Player Ratings & Tactical Alaysis

The morning after the night before.

The players stand accused of, ‘believing the hype’. But it’s a little more intricate than that. There is an element of rogue ego, but the problem lies largely with the  the mismanagement.

For those who cannot cope with the subtleties of argument, click away now. Here on planet Earth, there is light and shade.  Arry’s record at Tottenham is extraordinarily good. 2 points, 8 games, not guilty, triffic. He has got it right on the bulk of occasions.

But now and again tactically, he goes missing. Either he appears not to have given the lads any direction whatsoever, or he sets the team up incorrectly and appears incapable of correcting it. The latter happened yesterday.

You build a team from the back to the front. That’s how it works. King wasn’t limping, he was just looking old. We’ve had a good run of it,  getting away with this but the derby was a particularly grim time to get caught out.

The substitutions were baffling. Arry brings in vdV who clearly was a million miles away from being fit and Sandro who didn’t appear to know what his role was. Are we to presume that Azza Blud was even less fit that the Dutchman?

We had no width. Yet Arry decided to bulk out the middle. Yet he failed to do that. His inability to appreciate Kranjcar blinkered him yet again and despite the obvious fact that Bale and Modric don’t like to get involved in too much tackling these days he took off the only man who was baring the brunt of it alongside Parker.

Once they took the lead, we ought to have taken King off for Dawson, retired Walker, put Bale on the wing and introduced Lennon and gone at them. Instead we did nothing and made them look like Spain.

And so to Bale. It’s like watching a great racehorse that’s been got at by the handicapper. Someone needs to sit down with the lad and break it to him gently. His ambition is a wonderful thing but he got this free roaming thing all wrong. Also, we all know that he was becoming fed up with people kicking him, but diving is for suckers. Stop it.

If you look at the game from Arsenal’s perspective they showed us how the grown ups do it. They  suffered a deflected goal. They suffered a penalty that was won by cheating. But they played as a team with defined roles. Man for man, Spurs probably had the better team on paper. The more exciting team on paper. But as a team on grass they were superior in every department. 

Spurs need to take a long hard and honest look at themselves. 

 5.008 Probably went home and played, ‘One Man Band’ by Leo Sayer.

 6.173 Not awful.

 5.472 Not great.

  3.653 Since the diagnosis we’ve been lucky. He doesn’t train, ho ho ho. He uses the chairman’s pool he he he. Well the jig is well and truly up.

 3. 542 Played like he was on a beach somewhere. Ran like he was in deep sand, may have nipped out for choc ices at point. Uncomposed, leaky performance.

 Should have replaced Walker sooner.

 6. 444 Does the job of three men because he’s the man who has to mop up when the opposition breeze past the rest of the squad. Wings clipped after the yellow.

 5.932 I hope Abramovitch was watching. 

 5.781 It gives me no pleasure to say that I covered Bale’s new found lunacy a few weeks back. His agent has convinced him he’s the new Ronaldo. What we actually have his Ronaldo MacDonaldo.

 6.824 Defended admirably. A man who has the wit to realise it isn’t all about scoring a hat-trick and being home in time for tea and medals.

 Insufficiently fit to play.

 Dawson came on for Walker and screamed at him which made me wonder if he’s a gormless or had he simply not been given any instruction by anyone.

 6. 732 It’s a cheap shot to deride the quality of his goal. Especially when it was just about all he contributed.

 6.732 Yet again he opened brightly and when slowly but surely went off the boil. Took his penalty well.