Against a Galaxy far far away (well, not that far, across the Atlantic)
Wednesday, July 25, 2012 at 8:46AM Morning. A quick flirt before breakfast.
A 1-1 draw with an MLS side with us displaying a slow moving awkward high line leaving wide open spaces for comfortable exploiting and a general lack of fluidity going forward. What is Villas-Boas doing? Has he not learnt a thing from his calamitous Chelsea tenure? End of days. Mid-table mediocrity awaits.
Two things. The first thing is a collection of things bunched together:
- Not all our (key) players are currently available for selection
- Some of the ones that are might not be available to us once the season actually starts
- New players bedding in
- High line movement and understanding hardly something to be achieved over night
- We've not finished our transfer activity (striker(s), Luka replacement etc required)
- The heat + Galaxy fitness at mid-season stage
- Our fitness levels still being built up
- Some of our players more keen to impress than others
The second thing?
It's pre-season, which accounts for all of the above. Who cares, save injuries. Talking of which Walker and van der Vaart picked up knocks. Nothing serious, couple of days out at best. We looked good in parts, couple of very decent chances to add to the one we got.
Most interesting thing to note is the reminder that Gareth Bale (who scored) pulled out of the GB Olympic team due to injury. Works for me.
Reader Comments (18)
getting rid of the "rust" I guess, shame we never have the first XI bought, bedded in and settled before the season starts. :O(
Sorry and all that, but this is straw-grasping at an unusually early stage of the season.
1-1 against a MLS team fielding a bunch of reserves/kids isn't catastrophic - but it's not wildly impressive either.
As for "bedding in new players" - there's only two and the other starting nine were pretty much the same old suspects. And while, yes, new tactical formations will of course take time to bed-in, I'd be happier if the players getting used to the new system were those who stood a fighting chance of being in the side v Newcastle in a few weeks time. There look like being a number of comings/goings in days ahead which could lead to at least three new faces in key positions - goal, midfield, up front - and expecting them to immediately slot into the AVB dream seems a big ask.
Pre-season's the only time the new manager will have to assess his squad; improve it; and get them playing his way, so the programme of friendlies has more significance than usual. And while I harbour the usual wild pre-season optimism, have to say those niggling little doubts and worries just won't go away.
I wouldn't bother getting too excited pre-season.
Ramos won every game, including beating a couple of champions league teams. Think we beat Roma and Villareal quite comfortably that year.
Get the fitness up, come out all guns blazing against the geordies. Pick up no injuries.
If Carroll scores a Hat-trick on Saturday, i'll begin to panic.
Highlights:
http://www.soccer-blogger.com/2012/07/25/la-galaxy-vs-tottenham-1-1-highlights-2012-friendly-bale-lopes-goals-video/
Sloppy at the back but plenty of positives - created some decent chances, finishing unsurprisingly rusty at this stage of the season, so not too worried about that.
Also denied a stone-wall penalty - better to get those bad decisions out of the way early, right...
Does anyone know if these were the shirt numbers for the season or just the friendly games? Bale as number 9?
Thudd was extremely rusty,Defoe ain't gonna cut it at the top level anymore and man bob Keene is sooo bad even at MLS level
only the second game of pre season,hardly matters in the scheme of things.A chance to try out some new stuff,assess some fringe players.Bale playing? A bit different playing a bit part in a friendly than competing in Olympic Finals.WTF who gives a toss about team GB?
I know I'm blinded by Thudd-love, but I thought he started pinging the ball about wonderfully when he came on - BAE also. Here are two players who play with swagger - exactly the sort of thing I understand AVB wants to install in the team, and exactly the sort of thing I want to see when I watch football. Now the downside of that is they lose the ball in dangerous places and misplace passes. But hey, that's Spurs for you, and if you're going to bring in this style of play, doing it in pre-season is good, and having the confidence to continue doing it even after a few close escapes is better.
I sighed when I saw Carlo really struggling with trying to play out from the back, when Kaboul started pinging it long, when it turned out we still haven't learned how to retain possession from a throw in, and I felt bad for Defoe who clearly is never going to be a lone front-man. Kane looked raw (no criticism, he's young), Carroll looked great.
