Don’t let brilliance of Messi paint over Tottenham’s shortcomings

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Lionel Messi lit up Wembley.

There’s no denying that. There’s also no denying Barcelona were greatly superior over the course of the match and recorded a richly deserved victory. Nor can you deny that a spirited effort from Spurs kept the game within reach up until Messi decided enough was enough.

But there’s also no denying the brilliance of Messi has been used as a façade to hide Tottenham’s shortcomings. Rather than analyse proceedings accordingly, fans and pundits are emitting the narrative that the opposition were simply too awesome to overcome, and that Messi was the sole difference on the night. As one match report had it: “Barcelona had Messi; Spurs didn’t”.

But let’s not see the truth escape from us like the mini magician on one of his majestic solo runs: Spurs didn’t lose because they were against Messi, and neither did Spurs lose because they were facing a team to be in awe of in Barcelona. No, Spurs suffered defeat because they were ill-equipped to face one of football’s greatest institutions boasting one of football’s greatest ever players.

Of course, injuries played their part. It’s a task in itself facing the Spanish champions with a squad unblemished, let alone a squad plagued by ailments. But isn’t this something that should have been foreseen?

As the transfer window slammed shut on 9 August, the hard, painful truth was this Spurs squad was a handful of injuries away from being threadbare. This proved the case last night when Pochettino had to call on Harry Winks and Victor Wanyama to start in central midfield; two players who have seen as much football as the Old Trafford home crowd over the past year.

Maybe that’s overly harsh on Winks and Wanyama, but to further illustrate the point of a Tottenham squad unable to compete with the domestic and international elite one need only look towards the bench. While Valverde was able to call on Vidal, Rafinha and Vermaelen, Pochettino in response had Dier, Sissoko and Llorente.

You could say this is what makes Barcelona Barcelona. And only a handful of clubs can boast a squad so rich in talent throughout. However, it’s this lack of “extra quality” that sees Spurs ultimately fall short in the big, decisive games. It’s what happened against Juventus last year and the same could even be said 0f the Chelsea game in the FA Cup the year before that.

Rather than be in awe of Barcelona, Spurs need to learn from them: the Catalans have set the standard. And for Spurs not to attempt to bring themselves as close to that standard as possible is to ultimately accept defeat.

Naturally, Messi played his part. But to suggest he was the only difference on the night is to miss the point. Rather than Messi and Barcelona having too much for Spurs, it was actually Spurs who didn’t have the firepower to match their counterparts.

 

and what would you do josh, to overcome those short comings?....

Don`t tell me; buy some players to add to the squad depth, am I right?

A) we have exactly the same squad as last year and beat Real & Dortmund, no one was talking about lack of squad depth because we didn`t have any injuries
B) buying more players / spending more money would not necessarily mean we would have won or played well last night (see Man U)

 

If you're only talking about the first half then yes.
The second half winks took over that midfield. And of course we didn't have enough to match Barça. How many teams with the likes of Ali, eriksen, dembele and vertonghen missing would match Barça?

 

Barca were simply too good. Not just Messi but busqets rakitic suarez and Arthur. They are one of the top four sides in the world and I include international teams in that. We are fighting to be fourth best in our league. Had we started with busqets and Messi I'm sure we would have won the game sometimes football is as simplistic as that unfortunately.. That's the reality. We got battered for large parts and it could have been worse but we come out largely unscathed and live to fight another day. Every man and his dog know we needed investment but for whatever reasons which we aren't privvy to know it didn't happen. Liverpool paid a fortune in the summer to strengthen and really fabinho keita shaqiri have done nothing but warm a bench. The keeper looks very good tbf... Is there bench much if any stronger than ours.. Well that's down to opinion.
How would Liverpool fare playing barca without van dyke, milner salah mane

 

The idea that if we had bought 4 or 5 people in the summer , that would have sorted this game out is ridiculous.

The people we had on were winks, wanyama and son-these werent the people we were looking to replace-the reason we lost was two fold- Messi and Messi! Not to say we wouldn't have had a better shout at it if we had the FOUR,automatic choice players that didn't play yesterday.

Verts was a huge miss and I dont know who in the premier you would prefer to have instead of him
Christian is our maestro and on form makes it all tick
Moussa (on his day-which I admit is not too often now) could compete with all those
Dele- his overall contribution is often under rated

I think "Huge G and T please" set us back with his rash start but lets put this in perspective- the bad result was the first game-losing to Barcelona wasn't a huge shock and even less so without almost a half of our automatic choice outfield players missing!

