Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v AFC Bournemouth

If you could ask Jose one question what would it be ?
Mine is " what do you do in training " ?

 

What dirt has Aurier got on you?

 

He definitely looked the best of a bad lot, some nice touches. I wonder if it is either him or Lo Celso, as I would like to see both together.

 

Confidence is definitely a factor and the **** officiating has compounded issues but our poor run of form stemming from basically the start of 2019 is more than just a confidence thing, it’s also lack of quality.

 

Just to make this season even better...

 

I really don't see that. We have quality players what we don't have is a team. You have to look at Sheffield United for example, their good results are because they have a team. Their players for the most part are not as gifted as the Spurs players but their team ethic is better and more established. We are in a situation rather like post Bale when we had plenty of quality but no team. Or like Ramos struggling followed by Harry Redknapp who took the players and built a team. We need a DM for sure and a right back but sort these two positions and mould the rest into a team and we are top four again.

 

Mine would be "How the **** do you explain this ****?"

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Ah, but decisions even themselves out over a season

Because we've seen Saltypool lose so many games by a narrow 1-0 scoreline this season when perfectly legitimate goals have been chalked off...

 

You need a team of quality players to reach the levels we want to be at. Right now we severely lack both quality and a team ethic.

Compare us to the 16/17 side and we’re a shadow of it.

Since then we’ve seen the losses of one top RB and one good RB (despite a poor season last year), we’ve seen the decline of a top LB, we’ve seen the decline of two top CBs, we’ve seen the decline and departure of two top CMs, we’ve lost arguably the most creative player in the league of the last six years and we’ve seen another attacking midfielder decline when he should’ve pushed on... In that time frame, the recruitment process to try and rectify it has been dreadful. Right now, only Lo Celso would have a chance of competing for a first XI spot in that 16/17 side.

 

The problem isn’t just VAR being used excessively. The standard of officials is awful. They can’t even get things right when they have replays of it. Something needs to be done ASAP to get them to improve because it’s costing teams big time

 

A lot of our issues are around Son and Kane - both are huge players, great players but both look hopelessly out of form, unfit. Son barely looks interested at the moment. Those 2 at their best and we are a different proposition.

 

Don't suppose this will be the title sequence?

 

They have just admitted that the penalty VAR decisions in last nights game were incorrect, the end of this season cannot come fast enough for me

 

Trippier declined and became a liability, Rose had declined by then already. Eriksen does not have a killer instinct and while he is very talented and helped to get us into the top 4 he lacked the fire to push a side to wins. The big miss is Mousa Dembele much more so than Eriksen IMO. We have much more attacking force now than we did then. We had janssen I think Lucas and Bergwijn are better. Lo Celso has the potential skill and the bite to be a greater midfield force than Eriksen. We don't know yet about Ndombele but in theory he has the quality.
We need a replacement for Dembele. Defence is a lot down to injuries for sure Vertoghen and Toby are not as good as they were although both are far from finished. Dier is coming back from a long period of injury. He was you will remember good enough to look like future England captain material and he is still young enough to get back, Mourinho backs him which helps. Sanches has not yet fulfilled what we may have expected but he has a huge act to follow in Ledley King who we will be lucky to find a replacement for in 60 years. We have Tanganga who has looked very good to come back and I still have hopes for Foyth although they are fading. I just don't see this gulf in quality that you describe but a lot may be down to our different perceptions of Eriksen, Trippier and Rose.

 

See...I don’t believe this at all

Man U fans don’t complain about refs

I’ve heard you bang on about poor refs a plenty mate

p.s The PL have just admitted that we should have had a pen and you shouldn’t have

 

Once again I can't help but think back to what's been said about Juande Ramos, specifically about how he planned for games against the Sky 4 and assumed the chips would fall where they may against lower half teams

Look at our matches since the money men won restart and it really looks that way

Man Utd - definitely had a plan in the first half, but abandoned it to park for bus for the entire second half
West Scam - appeared to be looking to play on the counter, against a team sitting back
Sheffield United - no ****ing idea, after all we had three wingers on the pitch...
Everton - no plan whatsoever, as evidenced by the pass map making for disturbing reading
Bournemouth - unless the plan was to try and dump West Scam in the relegation zone, and we couldn't even do that, there was none

Which begs the question: if we show up against the Nomads (and I'm half tempted to stop there...) with a gameplan, just how bad does it look that the ubermensch in the dugout only bothered to plan for two games in six? When it was suggested this was Moyes' plan to keep West Ham up we ripped the piss out of him, afterall

 

I think also we should mention Dele who like many players struggle after the first season or two as teams find them out or target them as special. Dele often has 3 players to contend with which he did not have in his first seasons with us. This is make or break for many talented players, can they find new ways despite the unwanted attentions of defenders. Next season will be make or break for Dele IMO and if he does come through and strikes up a proper partnership with our 'new. midfiled we will be on our way again.

 

Alfie, do you think even the basics aren’t covered in training? Even if we had Warnock in charge?

I mean 9 attempts and zero on target is on no one but the players. I saw us have plenty possession and I saw enough attacking personnel the pitch to deal with Bournemouth. Everyone’s favourite Ndombele was even on the pitch.

Have you seen our midfielders stats this season?

Our players are bang average...they look twice as **** doubly quick because they don’t have the required minerals and that makes everything look like one big heap of crap.

We need a new team...with a different focal point. Personally I’m sick of it always being about Harry Kane....because even he isn’t really doing much.

For me...each and every player has dropped their expected standards way too much.

 

The fact that at the last world cup there was no English representative tells us all we need to know about the quality of our refs.

We pay top prices for football in this country, and players and managers from all over the world come here and are royally rewarded, maybe it is time that we employed the worlds best refs to referee in our league and paid them accordingly. I don't know if there is anything in FIFAs rules that prevent this, but as you say something must be done.

 

Rose was regarded as the best LB in the league that season. He made the PFA TOTY for the second season running.

I said that Trippier had a bad final season but he was still a very good RB and in 17/18 done quite well after Walker was sold.

Both Dembele and Eriksen’s losses are equally important. We lack the presence in midfield nowadays whilst we create next to nothing without Eriksen. He led the league in chances created and assists during his time here, players like Ozil and David Silva couldn’t better him on those stats, Coutinho and de Bruyne also spent many years in the league with him, de Bruyne is obviously an all around much better player but I think to discredit the way you do with Eriksen is harsh, especially as you seem to be full of praise for Bruno Fernandes who’s a very similar player, worth remembering Utd wanted Eriksen before they got Bruno. Bruno may well turn out a much better player than Eriksen with more years at Utd but it’s impossible to tell right now.

Sanchez hasn’t yet reached his potential and is nowhere near prime Toby and Jan. Tanganga has potential but again, is still nowhere near that level we had in 16/17.

It depends how you’d define much “more attacking force”. We have more players, are they as potent as Dele, Son and Eriksen were? Absolutely not.

And this is my point, right now we are a million miles away from where we once were.

Hugo (16/17) > Hugo (2020)
Walker > Aurier
Toby & Jan (16/17) > Toby & Jan (2020) and Dave & Dier.
Rose > Davies
Dembele and Wanyama > any current midfield combo
Eriksen, Son, Dele > any current AM combo
Kane (16/17) = Kane (2020) but lacks service to prove it.

 

This is going to be like watching a horror movie , I will be behind the sofa shouting " don't ****ing do that you morons " oh for a rewind button on 2020