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****OMT - TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR vs WOOLWICH ARSEnal****

Amazed to see some say we had decent passing…

I felt the saddest bit about today was how when it mattered, we were technically inferior.
Eriksen's chance was not taken.
Soldado's shot in the first-half, clean, open, not even on target.
Countless heavy first touches and not enough clean winning of the second ball.
Ade's second-half shot 6 yards out.
Simple use of the ball at key moments.
Simple defending at key moments.

Obviously there are reasons and circumstances which led to some of these things happening, I'm aware of that, but we cannot ignore the fact that the goons were almost surgical in the precision of their play.

I hate losing to these ****ers, but will happily take this so long as Timbo learns from it. And to be fair, it will be tough to know what he can do until he has a fit squad and the rest of the season. When that happens, I hope the following occurs.

1) Rose is not first-choice LB or even second-choice. He is just not good enough. His attacking play is not productive enough to cover for his consistent lack of concentration/decision making at key moments in key areas. I've long felt this BTW, his mistake today merely adds a little more fuel to that fire. He would be perfect for Aston Villa but not Spurs IMO.

2) Chadli is not in the squad. He is average and no more than that, a decent player who lacks the mentality and bravery to be anything more. I think he's sadly a big bust, although only an 7/8 mill bust so not so bad. Again, let him go to West Ham or somewhere like that, his level. Passengers are tolerated there.

3) Daws must be replaced by the end of the season. i love the man, I love his commitment, but if we do want to be a top top side, there is no room for sentimentality any longer. IMO he costs us yet again (I tab him as every bit as responsible for the first goal as Walker, who IMV has spent half a season with half an eye on covering him).

4) Soldado - a decision has to be made. Clearly this man IS technically one of our very best players. He has the ability to play tremendous first-time balls, has some great touches and flicks and has a fine overall game. The problem is, for whatever reason, unless Paulinho is playing, there seems to be nearly nobody else who is on his wavelength. His confidence in front of (or around) goal is at a low-point. We either need to make some adaptations and make sure that Eriksen and Paulinho can play closer to him in the final third. or we have to cut our losses and replace. It is unfair to both parties to continue the way we currently are.

5) Dembele - enormously frustrating player who again, we need to make a decision on.

6) We cannot continue to rely on simple 4-4-2. We absolutely have to be 4-5-1 or even 3-5-2 (not with Rose and Daws!!!!)…I do NOT want to sacrifice the width of our play, but we need to be cleverer in midfield areas.
 
It wasnt the Sole reason for their success but it was a key ingredient mixed in with other things.....

To play sucessful football you need a fervent desire to win....not cheat!!!! Look at Man Utd last season........were they the best squad??? or were they driven by a fanatical manager who demanded everything and got 10% more out of mediocre players.......I would like to see more from our players I must admit.....

However there were those that were not bothered about losing this game on this forum........so I guess some of the players felt the same....this should never be the case....

This hurts....and it should hurt enough that we work harder to try and get nearer to there level.

An inspiring Captain would be a start......


Its simply a difference of perspective. We all agree that a winning mentality is good. I believe that fouling, waving your arms about, bitching after the game are by products of an absolute complete commitment to winning. Whereas our friend in Dubai suggests its the other way round. That fouling, bitching are the keys. Imo they are not, playing successful football albeit with the right attitude, is key and the niggling and complaining are a consequence, not a cause of success.

If they were Pulis would be chuffed, leading Stoke to win after win. Instead Stoke hit a ceiling and they had to move on. Their passionate determine fouling sides made for ugly viewing to boot.
 
I think it's more that it's not "The FA Cup" anymore

I'm pretty annoyed we lost, but I'd be far angrier if it was a league game.

Same here, well a league or Europa cup game (although granted i'm most likely in the minority with the Europa). The domestic cups have lost all their glory for me.
 
I think it's more that it's not "The FA Cup" anymore

I'm pretty annoyed we lost, but I'd be far angrier if it was a league game.

I'm the opposite. Even if it isn't the 'FA Cup' anymore, it's a bloody piece of silverware. At the rate we're going (it will be six years since we won a trophy of any sort come March 2014) we will easily surpass Arsenal's 'eight years without a trophy' because we focus too much on the league. The funny thing is, even then we'll probably keep making fun of Arsenal for not winning a trophy, completely oblivious to the gaping irony in ignoring cup competitions to focus on the league and then making fun of a rival for going out of those very same cups.
 
