Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

We did the same with the Coventry match, turned it off at half time and switched to watching Fulham vs Liverpool instead. Checked the score again and saw Man Utd were 3-0 up and thought "Good decision to switch matches"

Couldn't believe it when we'd seen what had gone on. Did manage to watch the penalty shoot-out but my heart sank when Man Utd were the first to miss, as I swear that a good 90% of the penalty shoot-outs I watch, the team who misses first comes back to win. I thought right at that moment than Man Utd would turn it around to jam their way to the final, and they did just that. It's such a shame Coventry had possibly the greatest FA Cup comeback of all time taken away from them by a player's toe being about an inch too far forwards.

There was the women's FA Cup final warm up on Sunday too, when Spurs took on Man Utd in a league match. Spurs were winning 2-1 but let in a last gasp equaliser. Hopefully they should take heart from how close they came to winning, and even a draw for us against Man Utd is better than we usually do. It also means my idea of us getting our first ever win against them in the cup final can still happen

Bad news for the men's team though as Destiny Udogie suffered an injury in training last week that puts him out for the rest of the season. Unfortunately it's a fairly serious injury and he's expected to be out for two to three months, which means he's going to miss the Euros for Italy. That must be gutting for him after breaking into the Italy squad this season, he was pretty much a cert to be on the plane.

[fallenangle]

Interesting Everton v Liverpool result yesterday, gives us some real hope we can get something from that game with Liverpool on 05.05.24 - just play like Everton did.

Arsenal game to come next though and whilst I'm not confident we will win I think a draw would be OK. That fourth place is very much still up for grabs despite AV being six points ahead of us at this point.

[EJG1980]

Yup, six points ahead but we have two games in hand, so if we both win all our games we finish level on points and it goes to goal difference. Not that I think either us or Villa will win all our games

I think Villa have to be favourites for fourth at the moment, as they've got the points on the board and I think we've got the tougher matches remaining. Arsenal and Man City the two best teams in the league at home, and Chelsea and Liverpool away where we have atrocious records. I think that if we play as well as we can, then we can definitely get something from all four of those matches though. And of course we then have to avoid any slip-ups in the "easy" matches against Burnley and Sheffield United too.

Actually Villa's matches are a bit tougher than I thought: Chelsea, Brighton, Liverpool, Palace. Clearly Palace and Brighton aren't the same challenge as Man City and Arsenal, but they're not easy matches, definitely scope for potential point dropping.

Whatever will be will be though, my main hope is that we actually "turn up" in all these matches. No problem if we don't get the points we need because the opposition were better than us on the day, it's matches like the recent Newcastle one where you lose because you just didn't show up at all that sting.

[fallenangle]

Pity Chelsea could not have done us a bigger favour against AV yesterday; again another dodgy VAR decision robbed them of a win but a draw is still OK for us, particularly if we can match them in our game against Arsenal. Only worry from Saturday's results is that Burnley have hit a vein of good form that will likely make beating them a hard job.

Also want to say that Connor Gallagher's classy goal for Chelsea and his other contributions showed why Spurs have wanted him for a long time now and probably will make a serious attempt to buy him in the summer.

Sunday Edit

Going well today, only 3 - 0 down and its not even half-time.

[EJG1980]

Sunday Edit

Going well today, only 3 - 0 down and its not even half-time.

3-0 down to Arsenal when they've had two shots, it's great fun being a Spurs fan sometimes! I couldn't go today and had to sell my ticket, so I was hoping that it'd be something I'd end up regretting for missing a win, no such luck.

In general we weren't bad in that first half (even Gary Neville on Sky commentary said at 2-0 that Spurs have been the better team yet find themselves behind) and we had some very unlucky moments, an equaliser from VDV ruled out for a one inch offside, Romero hitting the post at 1-0 down, etc..

If we were just 1-0 down to the Saka counter-attack goal, it wouldn't have been too bad, I'd have thought "played pretty well, unlucky in front of goal, got caught out by one counter attack, still all to play for,".

