Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

We're going to have an ever so slightly packed schedule at the start of the season:

Thu 17/09 - Europa League Qualifying
Sun 20/09 - Premier League
Tue 22/09 - League Cup Round 3
Thu 24/09 - Europa League Qualifying
Sun 27/09 - Premier League
Tue 29/09 - League Cup Round 4
Thu 01/10 - Europa League Qualifying
Fri 02/10 - R.I.P.

The EL qualifiers are all one leg, random draw, this year, so if we're lucky we might get drawn at home. The nightmare scenario is being drawn away in some far flung place like Kazakhstan, so the one day of "rest" becomes players sitting on a plane for five or six hours instead.

It's going to be impossible for the first team squad to cope with that schedule; three matches in five days, with possible long haul travel involved, two weeks running. I think the only possible solution is that we play a 100% youth side in the League Cup so that the first team can have a normal league at the weekend, Europe in midweek, schedule.

(I've assumed that our Premier League games will be moved to Sundays, as they always are for teams in the Europa League. Even if they're not moved it doesn't make much difference as it just means we'd have one day of rest between the EL and PL instead of between the PL and LC. We're buggered either way!)

Edit: on an unrelated note, as we lost a tight 7-2 and not a humiliating 8-2 against Bayern Munich, that must mean that Spurs > Barcelona

I see this morning that Poch is being touted for the Barca job. He's said a few times that he wouldn't ever manage Barca because of his connection with Espanyol; I wonder if he'll stick to that if they offer him the job.

[EJG1980]

Looks like we're going to be signing Joe Hart on a free transfer to replace Michael Vorm. A couple of journalists mentioned it earlier and now a BBC reporter is reporting that he's having a medical this morning.

He's clearly not the keeper he used to be but he's a good signing as an experienced back up player. Importantly, he's a "homegrown" English player replacing a foreign player in Vorm, so we can now buy an extra outfield foreign player without needing to sell one.

Edit: done deal https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/new...-much-to-give/

[EJG1980]

Only a few days into pre-season, so it's not much more than a glorified training session, but we had a friendly against Ipswich Town today. Got to see it live on the website as it was free to stream for season ticket holders, but there are highlights on YouTube:



Good to see Hojbjerg make his first start, did well including helping set up the second goal. Gedson Fernandez had a decent game at right back, virtually no defending to do aside from one tackle, but he looked good going forwards and saw a lot of the ball, unlucky not to get an assist when Son somehow missed from two yards out. Dele, Son and Sessegnon looked the best of the established members of the squad. Hart also made his debut, although he had nothing to do.

Of the many many youngsters who came on in the second half (I think we finished with two 16 year olds on the pitch) Jack Clarke on the right wing and Dennis Cirkin at left back made the biggest impressions.

Can't read anything into it as it was one step above training, lots of the first team squad didn't feature at all (no Kane, Bergwijn, Lo Celso, Lamela, Ndombele, Sissoko, Dier, Aurier or Sanchez), but it was a fun afternoon diversion.

[fallenangle]

Thanks for that. Some very good play from Spurs including that lovely through ball to Son and his dink over the keeper for his second.

[EJG1980]

Another friendly, another good workout. Reading looked better than Ipswich did (they should be I suppose, one division higher) and had a few good spells of two or three minutes here and there, but it was still mostly one way traffic with Spurs doing the attacking.

Once again the second half suffered because of the constant subs by both teams, but we did get Lamela's deft free kick this time, after the goalless second half against Ipswich. Loved the way it looked like it wasn't that powerful a hit but then the curl took it away from the keeper and perfectly into the corner.

The second and third goals were both great, can't decide which one I liked better: the improvised one two from Dele and Lucas with Dele's lobbed finish, of the sweeping passing move that set up Son for the third.

There was quite a lot of other good play (especially in the first half) that didn't make it into the highlights.

There's another friendly tomorrow against Birmingham.



Edit: lots of transfer rumours flying around at the moment, but the main solid link seems to be Matt Doherty joining us from Wolves. Every journalist and news outlet are saying it's basically wrapped up and should be announced before he joins up with the Ireland squad next week.

[fallenangle]

Indeed some excellent goals. Thanks.

DA for me but Lamela's free kick was pure class.

[EJG1980]

A bit of an off match today after the enjoyable first two friendlies, but perhaps to be expected as we were playing our second match in two days. Should be good for the fitness levels though, and we did get the win in the end.

It was a bit of the reverse of the first two matches as this time we started with more youngsters and brought the experienced players on later in the match, instead of the other way around. Excellent finish from Bergwijn when we finally did make the breakthrough.

My favourite thing from during the match was a post from Erik Lamela on Instagram, who was missing the match due to the birth of his second child. He posts a photo of himself at the hospital, newly born baby in one arm, iPad with a live stream of the Spurs friendly in the other Always good to see a player who’s really committed to the cause!

[fallenangle]

Great Bergwjin goal.

I like the way DA is playing in these matches. Its only highlights but he seems to be involved a lot in the build ups to goals and attacks in general. I've always thought that after Eriksen left he was the one who had the ability but needed to take more responsibility for control of the midfield ie. become the play maker. That's what he appears to be doing.

[EJG1980]

There have been a few clips going around from the new Amazon documentary about Spurs, with Mourinho (basically) telling Alli that he's a really good player, but if he puts in the effort and dedication in training he could become a truly great player. And he's going to be constantly on Alli's case to try and get him there, because he doesn't want Alli to get to the end of his career with the regret that he was good, but wasted the chance of being great.

