***OMT TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR vs KAA Gent***

[Baleforce]

I wouldn't mind seeing Winks and Wanyama for a bit, if Demebele is carrying an injury why exacerbate it?

 

[scaramanga]

Scara's views on the EL are extreme to say the least, but I do agree with him that the EL should be our lowest priority. Our squad simply isn't good enough or big enough to be able to handle games on three fronts. The FA Cup is the more winnable cup comp IMO and we are only 1 win from the last 8. The EL is such a long slog of a competition and it means we always have to play catch up in the league, we saw last season how playing after Leicester 9 weeks out of 10 put us at a disadvantage.

I never want Spurs to lose but I won't exactly shed a tear if we don't progress. The last thing we need is to get to the final like Liverpool did last season finish outside the top 6 (should be almost a formality at this stage though). The EL is too bloated, when UEFA stop treating it with such contempt then I'm sure the players and fans will follow suit. There needs to be less teams and move the games to alternate Wednesdays so they don't clash with the CL but if anything if they will probably just add more teams to the bloody thing like they have done with the Euros and the World Cup. The football governing bodies only care about money and more teams in the competition means more games and more £££.

Oh yeah, and get rid of the league format and make it a straight knockout competition with no more than 32 teams.

Absolutely.

It's UEFA's fault the competition is meaningless. They need to drop in clubs from the top 4 leagues after the group stages, stop the CL dropouts from joining, play the matches on the same days of the week as the CL and stop these ridiculous 6pm kickoffs.

If they did that, people might start to take the competition seriously.

Edit: They also need to employ professional referees, not just whoever they find down the local park.

 

[paxtonwolf]

Is it me, or are we pretty much always rubbish when on BT Sport?

And dont they love it when we are. Last night, granted a lot of it was justifed at times, it was almost constant slagging off throughout the 90 mins. I lost count the number of times they belittled Gent's league position

 

[paxtonwolf]

Scara's views on the EL are extreme to say the least, but I do agree with him that the EL should be our lowest priority. Our squad simply isn't good enough or big enough to be able to handle games on three fronts. The FA Cup is the more winnable cup comp IMO and we are only 1 win from the last 8. The EL is such a long slog of a competition and it means we always have to play catch up in the league, we saw last season how playing after Leicester 9 weeks out of 10 put us at a disadvantage.

I never want Spurs to lose but I won't exactly shed a tear if we don't progress. The last thing we need is to get to the final like Liverpool did last season finish outside the top 6 (should be almost a formality at this stage though). The EL is too bloated, when UEFA stop treating it with such contempt then I'm sure the players and fans will follow suit. There needs to be less teams and move the games to alternate Wednesdays so they don't clash with the CL but if anything if they will probably just add more teams to the bloody thing like they have done with the Euros and the World Cup. The football governing bodies only care about money and more teams in the competition means more games and more £££.

Oh yeah, and get rid of the league format and make it a straight knockout competition with no more than 32 teams.

Spot on

 

[Mikey10]

And dont they love it when we are. Last night, granted a lot of it was justifed at times, it was almost constant slagging off throughout the 90 mins. I lost count the number of times they belittled Gent's league position

To be fair, the panel in the studio could hardly have been more pro-Spurs. Agree on the commentary teams.

And they have Macmanaman. Top-notch twunt.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

 

[billyiddo]

Has he played well for us in the past in a more creative role? Does he have the skillset to thrive in such a role at this time?

I really don't like a solution that includes moving one of our best performers out of their position/role to fix a different problem.

For me the more obvious solution to our current creativity predicament is to play Winks. And doing so in the role he has looked very good in - as one of the two deep midfielders in our 4-2-3-1. Wanyama and Dembele have seemingly been undroppable so far this season though, for reasons I don't really understand.

well Winks played in the deep midfield positions yesterday and there was still a massive gap between our front line and our midfield so that alone might not be enough - Im not talking about it as anything more than a short term solution this season whenever we are without Lamela and Eriksen, beyond this season i would want a better long term solution.

Alli played in the middle of the 3 in our 4231 last season and supported Kane, as evidenced by his goals/assist ratio - this season he has been pushed further forward and has less responsibility in build up play and is more focused on getting on the end of moves (as evidenced by his goal/assist ratio) - so yes i think he has shown himself capable of filling the void creatively speaking, more so than anyone else should we be without both Lamela and Eriksen.

i think he is better attacking the goal than he is creating but in circumstances like last night the forward players end up being too isolated so dropping him to fill that gap would create a better attacking unit, imo

 

[Jurgen the German]

Absolutely.

It's UEFA's fault the competition is meaningless. They need to drop in clubs from the top 4 leagues after the group stages, stop the CL dropouts from joining, play the matches on the same days of the week as the CL and stop these ridiculous 6pm kickoffs.

