We made it too easy for Chelsea

Discussion in 'Tottenham forum' started by Mattj78, March 1, 2015.

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  1. Tottenham 2, Tottenham 0. Two lousy deflections. At least we hit the bar with a legitimate effort.

    Look, we have a talented and very young team but with little quality depth in the squad. Chris is right.

    I've spent too many decades watching and rooting from afar. What a pleasure it was to watch with several dozen others and see our boys in white and blue give an honest and earnest effort. Of course I wanted a win, just like we did eight weeks ago. But I didn't leave dejected.

    Now that we've got all the extra tournaments out of the way, poch needs to play his very best every week and see if we can't finish as high as possible and still manage a championship spot.

    COYS!!!!!
     
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  2. Felon82 Well-Known Member

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    Plenty of happy clappers wearing failure as a badge of honour again.
    Fact is we went out to both Fiorentina and Chelsea with a whimper, no we didnt disgrace ourselves v Chavs but it was not a blood n guts performance we barely did a thing to try and actually win the game a lot of aimless football lacking quality to hurt Chelsea and our usual sloppy defending.
    And with the very looming possibility of losing our few top players we do have in the summer now things are not all as rosey as some might be blindly suggesting.
     
  3. Cheshuntboy Guest

    Spot on - the low (or non-existent) expectations of so many Spurs supporters today make it easy for the club to retain its culture of non-achievement - the players are mostly as happy to draw their inflated wages from the bench as from the pitch, and those that aren't (Sheringham, dare I say Campbell, Keane, Berbatov, Modric, Bale to date, and Lloris at least to come) realise that they're wasting their careers, and move on. The succession of managers have all made the right noises about 'projects' and 'philosophy', and have left under a cloud of failure with a few million in their back pockets to soften the blow, and all the time ENIC promises jam tomorrow but nothing today. And a good proportion of Spurs fans still seem to believe them! The Spurs I started supporting in the '60s were famous for their demanding and discerning fans, and the club gave them the success they wanted, but now many supporters apparently demand nothing, and that's exactly what they get.
     
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  4. Deggsy56

    Deggsy56 Active Member

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    I think we are just treading water whilst in the PL Liverpool, Mancs AND Arsenal will compete for 3rd/4th spot - but NOT US i'm afraid ! Our biggest task will be to hold onto Eriksen, Lloris, Vertonghen. Harry will stay awhile coz we're 'his club'.
     
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  5. notnats

    notnats Well-Known Member

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    Unfortunately this panned out exactly as I expected it to with Jose coming out on top over our novice manager. We played ok and the lads gave a decent account of themselves especially in the first but as usual we lacked real cutting edge and the guile needed to put pressure on such a well disciplined team like Chelsea who are patient enough to allow the opposition plenty of ball and wait for the mistakes. Classic Mourinho and lets be honest Poch is simply no match and was easily out thought by the best in the business, although it wouldn't have been hard, we've been playing the same uninspiring brand of football all year and all though we've shown more resilience this year and have edged a few games with late goals our lacklustre style and the predictability of our play was way too easy for Jose and the mistakes came. Not the result that we all wanted but I for one am still a proud Spurs fan, at the end of the day we lost a close game to a very resolute and strong Chelsea and at times we were the better team on the pitch so show a bit of support FFS. COYS
     
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  6. Ali Guest

    A lot of kneejerkey doom mongerers commenting on this article. The EL knockout can't admittedly be excused, but the fact we had to go into the league cup going up against Mourinho again, after humiliating him before, with a young squad, and against a team so experienced at winning trophies meant he wasn't going to **** it up and lose; it just wasn't going to happen for us yesterday.

    We can't realistically think of winning anything other than a L or FA cup in the future until our new stadium is built, and my hair's turned grey.
     
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  7. josh_b

    josh_b Active Member

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    Sorry, Pochettino was not 'outthought' by Mourinho. The difference between us and a £300 million Chelsea squad was Jose Mourinho's comments about the refs in the weeks leading up to it, and two deflections. And some of these lads are 20, 21.
     
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  8. jimmyforengland New Member

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    Three weeks ago, we were in the hunt for three cups and a Champions' League slot. Today, game over. If only we had the backbone of a Dave Mackay in the team, instead of these overpaid, overrated, overseas, over here idiotic f*!c%ing wa!&ers. I wouldn't give you the smell of an oil rag for them, particularly the likes of Lamela, Soldado, Chadli, Bentaleb, Pochettino, you name him. Who among them will get stuck in for the Lily Whites? Dave Mackay - thanks for the memories. He wouldn't thank me for it, but in light of what's come to football in England since his time, I' gonna name him an honorary Englishman.
    Hands up those of you looking forward and excited about the Swansea and QPR games. Hands up those dreading them?
     
  9. bruski

    bruski Active Member

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    Normally agree with your well balanced opinions Matt, but not on this occasion. The game was easily 50/5, and they got two moments of good fortune. Watch the game again without the overwhelming feeling of disappointment. I have total faith in MoPo.
     
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  10. Burnt Guest

    Bad defending aint been unlucky .. We must be the most unlucky team in the league if thats the case ..
     
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  11. bruski

    bruski Active Member

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    I will agree that this season our defence has looked ropey, but not on Saturday. The game was clearly 50/50 with simply two moments of good fortune deciding the game. I was really proud of the boys and I have faith in MoPo.
     
