***TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR vs Swansea City OMT ***

[Nexus1967]

At half time I said to my boys I would be happy to see us finish with a point, and when Poch did not change things at half time I thought we would fold. In the end I actually thought he made good subs but was amazed he took Soldado off and left Lamela on initially. To me it seemed we finished much stronger than the Swans.
A few positives as well. Harry Kane had a great game. This is a player I never thought would flourish in the prem. Also good to see Kyle Walker back and amazed at his fitness level he looked strong in the last 10-15 mins.
Another positive was Davies, looking more solid every game he gets under his belt.
Even though I sort of had the feeling we had mugged them at the end, lets not forget that they were above us in the table and have beaten some good teams at home this season.
On reflection a great 3 points
COYS

 

[Robspur12]

Exactly. I don't overly rate Bony but the differenuce in quality and determination were stark. We need a striker like Bony who actually causes defences problems

on bony I disagree he does cause problems but is not clinical enough imo. Which is why he hasnt been picked up by a bigger club with all due respect to Swansea.

 

[Nexus1967]

Bony is still a much bigger threat than Soldado. I bet the Swansea fans weren't ****ting themslves every time Soldado got the ball near the box

 

[Rossi22]

Don't know whether some just like to moan or they just don't get it. The subs were to get a foothold in the game, try to restore some order and get possession back again, not to close shop and hold out for a draw. They worked, not perfectly but enough, there's no upside to having two strikers if they're not going to occupy the back four so taking Soldado off who offers nothing was the right call. Only criticism I could have was that it wasn't done sooner.

 

[braineclipse]

Papering over the cracks. I see the bigger picture this season then being blinded by not one, not two, not three, but four late winners. As a footballing unit we are not improving one bit week in week out. We are awful, just as we were under AVB, and these late winners are coming "despite" Poch and not because of him.

Am I missing something?

Isn't the concept of "papering over the cracks" that obvious flaws are hidden/ignored and thus allowed to grow bigger as the immediate negative consequences aren't there. Then as the cracks grow the underlying problem grows greater.

How anyone could have spent any time on this forum the last week and though that cracks had been successfully been papered over is beyond me. You claim to see the bigger picture, please enlighten me on how your description is accurate if you don't mind.

What I'm seeing are obvious flaws. Obvious to us, opponents and Pochettino. We're improving, but the underlying cracks that have been there for a long time before Poch took over are taking time to actually fix. Meanwhile getting results despite these flaws is not papering over anything, what it's doing is giving Poch time and some space from nagging journalists and reactive fans that would not have been anywhere near patient had the results not been as decent as they have been.

An away win at one of the toughest grounds in the league, sealed with a quality strike at a time when most s side would have settled for a point. There have been a good few times this season when all the bellyaching has been understandable. Today really isn't one of them.

Agreed, Swansea are a good team. Only their second home loss this season (out of 9 games), in the previous 8 they had only conceded 5 goals. Their losses so far this season: Chelsea, Southampton, Stoke, Emirates Marketing Project, West Ham and now us. So only one loss to a team outside the top 7. Only one loss at home previously this season. And only Chelsea have beaten them by more than one goal. They're a good team and difficult to play against.

It was a hard fought win, but we did show the fight hard. We were second best in longer periods than I would have wanted for sure, but in other periods we were better. We didn't collapse after the equalizer, they pressed us for a bit, but we responded well.

 

[milo]

I am surprised that anyone is surprised by Swansea being good today. We had passages of play where we were on top, they had passages where they were on top. They came out very strong early in the second half and we lost our shape and belief as a result but I was very impressed with our resolve. There was a period in the second half where both teams lost shape and it was like two drunks slugging it out in a pub car park but we recovered from this better than them. We talk a lot about teams character and we had that today.

 

[milo]

Am I missing something?

Isn't the concept of "papering over the cracks" that obvious flaws are hidden/ignored and thus allowed to grow bigger as the immediate negative consequences aren't there. Then as the cracks grow the underlying problem grows greater.

How anyone could have spent any time on this forum the last week and though that cracks had been successfully been papered over is beyond me. You claim to see the bigger picture, please enlighten me on how your description is accurate if you don't mind.

What I'm seeing are obvious flaws. Obvious to us, opponents and Pochettino. We're improving, but the underlying cracks that have been there for a long time before Poch took over are taking time to actually fix. Meanwhile getting results despite these flaws is not papering over anything, what it's doing is giving Poch time and some space from nagging journalists and reactive fans that would not have been anywhere near patient had the results not been as decent as they have been.



