Spurs avoid relegation
Wednesday, January 4, 2012 at 11:01AM Spurs 1 WBA 0
Lack of tempo and direction after decent early pressure. No width. Bit sluggish. Festive period finally bites back at us. Struggled to work around the congested midfield area, tippy-tappy passing epic failure. Too much free-roaming from Bale when the left flank was yelling out his name. The right flank equally lonesome. Players looking tired with movement and touch. Passing was very very average. More than a few were anonymous out there. On top of that we had every other player dropping dead and some dubious substitutions and reshaping as a consequence (Niko in the middle as a CM? Really?). Gallas injured (calf). Sandro injured (calf). Livermore injured having replaced Sandro and injuring Kaboul (who survived it because he's well 'ard). Adebayor playing like he's injured but still managing to beat JD's best mid-season offside tally but is still some way off from equalling the Monsters Inc scare record. Defoe rubbish until he scored. Cue 1000 Spurs fans on Twitter desperately attempting to delete their anti-JD 'get him off' comments. Then he's rubbish again.
There were positives in there. Plenty of effort. Half-Jenas Livermore did quite well, retaining the ball. The experience, leadership and class of van der Vaart included a solid work ethic. Defoe's blonde hair making it ever easier for assistant ref's to wave their flag for offside (positive for them rather than us). That's all I've got. Well that and 68% possession even if our patient play was untidy. Some flaky decisions made on and off the pitch. But we survived any genuine scares.
WBA, decent effort. What with all the hacking and fouling. Made it more so tricky with their 19 centre-backs. But that's just respect for us. Can't expect lesser quality sides to turn up and try and play open football. They'll get murdered, even if we're at half-pelt. So don't try to play WBA and co, just hoof and time waste.
In addition: We still suck at set pieces. Countless attempts at goal without really carving out clear 'ooh it's going in' cut chances. No creative spark. No coat hanger to unlock the bus door and joyride the bulky annoyance away.
Regardless, we won. Ugly. But we won. Professional without being polished. More of a grind. Bit like pulling a bird you don't fancy at the end of a night out. But you still end up scoring and surely that was the objective at the start of the night?
Three points. Winning convincingly is just as important as winning unconvincingly. As long as the latter doesn't turn into a week to week trend then it's no different to other clubs who mix and match and get the points on the table.
I'll leave the rest for the actual match report/after-thoughts (probably not until Thursday if I get the chance as I'm recording the podcast Wed evening) but I'm sure 'squad rotation' along with 'the necessity to rest our players' will be two key talking points. FA Cup weekend, got to be intelligent with selection there. And please no more injuries.
Oh yeah, and 42 points. We can't get relegated now. Open bus parade. Have that Facebook Tottenham Relegation Party. Don't think I've forgotten your zany existence.
The cockerel might have been removed from the roof due to the extreme weather conditions but be sure it can be found crowing in the club bar sharing a drink with Chirpy and his white powdered nasal hairs.
COYS. Mind the gap.
Love the shirt.
RIP to the elderly Spurs fan that passed away during the game.
Reader Comments (31)
To the family of the fan who died last night best wishes on your sad loss.Hope i can still go to matches at 81.On the game front yes agree with all said above.Bit of a worry all the injuries and maybe selling Niko,Pieraar,Charlie ,Bassong and Pava now to bring in a couple of new players.What is Vertonghen like anyone know.Would still like Damioa to come to us as he could play in place of Ade if needed and with Defoe or VDV so fits in well.The other problem now is who plays if Parker and Sandro are out for a few weeks.That is why i asked about Vertonghen as he is supposed to be able to play in lots of places so maybe him and Samba/Tomkins and Damioa as sighings.
Season over then.
Hit the 40 point mark before mid-Jan. Now the Boys can relax and fritter the season away planning their summer holidays.
The rest of us can concentrate on the cricket again, 1st test against Pakistan starts 17th Jan.
Come on Straussy
agree except i don't think we were that bad to be fair.
Would only add:
Ade had a shocker, lets hope it isn't the start of our fears,
Bale needs to improve his decision making, more composure round the box when players are free than bash em in from 20 yards through a crowd of men
Walker (and the others) need(s) to stop crossing for crouch, when we have no strikers in the box, so frustrating that he doesn't attack the box more, that said he could do with some more intelligent running into the space behind/alongside the full back from his team mates
and finally, the word rotation scares me, rest a player who is knackered, drop a player who is out of form but otherwise leave well alone, it works for Barca and Madrid.
HNY spooks.
