***Tottenham Hotspur vs. Manchester United OMT***

[90291Spur]

Either that or we smell the coffee and seek to improve. No point burying our head in the sand and pretending everything is hunky-dory.
Because you can bet your life the media and pundits will be ready to label us as having a soft underbelly and a weak mentality.

Or there is a middle ground where we look at the teams around us - their players costs/wages, age of players, experience of manager/head coach - to see where we truly are. I think we are punching above our weight (as 'they' say) and that there is definitely room for improvement.

 

[Jurgen the German]

It's disappointing. Is it mentally fragile to go to places like Old Trafford and lose? We're not on form right now. We have been stuttering for a while but upcoming games against Hull (h), Burnley (h), Southampton (a), Watford (a) means a chance to rediscover ourselves.

We're a good side, let's get back to showing it.
Win those games and things will look rosier again going into Chelsea (h).

I do think the away games will be tough, but they are the sort of games we were winning last season.

COYS

Not on a one off occasion, but when it gets to the point where you have won there only twice in more than a 20 year period at must play at least some part.

 

[billyiddo]

Not on a one off occasion, but when it gets to the point where you have won there only twice in more than a 20 year period at must play at least some part.

Different teams though, we've won there twice in the last 5(?) years, which is a better reflection of the current crop

 

[StephenH]

Either that or we smell the coffee and seek to improve. No point burying our head in the sand and pretending everything is hunky-dory.
Because you can bet your life the media and pundits will be ready to label us as having a soft underbelly and a weak mentality.

If you start listerning and even worse believing 'the media' then you are sadly all at sea before you start.
We are a reasonably decent top six team with the sixth biggest financial muscle in the league.
We are building a £400m+ stadium to bring the club into simular revenue streams as some of our competitors above us.

That's about it! For the moment..............to be continued

 

[thfcsteff]

If we'd been spanked 6-0 by Emirates Marketing Project and then ding donged on 5-0 at home by Liverpool and 3-0 at home by an awful West Ham side, whilst only managing to win games by grinding them out in one goal wins and very unconvincing performances supported by dodgy penalties and long range screamers from nothing, then yeah, I'd be getting worried about Poch too.

I've always found goal difference to be quite a good indicator as to whether a team's position in the league is false or not. If it's higher than you'd expect, it implies that they're good at ripping teams to shreds on their day and avoiding heavy defeats, but have sometimes drawn too many games when they're off their game. Whereas if it's lower than you'd expect, it implies that the team has managed to grind out a few lucky results to elevate their position but are prone to getting spanked when the opposition figures out their game plan. I'll remind you that AVB's goal difference when he was sacked at this stage of the season was -6, Poch's now is +13. I'd be surprised if we've had a goal difference much higher than that at this stage of a season - I know that we're already on our highest points tally at this stage bar the amazing start we made in 2011-12.

I'm not pretending things are perfect. Today's performance was very frustrating from an attacking sense. Kane, Alli and Son were so so poor today. But please, a bit of perspective everybody. This was MANCHESTER UNITED AWAY. When have we ever beaten Mourinho at home? Not many teams do. Even less now that Mkhitaryan has come into the side and is in form (why he wasn't playing him before baffles me). It's almost as if some of you actually expected us to just turn up and tinkle all over them. To be making any comparisons between Pochettino and Andre Villas fudging Boas is quite frankly ridiculous, the guy was an utter clown.

Well said...agree with nearly all except I thought Eriksen was poor along with Son, and both Kane and Alli need one of those two to produce/be smart/move or else they are marked out of the game.

Mourinho knew that both Eriksen and Son are off form, furthermore without Lamela we lack aggressive initiative. I personally think it was a day to start Dier and Winks; for me, Winks moves the ball quickly, crisply and is closer to being Modders-esque than Carroll who once threatened to be. I think given Carrick sitting in there, Moose either needed to be higher up the pitch possibly off the left, or not started.


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

 

[Jurgen the German]

Different teams though, we've won there twice in the last 5(?) years, which is a better reflection of the current crop

Regardless of whether some of the players have moved on, the club has a poor record at certain grounds. Even if the current squad don't think about it as much as us fans do, they get asked about it in the media and I'm not having it that it isn't in the back of SOME of the players minds at least.

