With Tottenham Hotspur again racking up three wins on the spin in the Premier League, and the Europa League continuing to prove fruitful in midweek, there’s probably no better a time to face North London rivals Arsenal.
We travel to the Emirates Stadium to face Mikel Arteta’s strugglers late on Sunday afternoon and we can again expect rotation from manager Jose Mourinho but as things stand, it’s not expected that Harry Kane’s midweek knee knock against Dinamo Zagreb will keep him out of this one, despite his early substitution.
Having found a richer goalscoring vein of form in recent weeks, there’s every reason to be confident in us taking a good victory here. It’s a derby, we won’t have it all our own way and there will be tight and tricky moments, but if our attackers click again, our margin of victory should be pretty comfortable here.
Let’s just hope that’s the case and we take a further boost of confidence as the campaign comes to a close.
One huge positive we can take from this game relates to our future strategy …. we have obviously been starting games with too many players on the pitch. In future we will be starting with ten men. We play much better that way!
Never a pen
Never a red card
Jose never done his homework
I agree.
123s, simply put and true. COYS
What’s a wing back, Niall. lol. here’s the way I understand it, as it was explained to me some time back. Think of the 4-4-2 formation that was sort of a standard at one time. There’s a back four defenders with odd names. Two full-backs our on the defensive wings, and two center halves more or less in front of the goal.
why do they have these odd names? Apparently if you go back far enough–when balls weighed a lot and didn’t get rocketed around like they do today–there were two backs both in front of the goal, and then a midfield of half backs and an attacking line. At some point two half backs got shifted to the backfield, and the two defensive full back got shifted outside. Thus the back for with twiFBs and twi center halves.
As defenses changed to three backline players, a half back from midfield got added to the two half backs in front of the goal, and the two FBs got pushed toward the midfield, taking on more offensive responsibility and less defensive responsibility.
Hence, an ourside FB player with more offensive responsibilty and less defenseive responsibility, becomes something of a wing back–a combination of a wing and a FB, often with a three CB formation.
Whew. Hope I got the story straight. So a wing back is a former CB who got pushed into a defensive wing posiiton called a FB, then nudged more forward as an extra CB is added, called a half back. Then we push the FB a bit to become a wing back.
The historical transformations of formations, names of positions, and how we got defending attackers and offending defenders. half backs who are fully at the back and wing backs who are backs pushed forward. A perfect knobheaded topic where up is down, down is up, and the inside is worn on the outside.
Anyway, I read somewhere that Doherty played more of a wingback position in the past so in a sense is learning a new position this season at Spurs. Truth be told I don’t really remember much of him before moving to us. If I’m right that is problem is moving from wing back to FB, then he needs some 4 King help in learning the new responsibilities. yes, I know 4 King was a center half who played fully at the back.
On one hand, I feel we were hard done by, because there was definitely room to draw or win this game.
On the other, Arsenal were probably the more deserving team on the day overall, so I can’t really complain about the result.
What is more worrisome, is that as soon as other results started to go our way on Saturday (Chelsea, Everton), I just knew we were in for a bad day at the office. We had the opportunity to get our top 4 bid back on track, which was always going to put a little bit of pressure on us to win the game. And we just don’t deal with this sort of pressure very well. Old habits die hard, I suppose.
As some others have said, how telling is it that we produce our best football after the red card? As soon as we went down to 10, all expectations were lifted, nobody expected us to get anything, and that’s when we started playing more freely. It’s a tell tale sign of having mental frailty, to me. Whether any manager can coach that out of this group of players remains to be seen.
As for the players themselves, I saw some good and some bad.
I feel bad for Sanchez, who up until the penalty, was having a very decent game. I think the decision is harsh because Lacazette gets his shot away, but surely Sanchez has to realise that throwing himself at a striker in the box is never going to end well. It’s the same old story with Sanchez. Great physical attributes, but his decision-making is always going to let him down. Even when he’s having a good game, there’s always a mistake in him.
Regarding Bale, he looked very annoyed to come off, but to be honest, he had been invisible up until the substitution, and he really wasn’t helping Doherty on the right (more on him later). Do you leave Bale on, hoping he can produce a bit of magic, or do you take him off to help out your struggling full back? I see both sides. It’s just been very hit and miss from Bale lately. Either he’s scoring 2, or he’s invisible.
And the same can probably be said about Dele. For all of the enthusiasm after that bicycle kick against poor EL opposition, he’s done very little since, especially in the PL.
Doherty, I am starting to get the feeling that he’s a round peg in a square hole. He looks like the ultimate “system player”, ie someone who can excel in one specific role in a specific team, but who looks very ordinary when you take him out of that role. I think we “went cheap” when we tried to address the need at right back this summer, and it’s backfiring. Doherty may be a fine squad player, but he’s probably not good enough to start for a team with CL aspirations. That’s his ceiling. Of course, he wasn’t helped on the day with very little help from Bale, but he still got turned inside out by Tierney one on one, which never looks good.