I thought it was a simlar performance to the one we gave under AVB earlier in the season -- a lot of sideways passing, not enough crosses into the box.

This time, we tried to play more on the break and it almost worked a couple of times in the first half.

In the end, we had a few chances (Eriksen in the 1st half, Adebayor mis-kick in the 2nd) and we needed to be ruthless against a team like them. Instead, Eriksen and Lennon were rubbish on the ball each time they got into a good area. Adebayor wasn't a lot better...but those 3 have been our best players lately, so there we go.

An average performance, but we still at least had a few chances to score, and we don't have to play these w*nkers every week on their own ground. I fancy us to beat them at WHL. And I fancy us to continue our good league form v Palace next week.

This is absolutely because Wenger, being smarter than Moyes, knew that once he had the goal his lot could afford to let us have the ball in the middle of the park because we did not have any clue as to how to break down their stoic and stocked defensive shape(which allowed us no room between the lines and saw pressure on both the ball carrier and the second-man at all times).
 
Man U succeeded because coming out second best from a 50:50 challenge was absolutely shameful to them. Letting an opponent foul one of your players without getting your own back on said opponent was unacceptable to them. Looking away and walking away when someone stamps on your team-mate's head (as Modric did when Balotelli slyly stepped on Parker two years ago) would have been unthinkable to them. Trudging backwards, resignedly accepting a yellow card as it is shoved in your face by a strutting referee would have been outrageous to them. Walking down the tunnel crying man-tears after losing 6-0 and then saying 'Oh, we're so very sorry' on the official website two days later would have been frankly inconceivable to them. Gaining absolutely no motivation from one of the opposition players in a big derby game gleefully signalling '2-0' as he is stretchered off would have been shocking to them. Letting the referee get away with a contentious call without having five players running at him snarling and yelling while the manager went purple with rage and the crowd roared their anger would have been detestable to them.

A desire to never, ever lose even a single 50:50, a desire to stand up for your team-mates in every circumstance, a desire to hound and pressure and scare the referee into believing that there would be an almighty ****-storm coming his way should he dare to penalise one of your lads, a desire to leave your mark on the opposition, a desire to achieve the three points by any means necessary, a desire to never be put in a situation where the media laughs at you, the fans are ashamed of you, the manager is sacked because of you, and all you can do is apologize.........these are the things that got United winning.

Sure, you can simplify that by calling it a 'complete and absolute commitment to winning', but it goes far deeper than that. It is, consciously or otherwise, an all-consuming desire to be a part of a team that strikes fear into everyone they face, and to make absolutely sure that anyone who harms you either as an individual or as a team, be it the referee or the opposition, never, ever escapes unscathed. I'm not sure what you'd call that, but that is what made United win. You could see it: raw passion.

Today, Arsenal derived motivation from facing us, a rival who they quite clearly will do anything to beat. We,by contrast, derived little extra motivation from facing them that we did not already have when facing any other side. They wanted it more. We arguably didn't. And we paid the price. That needs to change, and starting by hounding the referee (something we've been historically reluctant to do) would be a decent way to instill that 'us against them' mentality within the lads.

Are you Tony Pulis' agent?
 
This is absolutely because Wenger, being smarter than Moyes, knew that once he had the goal his lot could afford to let us have the ball in the middle of the park because we did not have any clue as to how to break down their stoic and stocked defensive shape(which allowed us no room between the lines and saw pressure on both the ball carrier and the second-man at all times).

Maybe, but we still had the ball in decent, wide areas a lot of times in this game and choose to come back inside and across the pitch. Very annoying to me, because we have scored goals from crosses lately and Arsenal always look a little suspect when defending them. Even more so when they have a reserve 'keeper in. Just continually coming inside as if we are Barcelona is a waste of time. Do it some of the time, fair enough, but not again and again and again. How many times did we hang up a cross for Ade to attack? I'm not sure we tried it even once.
 
More care about the league then the fa cup...there's no ulterior motive regarding AVB .

I can agree with that and understand it. Don't agree that we created more chances in this game than the 1-0 though. Not real chances. The chances we had today were the type we were creating lots of a few months ago that people said didn't count because they weren't real. Eriksen's chance was the only clear cut one today, we may have scored had Ade and Soldado shot better, but Soldado had opportunities in the 1-0 to shoot better too.

