*** Superspur vs Leicester OMT: The Sequel ***

[thfcsteff]

And that's another thing: there's showing effort, and then there's actually winning games. We can be the most perspiring side in the world, but if we struggle to create anything, miss chances when they're presented to us and then give away stupid goals like that one (or the ones against Saudi Sportswashing Machine, and against this same bloody Leicester team three days ago) , then there is still going to be a problem, even as the team is acknowledged as the most hard-running one in the league. Our excellent defense has saved us so far, and turned some of those uninspiring attacking performances into draws or narrow wins by dint of their excellence. That won't last if they concede goals like the ones they did to this Pulisball Supreme side over the course of the last two games.



In 11-12, we thought Chelsea's fortune would turn, aaaaaaaaaaaaaalll the way up until John Terry walked up to lift the CL trophy, kitted out and everything. Understand: luck will never go our way as it does for other sides, never. We may get a decision here, a decision there, but we will never be as consistently lucky as some other sides, because we're simply cursed by some kink in the quantum mechanics around the Lane that will never, ever go away. I've accepted that.

But that is also why I am doubly angry when a good Spurs side like the one we have now stumbles idiotically into the most typical defeat imaginable for Tottenham Hotspur: play well, miss chances, and then get done by dopey defenders failing to deal with a long ball (Perez), a corner (Huth) or a free kick (?). Especially after starting to talk crap about the title and top four: shut the f*ck up, and get on with playing, because you haven't earned the right to tempt fate by shooting your mouths off like that.

OK.I stayed away and am trying to keep quiet and let you all shout it out, but this is without context and rubbish! It was BAD LUCK! Watch it again. Dier goes to cover Huth and Toby ran into him; a freak accident. Bad luck. As for 'mouth shooting' Poch did nothing of the sort, he replied to questions.

 

[thfcsteff]

No I am sorry - the 'magic' that Leicester had early season was gone and we played into their hands all game. We had some decent chances but what happened was so obvious it was untrue (thought we would get done on the break).

We are and were a better side than them that gifted them a win. I said I was worried as soon as I saw the team sheet.

The game passed carroll by and he should have been taken off earlier. We did not keep the ball well enough in good areas and mostly we had flashes and half chances (bar kanes opp)

We clipped hopeful balls through and looked vulnerable on the break. No one ran in behind kane enough and both centre halves gobbled him. Danny Simpson is an average right back and Marhez let us have the freedom of the left yet we did not double up on him once or get in behind him at all. Davies put a couple of nice balls in for lamela and walker hit a nice one but for the most part our delivery was not good enough and they lapped us up.

Walker was really bad tonight and that was a home game against the hardest side we will be up against for a while and we don't pick our strongest available side. Shame really as I can see us fade badly and it isn't even feb yet. Pretty fuming allround

I absolutely agree with this to be fair, their right hand side was there for the taking. We didn't.

 

[thfcsteff]

He was playing well tonight and we started conceding the ball when he went off. His heat map will be mores side form what I saw. I also thought Lamella was excellent but faded at the end. He played like annengkish winger and was everywhere. Alli did t have his best game. Kane was too deep a lot IMO and we lost that out ball. He can't be behind the 3 who are meant to be in front of him so often as there is no target

It certainly doesn't work when Eriksen simply doesn't push on and up into the spaces.

 

[Hemant]

We are all still waiting for Eriksen to come good this season and play and shoot like we know he can.

Time for a sports psychologist and a new girlfriend methinks. His shooting and delivery are too anaemic. Someone is sucking the life out of him (either figuratively or perhaps literally!!!)

Play him in the middle, adjust system to 4-3-2-1, if you are going to pla Lamela as well, as neither intend to go past anyone out wide, but both can play a reverse ball, as Lamela showed for the ball to Kane.
Need to build his confidence, we could have worked our short corners for him to shoot from edge of box but we chose not to.
He did however, work hard and tracked, even attempted to tackle, today. I thought playing an unfit Dembele fir was when we lost momentum.

 

[nayenezgani]

Whaaaaaaa! Whhhhaaaaaaaa! WHHAAAAAAAA!!!!

We lost our third league game of the season against a side who are above us in the table and who have a freakishly good away record.

Never mind that we hit the bar, Lamela was a whisker away from scoring and we created a number of additional chances to score in the game.

Totally unacceptable! Whaaaaa! Someone call the whaaaaambulance, I'm about to fudging pass out.

 

[glorygloryeze]

Back without having read anything since...

Thinking more about the match, I feel Eriksen once again cost us today. We know Carroll is not Dembele, and we know he is cycler so-to-speak. I remember at least 8 times when Carroll received the ball deep, looked up, there was an acre of space to his right or left yet Eriksen suddenly popped up three yards away virtually beside him to take the ball and try to prompt the game. For me, given his skill and given his seniority, he should be the player drifting into that space, looking for the quick ball and making things happen. Carroll ends up looking bad because he has to play a short or 'negative' pass, when the problem is that he has no-one available in that space. It is a pattern.

