Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

Ohhh Spurs, why do you insist on doing stuff like this to us? I need a long lie down in a dark room after that.

You won't get a better text book example of a game of two halves. First half was great, carried on from where we left off against Man Utd, went ahead with a lovely goal. Then there was about 5 minutes where Brighton started to get a hold of the ball and had a couple of chances, and we responded to it by going down the other end and increasing our lead, just what you want to see. Excellent stuff and put ourselves in a brilliant position to get all three points.

Second half... WTF? Early goal for Brighton from a Udogie mistake (I have a little bit of sympathy because it takes a slight nick off vdV before getting to him, but even so he should have done way better with it) and all of a sudden our confidence flooded away and we couldn't play.

No blame on the tactics here, this was down to players sh*tting the bed. None of the Brighton goals were us being caught out of position because we were too attacking, there were plenty of players in-between the Brighton players and our goal, but they just waltzed through with really poor attempted tackles from the likes of vdV, Romero, Bentancur, etc.. Our attacking ply vanished too, I can't really recall us making any proper chances after we went 3-2 down. Just an awful second half all around.

So disappointing after it looked like we were going to go into the international break on a real high. You can only hope that the players take it upon themselves to work hard to make sure that capitulations like that second half simply don't happen again, they've gotta really take a long look at themselves after this one.

[Mayhem]

My first thought on that was "are you Everton in disguise?!"

[fallenangle]

All that ^^ ^.

Spurs should write a manual on how to lose when you're 0 - 2 up away from home and playing really well.

To top it off I'd watched Spurs women in the WSL earlier yesterday lose 3 - 2 too. Really good game to watch apart from that................................

They gave away a ludicrously good goal early in their game against Liverpool (worth seeing so I posted a YT link to the highlights). They then came out for the second half, dominated possession and drew level only to give away a free kick on the edge of the area which, again, resulted in another excellent Liverpool goal. Spurs, still dominating, drew level again with only minutes to go. Guess what? They then gave away a totally unnecessary penalty in the fourth minute of extra time and that was it, game over.

Bad weekend for Spurs.

https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/2024/october/spurs-women-vs-liverpool-women-match-report/

[EJG1980]

I had checked the women's score right near the end, saw it was 2-2, forgot about it and assumed that was the result until I found out about the penalty and saw the actual score just before I went to bed.

You had to drop down to the youth levels to find a bit of Spurs cheer at the weekend: the U18s beat Man Utd 4-3, while the U21s were 2-0 down at half time away to Arsenal, but had a storming second half and ended up winning 2-5.

My first thought on that was "are you Everton in disguise?!"

Nah, I don't think we can ever be confused for anyone else; a mix of and that is undoubtedly and unmistakably, Tottenham

[fallenangle]

Read yesterday that, as I'd guessed a long time ago, Man.City's Chloe Kelly is getting a bit ****** off at being treated by her manager as a just a super-sub and that has affected her England career too. Consequently there are strong rumours she wants to leave for another WSL side who will give her a regular start up.

Getting CK to play for us has been a Spurs' Women dream team fantasy purchase of my own for ages. Beth England, the Spurs' number 9, came to us for just that reason too. Putting them together could be a productive partnership. Spurs desperately need a ball supplier on both their wings and one who can cross the ball accurately to make use of BE's height and strength. CK can play on either wing but is better on the right and in that position is one of the best crossers in the womens' game but much more than that too.

She does have flaws: she dawdles on the ball and gets her pocket picked more than she should but that is mitigated by her other skills.

Probably won't happen but CK used to play for Arsenal so a north London team home with a guaranteed slot available for her might be an attractive prospect if she is looking for a new WSL club with ambitions. It would be a great and financially sound coup for Spurs if they can persuade somebody of her celebrity to leave MC.

Now if Spurs could get Jack Grealish off MC too I'd be even more pleased.

[fallenangle]

Looked a bit iffy with WH leading 1 - 0 and having other scoring chances too. Had me worried but then Spurs turn up and go to town on them big time.

Should be an excellent, well deserved and much needed 1 - 4 win for us with just seconds to go. Yay!

[EJG1980]

Really good win today, very good response to the Brighton result in the previous match.

