Good morning.
Where to start? Well it was by and large a great game. And as the first coffee of the day works its magic the frustrations of last night are ebbing away…It was a well earned point against a side that any bookmaker will tell you are genuine title contenders. We aren’t genuine contenders.
There were essentially three phases to the game. The really good bit at the beginning, the collapse after that bit and then the desperate battle against evil …and Howard Webb.
8.042 If accusing a goal keeper of being lucky is a criticism then call me Brad and get me to a casino. One tip top save and another that saw Sturridge make a spectacular clearance.
6.000 Underwhelming. Pace to burn, blah blah blah but I’d really like to see him working on his defending. Moving forward he actually reminds me of a speedier version of Bentley. Less haircut, more football please.
7.081 A low key, intelligent enough performance. Arry clearly picked him and King for their collective experience, but there was something about this ‘on paper’ supremely solid pairing that didn’t quite transmit onto grass.
7.079 Looked sluggish. Play to the whistle is a tedious phrase to be hurling at a man of his stature but the sight of him waving at a linesman who wasn’t waving back at him was pitiful. At this level, there’s no room for that nonsense.
6.008 For their goal he was a postcode away from his man. Unacceptable. Elsewhere his passing on the floor was routinely outstanding, yet his passing in the air turned possession into a 50/50 ball we invariably failed to win. Must do better.
6.784 He appeared to not quite understand what his role was. I certainly didn’t quite understand what his role was. In possession we didn’t get enough of his stellar game changing passes. Without the ball he looked like J****.
8.909 A soldier. Out and out marine. It was his determination that sparked the move that made the goal. His will and application makes him more valuable than money. The energy levels were immense. Man Of The Match.
7.654 This wasn’t a game for him to be making any forays forward. Being in the thick of it is where he should be in games like this. The PNB/Sandro/Modric strategy looked scruffy and only Sandro managed to come out of it in a good light.
7. 832 Marauding forwards he’s a weapon. One of the finest players in the Premiership, in Europe even. Defensively though he was poor. It sounds like I’m being petty but we need to see these guys demonstrate they know that you build a team from the back forwards.
7.897 Fantastic poacher stylee goal but it is his complete unselfishness that routinely impresses me. The yellow wasn’t so much, but the endless attempts by Terry & Co to get him sent off obviously undermined him. Oh yes and his second goal was legit. That’s show business.
@theboyhotspur “Terry appears unaffected by off field troubles” You don’t need Brian Cox to explain that one away. Terry is a conscienceless piece of dog muck.
Agree that Walker was poor and apart from the goal against Ar5ena1 spends a lot of his time running like a bull at a gate and hoping the ball stays with him which it often doesn’t. I don’t know if he is the long term answer to the RB situation and I think back to some pretty strong performances by Kaboul there last season. He defends well (which is the main role of a right back) and he delivered a few good crosses. Pav simply proves that you might score a goal once in a while but lack of talent will override and last night he showed an incredible lack of skill every time the ball came to him. I think you were tough on Modric. Never, ever should he be compared to J****. King was tired and a couple of players were carrying niggling injuries. All in all a point against Chelsea in those circumstances is not a bad result and we could have nicked it at the end. I think what will et us our Champions League place back is our ability to keep winning against the lesser teams which we failed to do last season. Bring on Norwich!
Sandro is the dogs nuts :-p, I thought Nico should have been given a go instead of wasting Modders out of position. We should have won, disappointed with a draw with Chelsea. We are not even registering with the press
For me the disappointment was in our mental attitude. In the Turkish before the match a fellow yid was talking our chances down so much I though he must be on medication and all through yesterday on the web and Twitter I kept reading of mass negativism.
Somehow that seems to have spread to the team. Why did we not play the middle part of the match the way we played at the beginning an the end ? No, don’t tell me that Chelsea didn’t let us. Chelsea were good coming forward but their defence melted like snowmen in California whenever we went at them.
This was not a point gained it was two lost and it clearly indicated what is lacking before we can seriously challenge for a title.
1. A & E is a cult but he’s not top draw. We need better
2. At full strength we can beat anyone in the Prem but too many of our first choice players do not have replacements that are like for like – we only have one of Bale, Lennon, VDV and Adebayor.
3. VDVs unconventional Dutch quack is not curing his hamstring he’s just patching it up temporarily and we’d be better served if he rested it for 3 weeks and then went on to play more than a game and a half at a time.
4. VDV has to play off Adebayor, there is no point putting him on the wing you may as well put Azza Blud in goal.
Agree, VDV plays just behind the front man, or he doesn’t play.
A few thoughts on last night’s game:
I live in China, so I set the alarm for 4am, but I couldn’t sleep so I ended up pulling an all-nighter and watching it on a dodgy stream.
If we are to win the league this year, we need to roll the dice a few times, take a chance and to bet our whole stack. There was a period in the 1st half when we were a goal up, totally dominant and Chelsea were begging us to come at them, but we were too content passing it sideways and backwards. This was the opportunity to land a decisive blow.
2nd half Chelsea were breathless, and were intent on giving us no time on the ball. We needed players to be strong, aggressive and tenacious in the middle, but the addition of Pavlyuchenko meant we lost that battle and ended up playing long, losing shape and dropping off defensively.
I felt flat after the game. Their back 4 of Ferrera, Bosingwa, Terry, Cole was begging to be opened up. It reminded me of a time when we played united and for 20 minutes they had John O’Shea in goal and we didn’t manage a shot against him. This was a chance lost, and on reflection it could have been worse.
Agree, Chelsea were not so much on the ropes as hanging off them by their finger tips for that period. So what did we do? Go one up, and gradually ease off as if they wanted to slow it up and admire their superiority for themselves, instead of knocking them out while they were completely on top.
Quite frustrating, and it shows that while the spirit and mindset has definitely upped it a notch this season, some of the flakiness is still there. Seen it too in too many games against lower opposition where we’ve started the first 10 minutes incredibly sloppily. This team still has a problem with lack of confidence, and over-confidence, sometimes within the same game, sometimes within the same half, as happened last night.
Oh, and one final thing.
I echo HR’s positive sentiments at the end of the game. We are ‘right up there’ as he would say. We are 8 points better off than this time last season, having played a game fewer.
If this were last season we would be top of the league at Christmas, 3 points ahead of Arsenal and Man United.