Three points and we get stripped
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 2:42PM WBA (home)
I fancy us, yet something is holding me back from stripping naked and running in the rain singing ‘Glory Glory’ until perhaps after the game has ended (and we’ve won). Sunderland at home proved to be a testy affair which took one moment of unexpected class to give us the three points. WBA are unlikely to turn up and park the bus which might well work to our advantage as long as Harry has a handle on the fitness of the players.
Parker, BAE...just a couple in need of a rest. FA Cup weekend might be the opportunity Harry takes to make sure key players are rejuvenated for the game in hand the following week. Still, tonight’s game is equally as important. We slipped up against WBA last season, we can’t afford for any complacency this time round. It’s hardly a glamour game but it has to be treated like it’s a derby or cup match. Win = attack attack attack.
Will be interesting to see how we deal with the tempo, what with the energy exhausted against Swansea. We’re at home, so no excuse for lethargic displays (on the pitch and in the stands). Everyone’s had a busy festive period. If our lack of tinkering *has* effected the side and the fatigue can’t be shaken off as a collective...we’re in trouble. WBA are no mugs. They are organised and committed on their travels.
Singing in the rain. Fully clothed. Not cool.
One thing this season has told us is that Spurs don’t tend to buckle under the pressure of expectancy. That hunger for success is more than evident. Not to lose when we have a lull in performance, that’s a good trait to possess. We’ve proved our worth, we are contending and we endeavour to remain within the CL spots. That next shift in evolution and belief will come with renewed momentum. In this case, winning the home games we play in the month of Jan. Because the gap that might build up between us and others could prove to be the defining moment of the season so far.
Lennon might be back. Defoe too.
We all know the problem with rotation is that if we do so heavily we are susceptible to losing too much shape. So even with the obvious tired legs, we might only see one or two changes. Harry doesn’t tend to tinker too much. We don’t have the like-for-like key replacements for key players so he’ll adapt the formation accordingly to cater for the loss of Parker or Rafa (for example). JD’s inclusion could well lead to a more traditional 442 which should suit us with home advantage.
Quality wise, even if we made a change we should not be struggling at the Lane. Not if we wish to retain the contenders tag.
Strength and focus at the back. Midfield (Sandro) has to own the ball to allow Modric to conduct and our forward(s) have to be clinical. The later is absolutely imperative. The longer the game goes without a goal, the more confidence WBA will gain. Obvious stuff here, it’s really up to WBA to defend and counter and contain us. We have to look to take the game to them.
The crux is right there. Take the game to them; don’t even give them a second to answer back. White Hart Lane has to be bouncing, with the away end motionless.
It’s an important game. You can excuse results like the Swansea and recent Chelsea home game. Too many slip ups (even though both could be argued as decent points gained) will cost us in the long run.
Turn on the style Tottenham. Grit and class. Have us dancing in the rain (naked or otherwise).
Love the shirt.
Reader Comments (43)
Been told no Lennon tonight. Maybe on the bench, but will be available if King Harold chooses to unleash him on Saturday.
Thing is WBA are tired too. In fact they've played more recently than us. Not totally sure they'll fancy it.
Friedel
Kaboul, King, Gallas, Rose
Walker, Sandro, Modders, Bale
JD, Ade
This could be the moment for a good thumping to be handed out. Whilst that is wishful thinking, and possibly dangerous tempting of fate, if we can show the depth of the squad and produce a good old fashioned home display of class capped off with goals then that will be a statement to all those around us. A truly psychological result.
See Frank Lampard is claiming that Chelsea can win the title on the BBC web site. If he believes that then he has to think we are a shoe in for the honours!!!! Whilst those around us loose their heads let's keep ours, play solid, play well and get 3 points.
Friedel. Kaboul-King-Gallas. Walker-VDV-Sandro-Modric-Bale. Ade-Defoe. That should be our team. 3-5-2. Bale and Walker as wingers. Sandro as DM and modric/vdv slightly more advanced with defoe and ade up top.
FRIEDEL
WALKER KABOUL KING BAE
SANDRO
LENNON MODRIC BALE
VDV ADE
resting Parker, this is our best XI.... enough to score early to allow Niko, JD and possibly Daws some decent action in 2nd half
The Title.... if we believe enough in it.. if we want it enough .. we have what it takes.. failing that ( City do have the comfort of playing 4 of their 'top6' encounters at home ), then we'll have to settle for something just below that..
COYS
Parker can rest when he is dead. Ade needs Defoe alongside him. Four Four Two FTW!!
