With Tottenham Hotspur fans hopefully enjoying a good Christmas Day, it was a Boxing Day to savour as we comfortably (albeit not perfectly) put Crystal Palace to the sword with a 3-0 victory at White Hart Lane thanks to efforts from Harry Kane, Lucas Moura and Son Heung-Min.
With a crammed fixture list, we are back in action on Tuesday afternoon as we make the trip to St Mary’s Stadium to face Ralph Hassenhuttl’s Southampton side. The Saints are in mixed form really, only one win and one loss with three draws in their five matches, but again, as long as we are firing on all cylinders this should be another semi-decent three points for Antonio Conte.
That, of course, does depend on what kind of squad Conte can put out. Cristian Romero and Ryan Sessegnon remain out and Giovani Lo Celso is rated as doubtful, but with the current Covid state of affairs and games already postponed, we’ll have to wait for the morning tests to see who (and how many) are cleared to play.
I feel really sorry for Conte attempting to work with some of the players who didn’t grace the pitch today . How can you improve some of our players ?
I will not name players who were poor and ought to go but my goodness there were some dreadful performances .
However , being positive I have to mention Sanchez who appears to have improved since Conte’s arrival . His block after , potentially one of the best defenders in world football !! , made a complete hash of a though ball , was brilliant .
Please Levy give Conte some money .
I’m a bit baffled as to where a passing expert was supposed to pass the ball in that second half. When the whole of the opposition is defending their penalty area, quite right when you are down to ten, where is the space to make the telling pass ? I was privileged to watch Glenn Hoddle play, the best passer of a football I’ve ever seen, and he couldn’t have found a killer ball into that congested space. Someone who could hammer the ball into the net from outside the penalty area would have been a lot more useful.
Then i suggest you go and watch Eriksen who was very apt at threading a ball through packed defenses. You’re acting like it was impossible which it certainly wasn’t! Look at some of the positions kane took up, he just needed crisper passes in to feet from our Midfielders.
I feel sorry for Conte as he attempts to improve some of the players he has inherited through Levy’s poor transfer dealings over the last couple of years .
A very poor performance but credit to Southampton for their man to man marking showing how poor our team is on several fronts .
We were pressured into producing the bad passing style and poor team work which we had witnessed pre Conte .
Must say that Sanchez is having some good games and was brilliant when clearing from ” one of the best defenders in the world !!! ” mistakes .
Sorry for a replica post . I thought that it hadn’t been posted !!