Match Threads Antwerp vs Spurs - Match Thread - Europa League - Game 2

philll said:

He also stopped us from going 2-0 down at the start of the second half after Winks' atrocious pass.

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But this is the problem with Sanchez. He's just far too inconsistent. For every good piece of defending there's a poor piece of defending. He can't go a game without a slip up nowadays and CB is the one position where you just can't afford that.

slartibartfast said:

He is not my favourite but he was one of our best players tonight. Never put a foot wrong. Well, there was that one fk up in the first half but other than that lol. Played well.

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my word Sanchez was awful! Constantly out of position. Even headers under no pressure never found a spurs shirt. Got lucky with a few chances and generally was a (yet again) a rabbit in the headlights. He’s supposed to be the commanding presence and he is looking more exploited and nervous with every passing game. Time to move him on once Rodon steps up

shelfmonkey said:

The only change we need to make is the manager, for a youngish progressive football thinker. Mourinho is old hat!

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Bit of an OTT reaction.

Just on this congratulating Antwerp thing, in all sports I hate this thing where as a fan we have to congratulate someone on doing something on the internet. They were solid, that weren't inspired, they just were well drilled.

Our multimillion pound footballers for all of 80 minutes of the match didn't turn up. I'm tired of watching this team stutter when the usual suspects turn up and turn in another horrid performance handing advantages to shit teams.

We were shit, like we were against Everton.

THFC_SWE said:

I don't care if they are unbeaten in 10 years at home. They play in a mediocre league. They have mediocre players. A top club should win these games, even with the reserves.

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Well, sure. But bad results do happen otherwise why play the game at all. That's not to say what we saw from our lads was acceptable, but saying they're weaker than us so we should be winning is probably what our lads were thinking that made them lose in the end.

That's disrespect, @Jamturk

TonyK said:

Just watching the gooner Dundalk game now.

Commentators just mentioned our 1–1 draw against Dundalk which is a game I was actually at.

October 81, I was 7 and my first actual Spurs game. My dad was a school teacher in Belfast and took myself and a minibus full of kids down to Dundalk for the game. Despite being disappointed with the score, I still feel so fucking happy to have seen that team play.

Ray Clemence, Chrissie Hughton, Paul Miller, Graham Roberts, Steve Perryman, Micky Hazard, Tony Galvin, Ossie, Garth Crooks, Stevie Archibald and my GOAT, Glenn Hoddle.

What a fucking team that was!! Every single one of them is a Spurs legend!!

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I was there also. Aged 26.

If you are going to have an off-day, might as well be away in the group stage. It’s entirely allowed to drop one match and still ace the group. An of course Bale isn’t useless and naturally Mourinho shouldn’t be replaced.
It’s was just a mad dash at a line up gamble
that didn’t pay off.

Bulletspur said:

Sanchez was not the worse player out there tonight. The defence was not protected enough by the midfield. As they say, if you go looking only for the negatives, you are going to miss out on what he did well

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That tackle when they were through on goal was immense.

This was always my fear with the EL, that we'd think we'd won it already. It was the same problem against West Ham. Imo the United result has got to our heads a bit. In some ways, if we manage to get through it might be better for us to get a prestigious team in the knockouts so we think we've got to do more than just turn up.

TonyK said:

Just watching the gooner Dundalk game now.

Commentators just mentioned our 1–1 draw against Dundalk which is a game I was actually at.

October 81, I was 7 and my first actual Spurs game. My dad was a school teacher in Belfast and took myself and a minibus full of kids down to Dundalk for the game. Despite being disappointed with the score, I still feel so fucking happy to have seen that team play.

Ray Clemence, Chrissie Hughton, Paul Miller, Graham Roberts, Steve Perryman, Micky Hazard, Tony Galvin, Ossie, Garth Crooks, Stevie Archibald and my GOAT, Glenn Hoddle.

What a fucking team that was!! Every single one of them is a Spurs legend!!

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And they could only manage a draw with Dundalk?!

Fucking bunch of slags the lot. Fuck off outta my club!!!!

Am I doing it right?

Everlasting Seconds said:

If you are going to have an off-day, might as well be away in the group stage. It’s entirely allowed to drop one match and still ace the group. An of course Bale isn’t useless and naturally Mourinho shouldn’t be replaced.
It’s was just a mad dash at a line up gamble
that didn’t pay off.

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I agree. But how many reactionary losses do we need this season, and can we really afford to? Consistency is the biggest order but we never get a firm grip on that. Really don't want a repeat of 15/16 season when we lost all initiatives purely down to ourselves. ?

I think we've all seen performances like this before. But I strongly disagree with Mourinho's substitutions, particularly the timing.

The impetus of the HT team talk was lost by making all those subs. We played all our cards, yes we had our 5th sub with Kane but I feel bringing on fast, energy players with 30 mins to go for example would have been more effective.

Also, Vinicius played some very good balls to our other attackers who wasted it and was a good focal point. Lo Celso was quiet but tidy, compared to rigid Winks passing sideways and backwards and wasting good chances.

Honestly strongly feel Lo Celso and Vinicius should have remained on the pitch, giving us 3 subs to play with in the 2nd half to add more impetus

Feel sorry for Vinicius getting tarnished with the Delle Alli brush

spursfan77 said:

No need to over react to the result. We were poor but these things happen when you under estimate teams.

Mourinho says he takes the blame. I think he under estimated them too.

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Agree. I still think it would be a stretch for us to play a stronger starting XI tho. They can't play twice a week. I do agree that our 2nd string should be able to put in a decent showing.

