Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

Well done Spurs; with the aforementioned results of teams just behind us like Fulham and Liverpool (and Newcastle and Man Utd not playing) it was really important to get the win today and we deservedly got it.

A lot like last week the first half wasn’t amazing, though we had the best chance with the lovely passing move that led to Hojbjerg hitting the post.

Nobody in the stadium knew what was going on with the red card shenanigans, and I’m not sure it’d have been much clearer if I’d been watching at home!

Perfect start to the second half with Skipp’s brilliant thunder blast, nice to see him get his first Spurs goal and in such a memorable fashion.

Only one hairy moment at the back after we'd scored, when Chelsea put a player through on goal but Forster did superbly to rush out and smother the danger. A quiet afternoon for him aside from that. Chelsea were pretty blunt and toothless for the whole match, very rare that their possession felt that threatening.

Of course being only one goal in front is always dangerous, so Harry’s goal to make it 2-0 made the last fifteen minutes much more comfortable and fun. Lovely stuff.

That’s four wins in our last five league matches now, a nice little run of form, let’s hope we can keep it going!

[fallenangle]

I listened to most of the first on BBC R5L half and the red card incident made no sense to anyone.

Decided to dip in and out of the second half and wait for MotD for the final score but after the, indeed brilliant, early Skipp goal I stuck with it and when the HK one went in at 82mins I was as confident as a Spurs' fan could be they were to not going to mess it up and they did not.

Yay!

Great result, just what we needed and lets hope that momentum continues for the FA Cup game this week and onward for the rest of the season. Third or fourth place in the Premiership is the best we can expect realistically so let us hope our FA Cup run goes all the way because we are long overdue some silverware.

[EJG1980]

Five changes tonight but we need to rotate with so many important games in a short period, only a few days until Wolves then another few days until Milan.

Happy with the changes anyway as they're either very experienced (Sanchez, Perisic, Lucas) are a big money new signing (Porro) or a very promising youngster (Sarr).

Attitude is far more important than the "strength" of the team anyway; last season we beat Leeds 4-0 in the Premier League, and a few days later played Middlesbrough in the cup and put out the exact same team, zero rotation, a "full strength" side, and lost 1-0. The players treating it seriously, not looking at it as a walkover, and being just as up-for-it as our opponents are key, no matter the exact eleven that start the match.

COYS!

Edit: actually six changes from the Chelsea starting eleven, I forgot that Son didn't start against them, but I refuse to count bringing him in as rotation

Post match: ffs

Not enough intensity, we never went through the gears, just played at the same pace and tempo for the whole match. When we did get into good positions the quality was lacking. And this was against a Sheffield Utd side that made eight changes, which makes our lacklustre display even more disappointing.

Well done to Sheffield Utd, took full advantage of our poor showing with their late goal. When you play like we did, you can't complain when you get punished.

[fallenangle]

Yes well done SU for the way they defended but really it was because bad Spurs turned up again. I blame the formation and starting player line up and that was almost certainly down to the absent manager.

It was obvious by midway through the first half that we did not have the right formation to unlock the disciplined SU defence. The midfield creativity was almost non-existent.

Lucas Moura worked hard but was ineffective. What he was doing starting in such an important match after barely being used this season and coming back from injury I could not even guess at.

It took until well into the second half to do something about that and when HK was finally called in it was too late and he barely had a touch of the ball except for his uncharacteristically poorly executed header scoring opportunity.

Despite saying all that we still had far more shots and shots on target but none of them really tested their goal keeper. But you can say much the same thing about SU in this respect but, seemingly inevitably when you play bad Spurs, the opposition often do put away one of the few real chances they do get and Spurs do not.

As I see it the real possibility of winning the FA Cup this season almost thrown away on the altar of squad rotation and slow response to effective opposition tactics.

[EJG1980]

Agree with pretty much all of that except the rotation part. From the Chelsea match last Sunday to the Forest match on the 11th we'll have had 5 matches in 14 days. You've got to rotate at some points during that run, if you only ever play the strongest eleven those players will be run into the ground.

And as I said before, I think the rotation is much less important than the attitude of the players. The exact same scenario last season, 5th round of the FA Cup away against a Championship side, in that case Middlesbrough. For that match we did literally zero rotation, and got the exact same type of performance and result that we got last night.

Add in the Carabao Cup earlier this season too: away to Forest, they put out a reserve side with eight changes, we put out a strong side with only three changes from the previous PL match, Kane started up front. Result? Lacklustre performance, 2-0 win for Forest.

I don't know what it is, whether they think the match will be easy and don't have to try as hard as usual, whether they think that "mere domestic cups" are beneath them so can't be bothered to make the effort, but we get performances like this so often that it's gotta be something in the mindset of the players. It happens a lot, rotation or no rotation, and for me that has always been the biggest factor when we come unstuck in these matches in recent years.

[EJG1980]

Gah. A wasted opportunity today with Newcastle losing earlier on, a win would have moved us far enough ahead that they could no longer overtake us by winning their games in hand, and we'd have been in control of the race for fourth place. Instead the gap to them is the same and we're now looking over our shoulder as the likes of Liverpool and Brighton get closer.

[fallenangle]

The annoying thing is Spurs played pretty well in the first half and if they had put away the chances created we would have had a safety net for any Wolves reply. We did not, they changed their formation and tactics in the second half, there was no immediate Spurs response, they score and we had no answer.

Hugely disappointing but slightly mitigated by the Newcastle loss.