Interesting observation; why do you think this is happening? It smacks of players (or at least Eriksen) not having confidence in Carrol getting them the ball in those spaces - which is most odd as he is commonly the player that can...or is there a worry Carrol will get bullied deep and lose the ball?

Further, his quality from set-pieces was generally average at best. Again, I think the thing with him is he has it in his locker so we expect it consistently.

Having said that, IF you are bringing Dembele on, it has to be for Carroll and you have to trust Eriksen to fit with Dembele as they have done most of the season. It was a sub I did not understand, other than he also felt Eriksen has not had a great game.

But again, the margins were fine. Woodwork three times against Everton and last night. Poor luck. 5 points potentially. Our luck will change and we will bounce back.

COYS

Agreed, fine margins indeed and fair play to Leicester for the way they set-up. Imo it is up to US to not get suckered into conceding from late set-pieces in games like this...was very Redknapp vs Manure in that regard today...

 

[DubaiSpur]

OK.I stayed away and am trying to keep quiet and let you all shout it out, but this is without context and rubbish! It was BAD LUCK! Watch it again. Dier goes to cover Huth and Toby ran into him; a freak accident. Bad luck. As for 'mouth shooting' Poch did nothing of the sort, he replied to questions.

Yeah, I agree: having had time to cool off, I can admit that it wasn't as clear-cut as it seemed at the time, and perhaps it was just an accidental collision. However, Poch answered questions then in a different manner to how Ranieri answered the same questions today: Poch went for the 'anything is possible if we believe' angle, Ranieri literally said 'I laugh!' when asked what his reaction is to people tipping his team for the title.

Ranieri played down his team's chances, he didn't tempt fate: and that is at the helm of an unusually lucky, dogged, clinical side. Poch went the other way, and so did the players: and, true to f*cking form, they immediately went and threw away a glorious opportunity, losing in an almost comedically inevitable fashion, and now all Poch can do is cringe and insist 'we are a young side' as he tries to extricate himself from the clusterfudge that putting even the most elementary bit of pressure on our team and our lads creates. We've already been here: see Saudi Sportswashing Machine at home. We did it again. Sigh.

Yes, I'm still f*cking furious. How did you guess?

 

[Mr_B]

this was always going to be a tough game, if only we had saved the luck we had in the cup match and got the draw here. Leicester are like donald trump, they're not going away when everyone said they would, they defend very resiliently, regardless of his goal, Huth has always been a "championship" defender for me, i don't know how he's done it but ranieri deserves so much credit.
As for us, well obviously we need a foil for harry and young is clearly only superb material and we don't have a lampard scoring from midfield. Man U have shown us this season being tight at the back only gets you so far. Over to you levy to work your last minute transfer magic, at least we're well placed and an attractive proposition for a carlos kickaball to come to.

 

[spasm]

work in progress, young team & all that..
fine line between ambition & delusion...enjoying the ride immensely!!

 

[Jordinho]

I absolutely agree with this to be fair, their right hand side was there for the taking. We didn't.

Davies had a good game, but Eriksen was even quieter than usual. It's time for Son to get a run in the side. Lamela was running the show today.

 

[Hashegotthesackyet?]

Now the transfer window is open, can Levy also get an upgraded frontal lobe for Kyle Walker?

 

[Spurs7891]

Really disgusted with this defeat ! Instead of beating our rivals to move closer to the top of the league table, we have lost to them at home, leaving them 7 points ahead of us ! To make it worse, Leicester have now taken 5 points off us this season to help their own league title chances ! This is typical Spurs way. Whenever we have chance to move up the league table, we always feck it up ! Will we ever change our mentality and luck in must-win matches like these ?

I think this match proves that you need experience to win you trophies, not just talent and youth. I think our lack of experience cost us this match, not just for players, but for the manager as well. I think Pochettino's lack of experience as manager compared with Ranieri made the difference in this match. Pochettino seems like relying too much on youth rather than experience. In contrast, experienced players won this match for Ranieri. Really can't understand why Pochettino decided to start the inexperienced and unproven Carroll over the reliable Dembele. We could have won this match if Dembele had started in midfield. I think we too need a more experienced defensive midfielder. Dier had another poor match and was involved in the comical situation with Alderweireld which enabled them to score. Alli too was not at his best while Eriksen wasted another good freekick.

Our lack of cutting edge in key areas also contributed to this defeat. Kane's inability to score from one-on-one chances and Lamela's lack of clinical touches in front of goal cost us this match as well. We needed Kane to score to win this match but he has wasted another one-on-one chances with the goalie again. It was an inch-perfect pass from Lamela to Kane who had all the time in the world to round the goalie to score. Instead he hit it straight at the goalie who managed to deflect the ball on to the post. Lamela had 2 good chances to score but unfortunately for us he simply lacks the killer instinct in front of goal.

