Comment on Newcastle 2 Tottenham 2 on Spurs Community

http://www.spurscommunity.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=2520682#post2520682

Game of two halves entertainment wise. A game we should have won but looked more likely to lose once they equalised. Unfortunately, going back to my original post on the team selection, we’d have one this game comfortably with Sandro in midfield rather than Jake, who was out of his depth today. 

Think this game shows we’re better than last year’s team and are right in the fight for fourth, or maybe even third, but a team with pretensions to challenge for the championship would have taken this game. 

What do we lack? We need even more of a cutting edge (I suggest Defoe should be starting ahead of VDV), a stronger midfield (Sandro) and better defending as a team (Livermore and then BAE were at fault for the goals) and when we have our first team out we’ll have all of these. Let’s get some people fit, although worrying that Walker, Bale and Modric all got knocked about today.

Comment on Tottenham 4 Liverpool 0 on Spurs Community

http://www.spurscommunity.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=2493657&posted=1#post2493657

This is a key point and I hope Harry has taken note. Mucking about with 451 to accommodate VDV really didn’t help us at all last season, not withstanding our other problems (lack of firepower up front, inconsistent defending and dodgy team-picking among them). 

There is no reason to play anything other than 442, be it home or away, top, mid, or bottom of the table opposition, until such a time as we simply don’t have the players to do so due to injury or we’ve lost about four in a row. We are a much better team when we play this way and we are best playing our game and letting the opposition worry about us. 

Both Parker and Ade have started brilliantly – long may it continue. If Ledley can continue to play each weekend we have a fabulous spine to our team, something which was glaringly missing all last season. 

Come on you Spurs!

Tottenham 1 – Man City 5 – post match comment

http://www.spurscommunity.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=78062&page=12

It’s all very well to say our season starts against Wolves, but that’s the third game of the season. We’re a point behind last season and on a run of 3 wins in 14 games. We’ve just lost 5 -1 at home, when if we hadn’t lost I have a feeling we would have gone a year without losing at home? 

Things don’t look good. The season has started and it’s started badly. A 1/2-0 defeat at Old Trafford and a draw here would have been a much more positive start – especially if we had shown some progress from the end of last season. 

As things stand we are sliding. Luckily this is football and things can change very quickly. If we sign a couple of players who quickly fit into the team, if Harry gets struck by lightning and it gives him to power to select our best team to play that week’s opposition, even if we sign no one else and manage to scrape a lucky 1-0 win with an own goal against Wolves it could still signal the start of a run away from the foot of the table. 

The thing that really worries me is the atmosphere that seems to be surrounding the club. Be it Modric, be it Harry’s famed man-management skills coming full circle and now annoying the players, be it the differences of opinion between manager and chairman, and particularly be it bad training (which rings so true just looking at the line-up of our background staff (Joe Jordan excepted)) – this is the aspect of the start to the season which really concerns me. 

What can change it? The close of the transfer window, with a signing or two if we’re lucky? Let’s hope so. A change of manager – it may well take this. How long will Levy wait?

A moment to change a season…

in the move which ends up with Bale scuffing over at the far post when he really should have got it on target, Crouch nods the ball on to him at the far post. Unfortunately, although it found Bale, Crouch’s flick took the ball away from an in-rushing Modric, who would have had a clear header from about 5 yards out.

How would the match have continued and how would the world be looking now if Modric had been able to bury that header…

Which is why we all love football, isnt’ it, even if we’re not in love with it today.

Comment on Atletico Bilbao match thread on SC

http://www.spurscommunity.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=2416216#post2416216

Two things I love about this thread:

1) David’s brilliant summary of the match for those of us that weren’t there and his patience and insight in follow up posts, keeping the thread as a whole together and relevant and helpful to those of us who live too far away from WHL…

and

2) the emergence of more support for my theory that buying VDV actually cost us fourth place last season. I know, I know, it was only a friendly and all that, but it seems patently clear to me that, while they all have their limitations, PC, JD and Super Pav are all much better players playing with each other in a combination of 442 than they are playing 451 with VDV. Like the rest of you, I hope we can find a way to buy the improvement striker we all crave, but at the same time I hold out hope that if we can’t bring it off, at least we can make the most of three of the strikers we’ve got by playing 442 rather than just one of them by playing 451.