Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool

id go for Brendan Rodgers but then he has his faults too

 

He seems to be working on them at Leicester. His greatest weakness at Pool, aside from pure inexperience, was that he relied too much on the brilliance of individuals like Gerrard and Suarez and neglected other areas of the team (particularly the defence) as a result. Leicester are still a bit too reliant on Vardy but generally he has a much more balanced squad there with lots of different players making key contributions. I admire how he is working on himself to improve. Meanwhile our manager hasn't changed since 2004.

 

A young coach with a big reputation and ambition, who has worked with the likes of Marcelo Bielsa at Lille and Claudio Ranieri and Leonardo Jardim at Monaco, who has been moving up the ladder as he's gone from being a coach at Monaco to AssMan at Lille

The thing is, he wouldn't be a safe choice for the simple reason most fans' immediate thoughts when we were suddenly in the market for a new manager would be either Dim Sherwood, while at the moment Arteta is the obvious comparison

 

I had to miss yesterday’s game so I won’t talk about what I haven’t seen. But I don’t need to look for a replay to say that while Jose is clearly making mistakes with his management of the squad, I think it’s fair to say that he’s also paying the price for years of mis-management under Poch and Levy.

We have too many filler players on long term contracts. The fact that many of them are non-HG too makes it very difficult for us to pick up players who will improve the squad without outgoings, and who is going to buy the players we want to sell? It’s a mess and has been for some time.

Both Poch, towards the end of his time with us, and now Jose, were/are making errors. But part of that is also Levy agreeing to the contracts with seemingly no thought as to how we move the players on towards the end of their deals. Ideally you want the squad players to be majority HG as it makes it easier to recruit quality from the bigger, and usually cheaper, pool of non-HG players. As it is we’re stuck with Lucas, Lamela, Aurier, Sissoko, and arguably Toby who these days aren’t good enough to start for a team chasing top 4 but who can’t be moved on because who would want to buy any of them at a fee we’d accept and pay them the wages they’d demand?

We’ve been backing into this corner for a while and while Levy & Co showed admirable long term planning in delivering the stadium, they’ve really ****ed it on being sensible in the squad. We’re at the stage now where some serious surgery is needed but that surgery is going to be really, really difficult to do.

I’m not fully Jose Out yet but I’m running out of times when I’m willing to say that he needs to massively step things up here, even allowing for the difficulties in managing the squad, some of which he may have contributed to anyway.

 

If we could get Leicester’s recruitment team in as well then for sure, their scouting has been great over the last few years. I’d be willing to get over my dislike of Brenda.

But it ain’t happening, he’d be mad to make the move with us in the state we’re in right now.

 

To be fair our scouting network is very good, it's the final decision making from those above them that isn't.

Many of Leicester's recent successful signings were players we were extensively linked with:

Maguire at Sheffield and Hull.
Maddison at Coventry and Norwich.
Soyuncu at Freiburg.
Perreira at Nice.
Castagne at Atalanta.
Tielemans at Monaco (who we quite publicly know was turned down by Poch).

All of these could have been Spurs players. Not sure who is definitely to blame for switching targets/ saying no but we really need someone with a better sense of judgement on that regard.

 

20 years ago we were play turgid ****e football...no spurs fans talk about that time fondly.

The reason we loved the 1980s teams under Burkinshaw, Pleat and Venables was because we tried to play an attacking brand of football.

I can not emphasise enough ... 3 attempts on goal is simply unacceptable.

This ain't aimed at you BTW...but not winning trophies is OK...turgid football ain't.
We ain't stoke or Wimbledon so this is unacceptable

 

I don't think ENIC are anywhere near their ceiling. They have had hardly a penny of additional revenue from the stadium because of Covid. A new owner would much more likely make things worse than better.

 

I agree that we shouldn't have hired Mourinho.

 

Not true

were not Stoke or Wimbledon yet a similar looking trophy cabinet is fine

 

What's not true?

BTW....I would love us to win the Carobou Cup but that does not change the fact we are horrible to watch.

Bloke in a coat won a trophy playing awful football...I do not know one spurs fan who looks back at 1998-2001 with any enjoyment.

Most Spurs fans I know look back on the Jol years with real fondness.

 

Regardless of how anyone feels about attacking football v defensive, we simply don't have the players for the latter.
We've got an abundance of attacking talent and a defence that needs to be well drilled and protected in some instances.
We're not getting the best out of what we've got going forward, as we spend too much time sitting back in our own box.

Mourinho could probably get away with playing defensive football, if he could point to immaculate results as justification.
We're not getting them.

He's also making strange choices with the systems and switching to formations that don't suit the personnel that he's picking.
If we're going to play with wingbacks, then Doherty and Reguilon are the natural choices.
If we're going to play a back four, then Davies and Aurier make more sense and the midfield probably needs Hojbjerg and Sissoko in it.
He can sacrifice one of them for a more attacking option against sides that are just going to defend, though.

The way that I see it, we're not currently doing anything consistently, apart from making poor selections and even worse substitutions.
We're not playing one way or another and the players look utterly confused, at times.

