Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

Bad news about ED indeed but we have squad cover for his position so not a disaster. Might be the time to try Foyth there instead as I suggested in an earlier post.

Spurs looked to have dominated the game going by what was on MoTD. Burnley shut up shop and Spurs had to break them down. They left it very, very late. I was keeping an eye on the score and at 85mins and still 0-0 I honestly thought that was it. But they finally got through.

TBH they could/should have had at least one more goal long before then, Son missed a great chance, Hart had to make an excellent save to stop Lamela scoring and earlier DA was inches from being in the right place at the far post to sneak the ball in. A Spurs goal would have changed the match completely, Burnley would have had to come out to attack and maybe have lead to more goals for Spurs.

I didn't want to comment on it until I'd seen the highlights, as I was at the opposite end of the stadium, but we should have had a penalty in the first half when Kane was barged off the ball in the box. All the pundits on Goals on Sunday were in agreement that it was a pretty clear penalty.

Would definitely have changed the game had we got one earlier, but a last gasp win is always an exciting way to get three points, even if you do have to remove your nails with your teeth first

[fallenangle]

I forgot to mention the HK 'penalty' incident - cast iron penalty for me too. Nowadays you just can not barge someone off the ball like that in the box and expect to get away with it. Burnley were lucky but those sorts of questionable refereeing decisions, for and against, usually even themselves out over the season.

[EJG1980]

Lose to Spurs, beat Arsenal; I like Southampton's new manager

No other "bonus" results today, but at least Liverpool winning had the consolation prize of seeing that miserable so and so Mourinho getting thumped.

[EJG1980]

There was a "fan familiarisation event" at the new stadium today, as 6000 season ticket holders got to test out the facilities of the south stand. I wanted my first memories of the new stadium to be on an actual match day so I didn't apply for a ticket, but boy was it tempting! Some great vids and pics on Twitter, Youtube, etc:

Chris Cowlin, who does an excellent weekly video on the stadium:


Some random dude walking from the top to the bottom of the south stand. He stops in row 63 and the view looks great, and my brother and I are in row 61 so I'm very happy with the kind of view we'll be getting.


Some little touches I loved: the centre spot from the old stadium is marked with a plaque in the floor, and one of the walls is covered with old programme covers.





The only thing lacking today was, because the event took place in the south stand, nobody could really get any proper pictures OF the south stand in all its glory.

Desperate to get in there in time for us to have (at least one!) Champions League game there this season. The latest news is that we were really pushing to get in there in time for the Man Utd game on 13th January, but because of the Xmas holidays it would have been extremely difficult to hold the two test events needed before then (lack of staff, police, etc.) so fingers crossed it should be test events in January with the first match being Newcastle at the start of February. Fingers well and truly crossed as hard as possible!

[EJG1980]

Dortmund yet again I would not mind at all. I'll always remember the 3-0 lesson they taught Spurs in the Europa League a couple of years ago, out playing Spurs in all respects.

So it would definitely be a good start to the knockout stage to face them again and give them another slap as we did last year.

You get your wish, Spurs vs Dortmund in the last 16!

Gonna be a tougher than last year as Dortmund have improved and are sitting top of the German League, nine points clear and undefeated after fifteen matches. Yeah, technically they were top when we played them at Wembley last year too, but that was only after about three matches

They've definitely stepped it up a level this season so it's going to be a tough couple of matches between two very good sides. Hopefully we can go at least one round further than last season!

Edit - I was hoping that we'd get into the new stadium in time for the Man Utd match, so we'd get a bit of symmetry with the last match at the old stadium and first at the new being against the same opponent.

Well we're not getting that, but, if we're in there in time for this match we'll have a substitute: last European match at WHL was against Dortmund, first European match at the new stadium against Dortmund... fingers crossed. Although hopefully with a better result this time!

[fallenangle]

Dortmund it is again then - spooky. Wish I could predict the lottery like that.

It'll be a good test that is for sure but Spurs should be confident that they have the ability to beat them. I'd say they were the ideal opponents at this stage, not unbeatably good but little chance it'll be a walkover.

[EJG1980]

Get in! Brilliant performance from Alli with his wonderful pass to Son for the opener and then a lovely finish for the second that sealed the match. Kane’s pass to set up Alli was great as well. A couple of good spells for Arsenal, at the start of the match, end of the first half and start of the second half, but we were the better team for the majority of the match and the win was a deserved one.

Gazzaniga keeps up his undefeated record for Spurs, pulled off a couple of top saves at big moments in the first half from Mkhitaryan and Ramsey, and his quick and accurate distribution played a part in both goals.

Lucas was a bit below his best, but his tackle on Mkhitaryan in the box was superb, and would have resulted in a brilliant goal if Sissoko had some shooting boots. Moussa has been brilliant this season and improved nearly every aspect of his game, alas shooting is the one exception

Ben Davies has done well filling in at centre-back, played well against Burnley and Arsenal. Foyth is back though and Sanchez should also be back for Everton, which we need as Vertonghen is out again until January We're really being put through the mill injury wise this season.

