Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

I do not understand why Foyth has been thrown in at the deep end right from the start...

Injuries and fitness. I agree with what you say, in an ideal world you play your strongest eleven and ease the youth players in in less high profile matches, but we haven't had an ideal world when it comes to the defence. I think the fact that (as you said) Poch hasn't really thrown any other youth player in at the deep end like this before, shows it's more circumstances forcing his hand rather than Poch thinking that this is the ideal way for Foyth to gain experience.

Foyth has only started getting into the team for the league with Vertonghen and Sanchez injured. Dier, who was often dropped into defence in previous seasons, was also injured, and since he's been back Dembele and Wanyama have been injured so Dier's can't drop back into defence as he's needed in midfield. At the start of the season when they were all fit, Foyth wasn't even making the bench.

Speculation on my part but seeing as Toby missed just over four months last season with a hamstring injury, and I think has played every match this season bar West Ham in the cup, I wouldn't be surprised if the medical / fitness team told Poch that him playing three massive games in 7 days was probably taking a risk with his fitness.

Jan was only just back in training for two days before Chelsea, so that match was always going to be Toby and Foyth. Foyth isn't in the CL squad so the Inter match was always going to be Toby and Jan, and IF you've been told Toby playing three in a row is an injury risk, that leaves Foyth and Vertonghen for the Arsenal match.

I just can't see Poch not going with his best and most experienced pairing in the biggest matches for no good reason, it's not something he's done before, so I conclude that he's putting out the best team he can that doesn't take an unnecessary risk with anyone's fitness.

[fallenangle]

Hopefully we'll get a good result against Southampton and I wouldn't be surprised if, with all the important fixtures coming up and even though we need to make sure of a win, Poch didn't use Spurs B at least to start this match. Llorente with Son up front resting HK. Eriksen will probably start just to get him match fit again, same with Trippier as he's apparently fit now .

[EJG1980]

Yup, Poch has got quite a challenge juggling the players for the run of fixtures we're on since coming back from the international break:

Chelsea, 3 days off, Inter, 3 days off, Arsenal, 2 days off, Southampton, 2 days off, Leicester, 2 days off, Barcelona, 3 days off, Burnley, 2 days off, Arsenal, 3 days off, Everton, 2 days off, Bournmouth, 2 days off, Wolves, 2 days off, Cardiff......



I think you're right that we'll see a "weaker" team tonight, then full strength against Leicester and Barca, before another weakened team to give some players a rest against Burnley.

Hopefully we'll get a few more players back from injury soon because that's a tough enough run with a fully fit squad, let alone one that's been depleted by injury.

Edit: not as depleted a side as I thought it would be tonight. I hope Trippier went off at the end as a precaution rather than him being injured again straight away! At least Rose came thorough his first match in two months without a problem.

Fairly straightforward win, got to 3-0 without very little fuss, the only scare being Hojbjerg's excellent long range shot that was met with an equally good save from Lloris. Southampton did very very little aside from that, for the first hour.

From about an hour onwards though you could see we slowed right down to conserve energy (not surprising given our schedule before and after this match) but perhaps took our foot off the gas a little too much as Southampton had a good spell until the end of the match and should have got one back before their last minute consolation, but were denied by some fantastic saves from Lloris and the woodwork. Of Saints 18 shots in the match I'm sure at least 13-14 of them were in the last twenty minutes.

I don't think Poch wanted us to take our foot off the gas as much as we did as he said after the match that he was quite disappointed with the amount of chances we conceded in the final part of the match.

Good win though and a deserved three points. Nice to see Man Utd come from behind twice against Arsenal and a fantastic unexpected bonus from Wolves against Chelsea. Shame Burnley didn't keep the lead against Liverpool but that would probably have been asking too much

[fallenangle]

Yes a pity about Burnley but those two other results were a very welcome bonus.