Finally, Lamela. As soon as he came on, you could just tell it was too much enthusiasm. From the first minute, he was kicking opponents, crashing into tackles, running around like a headless chicken… I saw the goal go in an I just knew that was going to send him into overdrive. He got booked needlessly for the first yellow, and the second is just lack of awareness. He looked like an excited puppy running after an ice cream. That would be acceptable for an academy player on his debut, but one would just expect more from an experienced 29 year old.
Too many players who went missing, or made mistakes, to expect anything from this sort of game. Which is unfortunate, because for quite few players , take 2 or 3 mistakes away and the rest of the performance was very good.
With all that said, if we win our game in hand (a big if, of course), we’re still only 3 points off 4th, with 9 games to go.
Leicester have a torrid run-in, still having to play City, West Ham, United, Chelsea and us in their final 9 games. It’s not unreasonable to expect them to drop points.
Chelsea still have to play City, West Ham, Arsenal and Leicester.
West Ham still have to play Arsenal, Leicester, Chelsea, and Everton.
Everton still have to play us, Arsenal, West Ham, City.
On paper, we have the easiest run-in, with only the games against Man United, Everton and Leicester really standing out in the league.
All my pre match worries came to pass. NDombele was asleep at the wheel and Doherty couldn’t find the car. Lamela and Sanchez provided the obligatory cockups and Bale decided he was far too good to be associated with them. It’s clear that we have an inferiority complex against the top teams that defeats us before the game even starts. Not just these players but it’s in the club DNA. Harry and Poch managed to mitigate it for a time but Jose seems to have exacerbated it.
BS….I agree wholeheartedly with your summing up of the game. You also make a good point about the competition’s run in games but this brings us back to what many of us have been saying, we always fail to take advantage of them dropping points, it does (as you suggest) indicate a mental weakness in the squad which we have witnessed regularly since our defeat in the CL final, even before maybe.
I’m not sure introducing one or two new players to the side is going to radically change this. I also believe our recruitment process has a lot to answer for as well, are we actually assessing potential incomings in respect of their attitude and temperament or is it based on technical skills and their ability to play a particular position alone? I personally think we need to re-assess our complete footballing operation but the recruitment operation in particular, why did we spend what…about £35m on two young players who never looked like getting near the starting eleven and IMHO will never be good enough for a club with top 4 ambitions? You also have to question our purchase of Ndombele at £60 odd million when we could have had Bruno Fernandes for a similar price, you don’t have to look far to see the difference in their attitudes on the pitch.
WE! were bloody poor for 70mins, until down to 10 men, why oh why didn’t we play from the start on the front foot? were we up for it generally NO!, were the Gooners up for it YES!
Did we get any luck NO!
Was it a 2nd yellow, thus a red NO!
Was it a pen NO! even the Gooners striker said he was surprised to get a pen.
Was the Ref effin Oliver good NO!
Was he biased YES! most certainly.
My problem seems to be every bloody time we have a chance to take “advantage” we eff it up, every time, for some reason we cannot get rid of my hated tag/description of us..Spursey!
Overall with us being crap for 70mins and them looking good we got what we deserved, luck or no luck, simple as that. COYS
This article by JJ is a good read:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56393306
It really was a dreadful performance yesterday with half the team lacking the drive and motivation to match our rivals. How can this be? Well, one man is in charge and yesterday he failed dismally to get our team prepared for this contest. How can Bale and N’Dombel just drift around uninvolved? You could see Harry’s frustration when he flattened Gabriel by barging him over( lucky escape). We were made to look pedestrian by Arsenal ….they had the luck but they made it. We deserved nothing and got nothing.
Great goal by Lamela ruined by his manic chasing of yellow cards…..diving recklessly into tackles and flapping his arms into oponents faces. Nothing changes.
Doherty is a lost cause. One wonders how KWP would have coped…..oh but we sold him. If we lose Reguilon, we will need 4 wing backs and 2 or 3 centre halves.
I really like Bale, Dele and N’Dombele but they are so lacking in drive and motivation. Yesterday they should have been fired up not damp squibs.
That takes me to our hapless coach , the dinosaur Jossius Mourinhosaurus. Its not working. Most of us feared the worst. What was his plan yesterday? It is not his job to humiliate players but to motivate, encourage and drive players forward. Will he ever take responsibility? Nope. Time for yet another pay off and year’s temporary retirement until Some desperate team calls for his outdated services. Roll on the inevitable sacking.
wentworth – I agree with many of the things you said, but to somehow pin a lack of drive and motivation on the manager is beyond me. These are grown men, handsomely paid professionals. They shouldn’t need a cheerleader coach to get them motivated for a game. The motivation should come from within.
