Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Fulham

26 in the league, 6 in the domestic cups and 11 in Europe = 43. Close!
Palace and Leeds have now played 29 matches, by comparison. We've played about 50% more than them.
We should be able to cope with fixture congestion better than those clubs, but that's a lot of games.

Mourinho mentioned him carrying an injury earlier in the season and you could see it was affecting him.
Hopefully he's being given time out to sort it out and he can come back fresh when he's 100%.

 

That's astounding. Parker has made them a really hard working, well drilled side but the bottom line is Fulham looked fitter and fresher. Had we not made the subs when we did we probably would have lost that game.

Across a season, a difference of 20+ games is huge. My worry and others have echoed this is that we're not getting the most out of our squad at the moment. Maureen seems to share a weakness with Poch in the sense that both managers have their trusted group of 16-17 players and the rest are neither seen nor heard from for months on end. Yes, players like Winks, Sissoko, Rodon etc. have their limitations, but not trusting them to at least put in a shift and do a job now could cost us dearly as we approach squeaky bum time. As things stand we run the risk of turning up at Wembley (and hopefully the latter stages of the EL) completely exhausted.

I think we might see heavier rotation against Zagreb but fear we won't get the job done and will have to go full strength for the away leg.

Lo Celso's return can't come soon enough. That will at least give Tanguy a break. As for Hojbjerg, we just need to bring in Winks or Sissoko for a PL game and hope for the best. The guy looked like he had concrete boots last night.

 

We can pick two teams and the second isn't that bad.

Lloris; Aurier, Sanchez, Alderweireld, Reguilon; Ndombele, Hojbjerg; Bale, Alli, Son; Kane.
Hart; Doherty, Dier, Rodon, Davies; Sissoko, Winks; Moura, Lo Celso, Bergwijn; Vinicius.
That also leaves Lamela, Tanganga and the various academy players and loanees.

Our attacking players are fine and you could even argue that we're overloaded there, but the defence isn't up to scratch.
We're rotating at the back and not up front, which is the reverse of what you'd expect from our squad.

 

Another handball law change incoming: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56291850
How many times are they going to do this after one of our games? Ludicrous.

 

It's a ****ing farce and it's because the original changes weren't based on anything, other than making it easier for officials. The laws are there to prevent advantage being gained by cheating. If you take that principle away, the whole thing's meaningless and makes a mockery of the game.

 

The original changes were based on City crying because the ball hit Llorente's arm.
Then they cried when the ball hit Jesus on his arm.

Spurs v City? Rule change.
Spurs v City again? Rule change.
Spurs v Bournemouth? Rule change.
Spurs v Southampton? Rule discussion.
Spurs v Newcastle? Rule change.
Spurs v Fulham? Rule change.

Maybe they ****ed up the first time?

 

As I wrote yesterday, it's a major issue that we've got ourselves stuck in a Reg/Aurier - Davies/Doherty rotation. Our first choice FBs are pretty creative and allow for Winks and Sissoko to come into the midfield without service to our forwards being affected too badly.

The problems start once Davies and Doherty are on the pitch together as neither of them offer anything creatively (the latter offers nothing full stop) and so by default we become obliged to play a Tanguy-Hojbjerg pivot as both of those players are more creative than Winks and Sissoko. Dropping even one of them means we automatically have 5-6 limited outfield players on the pitch from kick off: both CBs (which is fine - I'd rather they focused on defending than spraying 40 yard diagonals), both FBs and 1 or 2 CMs. It's a huge problem and is the reason we looked surprisingly turgid in many of our EL group stage matches despite playing sunday league opposition.

Lo Celso returning will help in that bringing him in for Tanguy doesn't dilute creativity too much. But to rest Hojbjerg and/or both first choice CMs, we simply cannot afford to have Davies and Doherty on the pitch at the same time.

There are two keys to unlocking this dilemma. One is to change the FB rotation. The other is currently playing in East Anglia.