Saw the Southampton game highlights on MotD and it appeared to match your description perfectly. They could have got something out the match, hitting the bar or post 3(?) times and indeed H.Lloris had to make some genuinely world class saves to keep them from scoring. But Spurs dominated the majority of the game and well deserved the victory.

Praise too for Son who is now right back to his best form.

[EJG1980]

Very good, professional performance, in control for the vast majority of the 90 minutes and as good a warm up for Tuesday as you could hope for. Wasn't an amazing first half but Son's brilliant goal broke the deadlock at just the right moment.

The second half was nice and straightforward especially after Dele Alli made it 2-0. Alli was perhaps offside by about an inch but I don't think you complain too much when it's virtually impossible for the linesman to see, and not even fully conclusive on the replays.

Aside from his goal is was a fantastic performance from Alli tonight, ran the game and was at the heart of all our good play. Winks also had an excellent game, kept everything ticking over in midfield very well. Son's good form continues with another goal and setting up Alli for the second.

Up to third again and only six points off the top after Man City losing earlier today. Now to cross every single body part possible and hope we can pull off an amazing CL comeback on Tuesday! Barca haven't lost at home in the CL since May 2013 so it's going to be one hell of a task but, hey, you never know.

Edit: could be a massive night for Kyle Walker Peters on Tuesday, with Trippier already injured and Aurier going off with a knock he might be our only fit right back. Poch has said in his post match interview that he'd have no hesitation in naming KWP in the starting eleven if the other two aren't fit.

[fallenangle]

As you say a good professional performance against Leicester, a very useful boost before that very significant CL match.

Son's goal was excellent - reminded me of Andros Townsend who, if you saw him coming in diagonally from the right wing you just knew he was going to pull the trigger at some point whilst moving across the edge of the box.

I was watching the Crystal Palace v. Burnley match Saturday last week on MotD and he did exactly that as he often did at Spurs. Burnley hadn't done their homework just like Leicester hadn't with Son. On the sort of form Son is on at the moment I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who scored against Barcelona rather than HK who will most likely be treated as the main goal threat and marked/muscled out of the match.

[EJG1980]

I was gonna say that I wouldn't bet against Harry as he did score against them in the first match, and has an excellent Champions League record, but that's rather superfluous as he has an excellent record in everything!

In the end though, as long as we've got at least one more goal than they have, I don't care if they're all own goals that deflect off eight players and then get blown over the line by a strong gust of wind

Looks like KWP is almost certainly going to play as both Aurier and Tripper have stayed in London for treatment to injuries. I suppose he could move Dier to right back, he hasn't played there for a while but did it quite a lot in his first season with us. Or play one of Ben Davies or Danny Rose out of position on the right. But from his comments after the Leicester match, it looks like KWP should get the nod. Wouldn't be a bad few days for him: a rare Premier League appearance, new five year contract, starting in the CL against Barca!

[fallenangle]

Please no Dier in the back four - he's OK as a last ditch stand in but, as I've said here before, he makes mistakes often lingering on the ball when he shouldn't. Operating in front of the back line is where he excels and so I'd actually be reasonably happy if KWP is used in that right back role as long as he has that sort of experienced protection Dier can give in front of him to keep the pressure off.

[EJG1980]

Hehe, I'm pretty sure from all his interviews that he's going to go with KWP, just looking at all the possible scenarios

The Spurs under 19 side just beat Barca 2-0 in Spain to qualify for the next round of the youth tournament ahead of Inter; let's hope that's a good omen and the first team can do exactly the same.

Starting to get nervous now It'll be bloody marvellous if we can pull this off.

[EJG1980]

Get the expletive in!!!!!

Thought it was gonna be one of those nights tonight, we missed SO MANY chances to score in the second half that it just seemed inevitable that we were going to regret it, went nuts when we finally put the ball in the net. Then when Rose missed that fantastic chance to win the match right at the end we were thinking "Ohhhhhhh, if Inter score a winner after we missed that......." but thank eff PSV held on.

