Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

Oh I agree, it was really good stuff. Excellent pressing, some lovely quick passing moves, and great direct running from the likes of Kane and Lennon. I would have enthused more in my previous post by I was typing on my phone on the train so didn't feel like typing for too long!

It's not really a 4-4-2, still the usual 4-2-3-1 with Lennon, Kane and Eriksen as the three behind Soldado. I like Kane in the deeper role rather than as an out and out striker as the way he runs at defenders from deep causes a lot of problems, as he showed yesterday. Lennon playing gives us more variety too, allows us to mix it up between the pacey running of Lennon on one flank and the skill and vision of Eriksen on the other.

[fallenangle]

Yes, good win after a shakey start and, yet again, HK being highly praised on MotD. Loved the Eriksen goal, getting it around the goalie and putting it in the side netting behind the defender who'd run in and would have blocked a less well aimed more direct shot.

Tough job to come though: indeed a 0-0 result would be a good result. But who knows, with Spurs confidence up maybe a win is not entirely beyond their capabilities.

[EJG1980]

Yup, the Eriksen finish was fantastic. Not just because he had the ability and subtlety to pick out the small area where it wouldn't be blocked, but the fact that it was an instant reaction; no time to take a touch, no time to think about it, just an instant quality finish.

The media can tend to pile on the praise a bit too easily when a young English player starts to do well, but Kane definitely deserves the praise he's getting at the moment. Great work ethic and making a real postive difference to the team when he's on the pitch. Hopefully he will inspire the youngsters in the youth team to think "if I put in the hard graft, that could be me", and we might start seeing more youngsters coming through.

A win at Stamford Bridge would certainly make a nice change, closing in on a quarter of a century since we last won there! Going to be very very tough though. Whatever the result I hope we do ourselves justice and put in another good performance, make those buggers work for anything they get. And as you say, if we do play well, who knows!

[EJG1980]

Or we could lose 3-0!

I only followed the match on Twitter so can't say for sure how we played, but from that and the stats it doesn't seem like we did too badly. We had 60% possession and 10 shots to their 12. The difference seems to be the finishing, 9 of their 12 shots on target, only 3 of our 10 on target.

Ah well, always gonna be a very tough match to get something from. A shame Arsenal won but at least Everton dropped unexpected points to Hull so we're still ahead of them. Lots of matches coming up in December so hopefully we can pick up a decent haul of points before getting our revenge on Chelsea on New Year's Day! COYS!

Edit: seems the second goal was a mistake from Lloris, kicked it straight out to Hazard who set up Drogba for the goal. A pity as letting in that second straight after the first was a real hammer blow, could have been different if we'd kept it at only 1-0.

According to the BBC we started the match really well and even Mourhino said that Spurs should have scored first (Kane hit the bar, had a shot go inches wide, Vertonghen headed just over). No doubting Chelsea were clearly the better side and deserved to win the match, just a shame we couldn't have made more of our good start.

A good learning process for the youngsters who played though, you can't be anything other than clinical with your chances when playing against the best in the league or you will certainly be punished.

[fallenangle]

Saw it on MotD too and even without Lloris' mistake and if one of Kane's few chances had gone in we still would have lost deservedly. Pity, but not unexpected.

The MotD team were pretty scathing of our defense last night and in general, something I've been banging on about here for years. Vertongen is supposed to be international class but he was still looking physically weak and unimpressive against the Chelsea attackers when they had their tails up.

As a patch until we get in some new experienced blood or the youngsters get up to speed we really need some disciplined, defensive minded midfielder operating in front of the back four, like Scott Parker did. Particularly with Poch's 'big' idea of playing high up the pitch with overlapping wing backs it would provide that extra layer of protection against fast counter attacks. I think Dembele could do that but, like most of the other midfiielders, he does like to be up there with the attack too.

[BaronSqwelch]

Vertongen made me laugh in that game...was all over Remy, trying to take each piece of his kit off and hip toss him to the ground...Remy just shrugged him off and smashed it in

TBH the Prem this year has pathetic defending from everyone but Chelsea. Good job Hansen retired as he would have had several heart attacks on motd!!

[EJG1980]

I'm sure Jan will get back to the kind of form he showed in his first season with us. He just needs to remember the fundamentals of defending: pull down your opponent's shorts just before he takes a shot

[BaronSqwelch]

I still can't believe that wasn't a foul...
Don't think Helenius ever played for us again.

Sad..seeing as Villa stole him from "under the nose of Real Madrid" haha

[EJG1980]

Not a good day at the office today. Disappointing after the very good and promising performance against Everton last week, we looked like a different team today. Especially annoying not to get the win and failing to take full advantage of Arsenal, Liverpool and Everton all dropping points. Could have been worse too with the chances Palace missed in the closing stages of the game.

Oh well, can't change anything now, hopefully we'll play better and get three points in the next match!

[fallenangle]

4 points out of 9 this week isn't good but, as you say, it could have been worse if Lloris hadn't been on form. I felt it would have been a very different game if Soldado had converted at least one of his good chances too.

[EJG1980]

Yeah, especially the chance in the first half where he put it over from about seven or eight yards out, that was a bad miss. The more the game on the more we looked lacking in the ideas and invention needed to break down their well drilled back line; if we'd got that early goal and they'd had to open up a bit then it probably would have made things quite different,

Even though I'm a fan of Lamela and of giving him a lot of chances to try and get him playing at his best, I think Lennon should have started ahead of him yesterday after the way he played against Everton last week. At the very least Lennon should have come on for him at half time instead of Chadli. I think Chadli has been very good this season but all of our play was in front of the Palace defence and Lennon's pace would have given us more of a chance to get behind them and give Palace a different problem to deal with.

Still, at least it wasn't a loss! Hopefully it's a 0-0 that feels a bit disappointing now, but turns out to be good in the end because it's the start of a long undefeated run

[VR46]

Little Spurs quiz for those who are bored

http://quizzes.london24.com/quiz/102329_206/Tottenham-Hotspur-Wikipedia-quiz.html

[EJG1980]

Little Spurs quiz for those who are bored

http://quizzes.london24.com/quiz/102...edia-quiz.html

I got the first six right, then my mouse accidentally slipped and I clicked on the wrong answer for the seventh. So I dumped my mouse and keyboard in the bin, hooked up a brand new set and made it through to the end of the quiz with a decent score, but a little bit short of what I'd wanted at the start.

I'm gonna buy an expensive new monitor in the summer and attempt the quiz again, so I'm sure I'll do better. Although I did have to sell my CPU to afford the monitor, but I'm sure that shouldn't cause too many problems...

[Baseley09]

Wehey, 14/15....12 was hard.

[VR46]

Very good reply EJG1980.