Good morning.
Far from as bad as it has been. That would be my overall sweeping statement type analysis. Certainly far more positives than negatives so let’s have kick off with the bestest bit.
What a goal. Churlish of some to dismiss such a sensational strike as simply anuvver couple of mil on his transfer fee. The boy has class. Defoe is one dimensional and crucially did not score last night. My argument in support of Pav ends with anyone looks good playing alongside Adebayor.
And so to the Gomes business. Has the rest done him good or is he a man playing well beneath his pay grade due to a bad case of perception? The answer is, ‘We’ll never know.’ He will be sold is my prediction.
The stand out thought about the back four is that Raging Kaboul looks like someone we could probably massively rely upon in the future. Bassong was horrible and demonstrated why we couldn’t even flog him for buttons in the last window.
Livermore was of course out of position and that showed. But Walker and Rose weren’t up to scratch. The Rubes were a decent enough outfit – and it was only Pav’s goal that separated the two sides – but they were pretty wet when it came to our 18 yard area. Had we been playing someone with fewer competency issues in that dept we would have been undone.
Carroll is drawing plaudits from every quarter. My verdict is that he’s alright. Dos Santos is an accomplished player but didn’t seem to really find his groove last night. Azza Blud gave what has sadly become the norm – yet another – ‘just back from injury’ performance. Dull in the first half, fizzled out in the second.
Sandro was in a similar boat ring rustiness wise, but he looked more resilient and I would expect his next Premiership showing to be better still.
Defoe did little aside from make much of Pav’s unwillingness to pass to him which possibly made me laugh louder than a good Steptoe & Son. Defoe is one of the most supremely selfish footballers on planet Earth. He only ever passes if he can’t shoot. Pav outside of the goal didn’t do much himself. My defense of this would be to ask you to take a look at the team behind him.
The attendance was low. A little over 24,000 Client Reference Numbers on the premises and from this figure we must deduct 1,500 freebies for looter victims. Levy & Co missed a trick on the pricing here. They were up against the game being televised on a terrestrial channel, it not being a season ticket game and perhaps the first genuine cold snap of the Autumn.
The reality is that too many players are being fielded in these Europa games that aren’t worth the current price of admission. You want to tell me that these guys are young? Thanks for that information. You want to dispute what they are worth, don’t bother. I base my observation on the fleeing fans at previous games and the gate last night.
These games are of appeal to a slightly different demographic than those who attend Premiership games. And the charge needs to reflect that. The money that the Europa generates is less too, so the model just needs scaling down and a scratch over 20,000 can be pretty easily have seen 10,000 added to the figure.
I agree, I watched it on the TV and I came to the following conclusions..
1. Kaboul is sublime, his reading of the game whilst sometimes a little reckless is top notch, for example he came on and was immediately marshalling the defence and lead by example…future captain I’d say.
2. Defoe is beyond hit and miss, he’ll have games where he frustrates the living bejesus out of me only to score a winner and all is forgiven the next. However if you look at the top teams their leading goal getters are regular in scoring.
3. Pav – see above but with more frustration.
4. Lennon for me is one of our biggest problems, he spends to much time on the fringes of the games, when I watch at the Lane you really see how much space he has and he just doesnt attack with gusto or dare I say a half decent footballing brain. I worry this is the highlight of his career. The sooner we look at someone who can get to the byline and whip in attacking crosses the better…See Jesus Navas, Nani, Mata etc etc..
5. Benny is a class act, the composure and sheer self confidence he has on the ball is fantastic, however I do fear one more drag back will result in a cataclysmic error on the ball and injury time winner against us…top notch!
That’ll do for now…
Sam
Pleasing to see spurs will take it relatively serious at home than away, draws the punters in you see. Love your work harrold
Good run about and that’s all but we need to take it more serously in the knockout phase. This is something we could win after all
Felt that Pav was trying to show off among ex Ruski freinds. He will sulk now till the next leg, which is at least one moe than Defoe has got
Firstly, always follow your blog HH and am more of an avid reader than an avid responder. However, I have to disagree slightly with you, as I think you’re being a little harsh on the boy walker. He was playing with a rusty Lennon and then a lazy gio in front of him and was busting a lung to get forward on many occasions to get us going.
He also did some fine work defensively (see the block as he read the danger when Rose was exposed, near the end of the second half to stop a certain ruby goal). Although his positioning was at times a little off, I think this was exaggerated by Livermores presence next to him, as we all know he’s no CB…
My conclusion is that being a good fullback takes time and I think walker has the ability in abundance to not only make the spurs shirt undisputedly his, but also dare I say it, the three lions too.
