With a disappointing turn in our Premier League form of late, Tottenham Hotspur can give themselves a little distraction on Wednesday evening as we go into battle against Championship side Stoke City in the EFL Cup quarter final.
Travelling up to the Midlands probably won’t be a walk in the park for us as Stoke are in reasonably good form this year, sitting just outside the Play-Off spots as I type, but this is absolutely a game we should be looking to win to push us one step closer to a day out at Wembley.
Injury wise, it seems Giovani Lo Celso might be a doubt for this one, but in any event I would think manager Jose Mourinho would again take the opportunity to rotate folks around for this one.
Whatever team is put out should be good enough to take victory, even if it’s not entirely comfortable.
Then we can enjoy whatever version of Christmas we actually get, and then we do it all again for the second half of the season.
Stay safe folks and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!
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Merry Christmas to you Danny and to all my fellow posters on here.
Hoping for a little Christmas joy on Wednesday evening.
Looking to the spammers to do us a favour tonight and come away from the bridge with a draw.
Merry Christmas to all .
While it would be good for other teams to do us a favour we live and die by our own actions .
Unfortunately our recent actions have been woeful and bringing teams onto us , even at home , is a recipe for under achivement and frustration amongst fans especially with the players we have .
However the question is are the players we have bought ( on the cheap ?) up to the standard of what the coach / manager wants for the Prem or is it that they cannot perform as JM wishes ?
What about will I ever get a game Bale ?
I am confused and seek enlightenment from
anyone please .
My own feeling is we have a very decent squad which isn’t achieving it’s full potential due to the way they are being asked to play. I can’t believe the players fully back the manager when their natural talents are being stifled in the way they are.
TQ I think that you are somewhere near where we are .
There have been several comments from several commentators about the players buying into JMs expectations and style of play .
If the results come then I am sure that the rosy garden syndrome will surface .
However if as we have seen recently things are not working then the players , whoever the coach , will not perform ?
Pragmatic maybe, but I don’t think the more defensive style suits the over all team quality. We could maybe do with a better balance, as I don’t think we can argue against defensive improvement under Mourinho (compared to Poch) but the cost is even when we break and counter, we’re still deep so in some games unless we get some magic, it comes to nothing as there’s too much to do. Liverpool was spot on, but we need a more Poch like Plan B I think. Might be waffling now, but I certainly don’t think we’ve got a cheap team as per Allan’s comment (although I think I get where you are coming from) we’re just not fully using them right – if that makes sense.
For all his talent Bale was also a project given his game time and injuries, introducing him slowly is something JM has got right but that does raise the question of whether his signing made sense given we needed to treat him with kid gloves. Would someone else at a similar financial cost have been better in the long run?
Meh, time for bed I think!
Allan
Good comment just there.
There were many of us (my self included) who were buying into the Mourinho style.
I was able to tolerate it given the results were going the right way or in the case of W/Ham or N/Castle a decision or a bit of bad luck done us down.
I did think we were improving and we’re starting to show some seeds of a resurgence.
I even understood the need to play in the way we did against Liverpool and were a tad unfortunate not to come away with a point.
What I can’t tolerate is us not turning up against Palace with many of our chances not coming until they equalised, and what ever that was last Sunday was deplorable, why do we wait to go 1 down or until the other team equalises before somehow springing to life.
We have the 2 best goal scorers in the league ffs.
It is a hard enough watch at times even when we win but the result can sometimes defend the playing style. But after the past week given our league position what we had to hold on to indefensible.
Well roll on Wednesday hopefully a good result and a springboard to the new year.
Allan….the fact we talk about other clubs ‘doing us a favour’ tells you much about our own ability to maintain our league position. 🙁
Thanks Danny for another thread, but a bigger thanks for all of them this season thus far.
Hope everyone can have a merry Xmas, mainly because this last 9 days has been pretty miserable as a Spurs fan.
Lets hope the 10th day, tomorrow, can bring us joy and set us off again on a great ride of winning games, here’s toasting you all and great cheer for ourselves and the Team we all support. COYS
Stoke beat Villa 0-1 to reach this QF. They can of course beat Spurs too. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they do at least make it a tough match for us.
It’s a one-off match that has to be won or lost today. No replay for a full-time or extra-time draw. So hopefully Spurs will be good enough to win this within the 90 minutes. We really could do without extra time and maybe penalties. Especially if Jose has the likes of Kane and Son and other regulars on the pitch. Because to me, our regular PL starters looked tired on Sunday.
But, no doubt Jose will want to win this match. So, who will he trust to help him with this? Does Hart play? Vinicius? Dele and Winks? Sanchez or Rodon? Doherty and Davies. They should all be good enough and part of a strong enough team to win this. But… The EL performances in general, tell me that this may not be so…
I’m not really saying much here… As I just don’t know what to think or expect. I don’t have a clue who Jose will pick or how he will set us up.
So, I’ll just say…
Up the Spurs!
and…
WIN!
My sense of what day of the week it is has gone to pot… 😉
We will win or lose this tomorrow, not today…
It gets worse when you retire HT! 🙂
I won’t care once I’ve retired, TQ. (If I ever do retire!) 🙂
I suppose, I’ve just had a bit of a reality check re Tottenham last night.
I was watching a Jim White pod cast Simon Jordan sort came up with a relatively pertinent statement.
He said it took 5 years to build Liverpool into a title winning side.
Mourinho is around a year into a rebuild, I suppose Rome wasn’t built in a day also Klopp had a lot more finances to play with.
However not sure I could stand 4 more years of last week, hopefully it’s just a bit of a blip.
I suppose if we’re philosophical in Klopps first couple of seasons Liverpool were around 6th or 7th.
Its just the performance against teams we should easily beat.
Tomorrow night should see a good result
COYS
……….. Then again Niall, it only took Jose his first season at Chelsea to win their first top league title in 50 years, after beating Pool in the League cup final. So, 2 trophies in his first ever PL season. Followed up in the next season with another PL title.
The next season he won both the League cup and the FA cup… And then he was gone!
Ref Liverpool team build .
Yes it took them 5 years to get where they are now but even if results went against them during that period Klopp never gave up on his attacking principles and are always a good team to watch .
Are Man U now going in a similar direction ?
HT hope you can get retirement sooner rather than later ?
TQ Sad but true ref league position .
I dunno folks
Perhaps Chelsea were on the “up” around that time and it may have been an easier task plus much like Klopp at that time JM had fantastic finances to work with also he may have had that “hunger” to establish himself, where as now he’s done it all, however he still wants to maintain a winning profile.
But “agreed” we do need to be more progressive. And entertaining.
Jose is very lucky no fans are at the stadium. As for bale he don’t fit jose style of defensive