Match Threads Spurs vs Chelsea - Match Thread

[Monkey boy]

Our central midfield is so fucking bad. It’s where games are won and lost yet we continue with Dier, Sissoko and winks.

 

[thebenjamin]

Aurier just isn’t going to cut it. The lopsided fullbacks works most of the time but when we had to defend today he just isn’t clued in. How can you give Willian 20 yards to cut in like that

He actually showed him onto his right foot and invited him to shoot. He's one of the thickest players I've ever seen.

 

[paulcumpstone]

I just think the forward line are so disheartened by the lack of forward balls from the midfield. It's hard to look any good when you're picking up scraps and long balls because the midfield cant or wont pass the ball forwards

It's frustrating because we have so many forward thinking midfielders sitting on the bench.

I think the front 4 again are off too lightly, their lack of effort was appalling, watch the build up to the long diagonal that aurier heads out for a corner, no intent from any of them to put the Chelsea players under pressure, when you compare that with the work effic of their front 3. Granted the service to them wasnt great, but communicate between themselves and have somebody dropping to pick up the ball to aid linking the play. All too happy to stand with hands on hips, be surprised if any of them were anywhere near the distance covered of the Chelsea players

 

[shelfboy68]

Just on train home from game. Not sure what to say really - we were just so poor. What confuses me is that we had a whole week to work on tactics for this game but looked clueless from the outset. The front four seemed to have zero service.

If I was being generous we did like getting back into the game slightly before the son sending off.

I did think Sanchez played well and also Ndombele when he came on but I can’t think of many other positives. JM has big job to do.

The service from midfield was not there constantly under pressure from Chelsea's greater work ethic and better passing, we need better balance in the side but that won't happen until the summer.

 

[lis spur]

Bad enough with a couple of bigots ,but it was suggested chanting happened as well,now SKY were going for us full pelt ,there needs to be clarification on this.

 

[Joely]

Not entirely surprised today. Stop our from front 3/4 and there really is sweet fa to get us going behind it.
Sissoko...effort there but gives us zilch in terms of control in midfield.
Dier...Bottom line is he is fundamentally a CD playing DM. So far behind in terms of what a modern day DM should be able to offer.
Aurier... Just a crap player, plain and simple. When forwards are on song, can support the attack and get the good looking cross in for an assist but so far off a quality fullback and just full of mistakes.
Vertonghen....Yes can do a job at LB but fundamentally a CD and just too much asking him to consistently provide a threat down the left especially at his age.

Throw in the mistake by Gazzaniga and the usual shit defending by Aurier for the first and no surprise Chelsea strolled to a win.

 

[Edgarsglasses]

Well here's my two cents worth.

Utter dog shit performance! we badly need a new GK,midfield is a total mess and don't know where to start with it, although Tanguy has be first name in there.Serge is just riddled with mistakes & Dier turns like the Bismarck! We simply can't play all of Lucas,Son,Kane & Dele in same team its too gun ho.We move the ball too slow,have no energy in are play and are very predictable. Why isn't Ryan Sessegnon getting more game time?

This team got Poch the bullet,Jose needs time to get few players in and try and change the players awful mentality.

Hope the club finds the KKK member/member's and bans for life!

What a nice send off for Martin Peters!

Just fuck off Spurs!

 

[M.I.B.]

If this racist incident is proven, the idiot(s) guilty of it will quite rightly be banned for life. And should be from every ground.

But, I'm going to throw this out there, (and it's not an excuse, a denial, or anything else like that), but in 53 years of going to WHL I can not recall a racist act or comment from the home fans. Ever. And I was there when the Enfield skins followed us en masse, (and other such groups.)

I don't count the stuff regularly thrown at us, obviously.........and I don't claim it's never happened. I just don't recall ever witnessing it. And that's a lot of games over time.

*Actually, the only thing that springs to mind, was early 80's, I saw 2 fans do the sieg heil salute at each other in passing outside the ground. That is genuinely all I can recall.

 

[Ionman34]

Just back from the match. I wish I could say we were hard done by, but the truth is we were comprehensively outplayed. They were quicker, stronger, sharper, and miles better technically.

Having said that, at 1-0 you are always in the game and if Gazza had not lost the plot we may still have been able to rescue something.