As for injuries, no Giroud, Ramsey or Ozil in the starting line up today. And they walked all over us.
 
Lets not go down the AVB road....

My issue was you said we never looked threatening.......I think I have given you examples that wasnt the case.

You may find it tough to hear but if Eriksen scores the game could be completely different..... thats a fact....the whole team would have gotten a lift.....This was a game where we COULD have been in the ascendancy and picked them off with counters......but that wasnt the case unfortunately...

I think its easy to read too much into this game......what interests me is what timmy does when he has Most(cause were never going to get all) of the players available....

what he asks our better players to do.....

You cant say 'dont go ott after the stoke result' and then say we look mid-table after this...

We need more games and more of our squad available to assess timmy.

Why would I not like to hear it? And I loved the Stoke performance...

I am very surprised that the general consensus on here seems to be that we created chances today. Beyond Eriksen's I didn't see a real chance that would have counted in the analysis of matches a few months ago.

And if Eriksen did score, I think we looked so poor that Arsenal would have come into it anyway. The fact that in the second half we didn't really threaten their goal once despite Arsenal being so superior from minutes 25-45 shows that to me, we were clearly second best on the day.

Put it this way, I was really impressed with us at Man United and even in that game both Tim and Eriksen said we could have played better. I appreciate the fixture congestion and injuries on today, but I'm talking about the performance, and if they were unsatisfied with the United performance, this one was 10 times worse.
 
Same here, well a league or Europa cup game (although granted i'm most likely in the minority with the Europa). The domestic cups have lost all their glory for me.

Feel exactly the same. A European trophy still has a lot of appeal, EL belittlers be darned, but getting into the CL and thus denying someone else that opportunity is what matters.
 
Another point Nigey, people will say don't get carried away after beating Stoke, because any team in this league is capable of comprehensively winning their home games against mid-table opposition. See Hull vs Fulham. It's a lot more of an interesting barometer as to our progress and capability as a side when seeing how we match up against our close rivals. I wasn't demanding a win today, but I would have liked a much better performance.
 
Maybe, but we still had the ball in decent, wide areas a lot of times in this game and choose to come back inside and across the pitch. Very annoying to me, because we have scored goals from crosses lately and Arsenal always look a little suspect when defending them. Even more so when they have a reserve 'keeper in. Just continually coming inside as if we are Barcelona is a waste of time. Do it some of the time, fair enough, but not again and again and again. How many times did we hang up a cross for Ade to attack? I'm not sure we tried it even once.

I think Wenger was quite happy to make sure that the players who got the ball wide were Rose, Eriksen and Walker, neither is particularly great at sweeping crosses and we simply do not have players who attack crosses anywhere in the box, more we have the sort who seems to like to hang back and wait for it to drop to them! Besides, we never ever seemed to win second-balls outside the box in dangerous positions.

One of the things which drives me mental is that neither forward seems eager to run across the near post and try for flicks/near-post opportunities. In theory I absolutely see what you're saying, but in practice, alas, I think all we'd have done is hand them more possession.
 
Its simply a difference of perspective. We all agree that a winning mentality is good. I believe that fouling, waving your arms about, bitching after the game are by products of an absolute complete commitment to winning. Whereas our friend in Dubai suggests its the other way round. That fouling, bitching are the keys. Imo they are not, playing successful football albeit with the right attitude, is key and the niggling and complaining are a consequence, not a cause of success.

If they were Pulis would be chuffed, leading Stoke to win after win. Instead Stoke hit a ceiling and they had to move on. Their passionate determine fouling sides made for ugly viewing to boot.

I agree. I mentioned it earlier: playing football in the manner we have historically championed and the manner we have helped create is vital if we are to be worthy winners. But the right attitude is not being 'dignified', as you rather quaintly pointed out: it's being aggressive, bitchy, unrelenting. It's never wanting to lose anything, be it a 50:50 or a cup game.

I never suggested that fouling and bitching are the keys to winning: I suggested that both those things are necessary to instill a winning mentality within the side, creating a feeling of 'them vs us' that drives them to greater heights in defence of their team mates and their club. You, if I recall correctly, suggested that the key to winning was to be 'dignified', quietly accepting what the opposition throws at us, slyly fouling here and there to show them how quietly angry we are, and only ever having loyal, thoroughbred fans instead of those evil glory hunters.