Friedel
Walker Bull Ledders Benny
Lenny Parker Modders Baler
BadAde Blondie
I would like to see the strongest team possible, just to get 3 points and be able to breathe while we await Everton. Harry can wait to rotate until Saturday. I'm still nervous that there is never any urgency until the second half in our games. Spurs have wasted chance upon chance in the first halfs, where they could have put the game to bed. Ade is the master at this and being caught off-side. Harry needs to give the team the hair-dryer before the kick-off instead of at half time.
Hope they come out 'all guns blazing' from the off.
The expectation is killing me.
Side tracking - I would not pay £8 for Samba!!!
Strongest team possible needs to play. Both Utd and City slipping up is great for Spurs and we need a big result as I doubt Everton will be that easy next game. Lets hope for 3-0 vs WBA then a few cheeky January signings by 'Arry.
A sensible blog 'Dear Mr Levy' and some thoughtful posts. All guns blazing from the off and a win should be forth coming.....but then again this is the mighty Spurs and I have been a supporter long enough to know they do things the hard way.
I think you have stated the obvious very eloquently Spooky.
The problem is, that unlike the English troops in Henry V, our glorious collection of superstars fail to respond to fine words.
I seem to remember red-hot pokers were in vogue during Henry's reign, as indeed they were during the Roman Empire so maybe Harry should use that form of motivation instead.
The suspense is killing though isn't it? Will it be the real Spurs tonight or just another illusion?
Friedel; Walker, Gallas, Kaboul, Assou-Ekotto; Van der Vaart, Modric, Sandro, Bale; Adebayor, Defoe.
No Brunt, Olsson, Long, Mulumbu for WBA.
anyone got a link for this one please.
Cookiebun, Google Wiziwig Sports and take your pick...not many good ones tonight but the first Setanta one is working most of the time.
Re: first half, I can only assume Harry is saving them for the 2nd half....atrocious.
Also, have Spurs heard of sports science and the contribution it can make to individual and collective fitness....how many ham-strings have gone on key players just this season....perhaps they train like they played in the first half?
COYS, wake-up FFS.
Not the best performance and too many more hamstring injuries, but it's 3 points.
Batter Everton by 17 goals next week and we take 2nd!!!
Lol my tweet about 17 goals made it onto BBC website.
Great performance, these are the games we lose or draw normally, they were knackered but fought bravely.
Really proud I had a squeaky bum the whole game but we are 5 points above Chelsea 6 above Arsenal and eight from the bindippers with a game in hand.....who knows what Newcastle can do tomorrow night???????
Apart from all the lackluster performance things, I now understand why Livermore gets the nod ahead of Kranky. Kranky must be about 20 pounds over weight. He looked like he was wading through mud. Seriously, do you not fucking train when you don't play? Who sorts nutrition at the club? Are there no sports scientists? Plus we have more soft tissues than fucking Kleenex, it really does make me wonder if we have any physios at all. What a fail if an amateur hour attitude to fitness, prevention and recovery robs us. Fuck!
On second tgought,maybe Kranky is a method actor and had a few Santa roles to fill so he ate his way to a different playing weight.
Imagine a midfield pair of Kranky and Hudd: it would be akin to watching beached whales lolling about on the sand. At this rate (weight?) the only Euros Kranky will be at will be the Hotdog Eating Championships in Vienna, the only transfer he'll get will be internal to Canteen Manager.
Now pls harry, put out our youth team on saturday. To hell with the FA cup. I don't give a penny about it!!!!
We paid the price last year, let's simply focus on the big prize, put the youth team out and rest the entire first team ready for the next home league match.
Dr Oyvind, I've been going on about the spurs medical and health teams for ages. There is something very wrong at the club, hamstrings, overweight and the rest. We need to up our game and get with the technology available in the health sector, we are well off the mark in this area.
Kranks was a disgrace tonight, a disgrace and he nearly lost us the game with his lazy, cant be bothered passing. He should not be allowed to play again, relegated to the youth team until sold.
walkerboy, we'll only go second if united lose tomorrow night, but I get what your saying.
Oh shit. This one is finally over and 3 points counted.
Felt like some boozy dentist was tugging and pulling my front teeth for 90 min with rusty pliers and without any anesthesia.
Harry, please, pretty please, revoke and tear up Bale’s roaming license. Our success so far was based on wide-front attack, and we completely lost it with Lennon out and Bale at ….. well, pretty much about nowhere. Even with our signature wide-front style we’ve had tough times playing around parked busses, but without our flanks I’m afraid I’d be visited by that fucking dentist more often than I want to.
