Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Borussia Dortmund

Fair point

 

Careful PNP, when I say we struggle or the score is flattering I get spears thrown at me. I still cannot see us losing this one.

 

Think back to August when we are hoping teams get knocked out so we can move up to second seed in the draw .All games matter for us in moving up the rankings for (hopefully )next years draw .

 

Indeed.
If Spurs finish this campaign with at least 24 pts then
that writes off the oldest two seasons with no effect
on the overall ranking.

 

As there's talk of rotation, it's worth a refresher on who is in our CL squad
(* denotes List B)

Goalkeepers
Lloris, Vorm, Gazzaniga, Whiteman*

Defenders
Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Sanchez, Trippier, Davies, Aurier, Rose, Foyth, KWP*

Midfielders
Eriksen, Alli, Dier, Winks*, Dembele, Wanyama, Sissoko, N'Koudou, Georgiou*, Oakley-Booth*, Amos*

Forwards
Kane, Son, Llorente

Look at it that way, the likely players to be rotated in will be...
Vorm (as he likely won't get another start until the FA Cup games begin)
Rose (continue building match fitness)
Foyth (help him bed in as, again, he likely won't be getting any starts until the FA Cup games)
Son (one of Alli or Eriksen is certain to be rested)
Llorente (kane will almost certainly be rested)

As for youngsters getting on the bench, the likes of Shashoua, Edwards, Sterling, Skipp and Roles are most likely to feature in the Youth League game that afternoon - but Georgiou and Harrison are ineligible for that competition, so they'll be available.

 

When I was 15-16 on a number of occasions I played rugby for the school in the morning and a game of club rugby in the afternoon, what's wrong with these youngsters nowadays? I'm sure they are a lot fitter than I was then. Give them 60-65 minutes in the U21's and when you sub them, tell them the reason, they'll be starting against Apoel in the evening. It will make their day.

 

Are they overtrained today.They seem to do a lot of warmups before a game against yesterdays players who would run out of the tunnel,have a quick kickabout and then start the game. Did you here them talk about hamstrings all the time in the "good old days"? No.
...and sometimes they played 3 games in 4 days.No benchwarmers then!!!!!

 

I ponder whether the quality of the pitches now has an effect
on these types of injury. In the days of the mud-bath pitches,
you could not run like a beast even if you were capable and
wanted to.

Nowadays pitch quality under most UK weather conditions are
good, and perhaps they become the human equivalent of a
horse racing track rated as "hard" (greater risk of injury to horses) .

 

I used to love playing on pitches after rain. One had full control of the ball. I hated the rock hard pitches where the ball used to bounce and take off!

I can remember when the weather screwed Spurs up and probably cost us the championship....1962-3. They had to cancel games and try to play friendlies on pitches they had treated to overcome terrible conditions....and travelling was almost out of the question.

 

Ridiculous overreaction from Sanchez, but it highlights something very well:

Those blokes behind the goal really won't give anything, will they?