With Tottenham Hotspur putting in two poor performances against Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea side in our EFL Cup semi-final defeat earlier on this month, no doubt manager Antonio Conte would love a dose of revenge as we make the trip to Stamford Bridge this coming Sunday.
Confidence and spirits should’ve been massively boosted given the dominance we showed over Leicester City in midweek, particularly the euphoria that would’ve come from the manner of our late victory with Steven Bergwijn’s Stoppage time brace.
Covid permitting, Chelsea should only be without Reece James (injury), Trevoh Chalobah (injury), Edouard Mendy (AFCON), Andreas Christensen (Covid) and Ben Chilwell.
Spurs’ own injury situation has eased with the players who have now returned, and it shouldn’t be too long before we have Son Heung-Min, Eric Dier and Cristian Romero back in contention either.
What Sunday actually brings though is open to debate. More recently in the league we edge ahead in the form guide for the last five and Chelsea have struggled, but whether we’ll perform in a way that sees us take advantage will only be truly known at the full time whistle.
Cross everything, as a positive result here really means we can take advantage of our games in hand.
Are we ever gonna score against Chelsea, everyone seems to.
Conte out effing joke. Humiliated yet again. Shocking team selection
Please sell,
Tanganga
Dier
Sanchez
Winks
Doh
Sess
How a world class manager can actually pick these plays is shocking.
Mistake after mistake
Yet again the laughing stock of London. Why even bother playing Chelsea any more, just give them the win.
3 games no goals against them,
Seems like conte is totally out of his dept only looks good with the ready made players and a big bank balance to make him look good
Another goal from a set piece.
Don’t blame the players or Conte. Levy has allowed this gulf to develop over the last three years with poor managerial and player recruitment decisions. Top 4 is the best we can hope for and that will be tough to achieve.
Fek me 123 don’t Gimme a pint of what you’re on.
Chelsea are at home, Iook at their squad, I know they are in a flux, but can still lift their game for a Derby, yet another decision against us by Tireny the ref, if its 50-50 he’ll always go against us every time…
However we don’t have a good track record at the bridge, even with better squads than we currently have, there are many personnel to be shown the door but currently (for me) Conte needs to stay, changes needed in the Squad.
Thought we might have got something tho 🙄
Brighton drew with them twice, we lost to them 4 times this season and failed to score against them in all 4 games. Enough said.
Why all the doom and gloom ?
We knew that we would be second best all over the field whichever side Conte put out .
Forget Traore we need 2 very good midfield players who can compete and dominate .
How many of our side would even make the Chelsea subs bench ?
Not sure that the recruiting department has improved . Even if the Director of football keeps suggesting which players we buy we so far end up buying unsuitable players.
Levy has a chance in this final week of the TW to make a statement but the form book says that we will continue to end up recruiting dross owing to his misguided transfer policy .
Well, no goals again.
We were tormented down the flanks with Ziyech (wonder goal) and Hudson-Odoi and we had Traore (oops), we had ahum….We had?
Where is our midfield maestro?
Only Kane would have slotted into their team.
They bring on Kante and we bring on Bryan Gil poor chap.
Bergweijn, Doherty, Winks and Tanganga back to their worst after a better showing against Leicester Reserves.
The whole world is crying out for new recruits for Spurs. Conte looked exasperated at times and keeps banging on about strength needed all over the pitch. Is Levy in the country at the moment? Conte will be off soon if he is not supported. Inter Milan and Man Utd are on the lookout.
Where were Dele and Lo Celso today?
The gap is when it comes to incisive passing between both teams was absolute massive. Chelsea players have much more technical ability and are able to receive the ball without any extras touches and their passes were crisper and more effective. Our players need that extra touch and when it comes to passing quick and movement we were serverly lacking behind, for me it starts at the back, and players like Sanchez, Davies and Tanganga simply lack the composure to play for a real top team.
Spurfect One , you made a good comment.
1. Get players with good technical skills..
2. A manager that can teach possession football.
Managers like Conte, Jose doesn’t dwell so much on possessive football.
Tuchel’s first game in Chelsea was a draw, but a hell lot of ball possession. And the media were critical of this after the draw….. And since that match till today, Chelsea always try to play possessive football…. It’s just how a manager wants to work.
If there was further evidence needed that we are still a work in progress or that Chelsea remain better than us even after their wobble, this was it.
