Sunderland 2 Tottenham 2 match reaction

It took ages, but eventually I got the stream of the game up and running and managed to watch Spurs pick up a point at the stadium of light.
If Spurs are to break into the top four, with all due respect to today's opponents, we should be winning games like this. We started with a bang and another goal for Chadli, who seems to be enjoying life under the new manager.
Sadly though, the same defensive frailties reared their head again.

Zonal marking

I am old fashioned when it comes to defending and I cannot stand zonal marking. The idea of defenders marking empty space rather than players is just nonsense, and the second goal showed just that. As the ball comes in, Sunderland players had the freedom to attack the ball and then under very little pressure, we end up scoring an own goal.
The first goal was simply unacceptable at this level. After scoring so early, you must concentrate and we failed to do that today, as so often in recent years.
It is baffling that our defensive failures have still not been addressed and why on earth Kaboul is still being selected is beyond me.

Chances...

Against Liverpool, we simply did not create enough chances and we did better in that department today. Lamela went on some good runs and Chadli showed more width, and we were unlucky to find the woodwork in non charitable mood this afternoon.
Adebayor blustered a lot, but is still something of an enigma and I just cannot see him scoring twenty plus goals for us, something we desperately need.
Lamela is showing further signs of improvement but the striking coaches will need to focus on his finishing and I would like to see him getting in the six yard box much more often in games.
As long as we continue to create chances, we will get goals, but we are still under strength in terms of strikers and I hope that Soldado recovers from his neck injury soon and can start showing us what he can really do.
When you consider that Costa is banging goals in for Chelsea every week, Soldado can simply not have the excuse of adapting to life in the Premier league. Once he is fit, he needs to show us whether he is capable of scoring at this level week in, week out and if not, we must go into the transfer market in January. Without fail.

Three words for you...

Andre Villas Boas. There you go, three words that ran through my mind against Liverpool and kept on doing so again today.
There were glimpses of pace, but overall we had over 70% possession! and as under AVB, did not a lot with it. The ball went back and forth so often in little shapes, but the penetration was lacking at times and the attacks were very laboured, playing into Sunderlands hands. Playing such slow football simply allows the defence to get everyone back behind the ball, and then they become much harder to breakdown.
At times today, our football was possession football, but certainly not the Tottenham way we have been promised so often.

Sandro

Today raised the question as to why we sold Sandro. Capoue was awful today. He was slow and sluggish and offered little protection to the back line. We need someone in that role who can break out much quicker or at least see a good pass.

The top four

As I have mentioned a good few times, 6th will be an okay season for us this year, and on today's performance, that is where I still see us finishing. Against the bigger teams, as we saw against Liverpool, if we play as slowly and obviously as we did today, we will not pick many points up against the top four.
In fairness, we should have won today and Lady Luck was not on our side at times, but none of the usual top four will be having too many sleepless nights over this current Spurs team.

Signs of promise but some very pedestrian football made me think AVB was back in the dug out. We will be fine this season, but a top four team? We are simply nowhere near.

 

did you really watch the game capoue was not poor he protected the defense and went forward well i can swear the standards of the player rating are going down with every match the own goal was not a result of zonal marking the ball bounced off harry kane sunderslands first goal was a result of a lucky deflection

 

Yes, it bounced off Kane, but no one was marking their players. It was poor defending. Sorry, but Capoue was awful. He gave the ball away time and time again.
As for player, ratings, I haven't provided any ratings, simply an analysis of the game as I saw it. Not everyone will agree, but overall, I thought we deserved to win, but played very slow, possession football, which was pretty dull to watch.

 

I am sorry you cannot remove Ericson for Lennon at that stage he is probably the best set ball kicker in the league and don't ask if we never need him at the end

 

I felt we lacked pace all game. I would have had Lennon on earlier and I agree that taking Eriksen off at that stage was a strange decision. The free kick near the end from Lamela was awful.

 

We got a point way up north so its not all bad ! Liverpool lost today so thats a bonus. We have to give Poch a bit of time and support, his gameplan may resemble AVB at times, its the modern possesion ticky tappa way, but i think Poch is more intelligent and pragmatic than AVB could hope to be. An away draw at a resurgent black cats isnt that bad, all three points would have been great. We're in the mix with all to play for. Coys.

