Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

Really good performance, especially the second half. The whole team worked their socks off and got their just rewards. And we coupled that hard work with a lot of very good attacking football.

Dier continues to look like a veteran defensive midfielder and not a kid who's played about ten games in that position. Lamela was superb today and rightfully named man of the match in every report I've read. N'Jie made a very good impression when he came on.

Everyone deserves a pat on the back today though. Some players like Son and Eriksen didn't have the greatest of games but still kept plugging away and working hard. A real team effort today.

It's fair to say I enjoyed that quite a bit

[fallenangle]

When I first saw the result headlines I thought they'd made a mistake or I'd misread it and that it was Man.City who'd won 4-1.

But TBH the scoreline flattered us, two of the goals, includes HK's, clearly involved poor refereeing/linesman decisions. But their goal was questionable too on that account. 2 - 0 would have been a very fair result and we certainly more than deserved to win on the strength of that second half performance.

Yes, Dier and Lamela were really good, in the latter case it has been a long time coming. But if he can now start doing that more consistently he's going to be the excellent asset he promised to be but hasn't really been up to this point.

[EJG1980]

Only a tiny bit flattering then, winning by 3 instead of by 2 I do think a video ref just for offsides would be a good idea though. I'm sure it's something that could be implemented fairly simply and be done without disrupting the speed and flow of the game.

I think there are encouraging signs that Lamela might be starting to find that consistency. He's been very good this whole month: great through ball to set up the winner against Sunderland; a goal against Qarabag; brilliant tackle to win the ball followed by an incisive pass to Eriksen to start the move for our winner against Palace; a great cross to set up Alderweireld's goal, a goal, and man of the match display against Man City. Real tangible contributions that helped us win multiple matches.

Clearly a long way to go before we can say he's the player we were hoping for when he signed, it's one month, four matches, but you've gotta start somewhere. Right at this moment he is definitely going in the right direction, fingers crossed he can keep it up.

[fallenangle]

Good game against Swansea judging from MotD, just a damned pity we didn't make more of the chances we had. Lloris, again, saved us losing. I just hope that awful own goal by HK doesn't adversely affect his confidence too much. Why he was even back there I couldn't understand - as the main striker he should be up the field waiting for any quick break from their corner not doing the job of the defence and midfielders.

There is being a useful extra and trying to do too much and I think that is HK's main problem at the moment. He's not scoring so he's justifying his position in the team by putting in a lot of other work which means he isn't always where he should be. That may well be a contributing factor to his lack of goals this season.

[EJG1980]

Yup, it was a really good match with both teams playing well. We were the better side though (more possession, double the shots Swansea had, and eleven shots on target to their two, the team on top for 80% of the game) so it felt a little like two points dropped after the match.

At the same time, away from home, behind twice, so it also felt good to get a point. Better finishing and we would have won. Not our day on that front, but I can't fault the general performance, it was good stuff.

I'd love to know what Eriksen's free kick conversion rate is, he must have one of the best fee kicks to goals ratios in world football. Very rare that he doesn't at least work the keeper. Even ignoring the goals that was his best performance of the season. Hopefully he's fully over his injury now and we'll see a run of his best form.

About Kane, yes, I would like to see him not drift out wide or come deep for the ball quite as much as he's doing. It's part of his game and he does it well, but he needs to stick to the middle a bit more, definitely over compensating due to his lack of goals at the mo.

Hopefully he can laugh off the own goal and realise that 99 times out of 100 he'd have successfully smashed that ball miles down the pitch. I think he's a strong character and he'll come though this spell, I reckon he'll still end up with a good goal tally by the end of the season.

[EJG1980]

We started badly today, first 20 mins was all Liverpool and we looked like we'd been on holiday at the beach for a month rather than on an international break. We got very lucky when Origi hit the bar and we managed to scramble it off the line.

25 mins onwards though and I thought we were the better side. Mignolet had to pull off a few very good saves to stop us scoring, while Lloris only had routine stuff to deal with. It wouldn't have been unfair had we taken one of our chances and won the match, but Liverpool did well enough as the away side to deserve the draw too.

So a tad disappointed not to get the win, but at least it ends our horrible run of losses against them. Shame Chadli got injured, we have a pretty lengthy injury list now. Hopefully the likes of Son, Bentaleb, Mason and Chadli won't be out for too much longer.

