• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

***OMT Tottenham Hotspur Football Club v Nottingham Forest***

One of the reasons that I was, and am, far far less down after yesterday was that I thought we showed great spirit and fight in the first half. As usual we got absolutely nothing from that referee in the first half when we were on top for good periods of the game. I know that is on par for him, but like others on here, I do wish the Club called this dreadful bias out. Amazing that Gray could carry on. The formation change sadly didn't work at all, and Sarr reverted to looking lost. He is clearly great going forwards but can't defend to save his life.
 
Mikey10 said:
I have no doubt at all that we can go the rest of the season without a win.

I’m really hoping we won’t - but we’ve just been smashed 0-3 at home by the team who were 17th in the PL, who have scored 20% of their PL goals against us this season, and who had played 120 minutes away in Denmark less than 72 hours before playing us.

This squad is that bad, I’m afraid.
Click to expand...
Nearly always agree with you @Mikey10 but most of the Forest team yesterday didn't feature in Denmark, some played 20-30 minutes.
Squad though not great has enough in it to survive this, just needs organising and confidence instilled.
 
lurker of old said:
One of the reasons that I was, and am, far far less down after yesterday was that I thought we showed great spirit and fight in the first half. As usual we got absolutely nothing from that referee in the first half when we were on top for good periods of the game. I know that is on par for him, but like others on here, I do wish the Club called this dreadful bias out. Amazing that Gray could carry on. The formation change sadly didn't work at all, and Sarr reverted to looking lost. He is clearly great going forwards but can't defend to save his life.
Click to expand...

Agreed. We should’ve been at least a goal up by half time. Thought we looked decent. We need a little rub of the green and for refs to not be completely bent against us. We’re still in this.
 
lurker of old said:
One of the reasons that I was, and am, far far less down after yesterday was that I thought we showed great spirit and fight in the first half. As usual we got absolutely nothing from that referee in the first half when we were on top for good periods of the game. I know that is on par for him, but like others on here, I do wish the Club called this dreadful bias out. Amazing that Gray could carry on. The formation change sadly didn't work at all, and Sarr reverted to looking lost. He is clearly great going forwards but can't defend to save his life.
Click to expand...
The problem is that we cannot keep clean sheets that would keep us in a game so we could eventually nick a goal. For me this is a major reason why we will go down. We must find a way to defend better as a team.
 
Robspur12 said:
The problem is that we cannot keep clean sheets that would keep us in a game so we could eventually nick a goal. For me this is a major reason why we will go down. We must find a way to defend better as a team.
Click to expand...

I think this is something that can only come from the players at this point. To have 6 players in the box and not one of them picking up MGW is not a failure of tactics. It’s responsibility, accountability, and also feeling confident enough communicating with each other. There needs to be some leadership structure and then others can fall in around it, but we have none of it. It’s really weird to concede those types of goals, it looks completely amateur. But I don’t think we have anything approaching a team dynamic right now.
 
SissokoWasGood (BoL) said:
I think this is something that can only come from the players at this point. To have 6 players in the box and not one of them picking up MGW is not a failure of tactics. It’s responsibility, accountability, and also feeling confident enough communicating with each other. There needs to be some leadership structure and then others can fall in around it, but we have none of it. It’s really weird to concede those types of goals, it looks completely amateur. But I don’t think we have anything approaching a team dynamic right now.
Click to expand...
We have a recurring theme of goals conceded
Shots from distance taking a deflection and now free headers on corners
The MGW shot was kind of unusual and ,ore like what we conceded last year
The predictability is the issue
 
Robspur12 said:
The problem is that we cannot keep clean sheets that would keep us in a game so we could eventually nick a goal. For me this is a major reason why we will go down. We must find a way to defend better as a team.
Click to expand...
We need to stop playing VDV and Romero. Danso and one other at CB. X2 starting CBs and GK should have been no. 1 priorities in the summer and Jan windows.
 
monkeybarry said:
Exactly
It's what I've been trying to get across with people taking bits of positives from Performances - it's irrelevant at this point; results are the only thing that matter.

I don't care if pump the ball to the big man up front for 7 games if it means we get the points needed.
We can reset the performance style in the summer - the next 7 games results decide if that's Vs Saudi Sportswashing Machine or Norwich.
Click to expand...