 

Watford, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Barcelona = Lost

Watford = Drew (pens)

Newcastle, Fulham, Man Utd, Brighton Huddersfield = Won

5 wins in 10 simply is not good enough overall especially when 4 of those are teams we should be beating anyway, and how poor Utd are currently.
4 losses including Watford & Inter Milan.
Then a customary dawdle about in a cup for the draw with Watfords B team.

Any clown on here that wants to play the 'we didn't need to sign anyone' and that everything is A OK is a fool.

The squad is paper thin, and as I've said many a time on here last season's wins over Madrid and Dortmund may look good on paper but in perspective both sides were having a mare at those times and we were in form (just check who else beat Real that week in laliga), it's not something to dine out on when we yet again proved over a season we're not good enough to see any Job out.

When are these pitiful excuses for fans ever gonna grow a spine and stop thanking Levy & ENIC for the shafting they're getting?

We were badly out of our depth yesterday against a Barca side that was going through the motions, it's a credit to our boys they put up a wee bit of a fight despite the gulf in quality and a keeper intent on gifting goals away.

 

Yes - we got a beating from Barca, not unexpected seems to be the agreed consensus, but that isn't the point. The point - to me anyway - is that without 4 or 5 first-choice regulars we are not going to be at the races, certainly not against top-class opposition and even a not-much-more- than average side can make us look less than ordinary. Any side will feel the loss of a third of it's best but a stronger squad would help minimise that loss; Our squad talent is desperately thin and some hardly inspire much confidence- yes Winks, Sissoko and increasingly Lloris, I'm looking at you among others - it's been said countless times before - a few injuries and players out of form will tell. That's happened now and we are seeing the reality of the situation. Mind you - even had Alli, Eriksen and Dembele been there last night, their current form doesn't suggest we might have won. We can't have "undroppables" - and there seems to be one or two, we can't afford an injury list - we've got one, but we do need a stronger squad - we haven't got one. Things are grim I say.

 

I said it just recently I don't rate Trippier yes he can take a free kick and cross a good ball but his main job is to defend and I think he is very poor.

 

The modern football fan......eh?

moan ****ing moan ****ing moan

Once upon a time if you lost a game, you lost...roll on Saturday

Now EVERY time we lose there a ****ing shitstorm. Fans throwing their toys out of the pram, "we`re not good enough to compete with the best"

What gives your team the god given right that they have to be able to compete with the best team in the world. We lost to Barcelona and today i`ve read: Lloris is a ****, Levy is ****, Poch is a ****, Wanyama, Trips etc..

See example above..."We`ve won 5 games this season" - no you pessimistic wanker, it`s 6, we beat Watford, we`re in the next round remember?

 

Wanker maybe but pessimistic never.

 

I think if Levy signed Messi from Barca this summer, we would have had a good chance to beat them and most likely win the title. Anything short of that, like signing Rakitic or Suares from Barca might help to win yesterday, but title would still be very much a big question.
Therefore I agree with "Barca had Messi, while Spurs did not".

I challenge this group of fellow supporters to name ONE holding MF player, that is better than Wanyama, at less than 50 million, Spurs failed to sign this summer.

 

No the game was actually drawn , the game was then settled on Pens which is just a shoot out game of chance.

I see as per a screaming loyalist can't have a rational post without getting all arsey that people don't think that everything is brilliant.

Let's find things to cheer about that no one else cares about aye ?

Team to play in most different home venues in a season.
Only team in top 5 European Leagues unable to buy anyone.
Record Premier LG attendance in a borrowed stadium.
12000 LTRs of paint being used on stadium build.
The famed Academy.
A retractable pitch.
Have I forgotten anything ????


The Game really is about Glory with such an extensive list

 

Here is my advice Felon....
You're obviously not enjoying it at the moment, have a day off on Saturday v Cardiff. Stay at home and have a good old moan about the amount of paint being used for the new stadium

 

And here is my advice -

Don't settle for 2nd best, or be grateful for crumbs like a starved hostage

 

Can anyone tell me why Pocchetino insists with winks? Except for his last 10 minutes yesterday where he was good, he was nonexistent the rest of the match. I've seen his defensive work in slow motion and he does not do it or almost nothing. and it is him who is with messi at the beginning of the action of the 3rd barca's goal. He stops running and raises his arms to the sky once Messi has scored. Lamentable ... As in Milan, he arrived on the pitch 18 minutes from the end while we lead 1-0. Final result? 2-1 for the inter. Winks is a good player but not good enough for a team that claims to champion league every year. COYS !