Really annoyed with our defence for the way we conceded the goal. Find it hard to accept the Leicester player had a free header to score. Thought Alderweireld should have done better to cover him. Similiarly, thought Lloris could have been in a better position to save it while Davies was too slow to react on the line. It was a really bad time to concede the goal as we didn't have enough time to recover. It was a key error which could affect our top 4 chances.

With this defeat, Pochettino has been proven wrong for resting many players against Leicester in the FA Cup last Sunday. Maybe if we had taken that match seriously to win it, we could have continued the winning form in this match. Instead, we are now winless in 3 matches since the start of 2016 ! We better buy a few experienced players in this transfer window if we want to achieve our target this season.

 

[billyiddo]

Yeah, I agree: having had time to cool off, I can admit that it wasn't as clear-cut as it seemed at the time, and perhaps it was just an accidental collision. However, Poch answered questions then in a different manner to how Ranieri answered the same questions today: Poch went for the 'anything is possible if we believe' angle, Ranieri literally said 'I laugh!' when asked what his reaction is to people tipping his team for the title.

Ranieri played down his team's chances, he didn't tempt fate: and that is at the helm of an unusually lucky, dogged, clinical side. Poch went the other way, and so did the players: and, true to f*cking form, they immediately went and threw away a glorious opportunity, losing in an almost comedically inevitable fashion, and now all Poch can do is cringe and insist 'we are a young side' as he tries to extricate himself from the clusterfudge that putting even the most elementary bit of pressure on our team and our lads creates. We've already been here: see Saudi Sportswashing Machine at home. We did it again. Sigh.

Yes, I'm still f*cking furious. How did you guess?

If Poch played down our chances and lost we'd bemoaning his lack of confidence - you can try and attach this failing under pressure narrative but it doesn't fit with what we saw last night, we were caught by a sucker punch against a side above us in the league - we were the better side and didn't look like a team buckling under pressure whatsoever

 

[Yiddo]

No excuses for that loss, we had 16 fecking corners and how many times did we test the keeper from them? Lamela and Kane both missed guilt edge chances and if it wasn't for Lloris our defensive record would not be as good as it is.

Our decision making in the final third is abit brick aswell. When we do slick one touch passing we become like kids on fifa and over pass it in the end.

 

[Spurs7891]

No excuses for that loss, we had 16 fecking corners and how many times did we test the keeper from them? Lamela and Kane both missed guilt edge chances and if it wasn't for Lloris our defensive record would not be as good as it is.

Our decision making in the final third is abit brick aswell. When we do slick one touch passing we become like kids on fifa and over pass it in the end.

I think Alderweireld should have scored from atleast 1 corners but put his headers was either too soft or too high.

 

[Yiddo]

I think Alderweireld should have scored from atleast 1 corners but put his headers was either too soft or too high.

Did Verts have a chance at all? i can't remember the last time i see him win an attacking header let alone score a goal.

 

[Abbeyspur]

Disappointing to lose last night but we must improve our defending from corners. We also had 16 corners and created very little, particularly in the 2nd half when we stopped taking the aggressive swinging corners we were using in the first half.

For me we suffered after Eriksen went half. Regardless of whether he is in good form or not he is the fulcrum around which Lamela, Kane and Alli play. Could not understand why Dembele did not replace Carroll. On Sunday against lesser players, Carroll played very well but as in previous full blooded Premiership games, he was found wanting and really is not quite up to standard. Just hope that Mason is fit to return soon, as he is being seriously missed.

 

[braineclipse]

Really frustrating game as we were clearly the better team and had more (and better) chances.

Unlucky. Clearly unlucky.

Shout out to everyone that were complaining about our undefeated run. You got what you asked for.

Everyone complaining that this is "typical Spurs" need to check back with their ambitions for the season at the start. How on earth we're meeting or exceeding our expectations while a loss like this is "typical" is beyond me. But I suppose logic goes out the window when the frustration sets in.

Whaaaaaaa! Whhhhaaaaaaaa! WHHAAAAAAAA!!!!

We lost our third league game of the season against a side who are above us in the table and who have a freakishly good away record.

Never mind that we hit the bar, Lamela was a whisker away from scoring and we created a number of additional chances to score in the game.

Totally unacceptable! Whaaaaa! Someone call the whaaaaambulance, I'm about to fudgeing pass out.

Spot on.

 

[Vega]

Instead of moaning about last night i think im gonna have a coffee and perhaps peruse some porn.

Good job i am on my own in the office!

 

[Pirate55]

I was watching on a s.tream tonight, and at half-time, they showed the average formation of the players in the first half.

Lamela, Eriksen, Alli and Kane were all very narrow and Lamela was the furthest forward out of everyone, with Kane in the position of 2nd striker/number 10/whatever you want to call it.

I can't help but think we might be better served with only one of Eriksen/Lamela in the team and a more natural goalscorer taking the other spot. IMO, the furthest player forward needs to know where the goal is.

I tend to agree - and certainly not with Carroll as well. All creatives and not much goal threat (at least not from Eriksen this season)

Why Son, who has goals in him, has not been started more is a mystery to me. He must get a run of games now alongside Kane.