I'd also go along with Dubai's assessment re the team crumbling when things are expected of us. There's no doubt in my mind we play much better and produce greater results when we fly under the radar. The Emirates Marketing Project game should have been a springboard to rack up some points, but we managed just 4 points from the following 4 games.

 

[SteveAWOL]

Not on a one off occasion, but when it gets to the point where you have won there only twice in more than a 20 year period at must play at least some part.

Even before Sky invented football our record at Old Trafford was dire, we've only won 4 league games there since Sir Bill Nicholson resigned

 

[Hemant]

If you start listerning and even worse believing 'the media' then you are sadly all at sea before you start.
We are a reasonably decent top six team with the sixth biggest financial muscle in the league.
We are building a £400m+ stadium to bring the club into simular revenue cat videos on youtube as some of our competitors above us.

That's about it! For the moment..............to be continued

It's not so much about me or us believing, it is whether the owners, management and most importantly the players believe it.
I would argue that our record long and short term, implies there is a weak mentality.

I don't think we are punching our weight at all, bearing in mind our fan base, ticket prices and revenue.
Statistically We should be winning the odd trophy every few years. Perhaps one very 7 years as there are 3-4 trophies available per season.

 

[mudshark]

We fade like the Beatles on Hey, Jude
We seem to drift out on the rain
That came in somewhere, softly from the blue

We've got to stop doing that, somehow.
Sorry, Jeff.

 

[billyiddo]

Regardless of whether some of the players have moved on, the club has a poor record at certain grounds. Even if the current squad don't think about it as much as us fans do, they get asked about it in the media and I'm not having it that it isn't in the back of SOME of the players minds at least.

I'd also go along with Dubai's assessment re the team crumbling when things are expected of us. There's no doubt in my mind we play much better and produce greater results when we fly under the radar. The Emirates Marketing Project game should have been a springboard to rack up some points, but we managed just 4 points from the following 4 games.

But we have a decent record at Old Trafford recently, why would the players let an irrelevant record from before their time play on their minds? Had the poor record been ongoing I could see your point and would agree but not now the monkey is off our backs

 

[Jurgen the German]

But we have a decent record at Old Trafford recently, why would the players let an irrelevant record from before their time play on their minds? Had the poor record been ongoing I could see your point and would agree but not now the monkey is off our backs

We've lost 3 times in a row and haven't scored a single goal. I don't see how it's irrelevant, our record at OT is extremely poor bar 2 semi recent wins. I do believe that records/results from previous years do play on players minds. One reason why good/great teams win trophies year after year is because they have a winning mentality that has carried over from previous seasons. As I said before, maybe they don't think about it as much as we do, but if you're asking me if they just discount it and forget about it completely, I don't think that's true at all.

 

[StephenH]

It's not so much about me or us believing, it is whether the owners, management and most importantly the players believe it.
I would argue that our record long and short term, implies there is a weak mentality.

I don't think we are punching our weight at all, bearing in mind our fan base, ticket prices and revenue.
Statistically We should be winning the odd trophy every few years. Perhaps one very 7 years as there are 3-4 trophies available per season.

I think we are punching 'at' our weight.

We cannot cope with poor\or below par transfer windows!
Kane is still off the pace which leaves Son IMHO, not good enough and we have paid for this dearly so far this season.

I'm pleased to see Sissoko is improving.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

We've lost 3 times in a row and haven't scored a single goal. I don't see how it's irrelevant, our record at OT is extremely poor bar 2 semi recent wins. I do believe that records/results from previous years do play on players minds. One reason why good/great teams win trophies year after year is because they have a winning mentality that has carried over from previous seasons. As I said before, maybe they don't think about it as much as we do, but if you're asking me if they just discount it and forget about it completely, I don't think that's true at all.

The players I know (admittedly weren't successful as in trophies) had all said they remember recent results but don't know beyond that. Mainly because they don't have the history with the club and that attachment

I guess when it gets extreme like our record at Stamford bridge you can't hell but know as it gets publicised a lot every year

 

[Bedfordspurs]

I think we are punching 'at' our weight.

