Good evening.
Time for us to focus our thoughts on what is a massive, massive game. The list of those we failed to replace, the injured and the retired is well documented. The victory against Maribor was welcome of course but needs to be appreciated in the context of – this was an unremarkable Maribor.
That said, it will create a feel good factor. That’s quite rightly how football works.
But how brave will the boss be against the Champions? My suspicion is that the answer is ‘not too brave.’ I don’t believe he’ll play Hugo and I don’t believe he’ll drop Walker and certainly not for Naughton. I believe that showing confidence in players cuts both ways and ‘that’ goal in the Naughton/Lloris fiasco shouldn’t be used as stick to beat either men with.
Carroll has to start. To dare is to naffin’ well do and I think he’s earned this. Against City I believe we need to play with a 3 in the midfield given the resources. Thud and Sandro isn’t enough. It will end up with Mr Beastly doing himself a mischief again. But more so it’s a case of we must be creative and the two Toms between them will give us a fighting chance.
Bale on the left, Azza Lemon on the right and for me it’s Adebayor to start. Do you drop your hat-trick man? The brave do. On the strength of the Europa game Ade is back or at least very close to being back in business. We miss Moussa horribly and between Carroll and Ade we can at least attempt to mend and make do.
I predict a 3-2 win.
On another note what the hell was that AVB shove on the First team coach about in the Maribor match?!
Who’s that starring in Dogs Arses H? He looks like a right twunt ;-)
:shifty:
‘that’ goal in the Naughton/Lloris fiasco
I agree that these guys shouldn’t be punished too severely for the mis-hap. But these are players that you (and others) were adamant should be playing instead of Walker and Brad. I hope the ‘incident’ serves as justification as to why AVB has not been selecting them for the Prem ahead of their counterparts. A fcuk up in the EL against poor opposition is forgivable. But dropped points in the Prem would’nt be.
Or would it?
Would it be okay losing a game comforted by the fact that the ‘future’ players were learning?
Fcuk if I know. but I don’t think they’ll adapt, this side of December.
I’m with you Brizzle. let’s go with experience and counter attack to try to win.
I was more concerned by Lloris’ missed punch at a corner than the f*ck-up, to be honest…
City are a “big” team and I hate to say it, but I fear for us at set pieces…
Here here, he has also dropped 2 simple crosses (one of which should have cost a goal), thrown the ball to a Villa player (from which they missed a simple chance), put Naughton under pressure (from which Maribor scored) and parried into the path of a Norwich player which cost a goal and a defeat.
So far he has looked dodgy and certainly doe not inspire the confidence that Friedel does. He hasn’t shown that he can command the box at all.
3 wins away and a dodgy defeat would indicate to me that our away form isn’t too shabby-many are confusing the system deployed at home, and are prepared to throw baby out with the bathwater.
Keep the same system for away games-but revert to 442 at home where teams need to be broken down with pace.
By George I think he’s got it!!
lol, err that’s an affirmative by the way :cop:
I’d rather have the team which played against Wigan, with Defoe instead of Dempsey in the hole, and Ade up front with both of them switching their jobs in a 4-2-3-1 formation. Though we would miss Dembele, if Thudd overcomes his habit of running a bit with the ball in space and then passing rather than just the latter, we could be in with a chance. 1-1 draw for me, frankly would be great if we avoid a loss, and i’m usually on the optimistic side of predictions for Spurs.
Defoe doesnt do holes….
Well yes he doesWhen he is playing football that is….
I mean….
You know what I mean!