Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

A much better performance than in our last European away match, some really good build up play at times, but we just couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net. One of those nights where everyone had good touches or passes, except when it came to the final ball or shot. A couple of decent chances for Frankfurt where we could have been punished, but overall we had more chances and more good chances, and should have got the win.

A point isn’t a bad result though, especially if we beat them at home next week, but a bit of a frustrating night in the end.

[EJG1980]

Embedded Tweet

Wow, that's sad and out of nowhere news. He was featured in a lot of the pre-season training videos in the summer as he was the one in charge of the crazy gruelling running exercises they had the players doing.

Just a couple of weeks ago he was on the pitch at the end of the Leicester match, hugging and laughing with Son, who mentioned him in his post-match interview and talked about how well he'd fitted into the club and that all the players loved him. Sad news.

Saturday edit:

Good win today, decent performance without being great. The best period was the first half an hour when we deservedly took the lead, then Brighton started pushing in the last fifteen minutes of the first half. Second half wasn’t as good but we were pretty comfortable and contained Brighton well; they played nice football up to a point but couldn’t get past our defence and Lloris didn’t have any saves of note to make.

Kane had a chance after a brilliant turn that he should have done better with, and Son curled in a beautiful finish but it was ruled out for offside, both of which could have made it 0-2, but we saw the match our professionally and deserved the three points.

You could see that the players and staff were still very emotional about what had happened with Gian Piero Ventrone today (understandably). Conte and others on the bench were in tears / close to tears on the bench during the tribute to him before kick-off, and Kane came quite close to cracking at the start of the post-match interview with him and Sess.

So extra credit to them for getting the win at a tough place to go (it was Brighton's first home loss since we beat them in March last season) against a Brighton team in good form, after what must have been a tough few days for the whole group.

[fallenangle]

Definitely not pretty but a very decent and, particularly with those missed chances to score, deserved win indeed. It keeps us right up there after losing against Arsenal.

Wednesday EDIT

Good win in the CL against Frankfurt but a bit squeaky bum time for the last 5 mins after they scored their second goal, I had my fingers crossed Spurs wouldn't make any stupid mistakes and it worked.

Top of the table now; it is still a very open group but another win should see us through.

Just watched the highlights and that Son second goal volley was a cracker.

[EJG1980]

Good win in the CL against Frankfurt but a bit squeaky bum time for the last 5 mins after they scored their second goal, I had my fingers crossed Spurs wouldn't make any stupid mistakes and it worked.

Top of the table now; it is still a very open group but another win should see us through.

Just watched the highlights and that Son second goal volley was a cracker.

Yup, first half was excellent, aside from the uncharacteristic mistake from Dier that gave them their opening goal. We responded to that setback very well though, played some lovely football, scored some very good goals.

Second half started in the same vein with Sessegnon a little bit unlucky not to put us 4-1 up, and then they had a player sent off and it SEEMED like it was all over. At first we were playing the game out very professionally, conserving our energy for the next league match as you would expect, but in the last 15/20 minutes it got a little bit too relaxed and slightly sloppy.

Interesting that after the match Conte not only said that the players need to learn never to switch off until the very end, but that he took part of the blame for it and said he should have been doing more to gee them up from the touchline.

That last five minutes was crazy, with them getting a goal back, us immediately going down the other end and getting a penalty which Kane missed, Kane's cross being agonisingly too high for Bryan Gil (he's 5'6 Harry, put that cross along the ground ) and Frankfurt having one last attack just to shred the nerves a bit.

Good win though, mostly positive, and the negatives were something the team and manager can learn from. A win at home against Sporting in our next match guarantees qualification with a match to spare. If we win and Frankfurt beat Marseille it guarantees us first with a match to spare, but I'll take whatever happens in the other match as long as we get that win.

[EJG1980]

Three more points against Everton, well done Spurs.

