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    Weird performance today and not in a good way. All the bad things some of our players do: lingering on the ball (typical of Dembele on a bad day), sloppy passes (Dier and, unusually Alderwiereld), bad decisions (Vorm) etc etc just seemed amplified and with HK and Eriksen clearly not on form we were lucky to get away with just a 1-2 lose.

    But having ridden our luck we still could/should have got a point out the game if the good chances there were had been put away.

    My feeling is that that the problems at the back stemmed from Vorm. The second Liverpool goal was caused by Vertongen clearly not having as much confidence in the goal keeper as Lloris. That nervousness at the back affected the whole team. Judging from what I heard on R5L and saw on MotD it was only when Wanyama and Lamela came on that Spurs started to click a bit better.

    Interested to see if Anthony Martial will be available in January as some sources suggested he might be. I was thinking earlier today that with Lucas being our brightest spark Martial might be a bit redundant now. But if Spurs are going to be serious Premiership title contenders we have to have quality in squad depth. If the price is right he'd certainly add some attacking midfield class.

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      A couple of poor performances and results but I trust Poch will work out what needs to be done to get certain players back to their best, whether it means leaving them out for a couple of matches or keeping in the team and ploughing through the rough patch.

      I do remember a couple of years ago though, when Eriksen was going through a bit of a poor spell of form, Poch took him off at half time in one game and then dropped him from the next. It worked and when Poch put him back in he was superb for the rest of the season. Maybe it would work again now, as he looks like he needs some kind of jolt. Depending on the formation we play, you could have Kane up front with the three behind him being Moura and Son wide with Lamela in the middle.

      Even though I'm a fan of his, I think it's time for Dier to drop to the bench and give Wanyama a chance to reclaim his spot in midfield. Dier's passing has become a bit too sloppy a bit too often, including last season.

      Kane I think is the kind of player you just leave in there to ride out the rough patch (and even below his best he's still got a couple of goals this season) and suddenly it just clicks again and he'll be banging in the goals for fun just like usual.

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        Gah, what a kick in the balls that was. Meh first half with neither side playing too well, second half we got on top and, while not brilliant, deservedly took the lead and had a couple of chances to increase it.

        Inter didn't look like creating anything and we were very comfortable, so it'd take a wonder strike out of the blue to get them back into it... and alas that's what they got, incredible strike by Icardi, nothing you can do about goals like that. Then our Achilles heel of letting in goals from set pieces strikes again at the death and within five minutes we went from a very good win, to a slightly disappointing but still good draw, to bugger all.

        Gutting, as we didn't deserve to be on the losing side, just gotta take it on the chin and pick ourselves up.

        On an individual front I've gotta say Aurier played really well today, probably his best performance in a Spurs shirt. Excellent in defence, nobody got past him all night long and he put in some great tackles. Put in some great attacking runs forward, and I think one misplaced pass all night.

        Edit: apparently he was marking Vecino who scored the winner at the corner. Icardi blocked Aurier from staying with Vecino and when corner was cleared Aurier started following the ball instead of trying to get back to Vecino (although Winks was still near him) so he was free to score when then ball came back in for the second time. So a bit of a blemish, but I stand by it being a very good performance overall.
        Last edited by EJG1980; 18-09-2018, 20:44.

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          Really disappointing to lose like that. It happens, but we can't afford to lose again or we'll not even get out of the group stage which, bearing in mind the teams we're up against, is a tough enough task anyway. Whatever the result against Barcelona Spurs will likely have to beat Inter Milan at Wembley now.
          Last edited by fallenangle; 21-09-2018, 15:25.

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            Originally posted by fallenangle View Post
            Really disappointing to lose like that. It happens, but we can't afford to lose again or we'll not even get out of the group stage which, bearing in mind the teams we're up against, is a tough enough task anyway. Whatever the result against Barcelona Spurs will likely have to beat Real Madrid at Wembley now.
            I hope we have to beat Real Madrid at Wembley, it'd mean we'd be in the knockout stages

            The final match of the group for us in away against Barcelona, while Inter have PSV at home, so hopefully we're ahead of Inter going into that match or it'll be an uphill struggle. A loooooong way to go before then though. And maybe if Barca have already qualified at that point, it'll end up being to our advantage. Or maybe we'll have won every match and it'll be Barca that need the points.... too optimistic?

