We are Tottenham
Mido
Carrol plays well sometimes in a strong team..but you have to be consistent ..stand up and be counted.imo he doesn't do that...pity!He did last season when he won a couple of player of the months in a decent Swansea side
Carrol plays well sometimes in a strong team..but you have to be consistent ..stand up and be counted.imo he doesn't do that...pity!He did last season when he won a couple of player of the months in a decent Swansea side
Respect for what? There's nothing to be respected about what we did today. Pure and simple.
I'm not entirely sure why posting on forums carries with it a constant need to restate your priors, but I've mentioned countless times before that finishing in the top four alone would be a massive overachievement this season, and that I'm quite happy with how the team has played as a whole in the league this year. Indeed, I'm probably one of the posters most against believing in the title hype, because that would diminish the sense of achievement that will come from finishing in the top four alone.
But this constant need to venerate Poch and preface a discussion of his undoubted failings and missteps with 'oh, but I'm happy with what he's done elsewhere' is just strange to me. Especially coming from insightful posters like @thfcsteff. What chance is there of criticising Poch in a truthful manner if the most one can ever say (lest they offend the more zealous among us) is....'Poch maybe, possibly f*cked up, but it's entirely okay because he's a great bloke who done good in the league and is working on a small budget and changing the club for the better and all that, and I'm terribly sorry for even suggesting that he might have f*cked up'?
Today, there was absolutely nothing, nothing that he did that deserved respect in my eyes. Contrary to certain posters' views, there are people in the fanbase who relish nights like these, a chance to test our mettle against the best and hopefully at the very least make the top sides on the continent respect us more after 90 minutes of furious competition. That's what it's all about, after all. And all that was thrown away because we voluntarily played a second-string eleven that put up a fight and still ended up getting slaughtered.
We lost the chance for a great European night tonight. Poch deserves a hearty, bellowed 'f*ck you!' for that, and he got it. If people take exception to that because it did not involve a constant, pointless restatement of one's priors and a cringing, bowing admission of the omniscience of Poch elsewhere, so f*cking be it.
Oh, some Irish newspaper's suggested that the only reason Dembele, Lamela and Kane were thrown on as they were (1-0, 2-0 and 3-0) was because we would otherwise be fined by UEFA for deliberately fielding a weakened side.
Has this actually happened before? I know we were fined in the 90's (at some point) for fielding a weakened side in the Intertoto Cup, but that precedent seems difficult to enforce. It is of course jaw-dropping that such a situation is even being suggested with regard to a European away game against Borussia f*cking Dortmund...but hey, we brought it on ourselves. However, is there a possibility that we might be fined anyway?
I think I might speak for a lot of people when I say that a lot of the anger being shown is actually generated by the Europa league being a complete fudgeing waste of time if we're never going to field a full strength side in the knockout rounds. So why not just play all under 21s from the start, and save everyone the hassle of playing all those earlier games?
A question for Milo - do you see any net value in playing in the Europa League? What kind of team would you play throughout?
We are playing Aston Villa in our next league game, NOT Arsenal or West Ham....
We need to pay them respect. At a certain point some of those players will fight for their own personal reputations and we need to make sure they don't get a sniff against us. Win the game by HT and then look to add goals second half, but no underestimation!!!
A thought.
Would putting out a side which featured a tired Dier and Kane plus Mousa that still got done, say, 2-0 have been better? BD are a top side. What would it have done to their confidence? What if we had lost either to injury? There are always hard questions to ask. Angry at Poch? I was more upset at the Lamela sub on Sat than anything tonight TBH...
The issue here is why did Poch only start to prioritise the league in February?
In November when we took the entire team to Qarabag and started our first choice team minus the full backs, we were 4 points behind Leicester at the top of the league and had Chelsea at home in 3 days time.
What was the point in sending out strong teams in the group stage again and then fielding weaker teams in the knock outs again?
I would have no problem if he played this team through the whole competition and this is as far as we could go.