PY 100% great post, we can never, never, seem to capitalise on other teams dropping points.
Also agreed re Refs decisions and just pure bad luck.
TQ totally agree re our player recruitment, and have been banging on about it for ages, I wonder where we spent our money, so that we had to buy in the bargain bin.
We do seem to have a mental weakness against bigger teams and do seem to dance to their tune, playing reactionary football,, rather than taking it to them.
Just a bit angry like the rest of you.
Didn’t we used to have polls on this site. How about one for Jose in or Jose out. Which way do you think it would go. Jose used to be the ultimate big game manager. Right now he is as bad a manager as there is out there. No structure to our play, cowardly tactics and bizarre substitutions. Picking Doherty was bad enough but refusing to sub him was extraordinary. I know he is unlikely to be sacked yet because of the cost but he will go at the end of the season.
We have spent a considerable amount of money in the last eighteen months, there will be no European football next season, we are massively in debt due to the stadium build and the lack of income in the last year, there is no doubt that we will need to sell players in the summer to balance the books. It is going to be some summer.
DH…..there is one at the top of this page giving the opportunity to vote on the outcome of the match, it obviously doesn’t attract a lot of interest as there were only 9 votes in total when I tried it a few minutes ago, including mine.
This isn’t a reflection on Danny but we don’t seem to have any general discussion threads any more, just match threads, I guess the reason for this is that games (and therefore match threads) come around so quickly there is little time for others?
Yes, I’m prioritising games as my time has been short lately and I’m not sure when that will change as things stand. Not even really had chance to go through threads to see if anyone has posted a comment that could be boosted as a more focused talking point. Folks feel free to point anything out if I’ve missed it (email if needed dannywinter@vitalfootball.co.uk) and still more than happy to publish submissions as further talking points.
Hi Danny, thanks for your response. I hope you don’t think I was expecting you to provide general discussion threads, you already do a sterling job on the match threads. I was thinking more of the likes of Geof who writes some great articles for discussion but some of his earlier ones didn’t get the responses they deserved due to the frequency of the match threads. Perhaps we should save them up ready for the out of season period. :- )
Might be an idea, could certainly do with the help over the summer as I do intend on flopping back for a bit. Be nice if the fixture list eases next year to give other pieces their time in the sun before being bounced down every 3 days as it has been at points.
Danny…..you might get your wish if we fail to qualify for europe! :- )
I didn’t mean that lol
PY says that we got what we deserved regardless of luck. But luck can actually affect what we deserved. We started on the back foot, largely I thought through some excellent attacking play from Arsenal. This happens in games and if things go well we could be expected to ride the storm and get into our own attacking game. But after 20 mins Sonny has to pull out which obviously affected the way we play up front… Lamela of course made his brilliant contribution but as Arsenal stepped up their game again we became disjointed and having no one to run behind their lines from defensive positions.. Something could have been worked out at half time, but as has happened in the past luck goes against us just before the whistle and the ball is deflected into the corner of the net. There must have been a touch of here we go again when we came out for the second half and sure enough there was that highly controversial pen which must have been another tremendous blow to our morale putting us on the back foot again until our ten men had nothing to lose in the last ten mins by going forward.
Yes, we should have been more resilient but in certain games with so much at stake those slices of bad luck can make all the difference both psychologically and physically.Poor second half substitutions too btw.
Stan, you could be right there luck wise, but for me as well as my dear departed Dad said “you make your own luck” which for me we are incapable of doing.
You are like me “ever the optimist” but for me that is waning! JM is the main fault, yes there are some minor details but hey he is paid the big bucks to sort it out and show broad shoulders which he does not, it is always somebody else’s fault, he is a cowardly been found out has-been, his days are numbered, esp at Spurs.
Every Tom, Dick, Harry and his dog knows for Spurs, the best form of defence is attack, which we are very good at on our day, but we have a manager who only seems to play that v the lesser teams, well now anyway, but for some reason he installs a fear v the better or matching sides, why is that?
Why didn’t our great leader see that the Gooners were there for the taking, as many of us fans did, from the start, yes they come at us whoopee do! so get the ball off them, meet them head on, get in their faces, move play the ball quickly, push n run if you like, put the fear of christ up em, but no we turned back into our shell and well n truly fcuked it up.
They were really up for it, after all it was NLD, so why the hell weren’t we. COYS
Let’s hope our luck changes very soon then Stan, we’ve had 13 years of it so far which is a bad omen in itself isn’t it?
I don’t get this bad luck nonsense. We lost the game because we were badly set up and we played really bad. When you invite teams onto you you expect to concede goals be they from deflections or penalties. Arsenal did also hit the post twice. If you want to talk about luck we have been incredibly lucky with injuries this season – better than the majority of clubs, we have also been very lucky in the cup draws.