            There's a good article on football.london where Poch goes into a bit of detail about how he likes us / wants us to play and the differences he saw between the performances against Liverpool and Inter. It's an interesting read and you don't often hear managers going into details like that.

            Every word of Mauricio Pochettino's fascinating tactical breakdown of how he wants Spurs to play

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              Sorry, of course I meant Inter Milan it must have been because I was reading about Real Madrid/Gareth Bale/Modric etc Just before I posted that.

              Thanks for that link; interesting stuff.

              Saturday Edit:-

              Well thank the footballing gods for that: a win, yay! I was beginning to forget what that felt like.

              Letting in another late goal is a bit concerning. Going to watch it on MotD later.
              Last edited by fallenangle; 22-09-2018, 19:13.

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                Not a vintage performance but a deserved win. First half was pretty much all Spurs, we started faster than we have done in recent matches, not a ton of chances but we were well in control and Gazzaniga was a spectator. Superb penalty from Harry, crazy crazy handball by the Brighton player to give it away.

                Second half, Brighton stepped up their game and it was much more even. For a while Brighton didn't really create any clear cut chances but they were doing enough to make it quite nervy, and luckily when they did get their one big chance to make it 1-1 they shot straight at the keeper. 2-0 with a lovely move, very composed finish by Lamela, who again came on, made a difference, and got us playing better.

                Very sloppy goal to give away right at the death, the defence was caught way too high up the pitch after a Kane shot was saved and their keeper launched a long ball forwards. No need at all for the defence to be that far up when we're 2-0 up in injury time. Nearly s*** myself when Brighton had one more shot just before the whistle, thankfully Gazza held on to it

                Fingers crossed the boost of the win will set us off on a good run of results now.

                Edit: just watching Goals on Sunday and wanted to say that it was great seeing Aaron Lennon put in such a good performance for Burnley. After the mental health problems he had a while ago, it's good to see him playing well, hopefully he's in a much happier place mentally now.
                Last edited by EJG1980; 23-09-2018, 11:47.

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                  Yes, I watched the highlights of the Burnley match on MotD yesterday too. I'm always interested in how long time, good ex-Spurs players are doing (like Bale, Modric, Sigurdsson etc). It was indeed pleasing to see Aaron Lennon looking to be back on form and doing just the sort of fast wing play and ghosting in at the far post he was renowned for at Spurs.

                  Just hope when we play them in December he has a bad day.

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                    Good cup tie tonight... well, if you disregard the first seventy-five minutes or so! Actually it wasn't too bad really, the second half was an improvement on the first, but it really got going at the end.

                    A manic last fifteen minutes with Spurs going down to ten after Aurier was injured after we'd made all our subs, Watford going down to ten when giving away a penalty, Alli slotting home the PK to draw us level, Lamela (5 goals and 2 assists in his last 5 games) finishing off a great counter attack to look like we'd turned it around for the win, only for a last gasp Capoue shot to take a massive deflection off Ben Davies to end up in the net and level it up at the death.

                    Very happy for Gazzaniga. He's lucky if he gets one start a season so it's great to see him make the two saves in the shoot out, be the hero, and have a nice moment for himself.

                    Edit: I don't know if they showed any highlights on TV yesterday night, but Spurs usually upload highlights of most matches to Youtube these days, if you ever miss any (although, bizarrely, they only include the final two penalties of the shoot out instead of the whole thing).

                    Last edited by EJG1980; 27-09-2018, 10:29.

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                      The Carabao Cup is being covered on terrestrial TV in a fairly decent highlights programme, with oddly little promotion that I've seen, on the Quest (Freeview 37) channel. That's where I watched it last night with Emile Heskey providing the punditry.

                      Strange game, Spurs B+ team, a nondescript first 45mins and Spurs, back to their bad old ways, go to sleep at half time and give a (good) goal away almost immediately on restart. Then it goes a bit bleh again but with both teams having chances to score. Suddenly it all kicked off with the penalty, harsh sending off, Aurier injury, that really good Lamela goal putting us into the lead and then their equalizer. We win on penalties.

                      It was particularly pleasing DA didn't fluff his lines and not only scored another penalty also the one that actually won the match. Must have been very satisfying doing that and playing as captain at his old home ground.

