Man United Vs Tottenham: Match Thread

[Jenko]

It's a manner of expression. It means that to all intents and purposes you have. And you have! Your exact words were "Well at least we know now that champions league is not gonna happen." [my emphasis]. You didn't say that it may not happen, or that it will be difficult or that we have made it difficult for ourselves - you have stated as emphatically as you can that you know it is not going to happen - in common parlance that is known as throwing the towel in. The confusion is yours not mine.



I'm not. You seem to have confused yourself, the emphatic nature of your assertion warranted the description of throwing in the towel. I can be annoyingly persistent at times, infuriatingly analytic, hell, I can even be accused of being anally retentive - but I tend not to do stupid. Perhaps there is a case for usage realignment, here



Yes, I noticed. can't remember saying we performed well or indicating that I needed any instruction on the truth or otherwise of this statement. Funnily enough, where you took from our performance that we may as well pull up stumps and go home, I took the alternative from it that that was a totally anomalous performance, and I fully expect a reaction to it.



Yes, we are six points behind them and that fully warrants a claim that it has become even more difficult for us to finish in the top four, we most certainly aren't favourites to do so. But, as explained in my post to @EastLondonYid (and in my original response to you) The Goons, Liverpool and United each have to play one another, that is three or four points per game to be lost between our rivals per game. They also have to play Chelsea, two of them at Stamford Bridge. Our hardest matches, meanwhile, on paper, are Citeh at the Lane and Southampton away. And where our performance today was anomalous and I would expect a reaction, Citeh last few performances have borne the hallmark of a team whose collective heads have gone. So we should have at least a chance of taking the points in our most difficult matches, they are guaranteed to lose points against one another, and risk losing more against Chelsea. In that way, I believe we still have a chance. I never said it was a great chance, or that we were nailed on, just that we have chance.



Yeah, my way of coping with it is to use my brain to analyse the situation and show where posters like yourself are being overly emphatic in your assertions (in this case, writing us out of the equation for CL). Just sayin'



I never. You emphatically stated that we are out of contention for the top four - that is an example of what is known in common parlance as throwing the towel in



I prefer to be realistic, based on logical analysis of the situation.



I may be Mary Poppins with skipping along in dreamworld* - better than Emu with hsi head in the sand and Rod Hull's arm up his arse
*In any case, I dispute this

 

[only1waddle]

I think for a team whose whole philosophy is based on pressing we have done it poorly at times, Utd today pressed in small units of two's and three's shutting off the out ball and the next passing option if we did succeed.
Some of our players seem to think running fast at an opponent is pressing, which is quite worrying, I remember an interview with Klopp where he said you have to be brave in the press , the whole team has to be brave together and today we were timid.
As much as people don't think Utd were as good as some think this was a game where all LvGs experience came to the fore, they passed pressed and moved well as a team, we simply stank out the joint.

 

[noiseboy55]

Until Poch adds more intelligence to the squad and potential match winners we are always going to get shown up against the top 4 sides.

This applies to most posts on this page (I picked yours as it was the shortest), we need experience in the team. experience of the big games, experience of achieving the big results. we need a davids or a Parker to glue all the potential together. work in progress, come back next year.

 

[Sweetsman]

It's a manner of expression. It means that to all intents and purposes you have. And you have! Your exact words were "Well at least we know now that champions league is not gonna happen." [my emphasis]. You didn't say that it may not happen, or that it will be difficult or that we have made it difficult for ourselves - you have stated as emphatically as you can that you know it is not going to happen - in common parlance that is known as throwing the towel in. The confusion is yours not mine.



I'm not. You seem to have confused yourself, the emphatic nature of your assertion warranted the description of throwing in the towel. I can be annoyingly persistent at times, infuriatingly analytic, hell, I can even be accused of being anally retentive - but I tend not to do stupid. Perhaps there is a case for usage realignment, here



Yes, I noticed. can't remember saying we performed well or indicating that I needed any instruction on the truth or otherwise of this statement. Funnily enough, where you took from our performance that we may as well pull up stumps and go home, I took the alternative from it that that was a totally anomalous performance, and I fully expect a reaction to it.



