All that's missing now is for someone to say this will be a comfortable win.
Ha yep thinking the same, you just know how this is going to play out. They will park the bus and we will struggle to break them down they may or may not catch us on the break. Seen this movie so many times I'm getting bored of it!
nothing like the usual positive comments.
I hope Im proved wrong and we smash them today. I would love to see a good peformance.
I honestly don't believe you do, in fact i believe that you want it the other way around YOU would love it if we got smashed today so you could bang on about our manager again. Then you would love it if we got smashed the week after that so it would fit your agenda and increase the chances (in your eyes) of him being sacked.
No your wrong actually. I have never ever wanted us to lose a match, and that includes Sherwood. In fact, if you paid attention you would see how angry and disappointed I am whenever we lose while some people show pure indifference. Its a perfectly natural emotion to feel that way when we play badly / lose. What I find baffling is the "whatever" attitude some fans have when we do under peform or lose. I fail to see how wanting better for your team is considered negative compared to some peoples pure indifference to us winning, losing or drawing.
Its not that people are indifferent though, its just that losing is as much a part of football as winning and you have to take it on the chin.
Also, lots of people look for signs of progress, as i know you do. Where as on many occasions when we have won this season after the match you have drawn on the negatives of the performances, many look for the positives in defeat - an equally worthwhile exercise.
We're all Spurs fans and want to see the team win, but have different views and perspectives on the relative progress of the current incumbent, which in turn influences how we view and contextualise set backs.
I agree with a lot of that. I will add that some people focus on my negative views but I have also praised many times this season, in particular how great Kane, Eriksen and Loris have been. Of course everyone is entitled to their own view. However it must work both ways. Some people appear to get angry and take personal offence when Poch is criticised which is, frankly, a bit silly. I feel everyone has the right to praise him if they so wish, or criticise him if they feel so. Its just personal opinion either way.
Personally I see very little progress from the first game to now and certainly dont see any threads of some bigger picture or master plan that Poch is building. In fact, there is regrssion is some areas. But thats just my opinion which means no more or no less then anyone elses. I know we all want the same thing for our club. As stated before, I really hope we win today.
We need to be on the money today. If we can get into the lead we need to capitalise. We seem to have a dnagerous habit of not imposing ourselves after having taken the lead. I think its the one sort of performance we've failed to produce with anything resembling consistency this season.
We have better players than West Brom but i feel that due to technical floors in our game we don't really turn the screw enough. There is always a poor first touch or miscontrol just around the corner that always relieves the pressure. I also hope we dont try and force the play too much. I know this runs counter to what most people would say, but i think its also another flaw in our play - we often play passes where we only have a 50-60% chance of retaining possession. Thats not good enough and we put ourselves under pressure.
I'm really interested to see if poch can move us up a notch in terms of our technical performance. We seem very keen to try and move quickly through the centre of the park, and to do this everyone needs to be able to perform to a high technical standard. I've always been a big fan of Walker but since his come back he's been exposed in this sense, especially when paired with Townsend on the right. The two shouldn't be playing with each other purely for this reason.
I definitely wouldn't start Townsend today. I'd have been tempted to keep Lennon and look for a loan for Andros. Chadli, Dembele, Eriksen, Lamela, Kane (with Soldado in the team) all should be ahead of him in the forwards pecking order. He is simply woefully out of form.
If we can improve on the aforementioned aspects that have been lacking in recent games i'll go for 2:0 Spurs. If not, this is going to be a scrappy affair and I can see us on the wrong end of the odd goal.
This will most likely be tough and difficult even if we play very well.
West Brom are a decent team, Pulis has whipped them into shape as expected and they'll work super hard and be well organized. I don't think many teams in the league would go there right now and expect to win more often than not, particularly not after playing a hard cup semi final on Wednesday whilst WBA had the full week off.