Who is disagreeing with you?
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
We need to stop playing VDV and Romero. Danso and one other at CB. X2 starting CBs and GK should have been no. 1 priorities in the summer and Jan windows.
Click to expand...
With hindsight.
If we'd have bought two starting CBs in the summer everyone would have been over the moon about that?
Don't be Silly.

Agree with your first two sentences though
 
Last edited:
Glenda's Legs said:
Sorry to truncate your post so much but I’m not even convinced changing manager now will save us (although we absolutely should try it). I think our only hope is West Ham being worse than us (but they at least have some fight in them) or we somehow snag a couple of points somewhere and Forest or Leeds slip down and can’t get out.

Yesterday was a bit of a sledgehammer moment for me. Whilst always acknowledging that the risk of relegation was real, I could never let myself believe it might actually happen (if that contradiction makes sense!).
Our survival is still in our hands, just, but it’s going to be a bloody hard ask and can we trust those hands?

Edit - bad phrasing as our players would probably take that as an instruction to handle the ball and we’d end up not being able to field a team.
Click to expand...
Ha no worries, as I typed all that I thought it’s too long for anyone to quote.

I agree, we are in a way worse situation than anyone realises. I’m kind of just clinging to “footballs a funny old game” in the hope we can do something.

People talk about “we need to win this game or that game”, at the moment we can’t win ANY game. If we get a draw it feels like win. Even to win a single match before the end of the season looks beyond us! We completely collapsed in 2025 yet the board seemed oblivious.

We still need a new manager, and then just hope we can get some luck (as we’re not winning games with ability)
 
ricky2tricky4city said:
With hindsight.
If we'd have bought two starting CBs in the summer everyone would have been over the moon about that?
Don't be Silly.

Agree with you first two sentences though
Click to expand...

If anything, the last two seasons have showed us that we have a penchant for over-rating our players. Both aforementioned CBs have quite glaring weaknesses in their game (when they're actually able to play given discipline / fitness issues).

Dragusin was meant to be a genuine contender for the first team but do either VDV or our club captain feel like their positions are under threat? Radu wasn't a speculative punt. That said, it's easy in hindsight to just exclaim "We've should have bought better players". It's also easy to cherry pick the bad signings, Danso looks good tbf. I'm no expert on player acquisition, I thought looking at Liverpool's business they were going to tinkle the league, what do I know?

It took 3 good games from Destiny at the start and he's one of the best LBs in the league. Similar with Vic, good start and we love to put the players on a pedal stool. We always look so good on paper but the game takes place on grass unfortunately.

It's harder and harder to defend them game in game out. Maybe they felt disappointed that Ange was dismissed, I'd get that but it's been worse and nobody is lifting each other up on the pitch.
 
spurspinter1 said:
If anything, the last two seasons have showed us that we have a penchant for over-rating our players. Both aforementioned CBs have quite glaring weaknesses in their game (when they're actually able to play given discipline / fitness issues).
Click to expand...

This is just dawning on me actually. We have a bad rep as fans, but we actually ignore performances and still rate players highly based on our romanticised view of them.

Romero, VDV, Porro and Vicario concede more soft goals than when we had Emerson Royale, and Sanchez. Even Ian Walker made less mistakes, and Razor Ruddock had more clean sheets than these guys could ever wish for.

just realised they aren’t as good as I thought,
 
spurspinter1 said:
If anything, the last two seasons have showed us that we have a penchant for over-rating our players. Both aforementioned CBs have quite glaring weaknesses in their game (when they're actually able to play given discipline / fitness issues).

Dragusin was meant to be a genuine contender for the first team but do either VDV or our club captain feel like their positions are under threat? Radu wasn't a speculative punt. That said, it's easy in hindsight to just exclaim "We've should have bought better players". It's also easy to cherry pick the bad signings, Danso looks good tbf. I'm no expert on player acquisition, I thought looking at Liverpool's business they were going to tinkle the league, what do I know?

It took 3 good games from Destiny at the start and he's one of the best LBs in the league. Similar with Vic, good start and we love to put the players on a pedal stool. We always look so good on paper but the game takes place on grass unfortunately.

It's harder and harder to defend them game in game out. Maybe they felt disappointed that Ange was dismissed, I'd get that but it's been worse and nobody is lifting each other up on the pitch.
Click to expand...

elyid said:
This is just dawning on me actually. We have a bad rep as fans, but we actually ignore performances and still rate players highly based on our romanticised view of them.