And poor old Bassong - I remember him playing well for us at CB a few years ago, but he looked lost at left back. I hope for his sake and ours he's not BAE's backup this season.
Why was ref using Chris foy's or hoy's contact lenses? Hudd's pass to Bentley one of best passes of the game , worst pass DB
return back to no one . Blatter is at it again trying to ban Bale , for playing for us instead of team GB, if you get injured
and recover ahead time , do you not need playing time to get back to match fitness .Don't know why he he dos'nt sort out
his own back garden first ,ie bungs his members are taking . Fooooool.
Yep, really don't get all the angst over pre-season results. Nothing has ever been won in July in the United States!!!!!! This is the grounding for bringing the ideas and concepts together so let's just wait and see how it develops.
Apparently Keano missed Jake Livermore... alot. Not sure Jake had that in mind when he learned he'd be on the US tour.
Bentley was okay, missed one cross, got the other.
Sigurdsson was horrible apart from the one cross into Bale for the goal. M first time watching him, I'll save judgement for later.
Great to see Thudd back calming things down. Vertonghen was good - my first time watching him, I'll save judgement for later.
We did alright but LA GALAXY created up to 6 one-on-one situations for their strikers using high balls over confused defenders. Not good. I hope this does not become the norm.
BTW, here's a comment I saw on our US tour training video on youtube:
"I can not describe in words how happy i am to see spurs actually training! you just know under 'ARRY nothing like this was going on...COYS..Cant wait for next season"
Really? So we weren't training under Harry?? LOL
As already stated by others Spooky, it's early days yet my friend and I'm sure that everything will fall into place. COYS!
I was at the game last night, what with living in Los Angeles and all. A couple of things. First, it wasn't hot. At all. As everyone has said, we looked disjointed. Positives included BAE and Kaboul. Vertonghen was good as well, and while I can't remember too much of importance from Walker, our first choice back four should be ok. Dawson looked confident as well. While I was happy, for the most part, with Ole man Friedel last year, its clear that neither he nor Carlo is gonna work in the preferred set up of the new boss. Cue return of Gomes, for better or worse. Well, for worse.
Second, Defoe needs to go. Levy has already make a profit on him once, if I'm not mistaken, so he should go ahead and do this relatively quickly. Seeing him and HK made me more convinced than ever that a midfield with Hudd/Sandro/Sigs or Livermore/Parker/VdV isn't the end of the world, as long as we sign two somebodies who can do something other than hang around waiting to pounce on a through ball.
Other than that, it was hard to get a good overall feel for the game, since there were some faces that I hardly expect to see again. Despite all of what we can say about not taking a result like this too seriously I have to say the game made me nervous about the prospects for the upcoming campaign.
Bale's hot though. With his pinned back ears.
Pros - several first teamers played soem football, Townsend looked decent in parts and what a pleasure to see Thudd spraying the ball about.
Cons - sorry to our yank friends, but I see no sense in this tour.
Mammoth flight to LA - jetlag.
Fly from LA to NY - jetlag.
Fly from NY to London - jetlag.
3 and a half weeks to the start of the season, unfit players, new system, further signings to be made - how is this tour to be considered preperation?
We need to spend as much time at our own training ground as possible. Maybe a short tour to scandanavia may have been worthwhile as we have a large fan base there and the style of football would have been ideal to practice 4 3 3 (and variations of) against.
Whilst taking on board the vast US commercial market, we are not likely to gain many fans by playing the understandably lethargic tripe we managed to conjure up in LA.
Best of all about the game last nite was the number of spurs fans in LA and the number of hot chicks in the following.very proud of the spurs fan,even managed to slap a manure fan in the parking lot after the game
Hahahahahahahahaha, argh, ahem, hahahahahahahahaha . ' The negotiations were going well and then spurs asked for 8 million and it went silent' I bet did Gomes, I bet it did. Actually mate, you should've prized the phone from Levy's fingers, and squeezed your Mr-potato-head-ear to the receiver and listened intently. I bet it wasn't silent mate. I bet there was either laughter of the sound of chest compressions.
If AVB sticks you in goal with this 'Kamikaze high line', he's as mad as you mate, and you're madder than a Jackson smoking Bath salts.