Following on from last night’s shocking performance and result against Vitesse Arnhem in our Group G Europa Conference League clash, Tottenham Hotspur will be looking to get back on track as we face bubble blowing West Ham United this coming Sunday.
The positive from midweek, if you can call it that, is the defeat can be laid squarely at head coach Nuno Espirito Santo’s decision to rotate the entire pack once again and not even have some big hitters on the bench, so they should be fresh and raring to go – but of course with Premier League struggles and inconsistent form, our place in Europe (and the finances that brings) is now in doubt for the remainder of 2021/22.
West Ham are in mixed form themselves sitting only a point below us, but they will be buoyed by their own European progression, so this is set to be a pretty tight, and I imagine, end to end sort of encounter and we’ll need our big players to step up and be counted now as making it three wins on the spin again in the top flight would be the perfect way to bounce back from our most recent hiccup.
WW, as I said, it’s not just about the money. There are plenty of examples of very good players being picked up by clubs less attractive than ourselves at comparatively low transfer fees. We never seem to identify any of these ourselves.
Whilst I agree WW (re Thursday) I still maintain that these games should be a testing ground for fringe players, we weren’t great but the team whilst not cobbled together isn’t playing together all the time.
And whilst Vitesse’s 1st 11 were certainly the better team, at home, they hardly peppered our goal and at a stage we could’ve stolen it, which I think was, what Nuno was looking for.
But I do agree that our 2nd stream is lacking and I can’t see many from Thursday nights game ousting our 1st 11 which in itself isnt a good thing as the players will be assured of their place and may become too complacent or comfortable in their position, which I would argue was our issue during the end of Poch’s reign.
TQ
I’m wondering why the likes of EJ and I could see Castagne, Kessie, Aaron’s, the availability of Cavani fek me I even mentioned Eduard as a back up before we got Vinnie.
You could see the talent in Smith Rowe and Gallagher and there are many others on this site who have seen decent prospects, I distinctly remember someone mentioned Tielemans before he went to Leicester.
Why do we buy the N’koudus, Njies, Sissokos, Clarke’s, Doherty’S, Soldados, Jane sons, Aurier, Capoue, Criches, Paulinho, Tianio, and the list could go on.
Where is our focus when we needed a back up striker we get a goal keeper and two midfielders.
Just lost as to who is giving these recruitment guys the money to go out and throw millions on a gamble. But we do it time and time again, we overspend on a “prospect” for a position we don’t need filled. ðŸ˜
Niall….I was one of those advocating Tielemans before he went to Leicester, he was easily affordable then but is now being reported to be on Liverpool and Barca’s shopping list.
Just to reinforce the ‘bench’ discussion …. There were about four years under MP when we played games where we were well on top — remember those days — and when the bench was called on, nothing changed. Players would come on from the bench and fit seamlessly into our formation. Not now. For whatever reason, we can no longer trust the bench.
For the first 30 minutes of today’s match each time the Spammers have the ball it looks like Spurs are playing with 10 men on the pitch. Each time Spurs have the ball it looks like Spam are playing with 12 men on the pitch.
Our holy ghost, espirito santo, the phantasm on the touchline, has about 4 to 6 weeks to have the team looking integrated and whole. After that it will look like the ship is sinking. He seems a decent enough chap. i hope he starts to pull things together, but for now the doubts are rising. Come on you Spurs! Look like a team where the players know and understand where they fit with one another. Play as one, no matter who is on the pitch. As of now, a sense of how things fit together seems missing.
WTF, Harry? That’s not how you mark a man in the box on a corner. I could feel that coming for 72 minutes.
The amount of money we can get by selling HK’s contract is dropping by the week.
An embarrassment. Eleven men on the pitch generating the play of 10. No urgency in the play. No integration of players. No manager it would seem by the quality of play.
I think we have an energy crisis with too many fossils in our team.
We can bring in all the new players we like, but if they don’t play like an integrated team, then the play won’t be any better than this. Resting this lot on Thursday didn’t buy a squat on the pot.
Totally clueless. A poor bore. We spent most of the match passing the ball backwards and Winks was no where to be seen.
We didn’t sub until 83rd minute simply because we have no one.
We have a silent captain. Why? He doesn’t encourage, never interviewed, never involved.
Not one player deserved more than 5 out of ten today.
We are light years behind top 4. How on earth we are 6th is a total mystery.
Will the transfer window bring any hope. Very unlikely.
Kane now worth about 75 million. Half price bargain!!Good business Levy.
Kane was overall awful and his defending for the corner was disgraceful. Clearly he is not all in and i would be looking to move on in the Summer.
I’d sit Harry on the bench for a couple of PL matches and ask him if he thought this would help his case. What top team would want a man who sulks on the pitch. Of it he’s not sulking, he’s surely not putting much into it anyway. Looks like what we mean by sulking. Put in someone hungry, not in someone suppressing that he’s angry.
We’ve seen the best of Lucas Moura and it’s not good enough. Almost there, but consistently not quite there.
At least Romero showed a bit of anger.
1 x 0 provides an illusion. It makes us look better than we were. How many derbies now is it that we’ve been embarrassed?
I’m sure Nuno the Holy Spirit is sorry he signed on with DL. this will do his career no good. We now are a team that can kill careers. Ouch.
when the ship be sinking the rats be jumping the ship. Stay and go down with the ship. this is too much.
i can tolerate losing but not when the play consists in the main of indolent back passing.
And to make matters worse MU will be keen to bounce back from the dribbling they’re getting today.
LT,
That’s my only consolation, my Bro is currently sitting in Portaferry with a pint in one hand and his head in the other.
Now United do have a decent squad compared to us.
As has been said January won’t fix this.
There were many of us who wanted Kane away espically at £150 mil, I did say that I’d hope he didn’t unconsciously down tools, but it looks like he has.
We need a lot of work.
Usual hype after a loss. It was a tight game, not a surprise, decided by a set piece, also not a surprise. To me it all comes down to the speed of play. Teams like West Ham are well organised and get back into defensive shape when they lose the ball. Either you have to do something brilliant or you have to move the ball quickly. If we were doing the same thing but passing the ball 20-30% quicker we would win these games, but we are too slow at the moment.
Dele Alli drops Pep Guardiola’s daughter. Maybe he’ll start playing better?
Ooops. He’s traded her in for a model. Oh, well. Still on an ego trip?
I only saw the first 60 minutes due to a family commitment which turned out to be a blessing which saved me from further boredom. My God, we were so pedestrian in our build up play, it was almost walking pace, and these players were spared playing Thursday to save their energy for today! Terrible performance, turned out as I predicted. Going to be the same old story next week when we face a wounded United looking to bounce back from their mauling today.
Just watched the highlights again on MOTD, my god but we’re pedestrian sluggish, back to defending too deep with too many players.
I just looked at Telemans today, and his performance, he actually made a very average Leicester team look good, in reality Brentford were the better team, but Telemans performance brought Leicester the points.
Now we don’t actually have a player in our midfield like that, we don’t have the guy who sees” its not going our way, I’m gonna grab this game by the scruff of the neck and win it for us.
What we have is an amalgamation of OK players not great not bad just OK, and the problem is that they’re content to be just OK.
We have lost our passion, our impetus, our progressive thinking, we used to be the flair team who hit the woodwork 6 times every game, lost games 4-3.
Now were just boring.
I do think Nuno is out of his depth the job is bigger than him, there are too many issues at the club.