. Not many teams will beat Pool at Anfield. If anything they should be chomping at the bits to re iterate their hunger to bring success to Spurs....instead MP doesn't know his arse from his elbow when it comes to cups and its embarrassing to say we can't get a grip after a defeat. About time MP learned from his mistakes. He needs to get a Psychologist in or whatever... But its embarrassing to lose confidence to the extent where we can't ever put a game down to a 'blip' its always some deep rooted excuse..why didn't Pool lose confidence having not scored a goal in 2017, lost 3 games in a row at Anfield and the team with the meanest defence is coming to town. Instead they thought they are going to teach us a lesson. The soft under belly is in the DNA the more we nourish it with excuses(not saying you make the excuses, but the club and MP and the players ride on it) the more ingrained it becomes.

MP has done wonders for us but I don't think that gives him reason to make excuses constantly about the brain farts we all sitting on Not606 can see coming a mile off.

 

I had family commitments last night so didn't see the game and by reading up on here I didn't miss much.I was brought up with spurs being known at the time as a cup side we always seemed to be in semi finals and finals but we're never a regular top 2 or 3 side but it didn't matter we used to win cups now we don't even come close.I remember when spurs used to play 70 odd games in a season and no one used to get rested or complain of being tired. Ffs these are professional athletes now who are supposed to be fitter and stronger than ever.I wish these had a month of doing a proper days work like most of us on here have to .it pisses me off when they get all that money to put the famous spurs shirt on and then don't even try or couldn't give a ****.too many foreign players in football nowadays who don't realise what supporters go through and don't understand the way of life we have .when we lose it hurts and you go to work with the hump and get the piss taken all day .when we lose all the players think about is their sports cars and their bank balance..rant over

 

We have lived within our means and not had hundreds and hundreds of millions splurged on us. Without the rise of the £££ clubs we would have done a lot better up to now. It's not an even playing field but we are encouraged to analyse it like it is. Comparatively those Sky favourites should have vast amounts of more criticism because with the amount they've spent they should be doing even better. (That's people like you Guardiola - how hard is it to be the best manager in the world with the most money spent? Could you do what Dyche or Eddie Howe has done?) The fact that we are even competing is something to be proud of, and the fact that on our day we can beat any of them is fantastic. That was not always the case (people seem to forget how **** we were up until comparatively recently). Not excusing yesterday's performance, just adding perspective.

 

This is why I give Pool a lot of credit. They might not be as dominant as they used to be but by god do they know what games they have to turn up in because it means a lot to the fans. We still bounce off the Chelsea win and forget the job in hand...the gulf in quality last night would have seen the cream rise to the top over 90 minutes, but when you lack drive, urgency and a pig headedness that won't accept defeat...then you will trip up. I seriously think they need some full time shrinks at WHL.

 

Did anybody notice how Dembele was hounded last night at least 2 players and often 3 surrounded him every time he had the ball. This was Belguim they know his threat. Shirts were pulled throughout the game and kicking at the heels of players was ok. Fair enough Spurs were not good but this kind of Euro 'cheating' has been going on for ever. Even our great 60/61 side were knocked out of Europe by this method. The only way to deal with it is to play extremely defensively on the away leg and hammer them at home. If you go with the attitude that we are Spurs and we are a top side you will get a bloody nose.

 

Maybe I'm just in a foul mood but I do wish Dembele , having held off 15 men and turned on a sixpence would then release the ball instead of running around till he runs out of grass or plods a pee roller towards their keeper.

I agree we have to be savvy when playing away, but we aren't even that. We seem devoid of confidence when we have to 'do a job' every single time. Its the manner of application that bugs me Spurf.

 

I agree it looks like we are not trying when the reality is just lack of nous lack of being street wise. You can see Kane and Deli are almost affronted when they are fouled. They need to toughen up mentally, expect such stuff and become more determined. All very easy to say of course. Hopefully MP is learning as well because he is obviously quite naive in this area.

 

You don't think that getting even slightly better relative to 5 clubs with more expensive players and more experienced managers is a sign we are going in the right direction? Why do you think it is a sign of something going wrong? Keeping 'useful players' like Chadli, Mason and Bentaleb wouldn't have improved us. One or two of Wanyama, Winks, Nkoudou, Sissoko and Janssen turning into a real first choice really would. We need to continue taking risks to improve as standing still won't work.

 

On the long term I really think in the return leg we need a win most of all but also put in a solid performance and get the Wembley hoodoo of our backs. I worry about us playing home league games at Wembley after the lacklustre performances in the champions league.we have a good chance of beating anyone at the lane but at Wembley I'm not so sure.

 

We have hopefully killed off the Wembley hoodoo. We won our last game there and scored three goals. Now that we have worked it out we can go on a long unbeaten run there

 

Due to making a complete bollocks of posting this first time round and because it took a while to write I'm re-posting it. Also, if I don't rant a bit more about last night the cat's going to be bruised.

 

I would say that the first team and MP's ability to utilise it effectively have definitely improved - through a combination of Wanyama being an excellent addition plus a group of talented young players who are now more experienced.

But the wider squad, and again - MP's ability to utilise it effectively - has stagnated since last season. And we have paid over £50m for that stagnation.

Not having a go at you PS but the hope that Sissoko and Janssen will come good is remniscent of the hopes we had for Paulinho and Soldado. Just isn't going to happen for so many reasons and if the Dutchman doesn't start against Fulham (I think Son will lead the line), there's no greater proof that the manager agrees with me.

