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

[imcallingbullsh*t]

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.

I think today's substitutions were as much about Sunday as today. Bentaleb needs a rest so made sense rather than stambouli. Verts went as Fazio wont play v Chelsea. Chadli doesn't look with it and we needed some width. Could have argued about bringing Lamela off but it was a 50/50 one.

 

[90291Spur]

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

Which brings us to the question, would you then play strong in the EL and weak in FA and League cups?

 

[Baleforce]

Which brings us to the question, would you then play strong in the EL and weak in FA and League cups?

personally yeah, but I'm all about the CL

 

[nayenezgani]

At least the dippers have to play ET in Turkey.

 

[90291Spur]

personally yeah, but I'm all about the CL

Fair enough!

 

[Robspur12]

Very angry with that performance. Elite sports man who are just mentally weak, soldado, Vertonghen and Fazio. Honestly typical Spurs just not good enough. We will not be a top side if we don't work on the psychology of our players. Roy Keane said it, " spurs will always let you down" when are we going to change this mentality.

 

[King of Norway]

I think today's substitutions were as much about Sunday as today. Bentaleb needs a rest so made sense rather than stambouli. Verts went as Fazio wont play v Chelsea. Chadli doesn't look with it and we needed some width. Could have argued about bringing Lamela off but it was a 50/50 one.

I see the point about Bentaleb, but when we first took our first team down there, played several players who are likely to start again on Sunday, it seemed a bit strange to weaken the team when we still only needed one more goal.

I thought Soldado and Lamela should have come off. Chadli was slightly better than Lamela for me, and he is a goal threat, which Lamela isn't. Putting Lamela on the left and Townsend on the right didn't give us more width.

Kane should have played up front where he is more likely to get a goal. Soldado was never likely to score.

 

[braineclipse]

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

Very simply put... The knockout stages started with 32 teams.32! For illustration that's the same number of teams as there are at the World Cup.

Anyone thinking that out of all those 32 teams the likelihood of us winning is particularly high are either deluded or have absolutely no grasp of basic statistics. The second seems pretty likely considering claims about this being a much more likely avenue into the CL than the league type comments. Even if we were the best team in the thing chances are we wouldn't win it and probably there were 12-13 teams at least with a realistic chance of winning the thing. We were amongst the favourites, but in no way a runaway favourite.

To win it we would need at least one or two close ties to go our way. We certainly needed a tie like the one against Fiorentina where we overall were quite clearly the better team (imo) to swing our way. But in a tournament with 32 teams in it chances are all the things that have to go our way won't the vast majority of the time.

For me the take away positive is that we were the better team. People will complain, as they are in most threads. But we performed reasonably well. This despite us actually rotating and resting players because of the League Cup final and because we're still in the race for 4th in the league. Fiorentina on the other hand didn't have a cup final this Sunday and rested players in the league instead. Despite this we were the better team overall. The negativity is way over the top.

 

[90291Spur]

At least the dippers have to play ET in Turkey.

Don't hate me for this but I want them to go through and have the extra games to play.

 

[90291Spur]

Very angry with that performance. Elite sports man who are just mentally weak, soldado, Vertonghen and Fazio. Honestly typical Spurs just not good enough. We will not be a top side if we don't work on the psychology of our players. Roy Keane said it, " spurs will always let you down" when are we going to change this mentality.

When Poch as had a chance to buy players he wants and see which of the players he inherited can step it the fcuk up.

 

[Robspur12]

The only positive from today is that we didn't have to play extra time and penalties. Honestly Soldado is all shot at Spurs he is mentally not right and needs to Move on.

 

[King of Norway]

Very angry with that performance. Elite sports man who are just mentally weak, soldado, Vertonghen and Fazio. Honestly typical Spurs just not good enough. We will not be a top side if we don't work on the psychology of our players. Roy Keane said it, " spurs will always let you down" when are we going to change this mentality.

It must be in the walls, or in the water or something, though. No matter which players we bring in, it is always the same. Or maybe our focus is wrong and we are not good enough at bringing in players who are winners.

