Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

A win and a clean sheet, makes a nice change after the previous three matches! Not a match that will live very long in the memory, but it had a memorable Harry Kane goal as he went past Wayne Rooney to go second in the PL all time scorers list. Only Alan Shearer to go now. It was a lovely goal too, a superb hooked (if that's the right word) Kane pass out to Pedro Porro, and Porro returned the favour with a pinpoint cross in to Kane for him to head home.

Interesting formation today that morphed between a back three and back four during the game. When it was a back three you had Royal on the right of the three with Davies and Porro as the wingbacks, and when it switched to a back four Royal would become a right back and Porro would push up and become more of a full on winger. I think it helped Porro to have the defensively minded Royal behind him, it gave us more cover when Porro bombed forward. Both guys did a very good job today.

[fallenangle]

Yes, good win and that sort of flexible formation is pretty much what I've wanted them to use for a long time.

[EJG1980]

Not a good performance today, a shame after the slight bit of optimism following the win against Palace.

Up until around the 50th minute or so (whenever it was that Kane missed a glorious chance to equalise that was gifted to us by a Villa mistake) we had had ONE touch in the Aston Villa box, which just isn't good enough. We did have a brief spell after the Kane miss where we pressured them for about six or seven minutes and Kulusevski went close too, but that was pretty much our only consistent spell of pressure in the whole 90 minutes.

Even qualification for any kind European football is on edge now. You'd think Brighton will overtake us as they're only two points behind with a whopping three games in hand, through with the caveat that three of those games are against Arsenal, Newcastle and Man City, and they've got to squeeze a lot of games into a short period of time.

Villa level on points with us and on paper we've got the easier matches remaining (Brentford and Leeds for us, Liverpool and Brighton for Villa) but Villa have been excellent since Unai Emery took charge, only two losses in their last thirteen matches... with our form compared to theirs, I'm not sure I'd back us to get more points than them in the final couple of matches.

Squeaky bum time! Really really need a win against Brentford next weekend.

[fallenangle]

Europa Conference here we come.

At least we might have a chance of winning that.

[EJG1980]

Generally the last fifteen years or so has been a great time to support Spurs, but one annoyance I've is that during that period it feels like we've never really taken the "lesser" European competitions as seriously as other clubs. Even when Redknapp or Poch were in charge, and we were playing lovely attacking football each week in the league, we'd play really lethargically in the "lesser" European competitions as if were an annoying chore.

You don't see that attitude from other English clubs (ones who are in the Champions League more often than we are, so you'd think were more likely to have a 'we're too good for the mere Europa League' mindset): Man Utd have won it and got to another final, Chelsea have won it a couple of times, Arsenal have got to a final, Liverpool have got to a final... even West Ham got to a semi-final last season, and are probably going to be in the Conference League final this season, and they're a team battling relegation.

Whereas our Europa / Conference League exploits over the past ten or so years: group stage exit twice, round of 32 exit twice, round of 16 exit three times, and one single quarter-final. And it's nothing to do with the quality of the players as they often do better than that when playing in the Champions League against tougher teams. All down to attitude (of both the players and the higher ups at the club). They are competitions we should be 100% good enough to win if we took them seriously.

At least Harry Kane has the right mindset when he said in a recent interview (paraphrasing) that if you finish in the Europa or Conference League spots, that's what you deserve, and you should see qualifying for those competitions as a chance to win something, not an inconvenience. He needs to get his teammates on the same page, as even a Conference League win next season would have me dancing in the streets. Let's hope we can do enough in the next two matches to stay in the top seven!

[EJG1980]

It was expected, but Lucas Moura has announced that he'll be leaving the club when his contract expires this summer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWOQnxPhbqI

Insert "What? No, I was just chopping onions!" joke here

He never quite managed to become a player who was consistently at or near his best nearly every week, but when he was on it he was superb and loads of fun to watch. Even in those games where he wasn't scoring or assisting, you could always rely on him to put in a shift and work hard for the team.

My favourite Premier League performance from him, in the 3-0 win at Old Trafford in 2018:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1w7fz4kQyo

The obligatory Ajax second leg highlights from 2019:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xykJYYgohSE

And a quick edit to add his stunner against Norwich from last season:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkX4C6G4TEk

[fallenangle]

He has been a favourite with me because he always put in the work and tried to raise the tempo when Spurs were looking flat, particularly when he came on as a sub.

As you say though it was his consistency and, I'd say, effectiveness or lack of in various circumstance that was the issue and he could be pretty anonymous at times.

