Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

A bit too early in the season to know which of Man Utd or Arsenal losing would have been the better result, but I’ll certainly take Arsenal losing and us being closer to the top of the league

Watching Udinese vs Roma at the moment and Destiny Udogie, who we bought from Udinese and loaned back, scored a goal after four minutes; ghosted in at the back post, snuck past the defender who was trying to chest it back to the keeper and poked it in to the net, very alert and switched on. Looking forward to eventually seeing him at Spurs.

[EJG1980]

Happy birthday Spurs, 140 years old today. There's a nice interactive article (I can't think of a better term!) about it on the club web site:

https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/2022/september/140-years-of-spurs-a-special-feature/

[fallenangle]

Disappointing news if true: apparently Lucas Moura is looking to leave Spurs or go out on loan in the next window as he wants to play more regularly.

The balance of opinion is that Spurs won't let him go until the end of his contract at the earliest next summer and even then there's a year long extension clause which might be enabled too.

Last thing we need is Lucas sulking for the next 18 months because he wants to leave. Christian Eriksen went right off form for much of his last season at Spurs for the same reason.

Just been through most of that ^ article: fascinating read reminded me of a lot of stuff I forgotten.

One amusing mistake I found in the section about arguably Spurs greatest servant Bill Nicholson:-

"During the Second World Cup, Bill served (sic) the Durham Light Infantry"

Weirdly there was a question this week, I think on The Chase, about who were the first British team to win a European trophy in 1963. I actually guessed Celtic as I knew they were the first team to win the European Cup and that was some time in the '60s.

I was surprised and a bit ashamed not to know the answer was actually Spurs who won the European Cup Winners Cup (equivalent to the UEFA Cup and now Europa League) that year.

[EJG1980]

Speaking purely in terms of form, I think that Erkisen going off the boil was a big problem for us as when he wanted to leave he was still a nailed on first choice player, the biggest creative force in our team, and so on. Him losing form made big difference to how well we could play.

For the past couple of years Lucas has very much been a squad player (making as many sub appearances as he did starts) that chips in with two or three goals a season, and now he's another place lower in the pecking order with the arrival of Richarlison. Him losing motivation and not finding his best form because he wants to leave impacts us far far less than when it happened with Eriksen.

Speaking in terms of off the pitch, I don't think Lucas would sulk and cause problems if he couldn't get a move away, he doesn't seem the type. Although I suppose you never can tell when you're looking from afar.

Even though his performances dropped off I don't think Eriksen actually ever made any fuss or sulked. Both Poch and Mourinho said that while he'd made it clear he wanted to leave, he still trained well, never asked to be left out of the team, caused no dressing room problems, etc.. He was still a good pro and I've never heard any stories about Lucas to suggest that he wouldn't stay professional.

[fallenangle]

Someone can say they're happy enough just being paid, putting in the effort and doing the job they're employed to do ie. acting professionally but it still affects their form if they really want to be playing regularly and could be doing that somewhere else. In their mind they're already leaving.

If the player loves playing football, LM clearly does enjoy being on the pitch and always seems to work hard, yet is still regularly sidelined or just used as sub for a large part of the season it must have a accumulative, detrimental mental effect.

Dele Ali is the flip-side of the same coin - a player whose drop in form for whatever (rather mysterious IMHO) reason, wasn't being selected because of that, lost even more confidence and as a result further affected his form. A nasty downward spiral so when given the chance to play he was not consistently good enough on the pitch to justify playing him at all let alone as a regular first choice team status.

Spurs eventually dumped him and where is he now? Desperately trying to resurrect his career on loan from Everton in Turkey at Besiktas.

https://talksport.com/football/1186749/dele-alli-goal-besiktas-everton-fan-attacks-teammate-cenk-tosun/

[fallenangle]

Excellent win against Marseilles - just been watching the highlights and Richarlison's first goal was very HK like. Good direction but with plenty of power so the goalkeeper had little chance even if he'd got a fingertip to it.

Great start to the CL campaign but a long way to go.

[EJG1980]

It actually wasn't the best of performances (especially the first half) and even when Marseille went down to ten men it took us a while to break them down, but all that matters is the result and it was a great result. And we did deserve the win, it just wasn't vintage stuff.

Really happy for Richarlison to get a couple of goals too, he deserved them as reward for the excellent performances he's been putting in.

Someone can say they're happy enough just being paid, putting in the effort and doing the job they're employed to do ie. acting professionally but it still affects their form if they really want to be playing regularly and could be doing that somewhere else. In their mind they're already leaving.

If the player loves playing football, LM clearly does enjoy being on the pitch and always seems to work hard, yet is still regularly sidelined or just used as sub for a large part of the season it must have a accumulative, detrimental mental effect.

Dele Ali is the flip-side of the same coin - a player whose drop in form for whatever (rather mysterious IMHO) reason, wasn't being selected because of that, lost even more confidence and as a result further affected his form. A nasty downward spiral so when given the chance to play he was not consistently good enough on the pitch to justify playing him at all let alone as a regular first choice team status.

Spurs eventually dumped him and where is he now? Desperately trying to resurrect his career on loan from Everton in Turkey at Besiktas.

https://talksport.com/football/11867...te-cenk-tosun/

I guess a lot of it is down to something undefinable in the metal makeup of a player, as some players seem to cope with not being first choice much better than others. Ben Davies for example has gone back and forth a few times between being a backup and a first choice, but always gives a consistent level of good performance whatever his current place in the pecking order.

