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Andre Villas-Boas - Head Coach

glorygloryeze said:
Tbf, you are talking about AVB's performances after a game that we draw at home to Stoke; it looks immediately on the surface you are still going on about the negatives from previous weeks and are using today as a further exhibit to prove your point. I asked specifucally about what different you would have done today.

You have given AVB some praise, but you can see how you easily paint yourself as an AVB hater, particularly when you most often agree with those who are actually AVB haters (eg SUIYAR)
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What's wrong with that? I'm talking about the whole season. It would be silly to go mental based on one game. And I answered your questions about what I would have done differently.

I can't help it if I agree with some valid points that certain posters make, just as I agree with posters who defend AVB when they cite our lack of a creative midfielder as a reason for a dearth of creativity in games.
 
Jurgen the German said:
What's wrong with that? I'm talking about the whole season. It would be silly to go mental based on one game. And I answered your questions about what I would have done differently.

I can't help it if I agree with some valid points that certain posters make, just as I agree with posters who defend AVB when they cite our lack of a creative midfielder as a reason for a dearth of creativity in games.
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Sorry, I was trying to acknowledge that and acknowledge why I asked you questions directly in this thread.

If you acknowledge that a lack of creative midfielder is a reason for a dearth of creativity in games, why do you then question the performances as much as you do? Surely a large chunk of the fustrations you have with our performances are linked to this issue (and perhaps AVB trying to mitigate against this)?
 
onlyme said:
I don't think that our tactics were wrong today, I think the team selected was certainly our best available XI and the subs all made sense.
Stoke are in form and tough to score against.
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Ultimately this; I read they have one of the (if not THE) best defensive records in Europe. Have onlt lost 3 games as well, two of which were against Chelski and Manure.
As fustrating as dropping to 5th/6th is, Stoke are a very very hard team to beat.

Of course, the 'feel' of this result will be a whole lot more negative if we also dropmpoint against Villa8-[
 
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glorygloryeze said:
Really???? In the centre of midfield against Stoke?? Do you not think that would have been risky seeing how he is not a posession player/hard to knock off the ball like Dembele, would not likely have had the space to run in behind Stoke's players and use his pace?
Imagine if this had led to Stoke dominating the centre of the midfield??

I agree that perhaps Lennon hasn't been at his best, but the facts are that few have his pace to push teams back on the right hand side.
I'm sure if he had been dropped today and we got the same result many would have said 'how cab AVB do that the idiot...'
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If it was up to some Spurs fans our team would look like this:

Lloris
Dawson
Vertonghen
Dembele
Lennon Sigurdsson Dempsey Townsend Bale
Defoe Adebayor
​
 
This thread needs some serious perspective.

Stoke are a team where the whole culture of their club is to defend like they did today. They have been doing it for years. They are frustrating many teams this season. Chelsea needed a pretty lucky Ashley Cole goal to beat them at Stamford Bridge. It isn't easy to beat them - and Chelsea had the likes of Hazard, Oscar and Mata to call on. It isn't going to be easy for us to turn up and beat them. There is no secret mega tactic that unlocks a team like Stoke. You have to work hard, and if they show bugger all ambition, you need to get the bounce of the ball and take your chances. We didn't today. It's not a management problem. It's not even really a player problem. Our players are good. But we just didn't do it today.

Man United needed a ridiculously flukey goal to beat West Ham 1-0 a couple of weeks ago at home. Emirates Marketing Project needed 93 minutes and a murky goal to beat the worst side in the league at home today. It happens, and in terms of showing up to defend for your lives Stoke are better at doing that than West Ham or Reading. Chill out guys! There are no easy games in this league. The sooner people accept that the sooner people won't over-react to losses. We may lose to Villa next week. We are away, they have some decent players that can cause damage within 90 minutes and we may not be able to respond in time. Does it mean AVB is clueless? No. Are our players brick? No. But it might happen.

We will also win games this season. We will again have good patches of form and bad patches of form. Right now we are pretty much where we should be. Level on points with 4th. Let's see where we are at the end.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
This thread needs some serious perspective.

Stoke are a team where the whole culture of their club is to defend like they did today. They have been doing it for years. They are frustrating many teams this season. Chelsea needed a pretty lucky Ashley Cole goal to beat them at Stamford Bridge. It isn't easy to beat them - and Chelsea had the likes of Hazard, Oscar and Mata to call on. It isn't going to be easy for us to turn up and beat them. There is no secret mega tactic that unlocks a team like Stoke. You have to work hard, and if they show bugger all ambition, you need to get the bounce of the ball and take your chances. We didn't today. It's not a management problem. It's not even really a player problem. Our players are good. But we just didn't do it today.

Man United needed a ridiculously flukey goal to beat West Ham 1-0 a couple of weeks ago at home. Emirates Marketing Project needed 93 minutes and a murky goal to beat the worst side in the league at home today. It happens, and in terms of showing up to defend for your lives Stoke are better at doing that than West Ham or Reading. Chill out guys! There are no easy games in this league. The sooner people accept that the sooner people won't over-react to losses. We may lose to Villa next week. We are away, they have some decent players that can cause damage within 90 minutes and we may not be able to respond in time. Does it mean AVB is clueless? No. Are our players brick? No. But it might happen.

