Besiktas Vs Tottenham: Match Thread

[Gaz_Gammon]

Bang on. Why do people keep sugar-coating the situation? We've got a horrid horrid squad which is getting worse, performances have generally been dire. I actually believe the fans who keep defending the indefensible are more of a problem than the critics who get so much stick. I think they need to recognise quite how bad the situation is and start challenging those in charge to put it right, because this is utterly unacceptable.

Some good, some improvement, some glimmer of hope should by now have been witnessed by even the most cynical Poch fan. I just cannot believe that after last seasons finish we are as abject a team as we have been so far this season in whatever competition we have been playing in. With the exception of QPR and Everton we have been quite poor, and I have seen zero improvement in our general play.

I don't think that the fans are "sugar coating" the situation. But some believe that the team were simply so piss poor last season (an illusion) that it would take a new coach a couple of seasons to stop the rot, and for the squad and team to gel and begin to play in a different style and in a different system.

In actual fact after watching today's game for all intents and purposes this could have been a replay of any EL game under AVB, with the same result. Slow, ponderous, aimless football. I see no difference and not just in the EL games. I thought that one of the reasons that Poch was brought in was to improve current squad members and he himself has said on more than one occasion that he has a very talented squad of players. Should this be the case then there could be an argument that the team has regressed and to this end i tend to agree.

One things for sure and that is that the January transfer window will not see us splash any cash worth adding anyone that will make a big difference to this squad who it now appears cannot under any circumstances perform with any success using the hell bent system that Poch appears to insist on. We all know what happened to the last manager with this defect in his DNA.

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

Sherwood managed to win games mostly through individual moments from players better than the opposition and by having Adebayor have his annual 10-15 game purple patch coincide with the start of his tenure. In an awful lot of games had our opponents had better finishers (Palace at home being the most obvious example, they should have been out of sight at half time) they would have won or at least drawn.

And don't kid yourself that the fans had anything to do with his sacking. The only person who got Tim Sherwood sacked was Tim Sherwood.

If we hadn't got a World class goalie, we'd be well and truly fucked my friend. I am not saying that Sherwood was any good, but for fucks sake i haven't seen anything this season any better from this coach, his system or his team.

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

What high press?

 

[JamieDaCosta]

.....

 

[scottlag10]

I watched the first half, where I actually thought we played quite well and should of been at least 2-0 up, but then had to go out. Can someone tell me what happened in the second half to cause the meltdown on here please?

 

[Ribble]

Some good, some improvement, some glimmer of hope should by now have been witnessed by even the most cynical Poch fan. I just cannot believe that after last seasons finish we are as abject a team as we have been so far this season in whatever competition we have been playing in. With the exception of QPR and Everton we have been quite poor, and I have seen zero improvement in our general play.

I don't think that the fans are "sugar coating" the situation. But some believe that the team were simply so piss poor last season (an illusion) that it would take a new coach a couple of seasons to stop the rot, and for the squad and team to gel and begin to play in a different style and in a different system.

Again why do people think that the TEAM played well at the end of last season? Adebayor and Eriksen played well, Bentaleb played well in patches and Walker continued playing well, but the rest who were regularly involved were just as shite as they are now (bar Chadli, who apparently played shite yesterday) and just as shite as they were before.

 

[ItsBoris]

I think the for whom is pretty obvious.
Verts, Dembele and Chadli are/ were the crux of the best Belguim team seen for decades - Verts is still wanted by the CLge elite.
Soldado was a first team pick for Spain ahead of David Villa! I could go on - even the unproven internationals were supposed to be the next chapter for their national teams - Lamela, Stombouli (key to Montpeliers title) Capoue etc , they all had pedigree until we got our one season, one system managers to manage them.

The question was rhetorical haha.

Your comparison between David Villa and Soldado is absurd. Soldado 12 caps for Spain, Villa 97. I'd bet that most of Soldado's caps are sub appearances too. I concede that you have a point about Soldado though - AVB did ruin him imo. But I still think we could have spent that money better.

Verts doesn't even play CB for Belgium and I wouldn't say Dembele and Chadli are core parts of the Belgium team. If you ask Belgians I'm sure they'd have a significant list of more important players - probably Courtois, Kompany, Witsel, De Bruyne, Hazard, Lukaku, Mertens to name some. And even with that being said, Belgium are just a good national team, not world class. It's not like the German, Spanish, or Argentine teams where you basically have to be world class to get in the team in your position.

