Good afternoon?
Well I’ve had worse I suppose. The game itself wasn’t our finest hour nor was it quite self harming territory. The bottom line is that this competition was the last of our priorities. Nice to win a pot but for those believing we ought to have gone all out …I’ve two names for you. McLeish & Dalglish.
The appearance of Bale was a welcome surprise and had he not featured it’s a cheerless exercise to dwell on how we would have performed. He was the spark, the drive, the creative.
The young guys given a chance did their best. Falque is an interesting chap. There’s a raw energy there. A fast paced mind at work. But he needs managing training and guiding. I look at him, Livermore, Townsend and Walker all whom are ‘products’ of our academy or whatever it’s trading as this week and worry.
Are we producing footballers or people who simply look like footballers, impressionists?
Maybe I imagined it, but Livermore looked to have more about him when he debuted. Now we have this Jenasesque fella that looks like he’d be more at home in one of those partially naked calenders that firemen do for charity. Walker looks like a rep for a company that services gym equipment. Falque like an assistant manager at Toni & Guy.
My point is why are their footballing IQ’s so low? Falque took two maybe three corners and the ball didn’t beat the first man once. In fact the damn thing was smacked in a light speed at knee height. Jake concedes the most cheap and hopelessly unnecessary fouls. Walker’s dive for the penalty was the work of an impressionist.
This was pretty much a Norwich B team vs a Spurs B team for want of a better description. I’m just saying I would have hoped for more given the opposition.
We went a goal up and then proceeded to act as as if the thing was won. Slowed the game, passed as if we were playing the time out. A child could have predicted this wasn’t a very good plan. Any child able to use a clock or a watch.
Our traveling firm were great value. ‘Norwich City, your sister’s your mum’ followed by a Grant Holt’s arrival prompting a chorus of ‘Grant Holt, he eats when he wants.’
Norwich scored twice and we missed a penalty. This beast on Twitter was quick to voice her support direct to Clint on Twitter. Despite being at the game in person!
I take the view that if people are on Twitter they have to take their chances, maybe not everyone thinks you’re as wonderful as your mother repeatedly told you you were. But why would you Tweet Dempsey that? Jeez, he knows that he missed. My best guess is he didn’t do it on purpose.
Is there a moral to last night’s story? Probably not. But we do need a striker and we need Moussa Dembélé. Like a rose needs rainwater, like a leopard needs its partner in the jungle, like… I don’t know what like.
AVB clearly needs to sort out what’s going on with Adebeyor. He has had mystery injuries or illness for all of our five Cup games this season and it’s obvious something is going on behind the scenes. AVB should have started him before now in the League but it could be argued that Adebayor should prove his fitness in the Cup games. We cannot carry on with just Defoe up front and a make-shift below par striker like Dempsey and expect to finish top four and progress in the Cups. I have never known Spurs with so few options up front.
Not only up front Kevin, look at the LB situation which results in our having to play our best CB in that position because BAE is injured.
We could always play Naughton. He’s better there than Jan is anyway.
But he is a RB, all right foot. I know he can play LB but it is not ideal.
It is the lack of forward thinking that gets me, same as with the centre forward position. We are lucky Defoe has stayed fit otherwise we would have had Dempsey or no-one playing there.
Yes, but in the scheme of things, it is better to have Naughton playing LB and Jan in the centre where he’s supposed to be. And when Benny returns, Naughton deserves a crack at RB where he’s supposed to be.
But if we had proper left back cover, Naughton could be playing RB now.
As I said, lack of planning is going to cost us, not least because we are unable to rotate key players.
I like AVB, but he needs to wise up when it comes to us trying to defend a lead. It’s same-old-spurs all over again when it comes to the 80th minute – I start cacking it.
Also, its all well and good making the players fit the formation as your long term plan, but not if it involves isolating the better players you just inherited.
Ade is far better than Siggy/Dempsey/Townsend so when he’s fit, AVB needs to find a way to play him – even if that means going to 4-4-2.
We need a world class player for ‘the hole’ in January, or next summer, or we’ll keep failing to capitalize on our possessional dominance.
As Ronnie pointed out a few blogs back, they’re a classy bunch at Chelsea:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2226112/Chelsea-racism-row-Club-launch-probe-picture-appears-fan-making-monkey-gesture-Manchester-United-striker-Danny-Welbeck.html
It’s the forth picture down that tickles me :-)
Man Utd supporter’s banner with:
“Chelsea, Standing Up to Racism since Sunday”
Classic.
Tickled me too :-)
I don’t think the morons surrounding him are going to grass him up. It appears that barbarians are in the gates of civilization.
His face is plastered all over the media- he’s f*cked!
So is Piers Morgan’s, but he seems to be getting away with it.
Patience my pretty, patience…………
We actually have a pretty good squad when we have Ade, Kaboul, Parker,and Dembele back and hopefully a new striker in January. I know it’s a tall order, but if we can keep most of our best players fit, we should dramatically improve with the correct squad rotation.
FFS when is AVB going to finally learn;
1) at Spurs we dont do defending
2) we are not good enough to defend a lead anyway
3) Norich were weak opponents
3) in any sport, dont change a winning game
4) I cant count
When He brought Vertonghen on for Carroll I thought smart move, a bit of experience in the middle of the park. So what does He do, puts him in defence. Ie Come on Norwich, have a go if you think you’re hard enough. Cue Grant Holt
Its not AVB’s fault we lack strikers or a creative midfielder, thats down to Levy’s penny pinching.
I like AVB as a person but if He dosent wake up and curtail his negative outlook on the game He may as well go & we get a proper manager.
The problem is our attacking players don’t take their chances. The other team will always get a chance too. Yesterday they got a deflection and this raised their spirits. But we need to take our chances. We lack that special bit in the last third.
totally agree with you about the lack of cutting edge and actually, we’re not opening up teams that much either.
AVB has a slightly above average pool of players imo.
My complaint is the way AVB clams up when we go into a lead. Anybody who has actually played the game (or any sport) will tell you, ‘dont change your tactics if they are working’. Its a basic.
Vertonghen didn’t go into defence, he went into Carroll’s position in mid field. He only dropped back deeper when we got sloppy and invited Norwich to attack. Changing a rookie (Carroll) for a much more experienced player in mid field was sensible. Your criticism of AVB is wrong and unjustified.