Borussia Dortmund Vs Tottenham: Match Thread

[parj]

People really under estimate the power of a one month break that the German teams get. If we had that, England world dominate Europe, possibly

 

[BuryMeInEngland]

Team selection tonight obviously made with knowledge of the current state of the squad and what Poch believes is necessary to go out and win our Premier League matches coming up. I trust he rested players because they needed it. Those asking why he didn't throw the competition earlier... This is the state of the squad and our needs right now, not two weeks ago or three months ago or whenever.

The problem is that they really didn't get a rest.

I couldn't watch the game here, but apparently Kane still looked tired and bringing him on was pointless. Lamela made no difference, and the same goes for Dembele. So the players that were supposed to be "rested" really didn't.

So what was the point of resting them? As far as I can see nothing. The team knows they're out of the one major competition they were left in and if we're all 100% honest we know we're not going to be the PL champions. It really was a worthless exercise.

 

[dricha1]

Thing is Poch did say he would rotate - he's been banging on about it on in all his pressers since the weekend.

 

[Typical Spurs]

Fairly close to the mark, but i cannot for one minute defend him for starting Carroll and Mason together in the middle - rest players by all means, but not all of them at the same time - Bentaleb, granted isn't having the best of seasons but had to start ahead of one of those two i mention.

Totally appreciate what you're saying, but not sure what you're basing that on. Mason deserves a start given his great performance vs Fiorentina in last Europa game in the 3-0 win. Carroll has been coming on in a lot of games, gets stick when he for me doesn't do too much wrong. Came on away at man city and we got the winner. But nobody would ever look at that.

BUT, if I was a midfielder lining up against Carroll and Mason I'm not sure I'm going to be too worried, so I get your point. But thinking Bentaleb deserves a start I don't agree with. For me been poor when he has played this season. And I don't know this at all so please don't have a go as I might be wrong, but he gives me the impression that he's got his contract and thinks he deserves to start. I can't imagine Nabil rocking up to training and thinking "right I'm gonna work my balls off to get in this side". Just my opinion

 

[Sweetsman]

Lazio losing, good news for FC Coefficient.

Which is the point of playing your stronger teams early in the competition. This match shows us the difference between Europa teams and CL teams.

 

[13VanDerBale13]

https://twitter.com/btsportfootball/status/708022262998249472

nice touch from the fans

 

[Cravenspurs]

Just out of curiosity and this is about style of play, do we attempt to slow the tempo down dramatically around the box or is it just the class of players?

My point being that our possession based play is brilliant and very similar to BD, but the difference in the attacking third between the two was night and day.

They hit the ball back and forth with little delay whereas we dilly dally on the ball. Is this down to class players on the ball or is this down to philosophy?

 

[nightgoat]

Is the penalty for failing to fulfil a fixture in the Europa League a default 3-0 defeat like the Premier League? If so we would have been no worse off by literally not turning up.

 

[TonyK]

Toby has been excellent, had a lot to do tonight.

Agree - Toby is first class, as are Harry, Verts and Hugo. These are all players who should be reasonably expecting to win a few honours during their careers but after tonight I would expect them all to be questioning whether that will ever happen after the team selection tonight. Tonight was a disgrace and the club have questions to answer about throwing the tie. I'd say there will be plenty of refund requests or no shows for the second leg now and I would expect a statement on the OS at the very least. Poch got this very wrong tonight.

 

[shelfboy68]

I think it says more about the quality and strength of the EPL that come may we could be english champions yet we cant never progress that much further or win the europa league.
However it wasnt our best team out nor did we play well so we should not be too dissapointed imo, just hope we dont have our normal march slump we really need six points from our next two games.

 

[worcestersauce]

the only gripe i have with it is why bother playing the likes of dembele, kane and dier to get this far, would have been better to go out in the group stage than key players having played so many games to this point, we don't have the squad to challenge on more than 1 front, the fringe players are very average at best

Opportunities to play different players giving game time to the likes of Onomah against good teams but with not much riding on it.
One thing for sure, this result is not going to please Leicester City, we'll have the same rest time as them now.