The first half an hour we were on top and the better side, but didn't quite find the right final pass or shot to fully open up West Ham or take advantage of good positions. As often happens when we do that, our opponents then have one or two chances and score a goal.

For the final 15 mins of the half our cutting edge got much better, got the equaliser and could have gone ahead before half time, and it wouldn't have been undeserved.

Second half we stepped it up another level and blew them away completely. Good sub to bring on Sarr for Maddison, allowed us to physically dominate the midfield much more and pushed Kulusevski further up the pitch where he could do even more damage. With better finishing and a bit of luck we could easily have had 6 or 7, but I won't complain about beating West Ham 4-1!

Another European match up next against AZ, hopefully we can keep up our perfect record in that competition to put us in a good position going into the tougher games against Galatasaray and Roma.

Edit: and we did keep up that record, with a decent enough display for a team with 9 changes from the win against West Ham.

More valuable experience for Gray, Bergvall, and Moore. Gray was pretty solid throughout and Bergvall had a decent game including a brilliant Hoddle-esque through ball in the first half. Moore had a decent first half playing on the right wing (though he had a great headed chance that he put wide), but switched to the left wing in the second half and was, especially for the first 20 mins of the half, absolutely superb. Had the crowd off their seats multiple times and was unlucky not to get anything goal or assist wise. Very exciting from a 17 year old making only his second start, and first at home.

Just over 60 valuable minutes into the legs of Richarlison, and grabbed a goal from the penalty spot. Would have had a second as he was in a great position for a tap in a few minutes later, but Johnson very slightly underhit his cross so a defender was able to get a toe on it to stop it going to Richy.

Timo Werner's woes continued; he started well with a brilliant cross for the header that Moore missed, but went downhill after that, missing yet another one on one chance after Bergvall's brilliant pass put him clean through. That really drained his confidence and even his usual good running and crossing seemed to desert him after that. Not too surprised he was taken off at half time. Finally, it was only a couple of minutes cameo at the end, but it was nice to see Odobert back from injury.

Three wins out of three now, puts us in a very good position. A couple more wins from the remaining matches should be enough for a top 8 finish that puts you straight into the last 16 knockout round, but hopefully we'll get a few more than that. Galatasaray away up next, which will probably be the toughest match in the group stage.

[fallenangle]

Win last night against AZ; just watched the highlights and there were some really exquisite attacking moves by the look of it. More goals from those chances (Werner) would have been nice.

As it was we just had that goal from the penalty and Forster making a pair of excellent saves keeping us ahead but we held on and won. That seemed fair judging by what was shown.

[EJG1980]

Win last night against AZ; just watched the highlights and there were some really exquisite attacking moves by the look of it. More goals from those chances (Werner) would have been nice.

As it was we just had that goal from the penalty and Forster making a pair of excellent saves keeping us ahead but we held on and won. That seemed fair judging by what was shown.

Yeah, it was a deserved win, they did have a couple of good chances that needed very good saves from Forster (it was a perfect backup keeper performance from him) but the pattern of the game was very much 15/20 mins of Spurs on top, 1/2 mins from AZ, on repeat.

I think those attacking moves are evidence that we're starting to see the style of play that Ange wants coming through more often, even when he makes a number of changes to the starting line up, which can only be a good thing.

Interesting situation for the weekend as Ange confirmed last night that Son is still a bit sore from the West Ham game, so will very likely not be risked against Crystal Palace. I think there will be a lot of clamour for Mikey Moore to start that match on the left instead of Son, but I think despite his struggles in from of goal Werner will still get the nod. I think if he was fully fit and had more than a 3 minute cameo appearance under his belt, Odobert might be the one to play. Ange was asked if Moore was ready to start a Premier League game and he said:

"He is ready to start any game. With young players, you've got to be really careful about their introduction into senior football.

He's still physically growing and you have to take that into account. He's ready to start a Premier League game for sure, but, for us it's about developing Mikey in the right way."

Which comes across to me as "Yes he is, but don't expect it this weekend, we won't rush him". Could he start against Man City in the cup though? I think that's a bit more likely.

[EJG1980]

My powers of analysis and prediction shining through once again

Amazing for Moore though, what a day this must be for him.

[fallenangle]

Worrying 'news' that Pedro Porro may be targeted by MC in the summer as a replacement for the ageing(?) Kyle Walker.

