*** SPURS v SLAVIA PRAGUE *** Official Match Thread

[NickHSpurs]

No-one wanted to risk themselves for the final you could see that. People pulling out of tackles and generally not going in hard, which is almost understandable.

Positives for me were that we're in next round, our big players came through unharmed and Robbo did everything he had to do well.

 

[Marty]

I'm never sitting in Paxton again. This season I've seen Slavia and Reading (cup) there, and another four of five games in the last 10 years. Never seen a win from Paxton. I'm not usually superstitious but I kind of think it's time I took the hint on this one.


We were poor. Tainio, Chimbonda, Lennon and O'Hara (in the second half) were all poor. Hudd and Zokora can't play together in midfield, it becomes too deep with none of them really pushing forward like Jenas does. Robbo did his job well, no chance on the goal and a couple of good saves. Should've come off his line and caught a couple of crosses instead of getting Tainio and Kaboul to deal with them but still ok. Bent won a lot of headers, played pretty well, but is obviously very low on confidence and passed the ball at times where I'm sure he would've gone for goal at Charlton.

But the job is done. Bring on Sunday.

 

[N10toN17]

I seriously doubt Chelsea have been outplayed by anyone this season like we were at times tonight.

Agree with you that Woody was our best player tonight, we need to keep him fit, him alongside King in defence is some prospect :up:

Edit : The bookies aren't reading anything into the performance tonight as they've brought us in from 6's to 4/1 second favourites, and they're usually not too far off the mark so I'm happy with that.

You said anyone, doesn't that include premiership sides then?

 

[NickHSpurs]

Oh and...

Zokora = Crab

 

[SpurSince57]

Pompey are a quality Premiership side. Slavia aren't.

Slavia are a good deal better than some on SC give them credit for—I know it's hard to judge between different leagues, but I'd say they are more than good enough to hold their own at the bottom end of the EPL. Take your foot off the loud pedal, as we did tonight, and you give yourself problems.

 

[haxman]

You said anyone, doesn't that include premiership sides then?

What I mean is the kind of sustained pressure that they had us under. We were under the cosh for most of that 2nd half and couldn't get out of our own half ffs. The top 3 (Liverpool don't count any more) sides seldom come under that constant kind of attack because they have an outlet, someone who can hold up the ball and link that play. Our best player at that is Berbatov (e.g. the Man City cup game) and when he went off at half time that was gone.

 

[sloth]

They were just lazy today. The kind of performance I thought Ramos had cured them of. No one could be arsed to make the runs off the ball, and when they lost it some of them (Chimbonda chief amongst them) were back to the can't be arsed but I'll look like I'm trying crap which characterised our performances at the beginning of the year.

The final will be different but that doesn't take away the feeling of a backward step. Obviously a good coach will be able to do something about it and hopefully Ramos will, but the difference between us and the top teams is that the top teams always try and play at the same level. We collectively looked like we thought we were better than we were. There is no way that Prague could have lived with the kind of performance we put in when we collectively put our minds to it. Frustrating.

 

[antiloqus]

why was chimbo in a RM possition when they scored? he pissed me off the most tonight. glad to be through though.

 

[SpurSince57]

They were just lazy today. The kind of performance I thought Ramos had cured them of. No one could be arsed to make the runs off the ball, and when they lost it some of them (Chimbonda chief amongst them) were back to the can't be arsed but I'll look like I'm trying crap which characterised our performances at the beginning of the year.

The final will be different but that doesn't take away the feeling of a backward step. Obviously a good coach will be able to do something about it and hopefully Ramos will, but the difference between us and the top teams is that the top teams always try and play at the same level. We collectively looked like we thought we were better than we were. There is no way that Prague could have lived with the kind of performance we put in when we collectively put our minds to it. Frustrating.

To put it mildly.

A lot of SCers seem to have written off Slavia as cannon-fodder. Clearly, they are not, but even with a slightly weakened XI we should have dealt with them fairly comfortably. It worries me that we are making heavy weather of despatching so-so sides.