We will also win games this season. We will again have good patches of form and bad patches of form. Right now we are pretty much where we should be. Level on points with 4th. Let's see where we are at the end.
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=D>
 
I've seen something evolve slowly but surely this season, and today I felt we saw it perhaps more clearly than ever before (nearly cost us a goal TBF! :eek:)...playing the ball out from the back virtually every time. We really didn't launch to many hoofers today and in playing it out slowly from the back, we looked about as strong as I can remember with regards to keeping possession. if we can upgrade the finishing in Jan, and if we can be patient and keep on developing particulars like this, we will be very very hard to beat. Oh, another positive if nobody minds another potential positive, two clean sheets back to back and third clean sheet in 4 league games now?
 
thfcsteff said:
I've seen something evolve slowly but surely this season, and today I felt we saw it perhaps more clearly than ever before (nearly cost us a goal TBF! :eek:)...playing the ball out from the back virtually every time. We really didn't launch to many hoofers today and in playing it out slowly from the back, we looked about as strong as I can remember with regards to keeping possession. if we can upgrade the finishing in Jan, and if we can be patient and keep on developing particulars like this, we will be very very hard to beat. Oh, another positive if nobody minds another potential positive, two clean sheets back to back and third clean sheet in 4 league games now?
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Which could be a good point, or could be tactical specific to this game.

Stoke didn't really press us very well in our defensive third, they sat back quite a lot and kept numbers behind the ball. In addition to this we were playing Stoke, makes sense as a tactic to try and launch as few long balls as possible, as they have mostly players who are good in the air and will win 99% of the long balls we throw at them.


You say we were playing it out slowly from the back, there are those that would view the 'slowly' as a negative thing.


Imo the defence-midfield link is still not quite working.
 
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Spursalot said:
Which could be a good point, or could be tactical specific to this game.

Stoke didn't really press us very well in our defensive third, they sat back quite a lot and kept numbers behind the ball. In addition to this we were playing Stoke, makes sense as a tactic to try and launch as few long balls as possible, as they have mostly players who are good in the air and will win 99% of the long balls we throw at them.


You say we were playing it out slowly from the back, there are those that would view the 'slowly' as a negative thing.


Imo the defence-midfield link is still not quite working.
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Agree with the first point r: not launching at them, but will say that I have seen Daws change in this regard all season, and it's interesting that both he and Walker are often the defenders who still have the most trouble passing out from the back. Vertonghen is marvelous of course, good GHod, I was hoing that AVB might do something bizarre and find a way to get Vertonghen in right behind the strikers for the last 10-15 as he seemed to be able to ghost past all of them today! Of course, had he tried this, he'd have (perhaps rightly) been called a looney, thus THIS backseat manager did not get his wish!

Excellent point TBF regarding the bolded bit, one of those being my mate who kept on lamenting the lack of speed going forwards. This is where we both feel that a fit Benny will allow Bale a lot more on the left, but of course we also mis Modders finding the quick pass.

I really think a fit Benny will make a difference, and I hope AVB gets what he wants in the window. I would imagine he won't be saying he wants much, as otherwise, prices will be even ore ridiculous than they already could be.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
This thread needs some serious perspective.

Stoke are a team where the whole culture of their club is to defend like they did today. They have been doing it for years. They are frustrating many teams this season. Chelsea needed a pretty lucky Ashley Cole goal to beat them at Stamford Bridge. It isn't easy to beat them - and Chelsea had the likes of Hazard, Oscar and Mata to call on. It isn't going to be easy for us to turn up and beat them. There is no secret mega tactic that unlocks a team like Stoke. You have to work hard, and if they show bugger all ambition, you need to get the bounce of the ball and take your chances. We didn't today. It's not a management problem. It's not even really a player problem. Our players are good. But we just didn't do it today.

Man United needed a ridiculously flukey goal to beat West Ham 1-0 a couple of weeks ago at home. Emirates Marketing Project needed 93 minutes and a murky goal to beat the worst side in the league at home today. It happens, and in terms of showing up to defend for your lives Stoke are better at doing that than West Ham or Reading. Chill out guys! There are no easy games in this league. The sooner people accept that the sooner people won't over-react to losses. We may lose to Villa next week. We are away, they have some decent players that can cause damage within 90 minutes and we may not be able to respond in time. Does it mean AVB is clueless? No. Are our players brick? No. But it might happen.

We will also win games this season. We will again have good patches of form and bad patches of form. Right now we are pretty much where we should be. Level on points with 4th. Let's see where we are at the end.
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nothing but loser talk here.

it's ok to only make their keeper make one outstanding save?

its ok to huff and puff with very little movement and make stoke's job of nullifying us easy?

why? because chelsea struggled too because the mighty stoke are good at doing what they do?