Son then topped it off by a stupid act. It was right in front of me and as soon as I saw it I knew he was off with VAR potentially looking at it.

Despite everything that’s been said about Eriksen we were better with him on the pitch, simply because we had somebody in midfield we could feed the ball to who could receive it.

Spoke to my Old man at half time and said that we needed Eriksen out there to play in the spaces, but I would have hooked Moura rather than Dier, we needed to win the midfield battle and Moura was totally ineffective, he looked like a 5 year old out there.

Eriksen certainly brought some control to the midfield, but I felt from the off that our frontline was an issue, nothing stuck with them and Alli was having an absolute stinker too.

But I felt that Alli would up his game and become more effective if we hooked Moura, had Eriksen playing in the gaps and allowed Dier to sit deeper, screening the defence. This would also allow Sissoko a bit more license to maraud.

Sadly he left Moura on who continued to get bullied off the ball. Mind you, even Kane got bullied out there.

They were far more aggressive than us, but were completely controlled in their aggression. Ours turned into petulance. We were out thought, out fought, in every way they battered us, both mentally and physically.

Like I posted earlier, we were schooled today.

 

[double0]

For me it’s always been mentality. We have far to many players used to failure . Poch said we needed to be brave called for players to leave behind the scenes and for Levy to finally back him on first choice options.

Depressing times ahead Mourinho will revert to being passive and the games moved on

 

[Rob]

Did the whole away end hissing make it on TV?

 

[Ronwol196061]

Spoke to my Old man at half time and said that we needed Eriksen out there to play in the spaces, but I would have hooked Moura rather than Dier, we needed to win the midfield battle and Moura was totally ineffective, he looked like a 5 year old out there.

Eriksen certainly brought some control to the midfield, but I felt from the off that our frontline was an issue, nothing stuck with them and Alli was having an absolute stinker too.

But I felt that Alli would up his game and become more effective if we hooked Moura, had Eriksen playing in the gaps and allowed Dier to sit deeper, screening the defence. This would also allow Sissoko a bit more license to maraud.

Sadly he left Moura on who continued to get bullied off the ball. Mind you, even Kane got bullied out there.

They were far more aggressive than us, but were completely controlled in their aggression. Ours turned into petulance. We were out thought, out fought, in every way they battered us, both mentally and physically.

Like I posted earlier, we were schooled today.

Excellent post! Well rounded post

 

[Spurus]

If this racist incident is proven, the idiot(s) guilty of it will quite rightly be banned for life. And should be from every ground.

But, I'm going to throw this out there, (and it's not an excuse, a denial, or anything else like that), but in 53 years of going to WHL I can not recall a racist act or comment from the home fans. Ever. And I was there when the Enfield skins followed us en masse, (and other such groups.)

I don't count the stuff regularly thrown at us, obviously.........and I don't claim it's never happened. I just don't recall ever witnessing it. And that's a lot of games over time.

*Actually, the only thing that springs to mind, was early 80's, I saw 2 fans do the sieg heil salute at each other in passing outside the ground. That is genuinely all I can recall.

We're not a racist club at all, it's just people on mainstream/social media jumping on the bandwagon to demonize our club just because of a few racist tossers, Chelscum calling us racist is the pot calling the kettle black.

 

[bubble07]

I think Winks ndombele needs a long run together. Winks needs to be more disciplined and it could work

 

[spud]

It's become clear to me that if Mourinho is going to persist with the current formation and tactics then he needs to employ different personnel to make it work.

Using one of the full backs to defend while the other is given licence to push forward may well be designed to protect Aurier from having to do any defending, but it clearly isn't working. Partly because, with the notable exceptions of a very well-taken goal and (if I recall correctly) one assist, Aurier offers virtually nothing in attack. He is often given time and space to make a cross but very rarely finds a Spurs player. In addition, and more significantly, he doesn't track back when the attack breaks down. So we are always vulnerable to a counter-attack down our right side.

