• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

OMT - Tottenham Hotspur Vs Norwich City

Man of the match


  • Total voters
    49
  • Poll closed .
Eriksen and Ndombele were head and shoulders above anyone else. People blame Aurier for the og, but there was at least 10 shocking mistakes before that. Aurier actually did the right thing, and covered the right area, and was just unlucky to get hit exactly at the wrong place/time. Not his fault whatsoever!

Generous. As the move breaks, Toby is high and Aurier is the covering defender; he hesitates to go on the cover and is never getting there. Toby somehow gets back to find Aurier chugging in. If Aurier covers properly in the first place it never happens...
 
It is, to me, unbelievable that some folks expected a starting line-up with NDombele, LoCelso, a departinG Eriksen and Sess - playing with a back three and no screening midfielder- to have any cohesion. When we went to a four at least Ndombele had a guide as to what was going on!

Similarly, Dele has gone out and given 97 mins today I don’t believe he would have had we not had the suspensions, fought everywhere, created the pen and is getting coated. Again, Aurier has cost us. What was he doing there?

Doubtless Foyth will get caned but with Dier on the pitch that goal does not happen.

Mourinho’s gamble failed today. I know he had few options but I have to ask, how is that we cannot find a way to leave Aurier at home?

Spot on. JM's lineup was a disaster waiting to happen. I called it a gamble before the game and it was JM going from the ridiculous ( two useless DMs against United and Chelsea with four forwards) to the even more ridiculous ( four creatives in midfield with NO DM in sight) ! How he expected either gamble to work bemuses me. At least he largely fixed it here at half time and we were better in the second half. However to only score against the bottom club with a deflected free-kick and a penalty is indicative of our lack of quality.

Where do I start with that shambles of a defence with no midfield protection. Aurier is proving a liability game after game, Foyth looks like a boy in a mans game, Toby seems to have forgotten how to defend and Verts looked off the pace from the start. Why we had both Dier and Skipp on the bench further mystified me. Dele was clearly not 100% as evidenced by his lack of pace when right through and his tame finish by just wafting a foot at the ball when set up by Kane early doors. LoCelso clearly not yet acclimatised to the PL pace (understandable due to his lack of game time). Aurier and Sess both failed to deliver from wide areas. Eriksen at long last delivered from a free kick but that was offset by his continuing nonsense from corners. Kane huffed and puffed but was not at his best.

The only positive for me (on another night when we failed to get into the top four) was NDombele. He showed plenty of potential and lasted 97 minutes! Why Poch and JM haven't given him more minutes is totally surprising.

What is patently evident is we need at least three quality new additions asap - a right back, a DM and a CB. A reshape of our squad is essential.
 
Said on the first page of this thread that Mourinho needs to drop the three centre halfs at the back.
It doesn't make us any stronger at the back. And we lose out in midfield and have less attacking options.
Kane and Alli being the entire attack in the first half on the break because we couldnt get the ball was ridiculous.
The reason he has been playing the three is to allow Aurier to play wing back.
Aurier isn't worth disrupting the team for.
 
Aurier is being blamed for things not under his control. How he is being blamed for the own goal to me is funny. Toby was far more at fault than him for both goals. One covering the wrong area and dancing to Juvenile's 'back that ass up' a la Celestine Babayaro vs Geremi/Lauren in the 2000 Nations Cup final (painful memories as a Nigerian) and what kind of clearance was that for the second goal.

Get a working midfield and things will get much better. The midfield was wack yesterday and we have two old defenders who should be sold for leather. Yet we have given one who can't deal with aerial balls a new contract. Aurier is a nice scape goat to have but he is not the problem. Deal with midfield and bench one of Jan/Toby.
 
Last edited:
Aurier is being blamed for things not under his control. How he is being blamed for the own goal to me is funny. Toby was far more at fault than him for both goals. One covering the wrong area and dancing to Juvenile's 'back that ass up' a la Celestine Babayaro vs Geremi/Lauren in the 2000 Nations Cup final (painful memories as a Nigerian) and what kind of clearance was that for the second goal.

Get a working midfield and things will get much better. The midfield was wack yesterday and we have two old defenders who should be sold for leather. Yet we have given one who can't deal with aerial balls a new contract. Aurier is a nice scape goat to have but he is not the problem. Deal with midfield and bench one of Jan/Toby.