It is a little bit strange with the way Dele's fortunes turned, although sometimes it does happen with players. I remember that back in the early 2000's the Brazilian striker Adriano was amazing for three or four seasons, looked like he'd be a top player for years to come, and seemingly out of nowhere his form vanished when he was about 25/26 years old.

To be fair to the club, Dele wasn't dropped from the team the instant his form dipped. I remember him staying in the team below his best for a while, the end of 2018/19 and the start of 2019/20. Then it looked like Mourinho coming in would relight the spark as he looked back to his old self for about the first six or seven games with Jose, but he never kept it up, and it was really after that point that he massively struggled for any kind of game time. Couldn't convince Nuno, or Conte, or even Lampard at Everton.

I suppose it's impossible to know the reason for it without being a mind reader.

[fallenangle]

I think his mind might be part of the problem.

Aaron Lennon it is well known has had mental health issues, depression in particular which, after he moved to Everton, he partly blamed on the spiral of anxiety caused by not being a first choice player despite the effort he was putting in during training.

The similarities with Dele's career path - Spurs and England, sidelined at Spurs, loss of form, then sold to Everton where the downward career spiral continued may just be coincidence. But it is a possibility something similar if, hopefully less serious, is going on with Dele.

[EJG1980]

Disappointing to lose that match this evening. Cagey first half with us having more chances but them having the best chance right at the end with Marcus Edwards' superb run. Then we were on top for most of the second half but we only made reasonable chances rather than top quality chances. A few times as well when we could have made better chances, the final pass wasn't good enough.

A draw would have been a fair result but our lack of cutting edge in attack left us open to being sucker punched late on, so we only have ourselves to blame for the loss.

Won't go overboard and complain too much, it's our first loss for about sixteen or seventeen matches, but hopefully we will bounce straight back and take three points in the league on Saturday.

[fallenangle]

It is certain our manager will be very annoyed to have lost in that way.

[EJG1980]

I think Son might be back

Seems silly to say after a 6-2 win but there were chucks of the game today where we weren’t that great, still not at our best. Quiet a few moments when the game was in the balance (at 2-2 and 3-2) when Lloris had to pull off some good saves to keep Leicester out. But if we can win 6-2 when not at our best, it’s gonna be fun when everything clicks and we play at our full potential!

Two things I think made a good difference in the second half: first was when Bissouma came on and we moved to a three man midfield, we gained more control and it reduced Maddison’s influence on the game. You’ll never guess what the second thing was

What an incredible cameo from Son, the first two goals just unstoppable quality. So happy when the offside flag that had initially ruled out his hat trick was proven to be incorrect. I’ve seen it said in a few places, but I’m gonna steal it, Son’s performance today truly was the adage “form is temporary, class is permanent” brought to life.

A random aside: in a “well that makes me feel old” moment, I turned on Torino vs Sassuolo just now and saw a Kristian Thorstvedt coming on for Sassuolo. Had a quick Google and he is indeed the son of ex-Spurs goalkeeper Erik “The Viking” Thorstvedt.

[fallenangle]

I was listening to the Spurs game on and off on BBC5L and by the end of the first half I thought: oh no, here it comes, Leicester are back on form, we're their first scalp and eventually we're going to lose this 2 -3 to a late goal. So I did not bother with the second-half and had my fingers crossed when I checked the final score expecting the worst.

Nearly choked on my Polish sourdough when I saw the score and that I'd missed Son's hat-trick.

Saw it later on MotD - those first two goals of his were indeed incredible: right and left footed curling shots which the goalie had little chance of stopping; outstanding.

[EJG1980]

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[EJG1980]

Bah, nothing like a loss in an early Saturday kick-off to ruin the whole weekend!

First half ended up being even, with Arsenal on top for the first half of it and deservedly taking the lead, and us being the better team for the second half of it and deservedly equalising.

Unfortunately we didn't learn from that and started slowly again in the second half, allowing Arsenal to re-take the lead (assisted by some poor keeping from Lloris). And while Arsenal were on top, it was still only a one goal deficit, we're still in the game so there's no need to panic, and there's certainly no reason* to do something as silly as getting yourself sent off in an idiotic manner...

No idea what Emerson was thinking, especially as there was no danger: the ball was in the Arsenal half and the Arsenal player was being forced back towards his own goal! There was no need to make a challenge of any kind at that point, let alone a reckless one that risks a sending off.

Arsenal were on top when it happened, but we turned around the first half to draw that, 11v11 there's no reason we couldn't have upped our game and done the same in the second half, but Emerson's moment of madness took that possibility away from us. Then they scored soon after we went to ten men, game over. At least it didn't end up as an embarrassing scoreline, small comforts.

We've started slowly in too many matches this season but been able to overcome it every time, so maybe now we haven't got away with it (and in the worst match possible) and have lost, it might be the kick up the arse the players need to know that they need to sort that out.

We bounced back from our loss in the CL by beating Leicester 6-2, let's hope we can bounce back from this PL loss with a CL win on Tuesday.

Edit: * okay, there's NEVER any reason to get yourself sent off in an idiotic manner, but you know what I mean!

[fallenangle]

I was expecting a draw but with Spurs avoidable mistakes, poor final balls (as pointed out on MotD) and Arsenal punishing us for those mistakes you can't complain about the final result too much.

Emerson getting sent off, justifiably, like that with no good reason for the challenge at all......words fail me.

Still its only one game and, as you say, let's hope they bounce back to better form in CL. COYS.