First half was okay, we were in control for the majority of the time but lacked a bit of cutting edge in the final third. A couple of sloppy moments gave Everton their only chances of the half but thankfully we weren't sucker punched, on another day they could have put one of them away.

Second half was really good, we had full control of the game and we found our cutting edge up front, looked much more dangerous. It did take a penalty to make the breakthrough but it felt like a matter of time before we scored, no matter how it came. We saw the game out very comfortably, I don't think Everton had a single shot in the second half (or even got near our box very often), and then Hojbjerg's goal wrapped it up late on after a lovely move.

There were lots of good performances today, but a special mention for Bissouma who was excellent when he came on, helped push our play up another gear. There's a great moment that I hope gets shown in the highlights, where he does a perfect tackle to win back the ball and then plays a superb pass to Kane to set him away on goal. I think we'll be seeing more and more of him as the season goes on.

Fingers crossed Richarlison's injury isn't a bad one, would be annoying if he was out for a while with all the matches coming up; Conte said he's definitely out of the Man Utd match but doesn't know beyond that. With Kulu only just back from injury and probably not fully match fit, I wouldn't be surprised if we went 3-5-2 against Man Utd with just Kane and Son up front (as we did today for most of the second half).

[EJG1980]

Oof, that was probably the worst I’ve seen us play this season, very poor performance. We got away with it in the first half and somehow managed to get in at 0-0, so I thought that might lead to a reaction in the second half but we were just as poor and our luck ran out. The only positive I can think of is that without Lloris making several superb saves, the score could have been an embarrassing one. Need a really big reaction against Newcastle at the weekend.

[fallenangle]

Just watched the highlights on MotD and indeed Lloris's performance was unarguably the best thing for Spurs from the game.

Barely a Spurs' attempt on target or at all - that's just not good enough even against a MU side who look to have their mojo back and likely to be top six challengers this season.

It was a game against opponents we needed to get at least a point from to establish we're genuine Premiership title contenders. Spurs have now lost two games to other, potential, top six teams and drawn the other. We still have the re-scheduled MC game to play sometime and we have Liverpool next month too. We're really going to have to get some points out of at least one of those games or we're in serious danger of slipping out of a top four slot.

[EJG1980]

It's not a good record, although we have only played the other "big six" away from home so far, which we have had a poor record in for a long time. Even in our best season under Poch in 2016/17 when we finished a very comfortable second place with 86 points, we only got 2 points from a possible 15 away against the other big six.

Technically too, we're actually up on the same matches last season. Last season we lost away to Arsenal, lost away to Man Utd, and lost away to Chelsea. This season we lost again to Arsenal, lost again to Man Utd, but got a draw with Chelsea, so we're one point up

Seriously though, as Conte said after the match, it's the performances in these matches that have him concerned more than the results. The fact that away to Arsenal, Man Utd and Chelsea, our opponents dominated the matches and were clearly the better teams that deserved to win. That instead of rising to a big occasion our players shrank and performed lower than their usual standards.

I'm not sure what you can do coaching wise to improve players in that regard, I think it's mostly something that they've got to find within themselves. They can do it, as they showed with the excellent win away at Man City last season, and the gritty point at Liverpool, but they certainly haven't managed it yet this season.

[fallenangle]

Sunday Early Post

Just had to say this before the Newcastle game: Spurs had a bit of luck with the Chelsea v. MU game yesterday. With them in fourth and fifth place respectively a draw was the best result for us.

Although we will have played a game more, with each of them dropping those 2 points, whatever the Newcastle result we'll remain in third place. All wins are welcome but after losing to MU this week a win today would be particularly valuable and go some way to mitigate that performance.

It'll keep us well in front of both them and Chelsea, right on the heels of MC with Arsenal still in reach if they falter.

COYS.

[EJG1980]

Gah, can’t analyse the match, too annoyed! Liverpool lose, Man Utd, Chelsea, and Arsenal draw, so of course we don’t take advantage.

