Welcome to your weekend.
The boys from White Hart Lane vs the Cheatski cads it is then. The tactics board here was based upon the grocer’s maxim, ‘all the best gear at the front’ and that is 100% how we need to approach this one.
Our defence is in tatters, ribbons. I understand we are waiting to see if Mr Herriot passes Ledders as fit. My fear is that Arry will look at his options and with Kaboul crocked worry that we’re a bit challenged on the height front.
Other options include Half Nelsen, the boy Rose and Khumalo. That’s the liability list you’re looking at. Cheatski are called Cheatski for a reason and our back line needs to be clued up.
Nelsen is said in some quarters to be improved. I see him as a penalty waiting to happen. Rose is simply nowhere near good enough for a game like this. Khumalo? Please.
So you field your best, why waste a shirt by filling it with a half measure? So I’ve gone for a kinky threesome at the back.
fig.1 relentless, fast, accurate passing fig.2 Brad bowling the ball out. No pointless punting into London’d cold night air fig.3 Pathe News Boy does one of his little shielding 180°’s, turns and passes.
The pairing of a fresh Sandro and the near immortal Scotty Parker are the right job altogether for the centre mid positions. If they sit nice and deep that gives us a 5 man crew in Cheatski’s final third.
It is absolutely vital therefore that Walker is controlled and doesn’t do his ‘wandering minstrel I’ schtick up the wing. It invariably ends in not a lot and ahead of him is Aaron Lemon who believe it or not, is better than him at this sort of thing. We cannot have people out of position in a game as important as this.
Modders centrally to feed everyone. With Rafa running a horizontal channel in front of him, this paring should be able to be as creative as they need to be.
And so to Bale. With Rafa off of Ade’s shoulder, to the right of course, that leaves space for the Welsh wizard to cut in. But this must not, repeat must not be mistaken for a license to fanny about with half-witted Ronaldo impressions. The Cheats backline will not be prized open with Bale making speculative ‘flicks’ into the box with the outside of his left shoe from a right position.
Adebayor needs to get supplied. Not teeing him up effectively won’t be resolved by losing the creativity by subbing Rafa and bringing on Defoe. There needs to be a system in place to supply a man who has scored plenty of goals for us. Corners need to routinely beat the first man if they are to find him.
I say this is ours to lose. The squad available can win here if deployed and played to their strengths.
The Official FA Cup Semi Final Man Of The Match public vote, so please place your Lilywhite votes in now.
Budweiser are giving away an Umbro FA Cup football every day!
Does anyone want Redknapp to stay?
As far as I am concerned Trouty has already left the building and the whole team are looking into an abyss that can only be solved by an enormous reshuffle, biting the bullet, and a nice relaxing holiday at the priory clinic where they can try to shake off the fleeing-from-zombies nightmare their lives have become.
The FA?
Yeah arsenhole and cheatski fans.
Yes, me.
At least until the end of the season.
I don’t blame him for that debacle any more than I blame Modric and Adebayor for being virtually anonymous. For the same reason Steveo said earlier ” Well, to show some balance here…..VDV wasn’t doing anything and it’s a cup game so he went for it. Nothing went our way. Their goalie should have been sent off regardless of Bale sticking in the net I think”
You lot are the biggest collection of cry babies, we lost a game of football, get over yourselves. It’s no wonder we get so much stick from other fans, it’s embarrassing.
Take it on the chin, man-up and move on.
(Breaks into a bout of happy-clapping, pulls out guitar and plays Cumbaya)
Cue offensive remarks and threats of violence from torch carrying mob of haters.
If Harry can be absolved of any culpability yesterday, what about the previous 9 games?
Read it again, I didn’t absolve him of anything.
‘I don’t blame him for that debacle any more than I blame Modric and Adebayor for being virtually anonymous‘
I think that the players are as much to blame for our recent run of sheeeeeeeeeeeeit form as he is. Whether the players think he will go or not, they still have a duty to the club and the fans to perform to the best of their ability for the £10’s of thousands they are paid every week. They’ve been anonymous in too many games, blaming Redknapp alone, absolves them of any responsibilty at all.
I don’t think it is anything much to do with the players being distracted by the England talk so much as Redknapp being distracted by it and perhaps as a result failing to organize, prepare or motivate the team adequately. Also:
Continually perpetuating the same very basic tactical errors.
Relying too heavily on the same players and not utilizing his squad.
Failing to address key areas of recruitment adequately, leading to some bargain bin desperation buys who are already untrusted by the very man who brought them in.
Allowing useful squad players in key positions to leave on loan, thus weakening our squad further.
Generally being a charmless cad who whilst happy to suck it up when the goings good never takes responsibility for a bad result and instead turns on the fans, players, praises the opposition etc.
I agree, the players obviously should take some responsibility too. But overall, this is a managerial failure to properly utilize the most talented team we have seen in probably 2 decades, which will very likely now be dismantled as Harry willingly wanders off to pastures new. And it will all be his fault, more or less, a bit of bad luck thrown in along the way. And you know what – that twat will say we never had it so good.
Modric is playing like he knows he won’t be here next season; doesn’t really care, and VdV is showing why Maureen let him go. Too many of our players blow hot and cold. You can’t rely on them.
I thought Redknapp got the formation and tactics pretty much spot on in the first half. The timing of their first two goals made it very difficult, but barring injury, why would any competent manager leave out his first choice keeper in a game of that magnitude?
Well, this is a first but I agree with you. I said at the time that we should have taken the Russians £50mill, how much is the rat worth now?
VdV can’t last much beyond the first half and Sandro and Modric offer no goal threat so who do you replace him with which doesn’t affect midfield? We were chasing the game after their freebie so Defoe was the only choice.
I haven’t a clue why he left out Friedel, it was a mistake.
Spurious, are you being ironic?
We will ‘take it on the chin’ etc.
If yesterday had been an ad hoc situation, as Glenda herself might have said, we would have accepted it, more or less. But it wasn’t. This fool has been dragging us down for two months now and our cries of impotent rage are a reaction to that. When you see the man changing a title challenge to a comfortable 3rd spot to a desperate attempt to cling on to 4th, with a distinct possibility of 5th or 6th and no FA Cup redemption, what do you expect? Think about the crass, undignified comments he makes whenever he speaks and you might understand why we react as we do. And the weakening of the squad in January.
Maybe you were being ironic.
Did you seriously believe we would win the title?
If you blame him for our fall, you have to accept that he was responsible for getting us up there in the first place. I accept neither, it’s a team game and that includes all the back-room staff. There should be collective praise for success and collective responsibilty for failure, and that’s what I’ve said all along.
The season isn’t over yet and I’ll do my judging when we have or have’nt acheived Champions League.
As to his “crass, undignified comments” we’d all like him to STFU but it’s his nature and we knew it before Levy appointed him. Don’t buy a dog if you can’t stand barking.
I certainly didn’t ever believe we could win the title but then I didn’t go around saying to anyone who would listen that we could do. I think I had a realistic assumption as the season panned out that we looked pretty strong for top 4. Right now we look very weak for that goal, and the ever-shifting targets of our boss may have something to do with that, no?
2 trophies in 20 years is still one more than Redknapp has mustered in his entire career so perhaps he might be better having a look at his own achievements rather than running down ours.