Vital Spurs Debate Section

Match Thread – Spurs Looking To Out Think The Foxes

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Tottenham Hotspur still have slim hopes of reaching the Europa League this season, but with only two games now remaining in the 2019/20 calendar, it means manager Jose Mourinho simply has to take six points from both Leicester City this Sunday, and then Crystal Palace in a weeks time, if we are to have a European adventure in 2020/21.

Unbeaten in four, with back to back victories, should give us some confidence of achieving just that, and Harry Kane will certainly be in good spirits having crashed through the 200 goals marker – but we all know our play is far from perfect and massive questions remain about performances.

Leicester...

Win

Draw

Lose

Whatever does happen with the chase for Europe, we all know it’s mainly about taking some form, momentum and confidence into next season to try and put what has been a massively difficult, and extremely poor year, completely behind us.

Sensible strengthening to really freshen up the group and what many hope will be a major defensive rebuild would put us on the right track again, but until then, all eyes to the fourth placed Foxes as anything other than a win, simply won’t be good enough.

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  • Hot Tottingham says:

    I complained about the last match probably for the first time ever after winning and after years of posting on here…..

    I complained about being bored. Simply because I was… I didn’t complain about winning.

    No one actually wants to be bored do they?

    I used to get slated on here for bigging up the team and even after I thought we had we played well. Now I’m getting digs for the opposite. After moaning about one match in which I said I was happy for the 3 points… Oh well….. It seems that I shouldn’t have been bored…… But I was! LOL

    • Danny Winter says:

      You’re not alone. Mourinho is pragmatic and that’s how we’ve turned. Maybe next season our chances of winning something double under him, but it’s not entertaining – even if we had a decent first half today (the goals). If football is genuinely now just about the money and the results and not entertainment, then I’m glad I’m not younger as I wouldn’t have fallen in love with it.

  • wentworth says:

    Good result. Two excellent strikes from Harry. BUT…very little to excite. Our midfield is pretty sterile. Our defence despite two very ordinary full backs kept a clean sheet thanks to Lloris. We have a very workmanlike but uninspiring midfield. Lo Celso spends too much time on the floor..can’t shoot, doesn’t score and poor passer. Winks is the busy tippy tappy player..doesn’t do much wrong but oh so boring. Sissoko..strong and direct but can’t pass or shoot. That is our uninspiring but steady midfield. Son and Harry looked lively today. What really worries me is our lack of exciting young players. What has happened to Sessegnon? Where is Jack Clarke? Why did Skipp only get 2 minutes(!!!) of play when we had won the match at half time? Where our are outstanding academy players? Where is our Mason Greenwood? Who is scouting for the star players of the future? We used to be out of our seats (armchairs?) watching the silky skills of Modric, Ginola, Gascoigne, Hoddle, Ardiles,Waddle, Bale, Robbie Keane, Defoe, Van Der Vart, Klinsman, Lineker, Berbatov etc. Where are our exciting players now? It is all very well winning. But please, please lets win with style, excitement, skill and entertainment. Not bring the opposition to death. I cannot remember the last time a Spurs player beat an opposing defender. (Possibly Son!), or did something spectacular like dribble past a couple of opponents. This is a plea for the future. Don’t think Jose will be listening.

    • Danny Winter says:

      Clarke’s still at QPR isn’t he? Not really going well as a loan spell again sadly. Had high hopes for the lad.

  • block 108 spurs says:

    Just seen Jose’s view on the match… He did his homework on Leicester. By taking away the gap where vardy runs into, by drawing Leicester onto us, their back line forwards so leaving the gap for HK10 / sonny / lucas to exploit. As I said we played Leicester at their own game….