I maintain that that is absolutely wrong. For years we have been a compliant, quiet side. We already play good football: it is time to start pursuing all ends to win a game in addition to that, not as a replacement to it. We do not do it, for whatever reason: it is time to start doing it, 'class' be damned. Like it or not, what Walcott did galvanized their fans and showed the difference between their determination to win the game (and gloat over rivals they evidently yearn to beat) and our limpness in the face of provocative gestures like that. That needs to change, and being 'dignified' is not going to make that change any time soon.
 
I can agree with that and understand it. Don't agree that we created more chances in this game than the 1-0 though. Not real chances. The chances we had today were the type we were creating lots of a few months ago that people said didn't count because they weren't real. Eriksen's chance was the only clear cut one today, we may have scored had Ade and Soldado shot better, but Soldado had opportunities in the 1-0 to shoot better too.

As for injuries, no Giroud, Ramsey or Ozil in the starting line up today. And they walked all over us.

Not to defend us particularly, or bemoan injuries, but given that we were bested in midfield, we need to acknowledge that we were missing Brasil's potential starting midfielders in Sandro and Paulinho, no Townsend and no Vertonghen, to name 5 players who might have started had they been fit...
 
Are you Tony Pulis' agent?

Does he have one? I always assumed he was one of those ubiquitous 'Big Tony' types you could only find by asking a geezer to toddle down to his local, slip the barman a cocaine-crusted tenner and go down the back stairs into the secret dog fighting ring.
 
Amazed to see some say we had decent passing…

I felt the saddest bit about today was how when it mattered, we were technically inferior.
Eriksen's chance was not taken.
Soldado's shot in the first-half, clean, open, not even on target.
Countless heavy first touches and not enough clean winning of the second ball.
Ade's second-half shot 6 yards out.
Simple use of the ball at key moments.
Simple defending at key moments.

Obviously there are reasons and circumstances which led to some of these things happening, I'm aware of that, but we cannot ignore the fact that the goons were almost surgical in the precision of their play.

I hate losing to these ****ers, but will happily take this so long as Timbo learns from it. And to be fair, it will be tough to know what he can do until he has a fit squad and the rest of the season. When that happens, I hope the following occurs.

1) Rose is not first-choice LB or even second-choice. He is just not good enough. His attacking play is not productive enough to cover for his consistent lack of concentration/decision making at key moments in key areas. I've long felt this BTW, his mistake today merely adds a little more fuel to that fire. He would be perfect for Aston Villa but not Spurs IMO.

2) Chadli is not in the squad. He is average and no more than that, a decent player who lacks the mentality and bravery to be anything more. I think he's sadly a big bust, although only an 7/8 mill bust so not so bad. Again, let him go to West Ham or somewhere like that, his level. Passengers are tolerated there.

3) Daws must be replaced by the end of the season. i love the man, I love his commitment, but if we do want to be a top top side, there is no room for sentimentality any longer. IMO he costs us yet again (I tab him as every bit as responsible for the first goal as Walker, who IMV has spent half a season with half an eye on covering him).

4) Soldado - a decision has to be made. Clearly this man IS technically one of our very best players. He has the ability to play tremendous first-time balls, has some great touches and flicks and has a fine overall game. The problem is, for whatever reason, unless Paulinho is playing, there seems to be nearly nobody else who is on his wavelength. His confidence in front of (or around) goal is at a low-point. We either need to make some adaptations and make sure that Eriksen and Paulinho can play closer to him in the final third. or we have to cut our losses and replace. It is unfair to both parties to continue the way we currently are.

5) Dembele - enormously frustrating player who again, we need to make a decision on.

6) We cannot continue to rely on simple 4-4-2. We absolutely have to be 4-5-1 or even 3-5-2 (not with Rose and Daws!!!!)…I do NOT want to sacrifice the width of our play, but we need to be cleverer in midfield areas.

I think Chadli can come good, Rose is better than you give him credit for but I do agree on Daws and Soldado. He is clearly talented, but we need to figure out a way to get Soldado's confidence back.