Keep up the good work HH, COYS
Quite agree – I thought Walker had a good game. Like Kaboul when he came on he looked like a senior player taking the responsibility.
Pleased for Gomes who did nothing wrong and several things well and thought Sandro went well until he tired a bit. Defoe was hopeless – how often is he the full stop on the end of a promising move? Woeful first touch and no sense of what is around him. Lennon was even worse, no confidence and no football brain (no brain at all I fear) and GDS blew another chance to make a statement. You can have all the skill in the world but desire is another thing altogether.
PS please H can we get rid of that dreadful Americanism ‘defense’. That’s for men in helmets and shoulder pads. Real footballers play in defence.
he clearly hates Walker. Check his report on barcodes game
C.mon H, the boy WILL BE Englands first choice RB very very soon
He’s also a much better defender than some on this blog would have you believe.
…his pace gets him out of so much shit its frightening; imagine what he is gonna be like after one more season
Outstanding would be my guess. He is likely valued at 12m now, this time next year it will be double that. He is the type of player fergie will be sniffing round during the summer; cnut
Unfortunately I don’t think you’re going to see the best of Lennon if Walker’s playing behind him.
So let’s see if we can’t tempt Citeh into a Lennon/Johnson swap deal in January.
You know what? Screw it. Maybe I’ve just lost complete patience with Lennon and therefore I’m being harsh, but I’m absolutely sick to death of trying to find the perfect partner for him. I used to blame anyone and everyone for Lennon being uninspiring, Chimbonda, Hutton, Glen Johnson (for England), but from now on I’m blaming him. Walker did more attacking last night than Lennon. Something is wrong with that, it wasn’t down to Walker being greedy, it was entirely down to Lennon just doing his “pass the ball sideways or backwards” routine.
Just back from injury or not, I don’t care, in truth we’ve not seen a run of form from Aaron Lennon since the first half of the 2009/10 season. We’ve seen glimpses of magic, we’ve seen match winning goals and crosses, which in fact work against him. If we hadn’t seen a good performance since the 09/10 season then we can think that something is genuinely wrong with him, but the fact we’ve seen the odd performance where he looks like his old self means the whole “just back from injury thing” may well be poppycock.
My suggestion would be to play Corluka and Walker together until we strengthen the right wing. I’d make Man €ity a large offer for Adam Johnson. For me he’s exactly what we need; a left footed right winger who has genuine ability with his right. See with two one-footed “correct” sided wingers we’re too predictable. With van der Vaart there we leave our right hand side exposed. Johnson would give us the best of both worlds. Him and Walker could be a formidable partnership.
Lennon, like Gio and one or two others last night, was also guilty of losing the ball and making no effort to win it back. Say what you like about Rooney, whenever he loses the ball he will hound the opposition back to his own corner flag if need be in an attempt to win it back.
Walker, on the other hand, is so fast that even when he does lose the ball he’s in a position to win it back before his opponent even realises he’s won it. Until he’s the finished article as a FB I can think of many worse combos on the right than Corluka and Walker.
And if there’s any chance at all that Citeh are prepared to let Johnson leave I’ll be very disappointed indeed if we’re not heading the queue for his services.
I rate Adam Johnson highly, always have done, so I might be a little biased here, but I would not be at all embarrassed or disappointed if we shelled out £20m for him. I think if he was on our right hand side then we’d be doing pretty well for ourselves.
Other areas we need to strengthen are up front and at centre back. Current rumours circulating are for Doumbia and Soldado. Should get both in my opinion, let Pav go and see how well they do. If they do well we can think about selling Defoe in the summer and we’ll have two strikers with experience under their belts in case the permanent signing of Adebayor goes tits up. If that happens then get Leandro as well, feck it!
Pav’s goal; Kaboul looking like a leader when he came on; and a good result with a second string team against an ex-Champions League team playing their strongest XI. That’s the good stuff. I watched the game and can’t see why some people thought Carroll was outstanding. I thought he was the weakest player on the field and out of his depth. And Gio was bloody awful. This was a game for someone to stamp their impression on the game and challenge for a regular spot in the team but the only three players to look really classy were the substitutes. And Gomes may have made a couple of good saves but you always get the feeling he’s going to do something stupid. Friedel for me in the EPL any time.
i agree – whats with all the caroll-loving. anyone can pass the ball sideways – he had no impact on the game whatsoever. gds, i feel slightly sorry for – played out of position again. he’s a second striker in the vdv mould but has never been given a chance to play there. and gomes? yes he fumbled a couple of times but worse than that he throws the ball out to people who are marked and lose the ball and then he has to make a great save to get the ball back – just feckin’ kick it if no-one is free!!!