[OMT] Tottenham Hotspur v Aston Villa

You only have 3 subs to use, YV.
At 3-0 I wanted to see Pritchard have a run-out for a good 20 mins.
As he puts in the yards in MF then taking off Siggy would have meant
no loss of shape or energy.

 

Great call on the bet

I didn't think there was much point in bringing both Bentaleb and Veljkovic on so there's a sub saved for Soldado

 

Amazing to think that we were very average today yet comfortably ran out 3-0 winners. I think Villa are the worst team to have come to the Lane this season, even the 5-1 vs Sunderland didn't feel as easy as this - though on the flipside, the Villa fans are probably some of the best I've seen this season and didn't deserve what their players were offering them, they made some great chants and sang throughout. I don't think anyone truly excelled but no one was dreadfully poor (for a change), so that was nice. What I did like about today was that come the final whistle, we had 4 lads from the academy on the pitch in Kane, Prtichard, Veljkovic and Bentaleb which was awesome. Veljkovic and Bentaleb handled things very well together when both were on the pitch, so that's an encouraging sign (though much bigger tests await) and Kane has really impressed me since his starting run in the side, I've said before I'm a big fan of the lad and do believe he has what it takes to make the grade and he's reassuring me of that as each week passes. Pritch didn't get much of a chance to show anything but no doubt he'll be going home a happy man tonight after having had a superb season with Swindon capped off with his debut for Spurs.

One final thing, HUGE credit and applause for Adebayor, when the players were doing the lap of honour, he done one on his own in which he went to loads of fans taking photos, signing autographs and shaking hands, I've never seen a player do this on the final day of the season and I thought it was brilliant that he gave the fans a little appreciation, so credit to him for that.

 

I also said out loud, "Naughton's been really good today." Rose was up and down--gave the ball away too often. But he had a couple of outstanding moments where he used his pace to excellent effect.

I think Paulinho's quality is tied closely to his energy. Today he reminded me of how he looked in the home opener, the most active player on the pitch.

The truth is I wish it was this team's first game of the season. I've seen a two steps forward and one step back progress since Sherwood took over. Today may have been the first day where we both looked like scoring and didn't look like conceding. Interesting lineup choice with no wide players. Ade, Eiriksen, Kane and Paulinho to provide the goals; Sandro and Gylfi to protect the back four, Rose and Naughton for width. No doubt part of it was Aston Villa not looking too interested in the first half, but a good effort nonetheless.

Interesting after all this that we got pretty much exactly the same points as usual. What is it, something like 70,69, 72, 69?

I enjoyed hearing the crowd set the tone early on.

 

"Interesting after all this that we got pretty much exactly the same points as usual. What is it, something like 70,69, 72, 69?"

Yes. Yet the bar for 4th place was raised today to its highest level ever.
That Spurs have plateaued while this happened is the big concern.

 

Was at whl today with my daughter and absolutely agree re adebayor...was a real good gesture

 

Exactly what you'd expect when the rich are getting richer much faster than everyone else. More and more of a world audience having more and more choice as to games means more and more people watching fewer and fewer teams (and buying their swag). However hard it may be for Spurs to close the gap, it should get steadily harder in the foreseeable future. You can say that Liverpool shows it can be done with the right manager, but the truth is they showed it can be done with the right manager and an owner willing to swallow a lot of red ink.

 

It's impossible to draw any conclusions from our final match. Neither team was really playing for anything (unless our players really do think the Europey is worthwhile). And even if our players were playing for the Europey, they were playing a Villa side that was playing for absolutely nothing. Why would any of their players want to bust a gut and risk injury ahead of the holidays, for a game that meant nothing to them?

If there were any impressive performances today, it was all too little, too late. To comfortably beat a Villa side that had nothing to play for does absolutely nothing to repair the misery of all those hammerings we took. Sure, we finished on 69 points, but the fact that could only manage a goal difference of +4 is utterly damning.

Who ever comes in when Sherwood has cleared his desk next week really has his works cut out sorting out the problems that are rife throughout the squad.

 

I'm more optimistic. I think it's a strong squad that finished the season with four wins and a draw from their last six, with a plus 8 goal difference. Strong enough to get fourth looks like a reach at the moment, I'll grant you, with the fourth place bar rising steadily. I think we might need a top playmaker to get over that hurdle, but the Sandro Paulinho pairing in midfield (if we keep either or both...) looks pretty good to me, as long as it's not coupled with a slow buildup style. Hell, I think the whole team looked pretty good and progressed reasonably well, once the slow buildup style passed. My biggest concern is that we have another summer full of turnover and get our second straight transition year next season. I'll grant that the win over Aston Villa may not mean much. You could also argue the loss against West Ham was the result of a questionable sending off, and while the draw was the result of the continuing problem of our slow starts, coming back from 0-3 to get a result still makes it a decent effort.

 

"However hard it may be for Spurs to close the gap, it should get steadily harder in the foreseeable future."

What Spurs have shown is that while this is true on paper, the reality is that a combination of
complacency and arrogance by the Sky 4 etc has been the opposite. The margin for error is small now
and a slip means their CL slot goes. Only the Goons have repeatedly escaped us by the finest of
margins. Yet the irony is we know if it had happened by now, Kroenke would have been forced to splash
the cash big-time.

 

I was just thinking that if Liverpool are a bit of an asterisk (thanks to the ocean of red ink they ignored), Atletico and Borussia Dortumund certainly are not. Get the right manager and a team that believes passionately in the system he plays--and (and this is crucial) develop, beg, borrow or steal enough goalscoring talent--and you can go from midtable to winning the league.

The goalscoring talent generally takes the kind of money few teams have, though. I think Spurs are in relatively good shape here, if either Ade or Soldado can have a good year. Eiriksen should be our main threat; both he and Ade got nearly a goal/assist per game. Kane, Paulinho, Chadli and Gylfi all have reasonably good goal producing records. (Of course, who knows who will be staying, let alone who will produce next year.)

 

Amazed that Sherwood's body warmer hasn't shown up on eBay yet...