Tottenham Hotspur had the interesting task of trying to keep the Wolves at bay earlier today as we welcomed Nuno Espirito Santo’s impressive side to White Hart Lane.
Jose Mourinho’s selections for the match saw both Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen take up places on the bench, with Eric Dier brought into the middle of the defence, but whatever Jose’s plan was – ultimately it didn’t work out.
Did Jose Get The Defence Right?
100% No, Obviously
Yes, We Needed To Do More In Attack
We dominated possession and in terms of chances it was a pretty even game, but with Steven Bergwijn and Serge Aurier finding themselves on the score sheet, we went into the break with a 2-1 lead. Defensively we were again questionable though and the second period saw the visitors improve, and with two goals coming for them in the final 45 minutes, we fell to a 3-2 defeat.
Had Dele Alli made his chance count to make it 3-1 to us, we’d have undoubtedly come out with the win but as it is we now slip to three defeats on the spin across all competitions and Wolverhampton Wanderers move ahead of us into sixth place.
Speaking to the BBC following the full time whistle, Mourinho felt it was a very undeserved defeat.
“I think unfair. The players didn’t deserve the defeat. We were punished by, I would say, mentality mistakes. You have to be ruthless against teams like Wolves that plays fantastically well on the counter-attack. We deserve much more than these results but this is what it is. Attack combined well, they did what they can. They did the plan that we worked on in the week. We had lots of arrivals in dangerous positions, but it is quite frustrating to see they don’t have that feeling.”
As for the Toby and Jan question, he said.
“I think Eric Dier played very, very well, so when the player you bring in as a replacement plays very, very well the question could be why did you play Dier and not why did you leave out Toby and Jan. I tried to play with Davinson and Tanganga, which are the two fastest players. Dier is because he is a midfield player, he has the possibility to come out with the ball and play as an extra midfield player. I thought they did very well apart from the goals, which are collective responsibility, not individual responsibility.”
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“Very Repetitive” – Jose Makes His Point As Spurs Slip To Another Defeat – Match Stats
White Hart Lane
Premier League
1/03/2020 3:00 pm
Attendance: 58064
Referee: Attwell
| Tottenham Hotspur | Wolverhampton Wanderers | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bergwijn (13), Aurier (41) | Doherty (27), Jota (57), Jimenez (73) | ||||||
| Gazzaniga | Rui Patricio | ||||||
| Sanchez | Boly | ||||||
| Dier | Coady | ||||||
| Tanganga | 76 | Saiss | |||||
| Aurier | 82 | Doherty | |||||
| Lo Celso | Neves | ||||||
| Winks | Joao Moutinho | ||||||
| Davies | 91 | Vinagre | |||||
| Lucas Moura | Traore | 74 | |||||
| Alli | Jimenez | 92 | |||||
| Bergwijn | Jota | 79 | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Alderweireld | Neto | 74 | |||||
| Vertonghen | Castelo Podence | 92 | |||||
| Vorm | Gibbs-White | ||||||
| Ndombele | 76 | Ruddy | |||||
| Skipp | Dendoncker | 79 | |||||
| Gedson Fernandes | 82 | Kilman | |||||
| Parrott | 91 | Buur | |||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 13 | Goal attempts | 14 |
| 5 | On Target | 4 |
| 4 | Corners | 5 |
| 12 | Fouls | 14 |
| 3 | Yellow Cards | 2 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 65 | % | 35 |
what has gone wrong with spurs this season , at this rate we will be looking at relegation instead of a top 4 , this time last year we were flying high in the top 4 and champions league football , can some one give me an answer
Flying last year! we blagged it! Theres your answer, not spending for 3 windows and over performing with average players, Dier, Davis, Vorm, even Ali is so hyped! I blame Levy he panicked sacked Poch! The new stadium is a corporate venue not white hart lane at least we can watch some big events there!
Well well well,
The problem is not with the players selected but with the git making the selections. I haven’t had the stomach to come on this site since the little Moor (Mourinho) was named our manager. But I needed to come on now to say something simple: MOURINHO OUT.
FORA MOURINHO. VAI EMBORA porra.
The single most depressing thing in my 60 years supporting Spurts is to have this MANiac at N17. Mourinho stands for everything that is anti-Spurs. He is the non-Spur at Spurs. He is a bone spur where we should be wearing our Spurs. Mourinho is a tragically bad joke on our team. I would prefer to bring back Tim Sherwood, for the sake of the gods.
Mourinha doesn’t even know how to do the one non-Spurs thing that would not give up three goals: He’s forgotten how to park a bus. New bus driver, please. Have the tea lady hand this man his unemployment card. I await the day his sacking is announced.
Depressing – we can’t defend to save our lives and our rivals are all beating us in direct matches yet dropping points left, right and centre elsewhere meaning we are always within touching distance – close but not close enough and when we do get the chance we always fluff our lines.
I agree with JM picking Davy and Tanganga because of their speed (up against Jimenez, Traore and Jota who are all pacey) but the fact is both performed crap today especially Tanganga and it just shows how desperate we are. There’s also Norwich on Wednesday in the FA Cup and Toby and Vert’s could feature there and up against Pukki SHOULD be relatively comfortable especially pace wise so it was a fair call from JM to play the 2 younger CB’s today – but they did not live up to the billing. Getting fed-up of Sanchez constantly making mistakes every game and as for Tanganga getting thrown in at the deep end again what can one expect – for me he needs to go out on loan for a season to get vital experience but for that to happen we need to invest heavily in the summer which without CL I doubt will happen if it even would if we did get CL in the 1st place.
N’Dombele was pretty poor last week at Chelski and Dier was rightfully more trusted today – he did OK but again was found wanting up against the pace of their front 3. The rest of the side pretty much picked itself.
Dele did well – 2 assists pretty much – the 1st he was unlucky with Patricio making a world class save but rolled back to Bergwijn who poked in nicely and then set up Aurier nicely aswell. For not having HK10 and Sonny thought Dele was class in leading the line and like I say was unlucky not to score but pretty much got 2 assists so job done from him. Lo Celso was busy, so was Moura (gets fouled a lot – needs more protection from the ref’s IMHO) and Bergs got a goal.
The problem was not attack, it was as has been the case for the whole of 2019, etc our inability to defend and it keeps punishing us heavily. We’ll have to battle through to the summer as best we can and then see what happens and what we can do but without CL I fear for the worst – bloody typical – would be nice to see us challenging again and actually WIN again in this generation!
People that came here to said they would prefer Tim back then Jose makes me laugh, we had one of our best games of the season or you forget what wolfes done to city and how they just lost against Liverpool because of VAR , what Jose can’t do is play in place of ours players, how in the name of God we let Jonas run more that 50 yards and give the ball to Jimenez to score did you saw what wolfes do every time we was going to start a counterattack: they stop it with a fault and we see exactly the same from Liverpool from city and even from Chelsea in both games we lost with them and we never going to stop losing till our players learn they have to play ugly in certain moments , exactly what Jose said we are to “nice” but the problem come from almost 6years of Mauricio telling then to play nice and wining f……k all and now you want to tell it’s Jose fault as I said don’t make me laugh
CM….so bloody true, a pro-foul stops all breakaway attacks, L’Pool, M City ans Chavs are the masters at it, so why not us, that’s right we are to “nice!” COYS
We have so many poor players it’s unreal. There isn’t a manager out there that could do anything with this shower of tripe.
Our gradual decline continues. We score first, lead twice and concede 3 goals at home to lose yet again. We are now 7th and look unlikely to have European football next season, whatever will Levy do if his emporium is not taking in European revenues. Yes we have had a few injuries, every club does, but it is more noticeable if you suffer from a total lack of adequate cover in several key positions. One thing about my nearly 70 years as a Spurs fan is you experience every emotion, elation very rarely, frustration almost permanently, and as now embarrassment bordering of being ashamed of the total lack of achievement. There just seems no will in the hierarchy to succeed on the pitch. We have a state of the art stadium and training ground, and a totally inadequate squad, with which to attempt to compete in the PL. It’s no good blaming JM for team selection when he has nowt to pick from. Incidentally has anybody noticed the form of Bruno Fernandez who we were linked with heavily in the window, but as usual failed to sign, he is now looking one of the best MFers in the PL at Man United, and like Grealish will no doubt continually remind us of what we missed. We as a club maybe commercially very successful, but on the pitch we are in rapid decline. We are gradually getting used to failure, the price you pay for following Spurs, particularly in the ENIC era.
As I have said on many occasions in the past I am firmly convinced that we will never be a successful football club under the stewardship of Daniel Levy and his ENIC cohorts. We will end up a very very rich organisation and one of these days we may boast of having the best facilities in the championship.
Frank – I share your concerns in the main but would argue that we need to look at defenders and a striker. Grealish is doing very well but he ain’t a Sonny and both play the same position. We also now have Bergwijn. Fernandes again has started well but we had and have Dele who has been playing really well under JM – he made both goals today and also we now have Lo Celso who also looks classy and will get better and better with time.
This said we clearly needed a striker to cover HK10 – we tried to do it on the cheap with Sonny and possibly having Parrott coming through but it ain’t worked out at all well – Sonny injured long term aswell and Parrott not really ready according to JM – (needs loaning out IMHO).
Defence is another where for 2 windows now we have ignored despite spending good money in them. Fair play Sessegnon for LB but not ready and ideally again needs loaning out, fair play Toby signing a new contract but cannot play every game and lacks general pace, fair play Foyth and Tanganga maybe coming through BUT again for me could benefit with being loaned out like KWP and many others before him.
Aurier, Toby, Sanchez Davies is the best we can put out at the moment but it ain’t anywhere near the calibre of player we have more forwards like HK10, Sonny, Dele, Lo Celso, N’Dombele (I rate N’Dombele very highly but needs to start proving himself end of), etc.
Not surprised at the result .
I sympathise with all the negative comments about the team but really we are just reaping what we sowed or didn’t !!
The blame must be put firmly with Enic and Poch’s inability to persuade Levy to invest wisely . However in their defence the big French lump appears to be a complete waste of money but a large sum was paid for him .
There are so many negatives within the team and not sure how Jose can fix the many problems exacerbated by the injuries to Harry , Sonny and Sissoko .
It is so frustrating and join the many on here who have supported the team over 60 years or so and we are just upset by the amazing turn around and demise so quickly of an extremely watchable side .
A massive shame to see our record transfer not producing the goods week in, week out so far – how we need him. Lo Celso has been pretty impressive but where are the goals similar to last season at Betis where got 16 in total?! Sessegnon supposedly the bargain of the summer – nowhere to be seen – clearly not ready (Fulham wanted £50m for him at 1 point LOL! Reckon he’ll come good but WTF with wanting £50m?!). Clarke – does anyone know what is happening with him at all?! Fernandes came in January – again small glimpses – possibly one for next season – let’s hope so similar to all the others. The only one who has been good is Bergwijn – 2 goals and earned a penalty along with general decent play – long may his form continue.
This said I reckon most if not all will come good eventually and it won’t detract me from wanting us to sign a striker and some defenders in the summer – we have to keep investing in the transfer market.
El Jefe – Lo Celso is playing deeper for us than he was at Betis, and in a tougher league. What did you expect? He’s doing well enough in my book.
As long as we approach transfers worrying more about potential resale value than how they can help the team now, we’ll continue to face these problems.
I’m sure jod will try to say we’re not as wealthy as the others, hence the recruitment strategy, but we generated more revenues than any PL team outside of the 2 Manchester clubs and Liverpool last year, with record profits (according to Deloitte). And the stadium debt has been refinanced to very manageable levels.
We have the means to buy top class players now. But it seems Levy really wants his bonus at the end of the year, so we are instead getting young and unproven (albeit promising) players, on loan no less, instead of competing for players who could really help us, and giving the manager (whoever that is) a squad he can actually compete with.
We’re not declining, we’re plummeting!
And our squad has totally been exposed now for what it is. Without Son and Kane we’re ill equipped for anything other than mid-table this season, or perhaps worse.
All this has been down to terrible planning on the part of Levy and, to some degree, Poch.
Despite the fact we managed Top Four last season, and almost grabbed Glory in the CL, our
PL form since January last year has been miserable. Thirteen months of mostly rubbish
and ‘lower half of the table’ PL performances.
Add all that to Mourinho’s negative tactics which don’t provide even some glory from defeat (although I do feel a bit sorry for him) and I can barely watch what now resembles a bunch of strangers playing together.
What a far cry from the threatening, balanced, high fitness level, high press, push and move attacking football in the 2015/16 and 2016/17 seasons, and the excellent fight and technique we showed in our ‘no-home’ season of 2017/18!
So where has it all gone wrong? Levy sacked Poch, but he should either have stuck with him, affording him his first ‘blip’ for 5 years, and giving him time to rebuild, or Levy should have fallen on his own sword too. He’s delivered the stadium, but he’s messed up on transfer business in the past two seasons, incoming and outgoing. Eriksen’s and Toby’s contracts, with all its distractions, was one mess up, with Eriksen costing the club millions by way of not going earlier and getting a decent transfer fee.
Levy also messed up by not ensuring (and he had many chances in 4 windows) that we had adequate cover for the (increasingly injury prone) Kane; he also messed up by selling Trippier for too little money (although he shouldn’t have even been sold at all!) and for not getting rid of Rose for decent money when he had the chance! All of this ended a brilliant period of full/wing back play in our team. Aurier, overall, has been a disaster, while KWP never developed into the player we hoped. Obviously Levy can’t be blamed for the decline of key players like Dier, Verts, Sanchez, Rose etc., or the severe blips in form of players like Alli, but he should have planned better (with Poch) on who to bring in, and who to sell, and when. Any top club has to plan for injuries, age, cover for important positions, and inevitable desires of key players to move on. Who knows? A bit more nerve, a bit better timing, selling for high prices at the right time, and gambling at the right price, may have resulted in us having players like Dybala, Maddison, Grealish, the other (real) Fernandez etc., in our squad today! People go on about Ndombele, and yes, he shows glimpses of what he can do, but really!? Our most expensive signing should have a position! I mean, what is he? An attacking midfielder, a DM, a central midfielder, a flank player, what?? Oh, that’s right, we have to get him (and keep him) fit first, in order to find out! What a joke. Fernandes? I’m not sure what he’ll bring to the table in this misshapen squad, either. And only time will tell whether Moura can link with Bergwyn, Lamela and Lo Celso (let alone Parrot) etc.. I like Lo Celso, but, while he has to start playing in Eriksen’s old position, right now there’s little up front for him to link up with and create for!
Just watched the extended highlights on Sky. Looked like we played some very decent football at times and had quite a few chances against a very strong Wolves team. The usual defensive mistakes and failing to take our chances cost us again as well as not having Lamela on the bench. And when the other team score a winner of that quality you just have to accept that it’s not your day. Yes I think Jose was wrong to leave out Toby if he was fit to play but I don’t think this was as disastrous a performance as many have made out here and do so whenever we lose.btw.
SR…had the same impression watching the same, but it still had a massive BUT! against it. COYS
I don’t think it’s about a disastrous performance Stan, we performed pretty well in some aspects, it’s about failing to get a result that could have taken advantage of our CL place competitors dropping points which is a bad habit we seem to have.
Having just watched the game on Optus I must say it was most disappointing. I wasn’ so much disappointed with the team selection ( with the exception of not having a striker. Surely Parrott is better than having no striker at all!). I was more unhappy with the fact we seem to have no plan or style of play. We seem to have so many mid field players but still get over run and beaten in the mid field. They are running around like headless chooks with nowhere to go. This has to be down JM. He cannot keep putting it down to everything else. He has to go in my opinion and bring in a younger coach that at least has played in the last 10 years. Someone who has progressed from the blackboard/white board era. He is past his use-by date.
