With Tottenham Hotspur’s clash against Southampton on Tuesday afternoon ultimately ending in disappointment as we only took a point despite our better control of the game, it’s all eyes to this Saturday’s game away to Watford.
As I type, our visit to Vicarage Road will continue to go ahead as planned despite other matches continuing to fall foul of Coronavirus outbreaks at clubs, but again, until the tests come back on Saturday morning, who manager Antonio Conte has available to select is pretty much an unknown.
We already know Giovani Lo Celso, Steven Bergwijn, Ryan Sessegnon and Cristian Romero will again be missing with their injuries, but we’ll have to wait until the official injury update to find out if anyone has joined them since the weekend.
As for Watford, they apparently have nine out themselves, so it means no reunion with former player Danny Rose who is now on their books.
Form, table position and almost everything else you can think of should suggest a solid three points for us here, but life is rarely that simple.
Jod no offence but do you actually read what anyone writes in these posts.
I’ll refer you to my post December 31 at 1:05 Pm (in this thread) where I actually named Ward – Prowse and Tielemans plus both Hoj and Skippy who for me are currently better than Winks, I also mentioned bringing in Kessie in several posts in the last few weeks including this post, are those 5 names enough for you.
Fek me 🙄
Jod, this is not about pretty football, it is about being able to comfortably beat significantly weaker opposition. This was another game we could have easily lost to a lack of invention in our approach play. I think that we all now accept that the squad needs a little more quality in midfield and maybe at left wingback to really make us competitive enough to challenge for trophies. If you listen to Conte he says as much.
Jod. 3 points gained. But oh so awful and such an embarrassment.
We have to rid the not so super subs and get some quality attacking midfielder.
Time to sell Doherty, Winks, Bergweijn,, Lo Celso, N’Dombele, Clarke, Gil……we can and should do so much better.
LOL, jod, at your sarcasm.
You did get one thing right. It’s not enough to win. I want the lads to win while making me proud that we won.
Winning ugly is better than losing ugly, but it’s worse than winning beautifully.
Have we seen enough play from Bryan Gil to have written him off? And hasn’t Conte said he thinks he can turn Bergwijn around, or something in that direction?
Niall D – I said available and affordable, are any of those players available and affordable ? If not then it doesn’t really matter how good they are does it ?
Love totty – The problem with your logic is you assume playing pretty football will automatically make winning much easier. That is total rubbish, I’ve seen plenty of Spurs teams over the years playing pretty football and losing. But then winning isn’t a priority for you is it ? Luckily Conte has a different viewpoint.
wentworth – have you anything to say at all ? You’ve just repeated the same whine about how we have to sell lots of players over and over again pretty much regardless. Why not just say “same as my last post” each time ?
jod, I’m not sure what pretty football is, but I do know when football is being played beautifully. Beautiful football, o jogo belo, is played to will, but to win not by boring the opposition to death, and not by faking fouls, or making cynical fouls, but by controlling the space and flow on the pitch, to opening up spaces into which one can attack, and to anticipating what the opponent wants by positioning one’s self to take away their flow. And it’s a high-order pleasure to watch a team play beautifully. Truly beautiful flow is winning football. Not the kind of winning that kills a match, but the kind that wins with the feeling that we’ve participated in something special. Now, that’s worth watching.
TK – The question is whether for you winning ugly is better or worse than losing beautifully. That tells you what someone’s priorities are.
Jod. I’ve caught your problem of repeating the same thing to get my point across.
I want to be proud of Spurs again.
You are satisfied with mediocrity.
It’s time to aim higher and rid our squad of no hopers and sign players to raise the standard of play.
If you are happy with second best then so be it.
I’d best stop now before someone says my sanctimony is boring them. Somehow asking for winning by playing beautiful football labels one a fool. or a knobhead, I suppose.
I don’t ask for much. Just to see THFC win by playing beautiful football. I hate football teams that embarrass their supporters.
No Jod, I don’t assume that for a moment. I do believe that you need skill, creativity and desire to win at the highest level. Put those together in a team working for each other and you have something to be proud of. Of course sometimes you have to win ugly when the opposition pose a stern challenge but not surely not something even you could aspire to every game.
LT, aspiring to win ugly would be ugly—warts on the nose ugly. beautiful play is intelligent play. an intelligent team needs to stop other teams from scoring goals. and it needs to flow forward to score goals. it eschews cheating as a path to winning, just as we all should eschew cheating others in daily life. Play with a love for what you are doing. Play with respect for yourself and your oppoenent. Play so as to teach your grandchildren how to live. It’s all simple, no? We knew this early in childhood.
