Following on from Tottenham Hotspur’s disappointing draw with Wolverhampton Wanderers, Wednesday evening’s Premier League clash sees us welcome Fulham to White Hart Lane.
With manager Jose Mourinho directly blaming the squad for the lack of attacking prowess and insisting that defending the one goal lead for 89 minutes was not his instruction, the only inevitable outcome against Fulham is that we will see a very attacking starting line up, who will play on the front foot and in a more Spurs like way – as the players won’t ignore him for a second time…would they?
On an injury front, Giovani Lo Celso is yet to be given a return date following his injury, but whatever Gareth Bale felt in the Crystal Palace clash that led to his non-appearance after the half time break, it’s expected he’ll be fine for this one, so should return to the substitutes bench.
Update – Bale has been ruled out for the next few weeks with a calf strain, so probably four or so matches.
Let’s hope we get ourselves back on track in this one as whilst Fulham won’t be a walk in the park, there should be an expectation that this is one we comfortably win.
Fulham
Win
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Let’s hope for a win, at the risk of seeing VS implode!
On second thought, let’s hope for an attacking performance, even if it leads to defeat, as that will probably be more soothing to part of the Spurs fan base!
That’s such a childish remark BS.
Wow… it seems someone can’t take a joke.
I guess joking about the irony of the situation is childish… i personally find that pathetic, for what it’s worth.
I can take joke just fine BS, the thing is there wasn’t anything funny in your post, just sarcasm.
I didn’t know you had been appointed “humour police” on VS, and that from now on, you alone decided what was funny or not…
Obviously the sarcasm must have hit home to a certain degree or you wouldn’t be so defensive about it.
With the players we have, is it not possible to get the balance between attack and defence right. If Jose is such a great coach surely with the squad of players we have, it should be possible.
Unfortunately in my opinion he has totally lost his way as a coach and he is so frightened of failing that he has become stuck in a rut of ultra cautious football in the hope that Kane or Son come up with some magic. Totally unsustainable- unless he changes his ways (which he won’t) he will be out of a job by the end of the season. COYS
Let’s hope for a good performance and play the way we know we can.
Danny thanks for another fine thread, last one this year, with hopes for many more next year.
Happy New Year mate.
Now then the subject of playing Scotties rejuvinated Fulham, so many questions being asked, for me only one answer WE ARE GOING WIN!, sorry about the shouting but am excited again and looking forward to a massive backlash by Spurs.
End of year nearly so my serious head has gone to the clouds. Come On You MF Spurs.
I’ll leave all the optimism to you for this one PY… If you don’t mind? 🙂
I’m not gonna talk football on this. It’s not really that important to me right now… I’ll let the manager and team do it on the day.
I’ll just wish you all the best for the coming year. And pray that it’s not as mad as this one has been.
Peace and love.
AND …
Up The Spurs!
DoncasterHotspur “is it not possible to get the balance between attack and defence right!”. We’ve already done that, in the Arsenal game where we went 2-0 up then let them have all the possession they wanted without ever looking like getting back in the game. So yes it is possible. The problem is we haven’t been able to do that consistently, seeming to find it difficult to get the second goal to get control of the game. Why that is I have no idea but Jose needs to sort it out.
BS good post from last thread.
It should indeed be remembered that the “rot” set in prior to JM arriving.
It was difficult initial tenure for him. But he should have a lot of players he asked for for this year.
Are we in a false position I don’t know. We have had our fair share of cramped fixtures this year so far.
It is a condensed season. But (for me) it doesn’t negate our negative (defensive) team selection.
DH I think your comment re – getting a decent balance between attack and defence is a great point.
Why we ever went up against Wolves with so many defensive players 1st half I just don’t know.
We are a team that can hit 6 against Man U, 3 against the Spammers what was it 4 against Southampton. So scoring shouldn’t be difficult.
But as you say DH it’s getting that balance and having the cahoonas to actually go out against the likes of Fulham and put 2 or 3 in the onion.
Then if need be (though I still don’t like it) close the game off by bringing some defensive players on.
What we seem to have at the minute is 3. 5 attackers and 7.5 defenders with no middle men to link play.
As always live in hope of a decent result, better still an entertaining game because we have the personnel to do it.
Lloris
Doh, Tobs, Dier, Regs.
Hoj, N’Dombers, Lamella,(Bergs)
Dele, Sonny Kane.
Now there’s balance.
To Danny thanks for this and your previous Threads ( dunno how you do it m8.)
And to the other Thread contributors for getting the talking going.
To all poster a happy, peaceful, healthy and prosperous new year.
Hopeing it starts with a win and a decent performance.