 

[266in379]

I'm probably gonna get hung out to dry for saying this, but I'm quietly relieved at tonight's poor result. That's 5 fixtures we can safely scrub off of our fixture list.

We have a great squad apart from having no real options up front. Expecting Kane to feature in (what would have been) 15 more matches without injury is trying our luck at the critical end of what could be an historic season.

Here's hoping United stay in it all the way to the final...where they get thrashed.

 

[spursfan77]

A timely reminder that this team is still a work in progress and that Pochettino is still learning.

Yep. He's done very well but as I've pointed out before, some of the praise he gets is over the top. Some of the praise.

 

[cookiemonster]

Yep. I'm really worried about this villa game now. It's not going to be as easy as some people think. No premier league game ever is!

Contrary to what many people think

Villa are not relegated yet... Only 8 points below the other 3

While others are over confident here

I see Dr Hotspur

 

[spursfan77]

Thing is Poch did say he would rotate - he's been banging on about it on in all his pressers since the weekend.

Makes you worry how knackered our players are.

There was one moment near the end of the game where Kane could have run through 1 on 1 with the goalie but he had zero pace or power. That was concerning.

Dier is obviously knackered so was rested. Poch said Alli has been playing with ankle and knee injuries.

 

[spursfan77]

Contrary to what many people think

Villa are not relegated yet... Only 8 points below the other 3

While others are over confident here

I see Dr Hotspur

I'm very concerned we might lose against them

 

[jezz]

The problem is that they really didn't get a rest.

I couldn't watch the game here, but apparently Kane still looked tired and bringing him on was pointless. Lamela made no difference, and the same goes for Dembele. So the players that were supposed to be "rested" really didn't.

So what was the point of resting them? As far as I can see nothing. The team knows they're out of the one major competition they were left in and if we're all 100% honest we know we're not going to be the PL champions. It really was a worthless exercise.

I thought when Dembele lamela and Kane were on we looked a lot better and started to press and made a couple of chances.
That's the annoying thing we could have made a game of it and still been in the tie.
now were out.

 

[Danfunkel]

Thing is Poch did say he would rotate - he's been banging on about it on in all his pressers since the weekend.

Exactly. This was on the cards. The league and Top 4 are still very much in the balance. I think we know where the clubs current priorities are, even if us as fans aren't that happy.

 

[flannel]

The problem is that they really didn't get a rest.

I couldn't watch the game here, but apparently Kane still looked tired and bringing him on was pointless. Lamela made no difference, and the same goes for Dembele. So the players that were supposed to "rested" really didn't.

So what was the point of resting them? As far as I can see nothing. The team knows they're out of the one major competition they were left in and if we're all 100% honest we know we're not going to be the PL champions. It really was an worthless exercise.

I get what you're saying but don't agree. Kane played 15 minutes and it's possible he didn't run about all that much partly because the game was gone. Lamela played less than half an hour, Dembele 35 minutes. That's different to going all out from the start.

 

[Spurger King]

We won't catch Leicester. They won't drop more points than us. So yes, it's realistic to expect us not to win the league. As others have said, we should have had a massive memorable European night to remember tonight. This is easily as big as when we played inter in the CL or ac Milan. And we conceded the game before kick off. It's very demoralising and disappointing. Especially after two poor results in the league last week.

I still think we can win the title. They only need to lose one more and draw one more than us.

Anyway, as other have said it's not just about the title. We need to secure CL qualification, then secure automatic CL qualification. We're in an incredible position in the league, and we need our players as fit as possible if we're going to finish the season well.

That's not going to happen if we're playing strong line-ups against strong opponents in between Prem games.

I understand the criticism Pochettino is receiving, but for me this was an incredibly difficult decision that he got right. He's giving us the best possible chance in the league. Considering the circumstances, he's right to do so.