Basically the transfer policy of the club has been poor , spending millions on players who simply aren’t good enough.
How much’ dead wood’ have we shipped recently and are still left with several players who ought to be moved on.
If Conte can’t make Levy appreciate that you can’t make a silk purse out of a pigs ear and is not backed then goodbye Conte
Basically the transfer policy of the club has been poor , spending millions on players who simply aren’t good enough.
How much’ dead wood’ have we shipped recently and are still left with several players who ought to be moved on.
If Conte can’t make Levy appreciate that you can’t make a silk purse out of a pigs ear and is not backed then goodbye Conte
If Conte hadn’t worked out with Levy the need to spend money on talent when he agreed to take the job, then he was an idiot, and I haven’t heard that accusation leveled against Conte. Nonetheless, perhaps Levy simply is dishonest. HK said he had a gentleman’s agreement to be allowed to leave, and he wasn’t allowed to leave. Could something similar have happened with Conte? If so, then the team surely is screwed, as the reneging on a promise will be widely known when Conte leaves. Surely Levy made some sort of promise to loosen the purse when he hired Conte.
I’d rather develop a team through youth, but that’s not the way one wins these days, is it? Nonetheless, the more we develop our talent the happier I’d be. I’m not all that keen on rent-a-mercenary type teams.
TK Let’s wait till this TW is closed then we will have some of the answers .
Jod
I will remind you that re Winks, the names I listed we actually own two of them Hoj and Skipp so we don’t need to buy them, as we already could afford them, the third (Kessie) we are being mooted as a suitor so we must be able to afford him, the other two names(Ward P and Tielemans) I mentioned were simply to outline where Winks could and should be as a player but sadly isn’t.
I mentioned this on the back of you stating his improvement but, for me where they are is where he needs to be, bearing in mind that Tielemans was on our radar a few seasons ago.
However, I’m not here to list players we should or shouldn’t buy, I think a guy named Paratici is paid a large sum to do that.
What I can say is, where I think one of our squad needs to be in order to play for Spurs on a regular basis rather than be a bench warmer.
Going back to your original comments on Winks I do hope Conte improves him and positions him to his, strengths and indeed I hope he fulfils the promise initially shown, then we will have, a very good player.
BTW very easy to pick holes in others comments chum, you should try being a bit more positive in your own rather than snide, snipes at other people’s (not just mine) posts.
Since Conte became the Spurs gaffer, the team has won 5 and drawn three PL matches. No Losses!
And so, I’m not quite sure where al the negativity on here is coming from. It’s so depressing reading VS. And it bores me silly. Same old pessimism, day in, day out.
Just a couple of months ago the negativity was just as bad, and some folks were thinking we were doomed to the lower half of the PL table. And yet here we are, within spitting distance of the top 4. And, we have a couple of games in hand. Not bad, I say…
Players that have been written off my many have been much, much better. The team has been creating many more chances. And we are not losing. So what’s the problem?
I don’t see that we have played badly at all. As so many on here are complaining about. Our football hasn’t been ugly. It may not be scintilating or ideal. But what should we expect? Miracles? An overnight, magical transformation? 1970’s Brazil?! Perfection?!
Conte has worked wonders as it is and in a very short but tough time for the club. And, given just how bad things were looking just 2 months ago. 2 months! I can only be impressed. Certainly not depressd…
I’m happy. We won again versus Watford. And we well deserved to win. We deserved to beat the Saints but we were robbed of two perfectly good goals. So be it.
Things are looking up. Be happy!
It could be worse… Much worse. But I can only see it getting better… Much better… Let’s just wait and see… We are not doomed!
Up the Spurs!
HT….Total thumbs up! COYS
jod,
in response to your question of winning ugly vs. losing beautifully:
depends on how ugly the win is, I suppose. Ugly in the sense of playing boring football with nothing creative, but you win–like Greece winning the Euros a few years back. That’s a different class of ugly than purposely injuring your opponent, or claiming that it was god’s hand, not yours, that guided the ball towards the net. I’d rather lose than win with that kind of ugly. Winning by boring everyone to death? I wouldn’t have real joy at winning that way,but it’s a win.
Winning beautifully is a real joy. winning ugly provides some pleasure. winning ugly bothers me terrribly when its outright cheating or injuring an opponent.
thanks for posing the question, jod