    We are seeing a turnaornd in tactical game management (which we never saw with poch). on specific opponents we face. Some may see it as boring, some as tactically astute… But the result is we won, –)

  • Niall D says:

    Here we go the Complainers start. Next it’ll be we only scored because they had a weakened team.
    Guess what that’s where we were from January to around end of March.
    You can only beat what’s in front of you. They had their best strikers on the field and scored nothing, nil, nada. I’m fed up with being the best team not to win anything. Watching a Workman like Liverpool in the 70’s take it all, Boring Arsenal and their 1-0 wins, Fekin lucky Man U, Chelsea and Man C buying the league.
    I’ll take a wee bit of boring to see our name on a trophy next year. I’ll definately take it to win the league.
    I think we are improving. That was not the worst match I’ve seen us play.
    Do we really wanna be like the old Netherlands teams sexy football, tikytaky, win fek all whilst the boring Germans take the trophy.
    I loved the way we played the cavalier Spurs way. But we ain’t won anything. Top 4 is still a loser If that’s what you want I dunno…

  • Geofspurs says:

    I don’t know what to think about the game. We won 3-0 (yet another correct prediction lol), and yet it didn’t feel like a 3-0 win.

    I doubt any trophy in our cabinet was won playing the way we did last night, yet we won 3-0.

    Half way through the first half the house started shaking and I thought it was an earthquake …. but it was just Danny Blanchflower turning over in his grave. Yet we won 3-0.

    There was some terrible defending, which conflicted with the strategy, yet we won 3-0.

    Lloris had to make 3 or 4 last ditch world class saves, yet we won 3-0.

    Stats are now meaningless …. all the stats from the game were against us, yet we won 3-0.

    The best thing that I can take from the game, apart from the fact that we scored with virtually every shot on goal, is that we won 3-0.

    Now I’m wondering if The Lane is to become a bus terminus and we’ll win every game 3-0.

    That’s something to look forward to isn’t it?

  • Geofspurs says:

    That post was not a rant for or against Jose and his tactics. It was neither complaint or praise. It was just reflecting what happened.

  • El Jefe says:

    HT- guess I was right on Friday to tell you to stay positive and also that we should be able to win lol!

    I said before the game on here that the most important thing probably was to win irrespective of how well we actually played based on continued confidence building for the squad and also as regards the EL spot that was still up for grabs – so for now I will stick to that line!

    I missed the 1st 15 minutes and thus the 1st goal but then saw it back several times later. The 30 minutes I did watch were OK based on the deadly counter-attacks we mounted culminating in 2 further goals! The 2nd half though have to be perfectly honest and say completely bored watching them dominate further and us just sitting back and doing nothing pretty much! Game management perhaps and no reason for us to chase it, etc but it was completely unpleasant to watch much like the Newcastle game.

    I’m obviously pro JM but also love football and love Spur’s and want to be entertained at least a fair amount whilst naturally wanting to see us win regularly/well actually of course win always in an ideal world lol!

    Like I say I’ll take it for now because we are getting the results we need but next season would hope the results keep coming yet also the performance’s see a decent to good improvement aswell!

    Hopefully by then Dele will be back fully fit and chomping at the bit to go and Lo Celso, Bergwijn and especially N’Dombele will be more settled and again raring to go for the new start. It would also be good to see a new striker to help cover for HK10 brought in – but that’s a matter for a different post!

    On individual’s I will say HK10 proving some of the doubter’s on here completely wrong when they said they’d be willing to sell him this summer if a half decent offer came in – suggesting he may well be past his best – that’s now 4 goals in the last 2 games (2 world class strikes today to boot, even the 1 that was disallowed was pure quality finishing) and an assist aswell pretty much to Sonny today with an exquisite pass with the outside of his boot. Arguably the best striker in the world and we desperately need to keep him for atleast next season – TALISMAN EXTRAORDINAIRE – as pretty much stated by JM after the match! Would not sell him for less than a world record amount quite frankly – he’s getting back to his sublime best so why should we settle for anything less if he was to go and then only if he pushed for it to be perfectly honest?!

