Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City

I agree with this. I didn't think it was a penalty but Hojbjerg wouldn't have had to make that challenge if he'd actually tracked Gundogan properly. In each of the last three losses all the chances have been created by Mount, Siggurdson and Gundogan. In each case the player Hojbjerg should have been tracking. Winks is actually better at tracking back.
We've got a better chance of a higher finish if we give Hojbjerg a rest. Same for Berwijn and Lucas....both pacy but almost 100% certain to make the wrong choice when in possession.

 

Wearing chicken costumes obviously. Harry Hotspur was renown for his cock fights.

 

History is silent on the loofahs and custard, I suppose?

 

I've said all I have to say in umpteen match threads since I rejoined the forum.

For me, what has changed in the past few weeks is an acceptance of the fact that we have so many players who are simply turd, and no manager on earth will get a tune out of them. Dier, Sanchez, Winks, Lamela, Sissoko, Doherty, Toby, Dele, Aurier, Lucas...these are all bottom-half to Championship standard players, and have been for a hell of a long time. I held a faint hope when the likes of Dier, Toby and Dele had a bit of a bounce when Jose first took over that they would regain form, but it didn't last and now as a consequence of tactics that highlight their shortcomings plus a general lack of confidence, many players in and around the first team are regressing week on week.

I hold Jose accountable for killing us tactically and neutering our better players. I hold him accountable for literally toying with players' confidence in front of the world media. I hold him (and that mug Hitchin) accountable for bringing in 4 dud players in what was the most crucial window in our recent history. I hold him accountable for playing players out of position and asking the impossible from others.

But at the end of the day, he inherited a squad long past its sell by date, carried to a CL final by a combination of VAR, stupid Ajax defending and Poch's sheer power of will. The fact that so many of the players I have listed have been at the club for so many years is a damning commentary on Poch's lack of firmness and ENIC's lack of ambition.

My single greatest reason for not wanting Jose near our club was not his past clubs, not his character, not his tactics. It was the fact that he had NEVER overseen a rebuild at ANY of the clubs he had managed, unless he had an unlimited budget and wage ceiling. And even then, he paved his way signing players already at their peak as short-term if extremely expensive guarantees of immediate success. In short, he spent 26 years operating in exactly the opposite way to how we'd operated. But of course, we thought we'd be clever - just like we were when we hired Santini, and Ramos, and AVB. We thought we'd buck the trend and prove everyone wrong. And it hasn't worked. And he will leave this club exactly how those 3 left us.

He needs to stay until the summer. His track record in cup competition demands it. But the day after the season ends, he goes. And he holds the door open for all of the players I've mentioned above, plus Hitchin. And they tip their hats to the likes of Sessegnon, Skipp, Cirkin and White on their way in. And we swallow the bitter pill of one or both of Kane and Son finally departing this circus, and Daniel Levy signs an oath in blood banning himself from ever making a footballing decision again. And we appoint a progressive, hungry manager and give him the funds raised from those sales to start a rebuild that should've started 2.5 years ago.

 

The season is gone.
This is how I expect the final to go in April.
I have no idea who we can get in to solve this car crash of a team.
We need;
a new keeper
at least 2 CD
2 wingbacks
A Defensive Midfielder

Even if we were to win the Caribou Cup by some miracle it won't keep Kane or Son.

Last time we won it Berbatov and and Keane couldn't wait to leg it.

The similarities with Ramos in 2008 is strong.

A good keeper and fans favourite goes down the toilet, a very unbalanced team, players on the downside of their careers and a manager that does not inspire the players or the fans..

Our last 17 matches
7 wins 7 losses 3 draws.

The wins include Stoke, Brentford, Marine, Wycombe, WBA and Sheffield United...that's a tier 8 club, 3 championship clubs and 2 of the worst Premier league clubs in the past decade.

The draws were with :
Wolves, Palace, Fulham,

The loses were Liverpool, Liverpool, Everton, City, Brighton, Leicester and Chelsea.