Think that no one of our players deserve some serious “shampooing”, because they really huffed and puffed their hearts out trying to overturn that fucking WBA bus; the task that is extremely difficult to accomplish only through the middle and with short passes….. until the midget sneaked underneath the chassis.
@beetleblues: bollocks! If we carry on with a stereotyped one-dimensional pattern of flank play it will be even easier to block us out. What we are lacking is making use of set-plays: our corners are woeful and hardly any of the opposition defence gets moved around.
Krancar was very slow indeed and his passing was bad. Having said that, how much game time has he had?
Hopefully, we will have our energy levels back for the Everton game, especially with Lennon back, hopefully Parker too.
"Kranks was a disgrace tonight, a disgrace and he nearly lost us the game with his lazy, cant be bothered passing. He should not be allowed to play again, relegated to the youth team until sold."
--------------------------------------------------------------
This is a bit too much of the criticism. What missed passes? I've seen only one ball passed towards him, which he didn't get because the pass was fucking short and intercepted by WBA player. I agree that he's slow, but it is not warranted to pile just every shit that happened on Nico. I’ve heard very similar or exact quote from fucking commentator who btw was fucking criticized him every time he touched the ball, no matter what he did or didn’t do with it. And that was NOT a commentator that rate Spurs in any way. Instead, he was shedding fucking tears whenever WBA’s attack went nowhere. It saddens me that some of our fans have the same attitude as this A-hole and sound him off here.
Sweetman;
I'm sorry, but it is hard for me to imagine how playing wide is a one-dimensional pattern. I always thought that the wider one plays the more options were created with stretched out defenses. It looks like I believed in flying monkeys.
It's one dimensional because teams double-team on Bale and then he has nowhere to go as he is on the flank. In the middle, he will pull the central defence out of position.
DaveK; Thanks for that. Take your point about that first half. The last 20 mins nearly had me in the cardiac ward.
Beetleblues, he was far too laid back for the fast tempo game tonight. I'm in no mood to have lost a further 2 points in the last five minutes of a game by giving away procession in our own half. If that had happened that would have been 6 points lost in the last 5 minutes of a game. Maybe I was harsh, but we need to be bloody focused 110% if we are going to achieve. There is room for any error.
Also, having supported spurs for some 50 years, I've been waiting a serious challenge title challenge for a while. You can see where im coming from. Too many times tonight our passing was not crisp, it was lazy and causal and we lost procession up the pitch many times.
PS. By the way, This is the first time I have critisised him. He is normally the type of player that fits the spurs mold, but tonight was not his night and there is no room for error. It can cost us big time.
It was a very hard match, like the Swansea game. The team needs a rest which is why I'm calling for a youth team to be picked for Saturdays game. A top 4 finish must be the only priority we have this season.
Brilliant, Sandro out for months,.......that's all we needed.
I'd wait for 24h and then see what the MRI scan shows.
Hotspur;
I agree, our passing tonight was not crisp (Modders, Bale, VDV, Ade, Defoe, Kyle, BAE), but it is very hard to make all accurate of so many short passes through WBA’s packed middle, which seem to be a pattern of our plays lately (Swansea and WBA). While abandoning left flank, Bale doesn’t run the right flank either. Instead, most of the time recently he cuts in the already crowded middle; where there are again only short passes possible. This way is very hard to break through a congested middle of most any PL team. However, with so many misplaced short passes in this game, it was harsh to single out for “shampooing” just one player who spent less than a quarter of hour on the pitch. I’m glad you reconsidered your level of harshness.
Hope that Parker and Huds will be back soon to plug the hole made by Sandro's misfortune.
Hope to God no interested parties saw Kranc tonight. He looked fatter than Harry.
We're singing at The Lane
Just singing at The Lane
What a glorious feeling
To be singing at The Lane
We're the Yids making noise
For Harry and the Boys
We're singing, just singing
We're singing at The Lane...
I like.
raaaar!
i cant take the negativity - we won. 3rd game in a week and we haven't lost a game something none of the teams around us can testify to. We were tired yesterday - why is this a surprise to some people - im not sure where this level of superman-esq expecation has come form but our beloved team is NOT Barcelona. As much as i hate to admit it, our players are but mere mortals who tire and struggle to keep a high tempo in 200th -270th minute of football in a week. Yes our passing was a little sloppy and yes it took us an age to score but did we ever look like losing? For 70 mins we were winning the ball back every single time we lost it and mounted attack after attack after attack.