    Moving on thought Moura was absolutely brilliant today – especially the 1st half. Last week against Arse he directly assisted HK10 twice and I said then that on another day HK10 would gobble up his chances and today he duely obliged and thankfully Moura was on hand to provide again 2 great assists for him! But it wasn’t just the final ball – Moura actually helped initiate all 3 goals in his own half first of all. It was his helping headed clearance that HK10 latched onto to then set Sonny off! Then for the 2nd – Moura headed a corner clear to start the move before bursting forwards to then directly assist HK10 with a lovely ball and finally he stole the ball from the full-back for the third running on into the opposition half and then sliding HK10 in pretty much and letting him do his absolute best with that beauty of a finish making it the pick of the goals today! I guess I was justified in the end for suggesting he should start over Bergwijn again even after Bergwijn’s quality assist for HK10 against Newcastle!

    Furthermore very impressed with Sonny – he pretty much scored the 1st and was involved in stealing the ball and helping set off the attack for the 2nd also, aswell as his general quality attacking play as usual! Lo Celso also was impressive with his energy bursting forwards in every counter-attack just like the other 3 forwards and was involved directly in the build-up to the 2nd goal – he will get better and better with more time and is already doing very well as has been confirmed by JM, etc (Lamela praising him in the press this weekend for example)!

    Last for a specific mention and direct top praise is Lloris – arguably MOTM ahead of Moura and HK10 – some brilliant saves to help keep a clean sheet (especially the and give us the platfHT- guess I was right on Friday to tell you to stay positive and also that we should be able to win lol!

    I said before the game on here that the most important thing probably was to win irrespective of how well we actually played based on continued confidence building for the squad and also as regards the EL spot that was still up for grabs – so for now I will stick to that line!

    I missed the 1st 15 minutes and thus the 1st goal but then saw it back several times later. The 30 minutes I did watch were OK based on the deadly counter-attacks we mounted culminating in 2 further goals! The 2nd half though have to be perfectly honest and say completely bored watching them dominate further and us just sitting back and doing nothing pretty much! Game management perhaps and no reason for us to chase it, etc but it was completely unpleasant to watch much like the Newcastle game.

    I’m obviously pro JM but also love football and love Spur’s and want to be entertained at least a fair amount whilst naturally wanting to see us win regularly/well actually of course win always in an ideal world lol!

    Like I say I’ll take it for now because we are getting the results we need but next season would hope the results keep coming yet also the performance’s see a decent to good improvement aswell!

    Hopefully by then Dele will be back fully fit and chomping at the bit to go and Lo Celso, Bergwijn and especially N’Dombele will be more settled and again raring to go for the new start. It would also be good to see a new striker to help cover for HK10 brought in – but that’s a matter for a different post!

    On individual’s I will say HK10 proving some of the doubter’s on here completely wrong when they said they’d be willing to sell him this summer if a half decent offer came in – suggesting he may well be past his best – that’s now 4 goals in the last 2 games (2 world class strikes today to boot, even the 1 that was disallowed was pure quality finishing) and an assist aswell pretty much to Sonny today with an exquisite pass with the outside of his boot. Arguably the best striker in the world and we desperately need to keep him for atleast next season – TALISMAN EXTRAORDINAIRE – as pretty much stated by JM after the match! Would not sell him for less than a world record amount quite frankly – he’s getting back to his sublime best so why should we settle for anything less if he was to go and then only if he pushed for it to be perfectly honest?!

    Moving on thought Moura was absolutely brilliant today – especially the 1st half. Last week against Arse he directly assisted HK10 twice and I said then that on another day HK10 would gobble up his chances and today he duely obliged and thankfully Moura was on hand to provide again 2 great assists for him! But it wasn’t just the final ball – Moura actually helped initiate all 3 goals in his own half first of all. It was his helping headed clearance that HK10 latched onto to then set Sonny off! Then for the 2nd – Moura headed a corner clear to start the move before bursting forwards to then directly assist HK10 with a lovely ball and finally he stole the ball from the full-back for the third running on into the opposition half and then sliding HK10 in pretty much and letting him do his absolute best with that beauty of a finish making it the pick of the goals today! I guess I was justified in the end for suggesting he should start over Bergwijn again even after Bergwijn’s quality assist for HK10 against Newcastle!

