Spurs (A) | Post-Match Thread

[Chris Holmes]

On the walk back down Tottenham High Street I came across this mural, apparently commissioned by Sky. It’s meant to celebrate England’s Euro heroes. Raz, Shaw and Pickford. Weird they didn’t include local (for now) hero Kane. They must have commissioned that artist who did the Ronaldo sculpture.

 

[The Stockport Iniesta]

Why didn't Walker, Stones, Zin or Laporte start? Picking that back 4, especially the 2 on the left was asking for trouble, and we got it.

 

[Bluesince88]

We always seem to be away 1st game and look at our start compared to rags, Liverpool, Chelsea.
I'm sure the league intentionally rig it to make It difficult for us.

Always depends how you look at it. I think playing a newly promoted team away from home early on is hard. Fans tails are up, we’ve had it with Norwich, look at Arsenal with Brentford etc. Always down to yourself. Can even say we get a lot of difficult fixtures out the way early on.

 

[hgblue]

What excuses did Mendy, Ake and Cancelo have, certainly wasn't tiredness.

Horrible from so many but the glaring issue remains and a top striker would have made little difference today.

The defensive midfield is too slow when the ball breaks down.

Fern still sees the danger but his legs can't get him there.

Gundo, Rodri, nobody solves this issue right now, certainly when we want to front load the top half of the pitch.

Thought Grealish was a real positive.

I've been banging on about the DM position for a while, to me a much higher priority than Grealish, although I reckon he's a good addition. I'm hoping that Declan Rice will be the next high profile addition to the squad. I'd be amazed if he's not on the shortlist to replace Fernandinho.

 

[Damanino]

I've been banging on about the DM position for a while, to me a much higher priority than Grealish, although I reckon he's a good addition. I'm hoping that Declan Rice will be the next high profile addition to the squad. I'd be amazed if he's not on the shortlist to replace Fernandinho.

I will break the bad news for you, Rodri was brought in to replace Ferna. but not sure Rodri is at the level so far Txiki and Pep hoped he will be at this point.

 

[bluemonkey71]

Alarming lack of pace in the team. We’re a great footballing side, but so susceptible to counters.

really poor that the players who were back first looked the most unfit. Ake and Mendy and Ferna in particular

 

[xmusampa]

Nice dog mate, what does it do when City score?

Don't know mate, I've only had it 3 months

Great pic. I'm assuming he's an itk and someone's told him mendys leaving?

 

[the blue panther]

Spurs away - and a very likely place to lose, going on the recent past - is now out of the way.
I don't think we learned anything we didn't already know - Mendy remains shite; the flaky ones remain flaky - for me that's Cancelo, Ake and Mahrez; Sterling is still the Sterling we know, not the England one; Gundo and Fern don't have the legs to cope under pressure. Disappointed with Ederson on the goal, and with Diaz in particular - I hate it when any defender puts his hands behind his back, and both our Portuguese defenders do it in the area all the time. It results in them being off balance and unable to challenge, and today it ended up with Diaz pathetically falling on his arse in front Ederson. What a crap goal to concede - and all from a bloody counter attack from their penalty area.
Positives, Grealish, whom I was very impressed with - and I had expressed big misgivings about signing him, so I eat my humble pie now - and KDB, who looked different class when he came on.
Not sure why ratboy was getting excited about Torres, but, he had nothing to feed off in the final 70 minutes really.
Hopefully we take 6 points in the next 2 home games against Norwich and Arsenal; get some more fitness; get Bernardo and Foden back; get Kane in. Laporte or Zinkers at left back please Pep. Mendy? Never again please Pep.
So, in the end up, what's not to like?
:-)

 

[citymad]

If he carries on picking him I'm going to dust my boots off and turn up to training ;)

My money's on you getting a game then especially if your talents include making 80% of your 10 yard passes either back or sideways, not being able to make a tackle and then run like you're running through treacle then you're in for a shout at that left back slot.

 

[stan bowles]

Spurs had pre-season games against Chelsea and Arsenal, we played Preston & Blackpool. There, along with extended holidays for the England & Brazil boys, was the difference maker in today's game.

