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*** OMT TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR vs Fiorentina 2nd leg ***

Right.
And right now, Dembele instead of Chadli.
My point is that the manager has fashioned a very strong team from the players he has with regards to this who play in his desired style.
He has, since the middle of the season, known where he needs to strengthen the squad and he will do so in the summer whether through youths being developed as we speak and the odd signing.

Yeah, no argument there, but it isn't an intrinsically strong team by itself, was my point. If you put those players under Harry, you'd likely have a train wreck given his preference for proven talent over raw potential.

And why is Chadli out of favour all of a sudden? He wasn't doing badly when he was dropped, and was one of our most dangerous players today (although that isn't saying much). Curious.
 
The Europa league is a real beeyatch. It now has CL as the real prize, yet it gives a team so many games to play. CL is the real goal for the clubs at this point in time due to the money and the players you can attract by being in it. If we had won we'd still have had 5 games including the final and that would, given our squad 'depth', have screwed with our league form. Look how having this game has caused so much hassle before our final. I think use the EL as a way to experiment with players and formations.
 
Leave Soldado there. He has done nothing but.. Well just nothing. That miss the cherry on the top of his woefulness.

All he needs to do is the simple things well. Stay composed, pass into the corner of the net. Stay composed, pass the ball 3 feet.

Have we wasted more money on a player ever?
 
Playing a high line against pacy forwards with that defensive lineup is asking for trouble. I'm surprised Poch doesn't see that.
The pitch looked huge too -but the amount of space in behind our back four -they could have scored a few more on the counter or even pressing our defenders.

Even if Soldado had managed to pass the ball properly they would have still scored against that set up. Let's not do that Sunday.
 
I think you will find that is generally what I am saying. If the players put it in a bit more and made the pressure and possession pay then this result wouldn't have happened. And for your information I don't think this tournament is below us but we should be beating Fiorentina relatively comfortably over two legs
And we should beat West Ham on paper, but in reality, we were not good enough. Maybe, even for me, the reality of the lack of quality in our squad has shown us that we can't expect miracles, we are a team that struggles to get top 4-6 and when we meet a team with any sort of quality in Europe we get put in our place, perhaps on the bigger stage like Arsenal etc do. Surely, the great Arsenal should beat a 4th place team in the French league, maybe they could rest players in the 2nd leg, oh wait no.... Typical ignorant English teams get put in their place like has happened so many times.
 
Its that time when you look back at those endless group games and the missed missed points in the league. Find our EL defeats surprisingly painful. We just fall apart like a wet paper bag usually.

Hope liverpool get through but don't win it to (hopefully) help us in the league.
 
One of those ties I suppose... I think we were very unlucky overall, although there's obviously also an element of not being good enough.

Lack of experience, but perhaps ironically it was 3 of our most experienced players letting us down in key situations today.

Thought we were very good in the first half. Professional, patient, attacking, but not overdoing it. Creating chances, controlling the tempo and the game. Struggled to compose ourselves after conceding and that's where I think our lack of experience showed.

Onwards and upwards I say!
 
As usual Spurs let you down. Pathetic errors have cost us.

Should have played strongest team in both games and rested players v West Ham which was a nothing game.

Onwards for Sumday for more disappointment
 
Ultimately we are a work in progress. We have to be better than we played over these two matches. Poch has to roll his sleeves up now, and fight back.
 
The Europa league is a real beeyatch. It now has CL as the real prize, yet it gives a team so many games to play. CL is the real goal for the clubs at this point in time due to the money and the players you can attract by being in it. If we had won we'd still have had 5 games including the final and that would, given our squad 'depth', have screwed with our league form. Look how having this game has caused so much hassle before our final. I think use the EL as a way to experiment with players and formations.

The competition is seriously terrible. The best reform to make now would be to eliminate the CL dropouts from the competition, which would hopefully lead to those extra two games (round of thirty-fudging-two) being tossed out. Of course, the TV guys would never stand for such a thing.
 
The competition is seriously terrible. The best reform to make now would be to eliminate the CL dropouts from the competition, which would hopefully lead to those extra two games (round of thirty-fudgeing-two) being tossed out. Of course, the TV guys would never stand for such a thing.

Totally agree.
 
Stambouli, Fazio and Davies are better than the squad players that they replaced. Would you rather have had Capoue, Kaboul and Naughton playing tonight? We all know that there is a drop in quality outside of the core group of players and that this needs addressing in the summer.

With regards to January, which players in these positions changed clubs that we should have signed?

I am not sure that these three have actually improved us.

Emirates Marketing Project, Chelsea and Arsnl all brought in quality players in January. Are you really telling me there was no one in the whole football world we could have brought in? Especially when it was so evident we were lacking at CF. Without Kane, we have two duds to chose from. Just not good enough for a team competing at Chrismas on four fronts.
 
Not good enough in either end of the pitch. Bad mistakes by our center backs for the goals against, and a big miss by Soldado the one time we managed to create a good goalscoring opportunity.

We probably looked a slightly better side over the two legs, but we didn't take our opportunities in attack, made mistakes at the back, and then you can't have any complaints. Fiorentina sat back today, though, so our dominance was pretty much handed to us.

Once again we showed that we have no idea of how we are going to break down teams who sit back and defend well. We created no goalscoring opportunities that I can recall when Fiorentina were settled at the back. Seemingly no collective plan and today not enough individual quality either. We only ever look good when games go end to end and we are given space to attack in. I hope Pochettino can improve our established attacking play next season. Hopefully he will also learn to make better substitutions cause I think they are consistently poor.
 
Our first 11 is very very strong, but as we've been saying all season, Poch is dealing with an under-strength hand and has done wonders in a short space of time given the style of play he wants to execute.

It is a matter of continual debate whether players such as Bobby and Lamela are going to cut it. With us, I'd say Bobby most certainly not. I still think he will be a top player somewhere, but the comparisons with Torres post dippers are clear. Lamela shows great promise for me, but I would hold my hands up and say on nights like tonight he needs to start showing up and deliver more.

I think it was Pirate 55 who asked if anyone ever seriously thought we would win this trophy anyway, and truth be told, hand-on-heft, my answer would have been 'no'. As a supporter I hoped but yes, I always felt it was unlikely.

You could not have a better game to bounce back in than Sunday. COYS

I'd agree with this, with our attitude shown, you get away with it in earlier games against Fc whatever but you can't get away with it with teams in our bracket or above. It is silly and arrogant and you get your rewards. If I was to blame Poch, its why he did'nt do a Redknapp and throw this earlier rather than go this far and suffer and then throw the effort all away. Hopefully, we finish 8th this year, rather than waste our time on this.
 
The competition is seriously terrible. The best reform to make now would be to eliminate the CL dropouts from the competition, which would hopefully lead to those extra two games (round of thirty-fudgeing-two) being tossed out. Of course, the TV guys would never stand for such a thing.

I agree but the CL place for the winner is a massive step in the right direction, it's more important now than the domestic cups
 
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