After his mistake that let Barca score the opener, I thought KWP did really well to keep his composure and he was pretty decent after that, including a great block at the end of the first half. So glad we ended up going through so his mistake can be forgotten. I thought Rose was absolutely brilliant tonight, superb going in both directions.

Lamela and Lucas were excellent when they came on and gave us fresh impetus, drove forwards and played lots of clever balls, both played a vital part in the goal.

Sissoko was great again, especially as he had to switch from central midfield to right back in the second half. There were very good performances all over the pitch though, only really Son who was below his best, which was surprising after how good he's been in recent weeks.

In summary, phew, and woohoo

[fallenangle]

I couldn't quite believe it, Spurs matching IM and going through.

Skin of their teeth but nevertheless an excellent result.

CL knockout stages here we come.

[EJG1980]

It was a remarkable turnaround between the first three matches and the final three matches. We went from letting in late goals to drop points (86th and 92nd minute to lose against Inter, 87th minute to draw with PSV) to scoring late goals to go through (89th minute winner vs PSV, 80th minute winner against Inter, 85th minute equaliser against Barca).

It's almost certainly going to be a tough last 16 match. As it stands the only team we'd be favourites against would be Porto, probably evens with Dortmund (though they've stepped up a level this season), and underdogs against all the others.

As we played Juve, Madrid and Dortmund last season, I'd like us to get Bayern Munich if we have to have a big name in the next round (assuming Ajax don't leapfrog them) as they're the only traditional "super club" we haven't played recently. Although in the interests of going through, Porto would be our best chance.

Edit: I dunno if there were any highlights on terrestrial telly, but if not, BT Sport have uploaded a highlights package on Youtube.

[fallenangle]

Due to all the Brexit/Government extended news stuff on ITV they seem to have dumped the CL highlights programme they usually do late evening on Wednesday. Not on tonight either as far as I can see so they might have shifted it somewhere else but if it was on I missed it.

So thanks for that.

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. That was made worse by Liverpool, demonstrably not as good as Spurs that season, later beating them 4-3 (5-4) to get to the semi-final.

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.

I do not want to see us go out at the first hurdle after just scraping through like we have, that would be humiliating. If we can avoid the really big boys in the first round that would be ideal, we're going to have face one or more eventually of course. I'd just prefer that was later.


EDIT 12.55pm
Just watched those highlights. Looked like a really great match and the score could have been 3-4 to Spurs with all those missed chances.

The HK one really annoyed me because he was doing the right thing: moving across the incoming defender's run. But his second touch, unusually, was all wrong forcing him to move slightly right, trying to get the angle on the goalie rather than keep moving left across the closing defender whose presence forced him to shoot slightly too early. It still should have been on target.

[EJG1980]

It was one of those matches today where you can say that Spurs deserved to win because of our dominance and chances created, but equally Burnley had a game plan, stuck to it well, and nearly pulled it off, so if they had got a point you'd have to had said fair play to them.

It was pretty much 90 minutes of eleven men behind the ball from Burnley, with them saying "break us down if you can". Didn't create too many clear cut chances in the first half but one good one for Lucas. In the second half the chances we were creating were getting better, but we just couldn't find the finish, until we finally did it in the last minute. A few chances for Lamela today where he should have done better.

I have to say, after they had two players booked for time wasting, and Joe Hart taking an eternity with everything he did (and enjoying doing it), it was highly satisfying to give them a bit of stick after they we rushing everything after our goal

Well done to Oliver Skipp who made his debut and had a solid game, rarely put a foot wrong and played some nice forward passes. You wouldn't have guessed he was only 18 and it was his first Premier League start.

Edit:

Blimey, Eric Dier was out of the squad yesterday with a "virus" and this morning Spurs have announced that he's had his appendix out. He'll be back in training in January, but with the Xmas period being so packed he'll miss a good 5-6 matches. Might see a bit more of Oliver Skipp now, big chance for him.

[fallenangle]

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.