 

Defensive football is not necessarily boring.
Leicester played fast counter attacking football with was based on a solid defence which I have no issue with.

They would create chances, attack at speed and were decent to watch.

I had no issue with our football from September-December.

My issue was from last Xmas til lockdown, and the last 2 months. We are not attacking on the break with any speed and create very little.

 

As ****e as we were, and bloody hell were we ****e, it really does have to be said that last night was possibly the most biased refereeing performance I've seen since the Brazil vs Colombia farce from the 2014 World Cup

Kane was forced off after having both his ankles busted by a series of cynical challenges, and at various times Son, Hojbjerg and Dier were limping off in the first half alone, yet they only received two bookings all match
Son was at least a yard onside for the opener, yet the VAR spend an age looking for a frame where it looked like he wouldn't be
Their opener combined Firmino being offside and Mane handling it, yet VAR shrugged their shoulders and gave it anyway
Alisson picks up the ball outside of the area, yet jack **** is done
Numerous dives, yet no cards

When you have a team doing whatever the hell they want for 90 minutes with the referee enabling them all the while, it's the sort of thing that genuinely makes me hate watching games - and, by complete coincidence, completes Saltypool's transformation into the 90s Man Utd teams they claim to have hated so much

**** the lot of them

 

On the subject of decisions last night, it is always dangerous to raise issues when we were clearly 2nd best on the night for a host. Of reasons. However....

1. VAR disallowed Sonny's goal withou running the line across to the Liverpool defenders arm / shoulder line. This may have still been behind Son's foot but didn't look it.

2. The Keepers handball decision was plain wrong. He was clearly out of the box. No opportunity for VAR under current rules and no doubt Twatkinson would have o ly yellow carded it. The good news is that there feck all chance we would have scored from the free kick

3. VAR didn't need to pass the disallowed Pool goal devision to Twatkinson. It was clear on the face on images that Firmino handled it w/o help from Dier. However, they started off the pitchside replays continually showing the other angles. Twatkinson watched these and started to turn away - probably to allow the goal - before the correct view was shown and he just caught it. He then had to disallow the goal.

Challenging decisions after defeat always leads to accusations of sour grapes, but when there is a degree of consistency in those decisions, questions can be justifiable.

And that's not mentioning the failure of officials to card for diving on several occasions.

 

The photograph the BBC used in the in their report clearly shows Alcántara getting Harry’s ankle after the hall has gone. There does seem to be a pattern from some teams in red or light blue to target him and other players who can threaten them. Remember the systematic targeting of Eden Hazard, who was the media favoured one at the time, by different Manure players a few years back when the ref told the United captain that the next one to do so would be cautioned.

 

I thought at the time Allison handled outside the area, but the Pool biased coverage I was watching failed to show any replays. It certainly looks like he has deliberately handled outside the area, which is a red card is it not, I don`t think VAR even looked at it, and we all know why.

 

no it is not - for it to be a red card you have to have denied a clear goal scoring opportunity .

 

I think part of the reason why things probably also feel worse at the moment is that we've been on a downward trajectory after the end of the 2016/ 2017 season so every negative is being amplified. We haven't had much to get excited about since then and when we have done it's been short lived, the CL final epitomising that, the euphoria of getting there and then the abject display and result immediately wanting us to forget we were ever involved.

It just feels like a timeline of ****, to be frank.

1. Losing key players or seeing others decline, with the likes of Walker, Rose, Vertonghen, Alderweireld, Dembele, Wanyama, Dele and Eriksen all fitting into one of those.
2. This then played into the decline of Poch.
3. Terrible - or at one stage, zero - recruitment. We're a club who've generally had a solid success rate with transfers but since the start of the 17/18 season, here's a list of the players we've signed from a first team perspective:
17/18 - Sanchez, Gazzaniga, Foyth, Aurier, Llorente and Lucas.
18/19 - Nada. Zilch. No one.
19/20 - Clarke, Ndombele, Lo Celso, Sessegnon, Gedson and Bergwijn.
20/21 - Hojbjerg, Hart, Doherty, Reguilon, Bale, Vinicius and Rodon.
I make that 19 players. How many of those would you say have been genuine successes?
4. Losing the CL final with one of the worst possible displays imaginable. Along with multiple losses in semi finals in domestic cups over the three year period.
5. A rise in season ticket prices (and prices in general) once we moved into the new stadium.
6. A drop in atmosphere likely due to said price rises along with poor football on show.
7. Our football getting so bad it meant we had to sack our best manager in ages.
8. VAR. It's killing the game - for all clubs and fans. So this isn't exclusive to Spurs but still plays its part. Pandemic aside, as a match going fan I hate that the first thing you subconsciously do when Spurs score is look up at the big screens praying you don't see "VAR check in progress", it instantly halts the momentum of your celebration.
9. Now under Jose, after some decent stuff in spells, it's reminiscent of the last year or so under Poch. Where under both managers, there's been no direction, no style, poor tactics, poor selections, poor substitutions and ultimately poor results.

The joys of Spurs, eh?

 

Well, if Allison doesn`t pick up the ball from outside his area, Son has a clear goal scoring opportunity.