Good morning?
It’s a funny state of affairs that some believe it’s not ‘right’ to consider replacing Arry Resdschnapps when he himself has announced he’s considering replacing us.
Another loss then. Another week of our advantages gained being slowly eroded and we need to explore why. The obvious answer is that we played two top top teams. But the game against Arsenal was joke shop of a game. Had the incredible fortune to score 2 iffy goals in swift succession then conceded 5.
Against Manchester United we actually played well for a long time. Lots of possession. Lots of looking every bit like a home side. We couldn’t get past their midfield, but we were doing a good impression of a mob that were in control.
But possession doesn’t win prizes.
In both games our manager was found to be tactically out of his depth. Arsenal were greater than the sum of their parts quite simply because the disciplined manner that they played. Van Persie is one of their best players and so they fed him. Bale is one of our best players and we let him go AWOL, living’ his agent’s wet dream.
Ans then against United we replaced Bale with …wait for it, Modric. Our most creative player, most likely to supply the front men player and we stuck him on the wing.
You know, I would have played Krankie on the wing yesterday or even Rose. The latter’s pretty gormless, but he could have done a job without having to greater a negative impact on our overall shape.
Up front, Adebayor and Saha couldn’t score. Frequently outnumbered and with Modric out wide their supply routes were limited. Defoe should have come on far far sooner.
Defensively we were laughable. Two naff games in a row for a Ledley King who is looking increasing shot to pieces. The last 180 minutes have hurt him and it’s killing us. The Midas touch he had is now working in reverse and where once his presence was infectious, now his vulnerability is seeping into the entire back line.
So what is the answer? Well if Arry isn’t being distracted by his showbiz career then I’m a monkey’s uncle. His Court case naturally overshadowed his managerial efforts. He could well have gone to prison, you know. But who’s fault was that? I didn’t open an account in Monaco and move money about in his name. Nor did any of you. If he conducted his financial affairs like a normal human being opposed to some cartoon character on the run from the mafia this wouldn’t have happened.
Then this England business. Not only do we get lucky that Arry announces he’d like the job but we hit the jackpot as Fabio gets the bullet not a week afterwards.
Since then, the FA have lived up to their reputation and done sod all in slow motion. The press have asked Arry on the hour about the position and on the hour he’s provided blushing quote after blushing quote. He’d play Theo Walnutt, he’d bring Scholesy in.
Of course, it would be vicious and vile of me to ask him what his strategy is for Tottenham against Stevenage. He’s the best manager since Burkinshaw, you know.
We’ve a cracking squad but the man in charge isn’t entirely focused on the job and it’s showing.
5.089 Immobile?
5. 090 Weak.
5.777 Knackered.
6.567 Not awful.
6. 566 Not dreadful.
7.802 Possibly his best game in the shirt to date.
7.454 Took the sting out of Scholes.
7.454 Could have been so important, but was stuck on the wing.
7.563 Inspiring stuff.
6.997 Looked damn hungry, then faded.
6.893 Woeful first touch.
8.001 Deployed far too late.
Hopefully the next few training sessions will be completely taken up with corners, for and against.
Modders has got to come off our corners (and freekicks) untill he can kick it further than the 1st defender.
Up the other end,they have to watch the frigging ball, not just try to react to what the forwards are doing (im talking to you K Walker)
Give the kid a break. He is one of our only defenders that does not ball watch when defending set pieces (Kaboul, BAE and Daws are three of the worst in the PL – along with Caulker unfortunately).
Walker had both hands clutched on Rooney’s jersey and he was pushing him away from goal and still couldn’t stop him from scoring. It would be one thing if it were Kevin Doyle that beat him, but given that it was the best striker on the planet that beat him and it was the first time he has ever been beaten on a set piece, you have to cut him some slack.
BTW – where were the rest of our defenders on that play? The ball dropped in the middle of our goal box and Rooney had a clear view of the ball. He also barely had to jump to make the header. If you watch the replay, you’ll see that Kaboul was just 5 yards away from where the ball landed ball watching.
I dont disagree with most of that,he has been a star in my eyes since coming back, but for that corner he didnt even know where the ball was going, he was totaly obsessed with stopping rooney getting to it, where he might have won it if he followed the flight a bit more.
he might be the best striker on the planet, but he is only 5’10”
I agree completely. With Rooney running towards the corner the ball was kicked from, Walker should have had a great view of the ball’s flight.
I found this great photo that nicely illustrates both of our points (If you look at Kaboul, he is on the wrong side of his mark and he is ball watching – Dawson would have certainly cleared this):
http://img.skysports.com/12/03/496×259/Wayne-Rooney-goal-Tottenham-vs-Manchester-Uni_2728328.jpg
Watched that ESPN thing on Jose tonight. Maradona is horrible but a great quote on the man… ‘no player that has ever worked for him as ever spoken badly of him… and this is worth more than money.
Tip top.
I want Maureen. Mo if you’re reading, come to my arms son.