We cannot cope with poor\or below par transfer windows!
Kane is still off the pace which leaves Son IMHO, not good enough and we have paid for this dearly so far this season.

I'm pleased to see Sissoko is improving.

When we play over a £1m a week less than our nearest rivals it says where we are at on paper... that's 10 £100k a week players or in i tactical terms 10 Harry Kane's that were behind

We punch well above our weight in this league but haven't in Europe as we haven't taken it serious enough

 

[afsoc4life]

Some days after this game and I am still tinkled with the attack. To make it worse, I was rushed to the clinic on Monday morning due to kidney stones. This is a game that I want to forget asap.

 

[Jurgen the German]

Watched the game in full yesterday again. Lost count how many times we got to the edge of their box only to gradually pass it back all the way to Lloris.

 

[parklane1]

When we play over a £1m a week less than our nearest rivals it says where we are at on paper... that's 10 £100k a week players or in i tactical terms 10 Harry Kane's that were behind

We punch well above our weight in this league but haven't in Europe as we haven't taken it serious enough

This, sad to say.

 

[Finney Is Back]

My main concern with Poch is that he does not seem to have a alternative way of playing. We struggle against teams who counter our press with long balls, like united today, Chelski and West Brom. The thing is that we all know they will play like that, yet he does not change anything to counter it. We just stroddle along in our usual way, even when we clearly struggle.

Sent with Miele C1 Vacuum cleaner

This is a key point for me. Pochettino also seemed to struggle a little against Allardyce's West Ham. I think it was the same at Southampton as well.

Mourinho was very clever indeed with his tactics I thought. Leave Martial and Ibrahimovic high up and push them out wide. This made it very difficult for our full backs to push up and give us any width. It also gave Man Utd a good long ball option so that they could turn defence into attack without being likely to lose the ball in dangerous areas. One of the reasons that I thought we did a little better with Sissoko on the pitch is that he played more like a wide midfielder in a traditional 4-4-2 formation. This allowed him to always be one on one against their left back as Martial was staying up high to occupy Walker.

One of the ways to nullify a pressing team is to ensure that you don't try to play football in your own half. Instead get it forward long and early and then play from there. Mourinho set his Man Utd team up to do this very well on Sunday. Pochettino hasn't yet found a particularly good way of playing against this. I'm sure he will do so as it happens more and more against us however.

 

[Kandi1977]

This is a key point for me. Pochettino also seemed to struggle a little against Allardyce's West Ham. I think it was the same at Southampton as well.

Mourinho was very clever indeed with his tactics I thought. Leave Martial and Ibrahimovic high up and push them out wide. This made it very difficult for our full backs to push up and give us any width. It also gave Man Utd a good long ball option so that they could turn defence into attack without being likely to lose the ball in dangerous areas. One of the reasons that I thought we did a little better with Sissoko on the pitch is that he played more like a wide midfielder in a traditional 4-4-2 formation. This allowed him to always be one on one against their left back as Martial was staying up high to occupy Walker.

One of the ways to nullify a pressing team is to ensure that you don't try to play football in your own half. Instead get it forward long and early and then play from there. Mourinho set his Man Utd team up to do this very well on Sunday. Pochettino hasn't yet found a particularly good way of playing against this. I'm sure he will do so as it happens more and more against us however.

Indeed. Their back 4 didn't have one single pass between them all game, so we could never win it back high up in their half. Not completely dead and buried yet that Mou.

 

[Finney Is Back]

In that 12/13 season that you talk about AVB also had Lloris and Dembele. Dembele isn't world class by any standard I'll agree to mind you, but he did have two of the 3 you mention Poch has now as well as Bale. That makes the "world class player" difference Bale instead of Alderweireld - a considerable difference I would say.

Remember that it was AVB who chose to let VDV go. VDV has stated on a couple of occasions since leaving that had the manager asked him to stay he would've done so.

Surely though all of that pales into insignificance compared to the sin that cannot be forgiven or letting Defoe go and bringing in Soldado (with us having an £18 million net outlay to boot).