90291Spur
Paul Walsh
Of course.
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CL Round of 16 Draw: Dortmund
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Robbo
Paul Walsh
Five, technically, but that doesn't make it any better. It should have been us up there on six points, relatively comfortably in second place. We only have ourselves to blame.
Yes, there was a bit of freakish luck with that wonder goal equaliser in Milan and the perfect deflection for PSV's first today, but the fact is we are far to sloppy, we make too many individual errors and we are poor in front of goal. Had we been more clinical, we would have had yesterday wrapped up early, and could even have snatched a draw from Barca.
But mostly it's about the defensive side of our game. Only Red Star Belgrade and Viktoria Plzen have conceeded more goals than us so far in the group stages. And only two teams have committed more fouls than us. It was a foul from Trippier (can't remember if it was debatable) in a dangerous position that led to the equaliser yesterday. We regularly gift opponents free kicks in dangerous positions; often completely unneccessary too.
Then there's individual errors and general sloppiness; Lloris should never have rushed out yestarday and he was completely out of position for Barca's first goal - key moments in those two games. I don't trust either Toby, Sanchez or Dier not to misplace a defensive pass or dribble into trouble. It was apparent yesterday, when Sanchez chose a difficult pass to Toby, who then made things worse by turning into trouble and getting disposessed ---> goal for PSV.
I coule live with that if it was only the occational mistake - nobody's perfect - but this happens far too often at Spurs nowadays. We have possession, we are in control, but then someone makes a poor decision and we're in trouble. Luckily most teams aren't clinical enough to punish us. But for me, there's a certain anxiousness whenever we look comfortable. We don't do comfortable very well - that's when we normally do something silly and get in trouble.
I don't mean to single out these four players in particular; they've just made the most prominent mistakes IMO. This happens far too often with other Spurs players too. We mess up the simple stuff. Until we get better at that aspect of our game, we won't get very far against the better teams. In the PL we will get away with a lot of these errors - and we have so far this season - but in the CL we get punished. If we somehow manage to get into the knockout stages, we will get punished even harder.
DeanoAustin
Rafael Van Der Vaart
That's a fantastic post mate. Great analysis.
I sort of fear for us on Monday. Like you say, against Huddersfield, West Ham or Cardiff we get away with things that we won't against a sides Barca or Emirates Marketing Project. Even though the media are saying "if Spurs beat City, they go ahead of them", I can't in a million years see it happening.
I was encouraged by last night but even if we play well, until we eradicate what you've spoken about above, we're always susceptible against better teams. And I don't see us magically eradicating the mistakes within a week.
I don't know what the problem is though because for the last 2-3 seasons, we just weren't making this many mistakes and even if we we made some, we had enough cover that they didn't result in goals.
If we aim for 2nd and end up 3rd, can we just refuse entry to the wafer cup?
If not, probably best to start sending the kids out from here on in.
If not, probably best to start sending the kids out from here on in.
nayimfromthehalfwayline
Andy Thompson
I would actually love to decline the Europa, that would be a massive statement.
Either that or offer counter terms.
Tell them that we'll enter the competition, but only for as many matches as getting to the CL final would take from here. We'll only play on Wednesdays and won't travel past what we deem to be a decent distance. We'll only play teams with stadia for 30k fans or more, and we want CL money for our efforts.
ShipOfTheseus
Clint Dempsey
No, I'm very much a Spexiteer. I'd rather we walked away than be part of their silly little circus. But if some will insist on us being a part of it, it should be on our terms.
Cakeist.
Craig_J
Mido
We should be able to nominate West Ham to take our place. A big team like them deserve a night at the running track, watching European knockout football with binoculars, being torn apart by Rapid Wien.
GHod knows they'll never get to experience it without a kind hearted gesture from above.
I like that a lot. We could essentially use them as a Spurs B team - they could play all the early League Cup rounds for us too.
ShipOfTheseus
Clint Dempsey
Can we play them against West Ham, as well? It would be their cup final, so exciting for them.
90291Spur
Paul Walsh
I think Levy should hire you to handle these negotiations.
glasgowspur
Andy Thompson
How do they work these out? Hugo could do nothing about the first goal, everything else he did was OK upto the sending. So for one mistake he losses over half the marks?
I think back to the semi final against Utd or the 2nd game against Juve. As soon as they got their noses in front we barely got a sniff (a chance for Kane in the last few mins vs Juve rings a bell). They were so professional in those situations.
As much as I don’t think Utd were any better than us last season, they certainly knew how to close that one out, rigid defending, hitting corners, squeezing up and then stopping play as many times as possible as it try’s to come the other way. Players not on yellows take a yellow, any player that went down stayed down for treatment, standing in front of the ball on free kicks, arguing with the ref. I seem to remember Ashley Young getting plenty of abuse near me for at least one of the above - do u think he cares? Of course not.
We were a goal up with 10 men and still trying to play it out from the back and do the nice things. At some point u need to get nasty in a game.
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