What is it with MC and others trying to snaffle our right/wing backs particularly the ones Spurs have helped mould into top tier international quality players in that position? It took so long for Spurs to find a decent replacement after we foolishly sold Kieran Trippier.

PP has turned out to be a canny purchase no other Premiership club had shown much interest in but now the money bag big boys have seen what they're missing and want to filch him from us.

[EJG1980]

Gah, well, today was one of those downwards sections on the Tottenham Hotspur rollercoaster. A deserved win for Palace, a very "meh" performance from us, the flow of our attacking never got going and we gave the ball away far too much. Nobody in the starting eleven really made anything happen and none of the subs who came on made much of a difference. Very much lacking in inspiration today. It was a bit of a scrappy match but I'd say for most of it that Palace looked more likely to add to their lead than for us to equalise.

Tough little run coming up now too, Man City in the cup, Villa in the league, Galatasaray in Europe, Ipswich in the league, Man City in the league and Roma in Europe. Need more performances like against Man Utd and West Ham than the one we gave today.

[EJG1980]

Worrying 'news' that Pedro Porro may be targeted by MC in the summer as a replacement for the ageing(?) Kyle Walker.

What is it with MC and others trying to snaffle our right/wing backs particularly the ones Spurs have helped mould into top tier international quality players in that position? It took so long for Spurs to find a decent replacement after we foolishly sold Kieran Trippier.

PP has turned out to be a canny purchase no other Premiership club had shown much interest in but now the money bag big boys have seen what they're missing and want to filch him from us.

IIRC Pedro Porro was actually a youth player at Man City, and they let him go to Sporting Lisbon before he made any appearances for them.

It's always tough when you're just outside the top bracket looking to get in, as you need time to build yourself up, but if you take too long then your better players and going to get picked off and you have to start the rebuilding process again.

Though to be fair we haven't lost too many players that we didn't want to let go, over the last 10 years or so. Walker to Man City was one, Kane to Bayern another (and that was after we'd got 6 and 10 years service out of them) and we didn't want to lose Eriksen but he just wanted a new challenge and wasn't poached by a super club. Can't think of any others aside from that.

[EJG1980]

Well done Spurs, a very decent performance and result against Man City in the cup last night.

Our two goals were lovely, with an extra big cheer for Werner getting the first. From the goal last night, and the stuff he's missed this season, I think it's clear that Werner is better when he doesn't have time to think and has to hit the shot first time. The Sarr strike was superb, love a goal that starts a couple of yards outside the post and then curls inside to nestle right in the corner.

Man City had a lot of the ball after we went 2-0 up but aside from one Foden chance he should have done better with, Vicario was rarely troubled. Of course, just as I was thinking "okay, nothing silly, you've done really well, don't give them the boost of a goal just before half time"...

So you wonder if we're going to be in for rough second half, them with their tails up, us with doubts creeping in, but we stayed strong and saw it out for a deserved victory. Man City with more of the ball again, but once more, very few clear cut chances, the defence did really well.

And we spurned multiple great chances for a killer third: a Werner one on one, a chance where Kulu shot instead of squaring it for what would have been a tap in, a Man City mix up that gave Richy the whole goal to pass the ball into but he hit it straight at the keeper, and I think there was another good chance that Brennan Johnson missed.

With those misses you were worried about a late wonder strike or mistake from us to let them equalise, and it ALMOST happened with Vicario going walkabout on a cross leaving an unguarded net, but luckily Bissouma was alert and made a game saving goal line block from the Man City shot.

The Micky vdV injury is the big worry coming out of the match. Hopefully it's not a long term thing, and I'm gonna agree with the commentator who said that the fact that he came back out to the bench and sat outside in the cold for the next 75 minutes of the match might be a sign that it's not as serious as it looked. Fingers crossed!

Man Utd at home in the next round, which wasn't the easiest draw but certainly wasn't the hardest, so can't complain. Being at home again is very welcome.

[fallenangle]

I was watching the score line during the evening and I couldn't believe it when we went two up. Then they got one and I thought: oh-oh and Spurs were going to flush all that good work down the drain then we'd lose on penalties or something like that.

Thanks for those extended highlights; looked like a really good game to watch and those two Spurs goals - sublime. Difficult to chose which was better.

Great result and now onto MU as you say.