I'd love to know the thinking behind playing preseason games vs such "easy" opposition. It's really poor preparation from every consideration. We need to be tested and pushed both physically and tactically.

 

[cookster]

He can't play. He highlighted our failings today, why Spurs got back into the game, but he can't stop the players doing that.

He picked the sides that have lost to Spurs away the last 4 times and Chelsea 3 games on the trot.

Same issues with counter-attacks, we lost the biggest club game in European Football due a counter attack from left to right.

 

[willipp]

At least this puts to bed all the talk of going unbeaten this season.

 

[nellyonthewing]

A very fair summation. Not quite as optimistic as you right now. Recently we seem to have gone from a Ferrari to a Volvo 440 estate.

 

[mscenterh750]

There really is no need to worry, 37 games left and the boys will soon be up to speed and with a returning Stones, Walker, Kev and Zinchenko we’ll be much better at the back.

I really don’t understand the need to flap, panic and slate the players.

Let the rags, dippers and chavs enjoy their weekend wins, because I can guarantee we’ll finish above them all in May.

 

[ctwrd]

At least this puts to bed all the talk of going unbeaten this season.

Yep and it won’t but should result in:
Mendy only playing domestic cup games
Cancelo only playing when Walker absolutely cannot
Ake being 4th in line behind Laporte
A striker being played when fit ahead of anyone who isnt

 

[5 Hit Gibbon]

Poor today overall. Started off OK & played quite well for 10 mins, pretty crap after that apart from towards the end when KDB came on.

No coherence going forward. Three of the starting back 4 were not first choice. Slow walking pace with no urgency after we went behind.

Sterling carried on his City form from last season. Torres anonymous after the first 10 mins. Mendy & Cancelo were shit. Not many of the starting 11 covered themselves in glory.

The lack of a booking for Tanganga was bizarre in the first half. I think our favourite ref left his cards in the dressing room.

 

[Clembo]

Overall not the best way to start a season, but not the worst and imo nothing to really worry about.

Good start to the game 20/30 mins, then we seemed to let them back into the game and it proceeded to look more like a pre season match the longer it went on.

Grealish the shining light, head and shoulders the best player on the pitch until Kev came on, really happy with his performance and really liked the fight he showed through the game.

Was surprised by Gundo's poor showing tbh and even more surprised by the hesitancy of the back 2 to play the passes, it was way too slow at lot of the time and it just killed the flow that we wanted to build, Stones and Laporte a massive miss in this sense.

Thought Ferran made a lot of really good runs in the first half, but other players seemed really hesitant to play the pass for some reason.

I actually thought it was a decent match overall, even with a number of players not playing well or lacking fitness, we could and maybe should of got something from the game. It was always going to be a slowish start to the season as yet again our pre season have been affected from forces outside our control, only way is up from now. Good fixture for us next week and real good opportunity to win convincingly and with a good haul of goals.

 

[cookster]

What excuses did Mendy, Ake and Cancelo have, certainly wasn't tiredness.

Horrible from so many but the glaring issue remains and a top striker would have made little difference today.

The defensive midfield is too slow when the ball breaks down.

Fern still sees the danger but his legs can't get him there.

Gundo, Rodri, nobody solves this issue right now, certainly when we want to front load the top half of the pitch.

Thought Grealish was a real positive.

Agree with most of that but still think Kane scores or creates more danger from the 11 corners we completely wasted. Plus he holds and finds space much better than Torres.

 

[bobom]

I think we do some great transfer business, but it is just weird squad management that we have no main goal scorer. Even after we get Kane (presuming we do) it is bizarre we would enter a new season with just one striker. How did we get into this position?

I know there are different managers, and Pep has led us to incredible success, but compare this to that season under Mancini when we had Tevez, Aguero, Dzeko and Ballotelli...

 

[Dazzle84]

What excuses did Mendy, Ake and Cancelo have, certainly wasn't tiredness.

Horrible from so many but the glaring issue remains and a top striker would have made little difference today.

The defensive midfield is too slow when the ball breaks down.

Fern still sees the danger but his legs can't get him there.

Gundo, Rodri, nobody solves this issue right now, certainly when we want to front load the top half of the pitch.

Thought Grealish was a real positive.

Well Bernardo would help in midfield, as he has done consistently for us