[EJG1980]

The annoying thing is Spurs played pretty well in the first half and if they had put away the chances created we would have had a safety net for any Wolves reply. We did not, they changed their formation and tactics in the second half, there was no immediate Spurs response, they score and we had no answer.

That was the most disappointing thing about the match. The Wolves manager saw his side being outplayed in the first half, changed tactics, made multiple subs, and swung the match in his side’s favour. Yet even though you could see from about 60 mins onwards that Wolves were taking control of the match, we made no tactical tweaks or formation changes, and left our subs too late (and even then they were like for like subs, and another strange use of Lucas ahead of Richarlison or Danjuma).

Within our next five league matches we play Forest, Southampton, Everton and Bournemouth, the current bottom three and a team a few points above the relegation places. We have to turn up the wick and make sure we get wins against those kinds of teams and not lose any more ground before we have to face the higher up teams. Hopefully we can turn around the tie against Milan on Wednesday and get a nice confidence boost from that.

[fallenangle]

Not liking the Liverpool v. MU result much; 7 - 0 is an extraordinary win and although it pegs MU to four points above us they still have a game in hand. But more disturbingly it also means, as I predicted a few weeks ago, that Liverpool are now only 3 points behind us and also back in contention for a top four place with both a game in hand and, now, far better GD than Spurs.

That Wolves loss is looking like even more of a disaster and the only positive is that Spurs next two Premiership games are ones they should win but I doubt either are going to be easy. A 7 - 0 win for us against either or both of them would be nice .

[EJG1980]

Yup, that Liverpool win seems like a bit of an ominous result, they could be clicking into gear at the just right moment with their recent results, four wins and a draw in the last five and zero conceded.

On the flip side, they've been very inconsistent this season and have often followed a run of good results with a few dodgy results. Their results this season before their recent five match undefeated streak have read no wins in three, two wins in a row, no wins in three, two wins in a row, two losses in a row, four wins in a row, no wins in four. So they could just keep going now and steamroller their way to the end of the season, or they could be hit by another blip or two like the ones that have plagued them all season.

Of course we've been very inconsistent ourselves (9 wins, 9 losses, 1 draw in our last 19 matches, almost perfect inconsistency!) and if right now you had to bet on which side will be more consistent from now until the end of the season, you'd bet on them. You never know though, it's been a pretty strange season so far, and we did manage to come strong at the end of last season after a really inconsistent period.

[fallenangle]

Not unexpected to go out of the CL before getting anywhere near the final. But against ACM to come away with a clean sheet and needing only one goal to get back on terms yet not managing to do even that is disappointing.

It sounded like another doable opportunity to progress in a cup competition at least one more stage wasted.

[EJG1980]

The performance was so so disappointing. We were strolling around with the energy and urgency of a team that had won the first leg 6-0, anyone who didn’t know the score from the first leg would have been shocked to find out that we needed to score or we were going out! We were flatter than a steamrollered pancake.

I hate to say it but Chelsea showed exactly what we should have done the previous night. 1-0 down from the first leg, they were in Dortmund’s faces from the first minute and didn’t let up, created loads of chances and eventually got their reward. I don’t mind losing/going out, you might try and play that way and mess it up, fluff your chances, but you at least want to see us try.

Edit: though I’ll add, that maybe a part of the problem isn’t a lack of effort, it’s that’s a lot of the time many in the team simply look like they have no idea what to do with the ball offensively, and that does make you worry what they’re doing on the training pitches.

[fallenangle]

There's serious talk about dumping Conte even before the end of the season.

The consensus is that he doesn't want to be there much beyond the end of season anyway and that Poch might be persuaded to return to replace him.

There are worse ideas to imagine and it might sway HK to stay too, at least for another season, particularly if Spurs get a top four finish to qualify for the CL again.

[EJG1980]

I'm a bit torn as part of me is thinking that if Conte goes, we won't have had a manger who lasted a whole season since 2018-19!! And that's just nuts, no way to run a football club.

On the other hand, if Conte's heart isn't in it, then we probably do stand a better chance of finishing higher up the table if he goes now and a new man comes in straight away.

Once a manager has checked out that will transmit to the players and (at least subconsciously) they start to coast until the new man comes in. You could argue that's been part of the problem for the whole season, with Conte being non-committal about whether he would extend his current contract.

It has been disappointing that our level of play this season hasn't reached the heights we hit in the final couple of months of last season (in the final 16 matches of last season we scored 3 or more goals in 9 of them). It felt like Conte's ideas were getting across to the players and that we had a lot of momentum to build on going into this season.

Yet despite adding extra players to the squad in the summer, the performances have regressed and we rarely see that attacking verve any more, we've gone back to the "struggling to get more than a couple of shots on target" team that we were before Conte arrived. The football at the end of last season was great to watch, but I have to admit that the majority of matches this season have often been a slog.

So was the end of last season a lucky blip, rather than true progress? I don't know.

If we'd had the exact same season but Conte had been saying "We could have played better this season, but I'm committed to improving us, put a three year contract in front of me now and I'll sign it", I'd be inclined to say sign him up, we can't sack managers every time we hit a rough patch, let's have some stability for a change.

But... his non-committal attitude makes me think it probably would be better to let him go straight away, hopefully get a "new manager boost", and give the new man the rest of the season to assess the squad ahead of the summer.

Gah, bloody Spurs!

[fallenangle]

Well we made no serious mistakes against NF beating them 3 - 1. HK and Son back on goal scoring form is always good to see.

With Liverpool losing we now have a bit of pressure off, particularly if Newcastle squander any of their games in hand over us too. I doubt Southampton will help pegging back MU but you never know with Wolves, they could get a result against Newcastle today.