I am confident that we could win out from here, including the FA cup, based on the way we played yesterday.
After watching these three closely the last week, I am confident we have three more budding superstars in Caulker, Livermore and Walker, who are all going to be pillars for club and country.
With Mo in charge, I am confident that we would win the league, contend for the CL title, and be one of the most dominant clubs in Europe for the next decade.
Sadly, I have ZERO faith/belief/confidence that Mo will ever want to come to the Lane to lead us, entirely due to our lack of funds. QPR has a better chance of landing him than we do.
You’re the same bloke who was “confident” that we would spank ManU on Saturday…just sayin’
We outshot them 18-6 and totally dominated possession. Thanks to a couple of missed calls and a handful of mistakes we didn’t get the result, but it was our best performance all season.
I have been posting on HH’s blogs for six or seven seasons now and if you look at my history, you can count on one hand the amount of times I have been positive about the club, our manager, or a result.
We are sitting in third with only one somewhat tough match left all season, have a wide open FA Cup in front of us, appear to have all but one of our stars healthy, and our two youngest players have had brilliant games the last two weeks. How can you not be positive about things?
daytripper…can I have some of what you took…cos I must have watched a different game to you.
hmmm, We out shot them but they scored 3 times….what does that suggest to you?
So according to you we played better losing 3-1 than we did winning 5-0…hmmmm
There are NO easy games…especially for our lot
when were our youngest players being brilliant? was it when they lost Rooney in the box (clue – he’s in the box!) or was it when they were giving up with 20mins to go and miling in a 1-3 defeat in front of their own fans..
must be damn good acid daytripper…can you send me some?
re your great photo. Worse than any of the outfield players is the image of Friedel standing on his goal line like a frightened rabbit in headlights. He should have come out and punched that ball clear.
Spurs for life. This is not about getting beat its the way we are getting beat is a big worry. The problem is we are not playing for 90 plus mins and if we play like this for the rest of the games that are left we will finish 5th or worse. We could not ask for a better start at Arsenal then we stop playing and started back peddling and gave Arsenal the signal to attack and Harry joined in with is subs. When a team starts too play like we are it means one thing the manager is not getting the best out of them and he is been tapped like Modric three goals and one assist all season then Chelsea popped the question. Well this is what i think Ady used to be married to Arsenal and they had a bad parting but Wenger started building bridges a few weeks ago firstly complaining about Ady being on loan from City. He followed this by praising him and then Ady started kissing and making up he even shook the hands of the Arsoles in the tunnel he did score the penalty but that was it. Saha got a love card of Fergie telling him he was a great player when he got him out on the pitch and letting him no he was a Utd player and don’t fuck there championship challenge up he got subbed and Defoe showed them how easy it was to score. So we had players on the pitch who still had feelings for there old clubs. Also we had a manager who told one of our player he was not being sold then he realised he would dump us if England called so he knifed Levey in the back by saying we cant keep him if we cant pay big wages he also said Ady would have to take a pay cut to stay when he was on fire he then missed about 19 chances we all knew he could score you see all these have not signed for Spurs King Ady Modric Harry Defoe was head hunted by Liverpool Barca have courted Bale and in our last games all these played below par except Defoe who loves Spurs yet gets treated shit by Harry he trained extra hard was on fire scored a very good Goal when other strikers would have carried the ball further and let the keeper save it Ady and Saha for two. We are trying to stay in third with players who could be playing for rivals next year and that will be very hard Levey must act and sack Harry Bond Joe Ferdinand Sherwood Keep Allen install Benitez and Allen has caretaker boss or we could choke and finish 5th. When Benitez run Liverpool they played for 90 plus mins and finished 2nd with the name Come back kings and Duracell Bunnies. They could run all day and we need this to compete against energy cheats we have yet too play. Or we could trust Harry and hope its just a double dip blip but remember this H.H i forecast how these teams would play when most of our fans where gloating Asoles in a crisis.
:daumen:
While you got some points here, the LSD must have kicked in on the Benitez part, right..? Still thinking this after your trip..? :-)
A central defender to replace or rotate with Ledders and a top top striker in the Jan window last year would have got us top top 4. This year it would have consolidated top top 4 and may have given us the springboard to contend for the title, now we must fight off the baying hoards, who thinks we`re up for it ?
To bring in the players we’d need to seriously challenge for the title, I guess on a figure of 45m. Vertongerhen (my choice) would be 15, a striker 20 and a decent keep probably another 10. Question is have we got that sort of bucks if we’re to keep Modric? and secondly can we compete without him in the side?, I honestly think he’s good, but he ain’ £40m great and who would fill his position if he departs. If 20odd million buys you Adebayor, then be prepared to accept, we’d need to outlay far more if that’s all you get-plus wages on top!
Dear fellow spurs fans
Regarding the Harry and England saga.. I would like to share with you this email I sent to Daniel levy in early 2011 to demonstrate just how long this has been on the cards and also the response from WHL: