With a comfortable and professional Tottenham Hotspur showing dispatching Marine in our FA Cup tie at the weekend, our Premier League match with Aston Villa has been officially postponed following their Covid outbreak, so on Wednesday evening, we will now welcome Fulham To White Hart Lane.
As fans will know, the Fulham clash (originally scheduled for December 30) had itself been postponed following their own outbreak of Covid, but I think most would accept this is a sensible reshuffle at this stage as I don’t believe Villa are even back in training yet as their positive players continue to self isolate.
Fulham should be reasonably well rested after their own break but they will have sharpness issues and some players may well be leggy after their Cup clash with QPR required Extra Time, so what we can expect from them in what will only be their second game of 2021 is anyone’s guess.
As for us, Gareth Bale has minutes under his belt once again after Marine but I wouldn’t expect to see Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg back just yet after his nasty shin collision. Giovani Lo Celso remains out.
We should be confident of all three points here as we look to keep the pressure on at the top of the table.
Fulham
Win
Draw
Lose
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HT, in one of your posts, you said you quite enjoyed the 1st half v Fulham, both teams making a game of it, and that we played decent football, in the 2nd we played worse and Fulham played better, ok not your all exact words but I get your drift.
From what has been said by yourself there, arises a question, “did Fulham play well or did we let them by easing off/sitting back?”, which was the same in the other 4 games, to be outplayed you have to have a “worse team”, “let them” or “purely be off form”, I believe with us regards the 5 teams where we have allowed to steal 2pts off us, they are the “worse team” but then for some god foresaken reason we “let them”, why?
If you understand what I am trying to say…
Is it the player themselves fault? that is…lacking confidence, no ambition, or simply brainwashed, as in we are leading now we must defend, like programmed robots.
Or is it all simply down to JM and his to me antiquated ways?
Though I will say, I will try and that’s hard, to back JM, but if this poor negative football carries on I will be joining others in JM OUT, plenty of excuses are being made on his behalf, time, his own team, not Poch’s players etc but how long must we be patient for, to maybe see a hint that things are starting to happen.
All I can see is that something is wrong, thus we have a problem. COYS
PY… I saw Fulham play good football in the 1st half and they got better in the 2nd… I didn’t feel the need to take it further. Because I thought it was obvious that we conceded the ball to them more and sat back to let them play… They took full advantage in this.
Straight after the Wolves match I wrote on here an angry comment that I was ready to post before they even got their late equaliser. So I would’ve said the exact same thing had we won. Likewise with this match.
I don’t have any doubt that Jose is responsible for our downturn in form… Tell me, when was the last time you heard a manager blame his players for not following instructions, every single time we give up a lead…
I don’t believe him when he say this. And even if he did tell them to finish them off with more goals, something in their collective psyche is preventing them from doing this against these lower level teams….. And for this I will still blame Jose…
I reckon they would do better having no manager at all at half time and just played to their instincts and a lifetimes worth of top flight training…
I do hope that Jose’s general footballing philosophy isn’t finding its way into our academy. If I had a 16 year old son being asked to perform like this, I’d rather he was at another club, learning his trade……
Why am I so angry today? Because this is exactly what I warned would happen if he were to come to Spurs……
And I will remind everyone again as I did after Wolves and Palace… We didn’t even lose!
And yet no one is happy. Including those that are still making excuses for him… MP used to get slated on here for playing much better football and maybe getting a draw after a handful of wins… And even when we were conceding few goals and scoring plenty…
I’m reading posts on the forum in which posters are predicting a draw at best vs SU. Because they are not confident. SU for crying out loud! And I feel the same…
We need to win with Jose. And more than just a bloody Carabao cup. Even if we do win it, it’ll probably be after giving up 75% possession and relying on a wonder goal from Kane or Son’s one and only chance……
He will not be at Spurs long enough to build a much better team for the future. If anything, he is more in the process of dismantling a very good one…
HT, from what I can see, we are both reading from the same hymm book, but put different ways, though still very much in agreement. COYD
For the record.
Jose has today declared all of our players to be fit, apart from Lo Celso. And Bergwijn has been training after illness…
So, if we see Toby up front versus SU, and Harry on the bench, we’ll know that Jose has finally lost the plot…
Plot A that is. Plot B is all well and good… You know the one. When we attack and take the lead in the first minute (plan A) and then defend for the next 89 minutes! (Plan B)…
HT it seems plan C must be still under construction
For a manager of his experiences and what he has won. To play in 2nd half of games the way we have been and its not a once iff, making Fulham and Palace look good, is simply not good enough,
Just like jose called dele into his office
Its only fair for levy to call jose into his office and ask what the hell is going on.