    Moving on thought Sonny was back to his usual brilliant self – pretty much got the 1st and helped steal the ball and set off the attack for the 2nd! I did state here prior to the match that HK10 and Sonny specifically should be chomping at the bit to get at Leicester’s weakened back-line especially after their goal exploits against Arse and even more so Newcastle and they did not disappoint and proved me right aswell lol! Lo Celso was also impressive with his energy and constantly bursting forwards with the other 3 on every counter-attack and he was directly involved in the set-up for the 2nd goal and I think he will just get better and better with time as has been stated by JM, etc (Lamela this weekend praising him in the press for example)!

    Finally and last for direct individutal praise – Lloris – who continued his top form lately and was MOTM ahead of HK10 and Moura for me with some brilliant saves (especially against the Perez volley in the 1st half as singled out by JM on MOTD 2) and was instrumental in helping to secure the comfortable victory in the end! He has been outstanding as I say since the re-start and has played by example fully as our capitan in that time also lol!

    Generally the back 4 were pretty solid – Aurier had a poor 1st half but then recovered pretty well and was decent for the 2nd without making any real mistakes/errors – but for me will continue with my view that he needs to be sold and a good replacement brought in – again though this is a conversation for another time/thread! In CM Winks and Sissoko again solid enough also – no real complaints but ideally we need a good DMC brought in to handle the threat against better/top opposition and let’s not forget their play-maker and arguably best player in Maddison was missing today so it made their job especially defensively much easier – but again it’s a discussion for another time/thread lol!

    So all in all – a solid display and very effective but also very boring especially the 2nd half but I guess by then the job had been done already so was merely all about containment and avoiding possibly further fatigue and injury being the 3rd game in 7 days roughly!

    Now onto Palace next Sunday for our final game and hopefully again 3 points to round off a decent end to the season and further hopefully secure that “final” EL spot!

  • El Jefe says:

    Please ignore this last post of mine as got all muddled up unfortunately and I did not proof read it at the end as was a bit long and thought was all OK lol – will re-post a correct edited version now!

  • El Jefe says:

    HT- guess I was right on Friday to tell you to stay positive and also that we should be able to win lol!

    I said before the game on here that the most important thing probably was to win irrespective of how well we actually played based on continued confidence building for the squad and also as regards the EL spot that was still up for grabs – so for now I will stick to that line!

    I missed the 1st 15 minutes and thus the 1st goal but then saw it back several times later. The 30 minutes I did watch were OK based on the deadly counter-attacks we mounted culminating in 2 further goals! The 2nd half though have to be perfectly honest and say completely bored watching them dominate further and us just sitting back and doing nothing pretty much! Game management perhaps and no reason for us to chase it, etc but it was completely unpleasant to watch much like the Newcastle game.

    I’m obviously pro JM but also love football and love Spur’s and want to be entertained at least a fair amount of the time whilst naturally wanting to see us win regularly/well actually of course win always in an ideal world lol!

    Like I say I’ll take it for now because we are getting the results we need but next season would hope the results keep coming yet also the performance’s see a decent to good improvement aswell!

    Hopefully by then Dele will be back fully fit and chomping at the bit to go and Lo Celso, Bergwijn and especially N’Dombele will be more settled and again raring to go for the new start. It would also be good to see a new striker to help cover for HK10 brought in – but that’s a matter for a different post!

    On individual’s I will say HK10 proving some of the doubter’s on here completely wrong when they said they’d be willing to sell him this summer if a half decent offer came in – suggesting he may well be past his best – that’s now 4 goals in the last 2 games (2 world class strikes today to boot, even the 1 that was disallowed was pure quality finishing) and an assist aswell pretty much to Sonny today with an exquisite pass with the outside of his boot. Arguably the best striker in the world and we desperately need to keep him for atleast next season – TALISMAN EXTRAORDINAIRE – as pretty much stated by JM after the match! Would not sell him for less than a world record amount quite frankly – he’s getting back to his sublime best so why should we settle for anything less if he was to go and then only if he pushed for it to be perfectly honest?!