                      Saturday Edit

                      Good, solid, professional win today.
                      Last edited by fallenangle; 29-09-2018, 15:58.

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                        Yup, straightforward, although Huddersfield worked really hard and put up a good fight, though aside from three long range shots (two saves from Paulo Gazzaniga and Depoitre being unlucky to hit the bar) they created little.

                        Perhaps the most pleasing thing was that, given our slip ups from set pieces so far this season, virtually every single long throw, corner, or cross into the box was headed away by a Spurs player, it can't have been far off a 100% clearance success rate. Davinson Sanchez was particularly good at that today.

                        We were happy to let Huddersfield have the ball and played on the counter (a rare match where we had less possession that the opposition), and had five or six breaks in the second half where we should have done better and got at least one more goal. No matter though, saving them for Wednesday

                        It'll be interesting to see what team we put out against Barca as we've got quite a few players who are doubtful: Eriksen, Alli, Vertonghen, Dembele, Lloris.

                        Edit: early in the season I know, but a draw in Chelsea vs Liverpool would be useful, to catch up a couple of points on both.

                        Edit edit: and Harry Kane's 2 goals today take him clear of Jermain Defoe to become our 5th top scorer of all time. 15 more needed to move up to fourth ahead of Cliff Jones. Just the 122 to go to overtake Jimmy Greaves
                        Last edited by EJG1980; 29-09-2018, 17:00.

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                          Big day today, first bit of grass going down for the piutch at the new stadium. I've read before that the groundskeepers don't like a big gap between installing the pitch and the first match being played on it, so hopefully this means we're not too far away from test events and then the real opening match. Lots of speculation that Burnley in mid December will get the nod.



                          Lots of injury problems for us heading into the Barca match (and beyond). Eriksen, Dembele, Alli, Vertonghen and Aurier are all injured and not slated to return until after the international break. Lloris is back, however.

                          I saw a journalist speculating that as we played a back three in both matches against Madrid last season, we may go with that again against Barca: Dier, Sanchez, Alderweireld at the back, Winks and Wanyama in midfield.

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                            Please Poch: no Dier in the back three. As I've said here before if anyone is going to make mistakes it is going to be him, in front of a back three yes, that's where he is best. Problem is we're running short of natural defenders so he might have to play in the back three despite my misgivings.

                            I really hope I'm wrong but I hav this horrible feeling we could get well stuffed if Barca are on form.

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                              Given the injuries, I’m delighted with tonight’s team. When I was asked about it at work today, it’s the very same team I picked - apart from Rose/ Davies.

                              Fallenangle - no Dier at all!

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                                First of all one must doff one's cap to Lionel Messi. One of the best performances I've seen live from one of the best players of all time; you can't complain when you lose against a team with a player performing to that level.

                                Despite the final score I was really proud of the team and we walked away from the stadium with a lot to be positive about. We showed a hell of a lot of fight and character to stay in with a chance of a point until the final minute of that match. Especially with the various set backs of gifting them a goal in the first minute, conceding a third only a few minutes after getting back into it at 1-2...

                                We rode our luck at the start of the second half with Messi hitting the post twice, could have easily been 3-0 down, but we took that bit of luck and got back into it with Kane's goal. Almost immediately it's 3-1 to Barca and you think that'll knock the stuffing out of us, but nope, kept on fighting and got back into it again.

                                Like I said, we rode our luck at times to get to that point, but from the moment we made it 2-3 to the moment Messi killed it off in the final minute, we had a genuine chance of snatching a point. The 25 minutes where the scoreline was at 2-3 was nuts, the atmosphere was amazing, and there was a genuine belief in the team and crowd that we might be able to do it. If that Lucas Moura chance had hit the back of the net instead of being stopped by a last ditch clearance the roof would have blown off the place.

                                Not to be, and we were beaten by a superior team who won deservedly, but we did not go down without a fight. Some very good second half performances from the likes of Kane, Lamela (I will be so gutted if he has a serious injury) but special praise for Harry Winks, I thought he was fantastic in that second half, he put in one hell of a shift and seemed to be everywhere on the pitch.

                                So, gonna be very tough to get through the group, but it's still doable. We HAVE to win both matches against PSV, hope Barca do the double over Inter, and then we have to beat Inter at home. And even then we'd probably need a point from Barca away in the final game, unless PSV did us a big favour against Inter. Still, one step at at time

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