Sorry to see him go but it was inevitable; Spurs are going to have a clear out this summer anyway and as an under used player and really surplus to requirements he was already a prime candidate for sale at the end of the season. Lloris is likely going as well and I would not be surprised to see some other long serving players go too but hoping that does not include HK.

EDIT
Just have say that Ajax game is still a fantastic watch.

[EJG1980]

Well he can't leave now, not after we made him a mural

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I think Harry will stay next season. At the end of it he'll be able to leave on a free transfer so he can have his pick of clubs, which saves any long drawn out negotiations between a new club and Spurs this summer. Doesn't make a huge difference whether he leaves at 30 or 31, he'll still be able to have a good few years at whatever club he moved to.

It'd also allow him to hedge his bets, so if Spurs get in a new manager that is an instant hit who he loves working with, maybe staying and being a one club legend wouldn't be too unappealing, and he extends his contract after a successful season. Who knows, he may be impressed enough with the new manager and summer overhaul that he decides to sign a new contract this summer; might be wishful thinking but you never know.

[fallenangle]

Going well, so far, today against Brentford.

[EJG1980]

Going well, so far, today against Brentford.

So far ended up being a very important phrase in that sentence

A disappointing (home) end to what has been a disappointing season.

Much like the season itself, it started well, what an absolutely stunning goal from Kane. We actually played with some drive and energy in the first half, put together a number of good attacking moves and should have been more than one up, those good attacking moves only being let down by the final pass or shot not quite being good enough.

And much like the season itself, it got worse in the second half, all the energy and drive from the first half just vanished. Brentford did well, but they weren't amazing, but we dropped off to the point that Brentford just playing "pretty well" was enough for them to run out comfortable winners. The stadium was fairly sparsely populated by the time it came for the lap of honour and end of season awards.

If the scores from the other matches today stay as they are, we'll be out of the top seven going into the final day and whether we have European football or not next season will be out of our hands.

The summer clear out and reset is going to need to be a big one, and a very important one.

[fallenangle]

That "so far" was intended to cover me in case Spurs decided to be 'Spursy' and that second half performance was almost a cliche of that and their season in general.

First half of the season we're top four competitors, second half, as you say, we've slowly slipped down the table and after losing to Brentford we will be lucky to get into any European competition.

[EJG1980]

Could be worse, after yesterday's results at least one of Leicester or Everton are guaranteed to be relegated (and it's still quite possible that both could go down). A team that were champions less than ten years ago and one of England's most historic and successful clubs, both hanging to the top flight by a thread.

Even worse for them is that if Leeds beat West Ham today, they'll both be in the bottom three going into the final day and will need Tottenham to get a result against Leeds for them to have a chance of staying up. Having to rely on Spurs to not let you down is not a place you want to be

Speaking of our own fate, technically we could still get top six if a myriad of results go our way, but I'm expecting Brighton to beat Southampton today to extinguish that very faint possibility.

We can still get seventh if we beat Leeds on the final day and Villa don't beat Brighton. If Villa lose then a draw against Leeds would even be enough to leapfrog Villa, assuming that Brentford don't pull off a shock final day win against Man City to leapfrog both Spurs and Villa. If we lose against Leeds then all bets are off and no Europe for us.

[fallenangle]

I consoled myself yesterday by watching Spurs Women beat Reading 4 - 1 and ensuring they didn't get relegated. It's been a poor season for them too.

There was a truly excellent second goal in that I wish the mens' team had done more often this season.

[EJG1980]

That was indeed a lovely goal, hopefully whoever the new men's manager is next season will get them scoring goals like that on a regular basis.

I loosely follow the women's team, as you mentioned they've had a similar season to the men, albeit a more extreme version: 3 wins in the first 5 matches, culminating with an 8-0 win against Brighton, things looking good, which they followed up by losing the next 9 matches in a row! 2 wins and 2 draws in the 7 matches following that horror run just enough to confirm survival.

The match on Saturday was a "double header", if you had a ticket for the Brentford match you could stay and watch the women's match for free. I think the poor performance of the men affected the attendance for the women; if the men had won and people were in a good mood, I'm sure a lot more would have stuck around for the women's match, rather than being down in the dumps and just wanting to get home asap.

If they do any more dual men & women's match days next season, I think they need to let the women play first. I think you'd get a pretty decent number of people who'd think that as they're going to be at the men's match, why not make a day of it and get there early to also see the women's match. Plus they'd make a killing on the food and drink sales in-between the matches.

[fallenangle]

Great ideas - they should employ you as Spurs new marketing manager.