 

The problem is the wording is still fubbernucked

For example, if the ball hits the striker's hand unintentionally yet the ball ricochets 90 degrees so the striker has an open goal while the defender has no chance, there's no denying that the handball no matter how unintentional was critical to their gaining an advantage

Also, didn;t we hear about how it was unintentional that Thierry Henry played basketball to get France a spot at the World Cup at Ireland's expense a few years back?

 

I agree with the change but wtf was all this outrage when Sheff utd benefited from it against us last season?
After the toon match this season the "interpretation" changed in the prem but the arse wipes said that the toon penalty would still happen even with the change.

The cretins are determined to ruin the game for everyone who attends matches.

It's bad enough watching at home or in the pub but **** me is it bad at the ground!

The re joke is that VAR in European games is generally better because the standard of refereeing is also better imo

 

Absolutely right. There's not much wrong with VAR, if it's implemented by decent officials.

The officials in the PL are shockingly bad and therefore, so are the results of the technology - penalties, red cards, offsides - there's nothing that they can't **** up.

 

The rules keep changing and so do the interpretations, but there's nothing suggested about how to improve the standards of the officials.
Ours clearly aren't good enough and the retired ones make mistakes when discussing big decisions in the media.
The problems aren't being addressed, so the new ones are going to be just as bad.

 

Given he's removed pretty much all Spurs-related posts from his Instagram and limited the people who can respond, he's likely shaken by the Lunatic Fringe thinking the best thing to do if he has a poor game is to send him racist abuse on social media

 

CB Watch
CalcioMercato are linking us with Roma's Roger Ibanez...which is great timing, as he signed a contract extension until 2025 on Wednesday, which also coincided with him missing Roma's last three games through injury

Serie A Rando Watch
TuttomercatoWeb, meanwhile, have suggested Torino' Sasa Lukic as a potential alternative to Marcel Sabitzer, which doesn't really make sense because even though Lukic primarily plays as an AM, this season Torino play him as a CM, and it really has to be said that as soon as Torino moved him back him into central midfield his end product vanished overnight, while in comparison Sabitzer has been getting a fair smattering of goals and assists since he was moved deeper - and it has to be said that Lukic's end product wasn't that great as an AM either, unless you could clatterings as end product because he's quite the card magnet, and if he's racking up suspensions in Serie A while not contributing with a noteworthy number of goals or assists, he comes across as an understudy for Lo Celso and nothing more

 

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Shows what a good job Scott Parker's been doing recently, after the new signings have had time to bed in.
He just needs to get one of their strikers scoring and they'll be very, very hard to beat, if they can remain that solid.

 

I think it was @remembercolinlee that pointed out the other day on the Prem board or rival thread that if Fulham and Brighton had a good striker they’d be nowhere near the relegation zone. It’s very true, both managers are getting their teams playing good football but just don’t have the quality up top to get them enough goals. There’s only so much a manager can do until the lack of quality available becomes too much.

I think both Potter and Parker have promising futures in management and I wouldn’t be surprised if bigger/ better sides take a punt on them once a position opens up.

 

I think that the problem that they have is that they want hardworking, skilful, mobile strikers who can bring others into the game.
If you've got those traits and you score plenty of goals, then you're not going to be at Fulham or Brighton for long.

 

I have to say I was expecting more from Mitrovic this season, as he looked handy a couple of seasons ago

Funnily enough, so was my fantasy team...

 

Ahem...

...but seriously, these seem to be 2 young English managers wit big futures. The media doesn't appreciate anything until it's 'a winner' but buying promising talent, improving players, getting the most out of your squad and entertaining supporters is the best that most clubs can hope for. Parker and Potter are delivering all of that and there's a chance that with increased resources they could be winners at richer clubs, further down the line.

 

That's cos you don't have anything original to post

 

Next, you'll be telling me that you're claiming some sort of imaginary creation of the 'RCL' method of affecting football matches...