Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

One out and one in (sort of) on the transfer front today. Moussa Sissoko has joined Watford and we've signed 18 year old midfielder Pape Matar Sarr from Metz, although he'll stay at Metz on loan for this season.

I don't watch French football so I can't recall ever having seen him play, but a number of journalists tweeting about the deal say he's very talented and has a big future. Pretty much all also think that letting him stay at Metz this season is a good idea, so he can play first team football every week, which he almost certainly wouldn't do for Spurs this season. One for the future!

I've always had a lot of time for Sissoko for the way he battled his way into the team after really struggling when we first signed him. No sulking or moaning in the press about not being picked, just got his head down and worked until eventually Poch started picking him regularly. His peak was definitely the season where we reached the CL final, his non-stop working and battling in midfield were a highlight that season. I think he came second in the fans player of the year vote that season, which was a great turn around when a couple of years earlier he was considered a flop.

Like a few players he's gone a bit stale since then, and him moving on so we can bring in fresh blood is the right thing to do. Watford is a good move for him, probably doesn't even need to move house and gets to stay in the Premier League, and as a newly promoted team they benefit from his years of experience in the top flight. I hope he helps them stay up. Good luck Moose (AFTER Sunday ).

[fallenangle]

I'd heard Watford were interested in Sissoko - sorry to see him go because when he on good form, he was, as you say, a real battler providing some much needed muscle in the midfield.

Three Premiership wins in a row, too much to ask? With Watford I think we have a really good opportunity to do just that - it certainly would be pleasing. But they're the sort of team we have had an annoying habit of messing it up against in the past so fingers crossed.

[EJG1980]

Not the greatest of matches to watch today. Attacking wise it was well below the level of quality we showed in the match against Man City, but it was enough to get the job done.

We didn't have too many great chances, maybe another three or four that could have given us another goal. It was a tough match and Watford had periods where they looked good, but they didn't carve out any really big chances (aside from one nervy moment in the very first minute). It was a quiet day for Lloris and Dier and Sanchez dealt very well with whatever came their way. Not a brilliant match but we deserved the win.

Funny to see Sissoko back within a couple of days of us selling him, unsurprisingly he got a very nice reaction from the Tottenham fans (as did Danny Rose whenever he warmed up).

Very early days but three wins out of three is a great start, and we're top of the league for a couple of weeks at least

Apparently, Nuno is our first ever manager to win their first three top flight matches. Arthur Rowe won his first three in 1949 but that was in the second division.

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In the remaining days of the transfer window we could do with another midfielder who has some creativity and a really good eye for a pass. There were a few times today where someone would make a great off the ball run but the player with the ball either didn't spot them or took too long to attempt the pass; an Eriksen or Modric style player who can spot those runs and have the ability to find them with a pass would be a big bonus.

I was hoping that player would be Ndombele, but he seems to be completely out of favour at the moment. Nuno has been hinting in a few interviews that he's unhappy with his level of fitness and his attitude. It's such a shame because he's a fantastically talented player, but he's now had periods where Poch, Mourinho, Mason and Nuno have all dropped him / questioned his attitude. You worry when so many different managers are seeing the same problems.

I wouldn't be surprised if we let him go if a reasonable offer came in, but he may be difficult to shift as his on pretty high wages which a lot of buying clubs might not want to match even if they do fancy him. I guess we'll see what happens over the next few days, I think we might see a couple more players in and a couple more out before the transfer window shuts.

[fallenangle]

Great result today if not exactly a dominant performance.

As some Spurs fan apparently just posted on Twitter (headline) this is the first time Spurs have lead the Premiership with Arsenal at the bottom.

Certainly not gloating about that, I'm sure they'll be back in contention for a top six place before the end of the season but it is without doubt a very encouraging start for us.

[EJG1980]

Thought I'd post a ramble about the transfer window, seeing as I've got nothing better to do at the moment!

It's clear that we're looking at the long term as the average age of all the players who left was just over 29 and the average age of all the players we signed was just over 21.

We had problems with the defence last season and we added a new centre back and new right back in Cristian Romero and Emerson Royal.

I think the existing defenders should be better than last season too thanks to a change in tactics. Nuno isn't gung-ho but we're not shutting up shop as soon as we take the lead like we so often did when Mourinho was in charge, which invited so much pressure and I think was the cause of a lot of the silly goals that cost us points last season.

It's early days but Dier and Sanchez are already looking more comfortable and assured now that they're not backs to the wall for 75% of the match. Hopefully we can keep that going.

