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OMT - Tottenham Hotspur vs Smoggies in FA Cup

Man of the match

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Finney Is Back said:
Fake news.... they finished 6th that year.
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And this for me is the issue, Jose may win us a few of the lesser trophies (I know, I know), but unless something material changes we can not, will do that and get CL.
If that happens Jose will get sacked, shrug his shoulders and walk away pointing fingers at Levy.
It's not a battle Levy can win IMHO, which beats me why he got into it in the first place.
 
Finney Is Back said:
thats because it isn’t a flat back 4. It’s very lopsided and basically a back three with Verts as a third center half. Look at the heatmaps and you can see that. It’s pretty clear that Jose is asking Aurier to play in that way, not that Aurier is just taking it upon himself to play as a wingback.
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Aurier has never been disciplined and has always played gung ho. We have to adjust our whole team to accomodate his weaknesses. The reality is there is very little alternative hence why he plays him. Personally I have put seen a worse full back in my life
 
What I don't understand about today is why JM didn't bring Parrott on for the last 15 minutes?. Nothing to lose and potentially everything to gain. If he had scored ( like Jones for Liverpool today) Mourinho would have been hailed as a tactical genius with a master stroke substitution. If he didn't, at least he would have had 15 minutes under his belt. A no-brainer for me. A lost opportunity I feel.
 
We all agree the Aurier is a problem waiting to happen. But he does get in some good crosses now and then and since Mourinho had played well in patches. I don't like him much. But he seems to be doing more than most.
 
Pirate55 said:
What I don't understand about today is why JM didn't bring Parrott on for the last 15 minutes?. Nothing to lose and potentially everything to gain. If he had scored ( like Jones for Liverpool today) Mourinho would have been hailed as a tactical genius with a master stroke substitution. If he didn't, at least he would have had 15 minutes under his belt. A no-brainer for me. A lost opportunity I feel.
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Agree with that.. Even had it been Son hauled off, it wouldn't have been a problem for me..

Parrot's compatriot Adam Idah at just a year older, didn't do too bad yesterday for Norwich away to Preston.
 
Finney Is Back said:
In what games under Jose have we played a flat back 4 with Aurier right back?
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Who said "flat"? Only you my friend.

Even when Davies played at West Ham, Aurier was bombing on (unlike, obviously, Davies). Verts obviously stays home, and it is all a bit more of a (GG-phrase coming up) "wonky"...call it what you like, Aurier's defensive shape and levels of responsibility are appalling if we want to keep clean sheets/games tight. Mourinho obviously took one look at everything, realized our defense needs serious help and decided to try and score more than the other lot, gambling on Aurier's attacking "skills" outweighing his poor focus and gaffes defensively. The time has come to call an end to it, if only because we have a CB who simply has no legs anymore either, so really cannot be fudging around like this back there.

Imagine if we had a right back, or even wing back, who knew shape, who worked well with his immediate team-mate (in this case Moura, who I am afraid to say costs us too thanks to a sheer lack of awareness/switching off) and redid not have to always (and I mean, always) rely on Sissoko to drop in and cover. Perhaps -just perhaps- we could play more creative deep lying midfielders on a regular basis.

You keep banging on about Mourinho asking Aurier to play that way. I have no doubt he is. But do you think he asks him to trot back when left out of shape, to make mistakes, and to generally brainfart 30% of the time he is asked to do something defensive?

I understand you appear to like him, but please understand the counter-point even if you don't agree with it. It is not a hard point to gauge.
 
Finney Is Back said:
I have seen several just at Spurs!
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Have you seen one more infuriating? I doubt it. I would wager that several of the names you'd bring up really did not have the talent Aurier has. If you could combine Aurier's talent with Edinburgh's application, you'd have a fudging legend here. Instead we have a bloke who called out the club earlier this season and spends passages of the game simply switching off. Unacceptable, especially when you have the talent and potential he has.
 
Pirate55 said:
Just to clarify, I presume you mean further forward
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I meant specifically today mate. I think today, the only way a tired Dele could've really been effective was where he ended up. It would've allowed the extra space ahead and left him basically as the transition player; he was quick to release the ball to Eriksen, LoCelso and Lamela. He does not play well off Moura because they have no real connection. Sonny is rusty. So specifically for this game, I'd have hoped Mourinho might've gambled this way from the start.
 