Agreed, Swansea are a good team. Only their second home loss this season (out of 9 games), in the previous 8 they had only conceded 5 goals. Their losses so far this season: Chelsea, Southampton, Stoke, Emirates Marketing Project, West Ham and now us. So only one loss to a team outside the top 7. Only one loss at home previously this season. And only Chelsea have beaten them by more than one goal. They're a good team and difficult to play against.

It was a hard fought win, but we did show the fight hard. We were second best in longer periods than I would have wanted for sure, but in other periods we were better. We didn't collapse after the equalizer, they pressed us for a bit, but we responded well.

=D>

 

[Robspur12]

Am I missing something?

Isn't the concept of "papering over the cracks" that obvious flaws are hidden/ignored and thus allowed to grow bigger as the immediate negative consequences aren't there. Then as the cracks grow the underlying problem grows greater.

How anyone could have spent any time on this forum the last week and though that cracks had been successfully been papered over is beyond me. You claim to see the bigger picture, please enlighten me on how your description is accurate if you don't mind.

What I'm seeing are obvious flaws. Obvious to us, opponents and Pochettino. We're improving, but the underlying cracks that have been there for a long time before Poch took over are taking time to actually fix. Meanwhile getting results despite these flaws is not papering over anything, what it's doing is giving Poch time and some space from nagging journalists and reactive fans that would not have been anywhere near patient had the results not been as decent as they have been.



Agreed, Swansea are a good team. Only their second home loss this season (out of 9 games), in the previous 8 they had only conceded 5 goals. Their losses so far this season: Chelsea, Southampton, Stoke, Emirates Marketing Project, West Ham and now us. So only one loss to a team outside the top 7. Only one loss at home previously this season. And only Chelsea have beaten them by more than one goal. They're a good team and difficult to play against.

It was a hard fought win, but we did show the fight hard. We were second best in longer periods than I would have wanted for sure, but in other periods we were better. We didn't collapse after the equalizer, they pressed us for a bit, but we responded well.

great post

 

[JerusalemMan]

I think the fielding of Walker and Davies is nothing but good news. For his first proper game back (i.e. amongst many other first team regulars in a PL match) Walker showed positives. As well as a couple of negatives. Davies is hopefully now beginning to show that a sustained run of games will exhibit him as starting XI material.

 

[Raziel]

Don't know whether some just like to moan or they just don't get it. The subs were to get a foothold in the game, try to restore some order and get possession back again, not to close shop and hold out for a draw. They worked, not perfectly but enough, there's no upside to having two strikers if they're not going to occupy the back four so taking Soldado off who offers nothing was the right call. Only criticism I could have was that it wasn't done sooner.

Don't know whether some just like to ignore every point counter to theirs.

- The issue was not if to take a striker off, the issue is how could anybody but a blind man not have taken Lamela off first, and in fact how was Lamela not off at HT
- The momentum was clearly with them, we needed more support in midfield, it should have been done before their goal.
- And how Lamela got 82 minutes out of that game is beyond any reasonable understanding.

 

[Raziel]

What I'm seeing are obvious flaws. Obvious to us, opponents and Pochettino. We're improving, but the underlying cracks that have been there for a long time before Poch took over are taking time to actually fix. Meanwhile getting results despite these flaws is not papering over anything, what it's doing is giving Poch time and some space from nagging journalists and reactive fans that would not have been anywhere near patient had the results not been as decent as they have been.

Agreed, Swansea are a good team. Only their second home loss this season (out of 9 games), in the previous 8 they had only conceded 5 goals. Their losses so far this season: Chelsea, Southampton, Stoke, Emirates Marketing Project, West Ham and now us. So only one loss to a team outside the top 7. Only one loss at home previously this season. And only Chelsea have beaten them by more than one goal. They're a good team and difficult to play against.

It was a hard fought win, but we did show the fight hard. We were second best in longer periods than I would have wanted for sure, but in other periods we were better. We didn't collapse after the equalizer, they pressed us for a bit, but we responded well.

No mate, sorry, Swansea are mid-table pretenders that like to play a watchable style of football, nothing more. Out of that side who would make Spurs bench other than Bony? (who missed a shedload)
And btw, none of West Ham, Southampton or Stoke will finish in top 7.

 

[paxtonwolf]

I was over the moon when they took Bony off.

 

[braineclipse]

Don't know whether some just like to ignore every point counter to theirs.

- The issue was not if to take a striker off, the issue is how could anybody but a blind man not have taken Lamela off first, and in fact how was Lamela not off at HT
- The momentum was clearly with them, we needed more support in midfield, it should have been done before their goal.
- And how Lamela got 82 minutes out of that game is beyond any reasonable understanding.

Does it have to be this divisive? I get that you don't rate Poch and you disagree with a lot of what he does. But is it really so far beyond comprehension that Poch had reason and rhyme behind his actions?