The midweek match against Sporting is extra big now. We need to stop the slide after two poor results in a row, and a win that puts us into the CL knockout stages would be a really great boost. Lose though, and it’s three losses on the spin and leaves us needing a result in a really tough away match in Marseille. Gonna be a big night.

[fallenangle]

I was listening on R5 Live and as soon as that second Newcastle goal went in I just knew it was not going to be our day.

Lloris going from mid-week hero to embarrassingly clumsy didn't help but I think Conte bears some blame too. Sessegnon was clearly out of his depth trying to deal with Almiron and should have been replaced or, maybe better, supported by bringing on Perisic far earlier.

But it was the midfield (again) where the real problem lies. There's nobody of sufficient creativity and strength to supply HK and Son so HK has to drop back and do that job himself.

On another day one of Spurs' genuine chances would have gone in but not this time , damn it. Still, as said earlier, losing was not totally disastrous but it was a great opportunity missed. Now we have to deal with Newcastle as competition for a top four place and Chelsea and MU have a game in hand over us as well.

A win against Bournemouth is a must and then Liverpool the following week we'll need to get something from that too.

[fallenangle]

That second half sounded exciting with Spurs finally getting into gear, the highlights seemed to concur too.

Deserved a better result than a draw with all the decent chances Spurs had and of course that disallowed HK goal was a very iffy decision IMHO.

We now have to get something from the Marseilles' game to be certain of going through; tough job, particularly as they need a win but if we play like we did in the second half it is very doable.

[EJG1980]

Agh, now I know how the Man City fans felt in our Champions League QF against them a few years ago! From the delirium of the celebrations to the awful comedown of the goal being disallowed, yuck.

I've seen a few people questioning the VAR decision and whether they got the rules right and drew the line in the correct place. I haven't seen any highlights since getting back from the match so I won't get angry about it until I see it confirmed one way or another. It's a shame though, it would have been very useful if the Marseille game had been a dead rubber so we could have rested players before the Liverpool match. Fine margins.

VAR incidents aside, we do need to work out how to start matches on the front foot much better. There have been quite a few matches this season where we've been extremely sluggish and slow to start in the first half, and have only been able to up the tempo in the second half, or once we had gone behind. If the players had been on it from the off last night, we wouldn't have needed to be trying for a last minute winner.

Still, at least our fate is in our own hands and at least we don't need to go to Marseille and win. The fact that they can only go through with a win will hopefully play into our hands, they should be going for it should make them vulnerable to the counter-attack. Fingers crossed we can make it through.

[fallenangle]

I was listening to the post-match analysis on R5 Live and they had, I think it was Andros Townsend, saying that the CL table position they're in, just one point ahead of Sporting and Frankfurt and two of Marseilles it looks very "Spursy". I think he meant that whilst Spurs are at the top and should be in control and confident if there is a way of blowing it they'll find it.

Hope he is wrong.

[EJG1980]

Yup, hopefully we’ll go through, but if we don’t it isn’t “spursy”, which is a silly term. Every team that’s just outside the very top top level (the ones that finish 3rd to 6th say) will lose matches that you didn’t expect, come unstuck at an in-opportune moment, etc..

When other teams do it, it’s just an unexpected loss or a frustrating moment, but when Spurs do it’s “Spursy”

I saw Conte say that with what’s at stake he’s having to prioritise the Marseille match over the Bournemouth match, and he has rested a few today that you would normally expect to play. Hopefully it all works out and the “backups” can get a result today while the extra rest helps the first choice players get the result we need in France next week.

Edit: Get in! Horrible first fifty minutes but superb fight back from the team after that, and as the commentator (on my totally legit and not at all dodgy stream) said, by the end Spurs deserved the three points. And we took advantage of Chelsea getting spanked by Brighton.

As much as the ending of the match against Sporting was deflating, the nature of that win should give the team a nice boost going into the match against Marseille. COYS!