Yes, we are six points behind them and that fully warrants a claim that it has become even more difficult for us to finish in the top four, we most certainly aren't favourites to do so. But, as explained in my post to @EastLondonYid (and in my original response to you) The Goons, Liverpool and United each have to play one another, that is three or four points per game to be lost between our rivals per game. They also have to play Chelsea, two of them at Stamford Bridge. Our hardest matches, meanwhile, on paper, are Citeh at the Lane and Southampton away. And where our performance today was anomalous and I would expect a reaction, Citeh last few performances have borne the hallmark of a team whose collective heads have gone. So we should have at least a chance of taking the points in our most difficult matches, they are guaranteed to lose points against one another, and risk losing more against Chelsea. In that way, I believe we still have a chance. I never said it was a great chance, or that we were nailed on, just that we have chance.



Yeah, my way of coping with it is to use my brain to analyse the situation and show where posters like yourself are being overly emphatic in your assertions (in this case, writing us out of the equation for CL). Just sayin'



I never. You emphatically stated that we are out of contention for the top four - that is an example of what is known in common parlance as throwing the towel in



I prefer to be realistic, based on logical analysis of the situation.



I may be Mary Poppins with skipping along in dreamworld* - better than Emu with hsi head in the sand and Rod Hull's arm up his arse
*In any case, I dispute this

I may have been more pithy, but would have had another ban as a result. Excellent filleting, though.

 

[Sweetsman]

How come Soldado wasn't on the bench today? What is the issue with Fazio?
BTW, Keown has been very complimentary about us recently.

 

[tottenmal]

I do think Van Gal has our number, as the game today reminded me exactly of our game against them earlier in the season.

An opening 35 mins of dominant United attacks, with them failing to take their chances and a few good saves by Lloris. Rest of the 55 mins we get back into it, but can't really produce anything of note. With just the one Mason chance to talk about.

Only this time United did take there chances, but where as before they had to keep on playing to win, they now had to just sit on there three goal cushion at home to a team extremely rattled.

Poch is going to have to learn to do something about this. United weren't amazing today, we were just so diabolical that they got given three chances and they took them.

 

[Kendall]

How come Soldado wasn't on the bench today? What is the issue with Fazio?
BTW, Keown has been very complimentary about us recently.

because Soldado is useless.

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

Until Poch adds more intelligence to the squad and potential match winners we are always going to get shown up against the top 4 sides.

And a few at the bottom.

 

[beats1]

That was as bad as anything we have served up in the last 5 years. Utterly abysmal to a man, not one player comes out with any credit.

Forget it and move on. Only way.

I only watched 70 mins but Danny Rose did well

 

[Sweetsman]

And a few at the bottom.

Will you be wearing a gilet when we play Villa, along with a claret and blue shirt underneath your Spurs home top?

 

[Sweetsman]

because Soldado is useless.

Well, the reason I was asking was why things were so different that Adebayor was on the bench today, but not in the preceding matches?

 

[spursbri111]

Shame walker wasnt suspended.would love someone to remind me the last good game he had and when.

he was poor but you cant blame one player today. lets be honest utd could have scored a lot more if they tried 2nd half. i was expecting a cricket score at half time but utd took their foot off the gas, thank god.

 

[L-man]

Well, the reason I was asking was why things were so different that Adebayor was on the bench today, but not in the preceding matches?

Injured, said on twitter he had knee problems

 

[Sweetsman]

Injured, said on twitter he had knee problems

Unfortunately, so did the whole team: we went down on one knee ad bowed.

 

[yiddo23]

I think for a team whose whole philosophy is based on pressing we have done it poorly at times, Utd today pressed in small units of two's and three's shutting off the out ball and the next passing option if we did succeed.
Some of our players seem to think running fast at an opponent is pressing, which is quite worrying, I remember an interview with Klopp where he said you have to be brave in the press , the whole team has to be brave together and today we were timid.
As much as people don't think Utd were as good as some think this was a game where all LvGs experience came to the fore, they passed pressed and moved well as a team, we simply stank out the joint.

Lvgs experience my ass this was a simple case of spurs yet again providing a springboard for other teams rather than taking the leap themselves

 

[Sweetsman]

As bad as we were in the first half, in the second we had three presentable chances: Mason snatched at his shot as he often does at the moment; Dembele has a wand of a left foot if he only realised, but decided to have a ladle instead and scooped the ball skywards; Kane shot when perhaps he should have squared it. We never drove at the defence to win free kicks. It was another game where we missed Siggurdsson, a hugely underestimated player.