    Moving on thought Moura was absolutely brilliant today – especially the 1st half. Last week against Arse he directly assisted HK10 twice and I said then that on another day HK10 would gobble up his chances and today he duely obliged and thankfully Moura was on hand to provide again 2 great assists for him! But it wasn’t just the final ball – Moura actually helped initiate all 3 goals in his own half first of all. It was his helping headed clearance that HK10 latched onto to then set Sonny off! Then for the 2nd – Moura headed a corner clear to start the move before bursting forwards to then directly assist HK10 with a lovely ball and finally he stole the ball from the full-back for the third running on into the opposition half and then sliding HK10 in pretty much and letting him do his absolute best with that beauty of a finish making it the pick of the goals today! I guess I was justified in the end for suggesting he should start over Bergwijn again even after Bergwijn’s quality assist for HK10 against Newcastle!

    Moving further on thought Sonny was back to his usual brilliant self – pretty much got the 1st and helped steal the ball and set off the attack for the 2nd! I did state here prior to the match that HK10 and Sonny specifically should be chomping at the bit to get at Leicester’s weakened back-line especially after their goal exploits against Arse and even more so Newcastle and they did not disappoint and proved me right aswell lol! Lo Celso was also impressive with his energy and constantly bursting forwards with the other 3 on every counter-attack and he was directly involved in the set-up for the 2nd goal and I think he will just get better and better with time as has been stated by JM, etc (Lamela this weekend also praising him in the press for example)!

    Finally and last for direct individutal praise – Lloris – who continued his top form lately and was MOTM ahead of HK10 and Moura for me with some brilliant saves (especially against the Perez volley in the 1st half as singled out by JM on MOTD 2) and was instrumental in helping to secure the comfortable victory in the end! He has been outstanding as I say since the re-start and has played by example fully as our capitan in that time also lol!

    Generally the back 4 were pretty solid – Aurier had a poor 1st half but then recovered pretty well and was decent for the 2nd without making any real mistakes/errors – but for me will continue with my view that he needs to be sold and a good replacement brought in – again though this is a conversation for another time/thread! In CM Winks and Sissoko again solid enough also – no real complaints but ideally we need a good DMC brought in to handle the threat against better/top opposition and let’s not forget their play-maker and arguably best player in Maddison was missing today so it made their job especially defensively much easier – but again it’s a discussion for another time/thread lol!

    So all in all – a solid display and very effective but also very boring especially the 2nd half but I guess by then the job had been done already so was merely all about containment and avoiding possibly further fatigue and injury being the 3rd game in 7 days roughly!

    Now onto Palace next Sunday for our final game and hopefully again 3 points to round off a decent end to the season and further hopefully secure that “final” EL spot!

  • El Jefe says:

    Didn’t watch the Man U v Chelski game but how the hell did Chelski win 3-1 against them?! Another shocker after Arse disposing of Man City lol! Honestly thought it would be a Manchester derby in the final! Guess it serves Ole right for leaving out Pogba, Martial and Greenwood from the start when all 3 are bang in form and naturally top players!

    I did suggest earlier in the thread that I thought Man U might well threaten Liverpool and Man City next season with some good signings this summer (perhaps a top CB and a top STR for starters as further suggested earlier) and also that for me Chelski are the one’s to pip into 4th place next season – I will stick by that for now and even though Chelski beat Man U earlier I still as I say stand by what I said – indeed they’ve conceded 49 goals this season and are 3rd with only 63 points – a poor season by any standards and even more so with Chelski’s stats – we’ve handed down our CL spot on a platter this season for sure!