If they did that, people might start to take the competition seriously.

Edit: They also need to employ professional referees, not just whoever they find down the local park.

Good point about the kickoff times, I had not really given it too much thought. Do UEFA not realise that a large percentage of the UK population work until 5:30 and getting home in 30 minutes is a bit of a struggle? The kickoff times are random to say the least, 6pm, 8:05pm. Just play the games are the same time like they do in the CL with the exception of games in colder climates like Russia where it makes sense to bring the kickoff time forward.

Start the competition in August before the CL starts to avoid a schedule conflict. Or alternatively, start the competition in January to avoid the clash with the CL.

 

[thfcsteff]

All right, I will. Poch seems to have lost the plot at the moment. We have scored zero, nil, nada goals from open play in the last four games. Against a mid table Belgian side, playing a deliberately weakened team, we didn't make their keeper make a single save - nor did we force a single corner.

In those last FOUR games we have hardly created anything meaningful and the manner of the performances have been shocking - and this against Sunderland, Middlesborough and Gent ffs. Worse, against one of our key rivals, we didn't even compete in the game and should have been thrashed.

I put this squarely down to Poch and his coaching team. His team selection, non-rotation of out of form, tired players,tactics ineffective substitutions and overtraining methods look to have drained the team of energy, enthusiasm, ideas and confidence. He hasn't motivated them or inspired them. We often start games slowly and never recover. His innovation from dead ball situations is non-existent - we persist with the same old, same old, which frankly haven't delivered. His transfer choices have been bizarre to say the least - strenthening where we didn't have an urgent need, buying poor replacements and playing favourites to death.

While I don't exonerate the players entirely, a winning mentality and motivation comes from the top. Is Poch a winner? His managerial career to date doesn't provide any evidence of this.Can he really inspire the players? Is he tactically astute? Can he identify players that can take us to the next level? Is his in-match reading of the game adequate? Are his training methods right? Some serious questions for the manager to address- and quickly.

Ok. Now I have vented. Rant over.

Fair enough mate. I disagree of course, but at least you've states your thoughts as opposed to a glib cheap shot.

 

[thfcsteff]

I feel the same as braineclipse.

I would play Winks deeper for quick movement in first possession, I would also put Dier BACK alongside him as a DM (I think we would do very very well making that switch) and give Victor a rest (he has been great but I think right now Dier needs to play where he plays)...

 

[parklane1]

Just got back and read through the last couple of pages in this thread, we were poor no doubt about that and we have been for a few games now but some of the moaning and calling out in this thread is way over the top ( imo), there are some who are questioning some players and even Poch has got some stick.

We are a young side ( i know i keep saying it) but there are some who think we should be winning every game and when we do not throw their toys out of the pram. We are not the finished articule and it will ( probably) take another couple of seasons to become a REALLY top side. I even heard some nutters at the game saying that we need YET another manager as Poch has run out of ideas.

 

[DubaiSpur]

Really fair. And I wonder if we are seeing him throw the likes of Sissoko out there so as it is clear we need shot of them and a proper replacement? What a shame - I want the lad to succeed but I cannot see it happening...

Possibly. Personally I couldn't care about whether Poch decides a player's worth shipping out after only a year - if he does, he does, and he's the boss so his word is final as far as I'm concerned (at least in 99.99 percent of cases). My angle regarding patience with our signings is that we as fans could gain a player's trust and his confidence by being a little more supportive and refraining from immediate judgement, *at least* during the initial year or so when said player's likely to struggle in his new environs.

What Poch does is up to Poch, and I have no objections if he is writing Sissoko, Janssen and N'Koudou off as we speak. I do however wish *we* wouldn't take the same approach.

Would you suggest that a marathon runner sprint the race?

As @indospurs pointed out, good marathon runners are bloody quick, and I can attest to it having miserably shuffled along behind bloody sprinters in what I imagined was a test of endurance (not speed, of which I had none ). Beyond that, it's an inappropriate analogy, I feel - a more suitable one would be emphasizing the importance of outdoing all your opponents in every aspect of the marathon as a means to build up the confidence of a rookie who hasn't won one, *ever* (at least in timescales that matter to our current side).

 

[scaramanga]

As @indospurs pointed out, good marathon runners are bloody quick, and I can attest to it having miserably shuffled along behind bloody sprinters in what I imagined was a test of endurance (not speed, of which I had none ). Beyond that, it's an inappropriate analogy, I feel - a more suitable one would be emphasizing the importance of outdoing all your opponents in every aspect of the marathon as a means to build up the confidence of a rookie who hasn't won one, *ever* (at least in timescales that matter to our current side).

OK then, fair enough.

A better analogy would be going flat out in an F1 car from the first lap and burning through your tyres even though your opponents have spares and you don't.