Tuesday 14th for the replay then. We'll have bought a couple of players by then, they both start, smash it up, they turn out to be our missing links, all is good again, 5-0 win, we tear it up in the league, win the league 10 years running, Mourinho is a club hero and Spurs is the last team to win the treble before the world is blown to bits by a nuclear war.
 
thfcsteff said:
I meant specifically today mate. I think today, the only way a tired Dele could've really been effective was where he ended up. It would've allowed the extra space ahead and left him basically as the transition player; he was quick to release the ball to Eriksen, LoCelso and Lamela. He does not play well off Moura because they have no real connection. Sonny is rusty. So specifically for this game, I'd have hoped Mourinho might've gambled this way from the start.
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While I see your logic, I don't agree. Tired or otherwise, I simply don't think Dele is at all effective deeper. That is the mistake Poch kept making. That is where we saw "Dele's brother" play! I thought JM had recognized that in his first few games and put Dele back to where he is most effective, i.e. Making runs into the penalty area to score. Why he reverted to playing him in an ineffectual role is a mystery to me.

Personally, i do agree Dele is knackered and fatigued from too many games. When he was right through and had a couple of yards start on the defender ( against Norwich iirc) and let the defender make up ground to make a wonderous last ditch block, spoke volumes. A fully fit and unfatigued Dele would never have been that slow.
 
balesleftboot said:
He won't dismiss the domestic cup competitions. He never has.

He also managed to win the Europa League (which many of our fans laughably see us as above) whilst still finishing 2nd in the League above Spurs that season. He would not have put such a strong side out today if he didn't want to win trophies and especially at Tottenham the need to start winning silverware.
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Every manager wants to win trophies - that's why they do the job.
 
Legohamster said:
Atouba, Ifil, Ausin, KWP, Hutton, Naughton, Lee

Without really thinking too hard.
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So your including left backs which is fair enough as I said full backs. Could be an argument that all or none of these are worse than Aurier TBH but I can’t be asked to bother
 
Sandman said:
We all agree the Aurier is a problem waiting to happen. But he does get in some good crosses now and then and since Mourinho had played well in patches. I don't like him much. But he seems to be doing more than most.
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6 assists and 1 goal in 20 games ain't bad for a fullback.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
It’s understandable that getting so much out of players both from physical exertion but also from the mental demands (the loyalty, the intense connection with your teammates being your best mates too) meant that the burn out was going to come. And it’s both mental and physical. I really do think we’ve tried to get as much as we can out of this squad, to put off rebuilding for as long as possible in order to not spend the money we are going to ultimately have to spend. I can’t think of another club that has largely kept so many of the same players together after its peak and not seen a considerable drop off...even City after Pellegrini’s title win finished 4th and then 3rd after rebuilding with Pep and a whole new team.

If there was really no money, fine, I won’t blame anyone. But if it was a matter of taking a little bit of a hit on certain players (and not putting silly price tags on players like Eriksen) then I fully blame Levy. And I say that as a massive ENIC defender. The intangible benefits of shifting players earlier and getting ones in that have that youth and energy and allow us to play our game the way we know how, it will have been worth more than the few quid saved. Just in the same way that the spirit, togetherness and youthful energy of the first Poch side enabled us to out perform our bank balance.

Feels like we’ve done all of this, made this move and the only tangible benefit so far has been Toby’s contract.
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I agree with most of that and like you and Steff ( and I suspect all Spurs fans) we are all depressed by what we see in our club right now - especially after we had such a great recent ride. However, to blame ENIC / Levy for everything would be entirely wrong.

Poch had five and a half years here. 26 players were bought under his tenureship. Virtually all were flops. Only Winks graduated from our academy. Hoped for internal talent like Edwards, Onyama, Pritchard, Bentaleb, CCV, KWP etc didn't kick on. His " full back whispering" didn't work with Aurier, KWP, Foyth and had stopped working with Rose and Trippier. Wanyama, Dier, Sanchez, Dele really regressed under him - and they don't have the excuse of being too old - like Toby and Jan. Where exactly was Poch's supposed excellence in working with youth and developing players? He left us with a totally unbalanced and decaying squad.
 
Pirate55 said:
I agree with most of that and like you and Steff ( and I suspect all Spurs fans) we are all depressed by what we see in our club right now - especially after we had such a great recent ride. However, to blame ENIC / Levy for everything would be entirely wrong.

Poch had five and a half years here. 26 players were bought under his tenureship. Virtually all were flops. Only Winks graduated from our academy. Hoped for internal talent like Edwards, Onyama, Pritchard, Bentaleb, CCV, KWP etc didn't kick on. His " full back whispering" didn't work with Aurier, KWP, Foyth and had stopped working with Rose and Trippier. Wanyama, Dier, Sanchez, Dele really regressed under him - and they don't have the excuse of being too old - like Toby and Jan. Where exactly was Poch's supposed excellence in working with youth and developing players? He left us with a totally unbalanced and decaying squad.
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How do we know poch brought all those players in?
As was pointed out at the time with the N"twins, poch has never played a system that would use them.
Why would he buy them?
This unbalanced squad got to a CL final and top last season, playing away from home for most of it, with how many new signings.
Poch made mistakes, but he wasn't the only one, so has Levy and some of the players.
 
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