Out performances weren't just from underestimating the opportunity surely. I don't think Jose knew Those boys would be so poor though. They looked a long way behind the Prem starters.
Sanchez, Winks, Dele, Bergwijn, Bale (sac-religious?) were not good.
Davies and Reg looked out of sorts. (I'm usually happy with Davies when he's defending, limited going forward, yes)

That only leaves Vini, Aurier, GLC and Lloris who were ok
But 7/11 well out of sorts has no chance of getting a result

honestly, it's not about tonight. we're now 12 games deep in the season, let's have a little recap. Spurs host Everton, get thoroughly outplayed. move on to Bulgaria, struggle to beat Plovdiv. we go to Southampton, we get absolutely demolished the first half but somehow manage to score in the end of the half and we come back looking good during the second taking advantage of huge amounts of space in behind the defense. we did well there to change the outcome of the match but had Southampton capitalized on the chances they had or that late goal not appeared, I fail to see Southampton exposing themselves that much. they are a dominant side, they felt they could dominate possession and field position and ultimately paid an expensive price. Macedonia, another poor display, managed to snag the win with second half goals against very poor opposition. host Newcastle, the best performance of the season hands down. dominant from minute 1 all the way through 89 and we all know what happened. not even mad at that one (now). Chelsea for the League Cup. we did well after trailing but again, poor start, forced to play from behind. but still, I have this one on the positive side since Spurs did a good job getting back into the game and even after getting the equalizer, we were okay (even though they had a pair of great chances). then Maccabi. they had no idea how to defend, it was chances galore but we still looked extremely shaky defensively against poor opposition. result is excellent but the red flags persisted. United. okay, we were great almost all game long but for the few minutes it was a 11v11 game, we were outplayed. I cannot read too much into this honestly. it was good but it was good not due to systemic dominance but circunstancial situations. West Ham. I mean, we did well to create early chances, the clinical nature of our frontmen showed up but we got to the second half, failed to keep possession, failed to be organized, kept letting them play in our half. yes, it is a 1 in 50 situation but we welcomed it with the way the game went on. LASK was good, thought this one was a very clear, dominant victory. now Burnley. awful display, managed to create some late second half half chances and eventually it lead to a goal right at the end.

I'm sure some of you will disagree with some of the assessments I made but some of them are not debatable and I see a lot of people ignoring some situations due to the outcome of those matches. systematic success happens when conditions are created to do it consistently. we see today's game and it's not the fact that we lost that worries me, it is the fact that we struggle to have a consistent pattern of play, it's the fact that we get countless situations where players do not have solutions to link play, it is the fact that our midfield gets overrun most of the time, it is the fact that a lot of players get caught out of position in the last third, etc etc. are we making progress collectively? does it seem like players are getting corrected? look, I do not intend to claim I'm a football expert but I honestly cannot see anything that resembles a title winning side even if the direct opposition is also struggling.

we've established that the squad is as deep as it ever was but a lot of those guys aren't those ever reliable, plug and play players. they need organization and constant correction. I can accept that the first half today was a mixture of out of form and lack of cohesion product but were we that much better in the second? had they been clinical, it would have been a no doubter.

our core has been together for a long time now so that is not an excuse. I just can't see it. not like this. we have the resources to do much better than this but nothing from what I've seen so far screams success to me. hopefuly I'm dead wrong.

WiganSpur said:

This was always my fear with the EL, that we'd think we'd won it already. It was the same problem against West Ham. Imo the United result has got to our heads a bit. In some ways, if we manage to get through it might be better for us to get a prestigious team in the knockouts so we think we've got to do more than just turn up.

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I agree, especially about the Utd game. I thought that West Ham would have shaken them out of the complacency a little, but maybe it hasn't quite yet. Or perhaps it was nerves. Every group like a set of sportsman will have these moments. The key is whether our manager can utilise it, shape their thinking, mould them. I think Mourinho can, because he has many times before.

Oh, and by the way, a general point for everyone to take on board and maybe think about before exploding: we're not going to win every game. No team goes undefeated forever. I will pay £1,000 to someone who can show me a top-flight team that hasn't, at some point in time, surprisingly lost to lesser opposition. Every team does it. It happens.

I don’t know why but I’m struggling to be too pissed off with that game. Rubbish performances but if we win all our home games and another away one we will win the group.

These games are good to give players who aren’t in our first xi time even if they had bad games. It makes them feel part of the squad and they might be needed at a later date.

spursfan77 said:

I don’t know why but I’m struggling to be too pissed off with that game. Rubbish performances but if we win all our home games and another away one we will win the group.

These games are good to give players who aren’t in our first xi time even if they had bad games. It makes them feel part of the squad and they might be needed at a later date.

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Indifferent to it all now. Newcastle knocked the stuffing out of the season for me, West Ham result topped it with a cherry.

As ever the manager plays the players, the players, mostly, let the manager down - wash, rinse, repeat. It's 'A' result, until Sunday.

Reckon this is what we're going to be like for most of the season, frustratingly poor and outstandingly brilliant from match to match.

Spurs do know how to spoil the weekend now when it hasn't even started. Sigh.

It’s frustrating because we have Europa league games between a run against city, chelsea and arsenal and we don’t want to be relying and Kane and Son then. We needed these points tonight to take control of the group and by us flexibility later.

Sanchez should never play without either Dier or Toby to lead.

That was an absolute shit show, but also an EL performance we have seen a dozen times before. They want it, we don't.