Romero, VDV, Porro and Vicario concede more soft goals than when we had Emerson Royale, and Sanchez. Even Ian Walker made less mistakes, and Razor Ruddock had more clean sheets than these guys could ever wish for.

just realised they aren’t as good as I thought,
Click to expand...
Welcome to my side of the aisle. Now you get why i've been so strong on my opinions about these players over the years? I'm not saying I thought we would eventually get relegated, but year on year, window after window I just kept seeing the quality of the side diminish bit by bit, held up by the last two standout players we had and we just slept walked ourselves into mediocrity by constantly making excusing for why player X couldn't perform or how amazing player Y is despite not actually seeing that on the pitch. We accepted lowered standards because rather than be honest with ourselves with what we were seeing we had to "support the players" and not admit what we were actually watching.
 
ricky2tricky4city said:
With hindsight.
If we'd have bought two starting CBs in the summer everyone would have been over the moon about that?
Don't be Silly.

Agree with your first two sentences though
Click to expand...
I appreciate that, doesn't mean i was not correct. And it was the appointment of Frank as manager that necessitated it more than anything. VDV/Romero strengths are on the ball not off the ball so only going to work in high line, front foot pressing system where you don't have to do a lot of defending. Frank's style necessitated a backline of old skool defender-first players able to clear, win duals, keep position in a low block etc.
 
spurspinter1 said:
If anything, the last two seasons have showed us that we have a penchant for over-rating our players. Both aforementioned CBs have quite glaring weaknesses in their game (when they're actually able to play given discipline / fitness issues).

Dragusin was meant to be a genuine contender for the first team but do either VDV or our club captain feel like their positions are under threat? Radu wasn't a speculative punt. That said, it's easy in hindsight to just exclaim "We've should have bought better players". It's also easy to cherry pick the bad signings, Danso looks good tbf. I'm no expert on player acquisition, I thought looking at Liverpool's business they were going to tinkle the league, what do I know?

It took 3 good games from Destiny at the start and he's one of the best LBs in the league. Similar with Vic, good start and we love to put the players on a pedal stool. We always look so good on paper but the game takes place on grass unfortunately.

It's harder and harder to defend them game in game out. Maybe they felt disappointed that Ange was dismissed, I'd get that but it's been worse and nobody is lifting each other up on the pitch.
Click to expand...
They were horrible under Ange though. Think about our early games under Ange last season. Leicester we were 1-0 up. Suddenly Romero goes for a wander "oh sh*t i seem to have left one of the Premier League's all time clinical poachers totally free at the back post - go on Jamie lad, have a point!" And it didn't get any better from there. Have either Romero or VDV managed more than 10-15 league games in a row for us? Another point.
 
Silly McSilly Face said:
I appreciate that, doesn't mean i was not correct. And it was the appointment of Frank as manager that necessitated it more than anything. VDV/Romero strengths are on the ball not off the ball so only going to work in high line, front foot pressing system where you don't have to do a lot of defending. Frank's style necessitated a backline of old skool defender-first players able to clear, win duals, keep position in a low block etc.
Click to expand...
I hope you was correct.....with hindsight :)
 
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

He thought they were bad. What the hell would Mourinho have made of this lot?
 
Bishop said:
Welcome to my side of the aisle. Now you get why i've been so strong on my opinions about these players over the years? I'm not saying I thought we would eventually get relegated, but year on year, window after window I just kept seeing the quality of the side diminish bit by bit, held up by the last two standout players we had and we just slept walked ourselves into mediocrity by constantly making excusing for why player X couldn't perform or how amazing player Y is despite not actually seeing that on the pitch. We accepted lowered standards because rather than be honest with ourselves with what we were seeing we had to "support the players" and not admit what we were actually watching.
Click to expand...

Of COURSE we ‘support the players’ I’m not too sure what the sensible option is when one doesn’t have the power to sanction proper wages for the #1 targets? I still think many of these players are far better than we’re seeing, and in a consistent environment they’d be showing it.
 
thfcsteff said:
Of COURSE we ‘support the players’ I’m not too sure what the sensible option is when one doesn’t have the power to sanction proper wages for the #1 targets? I still think many of these players are far better than we’re seeing, and in a consistent environment they’d be showing it.
Click to expand...

I agree, after all its what real supporters are supposed to do.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back