WBA were kicking the daylights out of our team, look how many yellow cards they got and fouls they conceded. They were playing with 10 men behind the ball and yet we pressed and pressed and pressed and never gave up. I for one am proud of the performance.
And in response to the bale question. When you are only playing with one wide man, like some people are suggesting we should have last night, the team becomes unbalanced and stretched. With no lennon to balance out the flanks it becomes hard to play with an out and out wide man - thats why you saw BAE constantly in the widest left position. We know VDV is not capable and shouldnt be left wide out on the right. In fact, apart from lennon we dont have someone to stick out there. This is where the change is formation comes into play - its ALL ABOUT BALANCE.
The combination of Kranky's fat farm cameo, and Livermore's mediocre but still workmanlike performance filling in Sandro made a couple of things clear to me that should have already been clear to me. I, like many yids here occasionally bang on about how 'arry should put this player on or that player but I know very little about what state the players are actually in. Redknapp, of course sees them day in and out. He knows and we know FA.
Still fun to talk bollocks and speculate, but Kranky, Charlie, Pav, Pienaar are fringe players for a reason.
Not the prettiest of wins but a critical one. COYS!!!
Well said Jewboy, spot on. We were far from great but far from awful. Hard graft, limited chances, Defoe capitalised and we won a game that we wernt going to lose but could easily have drawn.
Time for Harry to test the "Squad". Hope Sandro and Gallas (more so Sandro) arent long-term injuries.
Maybe time to buy some cover, Mr Levy? Please Sir, can we ave some more?
I think the debate re: wide-players being one-dimensional is interesting.
In the modern game I think teams that play with 4 main attacking players (ie:4213 or 4231) have to utilise those players in a number of different positions during the game.
Swapping our wingers is a good idea since it enables both to cut-in and shoot as opposed to just crossing when they are on the opposite wing, but they don't need to be there the whole game, nor do they need to only play wide...remember Lennon tearing Chelsea apart when he played through the middle?
The main problem is that it requires intelligence both from the front players and the mid-field behind them.
In my view, Bale's biggest weakness at the moment is his decision making but his movement is improving. DeFoe, well he's DeFoe and he plays on instinct rather than intelligence which works sometimes but for long periods is ineffective. Modric has the intelligence, VDV too although his decision making is suspect on occasion (but then whose isn't?) and Ade is up there.
The other requirement for a front 4 is to press high up the pitch and defend from the front. As we saw at Swansea, our front 4 didn't do that and don't do it in general. Is this because of tactics or lack of physical conditioning?
Other top teams just seem so much fitter than our lads. The Opta stats for the Chelsea game showed that their players collectively outran ours by several kilometres (whatever they are). I caught the last 15 minutes of City/Liverpool and the tempo was still relatively high, whereas our lads last night looked like a bunch of sulky teenagers with a strop on.....whadya mean we have to play again? Ok, you have the ball, no you have the ball, I don't want it, oh bugger let them have it to boot to Friedel.
To summarise, 2 fast wingers at certain times of the game are very useful but only,IMO, as part of a more flexible approach.
Kranjcar was a victim of circumstance last night, no use in the midde if he doesn't have a DM alonside him. Kranjcar + Modric CM = Spurs 1-5 City lets not forget.
Livermore got the nod over Kranjcar as he was a more "like for like" replacement for Sandro at the time. Livermore = Jenas but we'll accept him more as he's "one of our own" - this is not a bad thing btw, I'm alluding to the fact he's a decent squad player for cup games and league cameos and will accept that as his role for the most part.
Christ, we won last night, are clear in 3rd, if we win against Everton and Wolves we'll be level with Citeh before they play again. If the barcodes do us a favour tonight things will be even more erotic at the top of this league.
The whole "first team" needs a rest and we have 8 days until the Everton game (7 now) but I'd hope we line up something like this on Saturday - Gomes, Corluka, Bassong, Dawson (?!!!), Rose, Falque, Kranjcar (who needs 90 minutes!!!), Livermore (stitches permitting), Gio, Pav, Defoe
Our hand may be forced into playing a Kaboul etc if both Livermore and Dawson are out but he's had a rest with his suspension and then sat on the bench for at least one game after that. Hopefully we'll see Lennon with a cameo from the bench for 15 minutes or so and all will be right in the world when Parker and King stride back into the side for Everton.
COYS