As Stef said above, Aurier should be coming across far sooner in the move than he was. It's not his fault that he got hit by the ball, but the situation doesn't happen to a RB that is properly positioned in respect to his CB.
 
Can fully understand why Mourinho is miffed with our error prone defence for costing us 2 points after looking at the 2nd half shot maps!

BB2F3D18-88F7-4700-980B-66C93565D991.png 251DD11F-2CAF-4EE6-9062-B8437E20B1ED.png
 
Aurier is being blamed for things not under his control. How he is being blamed for the own goal to me is funny. Toby was far more at fault than him for both goals. One covering the wrong area and dancing to Juvenile's 'back that ass up' a la Celestine Babayaro vs Geremi/Lauren in the 2000 Nations Cup final (painful memories as a Nigerian) and what kind of clearance was that for the second goal.

Get a working midfield and things will get much better. The midfield was wack yesterday and we have two old defenders who should be sold for leather. Yet we have given one who can't deal with aerial balls a new contract. Aurier is a nice scape goat to have but he is not the problem. Deal with midfield and bench one of Jan/Toby.
Agreement.

Aurier has been poor defensively, he makes poor decisions far to often but to try and blame him for this oh is nonsense.

Toby handled it poorly, just because he's a fans favourite people don't want to lay the blame where it belongs and that's if you must even blame someone, ogs are unfortunate incidents, no one does it on purpose.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Fapatalk
 
Jose looked well tinkled with us after the game. Interesting he said we looked as bad defensively in the second half as the first because he's right. Although they didn't manage a shot, like against Brighton, we looked anything but secure when they had the ball.

Jose has to find a way quickly to sort it because Liverpool could score half a dozen against us the way we are defending.

The more we continue with chopping and changing systems and not having a genuine holding midfielder, we will continue to look shaky imo.
 
I'd agree with your last two sentences whole heartedly but that's more a reflection on how utterly brick Aurier is rather than how good Trippier is. Even before the WC, he was never good defensively but he was good going forward. I'd take him right now but I still wouldn't be happy with him being our RB. I think we missed a trick with Wan Bissaka if that was a possibility.

Depends how we want to progress. Made the point in the AWB thread that he looks excellent defensively but limited going forward. That would be a change to our approach from the last 5/6 years.
 
He was always a crap defender even before last season. He just got away with it due to the quality of his attacking play, people just waved his deficiencies away. There is a reason we were always looking for a better RB, first in Pereira before eventually settling for Aurier.

His delivery was excellent that can't be argued, last season that delivery dropped significantly and then people started noticing the crap parts of his game they had previously ignored.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Fapatalk

Aurier was here for all of Trippiers last (so called poor) season.

Aurier player 8 PL games
Trips played 27

Pretty much tells you all you need to know.
 
Aurier was here for all of Trippiers last (so called poor) season.

Aurier player 8 PL games
Trips played 27

Pretty much tells you all you need to know.
Trippier was so bad that season I was happy for him to be gone and it doesn't change the fact Poch was not completely happy with Trippier otherwise he would not have tried to sign RBs to replace him. Where it didn't work is that the one we eventually signed hasn't been up to snuff, that doesn't then make Trippier up to snuff.

Neither are good enough defensively.

Pereira is the player we wanted to sign and the player I wish we had signed.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Fapatalk
 
Last edited:
Of course, the truth is neither goal happens if Dier is on the pitch.
Dier has shown nothing for two years to suggest he would’ve had any influence on either Norwich goal. His non-existent attacking threat also suggests we might not have scored two ourselves had he played.

I thought it was fantastic watching N’Dombele play, better than Dier both in an attacking and defensive sense, let’s hope he is now a permanent fixture in the team.
 
Thought what TN did really well was receive ball turn and look for an option and if no obvious one run forward with the ball a la sissoko. The ability to swivel when collecting the ball seems to be beyond Dier, winks can do it but then looks square rather than for a forwards pass and never ever runs with the ball. Most teams against us sit back occupying space making it difficult to find an easy pass (especially with the lack of movement of our front players) so the ability to run forward creating space by drawing players on to you is key. Let’s hope Tanguy is fit to play again next game.
 
Back