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** Tottenham Hotspur vs Sheffield United Capital One Cup Semi Final Second Leg OMT **

Pirate55 said:
I know you blame Townsend for everything and he did have a shocker today, but the midfield went to sh1t the moment MoTM Dembele (who was bossing the game ) was replaced by the nonentity Poorlonho. We went from having a team of 12 to a team of 10. The momentum changed from that moment.
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No it didn't.
Paulinho replaced the injured Dembele on 66 minutes.
Townsend replaced Lamela nearly 10 minutes later in the 75th minute.
Sheff Utd scored three minutes later and then (again) another two minutes later. Only in the minutes after that second sub did we start to feel the wobble.
Sorry, Townsend simply did not track back well enough/slot into the shape, graft and tempo of the game quickly enough.

We lost our shape and discipline when Lamela went off. In fact, it should show how hard he worked tonight with his defensive duties.

For the record, I thought Dembele had a great game largely because he was in the advanced role, playing in the hole/switching off with Eriksen and Lamela when attacking. He was thankfully not playing deep.
 
King of Norway said:
I just want to say... Mousa Dembele... terrific match tonight. He gets a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, so he should get some credit when he performs in such a manner in a big game. Surely he must have been injured or knackered, otherwise the substition made no sense. He dominated the game and showed what he was capable of. He even found the right pass several times in this game.
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Someone trod on his achilles a few minutes prior. I'd say it was a precaution against the injury getting worse.
 
thfcsteff said:
No it didn't.
Paulinho replaced the injured Dembele on 66 minutes.
Townsend replaced Lamela nearly 10 minutes later in the 75th minute.
Sheff Utd scored three minutes later and then (again) another two minutes later. Only in the minutes after that second sub did we start to feel the wobble.
Sorry, Townsend simply did not track back well enough/slot into the shape, graft and tempo of the game quickly enough.

We lost our shape and discipline when Lamela went off. In fact, it should show how hard he worked tonight with his defensive duties.

For the record, I thought Dembele had a great game largely because he was in the advanced role, playing in the hole/switching off with Eriksen and Lamela when attacking. He was thankfully not playing deep.
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Excellent point. It's not like we fell apart after Paulinho came on.
 
Pirate55 said:
I know you blame Townsend for everything and he did have a shocker today, but the midfield went to sh1t the moment MoTM Dembele (who was bossing the game ) was replaced by the nonentity Poorlonho. We went from having a team of 12 to a team of 10. The momentum changed from that moment.
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Agree with this. Paulinho's strengths (if he has any) are more suited to the spot behind the striker IMO. I would have left Mason as CM and put Paulie further forward.
 
90291Spur said:
From what I could see we fell apart because someone didn't pick up the same player TWICE in the space of about two minutes. I think it was Townsend. TWICE!!!
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Not really Townsend's man. It was their winger/wide forward who scored and Townsend was our winger in a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 system. However in the situation we were in when he came on I really think it should be expected for him to put a real shift in defensively and get back and help out.

Paulinho gets way too much stick. He came on, was disciplined in his positioning, didn't shirk duels at all, put in 3 tackles and attempted 16 passes with a 75% accuracy. (all stats whoscored.com)
 
Rorschach said:
Agree with this. Paulinho's strengths (if he has any) are more suited to the spot behind the striker IMO. I would have left Mason as CM and put Paulie further forward.
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Mason was on a yellow and tiring. Not long before the sub he had to pull out of a challenge (because of his card) and struggled to keep up with the opponent. He was quickly becoming less effective defensively in that deeper role.

I agree that Paulinho overall is better in a more advanced position. But given our options yesterday and the situation with Mason on a yellow I think it was a perfectly fine decision.
 
braineclipse said:
Not really Townsend's man. It was their winger/wide forward who scored and Townsend was our winger in a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 system. However in the situation we were in when he came on I really think it should be expected for him to put a real shift in defensively and get back and help out.

Paulinho gets way too much stick. He came on, was disciplined in his positioning, didn't shirk duels at all, put in 3 tackles and attempted 16 passes with a 75% accuracy. (all stats whoscored.com)
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I think in that situation where there is an overload on our flank and the cb's and far fb have to come across one for cover the far side winger has to be back in as well
 
galeforce said:
I think in that situation where there is an overload on our flank and the cb's and far fb have to come across one for cover the far side winger has to be back in as well
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Walker and Dier were going for the same man and Townsend hadn't tracked back. I would split it between Walker and Townsend.
 
Rorschach said:
Agree with this. Paulinho's strengths (if he has any) are more suited to the spot behind the striker IMO. I would have left Mason as CM and put Paulie further forward.
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At times, Poch does seem to over complicate things . Paulinho on for Dembele was so obvious. I can't recall Paulinho ever before, being played as one of the two holding midfielders so why in a semi-final?

