Essentially this was a game where the quality of the opposition pushed and pressured the Starship Tottingham Hotspur to the point where you could hear Mr Scott cry from the ether, ‘She cannae take it, Captain!’ The frailties in the engine room were there for all to see. Dry ice shot out of the pipes, lights flashed and the camera man didn’t need wiggle the vertical hold button about, the pitch did actually tilt violently now and again.
The inhabitants of the Blue Moon were a physically strong godless gang of vicious but talented bar stewards. We attempted to stun a few of them but they simply ate our phasers.
The boss made some questionable substitutions yet again and I would welcome him explaining why in his report to Star Fleet Fleet St. Ade was on a yellow, but unarguably our best player. With Defoe and Dempsey teaming up we were effectively down to 9 men.
If I didn’t know Hugo was there on the bench then I’d give the old buzzard an easier ride. It’s not his fault that Lloris appears faster, more proactive, determined not to hoof the ball. It’s not Brad’s fault. But thems the facts.
His agent should get him a non speaking extra part on EastEnders. A bloke happily shifting boxes of cauliflowers on the market. Playing football at this level he looked out of his depth. No howlers, just a startled bunny hopping about on a main road.
Gets dogs abuse from a certain section of our support. This must a be a group of people who live timid, anally retentive lives who will tell you with pride they don’t own a piece of red clothing. He wasn’t perfect but much better than some.
Against the Premier League Champions and their multimillion pound megastars he stock fell a little. Given his age and experience my guess is he’ll survive. The quality of his header beat the country’s best goalie. So yes, a mixed bag but no screaming disaster.
Really needed him in the middle of the defense. Again, with Verts as with others there was too much being thrown at us to indulge him being played out of position.
Here’s a guy that’s worth his wages and due a pay rise. Never goes missing. Doesn’t flounce about doing impressions. He’s mustard. If we had Parker back then we could focus more on feeding the creatives.
This was a game that I felt he genuinely tried his best and despite it not being quite good enough it, that doesn’t make him a bad person. He tried to defend more and move more, but it made little difference. If we could squeeze performances like this out of him against far far weaker opposition then he would be a squad rotation asset. At this level he was too pressured and gave away possession far too frequently.
I liked the figure pointing bit. Must find that for a caption comp. But he didn’t spin past them, he didn’t achieve a whole hell of a lot. He did pitch in defensively which was the right thing to do. But offensively they didn’t notice him.
Did City do a job on him or was he deployed more defensively? Whichever it was, it didn’t work out well for us. A game we could have really benefited from him blazing a trail. And he didn’t.
Oh dear. It appears Clint Dempsey is in possession of some rather lurid photographs of Villas-Boas and a pineapple.
My heart sank when he came on because we took off the only bloke who was probably going to supply him.
Best boy on the pitch. Hugged most of the City team in the tunnel and then proceeded on the pitch to wind most of them up like cheap alarm clocks. If we learned anything from this game it was that Emmanual Adebayor is a diligent footballer. Jermain Defoe is poacher.
Oh Andre, Andre, Andre. What was the deal with taking off Ade? And what on earth were you doing with that pineapple? My big concern is that you aren’t being as tough on the lads as some of us might wish you to be. That said you are missing so many vital ingredients there is a futility to the analysis. Carroll must be trusted. Huddlestone is too limited. As for Dempsey, I am afraid the jig is up.
Over the moon that we have got back our mediocre middle of the table Spurs club. Must have been dreaming that we had overcome the last 50 years and were serious contenders for a regular fourth slot. Best of luck to the young supporters who will still be around in 50 years time!
Drama queen….. :kissing:
AVB needs time to build his own squad. The players he has available to him aren’t a great fit for the system he is trying to implement. As a result, he is having to adapt his system to suit what he has available.
There’s no more high line because our defenders were too slow.
There’s no more hard closing down of the opposition for 90 minutes because the team were spent after 70 minutes.
There’s no more 2 defensive holding midfielders every game. Hud tends to play a little more advanced when in possession.
AVB is still trying to get the best out of what he has, which isn’t the same squad as Redknapp had last year.
I refer you to the team that beat Newcastle 5-0 in Febuary.
Friedel
Bale (subbed for Lennon)
Dawson
King (subbed for Nelson)
Walker
Ekotto
Parker
Modric
Kranjcar
Adebayor
Saha (subbed for Defoe)
6 of the starting 11 aren’t available.
1.We are playing with a different unfamiliar CB pairing.
2.We are playing with a different unfamiliar CM pairing.
3.We are missing the creativeness of Modric and VDV.
I’m not saying AVB is blameless, he is young and still (should be) learning from mistakes, but you can see he doesn’t have the same players available as last year, so to expect the same football and same results is madness.
At least this hasn’t degenerated into petty point scoring and an online convention of unemployed psychics.
That’s the main thing 8O
I miss Eileen Drewery lol
I knew you were going to post that…. :shifty:
Well he’s only led next to, course you would sweety….
I knew you were going to post that :winke:
You really are psychic.. There’s no way you could see me type that from your mums wardrobe…? :whistle: :daumen:
Would Dempsey, Livermore, Walker, Hudd, Naughton get into a top 4 team?
I ask this because that’s who we have and I can’t imagine getting anywhere with these chaps in our starting 11. The two Kyles need time, maybe even Livermore too. But I don’t have a lot of faith in a squad that’s putting ALL these chaps out into a starting eleven. not because they’re sh*t necessarily, but because they don’t really fit together and make a convincing side.
I can’t imagine how any manager could emulate some of our recent achievements with this squad.
It’s that simple to me. The only thing that could improve us now would be a couple of good buys in January and some key players returning.
There’s no quick fix. No scape goat. Just a lot of work to do.
I dunno. For all the talk of the squad changing so drastically, it hasn’t changed that much. Most people celebrated the outgoings this Summer – VDV included. The only big miss is obviously Modric. But apart from that we are more or less the same. You can argue we lost quality with VDV but a lot of people will counter-argue with some justification that he could only manage 25 minutes of moving around on the grass and most of last season was a bit lack-lustre anyway.
You can always blame the incomings. But Jan was a good buy, our defence is certainly in better shape this year with a lot of options. Nobody is arguing with Dembele. Sig and Dempsey have been awful, but the blame for that has to fall on AVB and Levy, they bought them. To think that the players they replaced – Krancjar and Bentley, let’s say, might have been better options to keep is galling to say the least.
To a point I agree. Yes, there are limitations with availability and Levy could have delivered a little more, but that is no excuse for being a self proclaimed, dimwitted ego maniac that plays internal politics whilst basing his footablling philosophy on Championship Manager 2026 and power point 2010….
Twas for Re BrizzleSpur
Sorry, should have confirmed that aint AVB its HH im referring too??? :-D :-D :-D :-p