A pretty damn sound performance.
Wigan were like a butch ugly woman who became coarser and even more deeply unattractive with a few ales down her. Another red card against generated by another side that simply could not cope in a coherent or indeed honest fashion with the boy Bale.
This was, as has been said at length a big game in terms of Tottingham demonstrating that they had actually made some progress. No, no one like going up there and having to slug it out with part time pipe fitters and doormen moonlighting as Premiership footballers. But sufficiently we did just that.
There were a few hairy moments sure, but that’s show business. It was a job not just ‘done’, but one done with no little panache. Not quite as much panache as per Liverpool, but then Liverpool were in a coma. Stoke were not unconscious, they were wide awake. And whilst they had plenty of drive, they were found in the final analysis to be just a bit too thick.
Player ratings will be fairer when we have all had a chance to catch up courtesy of MOTD, downloaded highlights etc.
3 points and little reason to either Avergrumble or Twitch.
I saw a third of the first half and all of the second on Fox Soccer Plus (I think it was) and what struck me about the second half was that we quite often lost our shape. There would be three bunched up front left, or four too close together in the centre and so on. I tried to work out why and the culprits might have been Sandro and VdV, who seem to have been given license to roam, plus Parker who really gets a prodigious amount of movement in during a game. I say ‘might have been’ because it was just this game and anyway one never focusses as closely as one thinks one is doing.
The point is that we still lack some discipline. It’s not just the toughness and confidence many of us feel are still not quite there with the lads, it’s discipline. Watching Everton earlier (yes, they lost and we did not!) one was struck by how they kept their shape (yes, mostly defensively, and our loss of it occurred on both sides of the centre line). Which has to be the responsibility of ‘Arry and his staff. It’s something that takes a long while to ingrain. Practice after practice, game after game. Manure have it in spades. So, it seems, do Everton. Chelski may still; they certainly used to.
I’m not piling on ‘Arry. Just remarking on what today’s game indicated the club still lacks. I’m all for “good old rolly poly Spurs”, etc., but if we want to establish ourselves as a fixture at the top, discipline has to be automatic. Second nature.
About the game. First time I’ve had the pleasure of watching Parker (the flying porker). He’s really doing a job for us in the middle. More speed than the Hudd and always in the mix of things. Also (but then I already knew the result as I was watching which may have influenced me) we put good movements together in the second half, some of which came to nothing because of the field condition (weren’t they watering it during the break?). I allude to ones with Modric, Parker and VdV trying to finish. In Modric’s case the pass from Bale was so swift and direct it seemed to whip the feet from under him.
Enough already. One last (treasonable?) thought. I missed Krankie. The VdV thing, in my mind, is approaching the England dilemma once posited by the Lampard/Gerrard dualism. Each skilled and worthy of a place (perhaps) but together less than the sum of their talents.
And so it goes…
Doesn’t take away the fact Rafa is a proper goalscorer, rest of ’em not really (really not)
Something else : ‘everyone’ has been slagging JD off for almost a year, now he’s scored 2 in 2, he’s suddenly first choice..??
Not saying JD is a bad player, but thing simply is..he’s mediocre, at best..
It’s a question of balance surely?, Defoe and Ade look like partnership, and a pretty dynamic one at that. Yesterday, proved nothing other than we can cope without Defoe or Rafa, but not Ade. It’s going to be a problem next week for sure, if Defoe is fit, but either way we’ll have a strong attack and a great bench, happy day’s
I bet there’s a fair few managers who would love to have the tough decision of whether to play VDV or Defoe along side Ade!!
Regarding Ade, the smile dropped from my face yesterday when he was on the floor for ages and when he was seemingly begging to come off!!
I think it fair to say that Sandro got a runout at Wigan but would probably not have been picked for a Utd or Cheatski game. That put extra pressure on Parker and on down the chain to Modric. However we got the points and trialled our away strategy of Parker AND Sandro: maybe some work still to do, but in mid Feb at some far flung quarter of Northern England it might bear fruit.
I still have concerns at our ruthlessness and whilst like the bin dippers game, we can pass the ball about and retain possession we are doing precious little with that possession. In particular we are shot shy at the edge of the box
which is suprising conmsiodering how effective it is on the rare occasions we do have a dig.
We are trying to walk the ball in when a shot has a chance of going in or rebounding or being only parried, and creating opportunities. It’s nice to retain possession at the back and in the middle, but we need to be more daring once we commit; we can’t make that incisive move and play keep-ball, there comes a time when you have to put the question!