If Stambouli was the future of the France national team he would have cost us more. Same with Capoue. These are the prices that decent, midtable players go for so it's not surprising that it's what we get. If you want to use your money better, you need a system that can identify the right players to buy. We don't even have scouts, so how the fuck are we supposed to be confident that the players we're buying can be good enough? If we bothered to do our due diligence with players we might have found that they don't have the mentality to play for a top team (like Soldado) or that they just aren't close to good enough (like Paulinho). But if you don't have that it's not surprising that you fuck up most things.

I'm sorry, the belief that our players were top quality before they came here and they just all happened to degenerate when they arrived is deluded. Our transfer business just hasn't been nearly good enough. Nor has our recruitment of managers, who like you say have also failed to get the best out of our players. But the players we've bought just aren't good enough. The fact that youth players are justifiably taking first team spots is all the evidence you need of that. These players aren't immune from the restrictive system of the "one season, one system" managers but they put the big money transfer players to shame anyway.

 

[allatsea]

I've had a ponder and I have a conclusion/observation...
Levy may well be right! (Even I gulped at that thought)
But how can one club with so many proven (before Spurs ruined them) internationals have such a mediocre team?!
Players that have reached international level are, by definition, the best of their peers.
We must have 18 in our squad and yet they all become shit under the Spurs cockerel....Verts, Capoue, Soldado, Chicriches, Paulhino (once hailed the next best thing t come from Brazil - with a subsequent Brazillian press article venting "what have you done to him?!"), Stambouli, Dembele, Chadli, Lamela, Rose (a bad joke, but true, player of the season at Sunderland and with England caps)...all of them - simply mediocre now. Erikson - the stand out, but still played out of position etc etc...
Where can the blame lay?
It's not rocket science, and I'll cry it til my dying day - play your best players in their best positions and build a team that way - if you're missing a piece of that jigsaw....buy that piece - don't buy 6 number 10s.
Neither MoPo or AVB and their "continental one off seasons" can veer from their blinkered Inflexible systems - and frankly it is shit, shit to watch, shit to behold and shit that we are still having to witness it week in week out.
international players don't become shit over night - unless they move to Spurs - and that is A pretty fucking damning reflection and a sad reality of where we currently reside.
Mason, Lloris and Kane being the stand outs for the season?!
I wish I had the answer - but I'm pretty sure MoPo doesn't either.

Well said. I fear for Poch's future though if he can't start to show some progress with our current squad before the end of the season.

 

[barry]

I watched the first half, where I actually thought we played quite well and should of been at least 2-0 up, but then had to go out. Can someone tell me what happened in the second half to cause the meltdown on here please?

We were a tad bit worse than the first half and they had a few good chances after they scored, we had to go for a goal leaving us open to the counter, but overall we didn't play too badly.
The vehemence on here is bitches being bitches

 

[thinktank]

.....

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

 

[arunspurs]

One things for sure. Pochettino has finally got his best XI from his worst. Apart from Walker, hard to see who else from yesterday's game will be a permanent in first XI. Now time for him actually mould the best XI to the way he wants to play.

I have been ENIC & Levy supporter till now. But this upcoming Jan window Levy has got to deliver with proper signings
This squad is full of bang average players.

Players whose worth has gone south since they have joined the club.

IMO, only Lloris, Eriksen, Lennon. Vertonghen,Walker could be sold at a price better than we bought them. Rest 15+ players aren't worth their buying price. If Levy isn't bothered by our decline till now, he has got to be bothered looking at what his players are worth.

We desperately need 4 quality signings to upgrade the first XI - a CB, CM, Winger & a striker.

 

[JonnySpurs]

I watched the first half, where I actually thought we played quite well and should of been at least 2-0 up, but then had to go out. Can someone tell me what happened in the second half to cause the meltdown on here please?

Some rubbish defending by a player that doesn't start led to a short period of sustained pressure by Besiktas that led to conceding a rubbish goal.

With that said though, the reason for the meltdown is seemingly just that we lost, giving any and all that apparently want ANOTHER managerial change the chance to air their point again.