On the other side of the pitch, Vertonghen is no longer up to the task of playing as a conventional left back. If he plays it should only be as a centre-back (or possibly wing-back). If we're going to have the left back playing as a conventional full-back it has to be Davies. If he isn't available then Rose should play there but in the 'Aurier' role as the attacking player with a 'holding' full back on the other side. We have a choice. KWP or Foyth who can play there and, at a pinch, so can Sissoko or Dier. Any of these would be more reliable than Aurier.

With Wanyama's decline and Dier's form, we don't appear to have a true holding midfielder. Winks, Skipp and Sissoko can work in a pivot but none of them can shield the defence. If we have a 4-2-3-1 set up then the '2' has to be Nombele +1. Depending upon the opposition that other player could be any of Winks, Sissoko, Lo Celso, Skipp, Lamela or even Eriksen. Dier's midfield days appear to be short-lived and Poch was probably correct when he said that his best position was centre back. If he plays there then we can pick any two (or three) from Toby, Jan, Dier, Sanchez and Foyth, with Tanganga showing signs of being an able deputy.

The present front four clearly works as long as we have the ball now and again and don't simply launch it high towards the opposing centre backs. We also have the players to alternate, with Lo Celso, Lamela and Eriksen able to deputise for Alli or either of the wider players.

With that in mind, while I prefer a pretty passing game with good movement creating the space for us to pass the ball through the opposition, I have no problem in going long to exploit the speed of Son and Moura. What I do have a problem with is trying to do that most, if not all, of the time. If that is our primary tactic it becomes easy to defend against - particularly, as against Chelsea, when we simply launch a high ball and expect Kane to win it against three giant centre backs. We have to mix up the play. Gazzaniga giving it short makes the opposition come on to us, giving us the choice of playing it short or long. If every goal kick is hit long, and every time he gets the ball in his hands the keeper drop-kicks it out, then we become predictable and easy to defend against. Furthermore, we don't utilise the ability that our players have. If we're going to be 1980's Wimbledon then we may as well fill the team with cloggers.

I have an open mind regarding the way that we will play under Mourinho, and his reliance on the same core players in this system may only be a starting point. But if we're going to play the way that we've seen so far, we can't expect to be successful at it with these players lining up in these positions. We have obvious weaknesses and any half-decent team is going to exploit them.

 

[greamespurs61]

Well at least Noddy sounded in good spirits at the end!

 

[Spurs_Bear]

I think Winks ndombele needs a long run together. Winks needs to be more disciplined and it could work

But he isn’t. So it won’t.

 

[dagraham]

Spoke to my Old man at half time and said that we needed Eriksen out there to play in the spaces, but I would have hooked Moura rather than Dier, we needed to win the midfield battle and Moura was totally ineffective, he looked like a 5 year old out there.

Eriksen certainly brought some control to the midfield, but I felt from the off that our frontline was an issue, nothing stuck with them and Alli was having an absolute stinker too.

But I felt that Alli would up his game and become more effective if we hooked Moura, had Eriksen playing in the gaps and allowed Dier to sit deeper, screening the defence. This would also allow Sissoko a bit more license to maraud.

Sadly he left Moura on who continued to get bullied off the ball. Mind you, even Kane got bullied out there.

They were far more aggressive than us, but were completely controlled in their aggression. Ours turned into petulance. We were out thought, out fought, in every way they battered us, both mentally and physically.

Like I posted earlier, we were schooled today.

Great post. Can’t disagree with anything. We were schooled and yeah Moura was totally ineffective.

His game under Jose seems to be to receive the ball in the channel and drive at the defence, but Chelsea squeezed the game and he was outnumbered, bullied and out thought there as we were as a team. Against inferior teams he can cause big problems, he is not going to waltz through good teams defences though and he needs try something different. Try and stretch them or swap positions with Son etc. He ended up looking lost ( as did Son really).

 

[stevenurse]

He actually showed him onto his right foot and invited him to shoot. He's one of the thickest players I've ever seen.

When doesn't he do that? Our players seem to have this weird thing about allowing it. Rashford at OT, and Coutinho time and time again was allowed to get in shot after shot. Thick as fuck the lot of em

 

[riggi]

I remember years ago - probably 30 odd, hearing some old bloke shouting something racist on the terraces and naively being surprised because I didn't think that Spurs fans were like that. That clearly was very naive.

People are people. Needs calling out no matter who it is.