Hopefully Mourinho is what Dele needs to get himself back to the player we saw in 2016 - 2018, AND then add even more to his game and take him up another level as well. Hopefully it'll be similar to how Lampard flourished when Mourinho came in at Chelsea, but, with Dele starting from an even higher base than Lampard.

Your assessment of how he's been playing in these friendlies is spot on. He's definitely been taking on that 'playmaker' mantle in these matches, he's probably been the most impressive player (along with Son). Yeah, it's friendlies against lower level opposition, so pinch of salt and all that, but let's hope it's the early signs of a next level Dele Alli starting to emerge.

The Matt Doherty stuff turned out to be spot on, we've announced his signing this morning:

https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/2020/august/doherty-deal-complete/

[EJG1980]

Europa League qualifying draw today. Apparently the draw has been spilt up into little groups so we can only get one of three teams: Aris from Greece, Laç from Albania or Lokomotiv Plovdiv from Bulgaria. A one off tie, with the home team being whoever comes out of the hat first.

I was going to say that if we get drawn away, I hope it's against whichever team is closest, but those three countries are all next door to each other so it doesn't really make much difference. I guess they're "not great, but could be worse" in terms of travel; not as nice as getting someone from Belgium or France, but at least it's not far flung like Azerbaijan or Kazhakstan.

With luck we'll be drawn at home so it'd be a moot point anyway.

Edit: away it is, to Lokomotiv Plovdiv. Try to contain your excitement, if possible

Edit edit: for some reason they did the draw for the next qualifying round today (Tuesday). If we beat Plovdiv we're away again (of course) to either Botoşani of Romania or Shkëndija of Macedonia. It seems like we're playing exclusively in south-eastern Europe at the mo!

[EJG1980]

We had a friendly against Watford today, lost the match and it was a pretty poor performance. Had most of the ball but it was the old problem of not doing enough with it, created very very few clear cut chances on goal. We had loads of players missing due to internationals but we still had Dele, Son, Lamela, Moura, Aurier, Sanchez and Ndombele starting, more than enough to play well and win the match.

Still, only a friendly, win or lose you can't really read too much into it. It was good to see Ndombele finally get 45 minutes under his belt after missing a lot of pre-season with Covid-19; fingers massively crossed that he can have a good season this term as I'm certain there is a hell of a player in there.

Our goal was a penalty so there's not too much to see in the highlights, but here they are anyway:



Bad luck for Harry Kane today too, a perfectly good goal ruled out for England, although at least England still (just!) won.

[fallenangle]

Thanks for that, I think. A disappointing result. That first goal for Watford was a game winner, looked at it several times and Hart not to blame particularly as it had a slight deflection off another Watford player.

[EJG1980]

Thanks for that, I think. A disappointing result. That first goal for Watford was a game winner, looked at it several times and Hart not to blame particularly as it had a slight deflection off another Watford player.

Yeah, there were people online who were seemingly eager to jump on the "Hart made a mistake!" bandwagon, but it gets a deflection as you said and that player was blocking his view of the initial shot too. It would also have been ruled out in a normal match with VAR as the player it deflected off was a mile offside.

[fallenangle]

That's another problem with VAR - some of the linesmen (persons) and refs now seems to be losing their edge missing apparently blatant offsides which sometimes do result in goals. They're becoming so used to their decisions being double checked by VAR it doesn't matter so much if they got it wrong.

I was watching, for want of seeing some proper competitive football, the Carabao Cup stuff on Quest yesterday and there were at least two goals in two different games which looked well offside to me but there was no flag and players did not even complain. But It is always difficult to tell without slow motion replays and a camera looking straight across the pitch so you can't be certain watching it on TV from a limited number of fixed positions.

[EJG1980]

That's another problem with VAR - some of the linesmen (persons) and refs now seems to be losing their edge missing apparently blatant offsides which sometimes do result in goals. They're becoming so used to their decisions being double checked by VAR it doesn't matter so much if they got it wrong.

I was watching, for want of seeing some proper competitive football, the Carabao Cup stuff on Quest yesterday and there were at least two goals in two different games which looked well offside to me but there was no flag and players did not even complain. But It is always difficult to tell without slow motion replays and a camera looking straight across the pitch so you can't be certain watching it on TV from a limited number of fixed positions.

Yeah, it's tricky because in matches where they do have VAR, the linesman keeping their flag down is definitely the right thing to do. Any goals that are offside will be taken away by VAR, and you won't be taking away a chance from a player who was onside but was stopped by an incorrect linesman's flag. It's a win win situation. But does it put them in a "leave the flag down" mindset even in matches with no VAR?

On balance I'd rather have the "keep the flag down" mindset for the VAR matches, even if it does lead to a slight increase in wrong decisions in non-VAR matches, as 99% of our matches will have VAR. It's infuriating having a player through for a one on one, the linesman puts the flag straight up, then the replay shows the player was two yards onside (I remember Vertonghen having a brilliant goal ruled out due to a linesman putting the flag up for offside even though Jan was in his own half when he received the ball!).

Speaking of the Carabao Cup, we have Leyton Orient or Plymouth away in the third round. Hopefully Orient as they're a league lower, a London club for less travel, and the closest thing I have to a second team. Two days after Southampton away in the league and two days before a potential trip to Eastern Europe, so I'm expecting us to field a very reserve side in that one.