Agree with the point about free-roaming Bale. He was much more effective second half when we reverted to Plan A. Also as you say Spooky we are shocking at set pieces. When was the last time we scored from a corner? Every one we take is an outswinger from Modric or VDV (apart from short ones) - why not thrown in the occasional inswinger with people like Kaboul, Ade and even Bale to attack!
MOTM for me was Kaboul though - like a rock.
Hopefully Dawson & Lennon get a run out in the cup on Saturday.
actually there was one other thing, we do need another option up front, there may never be a better chance for us to win the league, we need to twist, go for it and take a chance. I'm not talking 35 mil on Carroll here but a Higuain loan deal maybe, Damaio, Hulk, Doumbia (sp?) any mutha f&*cker who knows where the net is.....
Agree with Devon yid. Ade has history of starting well and then losing interest. Either way, he still puts a better shift in than Defoe does. Defoe does not chase lost causes, is slow to spot an opportunity, still has trouble staying onside when I can name several strikers who have no problem with this. I agree with you on rotation too. It is easy to rotate when your opposition is well scared of you, and you have Berbatov, Valencia, Rafael, Carrick, Giggs etc on the bench. We have Rose, Livermore, Pav, Bassong, Gio waiting in the wings. It is not the same! If we rotated, we would have lost at least one of the xmas games. The players WERE knackered, but we got through it unbeaten, and in good position.
Last Season, Man Utd had 41 points after 19 games and won the league....
in 09/10, We had 37pts from 20 games.
Winning the league is NOT impossible.
http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/matchday/league-table.html/?season=2009-2010&month=DECEMBER&timelineView=date&toDate=1293652800000&tableView=CURRENT_STANDINGS
COYS
A lot of people do not rate Dawson, and really rate Kaboul - but as you saw yesterday, without King, Gallas or Dawson, the defence turns to jelly. Kaboul is playing well, but he still has a long way to go in terms of holding the defence together. Kaboul needs Dawson or King or Gallas beside him. Dawson cannot come back quick enough.
..."Dawson cannot come back quick enough" - due to lack of pace.....?
Dawson + Kaboul at CH will need to prove that they are the long term option. Demba Ba has impressed me. If we are looking to improve this month, I believe it is wise to look at Prem Experienced players. Samba would do nice. Vertongen, not for me. Yet should we be concerned about Adebayor (and his mental state) if we bring in another big man (that we desperately need) upfront....
I can run faster backwards than Dawson can run forwards
Spooky, think it was arry and co's game plan all along. Retain the ball, pass them to death and when we see an opening go for it and if we don't get a goal then not to worry as we will get one later on.
As for giving Bale and RVV a roaming licence allowed Modric to sit back and spray the ball about, but must say it was a bit to slow, we did not need to be going as fast as we norm do but just a little bit faster than we were could of produced more goals!?!? but it was a strong proformance the end of game stats said it all.
watching the game last night further confirmed the fact that we are now one of the big boys. teams like west brom come to us and sit back like nobody's business. trouble is with white hart lane being a tad posh spice around the waist, when teams sit back, there really isn't anywhere to go, unlike at old trafford where sitting back is suicide due to the width of the bitch. there are only three types of goal you can score against a team who sit back like that at whl: a set piece, a 30yd wonder twat, or, like jd yesterday, a bobble in the box and a snatch shot.
so with the new stadium do we widen the pitch at the cost of a little atmosphere, or should we retain the narrowness and community?
The players need a rest. Harry went with pretty much the same eleven throughout Xmas period and although we were winners in the short term, you can already see the impact it is having on the team in terms of performance level and injuries. Lucky against Swansea and struggled last night with players dropping like flies.
Harry's done very well to get us to this point but he needs to be wiser with his team seleciton. Kranjcar is a great player but because he hardly plays, on the rare ocassion he does enter the field, he looks rusty.
The Everton game has been poorly rescheduled. Ideally we needed 10 days off. I can't see any of the first team playing the fa cup. It would be nice to Coulibaly get a place on the bench for that one.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/fan-dies-at-white-hart-lane-from-heart-attack-6284747.html
RIP
from what i've seen of coulibaye he makes the 16 year old rooney look like some much less good player. he's already scored goals jd can only masturbate over. bring him in! he's christ reborn for christs sake! who leaves christ on the bench?
Yeah, RIP to the fan who sadly passed away last night. I couldn't help wondering, did he get to see Defoe's goal before he died. Anyway condolences to his family.
That game was spoiled by the 'parked bus'. We have Dawson, Parker, Lennon and Pienaar waiting in the wings and they should be playing with a freshness that will liveleen up the team. Bring on Everton, I say.
