Tottenham Hotspur started the new 2021/22 season with an unexpected, but very welcome, victory over Manchester City as we hosted them at White Hart Lane, and on Thursday evening we made the trip over to Pacos de Ferreira for our opening Europa Conference League clash.
Sadly, the less said about our all changed convincing 1-0 defeat is probably for the better as the only silver lining is at 1-0, a stronger squad can pull that back – dare I say our normal squad will pull that back.
Short of resting our better players (who surely at this stage of the season didn’t need resting) it’s woeful preparation for Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday afternoon. Spurs are still in a mini change, and undoubtedly Wolves and their new gaffer will be up for sticking one over Nuno as he returns for the first time, and if the Leicester opener is anything to go by, Wolves are now a more offensive outfit anyway in their style of play.
We’ll welcome back some familiar names at any rate, and we certainly won’t be as bad as that, and maybe we’ll even get to see Harry Kane make an appearance.
This one is difficult to call though.
Wolves most certainly had more chances than Spurs did. But thinking about it… I’m certain that we troubled their keeper more so than they troubled Lloris.
The hard work over the summer is paying dividends for Dele, he is working hard to close players down when we are out of possession and is doing so over the whole 90 minutes.
With Liverpool meeting Chelsea at Anfield next Saturday a draw there would give us a chance of topping the league with a win at home to Watford on Sunday.
A tough game to win 3 points… defending is good, but still need a mf player like modric / ericcsen. Dele is trying to get back on form, the penalty showed his confidence is a lot better now. Actually spurs should have scored 3 or 4 goals, but wolves goalie did well. Credit to lloris saving the big chance 1v1
Sometimes you get games like this, and great to come away with 3 points, I’m sure during the season, we will dominate and end up with nothing. So far so good, but def needs a few journey mentor leave and some fresh faces. Coys
Good game I see Dier made his usual unforced “Ricky” to almost let Traore through, he had a good game up until then, but that moment is my issue with Dier, it seems to happen in nearly every game.
Re Traore, not sure if I want him, arguably a big bustling strong player, but very poor end product again and again.
We were indeed the better team today, we put a lot of effort into this game, you can actually see that we are fitter, whilst Wolves did have more possession their best chance actually came from that Dier mistake, or chance were much better their keeper was the busier and was lucky against Sonny and Bergs.
Still work to be done and fresh faces still needed espically RB and midfield.
ND …. It was a good game but I don’t agree that we were the better team. Wolves were much more fluid in their movement but lacked a goal scorer. There’s still time for them to make an offer for Harry! : – )
I was relieved after the match. Because i’m not quite sure just how we kept them out… Well, mostly, it was down to poor finishing from them. And last ditch blocks and tackles in and around the penalty area from us.
They were far the better team on the day. From front to back. We were not that good. And we were not exactly on the front foot. It was somewhat negative from Nuno and his team.
I wasn’t surprised by Wolves. Both in their good bits and bad. But I was a little frustrated and disappointed with how Spurs were set up. And how we often struggled to keep the ball…
But we did win. And I’ll take that for now… 3 away points from this match is a very fortunate result. But it’s a good result. And, the players did put the hard yards in and stood firm, defensively. For the most part.
But we need to play better than that, in an attacking sense… I believe we will, more often than not.
Not sure about some of the comments. Since they got promoted Wolves have always flattered to deceive, not scoring the goals the stats say they should. Traore in particular has been unplayable at times yet has scored two in 42. Yet everyone is saying how lucky we were.
One interesting thing is the refereering. I never understood why one player should be penalised for being stronger than another but that was what was happening. But against Wolves there was a coming together of Skipp and a Wolves player, the Wolves player threw himself to the floor and expected a penalty. He didn’t get it. Contrast that with Lukaku in the Chelsea game. He runs into the box, the defender tries to impede him, rather than hitting the deck he keeps going and puts the ball in the net. That’s what centre forwards used to do.
I don’t think anyone was at all surprised by Wolves poor finishing, jod. I literally just wrote that I wasn’t surprised. But the luck was exactly from that. We were lucky that they were so poor at finishing.
I mean they do score sometimes, don’t they? LOL!
Being a fervent believer of “the end justifies the means”, I can only compliment Nuno for 6 points from 6. Job well done. Iwould have banked on a return between 1 and 3 points from those first two games, and I think most Spurs fans would have agreed.
Having said that, for those who want results AND style, or for those who still have questions about how defensive we’re going to be this year, this was again a rather defensive display, if we’re perfectly honest. I thought we were guilty of over relying on long balls over the top, and there was very little happening when we were in possession. It was at times reminiscent of 1980s “kick and rush” football.
This being said, Leicester pretty much won the league with those tactics in 2016.
It’s obviously early for definitive conclusions, and there were enough storylines in the first 2 games to perhaps accept that these 2 games should be seen as outliers. There is no way of knowing if this game was a sign of things to come. But IF it is, it’s not always going to be comfortable watching Spurs this season.
We can say what we want about Adama Traoré’s ability to finish, but I am never going to be comfortable seeing an opposition player run clean through, one v one with only the keeper to beat. Concede that sort of chance often enough and we will end up conceding.
On to Pacos de Ferreira. Let’s see if the kids can right a wrong
Morning folks,
This is why, for me, the jury is out on Nuno, indeed we did play defensively, but I am still of the opinion that our chances were better than theirs and we were more clinical. Their keeper made at least two desperate saves, in reality was Lloris ever bothered, Hence my better team comment
I feel we are fitter and fight a bit more in mid field, considering we still aren’t the finished article, bearing in mind we have yet to field our new signings(properly) in a Premier league game, I think we did pretty well in keeping a strong Wolves team at bay when they were at home, also for the second game in a row the Premierships’top goal scorer sat on the bench for over a hour.
We have work to do yes certainly, Nuno is, by all accounts a defensive, reactive play on the break coach, what did we expect….
BelgianSpur – Its about playing to your teams strengths. Leicester won the league because they had Vardy and with his pace and finishing ability every ball over the top was a scoring chance. With Son. Moura and Bergwijn we also have pace and in Son something close to Vardy’s finishing ability. So again the long ball, especially on the counter when the opposition are pushing up, makes sense. Try the same thing with slow forwards and it wouldn’t work at all.
I only saw the highlights which probably flattered us if the stats were anything to go by. I say well done to the players for nicking it by being well organised and tenacious, but they can’t keep that up. We can only be confident when passing and possession improves and for that we need the proverbial midfield general that that will never be Deli for all his qualities.
I cant see stevie and lucas scoring more then 10 goals
I note we are heavily linked with Traore, what is this all about?
In an ideal world, he may be OK as a very good squad player, but we currently NEED a RB, CD, playmaker mid field, and striker where is our focus in recruitment if this is to be believed.
Sorry Niall but I disagree with you about Traore. This man has exceptional talent and I’ve always feared him when we played Wolves. He more or less ran us ragged in Sunday’s game and but for Hugo’s great blocking save his goal might have turned this match. I’d swop him for Bergwijn any day, considering that B’s end product is even more rare than Traore”s.
jod – you may want to talk up the pace and finishing ability of the front 3, but on the day we beat Wolves thanks to a penalty. None of those long balls actually worked.
The tactics may have worked for Leicester in a fluke of a season, but those same tactics got Ranieri sacked and Leicester almost relegated that following season. Why? Because at some point they become very predictable.
Besides, if Harry Kane does stay as you think he will, there is no doubt in anybody’s mind that he will walk back into the starting 11. All of a sudden those long balls over the top are wasted with Kane in the team. Then what?