We should be beating teams like stoke at home, not just to show our intent but because we need to be better than just settling for a point and say "hey some perspective, they ALMOST did the same to Chelsea" - fudging loser speech!! We need to go out and get better quality into the squad instead of leaving our transfer dealings to the last day of the window and then shrugging our shoulders when deals fall through!

Again we are going to fall short of CL because the club does not think big and some fans are perfectly happy to lap it up! AVB has come but nothing has changed! We're still facing the same problems and short comings as previously. Is it his fault? Well yes partially as we saw against Everton because he makes mistakes. The core of the problem is in the transfer market - sell our best players (Modric) and buy donkeys at a 5th of the cost (Dempsey).

Losers - from chairman, to manager to players, to fans! Every single one of us! "Hey have some perspective...?" fudge that!
 
kanoute16 said:
nothing but loser talk here.

it's ok to only make their keeper make one outstanding save?

its ok to huff and puff with very little movement and make stoke's job of nullifying us easy?

why? because chelsea struggled too because the mighty stoke are good at doing what they do?

We should be beating teams like stoke at home, not just to show our intent but because we need to be better than just settling for a point and say "hey some perspective, they ALMOST did the same to Chelsea" - fudging loser speech!! We need to go out and get better quality into the squad instead of leaving our transfer dealings to the last day of the window and then shrugging our shoulders when deals fall through!

Again we are going to fall short of CL because the club does not think big and some fans are perfectly happy to lap it up! AVB has come but nothing has changed! We're still facing the same problems and short comings as previously. Is it his fault? Well yes partially as we saw against Everton because he makes mistakes. The core of the problem is in the transfer market - sell our best players (Modric) and buy donkeys at a 5th of the cost (Dempsey).

Losers - from chairman, to manager to players, to fans! Every single one of us! "Hey have some perspective...?" fudge that!
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temper-tantrum-o.gif
 
onlyme said:
I don't think that our tactics were wrong today, I think the team selected was certainly our best available XI and the subs all made sense.
Stoke are in form and tough to score against.
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Indeed. And we didn't get sucker-punched from a set piece, like we usually do against them.
 
glorygloryeze said:
Really???? In the centre of midfield against Stoke?? Do you not think that would have been risky seeing how he is not a posession player/hard to knock off the ball like Dembele, would not likely have had the space to run in behind Stoke's players and use his pace?
Imagine if this had led to Stoke dominating the centre of the midfield??

I agree that perhaps Lennon hasn't been at his best, but the facts are that few have his pace to push teams back on the right hand side.
I'm sure if he had been dropped today and we got the same result many would have said 'how cab AVB do that the idiot...'
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Dont paint me as an idiot. Of course I wouldnt have played Townsend in central midfield. Remember Lennon had already been substituted for Sig. So I would have moved Sig more centrally and put Townsend on the wing to at least try and open them up. Sig's distrubtion to Townsend could have unlocked the door.

For whatever reason, Lennon just hasnt been using his pace in an attacking context virtually all season and certainly not for the last few games. Particularly disappointing when up against a slow full back or one that has been booked already. I said that (like last time) as soon as he got his England call up, his game went to pot. So it has proven both times. I used to love the way Lennon played - was always on the edge of my seat when he got the ball. Not any more. What has changed? Him, the style, the manager - whatever it is I dont like it and for me it has nullified Lennon as an attacking threat.
 
I would have started Siggy over Defoe yesterday.

Dembele is our key man and he gets caught doing too much defensive work in a 4-4-2. We need 3 CMs to give him the freedom to create.

Ade is useless when Defoe is getting in his way and he ends up becoming a make-shift #10 and/or inside forward. But for me Ade would have been more a threat against Stoke's drilled and physical defence.
 
kanoute16 said:
Haha another fudging loser who's happy to draw with fudging Stoke!
Thanks for proving my point
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I must have missed this Tottenham you're looking for, the one that wiped the floor with its opponents and won title after title.

In the real world a draw with Stoke is not that bad.
 
I don't think anyone can be 'happy' with a point but you can appreciate the fixture to be a tough one and realise that, if we are to slip up, the reasons why we did. There are no easy games in the Premiership, there are just games where the team plays to the best of its ability countering the defensive resolve of the opponents and containing any attacking threats.

Or there are those games where we don't quite perform to our best and perhaps the opponents tactics work as they come away with a result. We can't be too distraught when that happens as it will happen, and not just to us, but instead try to minimise the number of occasions on which this happens.

Yesterday v Stoke, they restricted us and have proved over the course if the season that defensively they are right up there. Stoke has the 7th best defensive record in EUROPE!! So we were never going to win 4-0
 
we were lacking cutting edge in the final third but as others have already highlighted Stoke are experts at restricting their opponents time and space, what is the stat ? 5th best defense in Europe i think - despite not winning, as Steff said above, i can see our game coming together - we worked hard, pressed them for most of the game and moved the ball around trying to find the openings and much like the Swansea game didn't become frustrated as we have done in the past. another clean sheet and another final 15 minutes where we never fell apart throwing the game away.

any points dropped at home is poor when you are aiming for the top 4 and this result being no different
 
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