The issue here is why did Poch only start to prioritise the league in February?
In November when we took the entire team to Qarabag and started our first choice team minus the full backs, we were 4 points behind Leicester at the top of the league and had Chelsea at home in 3 days time.
What was the point in sending out strong teams in the group stage again and then fielding weaker teams in the knock outs again?
I would have no problem if he played this team through the whole competition and this is as far as we could go.
The issue here is why did Poch only start to prioritise the league in February?
In November when we took the entire team to Qarabag and started our first choice team minus the full backs, we were 4 points behind Leicester at the top of the league and had Chelsea at home in 3 days time.
What was the point in sending out strong teams in the group stage again and then fielding weaker teams in the knock outs again?
I would have no problem if he played this team through the whole competition and this is as far as we could go.
Maybe to do with fitness levels? These will be closely and scientifically monitored. Perhaps more players were capable of 2 games a week then, whereas they aren't now?
Because he has had to keep the squad playing so as we could be second in the league going for the title!!!!!!!
He needs to know what he has at the top top level, jesus, he needs to be able identify what he needs next seasom when we come across the Dortmunds in CL!!!!
I agree Steff so why was the rotation less in he earlier stages of the season? Why were we playing such strong teams in the group stages if, once it came down to it, we wouldn't bother anyway?
I agree he needs to see but as I was saying, I don't consider myself a footballing genius in any way, nor even particularly knowledgeable about football.
What I can tell you thought is that we should not be going to top European teams away with Mason and Carroll as our central midfield pair. We should not have Chadli as a backup striker if we don't feel confident enough using him in domestic league games and only in European games (and he is not good enough again to play upfront away against these kinds of sides).
I don't particuarly feel any of us, whether us lay people in the stands/ internet or Poch need to see us picked apart by Dortmund to know that.
I agree Steff so why was the rotation less in he earlier stages of the season? Why were we playing such strong teams in the group stages if, once it came down to it, we wouldn't bother anyway?
I agree he needs to see but as I was saying, I don't consider myself a footballing genius in any way, nor even particularly knowledgeable about football.
What I can tell you thought is that we should not be going to top European teams away with Mason and Carroll as our central midfield pair. We should not have Chadli as a backup striker if we don't feel confident enough using him in domestic league games and only in European games (and he is not good enough again to play upfront away against these kinds of sides).
I don't particuarly feel any of us, whether us lay people in the stands/ internet or Poch need to see us picked apart by Dortmund to know that.
I watched that shower of brick in a pub in crawley, not with the poster crawley as I believe him to now be dead.
We were second best, no complaints with the result, not sure why we put out such a strong team in the early group matches and dropped points in the following league games to go out in such a poor way tonight.
Think it shows the squad is still to thin, whether we are going to wait for the youngsters to improve or buy some more experienced players in the summer remains to be seen.
On conclusion I still love Poch, love the way we play and the promoting of young players, think we need a few more players in our squad and I would like an old fashioned ball winner like the lad at Leicester.
Anyway onwards and upwards.
PS. If any of you happen to be near Crawley, keep on driving, the amount of people I saw tonight with some form of facial deformity was surreal.
You'd do yourself a MASSIVE favour if you avoided trolling me Dubai. I am leaving you to do what you do. Leave me out of it.
we're having our greatest league campaign of the modern era
that suggests it's been prioritised since August
we felt we could do well so sent a strong team out against Qarabeg
tonight we still felt we could do well so sent a strong team out against Dortmund too
I'm feeling a lot of disrespect for some of our players, it's a squad game these days, 11 good players won't get you anywhere, 12 months ago Bentaleb was "first choice" and Dembele wasn't, Chadli was, Lamela wasnt, things change, everyone has their part to play, I trust Poch to manage that and don't think for a second that tonight's result would have been different with the starting 11 from the Arsenal game, if anything it would have been worse
Poch was the one who thought that Son and Chadli could deputise for Kane. It shows the folly of our failure to sign a striking cover for Kane.