Race for the Top 4 - 2018/19

[Mr Pink]

I was fucking massively proud of that second half performance. On another day, especially with the amount we have been scoring of late, we score at least 3 of those. We created enough chances against an apparent 'ressurgent' Man United after being a goal behind right on half time.

Nothing wrong with performance, just one of those days in front of goal.

Top 4 (3rd preferably) and a cup and I will be made up this season

Agreed mate. Third is the best we'll do in the league now, so a cup would be amazing.

But over to City now, can't cope with Liverpool winning the league.

 

[mattyspurs]

Agreed mate. Third is the best we'll do in the league now, so a cup would be amazing.

But over to City now, can't cope with Liverpool winning the league.

I'm all in on City big man. LIverpool winning...well it just doesn't fucking bear thinking about. I know far too many Scousers and I can deal with that bullshit. I hate Liverpool

 

[ohtottenham!]

Rather than bring someone new in, how about we keep Dembélé? A fully rested Dier will be back shortly to help with the run in. Do we even know bad Sissoko's injury is?

It's easy to assume the worst after a loss, but I can't see any way one of United or Arsenal is going to take 7 points more than us over the 16 remaining games.

I6 games...7 points, what could possibly go wrong? We're paper thin in CM. Good that Dier's coming back. But, Wanyama looking bleak, Dembele's status seems vague fitness-wise and transfer speculation-wise - maybe related.

Sissoko's gone down, and he and Winks have stepped up heroically, but showing the strains of carrying the load. We need CM reinforcements, and needed them for a while.

 

[Lighty64]

I’m sorry but I can.
We have to play Citeh, Chelsea and Liverpool away and we are very unlikely to get many points in these, especially with our injury problems. We absolutely cannot afford to slip up in any of our other 13 games.
Admittedly I think it’s highly unlikely Arsenal will be a threat but we should not write off United.

lets be honest, but positivity isn't one of your main strengths

 

[RichieS]

I6 games...7 points, what could possibly go wrong? We're paper thin in CM. Good that Dier's coming back. But, Wanyama looking bleak, Dembele's status seems vague fitness-wise and transfer speculation-wise - maybe related.

Sissoko's gone down, and he and Winks have stepped up heroically, but showing the strains of carrying the load. We need CM reinforcements, and needed them for a while.

We now have a clear week during which Winks can catch his breath a bit. Remember he's not played all that much over the last couple of seasons, so any fatigue he's been showing is most likely due to the sheer frequency of games in our recent schedule rather than cumulative stress. We do know that Dembélé's in full training and I would guess that holding off on bringing him back into the team is transfer related (which is why I'm saying it's better to keep him). Poch said after the game that Sissoko's problem is minor. We are maybe a week to 10 days from being able to pick from and rotate Sissoko, Dier, Winks, Dembélé and Skipp in CM. I think we only need reinforcements there this month if we do let Mousa go and I'd really rather stick with what we have.

 

[homer hotspur]

It was a real shame that we couldn't get the draw for all our efforts yeseterday as, in the race for the top 4, this really was such a key game as it is now clear that Man Utd are the team who are most likely to catch us. They have momentum now and I really do think they will lose very few points in the league for the rest of this season. We have 3 top 4 away games, whilst they have them at home. With our terrible luck with injuries , it is very concerning . Having seen Sissoko collapse and then limp off yesterday, I do wonder if Poch is being overly opimistic and, even if he comes back quickly, it is not a good type of background weakness for someone who plays such a high energy , dynamic, game as he does.
It is really difficult to see us signing on someone who is going to come into the first team and make a difference in those 2 critical areas of defensive midfied and Kane 'back up', so we just have to hope that Poch can shuffle his pack and find a system that will get us through until the injuries(hopefully) ease. I don't see how we can possibly let Dembele go without a replacement(unless we have secretly written him off due to his injury) and likewise Llorente must stay.

 

[shelfboy68]

It was a real shame that we couldn't get the draw for all our efforts yeseterday as, in the race for the top 4, this really was such a key game as it is now clear that Man Utd are the team who are most likely to catch us. They have momentum now and I really do think they will lose very few points in the league for the rest of this season. We have 3 top 4 away games, whilst they have them at home. With our terrible luck with injuries , it is very concerning . Having seen Sissoko collapse and then limp off yesterday, I do wonder if Poch is being overly opimistic and, even if he comes back quickly, it is not a good type of background weakness for someone who plays such a high energy , dynamic, game as he does.
It is really difficult to see us signing on someone who is going to come into the first team and make a difference in those 2 critical areas of defensive midfied and Kane 'back up', so we just have to hope that Poch can shuffle his pack and find a system that will get us through until the injuries(hopefully) ease. I don't see how we can possibly let Dembele go without a replacement(unless we have secretly written him off due to his injury) and likewise Llorente must stay.