I don’t know what to say. It was the best of 3 bad performances. We can’t be in the lead twice, at home and lose the game. We seem to have so many issues defensively I can’t pick out who to blame as it’s a different player each week. Our forwards did OK and created some good chances, we had largely the greater possession, and an opportunity to beat a team who played a euro game “Away” two days ago. Whilst we had a, week to prepare. Our defence needs sorted drastically. Starting with a good defensive midfielder. A decent RB and left side centre back. CB W sort of summed it up. Thank god we have the magic 40 points. We’ll roll on Norwich and the FA Cup. Mind you it looks like we’ll get FA this year.
Just after reading Jermaine Jenas article on BBC and completely agree with him. I believe Levy panicked in appointing Mourinho, the only reason you bring Mourinho into your club is to win trophies and spending huge sums of money on transfers is part of that package. So riddle me this is Levy and Enic going to do that??? If not then without doubt LEVY has made a complete balls up. Its very simple Danny boy you made your bed now lie in it. Back him or sack him and yourself while your at it.
We all know that the team peaked before Christmas of 2018 when we were up there with city and Liverpool. Inexplicably we nosedive in the PL yet scraped through to the final of the CL. Our fantastic Anglo/Belgian defence faltered and the Eriksen/Dembele possession machine lost its way. When Mousa left the heart was gone. Poch I think was guilty of running too tight a squad fearing to upset the balance. Hoddle said he had money to spend, he signed Lucas but wouldn’t play him. I wanted Jose to rescue this season but I’m not sure that I want him to do the rebuild.
Why is there a belief that we will rebuild, why should Levy spend and break the habit of a life time. While the ground is full every game and match day revenues and profits continue at record levels, his objectives will be achieved. Why should he suddenly develop an interest in running a football club that is successful on the pitch costing money. The analogy of leopards and spots come immediately to mind.
Frank, there were 58,000 yesterday, 4,000 below capacity. I wonder what the attendances will be for the last two or three games of the season when there will be nothing to play for. I know of several season ticket holders who have decided not to renew, partly because of the cost (including the unbelievable decision to increase prices), partly because of the quality of football and partly because of the decision to force fans to commit to buying their tickets before the season is over (knowing there would be uncertainty around us being in the Champions League next season).
I know there is a good sized waiting list but waiting lists do not mean guaranteed sales.
For what it is worth, it seems clear to me that Jose has not got a clue what to do with this squad. Completely unable to sort out the defence and no clear pattern of play. He is clearly a manager who has been overtaken by the modern game and is to stubborn/arrogant to adapt. A pre season will make no difference, he is simply not a good manager anymore.
Doncaster, as I said to Loz in another thread, what good would sacking Jose do?
I happen to disagree with your assessment of Jose, laying the blame more on Levy and his inability to back the maanger, whoever that is. But that’s besides the point.
Say Levy does sack Jose. Which decent manager is going to follow?
Not only will all of the structural problems still be there, there will be a very fresh precedent of a big name manager not being afforded any time at all to turn things around. Not to mention wasting tens of millions paying out Jose. It makes zero sense to me.
Even if there was a top manager out there, he likely wouldn’t want the job in the current conditions
So we can either wait and see what Jose can do, or gamble on an unproven commodity. Sure, we could get a youngish manager like Eddie Howe or a more experienced one like Pulis, but would you really back either to do better than Jose?
And if you think the likes of Julian Nagelsmann or other hot commodities are going to quit their current roles to take over with limited funds, a short leash and and an inadequate squad, I think you are sorely mistaken.
Like it or not, Jose is our best bet right now and it’s up to Levy to change his spots (right, Frank? 🙂 ) and spend what it takes to overhaul the squad and get out of this mess.
Isn’t Max Allegri available? Doesn’t he have a fairly decent record at the highest level?
Why wouldn’t a top manager want to work with some of the best facilities in world football and take on the challenge of turning round an underperforming squad? Jose did but it doesn’t look like he is up to the task.