I'm utterly bewildered by the reaction this result is getting. We played an entire 2nd string and like u said, we did quite well 1st half. Our problem is that unless Kane plays, we struggle to score. Soldado had 2 good chances and as he continues to misfire it invites pressure onto us.

Either way, we gotta just keep going.

 

[eurodat]

Our problem is that unless Kane plays, we struggle to score. Soldado had 2 good chances and as he continues to misfire it invites pressure onto us.

Either way, we gotta just keep going.

Agreed. Up until last night i had faith that Soldado would eventually come good for us but after that performance I've come to the sad, reluctant conclusion that he needs to move on. Same can be said for Lamella too.

 

[Blackcanary]

Fucking hell guys, i've just read back through this thread having missed the match - was it that bad or is this typical match thread hyperbole?!

 

[spursfan77]

One things for sure. Pochettino has finally got his best XI from his worst. Apart from Walker, hard to see who else from yesterday's game will be a permanent in first XI. Now time for him actually mould the best XI to the way he wants to play.

I have been ENIC & Levy supporter till now. But this upcoming Jan window Levy has got to deliver with proper signings
This squad is full of bang average players.

Players whose worth has gone south since they have joined the club.

IMO, only Lloris, Eriksen, Lennon. Vertonghen,Walker could be sold at a price better than we bought them. Rest 15+ players aren't worth their buying price. If Levy isn't bothered by our decline till now, he has got to be bothered looking at what his players are worth.

We desperately need 4 quality signings to upgrade the first XI - a CB, CM, Winger & a striker.

Levy will 100% not deliver the signings we need in January. Deals should be in place now but I bet they aren't because he will be waiting for the last days of the market to make some savings.

No players will be moved on until then either because he will be asking for too much money for the players.

How do I know this? It's because it's the same every window. Please don't get your hopes up guys.

My only positive is that we are actually being linked with players this winter which means we probably are in for players. For the last 2 years, at this time of year, we've been linked with nobody of note.

 

[spursfan77]

Fucking hell guys, i've just read back through this thread having missed the match - was it that bad or is this typical match thread hyperbole?!

It was the same as the majority of every other game this season. You didn't miss anything you wouldn't have been frustrated by before.

 

[Norwegian Spurs fan]

Fucking hell guys, i've just read back through this thread having missed the match - was it that bad or is this typical match thread hyperbole?!

I can tell you it was a hell of a match! You can read into it, what you want! Spurs controlled the match up to the moment our captain fantastic fucked it up. After that brilliant moment of his majesty Majones Kaboul it all became dark as hell. That sums it up!

 

[Blackcanary]

It was the same as the majority of every other game this season. You didn't miss anything you wouldn't have been frustrated by before.

Lack of width, people looking confused, Lamela losing the ball, Vlad inducing spasms of horror, a palpable sense of ennui?

Am glad I went for a carvery instead then...

I can tell you it was a hell of a match! You can read into it, what you want! Spurs controlled the match up to the moment our captain fantastic fucked it up. After that brilliant moment of his majesty Majones Kaboul it all became dark as hell. That sums it up!

Did we panic after the mistake? Everyone seems to have gone from being all "I have no particular outrage to express" to "FFS, we're doomed!"

Also, will they get fined for the light failures?

 

[Nocando]

Lack of width, people looking confused, Lamela losing the ball, Vlad inducing spasms of horror, a palpable sense of ennui?

Am glad I went for a carvery instead

And they were the good bits.

 

[neptunes]

One things for sure. Pochettino has finally got his best XI from his worst. Apart from Walker, hard to see who else from yesterday's game will be a permanent in first XI. Now time for him actually mould the best XI to the way he wants to play.

I have been ENIC & Levy supporter till now. But this upcoming Jan window Levy has got to deliver with proper signings
This squad is full of bang average players.

Players whose worth has gone south since they have joined the club.

IMO, only Lloris, Eriksen, Lennon. Vertonghen,Walker could be sold at a price better than we bought them. Rest 15+ players aren't worth their buying price. If Levy isn't bothered by our decline till now, he has got to be bothered looking at what his players are worth.

We desperately need 4 quality signings to upgrade the first XI - a CB, CM, Winger & a striker.

You don"t buy the proper players in the coming window. You get rubbish in. Hope it won"t be panick button buying, that's for sure.