 

Well, here we are in early October, in the fifth year of the Pochettino 'project', and only the most deluded rose-tinted spectacle wearer can believe that Spurs are better-equipped to challenge for the big trophies (or indeed any trophies) than this time last year, or 2017, or even 2016 - we've actually gone backwards over that time, as Liverpool and now Barcelona have demonstrated all too clearly.
Lloris and Dembele have gone, mentally, physically or both, while Wanyama seems to be following the Palacios path (from hero to zero in less than two seasons), and the 'these young players can only get better' pair of Alli and Dier are shadows of their 2016 form (and God alone knows what's happened to the likes of Onomah and Edwards, our very own Messi-lite) - I could continue running through the litany of under-performers, but I think it's clear enough that we'll do well to make top four this season, and no amount of blind faith will change that.
Will Pochettino stay, regardless of ENIC/Levy's complete lack of bravery? He's got eight million reasons per year to see out his contract, or wait to be sacked, while Levy needs 62,000 people to turn up every two weeks, eager for success as well as cheese and craft beer - it would be quite a test for the best chairman and the best young manager in the PL, but since we've got neither, prayer might help.

 

I don't usually respond to criticism directly but I'll make an exception here, trying not to be in any way offensive, it just isn't my style, so: Don't think "throwing toys out" is what some of us are doing - to my mind we're (me anyway) a bit concerned because we could be a whole lot better than we are but for some reason (each fan will probably have his own reading) after a couple of promising years, we've stalled. This season marks my 60th anniversary, if that's the right word, as a fan and I've seen some ups and quite a few downs, taken barrowloads of stick (always water off a duck anyway) witnessed STACKS of beatings by in excess of 5 goals and some 7's and 8's too (has any other English top-flight side racked up so many trouncings ?), so I have no sense whatsoever of entitlement or feeling of God given right to anything - that's the preserve of fans of those sides that constantly win stuff and then suddenly don't. I just want to feel my side is doing it's best and striving to win - is that what it's about or not ? I'm sure others, who don't subscribe to views like mine, also like to see Spurs win but I'm also sure they've complained if they don't, I'm sure they've been frustrated with the same players constantly offering nothing, yet still getting onto the pitch - and I'm not just talking about the current usual suspects. My world no longer revolves around Spurs as it did many, many years ago but yes, I get p*ssed off if they fail to win, I post my views about it but I get over it, I complain a bit then, hey man, there's a damn sight more to do in my twilight years. I'd just like to feel a little glow when we win something now and again. Ain't too much to ask is it ?

 

Thoughts.......

- I don't think I've seen a performance like that, close up and personal, ever. They simply were different class. Messi was awesome, more of that later.

- 82,137 turned up on Wednesday for a very special occasion, mostly Yiddo's, only to have their feeling of expectation destroyed within 90 seconds by Hugo. There were 5 defenders in and around the penalty area and he decides to rush Jordi Alba, still 30 yards from goal. You couldn't make it up. My view on him hasn't changed, crystallised by his drink drive conviction. He shouldn't be skipper (but then I'm not sure it should be H). He shouldn't play again until he can convince his fellow players and Poch he is over it all.

- When they were about to bring Dier on I text my daughter to say "thank f... - Winks off. What do I know. Sure he got better after the hour, but wasn't at the races before that.

- At our best, so with the injured players included, we would have struggled. Wafer thin squad is an understatement.

- Full backs are defenders. I recently saw some stats on the Spurs performances season-to-date. One included a heat map of the area behind where Tripps operates. It showed the targeted passes that our opposition had put into the area behind him - just like Messi did for their first. Very basic stuff, but not closed off.

- Back to Messi. So the same stats website that showed Tripps Achilles heel showed that Messi had been operating far deeper this term, scoring fewer goals as a result. However his assists from that deeper position had yielded 16 this term, versus 5 last. So having set up 4-3-3, rather than 4-4-2 suggests we hadn't seen it, or thought we could ignore it. We paid the price.

I've never felt losing to a superior team, like Barca, was as painful as losing to an inferior team, like Inter, anywhere near as painful. It was a pleasure to enjoy the pace and precision that they played out up close and personal. Masterclass - wasn't it at least that?

COYS

 

I think we are out of UCL after Inter beat PSV there in Holland. We need to get in Europa League now. Need to win at least two next UCL ties. COYS!!!

 

What so we can amble around in that with no conviction like we're too big for it?
Club needs to get a grip on what they're actually trying to do on the pitch coz for seasons now it's fanny about in everything conquer none.