[fallenangle]

Reasonable result but with the chances we had at least one should have been converted. Still no goal conceded and we're well in contention for a top top six place so can't complain too much.

[fallenangle]

Not a good result last night. Plenty of very good chances wasted due to poor finishing and in the second half the general complacency and defensive lack of concentration let Anderlecht back into the game and score twice. Without Lloris it could have been worse.

[EJG1980]

Yup, it was a poor day at the office. We did really well for the first 15 minutes (aside from adding to our one goal) and it seemed like the players were thinking it was going to be an easy match, but then Anderlecht equalised and our players seemed to not be able to come to terms with the fact that it wasn't going to be a walk in the park any more.

Poch is usually quite neutral in his comments after a match, whatever the result, but he seemed really ticked off yesterday and (rightly) quite critical of the players and their attitude. Hopefully the lesson will be learned that even when you feel like you're in total control of the match, you've still got to concentrate 100% and work hard to stay in that position; you'll rarely get away with it if you don't.

[EJG1980]

Good to get back to winning ways after our little run of draws in the league and defeat in Europe. "Watched" the match via twitter updates (the modern version of watching a match on teletext!) and thought it might be one of those days when we went 1-0 down after less than a minute, but a nice emphatic comeback from the team. Looking forward to seeing the highlights tonight.

The Man City goal didn't do it, but with a bit of luck the hat-trick today will set Kane off on a good run of goalscoring form. Good to see Mason back from injury too, hopefully the rest of the players who are injured aren't too far behind him.

[fallenangle]

Really hope the hat-trick sets HK off on a goal scoring run again too.

Very good win but it was against a depleted Bournemouth side and they could have scored more than they did mainly because of defensive 'lapses'. Still we're racking up the points and as long as it continues that's the most important thing.

[EJG1980]

Should have been a routine and comfortable win, but our Our Achilles' heel of taking it a bit too easy when in control against a weaker team allowed Villa to make it a nervy end of the match for us.

Villa did get a bit of luck with the deflection on their shot, but it was the sloppiness that crept into our game that gave them a bit of belief that maybe they could sneak something from the game. We were suddenly looking panicked against a team that had given us no problems for 70 minutes. Gotta ditch that habit, but we're a very young team so hopefully they'll learn.

Can't complain too much though, we did win 3-1 and that's ten unbeaten now in the league Going to need a really good performance this weekend though to make it eleven though!

[fallenangle]

Yes, the reports I've read made it clear it wasn't as convincing a performamnce as the score suggested with, just as you say, Spurs taking their foot off the pedal and letting AV get back into the game.

Still we've put together a very good run of results so far and this adds to those stats very usefully. It won't go on forever but if we can keep our GD where it is and get a couple of more wins we'd be right up there genuinely challenging for that now vacant top four place.

I really think there is a possibility of that now even if Chelsea eventually come good. We're better than Liverpool in most respects and I can't see either Leicester or West Ham remaining in the top six for the rest of the season.

But we know Spurs, if they can find way losing the games they should win, they will. All part of the fun.

[EJG1980]

Yup, Chelsea's problems definitely mean a top four spot is up-for-grabs this season. Hopefully their bad run will continue, the further back they are, the better! If we stay consistent and play to our best we've got a very good chance of nabbing a top four spot this season.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of team we put out against Anderlecht on Thursday. Not much rest after the Villa game and before the Arsenal game, so you'd expect us to rest quite a few players, but our loss in Belgium really tightened up the group so we can't really afford to drop points against them. Tough balancing act for Poch.

Some (hopefully) good news on the injury front as the South Korean manager has picked Son for their upcoming internationals and said he was told by Spurs that Son would play "this week". So he should make an appearance against either Anderlecht or Arsenal, if not both.

[fallenangle]

Good result last night done with two excellent goals.

Again, shocking defending let them score but pretty decent performance otherwise judging from the highlights on ITV.

Now if we can beat Arsenal I'll start to believe this might end up being a good season for Spurs. I don't think we'll get a better chance against them as they'll probably be licking their wounds after their European drubbing and with HK and MB back on form the runes look to be in our favour.