Jod against Arsenal we barely attacked in the whole match. We scored two great counter attacking goals. Other than that we offered nothing. I have consistently said that that is not a sustainable way to play. It is possible to attack without leaving yourself exposed at the back and it is possible to defend well whilst offering a threat going forward. At the moment we don’t seem to be able to do either. Let’s see how we perform in the next two home matches. COYS
Niall – excellent post. It seems to me that the players are frightened to take any sort of risk – look what happened to Dele after the Stoke game. We have a lot of quality in our squad. I just wish we would use it.
I don’t think your far off the truth of it there DH.
Seems the game could be in doubt due to Covid cases at Fulham, no real surprise as Scotty had been self isolating.
If only TQ. If only……. I’m struggling to get myself up for this match……. I think I might just watch a half decent old black n white movie instead, if the match does go ahead……
Good (old fashioned) entertainment should never be knocked imo……… It is not a dirty word! 😉
So, mince pies, a movie and relax!
Meanwhile…. The world will keep spinning and somewhere a football team will be winning. And playing beautiful football along the way…
Could it be Spurs?
It is a difficult one to judge as to whether Jose hasn’t the players to perfect his brand of football or he has and can’t organise the players .
I suspect that he is not the type of coach to use players he hasn’t any faith in and sticks with the ones that he can trust .
However , presumably he had a say in the players bought or borrowed in the Summer TW and must have had faith in them ?
However this brings us to the old question as whether he was financially held back by Levy’s usual meaness or he got the available players but can’t work with them ?
Also could some of the players he inherited not be up to the job as witnessed by our poor football at the end of Pochs tenure ?
I am in no way a fan of Mourinho but perhaps looking objectively at our style play perhaps he has no idea how to get our side playing proper football owing to his lack of faith in some of the players with whom he has to work ?
I know what you’re getting at Allan.
There were however quite a few of our current players that JM wanted whilst at other teams.
A quick word in his defence (sort of), he inherited a team which in reality lost a good deal of its defence its Defensive mid field and creative midfielder. Those being Tripps, Rose, Verts, Dembele, Wanyama, and Ericsson. Some of these players sowed a bit of discontent leaving the club at sixes ans sevens..
For any team to recover from losing five first team players.
It took the likes of Liverpool 5 years to build a team. So I don’t think we will have a fully competitive team in one season.
Did the players that were brought in adequately cover those that left.
We’ll not entirely.
There were times this season I thought we had pushed on again, but just around Christmas we seem back in the mire again, and let’s be honest, it has been a tough watch, particularly this last two weeks.
Is JM the man to take us forward or is he the man to steady the ship get us used to New WHL maybe get
us a trophy.
Then we push on with another manager perhaps at the end of this season.
Just speculating.
But I hope our performance improves.
We have been shite since the arsenal game. We will find ourself mid table e soon, if this defensive rot doesn’t stop.
It seems like the game is in jeopardy because several of Fulham’s players have tested positive for Covid.
Ah, just seen that TQ2Spurs had already mentioned that
Niall – fair point regarding Klopp and how much time and money he was given to mould his team to his liking.
Where MP gets credit, for example, is that he was able to inherit players he hadn’t chosen, and he somehow got the best out of them. It’s probably a dimension where MP scores higher than JM (probably most coaches, actually).
I just think we ought to remain open minded about what JM can do if given time and some control over recruitment. This could be valid for any manager in general, but especially true for someone with his track record.
Having said that, as much as I can see the point in Hojbjerg for example (a typical JM player), some questions can be asked of buying someone like Doherty, only to arguably play him out of position. But again, show me a manager who has gotten it right on every player he’s ever bought.
BS good analysis there.
Where do we go do we” stick” with JM for a while in the hope that performances will improve and we get a decent playmaker in midfield +a partner for Hoj, a RB an LCB, or, at the end of the season” twist ” for a different boss.
But who???
So Mourinho says it’s the players fault that they’ve forgotten that they can play attacking football. He has nothing to do with their defensive shell.
that’s not credible. In his world any problem is the players. He’s never responsible to anything wrong. Boring football is how a Mourinho managed team plays with boorish behavior from Mourinho himself.
God help us through these tragic times for THFC.
BS wrote that we ought to remain open minded about what JM can do. BS can stay open minded about this if he’s so inclined. But we all know that JM wears out his welcome fairly rapidly even when things are going okay in terms of winning a prize here or there. He’s worn out my patience. I’m not inclined to turn to open mindedness on this matter.
BS, on the last thread you wrote that I expect Jose to lose in all of the competitions we’re involved in, despite being in a relatively good position in most, and him having a track record of being able to see his teams over the line.
I don’t remember ever saying I expected him to lost most of our competitions. I do remember saying that it was a Faustian bargain should we win with him. I also remember saying that winning something with him would give me far less pleasure than winning something with a different less-negative manager.