With Gollini we have a young keeper who has a year to bed in and then hopefully can be the long term successor to Lloris (if he does indeed leave at the end of the season). Bryan Gil is very young and raw but definitely looks like he has something about him and I wouldn't be surprised if he broke into the team on a regular basis this season.

We didn't get a creative midfielder, which I would have liked, so it's up to Ndombele and (more likely) Lo Celso to step up and provide the guile we lacked a bit of since Eriksen left.

I think we also need Lucas and Bergwijn to add more goals and assists to their game, I think they should both be able to get into the 8-12 goals a season range if they really stepped up. There's a bit too much of a drop off from Kane and Son to the next highest goal scorers in the team. As Dele is back in favour now, him getting back to providing 8-12 goals would be really useful too.

Could have probably done with a backup for Kane, even if only another Vinicius style loan. If we see Dane Scarlett as his backup, I think we really need to commit to it and give him lots of minutes in the cups, starts, not just 10 minutes here and there. After all, starting the cup matches is what gave Kane his breakthrough in Poch's first season, let's try and do it again!

So, a decent window, not perfect, but those are rare for any club. Lowered the age of the squad which should be good for the future if the players can do well and get better together. Brought in new players to fix some problems, looking for the coach to get the best out of existing players to fix other problems.

[EJG1980]

Well that was probably the worst I've seen us play for quite a while. It wasn't a great match at the start and for about 20 minutes both teams looked tentative and a bit devoid of ideas. Eventually though, Palace seemed to realise we weren't very up for it and upped their game, whereas we stayed poor for the whole match. Even before we went down to ten men Palace were much the better team.

One player who can have a bit of credit is Joe Rodon, who didn't really do anything wrong after he came on when Dier got injured, and made some good blocks and tackles. Lucas was the only attacker who showed any signs of life, at least trying to make something happen with some decent runs that drove us forwards. Aside from that though...

Hopefully we can have a decent performance in Europe to help put this match behind us, get a couple of the injured / missing players back, and we're going to need to up our game A LOT when we play Chelsea next weekend.

[Brad]

That new Palace player Edouard, what a debut! scores 28 seconds after being brought on the pitch then follows up with a second.

[fallenangle]

Big dose of reality I was afraid was coming but not at the hands of Crystal Palace. That's just embarrassing, I needed to lie down in a dark room after hearing the end of the match on BBC5L and then finding out what the final score was.

EDIT

Having seen the 'highlights' on MotD - have to say, from the evidence provided, that Emerson Royal was clearly not up to speed. He looked worryingly very similar to Aurier on a bad day in the last 15 minutes when he'd run out of steam.

[EJG1980]

That new Palace player Edouard, what a debut! scores 28 seconds after being brought on the pitch then follows up with a second.

Yup, he had been doing well for Celtic for a few years so I was surprised it took this long for a Premier League team to take a chance on him. Could be a great signing for Palace if he can do well for the whole season, it's been a while since Palace had a prolific striker up front.

[EJG1980]

Just went on Twitter and saw that Jimmy Greaves has died Sad, sad news.

https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/2021/september/jimmy-greaves/

[Nu-Eclipse]

Just went on Twitter and saw that Jimmy Greaves has died Sad, sad news.

https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/new...jimmy-greaves/

The greatest striker England has ever produced. Pretty much England's Gerd Muller.

On top of that, generations of football fans in this country know precisely what you mean when you say "Saint & Greavsie". Ian & Jimmy were a massive part of pre-Premier League, Pre-Sky football coverage in the UK. In some small comfort, at least they'll be reunited.

RIP.

[EJG1980]

I like the starting 11 for today's match, very attacking and lots of potential creativity in there. I was hoping to see Ndombele or Lo Celso starting today but wasn't expecting to see both of them. Yes, neither have lived up to their potential (or price tags!) yet, but, we're not getting midfield creativity from anywhere else so they need to play imho.

Regardless of the result today I think we need to stick with this sort of line up and give them a chance of getting used to working together, and hopefully they can improve as the understanding grows. It might be safer to go with both Hojbjerg and Skipp in midfield, but I think their lack of creativity puts a ceiling on how high you can reach; our line up today is riskier, but I think has a much higher potential should it all click.

Whatever the line up, tough match today, gonna be hard to get a result but our best performance and result this season came against the toughest opposition in Man City, so hopefully we can raise our game again.