Going back to the beginning of the thread, before the game kicked off:
Jod – if ypur point was that “every player we develop is one we don’t have to buy”, talk about kicking in open doors. In other news, fire is hot.
You accuse me of being vague about transfer dealings but you don’t seem to go into very much detail yourself about how we as a club can improve our development. Loan Tanganga? There is no certainty that would improve him (if loans were the magic touch, Carter Vickers would be a top CB).
And besides, before you even consider loaning out a player, the academy has to produce said player in the first place, which is where the problem lies. The issue isn’t whether we should loan Tanganga or not, the issue is that the academy only produces a Tanganga-like player once in every blue moon – and that’s normal. It’s inherently an unpredictable way to build a first team.
HT – granted, there have been bargains in our recruitment too. But overall, I think it’s fair to say that we have done poorly overall, and that certainly when we have spent lots on big transfers, we have gotten it wrong most of the time. What is,it in pur recruitment that when we spend more than 20 million on a player, our evaluators get it all wrong most of the time?
BelgianSpur – There is no certainty with loans. However two key points;
1- A loan at least offers possibilities, hanging around not playing as Tanganga did last season offers only stagnation. A chance is always better than no chance.
2- Harry Kane has made the point that loans he believes had a positive effect on him were seen by others as failures. He believes they made him grow up.
Loans don’t put talent in a player that ain’t there, we produce precious few players who have the required background talent that would benefit from loans, most end up like Barnard, Obika, and many many others dropping down into leagues 1 and 2. Having said that our recruitment isn’t much better, we sign a lot more duds than stars. The only thing we excell at is recruiting some of the worlds top manager coaches only to sicken them off by failing to back them in the market. During the ENIC era some of the world’s top coaches have tried and failed to add to Ramos single trophy in 2008, something is wrong somewhere, the clue is the only common factor has been the redoubtable Mr Levy.
jod – there is an exception to every rule. however I can come up with many more examples of players sent away on loan after loan, only to never amount to anything, that I can name players who actually benefitted from the experience.
Frank is spot on.
We struck gold with Kane but if he’s the exception rather than the rule, there is no point trying to emulate that model if it is like thrying to catch lightning.
Earlier in the thread you talked up Liverpool’s way of doing business. First of all, I’m not sure I would be so enthusiastic about their dealings, because you seem to have forgotten plenty of their expensive flops (Benteke, Lallana, Markovic to name a few). They’ve done better than us (not hard) but they’re not perfect…
But secondly, even if you do believe they are a club to emulate, you’ll notice they hardly ever loan a player. The loan champions are Chelsea, with a very mixed track record.
Well the latest coming out of the club is that we must sell to buy !
While I can appreciate this philosophy why wait until the final few days of the TW ?
Conte told him who he wanted rid of so why wait ?
If we can’t offload some of the dross then the club will be paying their wages for non playing .
Although I know nothing of the transfer ins and outs situation does it make sense to wait this long ? It appears that Levy is doing his scrooge bit over transfer fees if the bids for players are to believed .
Thoughts ?
Allan – We’re probably holding out for unreasonbable fees, hoping the buying club will get desperate and end up giving in. It’s basically transfer poker.
The advantage is that we’ll probably get decent money in, in the end. The downside is that we’ll have no time to get any players in, we’ll probably end up getting a disappointing player on loan, and we’ll finish with a negative net transfer spend yet again, having done nothing to help our top 4 push. We’ll be richer but not better. That is a summary of ENIC’s reign in a nutshell.
Well we haven’t to worry ref Traore as apparently he’s going somewhere else !! Sounds like a large amount of wasted time , energy and effort .
BS sounds about right as I remember the Bale situation followed the pattern of holding out for top Shekel until the last possible moment . I think Levy really enjoys playing transfer games to the frustration of the fans !!
Yet another player has decided against us apparently Liverpool bound .I would imagine that until we become a recognised footballing club ( not a middle of the table side who can’t even climb out of the group stage of the 3rd tier Euro cup comp ) competing in Europe regularly , even winning something ? , then it appears that we will always be second best and unable to attract good quality players
How has it come to this when we have been able to attract good quality players over the years ?
I’m sure people will say money but something just appears to be wrong at the club .
The common denominator in all of this shambles is Levy and ENIC who have allowed the playing side of the club slide by their inept transfer dealings .