Also , why so much criticism of Lamela on here? From what I remember , along with Kane and Dembele he were one of best players. I'm sure he put in at least three superb defence splitting passes, for Kane and Mason who could've done better. I think he needs to score a few goals for some of you to realise his worth to the team.
 
Jordinho said:
Walker and Dier were going for the same man and Townsend hadn't tracked back. I would split it between Walker and Townsend.
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I think Walker should have been coming across to the middle - the ball came in from the other side, I'd expect one centre half to go towards the ball, Dier to stay with his man and Walker to come in and support. It's not his fault he didn't get anyone covering the flank.
 
The bigger point for me with that one is that Walker and Dier somehow contrived to let it run to the man on the back post. One of them should have got to it and put it behind.
 
It is really brilliant that we are in our first Cup final this decade. But in a typical Spurs way, we made hard work of it. We almost threw away the chance to play in the Final by conceding those 2 late goals. It could have destroyed our Cup dreams. But super hero Eriksen came to our rescue, yet again. It reminded me of Pavly's rescue act in the 2009 semi final. With us in the Final, hope we will now go and win it !

It is amazing how Eriksen always come up with these late goals. Somehow felt confident he would score in this match and he duly came up with 2 wonder goals. The first one was a world class goal, scored with a world class freekick. It was even brilliant the way he scored the second goal, scoring with ice-cool calmness and precision despite the pressure on him. It is a sign of a great player when he can score goals like these despite not having a good game. We really need to keep him long term and build our play around him.

It was nice to see our midfield having a good game. Dembele and Stambouli is really gelling together well. We did create many chances but disappointingly we failed to make them count. After the first goal, we should have get another goal much earlier to kill the game off. Instead we let Sheff Utd come back into the match by conceding those goals. It seems like Lamela had a good game but wish he had created or scored a goal for us.

Really disappointed with our defending for both the goals. We can't be conceding goals like this if we want to win the Cup. Thought it was a mistake by Pochettino to play Vorm instead of Lloris. Felt Vorm should have done better for their first goal as it was scored from a difficult angle. Ofcourse our defence should have stopped the attack in the first place. Even worse, our defence reacted too slow for the 2nd goal which resulted in them scoring via a deflection off Dier. Maybe Fazio should have started instead of Dier as he has been playing well with Vertonghen. Talking about Vertonghen, it was really stupid of him to hold the neck of the Sheff Utd after the challenge on Vorm. He could have been send off.

We have hardly been convincing in our run-up to the Final. But performance is not really important in Cup matches as long as you win. Hope we will now go on to beat Chelsea in the Final.
 
Exactly. It WASNT Townsends man. If he had been in the penalty area defending, then that would have allowed his full back a free ride. If the full back would have then been unmarked and scored, all hell would have broken loose on here.

I agree that Lamela had a good game pressing and putting himself about ( but poor when he had the ball) . Townsend was poor in both pressing and with the ball. However to blame him for everything is plainly ridiculous.
 
scaramanga said:
I think Walker should have been coming across to the middle - the ball came in from the other side, I'd expect one centre half to go towards the ball, Dier to stay with his man and Walker to come in and support. It's not his fault he didn't get anyone covering the flank.
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So you want just one player to mark an opponent when there are two in the box? Walker should have been marking him and not get sucked into the middle.

If you expect Townsend to be covering the attacker, then who picks up the unmarked full back when he wanders unmarked into the area?
 
braineclipse said:
Not really Townsend's man. It was their winger/wide forward who scored and Townsend was our winger in a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 system. However in the situation we were in when he came on I really think it should be expected for him to put a real shift in defensively and get back and help out.

Paulinho gets way too much stick. He came on, was disciplined in his positioning, didn't shirk duels at all, put in 3 tackles and attempted 16 passes with a 75% accuracy. (all stats whoscored.com)
Click to expand...

galeforce said:
I think in that situation where there is an overload on our flank and the cb's and far fb have to come across one for cover the far side winger has to be back in as well
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And where should the DMs be?
 
Pirate55 said:
So you want just one player to mark an opponent when there are two in the box? Walker should have been marking him and not get sucked into the middle.

If you expect Townsend to be covering the attacker, then who picks up the unmarked full back when he wanders unmarked into the area?
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The player in the middle is most dangerous. He has to be the one with two men on him - Walker has to tuck in and help - that's defending 101.

There was no full back in a dangerous position, if there was I'd expect one of the two in midfield to go across or (if there's time) drop back and let the back 4 spread again.

The one thing Townsend can't do in that position is think he's Roy of the fvcking Rovers and go running up the pitch without bothering to come back.
 
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