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  12. stevethespur Active Member

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    great post Ramos. Have quoted it to get some balance among these opinoins, agree with it 99% ! Bring on the Swans ! Coys.
     
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  13. burnt Guest

    Its just a diff in opinion at the end of the day .. I don't see it Ramos,s way at all .. For me its all seen with rose tinted glass,s and not looked at at all with an open unbiased view .. Hope yee are 100% correct and the promise and progress yee see is vindicated in the immediate and long term .. I personall don't see it in this group of players .. Hope im wrong ..
     
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  14. Ramos43

    Ramos43 Active Member

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    I read somewhere BEFORE the cup final that the majority of Spurs players would need to play 7/8/9 (out of ten) on the day to win the Wembley showpiece... and to be honest, I agreed.

    For Spurs to BEAT one of the top teams in England/Europe, at this stage in our development, we require the majority of players to perform at something close to the best.

    (And the reason I say that, isn't due to a lack of belief in the technical quality/abililty of our players, as much as it is about the mentality and in-game professionalism that I feel we are still developing )

    Unfortunately for everyone connected to Spurs on Sunday, too many of our players, especially in the offensive areas, struggled to produce the kind of form we (should) know they are capable of.

    Eriksen was poor by his usual standards, bar his early attempt at a free-kick (Hey, is that a pun? Bar/freekick....anyway). The Dane was FAR too wasteful with possession in the final third, as he seemed to develop a tendency, on the day, to try the 'Hollywood Pass' instead of looking for the easier and more constructive ball.

    As the 'Brain' within the team, Christian is charged not only with being creative, fast-thinking and intelligent in possession, but he is also expected to be able to understand and accurately determine what is best for the side in any given moment during a match.

    An EFFECTIVE 'Brain' must be able to read the momentum/nature of the game, as well as the emotion of it, whilst remaining perfectly poised, and ready to act/ influence proceedings.

    And, whilst Eriksen has shown in the past that he IS able to do those things - on Sunday, sadly, he did not!

    Harry Kane was another key member of our attacking unit that failed to really flourish on the Wembley stage. Of course we saw flashes of his undoubted ability (most notably a wonderfully mazy run in the early stages of the contest, bypassing 3/4 Chelsea players before being fouled) but Spurs needed more than just flashes class on the day.

    We needed moments of genuine dominance/ superiority/ brilliance.

    Moments which didn't REALLY come.

    Hey, listen, we played some nice stuff up til the final 3rd of the field - without ever REALLY replicating the kind of rhythm, fluency/movement or cohesion that saw us consistently pick holes in the Chelsea defence, at WHL, earlier on in the campaign.

    Yes, our forward thinking players (Mason, Eriksen, Chadli , Townsend and Kane) all toiled admirably for the duration of the time they spent on the field that day. But none of them had the kind of individual performance, or understanding with one another, on the day, to disrupt a resolute, experienced and EXTREMELY well-organised Chelsea back-line.

    And you know what, THERE IS NO CRIME IN THIS!!!

    Teams and players, especially young ones, all have off days... Spurs' attack just happened to choose a final to have there's.

    Perhaps the defeat to Fiorentina just a few days earlier meant some of the players were a little too tense and forceful in their approach (within the final 3rd) , in the knowledge that this was the 'last final' to be played this season. Perhaps not.

    But I have to say that I find the assertion that Spurs defended poorly completely laughable!

    Our best work on the day came from our defensive-minded players!

    Dier and Vertonghen both enjoyed good games, while Rose and Walker were SUPERB.

    Nabil Bentaleb acted as excellent screen, and instigator, in font of the back-four, and the team as a whole worked tirelessly.

    Should Rose of ducked out of the header that lead to the opener, knowing that he was unlikely to get enough purchase on the ball to actually clear his lines?

    Maybe. But if his touch diverted the ball away from an on-rushing Chelsea player, would that then have gone down a important touch, rather than a bad decision?

    What the kid really needed was a call to leave it. But even if he had got that call:
    1. Would he have heard it in that environment given the atmosphere at the time.
    2. Would he have heard it in time to react, anyway, given the distance the ball traveled or the quality of the delivery.
    3. Could he REALLY judge accurately who was calling him to leave it given that his back was towards what was a crowded penalty area.


    You could debate all day about whether he needed to touch the ball, or not, but what is NOT up for dispute is that, even, after his touch caused an issue for the Spurs defence to deal with, Terry shot STILL required a deflection to find the back of the net!

    Moving forward though, if you ask me, Spurs have SO MUCH to look forward to over the coming few years.

    • We have an EXCELLENT young manager who I firmly believe is destined to reach the very top of the game.

    • A solid core of emerging young talent both in the 1st team, and in the academy, who all appear to be both passionate and eager about wearing our famous clubs colours.

    • A committed, ambitious and forward-thinking Chairman, who will no doubt continue to look after the best interests of the club.


    • A brand new world-class Stadium to accompany our recently built state-of the art training facility.

    We also have the very real prospect of a top 4 finish this season to look forward to. Because whilst many some appear to think that our season finished at 6pm, on Sunday night, I do NOT!!!

    To my knowledge we still have another 12/13 decisive cup finals to be played....starting with Swansea on wednesday!

    Win 9/10 of those and I have no doubt that Sundays cup final defeat will seem like a distant memory.
     

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