 

I don't think we are as bad as under AVB, but the tippy tippy football is very slow and laborious. I was expecting much more fluid football. Hopefully it will come with time.

 

I disagree with the pessimism. Sunderland had 1 chance and, miraculously, scored 2. Even though they stuffed 10 players into their own box 90% of the match, they should count themselves extremely lucky not to have lost with 4 goals. They stunk up the pitch...

I agree that our offensive passing could've been faster but overall I think they boys performed admirably.

 

Stating the bleeding obvious but we have to stop conceding .. They were really poor , yet scored 2 & missed a sitter at the end to win it .. Injuries aren't helping , with all the changes , and new fellas trying to settle and what not , but things wont change until that age old prob ( for us anyway ) is sorted to some degree .. Have to agree tho , new manager , new players but not much change at all on the pitch .. Might aswell have been AVB on the sideline ..

 

The performance is not good enough..:'(
When you have that much ball possession and chances you have too win

 

It is what it is get used to it. Top six the target for us boys. ...............................

 

I think all the negative commentary is way off base. We had 15 shots on goal (6 or 7 on target), hitting the woodwork twice, and they had 6 shots on goal I believe and only 1 on target. We were unlucky not to convert more of the many chances we created. There were very few games under AVB where we created this many chances. What we did lack was the clinical finish on quite a few occasions. As for the pace of the game, we were quite fast with our attacks in the first 7-10 minutes when the game was still open and Sunderland had not yet decided to park 10 men in their box, which they decided to do from then on out. I don't care what system or formation you play, if the opponents decide to just sit back and park their entire team in tier defensive third, you are not going to have fast open play, rather you will invite your opponents to dictate possession and come at you with wave after wave of pressure, which is exactly what we did. There were some great little passes and flicks that were way more creative than anything we had seen under AVB. Of course the Achilles Heel, our defensive solidity, came back to bite us. We absolutely lacked focus and intensity in defending against Johnson's goal and he should never have been allowed to dribble around 3 players and place his shot at goal, but there you go. I think Kaboul is a bit too slow and a defensive liability and Dier was a bit too timid after his tackle two weeks ago against Liverpool which resulted in the penalty. Their second goal was just pure bad luck. Had we had the killer instinct to convert more of our chances earlier in the game, it would not have mattered anyway, but a one goal cushion is clearly not enough. If Adebayor is going to be our primary striker up front, then we need to play to his strengths, which is his ability to score headers and to nick in goals from 5-10 yards, so we do need to widen the play and draw defenders out more and have a less congested penalty area in which he can operate. But generally speaking, there were more positives than negatives today. As many have said, this is a work-in-progress and no top 4 is not realistic this year. But the football is getting to be a bit more attacking and entertaining. There seems to be a better team spirit and work ethic and a willingness to fight. We still have some defensive liabilities but if we can sort those out, then we should be in decent shape. A cup run or two would be icing on the cake.

 

I agree that there are signs of improvement in the football, but what I felt today, was that we allowed Sunderland to get everyone back behind the ball. There were times when a quick break was on and we went either for a short square ball, or backwards.
Adebayor is a good player but I am not keen on us playing with a big target man. We have skilfull players who can get wide etc, but what we need is a true goal poacher. A Lineker or Allen type striker. Soldado should be that player and when he returns, I hope he shows he can be that player.
As stated in my article, Costa has adapted to the premier league with ease and has shown that class will shine, regardless of whether you have played in a particular league or not.

 

Well we basically gifted them 2 goals and in doing so dropped 2 points. Its sloppy, unproffessional and needs sorting out on the training pitch. If you go zonal then you have to attack the ball its the whole point of it, too many ball watching and not enough taking responsibility.
I must admit i keep seeing a lot of AVB in our play at present tedious with a massive self destruct button.
Not all bad though we had the most of the play, lamela knitted some nice passes and looked better (even though sunderland did a hatchett job on him) we earned an away point and if not for silly mistakes would have had all 3.
Improvement defensively needed and i want to see this high pressing high tempo attacking football Poch was brought in for.