Dawson and Lennon back for the weekend so say Spurs Official (I'm sure they are ITK).
I thought that Kaboul was excellent last night. He was the one taking the game by the scruff of the neck and really pushing the team forward.
TonyRich ..."Dawson cannot come back quick enough" - due to lack of pace.....?
Brilliant!
Alan - I get your point with regard to rotating. But if you look at the options we had over xmas: Gallas played throughout, and due to injuries, the only rotation option was Bassong....no thanks. Parker and Sandro were playing together in midfield, so the only fit central midfield rotation option was Livermore...no thanks. Defoe was injured, so the only rotation option for Adebayor was Pav....no thanks. Niko is the only decent rotation option we have at the moment, and he is off form, way down the pecking order, and personally I can only see him as back up for VDV. For which Harry prefers to use Defoe as back up for VDV. You could argue that Niko could do a job on left to give Bale a rest, but with Lennon injured, we lose the rest of our pace....no thanks. It is not easy. I think Harry went for the points and took the injuries. They are all minor, and Lennon, Dawson, King, Hudd are soon to return, so we can cope.
we scored from corners against bolton
kaboul was man of the match with vdv second
if we cannot pass thro teams (and to do so would require an awful lot more movement than defoe managed) we need to create space by running at them, and keep doing it even if we lose possession the first few times, the crowd should not groan. fact is, if you get past the guy a second and maybe third have to come across to cover, that creates space and then we have to have players smart enough to run into that space and players smart enough to feed the ball into that space. alternativel we are fouled, bookings follow and space is created by defenders standing off for fear of second yellow. passing it across the field without intent is what wba wanted us to do and thanks to kaboul for a few storming runs forward that helped to cause some confusion among the massed ranks of defenders.
If we actually get Samba, we might be better with set pieces. Don't know why I insist in speculating.
Yesterday's match wasn't terribly inspiring to me, however I was of course on the edge of my seat by the final 10/15 minutes as per usual. Defoe's hair needs to go and he should be further banned from having foolish hairstyles. Adebayor needs to grow back his locks, because I suspect that's where he got his powers from.
I concur generally with what's been said in the comments section here, especially with the restinig of players. - Match moment, when I thought Bale was going to nut the f*cker that fell him down.
I think what we need now is the Thudd back if Sandro is out for a while.Hope Parker is fit for everton as we really need him now more than ever.If the thudd was back he could play with Parker to allow Luka a free role if we played three at the back.Like the idea of two holding and three at the back but it will only work in some games.I think we need the wheeler dealer now more than ever as Niko looked pants and Livermore is good but not against the big four/five teams.Come on Arry do a deal.
fret not my yid brethren, turns out we're currently heading for our 19th league title to go alongside our 5 European trophies, clearly with that experience it's in the bag !!
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Some thoughts:-
1. Worried for the injuries sustained. Parker, Sandro, and Gallas. Even the likes of Bale, Modric and VdV looked tired towards the end of the match and we need to rotate.
2. Agree with Alan on two points, para 1 above and the fact that we could have occasionally used the likes of Niko, Danny Rose, Coulibaly, Falque, Carroll etc during the festive period, if only to give them crucial game time, and to give some of the first team a rest. I am mindful that some do not rate Bassong, (I don't) but it would be worse if any key member suffers a long-term injury.
Here's hoping there is some sensible rotation in the next few games.
3. Nonetheless very happy and proud that we are 3rd in the table with 5 points clear of 4th and a game in hand!
Sandro out for a while according to Redknapp.
Bad news.
Spooky, agree with everything you said.
Some have mentioned Coulibaly. I do rate him, too, and would like to see him playing this Satrdee, even ahead of Kane and Falque.
Go on Newcastle!
The great Billy Nick apparently didn't believe in squad rotation either. In the double winning side (42 L + 7 FAC games = 49 total), 8 players appeared in 40 or more of the 42 L games, Nick effectively used 11 players with only Medwin getting some rotation with 14 L games. This season, our regulars will potentially have less than 49 (38 L + X FAC) games in total — not more than Billy Nick's great team. So none of that, they play more games today. Were they tougher then (with probably no subs allowed back then)? Just wondering. . .from the sunny Left Coast of America.
Best wishes to the family of the man who died at the game. Without in any way being trivial I have to admit that passing away at WHL during a match would be an end I would aspire to. Consequently, whilst there is no replacing someone you love, I hope the family find solace in knowing their man died in his passion.