We are just a poorly coached team at the moment.
You can set the team up like you want, if players fail to show up, commit silly mistakes, get booked needlessly etc… No coach can influence that. We’re making mistakes 12 year olds wouldn’t.
How do you know we were badly set up in this game DH? As I’ve said, Arsenal attacked us very well from the start and we were forced to defend,(poorly) certainly in the initial period. We were then knocked out of shape by Sonny’s injury and on to defence again by Arsenal’s strong response to Lamela goal. This happens in football regardless of any instructions from the gaffer. And any impetus in the second half was lost when that outrageous penalty was given.JJ shares my view about Mourinho not necessarily being responsible for the way we played incidentally.
Not sure how you can claim that about JJ Stan, this is taken from his match summary on the BBC website:
“In contrast, Tottenham’s approach stank of a Mourinho who was more concerned with Arsenal than his own team, and showing what Spurs could do. He didn’t set them up to win that game, he set them up worried about what the opposition can do to them.”
I was referring to his MOTD comment on TV in which he was asked whether Mourinho was responsible and replied “not sure” TQ2.
The bad luck is that we have a bad manager.
Having read the posts on here… I agree spurs were not playing attacking football or high pressing, until 80th min. I think penalty was out of order, and VAR backed ref. Oliver because he is a senior ref. Spurs did indeed get what we deserved. So with 11 games left we need to win 8 to get top 4 position.
Jose has to understand spurs players are not fully comfortable to play ” effective” football as earlier this season, so attacking fast moving players and passing is what we do best. SO now we have to step up our game and play/ beat the teams in PL… Europa League and City in Wembley cup final. If we don’t summer will see HK10 leave, sonny close behind him out the door.
VAR can only change a decision if it’s a clear and obvious error.
In this case, it’s a borderline penalty, which means that if the ref gives it, VAR can’t overturn it, and if the ref doesn’t give it, VAR can’t give it over the ref’s decision.
Michael Oliver is solely to blame here.
BS, all very true, they say the Twat called Michael Oliver, have met him and he is a head up his own arse twat, is our Top ref in the Prem, bloody hell how low has our Reffing standards got in this Country.
No but VAR can suggest that the ref reviews his decision on the pitchside monitor if they believe he called it wrong. Doesn’t appear that happened so if the ref is to blame it suggests he got it wrong in which case VAR also got it wrong in not suggesting a review.
How many refs are actually going to admit they made a mistake in front of milllions, and change their minds once they’ve gone to the pitchside monitor?
The possibility exists theoretically, but in real life it almost never happens.
Also, VAR can suggest the ref reviews it on the monitor, but the ref is free to decline if his mind is made up. For all we know, VAR in fact suggested it and Michael Oliver just ignored it.
All teams have good and bad luck in a variety of ways. In fact, teams down the bottom seem to get the worst luck. Man Utd seem to get loads of luck with pens and signing top players. Brighton get rotten luck with dubious decisions going against them. Also they have lesser known players and a weaker squad . Also,a lesser known coach struggling to do a brilliant job.
Our luck ran out when we appointed a defensive dinosaur as coach and made some dubious signings with Doherty, Bergwijn and missed out on Grealish when the price was right. Our luck could also run out if and when we lose Kane and Sonny.
Arsenal hit the woodwork twice; we hit it once. They attacked and won. We defended and lost.
Man U and Brighton prove my point Wentworth . The former would not be up there and the latter down there if the luck had been distributed more evenly . Nor would we be where we are if had had more breaks in quite a number of games this season, regardless of Mourinho. As I’ve said such luck inevitably affects performance since it makes you more cautious and fearful when it comes to taking chances, which is what attacking play is all about. Yes Arsenal hit the woodwork twice and us once but if those shots had gone in and Arsenal’s lucky goals were discounted we would at least have got away with a 2-2 draw:-).
Lets be honest here, talking about luck, I replied to Stan earlier about making your own luck, anyway if football does rely on luck, of course sometimes it does, could we be saying that in the Poch sacking season is when we had used up all our luck and never to get anymore.
The thing with football, there are so many variations of occurrences, if he, if that, if if if, we have got to stop this blaming of no luck, as I said previously we have to make our own, battling, playing in your face, quick one two, push n run type of game contributes to making your own luck. COYS
Our luck ran out with the unfortunate handball in the Champs League final when Liverpool were below par. Our luck ran out when Levy failed to invest in new talent. Our luck ran out when Levy sacked Porch. Our luck further ran out when Levy in desperation for a tin pot appointed the dinosaur, Mourinhosaurus. Our luck will change soon but some new blood is essential.