31 scored (14 in 4 games against lower league team)
23 conceded (2 in 4 games against lower league teams)

Against Premier league teams it's
P 13 W 3 D 3 L 7 F 17 A 21

In the Premier league it's
P12 W3 D3 L6 F 12 A17

 

The footwork by Bale when he came on was probably the brightest aspect for us the whole game. I really do think that Bale needs to start the next 5 or 6 for us to really see what he’s made of. These cameos do nothing in the long run. Rumours that he himself has said he wants a run too, it’s time to give it to him.

Bergwijn has started about 15 in a row up until the last couple.

Lucas and Lamela have been here years and not cemented a spot.

Bale deserves a run now at the very least.

 

Damning.

 

**** it why not , nothing to lose, maybe a season out of Europe comps would give the club a chance to rebuild

 

Ooof. If you read that without knowing what team it’s about you’d say it was someone like Palace or Burnley.

 

This is why he has to go asap. Obviously a lot of players probably need to go too but that’s not realistic. Right now this team need someone to come in and give them some belief back and get them playing to the best of their ability.

Even a short term appointment until the summer until they can properly assess things, would be better than leaving it as it is, it won’t be long until the atmosphere becomes unbearably toxic around the club like it has several times under Mourinho.

 

Just in case anyone was still in any doubt. Even Tim ****ing Sherwood spotted it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/coys/comme.../?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

 

Absolutely it's tragic that we have such a talent being wasted with cameos and you won't agree but the same applies to Dele. We have the talent we need to use it.

 

Scouseknapp nailed it for once on Skyte Sports, he said Dele and Bale have been treated appallingly, and now Mourinho has turned to them to bail him out. Why would they put the effort in for somebody who has treated them so shoddily over the previous weeks?

 

The irony being that our fans won't bite, as we have our own scapegoats

So did you see how Harry Winks cost us five goals against Everton midweek?

 

A long time ago in a galaxy far,far away.......we had a bloody defence!
Weren't we given a defensive minded manager? What happened?

It seems,this is where I came in many seasons ago as the Spurs team then got old at the same time. I'm not sure if todays team is that old but they are definately creaking!!

 

Bale definitely, Dele not so much. This is his sixth season at Spurs and he’s only had two stellar years, the rest has been a mixed bag or poor. I think he massively relied on Eriksen and Dembele to excel, as Eriksen could pick out the spots that Dele would run onto whilst Dembele’s control in midfield allowed for Dele to indeed make those runs into space. He’s someone who needs the right players around to him to succeed and right now we don’t have them. Players like Bale though, he has the ability to change a game on his own as he possesses the ability to do so, as we saw many times under AVB, Kane is another who can do that. I don’t consider Dele a top class talent no longer, just someone that needs to be in the right system with the right players, he isn’t able to adapt. Right now, in terms of English attacking midfielders; Foden, Grealish, Maddison and Mount are all easily better.

 

I agree with you in principle, but there is zero comparison between Bale and Dele. The former arrived obviously needing a sustained run of games after pretty much sitting on Real's bench or treatment table for two whole years. All the talk leading up to his recovery from injury in October, through to the infamous (albeit now laughable) "the data is good" comment suggested we were gearing up to do precisely that. But it hasn't happened, most probably for the simple reason that Jose needs wide attackers who track back like wing-backs, and Bale is never, ever going to do that.

Dele has been generally crud for well over 2 seasons now.

One player looks like he needs a run in the team, the other looks like he needs a fresh start with a different one.

 

You'll tire of me saying it but

What can a manager do mid-season when his GK is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo bad?

 

Right now the midfielders you name are better because they have settled roles in coherent teams,Dele does not. As for having the right players around him, yes of course football is a team game. I don't disagree with much of what you are saying , I think we just differ on how to solve it. Eriksen also went off the boil and for me that speaks volumes about what happened to Dele and we have not had a proper creative heart to our team since.

 

He could drop him and bring in his second choice goalkee....










Oh, **** it. He only went and signed Joe Hart, didn't he?