Edit: first half good, second half

For the first half an hour the game plan worked really well and I thought we were the better side. Really pressed Chelsea high up the pitch and had them a bit flummoxed. Chelsea started getting better in the final fifteen minutes of the half but on the whole it was promising, just needed a goal during that opening 30 to give us something to build on. But the team was working hard, trying to play quickly, trying to play on the front foot, it was a good half.

That seemed to vanish in the second half though, and it has to be said that it's quite worrying that the fight and determination that we showed in the first half seemed to drain out of us as soon as that first goal went in. We were unlucky with the deflection for the second goal, but it came from Lo Celso giving the ball away after fannying around on the edge of the box instead of being quick, decisive and determined like we were in the first half.

The first half was promising, so hopefully we can take that positive 45 minutes and build on it, but the team also need a much stronger backbone when something goes against us, the effort and fight vanished in the second half. Maybe I'm being harsh saying effort and fight, but certainly the belief vanished.

[fallenangle]

Sad news about Jimmy Greaves, a Spurs legend and a genuinely great British sport's star both during his playing and broadcasting career. Saint and Greavsie practically invented modern style football punditry.

On which note: the pundits had a good go at HK on MotD for playing too deep today, particularly in the second half. Looked true to me from evidence provided and not for the first time. Its actually a reversion. When he's not getting the ball he has always had this habit of dropping back to try get involved and to do that creative midfield role himself.

But he's doing that far too often and the result is he is not in the opposition 18 yard box when there are goal scoring opportunities.

Result: another 3 - 0 loss and it could have been worse.

Something needs to be done quickly to get back to winning ways or we're going to end up having another season where it will be hard just remaining in contention for a top six place.

[EJG1980]

Through to the next round of the League Cup, although making it much harder for ourselves than it needed to be! It was a really entertaining game though.

The first... 30-35 minutes was excellent. We were well on top, attacking very well, scored two very nice goals, all was going swimmingly. Wolves started to play a bit better towards the end of the half but it was nothing too threatening, so it was really annoying to give away a goal from a set piece before half time. Like the goal Chelsea scored where Alli failed to track his man, same thing again but this time with Nodombele the culprit (though iirc he did track him, just put in a really half hearted effort to try and stop him heading the ball).

Second half Wolves got on top and it wasn't a surprise when they made it 2-2, although despite them being on top we still had a couple of chances to make it 3-1 before their equaliser.

Once it was 2-2, it was quite even and end to end, but we had by far the best chances to get a third. Gil and Kane both had chances where as you were watching the ball go towards them you thought "this is surely a goal!" and then somehow the ball didn't end up in the back of the net.

Thankfully we got through the penalty shoot out. Excellent penalties from Kane, Gil and Reguilon, a nice save from Golini for one of the Wolves kicks, and luckily Hojbjerg missing the chance to seal it with his penalty didn't matter as Wolves missed straight afterwards anyway.

So, entertaining, really good opening half an hour, then really annoying that we threw away the lead, then annoying that we missed big chances to win it in normal time, but thankfully we got through in the end. Quite a few positives, but also quite a few things to work on still. I think we deserved the win as we did create the most big chances.

Burnley away in the next round, so another winnable tie, hopefully we can get through that one as well.

Edit: dunno if there's was a highlights programme on TV yesterday, but there are some highlights up on the Spurs YouTube channel now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_ItoF9wtEI

[fallenangle]

Thanks, I actually saw the highlights on Freeview Quest yesterday. I was also keeping an eye on the game via BBC Final Score and I thought that after we'd gone 2 - 0 up that would be it - easy win. No such luck, if Spurs can find a way of making it harder for themselves, as you said, they'll find it.

Ndombele was equally praised and blamed by the pundits on Quest for his involvement in three of the goals. His one was a brilliant use of strength, speed and a clinical finish. But his luke warm set piece defending and dawdling on the ball (compounded by Skipp's unhelpful return pass in a dangerous area) lead directly to the two Wolves goals.

Still we got through on penalties so onwards Spurs go. Love to see them in the final of this competition again but unless we're extremely lucky Spurs are going to have to be better than they were last night to do that.

SUNDAY EDIT

Badly need a win today. With the Saturday results being in our favour getting three points now gets us back up the table and in touch with the top six.

I somehow doubt Arsenal are going to be happy to oblige us but a a decent 2 - 0 win for Spurs is not unthinkable.

Half Time EDIT

OMG....................I need to lie down in a dark room................again. Short of a miracle Spurs have lost it in every sense.