As for the personnel, I think wwe have to be realistic and say any team that is in the top 6 rated clubs in the EPL will only be there by having payers who would be first on the team sheet in other clubs, warming the bench. Look at the benches at Utd, Citeh, Cheatski etc. The job of a top, top manager (couldn’t resist that), is to manage the individual expectations as part of and in line with, the overall squad expectations.
I think Harry is getting by and hopefully getting better. I wouldn’t worry too much about the late Begbie, remember he’s gone to free up space for better people. Our continued growth will bring growing pains, look at Tevez, the Bulgarian and others whinging about not playing……whatever else we cannot simply have a squad of eleven players which means someone wears a tracksuit on matchday.
Overall a good win, but I really think we need to get out of this mentality of easing off before we’ve truly killed a game, especially when we are still pulling back on goal difference (back to par) after shipping 8 in 2 (such disturbing numerology….shakes head).
I sat in that North Stand and watched it and it went from ecstasy [goal after 3 minutes] to agony [inability to kill an appalling team]. There was no-one on the bench who could have made a difference, and that’s what’s most worrying about this afternoon – because there is no-one IN THE SQUAD who can make a difference. Gio was a disappointment [and I hate typing that]. VDV plays but plays as a midfielder – and Sandro, Mod, Parker were also playing as midfielders so no-one was taking any responsibility – tap it to Mod, tap it back to Park, tap it to Sandro, tap it back to Mod. No fucker wanted the ball; no fucker could score a goal. There was a massive 6-1 win wanting to happen and there was no one who could conjure it. The lack of alternatives is the biggest problem. The line-up and the attitude against Liverpool [stop congratulating yourselves with ‘bin dippers’ – whose streets were burning the other week?] is exactly what is required. Today, there was no real energy [Bale wasn’t exactly hiding but he wasn’t exactly screaming for the ball either]. Fourth place is there for the taking. The crucial question, the only question is whether this latest crop of guys in white shirts with proud dark blue cockerel badges have the guts to take it.
I don’t like all this modern passing back which goes on in midfield. Get the ball and immediately return it to the passer or give it to someone to the side of the passer in a sort of triangle. I’m told this is called “possession play” or whatever.
We did too much of that certainly. Citeh showed today how to go about it. Again and again the midfield brought the ball up, slanted it towards the flanks and swung it in again. For all their good coaching and shape (and Everton are far better than Wigan) one just knew that the goals would come.
The pity of it is that we can do what Citeh did with more flair and incisiveness, as we showed last week at WHL and before that against Hearts up north.
We won by playing to our strengths: passing.
Have to say, watching Stoke-United made today even better. Yes, Crouch scored (the speed of the ball meant it just had to hit him, no need for direction).. but some real howlers, especially at the end, when he DID the hard part in getting the ball past the last defender and then — can you believe it! — swung at it like Bambi on ice and skied it from seven yards.
I did not see it that way at all.
I thought Crouch is not very good.
But he looks a lot better against Manchester United yesterday than Pav did against Hearts or PAOK or Stoke.
Crouch scored one against Man Utd yesterday and forced a couple of good saves too and only missed one good chance. Defoe and VDV could barely manage a threatening shot between then against Man Utd.
Take away Adebayor and our strikers have looked pants this season. Slagging off Crouch don’t make me feel any better about that.
Yer bring back crouch!! can all slag him off but at least he like chicken badge..
He also like Chicken Legs
a couple of footnotes to the game (apologies if mentioned already). The half time ‘hit the cross-bar’ competition for kids resulted in a complete set of misses, until the very last kick. Who suceeded? The Spurs mascot, of course. Big cheer from the travelling yids; Well done lad.
Also, nice to see Ade throw his shirt into the crows at then end. And, Baler is always last to leave the pitch due to his applauding the fans.
crowd !!
Latest tables show that Harry Reds has the best win percentage of any Spurs manager – barring Arthur Rowe (they both share 48%).
Continue to slag away Harry haters. The stats are against you.
Please cut and paste those facts, because I’m so very tired of pointing them out. But one again for clarity, you’re perhaps confusing the ‘Harry, please shut the fuck uppers’ with the ‘Harry out’ merchants, who are generally associated with the ‘Levy’s a wanker Faction’. Easy to confuse I grant you, but very different all the same/