Our set piece defending is killing us though. Two Arsenal corners and two goals, the second one was especially bad where multiple Arsenal players were completely unmarked for free headers, it was just a question of which one would put it in. It's our biggest weakness and needs addressing.

Now it's just a matter of hoping that we can salvage a bit of pride in the second half and not let it get any worse. Maybe if we get a very early goal in the second half a miracle could happen, but I'm certainly not holding my breath.

Edit: gah, so close to a special comeback, but not quite. If we could have got that second goal about five or ten minutes earlier.... At least we did make it a respectable scoreline and made Arsenal have to sweat at the end.

[fallenangle]

From the evidence on MotD when one of the pundits said that Arsenal dominated the first half I was surprised because that's not what I saw. Spurs were playing well but made key errors which gave away the goals.

Second half they were playing just as well but Arsenal took their foot of the gas and by hook or by crook Spurs got back into the game and nearly claimed the draw I was expecting, hoping for and, I think deserved too.

Now the Chelsea game becomes a must not lose and one we really need to win because if we don't the chances of closing the gap with AV, let alone getting ahead of them, becomes more and more unlikely.

[EJG1980]

Spurs were playing well but made key errors which gave away the goals.

Yup, that was the most frustrating thing. I wanted a response from the team after the poor performance against Newcastle (and that was a truly poor performance, not just mistakes to let in goals, but but being second best and half hearted all over the pitch in general play) and I thought the response and performance was pretty good.

In the first half we had way more of the ball, created the better chances. While not everything we did came off, we were energetic and trying to complete with Arsenal, we won the ball back from them a number of times by forcing them into a misplaced pass or mistake with our pressing, we were doing lots of stuff that was missing from our performance in the Newcastle match. We just killed ourselves with the horrible defending from set pieces.

[Mayhem]

I was meaning to ask in here... how does it feel being the most likely reason Man City don't win the Premiership to allow Arsenal to do so?

[fallenangle]

Asks the newly promoted back to the Premiership (congrats) Leicester fan...........................bad. But we're more interested in the position where Spurs end up and if getting fourth place requires us to beat MC, which it could well do, and in doing so gift Arsenal the Premiership then its the price we have to pay.

They can thank us later.

[EJG1980]

Funnily enough, Man Utd are in the same situation as us. They have an upcoming home match with Arsenal, and a draw or Man Utd win could help their local rivals Man City win the league.

Although it is of course a bit silly to point to any one result as being the one that won/lost a title, when there are 38 matches in a season.

Personally, I always want Spurs to win no matter what, if it helps out a rival then so-be-it. I'm not wasting my time worrying about what other teams do, if Arsenal get enough points to win the league then they deserve to win the league, fair play to them. Spurs doing as well as possible is what matters to me.

[EJG1980]

After Destiny Udogie got injured in training just over a week ago, at least we knew we had Ben Davies to be a steady hand to take his place for the final six games of the season. Well, now Ben Davies is out for the rest of the season too from an injury picked up during the Arsenal game! I guess the most obvious solution will be Emerson Royal playing at left back, but not ideal when his natural position is on the right.

Timo Werner is also out for the rest of the season too, just to add to the fun, thanks to the hamstring injury that forced him off at the weekend. At least now Richarlison is back from injury. If it was up to me I'd play him up front and put Son back out on the left, Johnson on the right, for the rest of the season.

Son might be the more natural finisher but I think Richarlison is much better at holding up the ball, pressing opposition defenders, harrying them into making mistakes, etc., than Son. He does a lot of under-appreciated grunt work that seems to allow others to play better too. And before his most recent injury his goalscoring had improved a lot too, he and Johnson seemed to be starting to get a good understanding going.

[fallenangle]

Bad news those injuries and pretty much agree the rest too. Johnson, if he keeps developing in the way he has this season is going to be a valuable player in the future. He's playing better as an attacker than Kulusevski but I'm thinking that if the latter is also played but a midfielder behind Johnson we have a very potent attacking right wing which might cover up for the defensive weakness that side.

But the left side is a worry because of those injuries; with the never in favour with Ange: Reguillon on load at Brentford there's no obvious like for like replacement/ What Ange will do we can only wait and see.