 

[Sweetsman]

Lvgs experience my ass this was a simple case of spurs yet again providing a springboard for other teams rather than taking the leap themselves

LVG has had almost twenty years on MP, which I think does mean something. We are a very young team and froze, that's all; by the time we woke up, it was all over. Anyway, here's something to hold on to from Henry Winter's report in the DT:
"One wretched half cannot dull the gleam in the eyes of Spurs fans at Pochettino’s impact this season. They are going places under Pochettino. It was, unfortunately, just down a cul de sac here. They will recover. There is too much talent in the dressing-room and intelligence in the dug-out for this to be more than a temporary setback."

 

[jolsnogross]

If you haven't had one meaningful attempt on their goal after 60 minutes, it's not really full backs, center halves, or DMs that are the problem. It's our attacking play. And bringing on lamela as a potential game changer is laughable. We did nothing worthwhile going forward because we left Kane toiling away in isolation. Potch's plan B is an issue, or at least his instruction to the field to address where things are going wrong with plan A, the only plan.He could have done worse than put adebayor up top with Kane as number 10 much earlier to get a better foothold, and put their defense out of their comfort. Smalling looked like a bloody world beater against us.

Until Potch puts a run together of five or six wins on the trot, as Jol and Redknapp did, I'll be skeptical of his longer term suitability for us. Having said that, those two did and were still booted out.

 

[Spursidol]

Every match we have a Player Rating thread, yet iIMO for this match this thread is all but irrelevant - the problems causing this result went way beyond the players on the pitch.

The problems include :

- Our manager set the side up in pretty much the same way he has done regularly - 4231 with attacking players with limited thought colectively on defence - and unfortunately too predictable
- The squad includes a lot of players the manager doesn't rate - and unfortunately that's many of the most experienced players (eg Kaboul, one time Captain). So not many experience players on the pitch to offer leadership - that's the flip side of having the youngest team in the PL on the pitch.
- LVG had clearly decided to use Felllaini as a battering ram, bypassing the midfield. Not a tactic which we seemed to have prepared for in any way and we didn't react. Made worse for the second goal by Fellaini holding down Dier so he couldn't jump - a clear foul that the referee didn't apparantly see and certainly didn't give.

So what do we learn from this :

- Away against the better sides we need to set up as a counter attacking side, if necessary going 433 to reinfoce midfield.
- Use the 4231 attacking tactics with pressing etc against the lesser sides, if that's Poch's desired style
- We need to get sell a lot of players in the next TW. Pragmaticakky its the Kaboul/Chirches/Capoue/Paulhino/Soldado and/or Adebayor who we need to move on, but in addition to replacing a few positionally - we MUST get in a couple of experienced leaders/captains (the likes of Cabaye on loan as I've championed elsewhere is to transfer experience to the likes of Mason/Bentaleb/Stambouli/Alli in CM next season)
- Our manager must learn to become more tactically astute, not sure what use he made of the first free wek he had to coach players but he must make better use of it. And he's got to learn to learn how to set up teams to cope with different team's threats and to use substitutes more wisely - he'll have lots of time this coming pre-season to get to know all the players without an overseas tour (which is good news), but Poch maybe has to find a way to learn, even if that means bringing in other experienced coaches to work in his team or to set up a mentoring system of some kind.

No point in marking the players - much of the problems wre not down to the players on the field but how we wre set up at the start.

ManU think they played the best 45 minutes of their season in the first half - and maybe that's the case, but fact is they had 3 shots on target and scored 3, so maybe they had a big slice of luck even though the team we had out there played badly in the first half

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

If you haven't had one meaningful attempt on their goal after 60 minutes, it's not really full backs, center halves, or DMs that are the problem. It's our attacking play. And bringing on lamela as a potential game changer is laughable. We did nothing worthwhile going forward because we left Kane toiling away in isolation. Potch's plan B is an issue, or at least his instruction to the field to address where things are going wrong with plan A, the only plan.He could have done worse than put adebayor up top with Kane as number 10 much earlier to get a better foothold, and put their defense out of their comfort. Smalling looked like a bloody world beater against us.

Until Potch puts a run together of five or six wins on the trot, as Jol and Redknapp did, I'll be skeptical of his longer term suitability for us. Having said that, those two did and were still booted out.

We have conceded 14 goals in six games, please do not tell me (or anyone with a brain bigger than a Goldfish) that we don't have a problem with our full back or center half's. It has bugger all to do with who plays in front of the back four.