Lamela worked hard. At the end of the first half he was the one putting most energy into our pressing. Replacing him with Chadli/Townsend would have seen us lose significant work rate and the support for the midfield you're asking for would not have improved, rather the opposite. The Dembele sub made sense, and it worked.

 

[Raziel]

Does it have to be this divisive? I get that you don't rate Poch and you disagree with a lot of what he does. But is it really so far beyond comprehension that Poch had reason and rhyme behind his actions?

Lamela worked hard. At the end of the first half he was the one putting most energy into our pressing. Replacing him with Chadli/Townsend would have seen us lose significant work rate and the support for the midfield you're asking for would not have improved, rather the opposite. The Dembele sub made sense, and it worked.

Serious question mate (I respect your opinion), you actually believe keeping Lamela on for 82 mins today made any sense whatsoever? you saw a contribution from him (other than trying to get us down to 10 men)?

 

[Rossi22]

Don't know whether some just like to ignore every point counter to theirs.

- The issue was not if to take a striker off, the issue is how could anybody but a blind man not have taken Lamela off first, and in fact how was Lamela not off at HT
- The momentum was clearly with them, we needed more support in midfield, it should have been done before their goal.
- And how Lamela got 82 minutes out of that game is beyond any reasonable understanding.

What would your sub have been? Lamela off for who? A central midfielder? How would we have rejigged the lineup to fit three centre mids, two strikers and Eriksen into it? Lamela was poor, again, but at least he shows some fight, tenacity and works hard off the ball. Soldado sub made perfect sense for me, you take an ineffective centre forward off and put a centre midfielder on, the rest stays the same. I don't really understand your 2nd point, I know that's what we needed but there were numerous posts on here who took the Dembele/Soldado switch as a negative shut up shop Poch doesn't want to win move, which is incorrect and the point I was making.

 

[braineclipse]

Serious question mate (I respect your opinion), you actually believe keeping Lamela on for 82 mins today made any sense whatsoever? you saw a contribution from him (other than trying to get us down to 10 men)?

82nd is longer than I would have given him if in charge for sure. But with the options on the bench being Townsend and Chadli, meaning that the option on the bench was a not in form Chadli that has at times shown some suspect work rate and the control of the game very much in the balance I think keeping the hard working Lamela on for quite a while seems like a solid decision. For me he would have gone somewhere between 60 and 70, but what Poch did worked fine and it's not like Chadli has looked likely to chang the flow of games all that often from the bench.

Serious question to you: Do you really not think Swansea are a good team?

 

[Jordinho]

Kane had a passing accuracy of 70%, meaning he gave away the ball more often than Lamela. Why isn't he getting bashed?

 

[Rossi22]

Kane had a passing accuracy of 70%, meaning he gave away the ball more often than Lamela. Why isn't he getting bashed?

Because Kane influenced the outcome of the game.

 

[Raziel]

What would your sub have been? Lamela off for who? A central midfielder? How would we have rejigged the lineup to fit three centre mids, two strikers and Eriksen into it? Lamela was poor, again, but at least he shows some fight, tenacity and works hard off the ball. Soldado sub made perfect sense for me, you take an ineffective centre forward off and put a centre midfielder on, the rest stays the same. I don't really understand your 2nd point, I know that's what we needed but there were numerous posts on here who took the Dembele/Soldado switch as a negative shut up shop Poch doesn't want to win move, which is incorrect and the point I was making.

Here's my order of where Poch went wrong

- We needed a sub at HT (see my HT post), it was clear if we didn't change something we were highly likely to concede.
- Lamela was giving away the ball, causing fouls, could have been sent off twice, so he had to come off (Poch made a huge unnecessary gamble that would have backfired if the ref made a different choice)
- Chadli/Dembele for Lamela would have been obvious
- Stambouli in for one of Mason/Bentaleb would have been the second obvious play (see if we got hold of midfield and give our front two more service)
- Soldado off would have been my last play, big part because of the message dropping to one striker sends

All subs should have been done by 70-75 minutes.

My opinion remains Poch missed his opportunity to proactively affect the game, when we fell behind he made no attempt to win it, just trying to hold on for a draw and individual endeavor from Kane/Eriksen won the game.

Outside of a reasonable first 11 selection, I say no progress in style/system/managerial impact

 

[Yermiyahu]

Kane had a passing accuracy of 70%, meaning he gave away the ball more often than Lamela. Why isn't he getting bashed?

Because he scores goals? Because he didn't cost the club 30 million quid? Because his passes sometimes are intended for a player more than 5 feet away from him? Because he looks like he gives a 5hit?