    Usually for top 4 you need to be getting atleast mid 70’s in points to secure such which just shows how bad of a season it has been and also concede on average less than 40 goals, certainly not going on 50 lol!

    For now there’s still hope of us being able to return to the top 4 next season – but I think we’ll need to make some clever signings this summer to compliment the squad fully and iron out the weaker points like a new RB exchanging for Aurier and finally a proper DMC being brought into the centre of the park for us (in the past we’ve had Dier/Wanyama there and now Winks but nobody has ever cemented the role properly as for example Modric and then Dembele did in the other CM spot in the double pivot)! Sissoko is our best and most regular CM at the moment but he is really a jack of all trades yet master of none and I would love to see N’Dombele eventually take over from him and partner this new elusive DMC in the central double pivot area/roles!

  • El Jefe says:

    Hmm just seen that Lo Celso has been getting some stick on twitter from some of our fans (not as good as Eriksen, etc) – like I said above thought he’s actually been decent without admittedly setting the world alight but he’s been pretty solid overall and will just get better as he fully acclimatises to the Prem and England in general! Indeed why else did we make the move for him permanent in January with JM’s full blessing from what I remember?!

    Would ideally like to see him, Dele, Sonny and HK10 play together regularly in the 4 main attacking berths although Lucas and even Bergwijn have lately and will surely in future make it very difficult for the 3 of them (in behind HK10) and that’s actually the best news possible lol!

    I rate Lo Celso and am happy to have him and also that the move was made permanent but must also admit as I adhered to on another thread that he still has plenty to prove not least with regards to assists and scoring goals – for example in similar quantities as his break out year last season at Betis – where for example he got 16 goals in 45 games in all competitions – that’s what we need from him at Spur’s – creativity and finishing in the final 3rd where it hurts the opposition the most!

    Sometimes we could of course drop him back into CM further for example against weaker opposition/at home, etc and go with the system that JM has so far preferred with 2 wingers like Moura and Sonny and Dele playing off HK10 – very attacking wise and should mean hopefully good footy being played aswell as hopefully also helping to wear down team’s who park the bus constantly against us!

    Let’s wait and see and give the boy (he’s only just turned 24 after all and is still acclimatising as I said above) more time to prove his worth fully and finally!

  • block 108 spurs says:

    What I didn’t mention in my post last night… Spurs players are physically & mentally tired, after 4 games in 10 days, inc. NLD. As poch used to say we are not robots. Add the emotional and stress of bad performances, sheff. utd, bournemouth, and critical fans / media amounted to pressure, which had to be handled carefully by jose & coaches.

    Again our players have shown their quality and bounced back. So we should be encouraging them, helping boost confidence. Our signings this season are getting used to PL and will be better next yr. Remember sonny’s 1st year, when critical fans on here were saying sell him… all have now been proven wrong / silenced.

    Now onto Palace, and a final 3 points to win… whichever tactical ploys jose does, a win is a must for our hopes of Europa League next season. COYS

  • jod says:

    Hot Tottingham – That’s the point, you only have to play well enough to win and that is what a Mourinho team does. Its not “the Spurs Way” but it might actually win us some silverware. I can’t remember the last time a Spurs side successfully shut a game down the way we did in the second half and we’ve now had four successive victories in the new stadium for the first time. No doubt the fans who were moaning about us not winning anything will now moan about boring football but they had better get used to it.

  • Hot Tottingham says:

    At WHL over the years I have stood or sat next to so many moaners. Ones that moan non-stop even when we are doing/playing well… I can’t bear the thought of almost an entire stadium doing it…

    But yes jod, we will have to get used to it.

    Paying good money to be bored is all part of the new normal, I suppose. As long as we win. But what about when we don’t win? And, 60 odd thousand supporters are now the ones moaning in unison.

    I wonder, who on here spends good money and precious time to find new forms of entertainment to be bored by; “What’s your top 10 favourite dull movies”? ” When you feel the urge for a nice brain-numbing piece of music, who’s your go to band”? … And the band played on… and on and on and on….