Edit: Chelsea in the semi-final, and if we get past them it's almost certainly Man City in the final. If we win this cup we’ll certainly have deserved it!

I thought we might start getting a bit of a breather after Xmas but a two-legged semi-final means January is going to be packed too. I just saw this morning that there's another Asian tournament which Son has been called up for, so we lose him for a while again as he leaves after the Man Utd match on the 13th.

[fallenangle]

Yep, a fine win yesterday, saw the highlights on Quest. Both goals were excellent but the quality of HK's pass. DA's first touch and finish for his goal was joyously good. Arsenal could have made it a far more difficult game if they taken their chances but they didn't and Spurs did. Great stuff.

Tough to get Chelsea in the semis but we know we can beat them this season. Should be a good match.

I was hoping for Burton not just because of the obvious but for the reason they'd would have at least have been able to play at Wembley even if not in the final. Whoever they'd had: MC, Chelsea or Spurs, it certainly wouldn't have disappointed them but that extra kudos of playing at Wembley would have been a nice reward for getting so far.

But who knows? They could surprise MC.

[EJG1980]

Ha, I used the very same "guarantee Burton get a game at Wembley" reasoning with my brother as to why it would have been perfectly fair to fix the draw to make sure Spurs got Burton

You can never say never in football, after all Man City did get knocked out of the FA Cup by Wigan last season, but... The league cup semi is always harder to get an upset in as it's two legs. Mess up one leg and the big team usually do enough in the other leg to still get through. Bristol City gave Man City a couple of great games last season, but doing it over 180 minutes was just a bit too much. Same with us against Burnley in 2009 and Sheffield Utd in 2015.

Anyway, as long as we're in the final, I'll be happy to take any opponent!

[fallenangle]

Some useful results for Spurs yesterday (Chelsea and MC losing) which makes the Everton match today extra important to win. Three points and we're only two behind MC and four clear of Chelsea and Arsenal.

A lose or draw and short of a Liverpool and MC meltdown even at this point in the season I predict we're just going to be fighting it out with those other two for a CL place next year.

[EJG1980]

That was bloody good

Got sucker punched at the start as we could have been about three nil up when Everton took the lead. I won’t say we were lucky to not go 2-0 down because the Everton player does foul Sanchez, pushes him in the back to stop him from heading the ball. I get the annoyance of Everton fans because it’s only a small thing, but pushing your opponent like he did is against the rules, so big push or small push, it's a foul.

Got the equaliser thanks to a bit of help from Pickford (but still needed a brilliant finish from Son) and didn’t look back. Eriksen’s goal at the start of the second half was a wonderful hit, Lloris really should have saved Gylfi’s shot for Everton’s second, and the move for our sixth goal was wonderful stuff.

Great match, loads of excellent attacking football from us, and I'm not sure the highlights will be able to do it justice. The only downside was Alli going off injured, hopefully more a precaution than anything too serious. Oh, that and the fact that I let my brother take my ticket and go to the match instead of me! Ah well, the last two times he went we lost and drew, so at least I helped him break his duck

[TonyDA]

That was bloody good

Seconded!

[TonyDA]

The only downer, for me, was watching on Sky and Martin Tyler's persistent references to Poch being wanted by Man Utd. I mean, I can understand the press, Sky etc latching onto this link - but how about a bit of bloody respect to the club from a football commentator. Even Gary Neville wasn't as bad as Tyler.

Oh, and he threw the lack of a stadium opening date in as well. Idiot.

[EJG1980]

Gary Neville is alright. He LOVES Poch and I'm sure he's desperate for him to go to Man Utd, but he usually only speaks about it at appropriate times. Martin Tyler gets on my nerves in general, even under normal circumstances

It seems to be beyond his mental faculties to work out that football clubs don't build stadiums, they employ construction firms to do it for them, and there's not a lot a club can do if said construction firm misses the target opening date.

BTW, loved the interview with Poch on MOTD2. It'll be a sad day when his time at the club comes to an end, but I think he'll be here a while longer yet. It seems to be conveniently forgotten that six months ago he turned down Real Madrid to stay with us; if you turn down Real Madrid for Spurs, I think it says a little something about how much you value being at the club.

[fallenangle]

I was going to post that myself about the Poch interview on MotD in case anyone interested missed it - very entertaining. Christian Eriksen's contibution was also good value. He had an excellent game too.

The talk about Poch being wanted by MU I can believe but the question is why would he want to jump ship even in the summer when he has built Spurs into a serious top four contender team/squad? It is his baby and surely the kudos of having done that and the potential for real footballing success with that team, really still not even started is going to be far more rewarding for a manager. An even bigger salary may be tempting but why spend three years rebuilding another team to that point again when you haven't yet achieved everything possible with your current team?

Fantastic result against Everton, only downer really was letting in two goals. But the win was the important thing and if we can get all the points from the three next matches, which is very possible (Bournemouth, Wolves and Cardiff), then the new year could see Spurs really challenging the current top two.