With Tottenham Hotspur opening up the 2020/21 Premier League campaign with a very disappointing defeat to Everton on Sunday, attentions quickly turn to our Europa League Qualifying Second Round tie against Lokomotiv Plovdiv on Thursday.
Qualifying rounds are never the nicest and you generally tend to meet a few teams who, with the greatest of respect, you’ve never actually heard of before, so whilst the assumption is usually ‘a cricket score’ – the matches themselves can often play out quite differently.
Manager Jose Mourinho will be looking for a comfortable and steady victory here to boost spirits and bed in our new signings but it’s definitely one of those games for fans where it’s an ‘avoid a banana skin’ moment at all costs and if it’s not pretty, just scrape through somehow.
Plovdiv...
Win
Draw
Lose
That’s probably never been more true after our opening day defeat as after last season’s struggles, we need some confidence and momentum as it still hasn’t quite clicked for the manager formerly known as the ‘Special One’.
With that said, it’s never ‘just’ the manager, it might be early doors and some players take a bit longer than others to get up to speed, but there surely can’t be any excuses for this one….can there?
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Play the kids Jose!
Tell them to attack, attack, attack. Enjoy their football and play with a smile on their faces… They’ll probably win it…
Play the seniors and set them up in the negative to play defensively, and they might just lose……
Up the Spurs!
HT, haha yes.
In reality I really do not care who plays as long as we bloody win.
I will be watching it. COYS please!
play to your strengths is all you can do. Tactics should only be a guideline, are jose Tactics standard or should he’s tactics be about the best tactics to suit the players he has.
Good question, 123spurs.
Jose is very stubborn with his standard tactics I think…
PS sorry Danny forgot to thank you for the Match thread, cheers mate. COYS please!
I don’t think Jose will play the kids – I think it will be a strong line up. I see some free flowing attacking football opening up the Plovdiv defence at will, some aggressive pressing starting from the front, crisp passing and a convincing four nil victory.
Oh sorry, I forgot Jose is the manager. In that case, it will be more of the same safety first football, defend deep (and somehow still concede chances) hit long balls up to the striker (we do have a striker don’t we), hope the the attacking players don’t get in each others way and we may actually sneak a one nil win through an own goal.
Football under Jose – marvellous.
I played golf with a Spurs fan this morning who just became a member in the hope of attending a game this season – he has not been to the new stadium yet. His first words to me were “there is no way I am getting the train down to London to watch that garbage” COYS
DH….I started reading your post and wondered what you were on! lol
Wow….CCV to Bournemouth apparently, didn’t see that one coming, but a nice bit of cash in hopefully.
A 3 – 0 win courtesy of a hat-trick from Alex Morgan. Good on ya, JM, for thinking outside the (penalty) box!
Definitely worth a shot Geof, Harrop has played really well at LCB in her first 2 games since joining so we could give her a go as well. ๐
Danny thanks for the new thread.
I’ll go off piste for a moment.
Why do we always seem to pick the wrong recruits.
EG. We had Southampton former manager, but, missed out on Sane, and Vandyk insteadwe took Wanyama. OK he was a good player but injury prone.
N’Koudu, N’Je, Jansen, Froyth, Soldado,Aurier
N ‘Dombele (the jury’s out), LoCeslo(jury’s out again).
I’m sure there are more.
Why can’t we get the Sane’ S, N’Didis, Fernandes, Allan’s, other teams can scout them and buy em.
I’m lost as to where we are going from recruitment to tactics to contracts.
Re Thurs.
Would like to see a strong team first half. Get a couple of goals bring on some youth second half. Give N’Dombele 60/70 mins.
Niall…..our scouting and recruitment process has been questioned by many over recent transfer windows. As you rightly point out the likes of Leicester and Wolves have brought in some real diamonds on transfer budgets that are at best equal to our own.
I fully expect Spurs to win this whoever Jose takes with him and plays.
Then, that’s when the madness starts. With fixture after fixture in a quick-fire succession.
But to follow these Spurs matches. Next month sees another International break where England play 2 matches and I presume many other national teams will do the same… Busy for our lads or what?! Then back to more club football. Followed by yet more Internationals in November!
And we’re bored already!
I think they should have scrapped the current Nations League tournament, it’s a pointless one for me in the current circumstances, it’s just adding to the likelyhood of spreading the virus across individual club isolation bubbles and also across nations.
Bubble, Bubble, toil and trouble.
Night all . : – )
Double, double, toil and trouble. ๐
Well it now looks like we are signing Reguillon and are negotiating a swap loan deal with Dele and Bale. Seems very strange to me as Bale despite never playing is constantly injured. Seems like a vanity signing to appease the fans. Interested in everyone elseโs views COYS
I like the look of Reguillon, would be a good signing IMO.
I’ve never been an advocate of Bale returning due to the likely cost versus his injury record. If a way could be found to get him at a cost that wouldn’t be a millstone even allowing for some time out through injury then I would be ok with that. It’s likely that shirt sales would bring in a substantial figure. It could also take the pressure off signing a striker as he doesn’t have a shabby scoring record himself.
I have now watched 3 post match interviews with the grumpy and irritable Jose making excuse after excuse….the free kick, covid, players not fit, international matches, missed chances. Oh dear what a sad case. Admit it. You are past it Jose. Spurs used to play with passion and style; great passing, pressing, attacking, dominating midfield. If you want to stay, take a new football coaching course to instil some creativity into our squad. I know we only have 3 top internationals but you have to motivate all the journeymen to step up and give extra. What has happened to Dele, Lucas, Lamela…once top players? Why no Seesegnon…outstanding for Fulham? Why no Jack Clarke… once a top prospect? Where are our outstanding young players? Why no reserve striker to help out the nackered Kane? Why do we only have one mediocre left back? So much to be answered for here.
Just my luck, looks like we will be playing at Plymouth (about 30 minutes away from me) in the 3rd round of the Carabao cup. Feck you covid!
Maybe not then, Orient have pulled back to level from 2 down.
Thank you Orient for saving me the anguish of not being able to watch us at Plymouth.
Wentworth, you just nail it in the head.