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.
Pony, that is what our manager is. Imagine rolling over to Arsenal, that is what that clown did yesterday
A_felching you are a muppet. After one game your dishing the manager who has given us our best league season in my 25 odd years to date supporting spurs. Belt up. You won’t give a sh*t about this result if we finish 3rd. Get behind the club…
Play the ball, not the man, please :cop:
We should be finishing 1st, I am not going to shoot my load for getting 3rd
Why should we be finishing 1st? On what basis?
That is the name of the game
Which game are you talking about? Come to think of it, which question are you answering? You need to finish first as that’s the name of the game? I thought it was called ‘football’, not ‘finish first’.
If you truly think that we have any divine right to claim the PL title then you really must be following a different game, perhaps this ‘finish first’ one. I remember many times ‘finishing 14th’ and so on, but as far as I recall we were still, broadly speaking, playing the game of football.
Finishing 3rd would indeed be a fine achievement, and if you can’t recognize that or give credit for it, well… you know…
Come on LLL, according to some on here we should be winning the Champions League this season. We’re not even in it but we should still be winning it!!
Some people on here need a dose of reality they really do. 3rd (if we can hang on to it) will be a great achievement and who knows maybe even an FA Cup too.
3rd and the FA Cup will make me the happiest gay in this village!!
Im tellin you, this is Shaggy!!
2 up front against newcastle at home is fine. We were not playing a) at home or b) against newcastle. We should have shown more respect. These are our main rivals. We beat them at home in a tight game. Ar5ena1 are not as bad as people are making out. We should have started sandro in the middle with parker and kept it tight. Let modric float behind ade. Shocking performance. Puts unwanted pressure on the next three games. King has played a lot of games this season and done very well for us. I would not lay the blame at his door. How quickly you all forget? Still 12 games to go. 3rd is in our possession, let’s keep it that way. COYS!!!
Agree, even with his deteriorating pace, King has been more help than hindrance this season, marshaling the back 4 in some of our best defensive performances as usual.
Yesterday he was not anywhere near his best and was caught for pace for sure, and I do agree with the notion that a permanent, and young(ish) /injury-free replacement needs to be recruited in Summer, but the idea of Spurs fans turning on Ledley hurts more than seeing him done by that half-witted loser Walcott.
He was never supposed to be marking Walcnut. For his first goal, didn’t Theo beat A&E? And on the second one Parker should have picked him up running from midfield (A&E was up by their corner flag after putting in a useful cross in one of our only threatening moments), and could have easily covered him (he started off 20 metres closer to our goal than the little prick), but was caught ball-watching (highly atypical for PNB).
Not that King was good. He wasn’t. But not because of pace vs. Walcott.
Plan A went wonky, but we were still in it at half-time at 2-2 and Twitchy had 15 minutes to sort it out, but he didn’t. Even his fabled ‘man-management skills’ couldn’t raise some of our players from their stupor.
A massive wake-up call and an arse kicking we richly deserved………..but of all the teams to put such an inept performance against, that’s what really hurts!
I’ve bunked off work today………..
There was no plan, he told them to go out and run around a bit. I cannot wait to see what Suralex does with him next week. The bloke is a total chump of a manager, who is being found out
‘Run around a bit’ is Twitchy’s Plan A!
The problem i have with the twat is that he has no other plan!
When things start to go pear-shaped, what happens?, what does he do?, how does he try to freshen things up a little?- remember the F.A Cup semi against Pompey?
When he takes the Roast Beef job, the media hacks will have him for breakfast (and lunch, brunch, elevenses, din dins, midnight snack…….)
I think not only did the subs unbalance the team they also sent a message to Arsenal that we were collectively bricking it, from the manager down.
There was one sub that needed to be made and it was blindingly obvious from about 20 minutes into the game – Lennon on for one of the strikers, Bale put back on the left. So why this never happened even as it grew more agonizingly, wretchedly obvious as the game progressed, I don’t think I’ll ever understand.
Toon Tanic springs to mind. Witness the beginnings of a self destruct….. Some managers hold there hands up ‘Ok, I got it wrong’ but not our HR—- He’s the media’s darling. I hope he takes the poisoned job at the FA. They were a group of sheep without the dogs.
Man Utd next week……………then it will be 4 points…..
Oh well.
I hope you’re wrong, but next weeks game will show what we are really made of……….the problem is i’m not quite so sure now what that is!
I do hope I am wrong. Apart from what has been already commented on…. the players must have full confidence in their manager. On yesterdays performance has HR evolved and improved? Yes he has but comments about Ledley King is not much on a losing Spurs side, or throwing the VDV dice based on previous games against Le Arse does indeed question the coaching or tactical nous.
Old Wenger and maybe Sir Alex must have been laughing at that set up!……
Man flesh
Cheddar?
We didn’t seem right from the start. Very shaky at the back and could easily have gone behind if Van Persie had his shooting boots on. Lost the ball far too easily in midfield with the short passing going nowhere.
Someone needs to tell Bale that diving is not the Spurs way.
Gutted and embarrassed.