 

[DubaiSpur]

OK then, fair enough.

A better analogy would be going flat out in an F1 car from the first lap and burning through your tyres even though your opponents have spares and you don't.

Well, if you're looking for a rookie driver to find out what it takes to succeed in a race, you'd want him doing that *before* learning how to make pit-stops at sensible intervals. Else, you're always wondering if he really has the desire to push himself and his car to the limit to win.

No one's denying the importance of game and schedule management, but it's a misplaced priority when your stated aim is to instill a winning mentality in the team first, I think. That demands competing in every game, winning in every game, and after that, when the team has imbibed that feeling and that drive (even though it may well fall short due to fatigue or fixture pileups) - *then* developing the smart squad management that accompanies the majority of successful pushes for titles. Otherwise it's trying to build a winning squad management approach without considering whether the team actually has the desire to win the biggest titles in the first place, a potentially fatal flaw.

 

[scaramanga]

Well, if you're looking for a rookie driver to find out what it takes to succeed in a race, you'd want him doing that *before* learning how to make pit-stops at sensible intervals. Else, you're always wondering if he really has the desire to push himself and his car to the limit to win.

No one's denying the importance of game and schedule management, but it's a misplaced priority when your stated aim is to instill a winning mentality in the team first, I think. That demands competing in every game, winning in every game, and after that, when the team has imbibed that feeling and that drive (even though it may well fall short due to fatigue or fixture pileups) - *then* developing the smart squad management that accompanies the majority of successful pushes for titles. Otherwise it's trying to build a winning squad management approach without considering whether the team actually has the desire to win the biggest titles in the first place, a potentially fatal flaw.

Once we've flaked out it's too late to start being clever. That's what we did last year.

Son and Winks are our only squad players worthy of the name and even they are a fairly big drop from Lamela/Dembele in terms of ability.

We need a much better squad before we can even consider competing on all fronts, let alone going flat out in every game. Until we have that squadwe'll just have to pick the competitions we want to prioritise (league and CL) and muddle through on the rest.

Sent from my SM-G925F using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

 

[Rorschach]

Once we've flaked out it's too late to start being clever. That's what we did last year.

Son and Winks are our only squad players worthy of the name and even they are a fairly big drop from Lamela/Dembele in terms of ability.

We need a much better squad before we can even consider competing on all fronts, let alone going flat out in every game. Until we have that squadwe'll just have to pick the competitions we want to prioritise (league and CL) and muddle through on the rest.

Sent from my SM-G925F using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

This is true though I would consider the team that started against Gent to be almost our strongest available. This would imply he wanted a strong showing and a win, which needless to say we didn't get. I'm pretty sure he is as disappointed as the rest of us but there was no mixed messages for me. We just ballsed it up.

 

[paxtonwolf]

To be fair, the panel in the studio could hardly have been more pro-Spurs. Agree on the commentary teams.

And they have Macmanaman. Top-notch twunt.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

No qualms with the studio panel at all, but yes, the guy commentating with Clive allen had it in for us from the 1st minute, and kept going on about Wembley conveniently forgetting we won our last match there

 

[Glenda's Legs]

No qualms with the studio panel at all, but yes, the guy commentating with Clive allen had it in for us from the 1st minute, and kept going on about Wembley conveniently forgetting we won our last match there

During the first half I thought they were doing a retrospecive on Saturday. I lost count of the number of times our defeat to Liverpool was mentioned.

 

[Glenda's Legs]

Just got back and read through the last couple of pages in this thread, we were poor no doubt about that and we have been for a few games now but some of the moaning and calling out in this thread is way over the top ( imo), there are some who are questioning some players and even Poch has got some stick.

We are a young side ( i know i keep saying it) but there are some who think we should be winning every game and when we do not throw their toys out of the pram. We are not the finished articule and it will ( probably) take another couple of seasons to become a REALLY top side. I even heard some nutters at the game saying that we need YET another manager as Poch has run out of ideas.

The problem with posting in a match thread is that the exasperated comment borne of frustration with what you are seeing stays here forever more, whereas the same comment uttered at a game is said and done and disappeared into the air within seconds.

Last night was really disappointing but you are right in that we are still a young team learning that things aren't as straightforward as they might think. I don't buy that they totally underestimated Gent, but I think they were taken by surprise at the intensity with which Gent game at them and defended every ball. We had neither the pace nor creativity to deal with it.

Out of interest @parklane1 what was the stadium like? Watching the game it seemed like the crowd was very far back and at quite a high level to the pitch. It seemed quite an odd design for a modern stadium.

 

[the dza]

Someone do an OMT for Fulham then.

 

[Baleforce]

Someone do an OMT for Fulham then.

I don't think i'm allowed

although taking the guaranteed wins is very much my MO