 

I still think Poch is the right Man for the job but I think he is the only responsable Of the draw at sunderland today. His substitutions were awful! Why he changes Ade and erikson ? The end Of the match Of Lamela was a nightmare. Éventuellement if he touches the wood he lost a lit Of the balls he had and played just for him only...! He has to left the team before the end as he had to did vs pool... He can play 60 minutes but not more! Like Townsend he Plays only for
Him and he has to be more a team player. Erikson had to stay on the pitch until the end and Lennon would have been a good addition for Lamela before the 70 minutes to help our wawful attacks to be more clinical. 2 points lost today! COYS

 

As far as pills go, they don't come much more bitter tasting than that!

An EXCELLENT away performance by the lads today was duly undermined by some extremely regrettable lapses in concentration.

Listen, we can all talk about the tempo of our play in forward areas, but when the HOME team sticks 9/10 men behind the ball finding the space to exploit with quick passes/movement is difficult.

I, for one, was VERY pleased with what I saw from the team, for the most part, with the only shame being we couldn't see the game out.

A point away from home is never a bad result, but the manner in which we conceded a late equaliser, to a team that never looked like troubling Lloris up until that point, was extremely disappointing.

That being said, I think there were PLENTY of positives, and more signs of the team adapting to MP footballing philosophy.

Really enjoyed watching Chiriches today. If he can curb his tendency to ALWAYS want to play out from the back, regardless of the situation, I think we could have a top, top player on our hands.

Etienne Capoue was another that impressed me, today, especially with his use of the ball. Always looking to take the initiative, and construct attacks, whilst in possession, the Frenchman looks to me like a player who is only going to get better and better under the tutelage of Pochettino.

Mousa Dembele was pure class next to Capoue at the heart of the midfield, putting in the kind of complete midfield performance the Belgian is capable of providing he has confidence in the man sitting in next to him.

Strong, powerful and clever in his use of the ball, this was The Moose approaching something like his best form, although I still get the impression that Dembele has 1/2 more gears at least to go through.

The only thing missing from the midfielders display was the goal he so richly deserved with his superbly hit, 1st half, shot cannoning back of the upright.

If Pochettino can get the Belgian to attack with the kind of conviction befitting of a player with his talents, on a regular basis, then Spurs have a world beater on their hands. It's as simple as that!

Chadli continues to prove he is over his initial settling process as far as life in the EPL is concerned, and Lamela became more and more influential in the game the longer the match went on. The Argentine treated the Spurs faithful to some wonderful flashes of ability in the 2nd half and was also unlucky to see a beautifully hit strike come back off of the woodwork.

It was also nice to see Benjamin Stambouli coming on to make what was a promising cameo introduction, on his debut, to the Spurs faithful.

All in all, Spurs were VERY good today, and in another match would have had the game well, and truly, sewn up long before the closing stages of the contest. There will be days like this at every/most club/s around the world this year, and providing the Spurs players use this feeling of disappointment to make sure they are more focused when they do take the lead in games, we can look forward to a LOT of good results this season.

 

In addition to my previous post - The only REAL black mark against Capoue Performance, in my opinion was him giving away the somewhat needless, and tired looking, foul which led to the Sunderland equaliser.

It was a silly challenge, in a dangerous area of the pitch, at a point in the match where Sunderland were building up a head of steam, and in the end it was a mistake that proved costly.

 

Are you sure you weren't watching Chiriches instead of Capoue ?

 

I thought we played very well for most of the game and should have been able to finish them off, particularly in the first half, I think it was something like 7 shots on goal in the first ten minutes that forced them back into parking the bus, unfortunately we were just lacking something up top, Ade played quite well but drops too deep and plays like a MF. Eriksen was much better but it seems as though he and Lamela want to play in the same space and the only real width that we have comes from Chadli or the FBs, that with Ade also playing like a no 10 we had nothing up front, still I thought we played quite well and on any other day when the ball hit the back of the net instead of the post we would have come out deserved winners. For me the real positive from the game was the CMF pairing of Dembele and Capoue, completely dominant in the middle Dembele in particular was superb in the first half. The defence is our weakness as usual, im not a fan of Vlad and my heart dropped when I saw the pairing of Kaboul and Vlad together, both had some solid moments but both had some very poor ones too. Vlad scares the hell out of me when he looks to stroll out of defence with the ball and getting caught cold, the last goal was embarrassing. all in all a good overall performance, a bit unlucky? maybe. two points dropped.

 

Agree, I thought the substitutions were poor.