    People aren’t even saying it’s not boring. Just that it may be boring but it is effective. Fair enough when we are winning. But we can’t actually say for a fact right now that we will win that elusive trophy. What if we don’t win that elusive trophy?

    I’m Just doing what Geof said he was doing with his post. Not a rant (I did say I was happy last night), just my observations…

    When people moan about being bored we will often respond to them by saying; “Well go and find something to do then”. Does this mean that they should go support Liverpool or City instead?

    Up the Spurs!

  • wentworth says:

    I thought football is (was in our case) part of the entertainment business.”The game is about glory, it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom.” Take note Jose.

  • DoncasterHotspur says:

    I understand that Jose is a master of winning ugly but if we continue to play how we did yesterday then top six is the best we will get from Jose. Other than a three minute wonder spell we were very poor yesterday. Despite sitting back in the first half we conceded chance after chance, there was no defensive solidity, we relied on some brilliant saves from Hugo and some poor finishing from Leicester. In the second half, we didn’t look like conceding but our ball retention was absolutely pathetic. A better team would have severely punished us. Kane was magnificent yesterday as a creator and a finisher but he still only had three touches in the Leicester penalty area. Let’s not forget that Leicester were without three first choice defenders and their most creative midfield player.
    I will say though that the players do seem to be buying into Jose’s philosophy – I just don’t think his philosophy will lead to trophies. It will be interesting how next Sunday’s game goes, two teams who prefer to sit back and defend. Maybe we should just call it a nil nil draw now and save the fans the agony of having to watch it.

  • block 108 spurs says:

    What Danny Blanchflower said was very appt. However that was then, the game has moved on and is different now. Look at our silverware total last 12 years, good football but nil trophies. Time to get back to basics.. defence hard to beat, attack on counters… see Liverpool games.

  • Hot Tottingham says:

    As a former goalkeeper (Defender of my teams goal), I’ll say this; The more world class saves (or any kind of saves) a goalie makes, is a sign of the defence in front of them, not being that solid.

    The goalkeepers making the highest number of saves in a season, aren’t playing for the best defences in the PL. In fact it will be most likely be the opposite.

    So, at least Hugo may now get his chance to shine again, after being slagged off for the past couple of seasons.

  • wentworth says:

    Of course the game has moved on. But that is no excuse for boring, negative football just to win silverware. Do we now have a whole new season to look forward to watching us dashing up to the other end after 20 minutes of panic defending? I certainly won’t be taking my grandsons to watch Jose’s sterile tactics. I live in hope that we can appoint a progressive, attacking coach and that we can create some young players with flair. Being bored to tears is a high price to pay just for some shiny,tin pot to gather dust.

  • Hot Tottingham says:

    block 108. I’m going to disagree with you …

    I do agree that Football has moved on and, it will always be moving on.

    When I watch EPL matches these days, I see more and more teams trying to play more and more progressive football. I see the 3 teams at the foot of the table that mostly aim to play attractive football. Teams that have many gifted and technically sound players. And then I see a team such as Spurs are pretty much expected to have a squad full of Internationals and pretty much a full 1st 11 of world class and technically gifted players for every position x2. Even if this is pretty unrealistic right now.

    I mean there are several players from teams in the relegation zone that many Spurs fans seem to believe are better than we currently have. And they may well be better players… I’m not that sure. But the standard of those players at the bottom end has steadily improved over the years. And many are very technically gifted and skilful, good footballing players. This is different to how it was back in Blanchflowers’ time. The general standard required is much higher these days. And on the whole the younger crop of PL managers are far more progressive tactically than the old mob that is quickly fading away… Big Sam, Pullis etc..

    Of course a winning team has to be defensively strong but this has never meant that it has to be boring too… Unless of course it doesn’t have world class attacking players such as Kane and Son in it…

    And surely Klopps football is in no way the same as Jose’s style.. Well, I can’t see it.

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