As the teams around us spend fortunes to improve, we cannot afford to be waiting around for players to 'come good'. Had enough of that waiting for Lamela to remember how to play.

 

It's not a perfect world CK, for example United have had to wait for Pogba to show his true colours, some players slot in straight away, others, especially younger players, can take more time. No body ever gets all signings right. Our current squad is testament to good success in recent times, with lots of good signings. We have probably been better at this game than most in the PL so I am not convinced by your argument.

 

I fully agree with points made by Power and CK.

We are in a blip, that's it, we know we won't win every game and as ****ed off as I was last night at watching the **** we all did, I know that that's not the usual Spurs and things will eventually 'click' again. We're forever progressing and although there'll be stumbles along the way, the work Poch, his staff and the players are putting in is extremely impressive and I do truly believe that we're not far off of a trophy winning side, it may not be this season (personally think we can if we get our act together) but I'd say within the next 12-18 months we'll very possibly have a trophy to our name

However, as CK mentioned - and it's similar to what I just put on the transfer thread - we're no longer a team who can wait around for players to come good, Lamela was the last player we were able to afford that too, we're now a club where aspirations are the highest it's been in the Prem and sentiment needs to go out the window for players who don't seem good enough. Sissoko has been pony, there's no defending of it now and the sooner Erik returns the better because that would then mean we have Alli, Eriksen, Son and Lamela vying for what may just be two positions (if we go back to 3-4-2-1) and I'm more than happy with those options, **** even if it's three starting positions then it still leaves one great option on the bench which Sissoko won't be apart of. Janssen too, he may be young and only experiencing his first season in the Prem but when a £17m striker can't make a match day squad in the EL and doesn't even look as good as a makeshift number 9 (Son) then you have to scratch your head.

The squad situation is tough though, I get CK says that we had better players last season in Chadli, Mason and Nabs but two of that three wanted out, only Mason was seemingly "forced" out and that was down to Poch implying that Winks' development was the cause of it, which in fairness, is paying dividends as Winks looks like he's got a great career ahead of him if he continues his progression. So in theory only one of those were poorly replaced, because Wanyama's arrival more than made up for Bentaleb's loss, Winks has stepped up to replace Mason but GKN/ Sissoko haven't replaced Chadli, while Janssen just makes it feel like last season again where Kane was the only striker. Transfers will always be hit and miss, this summer it seems we had a massive hit but three misses, two of those (Sissoko and Janssen) I think will be gone in the coming summer. Hopefully Poch, our newly recruited Steve Hitchen, Levy and whoever else can bring in some more 'Wanyama's' in the summer while shifting those not good enough.

 

Our problems started before we lost at Liverpool. Since the Citeh game we have been all over the place. That's particularly worrying since we didn't lose that game. Sure we got battered but we kept our heads up enough to mount some attacks as Citeh lost focus and tired and we came away with a point. Given hw we've played since, one could be excused for thinking that we'd lost by 5 or 6.

Our problems are away from WHL. We've won 4 games in the PL away - Stoke, Southampton, Watford and Boro and away at CSKA. In nearly all of those games there were periods when we came under the cosh, mostly at the start. We got the 'run around' from Southampton and Stoke in the first 15 minutes. Liverpool tore us apart from the off as did Citeh.

We come out slowly and it's hard to get back into a game when you're being outplayed and fall behind. We need to come out and be solid at the very least. Silence the crowd and build from there. It's not acceptable to keep coming out so ineffectually against teams that are chomping at the bit to get at us. Get hold of the ball and play. If we can't do that, then go long and play for position in the other team's half. Stop all of the bollocks involving Hugo giving away the ball trying to make passes to defenders who are tightly marked. Let's have some pragmatism.

Last night was another 'hide behind the sofa' away performance in Europe. We look clueless even when we have our best team out and this goes back well before Mauricio Pochettino. European teams are generally better at keeping the ball and the press doesn't work so well .Surely, we can work on being defensively organised and playing to our strengths of pace out wide and having Dele And Harry Kane to put the ball in the net? I accept that having Ben Davies [whose confidence looks shot currently] in place of Danny Rose hampers our best means of attack but I was expecting GKN to play to redress the balance.

If a place in the CL is our goal for this season, then we should have seen Wimmer, GKN and Janssen last night. Playing most of of the first team but with no real pace and no invention from the flanks and without the passing of Christian Eriksen was a bizarre experiment that can be consigned to the container marked 'Never Again'.

Let's decide what we want to achieve, because there aren't enough players MP trusts to go on 3 fronts, and concentrate on that. Otherwise we are going to blow any chance of succeeding at anything.

 

I agree with most of that but if we can't afford to wait for new signings to come good then we can't sign anyone as there is no foolproof recruitment method. That's been true for ever as anyone who had high hopes for Ralph Coates and Roger Morgan in the 60s can testify. A player who is worth £20m is going to cost you £40m by the time you have to pay his current club more than they think he's worth to release him as well as paying him wages higher than his current club does to get him to sign. It's hardly surprising therefore that most new signings should fail and we've done way better than that recently.

 

I'm glad you didn't mention David Jenkins our Arsenal import.Possibly the worst footballer to play on the hallowed ground of White Hart Lane!