As for Dembele, he's the one player today that really impressed me (Lennon wasn't bad either). I thought he showed Wheelchair up to be honest and showed himself as a top player. Not because he made any massive contribution necessarily, but because of how he carried himself when either on the ball or winning it back. In a team that was playing better today, Dembele would have shown it for sure.
 
Not to defend us particularly, or bemoan injuries, but given that we were bested in midfield, we need to acknowledge that we were missing Brasil's potential starting midfielders in Sandro and Paulinho, no Townsend and no Vertonghen, to name 5 players who might have started had they been fit...

But we choose to go with a 4, and people are happy that we do. I'm happy with Eriksen, Lennon and Dembele as 3 of those choices, and it was decided Capoue wasn't needed and an academy product could do the job.

It was a shame for Bentaleb because I thought he was a passenger for large parts. I was hoping that with his inclusion there would be some new age, ahead of its time, Tim thinking and reasoning that meant giving a youngster his first start away in the NLD wouldn't be that much of an issue. But it wasn't. The fear was that he'd be overwhelmed by Arsenal and he was. No hidden story there, it was expected and it happened. Shame for him as I think he is a very tidy player and will do well for us.
 
I agree. I mentioned it earlier: playing football in the manner we have historically championed and the manner we have helped create is vital if we are to be worthy winners. But the right attitude is not being 'dignified', as you rather quaintly pointed out: it's being aggressive, bitchy, unrelenting. It's never wanting to lose anything, be it a 50:50 or a cup game.

I never suggested that fouling and bitching are the keys to winning: I suggested that both those things are necessary to instill a winning mentality within the side, creating a feeling of 'them vs us' that drives them to greater heights in defence of their team mates and their club. You, if I recall correctly, suggested that the key to winning was to be 'dignified', quietly accepting what the opposition throws at us, slyly fouling here and there to show them how quietly angry we are, and only ever having loyal, thoroughbred fans instead of those evil glory hunters.

I maintain that that is absolutely wrong. For years we have been a compliant, quiet side. We already play good football: it is time to start pursuing all ends to win a game in addition to that, not as a replacement to it. We do not do it, for whatever reason: it is time to start doing it, 'class' be damned. Like it or not, what Walcott did galvanized their fans and showed the difference between their determination to win the game (and gloat over rivals they evidently yearn to beat) and our limpness in the face of provocative gestures like that. That needs to change, and being 'dignified' is not going to make that change any time soon.

Twisting things a little there. Check again and I've not said that dignity = winning. Simply that class costs nothing and often sets us apart from arsenal.

I think you wrote the following suggesting that fouling and haranguing is the secrete to united success.

"I don't think anyone could ever call one of Ferguson's sides 'dignified', what with their constant haranguing of the referee, their sly fouls, their fans roaring at Old Trafford when a decision went against them, their manager fuming and spewing at the final whistle if the result wasn't what he wanted. But they will go down in history as possibly the greatest collection of sides any single club has had in the English game.."
 
Why would I not like to hear it? And I loved the Stoke performance...

I am very surprised that the general consensus on here seems to be that we created chances today. Beyond Eriksen's I didn't see a real chance that would have counted in the analysis of matches a few months ago.

And if Eriksen did score, I think we looked so poor that Arsenal would have come into it anyway. The fact that in the second half we didn't really threaten their goal once despite Arsenal being so superior from minutes 25-45 shows that to me, we were clearly second best on the day.

Put it this way, I was really impressed with us at Man United and even in that game both Tim and Eriksen said we could have played better. I appreciate the fixture congestion and injuries on today, but I'm talking about the performance, and if they were unsatisfied with the United performance, this one was 10 times worse.

Well yes individually and Collectively we made far too many mistakes...

Our peformance was poor and we never made things easy for ourselves.... in fact the total opposite....

Bottom line They are more cohesive than us and are better drilled than we are when they dont have the ball...... dont have any complaints that they were the better team...
but as I have explained in a sliding doors moment Eriksen slots that chance home and our whole teams gets a lift...

The peformance was not as good as the Man Utd one for obvious reasons.......I dont think quality wise we are a million miles behind Arsenal but they look so natural with their strategy with and without the ball where as we look like we are thinking and not letting things come naturally......Im just saying we shouldnt get too down.....Arsenal have made lots of teams look bang average this season at the emirates....teams like Liverpool...

If anything this game highlights how much needs to be done on the training pitch.
 
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