I’m not sure I enjoyed that.
Fifteen minutes of public humiliation followed by having to watch a loved one emerge from a coma.
It gives me no pleasure to refer to my last blog and mumble under my breath, I told you so. This is a territory usually occupied by w*ankers. But the reality is, whatever Arry’s tactical intentions were or were not, the weakest element in the equation was undoubtedly Tottenham’s defense.
Here are my ratings. Tell me yours.
Gomes 2
Was it a penalty? Yes it was. Daft challenge. Amateur night from the Octopus.
Hutton 3
Looked unfit. Off the pace and … Hungover?
Gallas 3
I overlooked his murky past as he was a top notch footballer. I was done. Anonymous. Again.
Bassong 3
Another Invisible Man. Not the required standard.
A&E 5
He did little wrong, he was simply outplayed.
Azza Blud 6
A game where duff crosses cost the most. He’s not on form.
Jenas 6
Not a bad shift. I may be coming close to giving him a break.
Huddlestone 4
King of the ball watchers.
Bale 10
He scores 3 when we’re 4-0 down. Bar turning water into wine, what more could he have done?
Modders – beyond me why he was the one to come off. Should have been Hudd.
Crouch 4
Just didn’t achieve anything.
Palacios 5
Efficient but no huge impact
Keane 5
Another not very super sub.
Cudicini 6
What a horrible game to be hurled into.
maybe harsh to say about cudicini because as you say, it was a bad environment for him to be put in, but i thought that stipe would be ahead of him in the pecking order. he just doesn’t look very good quality anymore. but i fully agree with hutton, why harry decided to play such an attacking back against the company we were in is beyond me. but hey, live and learn. p.s. it is official, Gareth Bale is god having a holiday
Clearly we need to purchase a RB, LB and a proper striker. God how i miss Dawson & Defoe.
Bale is without a doubt the best left sided player in thwe world. Maicon, Zanetti, Cordoba, Cesar and a defence that had conceded just one goal all season were torn to shreds by the boy wonder. Nevermind Giggs, Bale is the FIRST welshman to score a Champions League hat-trick.The crazy thing is. Before Bale got his third we were playing keep-ball. IF we’d had a proper go whilst we had the ball we’d probably walked away from the game with a draw.
I fully expect us to pick up 3pts at home against Inter. We’ll have VDV & Kaboul back (I’d drop Gallas and play Kaboul & Bassong) whilst hopefully Cudicini will be better prepared ahead of the game. Bale really rocked them last night and the manner of our performance with 10 men for 80mins will really give them something to worry about.
Gallas, Hutton, BAE & Hudd all at fault for at least one goal each.
Gallas and Hutton were woefully out of position for the first goal. Hutton dragged across, Gallas failed to spot the danger and drop back into the void, boom we’re down by 1 in the frst minute.
BAE on his heels and allows the boy Biabiany to get a head start on him and pace past him and into the box, Gomes brings him down, byt the letter of the law it was a red but the referee could have used his discretion. Unfortunately, he was a total homer and Gomes was ALWAYS gonna be sent off. 2-0 down.
Huddlestone fails to tackle Stankovic on the edge of the box, misses two chances to take the ball off him Stankovic shoots ………… 3-0 down
Gallas (again) gets the wrong side of Etoo, he then doesn’t do enough to get back goal side and fails to stop the shot……… 4-0 down
I really, really hope Kabould returns to fitness soon and we DESPERATELY need to sign TWO CB’s in January. The one’s we have aren’t good enough. I’d go as far as to say that Dawson, Kaboul and Bassong should be our top 3 CB’s. Buy another top CB to play with Dawson or Kaboul, retire King & Woodgate, and keep Gallas as experienced back-up.
As an aside…………… I was going to fly to Milan to slap Chiles across his stupid brummie toby jug face. He basically tried to sell Bale at the end of the match. He’s not intelligent enough to be fronting any football. In fact I’d like to see him and Shepherd get their P45’s. It wasn’t helped that he was assisted in his quest for moronic perfection by Marcel Desailly – he’s alright when commenting on African teams at an african World Cup but the guys a rubbish pundit. As for Townsend…………….. well.
Seems we agree on most things mate. However I will argue that for the first goal Hutton had to go with the wide man otherwise he would have simply left their man too much space. JJ had to cover the runner; he saw that Hutton had been dragged in but was on his heels instead of being alert to his player not the ball
Gallas should have taken a look and dropped deeper to allow Hutton to come across. It’s easy to make JJ the scapegoat but Gallas should have used his experience and covered the space so that Inter didn’t pass the ball into the area Hutton vacated.
Biggest culprit all night was Gallas. He looked well off pace. Can’t wait to have the new improved Kaboul back in defence.
I hate saying it but King and Woody need retiring. Last night was our 11th CB pairing in 14 games this season. It’s ridiculous. OK, we’ve got injuries but it doesn’t allow us to build a solid back line if King just waltzes back in IF and when he’s fit. I love the guy and he’s been a great servant for us and a true legend but we need to move forward now and to do that tough decisions have to be made.
Actually the last person to get the blame is Gallas. Just looked at it again on You Pube.
Hutton gets dragged in cos the left winger has made the move inside. Both Lennon & Jenas are ball watching. Meanwhile the left back has seen the space and whilst our two are looking at the ball he sprints into a huge gap. How can Gallas be expected to come across when he has the striker and a midfielder to cover?
Suggest you look for yourself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3J-ZjG2DGw&feature=related
King, bless him has had his day. The CB’s must be a regular pairing and he can’t just play when and if fit – its not fair on the other CB and its not fair on the team or fans – make him a coach.
Harry says Hudd can eat what he likes, but he looked overweight and lethargic – perhaps Ramos was right on the diets!
As for strikers I hear Rooney may be looking for a new club!!!
Please convert Bale to an Englishman
ooooh H; I’m not sure player ratings are all that fair when we were a man light for 80+ minutes.
Blame can be aimed at JJ for the first goal that is for sure but he was very good after that; trouble is we were in serious sh*te from then on.
Our CB’s were too far apart all the game. The gap between Basser and A&E for the penalty was horrendous. Gomes had little choice I’m afraid but with A&E covering him a red was just plain and simply WRONG.
The other two goals were due to us not having the required understanding on how to play with 10-men. Thankfully Arry got them sorted for the 2nd half…..wish he could have got one of our chaps to go down injured so he could get the message across in the 1st half.
So what have we learnt;
1. That we shouldnt need our coaching staff to tell the players how to play with 10-men. That wont happen again so thats a positive
2. That CB’s need to play a lot of games together to get that understanding. Sorry Ledders but no matter how f*cking good you are its time to move on. Basser has to play the next 5 games IMHO and hopefully alongside Gallas or Kaboul (Kaboul is my preferred)
3. That we build a team around three key players; Bale, VDV & Modric
So, not all a complete disaster; Defoe back soon, Dawson will settle the ship and two solid purchases in January and we are good to go
I also saw enough fear in the Milan players to know they will be under it at WHL
What a ride!
COYS
I think your being a bit harsh on Lennon. He was beating his fullback, despite being double marked. He made the third, and setup that sitter that Crouch missed. Worth a 7 I think, looked as though he could spark something..