Plan C 123?
Would that be to sell Dele and replace him with a 7 foot grizzly bear of a beast to take Toby’s job!?
We could always do with better defenders but would it make us any better going forward when Kane is stood there right next to the brand new 7 foot hairy beast?!
We are actually defending alright… If we didn’t have to defend so much we might be winning these games against the likes of Fulham quite easily, and I wouldn’t now be predicting a draw versus the bottom placed team, SU. Who have only just managed to win their 1st match of the season!
I hope I’m not just being melodramatic here and for no good reason…….. I really do.
Yep a draw v the bottom club is looking feasible, Jesus! how low have we got in our confidence and predictions, even if they are only for fun.
Ok! bullshit mojo back = 0-4 Spurs on Sunday. COYS
You know what one Fulham player said after the match? He was happy with the draw and will be hoping that Fulham can now go on to survive relegation. That being their main goal for this season.
Fulham’s idea of finding some good form after a poor start, is to have drawn their past 5 games since losing to M City!
This says more than anything else I can say at this moment……..
Sorry for all my negativity today guys… But I think it might be catching…
Can I get a jab for this?!
Makes a lot more sense if plan B was done @ 2-0 rather then 1-0.
HT plan C is when the score is @ 1-1
HT….that’s why I haven’t written anything of substance today, I can’t think of anything positive to write and I’m already feeling miserable enough having to try and avoid the poxy virus!
The reason spurs players ease off in 2nd half of games after going 1-0 up? It could be their mental thoughts of job done, now relax… just like they did with poch as manager. We have seen jose say a few times that 1-0 is not enough and to go and score 2nd or 3rd to be sure of a win. IMO… the reason is a mix of the two, in that players are up for the 1st half then what is said at half time is that defend the lead and try to score again on the counter attack. This could confuse them and so they get caught in two minds. Hence they try and play safe, drop off the opposition and concede with a late goal.
This has cost us 10 points so far and has cost us the league top position, and seriously in danger of losing top 4 as well.
We have seen jose change from 433 to 4321 tactical as players prefer this shape and can look much better a threat to opposition teams. Poss. answer for this dilemma ?? Jose has to tell them go for the goal scoring and drop to a 4411 shape (sonny & HK10 the two forward players) from 80th minute, by which time we should be 2 goals up / clear. With the defensive intensity to smother out opposition momentum. COYS
Sorry a typo.. should be 433 to 4321 or 4231
Still think JM
Hasn’t found his best settled 11 just yet.
I would argue that if “son of sick note” LoCeslo can actually get back on the pitch we could actually let him settle in with N’Dombers, remembering that they really have had little time to gel.
I would’ve said that LoCeslo instead of Sissoko against Fulham, may have led to a win.
I think JM (wrongly) is also trying to use Tobs sparingly in the knowledge that he will leave us soon.
Also the RB position is still a worry, Aurier is back to being unreliable and Doh well??
Is he unsettled, is it the Covid thing he had earlier in the year, or is he just not good enough, he has the same (lack of) mobility as Sissoko, OK going in straight lines but for fek sake don’t ask me to turn quick or do anything flashy with the ball.
To think 6 mil more would’ve got us Castagne.
I Dunno just on a rant.
poxy is just the right adjective foe the virus, TQ2Spurs. A poxy virus has all the charm and appeal as a poxy 1 x 1 final score after scoring in the first minute. Despedindo José iria a vacina nos precisamos para resolver a bosta da sitiuação. smallpox but large problem.
Did I unexpectedly get massively drunk before I got to the final four words of that last sentence?
2 positives for poch, 1 a cup win for a one team league, 2, positive covid test
HT – as I said, you logic of poor football meaning dropped points just doesn’t reconcile with the factthat we’re only 6 points off the top of the table.
Style and results are different things. You can win ugly but still win, or play beautiful football and lose.
Regardless of the type of football played, I am 100% sure that MP would still be the manager of THFC, regardless of the quality of the football, had results been better. Much like I believe JM will remain manager of THFC, regardless of the quality of the football, as long as results are there.
And so far, we can rue missed opportunities for sure, but we’re still right in the mix for top 4, and possibly a trophy. those are facts.
As for Dele, his “performance” against par t timers means nothing to me. He hasn’t been working hard enough for the shirt for the better part of 2 years and 2 managers. At some point the club is bigger than the player. If he wants to waste his talent, it’s his prerogative. We’ve moved on from players in the past, we’ll do it again.
I suppose many on here were enjoying the football in early 2019, 12 games in, 14 points.
14th in the table, Villa in 17th place on 11 points, only 3 points behind.
But we had 70% possession and Alli was starting, so life was good.