Our injuries this year do seem to have hit us hard with them being long term ones players being out for several weeks or longer at a time.
This along with the lack of investment has had an impact which is glaringly obvious to everyone, but what is disappointing is yet again another home defeat to a rival that's 3 this year and still with 3 tough away games to come I think we are lucky that we have not had any draws otherwise we might be sitting outside the top four now.

 

[Mr Pink]

I would just stump up some cash for Doucoure. With Dembele on his way out, and Wanyama chronic, he'd fill the void nicely for the rest of the season to split the load with Sissoko.

We ain't getting a world class CM in January.

Now Doucoure would still be way over priced in January, and in this market, but if it helps us consolidate top four it's easily worth it.

We're fighting on four fronts ffs. Get Doucoure in.

 

[deka-]

It's Doucouré btw

 

[Mr Pink]

It's Doucouré btw

Thanks ?

 

[SpartanSpur]

I would just stump up some cash for Doucoure. With Dembele on his way out, and Wanyama chronic, he'd fill the void nicely for the rest of the season to split the load with Sissoko.

We ain't getting a world class CM in January.

Now Doucoure would still be way over priced in January, and in this market, but if it helps us consolidate top four it's easily worth it.

We're fighting on four fronts ffs. Get Doucoure in.

I read today he's saying he wants to move in the summer, but I suppose if someone agreed a fee he'd hardly say no. They probably do have enough points to be safe too.

 

[homer hotspur]

Another odd situation was the Colombian -Wilmar Barios-. That was being touted as a 'done deal' during and after the World Cup. Last week, he was being heavily linked with Everton and Tim Vickery the South American Talksport correspondent was saying how highly he rates him as a box to box midfielder. Could he still be worth a punt?

 

[Primativ]

Another odd situation was the Colombian -Wilmar Barios-. That was being touted as a 'done deal' during and after the World Cup. Last week, he was being heavily linked with Everton and Tim Vickery the South American Talksport correspondent was saying how highly he rates him as a box to box midfielder. Could he still be worth a punt?

He's garbage.

 

[Primativ]

I would just stump up some cash for Doucoure. With Dembele on his way out, and Wanyama chronic, he'd fill the void nicely for the rest of the season to split the load with Sissoko.

We ain't getting a world class CM in January.

Now Doucoure would still be way over priced in January, and in this market, but if it helps us consolidate top four it's easily worth it.

We're fighting on four fronts ffs. Get Doucoure in.

Thought the same. He wants out, he'd come to us. No brainer.

 

[Everlasting Seconds]

Tielemans maybe?

 

[SugarRay]

Our injuries this year do seem to have hit us hard with them being long term ones players being out for several weeks or longer at a time.
This along with the lack of investment has had an impact which is glaringly obvious to everyone, but what is disappointing is yet again another home defeat to a rival that's 3 this year and still with 3 tough away games to come I think we are lucky that we have not had any draws otherwise we might be sitting outside the top four now.

It’s really disappointing to lose games against top 6 rivals. We are slacking in that little mini-league this season, especially with almost certain defeat at City and Liverpool still to come.
We could end up losing 10 matches in the league this season which seems crazy. If anything the lack of draws is helping at the minute! I’d take 10 defeats if it meant we managed 28 wins

 

[EQP]

Tielemans maybe?

Don't think Henry will sanction that sale to us.

 

[homer hotspur]

He's garbage.

Poch - Is that you?

 

[shelfboy68]

It’s really disappointing to lose games against top 6 rivals. We are slacking in that little mini-league this season, especially with almost certain defeat at City and Liverpool still to come.
We could end up losing 10 matches in the league this season which seems crazy. If anything the lack of draws is helping at the minute! I’d take 10 defeats if it meant we managed 28 wins

Agree I said in another thread the same thing that I can see 10 defeats by the end of the season and luckily having no draws has helped otherwise I think we could by sitting 6th.
Still the team have done well to get to the position they have done despite an horrendous injury list, just hope we get past Chelsea and poch gets supported by levy.

 

[SuperSpurs69]

Shit result yesterday. Work with a few utd fans who said we were unlucky not to win. As others have said, on another day we'd have won that game.

Hope a week between games will help with the injuries but we just don't have the squad to be competing on 4 fronts. I really think next season we need to prioritise, obviously the league and cl are the top 2, therefore I do think we need to start blooding more youngsters in the carabao Cup to save the first 11.

The last month has been brutal for us in terms of the amount of games and lack of time in between. Liverpool have been lucky with injuries and going out of the cups early so their main 11 get plenty of recovery time between games.