Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v West Ham United

The passing map...

Reguilon to Skipp/Hojbjerg to Royal to Dier to Romero to Dier to Skipp/Hojbjerg to Reguilon and repeat....

Was anyone else playing?

 

You wouldn’t. They both against your team

 

Two!?!

 

Lucas awful.

I could see it in the first half. Yes, we played significantly better than we did in the last 3 derbies, but the writing was very much on the wall.

Our overall play was far too ponderous and cautious. We looked scared of West ham and the distinct lack of imaginative movement in the final third reflective a lack of willingness to take risks.

I lost count of the number of times Reguilon got the ball in a decent position, looked up, only to see Kane on his own in the box with a bank of 4 one side of him and another bank of 4 the other side. Lucas and Son were abysmal. Lots of running with very little to show for it. Only Kane's latest non-performance spared their blushes.

Defensively I thought Emerson was poor. Naive in a number of decisions. So was Romero but he at least showed glimpses of real quality, highlight of which was the 40 yard run out of defence to feed Kane who screwed up a simple cross to Son.

Reguilon, Skipp and Hojbjerg score marks for endeavour if nothing else, but all in all it is clear that against anyone above-average, we are going to struggle this season.

 

The lack of subs around the 60-70 minute mark was obviously an issue as by that point the first half performance was but a memory, yet at the same time who was there on the bench who could have changed things up?

Gil, Lo Celso and Bergwijn all could have in theory, but in reality as we weren't getting the ball into dangerous positions unless Reguillon had his tail up, which means that all we'd have done is change the names of the players who aren't getting the ball because we get bogged down in midfield

And this takes us right back to the obvious issue: we have the grand total of three CMs at the club, with Lo Celso and Dele recast as CMs this season just to get the numbers up, and this means that we can't change things up if we're reenacting The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 in the centre of the pitch because there isn't any

Realistically, if we're not putting Winks on the bench for the sake of balance if nothing else, we need to have one of White, John or Devine on the bench - because otherwise we have a bench like today's where we have an entire back four but nobody in midfield held in reserve

 

I think we've declined so badly that a first half where no major mistakes are made with a semi-resemblant attack actually makes some think we were better than we were.

It's a tragic decline and the poor decisions just keep racking up at this club.

Future's bright though, or something like that... apparently... maybe.

 

Bad we were but actually they were not much better. For the main we cancelled each other out. They defended very deep and , at times 10 men behind the ball.
Our lack of attempts was down to the fact that our crossing (when it happened , ) was terrible and Fabianski could read the pass like an open book. Look at Liverpool's second goal. De Gea stood still as the ball was played across. Compare with Fabianski, who knew to cut it out each time.
And of course, they score from a corner, something we can't do. And the final ten minutes when they had 11 men behind the ball we didn't do anything- as said above-ponderous.
Compare with Woolwich vs Palace last Monday when a team pushed and pushed for the equalizer and got it. We never do.

 

Yes. Our corners and free kicks have somehow declined even further this season.

So much so that our default for set pieces more than 30 yards out is actually to put our foot on the ball and play it backwards.

 

Our set-piece philosophy:

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Thanks Spurs - Didn't see the game (I was asleep), but catching up here (and with my son), it doesn't appear that I missed much and doubtless I will now have to relive the winner constantly throughout tonights shift.

I have loved football for as long as I can remember, but I have never been so out of love with the game as I am now, the state of my club is partly to blame, but that is really just the tip of the iceberg. Player power, wages, refereeing (including VAR), 'the superleague' all contribute. I used to watch as many games as I could, the football is still often on in my house because my boys are watching but I am often indifferent, the game is on now but I am barely paying attention. I only really watch us now and that is just depressing.

 

We have seen all this before, nothing will change until we change the manager. I am not sure what we can do about Kane, at times he almost looked unfit in that game. He was blowing very hard for a top athlete. Even if he thinks he is trying I think his mind has left Spurs and he's not coming back. Hope I am wrong. I think we need a British manager, someone who will introduce some hard work and running and inject some passion. We have NO PASSION and without that you don't win games.

 

I think many of us are very pissed off about the game in general and almost resigned to it.

 

2 new managers at our game next week surely!

 

Yes the second half performance was bad. But we edged the first half and my goodness we should have had a pen. We get that and it's a completely different game. We may deserve no more than we're getting at the moment, but we're certainly not getting any balance from refereeing decisions either. This is not an excuse it's factual. Have one or two go in our favour and the whole climate changes. Please don't try and tell me that if that incident for the "pen" today had been a United or Pool player being fouled the decision would not have been different. And that's part of the reason I'm with Changing Man about falling out of love for the game. Yes refereeing has always been biased but the difference is now they have technology to show it, and in the case of VAR, have a backup to help their favourite teams. And by backup I mean that if by chance the ref hadn't given a pen if it was Pool or United to benefit, you can be sure that VAR would have been right onto the ref to go and look at the monitor.

But it could be worse. We could have spent £2bn and still be crap.

 

At least we are not ManUre, god they are bad.

 

Our replacements for Kane (without moving Sonny) are...

1. A young kid who got bullied by Vitesse Arnheim

2. Nobody.

I'm not sure which coaching appointment is going to address that?

Nuno's not the start or end of our problems,

 

2 is Markanday. He's been playing there for the U23s and scoring regularly.
Very small for a striker, though. Probably should be loaned out.

 

I'm not wanting to belittle the lad...but he looks as ill equipped to do the job as Scarlett is currently.

As you said, the squad's wonky, leaving alone the fact that over half of them aren't good enough to get Nuno the 4th place that allows him to keep the job.

Nuno's almost certainly going to get sacked soon and he probably deserves it, but that's not going to fix the problems, because they run so deep.

 

""

 

Just to avoid misleading anyone, it's next Saturday. Our last Saturday game until next year, in fact.