 

[90291Spur]

Very simply put... The knockout stages started with 32 teams.32! For illustration that's the same number of teams as there are at the World Cup.

Anyone thinking that out of all those 32 teams the likelihood of us winning is particularly high are either deluded or have absolutely no grasp of basic statistics. The second seems pretty likely considering claims about this being a much more likely avenue into the CL than the league type comments. Even if we were the best team in the thing chances are we wouldn't win it and probably there were 12-13 teams at least with a realistic chance of winning the thing. We were amongst the favourites, but in no way a runaway favourite.

To win it we would need at least one or two close ties to go our way. We certainly needed a tie like the one against Fiorentina where we overall were quite clearly the better team (imo) to swing our way. But in a tournament with 32 teams in it chances are all the things that have to go our way won't the vast majority of the time.

For me the take away positive is that we were the better team. People will complain, as they are in most threads. But we performed reasonably well. This despite us actually rotating and resting players because of the League Cup final and because we're still in the race for 4th in the league. Fiorentina on the other hand didn't have a cup final this Sunday and rested players in the league instead. Despite this we were the better team overall. The negativity is way over the top.

Nicely said. To state again, I love us winning cups as I bleat on here I have seen it - albeit many years ago (wasn't it fun, Steff?), but right now I'd prefer us to have five great results in the league and a CL spot than get to the EL final.

 

[mudshark]

The purpose of the Europa League is to ensure the approved sides all have the best chance of getting back in the CL year in, year out. Dangling the carrot of a CL place as a reward for winning it only increases the likelihood the chasers will knacker themselves trying to stay in the competition instead of using fringe players.

 

[braineclipse]

Very angry with that performance. Elite sports man who are just mentally weak, soldado, Vertonghen and Fazio. Honestly typical Spurs just not good enough. We will not be a top side if we don't work on the psychology of our players. Roy Keane said it, " spurs will always let you down" when are we going to change this mentality.

Strangely one of those "just mentally weak" players won this tournament last season... How do you figure that happened?

Most teams in a knockout tournament get eliminated. In most games goals result from mistakes, over a tournament of many games big mistakes are likely to happen sooner or later.

I agree that there is a mentality problem, but I never thought it would take 7-8 months to sort out I have to say.

 

[Modric THFC]

The Kane for Bentaleb sub killed the game.
We lost control of the midfield and Soldado stayed on.
Mason and Kane should have came on for Bentaleb (if he needed resting) and Soldado

 

[milo]

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.

We do not have Emirates Marketing Project, Chelsea or even Arsenal's budget and I am not convinced that the last two ended the window with significantly improved squads.

If it was as easy to bring players in January as you are suggesting, I think that more clubs would have done it. This is why I am suggesting that naming players that moved clubs that we could have signed is more realistic than an untestable hypothesis that there must be better players that we could have signed

 

[Joesh]

The only positive from today is that we didn't have to play extra time and penalties. Honestly Soldado is all shot at Spurs he is mentally not right and needs to Move on.

I think for me, it puts us in our real place rather than our dream place of being better on paper than the opposition. I hope it beats the arrogance out of us that we can be 30%-40% less than the opposition and get away with it. I hope if we qualify next year, we throw the group stage by blooding youngsters and at least get something other than wasting our time.

 

[milo]

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, although I am not sure that the tournament is of that much interest to the TV companies

 

[Libero]

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.

I think again you are missing my point. I think I have indicated that its our players arrogance that has cost us. If they match Fiorentina then they win, its simple, especially if you have two games. A one off is different and anything can happen but over two games? I dont accept what you are saying at all about the 11 not being good enough. Our first 11 is better than Fiorentina, its not even open to debate. You keep using Arsenal as an example, they still have a second leg. We had more than enough chances in half an hour last week to win the tie yet we are not very good by your estimations? What does that make Fiorentina then? They are poor and we were worse tonight. We should have made the reality a Win and progress and for that the players need to realise they are required to match a team first before allowing their extra quality to shine through and not just be happy with winning the odd big game in a season.