 

[Tickers]

I thought during the game 'I bet some people on SC will blame Robbo for the defence being shit'.

Unbelievable. The guy makes a couple of outstanding saves behind a makeshift defence and everything in the world is still his fault. Poor bastard.

We were cack, though. Although those panicking about Sunday's chances would do well to remember how well we played in the game before spanking the fuck out of Ar5ena1.

 

[DoublePivot]

Something was definitely off tonight. But it could be looking past this game to Sunday (which in our case is quite understandable). Hopefully the effort on Sunday won't be as lacking.

 

[DoublePivot]

I thought during the game 'I bet some people on SC will blame Robbo for the defence being shit'.

I think most people giving him stick were just more nervous with him back in the lineup. I know I was. But he seemed to gain a ton of confidence with the superb save off the free kick.

 

[Has1978]

Worst performance since Ramos arrived. Thank goodness it hasn´t cost us.

 

[Archibald-CPH]

That was a poor performance, and we are a long way from playing like a top 4 team.
Comparing United's play against Lyon, where United were playing badly, and us against Slavia, we have a long way to go. There is no flow in our play, and a we still play a lot of long high balls, and when we keep it at the ground, we play it through the middle...

But we are through, and at this time, it must be the most important:razz:

 

[Bill_Oddie]

Not seen it yet (on the box here this evening) but is conceding a solitary goal when we were apparently under the cosh for a whole half (as can happen to any side) that bad?

I'm not sure when the last time was that we conceded more than a goal in a game, but the very fact I know it hasn't been for a few weeks shows how much stronger we currently are at the back. Surely a great sign for Sunday - especially if we have a more confident and regular midfield and attack.

By the way, I suppose everyone writing off our chances for the weekend now are equally negative about Chelsea's chances given that they too rested players and managed a poor draw in Europe this week...?

 

[Gilzeanking]

I agree with several points here .

Yes , this is the kind of performance we thought JR had cured us of ,leaving a horrible trace of doubt that our improved form since his arrival is partly due to new manager 'bounce' ´.god I hope not.

A few fires were fought in the Jan window , but our creative midfielder never materialised and he has been missed . Without Berby to link and assist we are well short of top quality . Noone else seems able to hold up the ball so we are getting into situations where we get battered ,unable to stop pressure on our defence ....and service to forwards is very poor .

Frightening stuff .

 

[sloth]

I agree with several points here .

Yes , this is the kind of performance we thought JR had cured us of ,leaving a horrible trace of doubt that our improved form since his arrival is partly due to new manager 'bounce' ´.god I hope not.

A few fires were fought in the Jan window , but our creative midfielder never materialised and he has been missed . Without Berby to link and assist we are well short of top quality . Noone else seems able to hold up the ball so we are getting into situations where we get battered ,unable to stop pressure on our defence ....and service to forwards is very poor .

Frightening stuff.

Blimey, how you read all of that in to one game I don't know.

In fact I don't think you did, I think this is really a sneaking fear of yours - new-manager bounce / another false dawn, combined with a long-term bugbear - a creative midfielder. Which means a dip like last night brings all the concerns flooding back.

Even though it's part and parcel of being a Spurs supporter , I think we'd need to see a few more such performances before we even begin entertaining such worries.

On the creative midfielder point, I think you're just wrong, I don't think the modern game calls for such a player (although there are plenty of examples of exciting teams with them in) and more to the point I think Ramos likes tough, uncompromising, physically very fit CMs and prefers his creatives to be wide men and CFs, in fact he loves his CF to drop deep to collect and wants his CMs to run past him to take advantage of his creativity. It's for this reason I don't think a creative CM is a likely priority and I'm happy with that.

 

[Evolution]

Jenas is ok as a creative midfielder + he gets 'box to box' very well. I think the creativity can come from the wings mainly in future via Lennon and Gilberto/Bale. I just think we need a ball winner/midfield general in the centre of midfield NOT a creative midfielder but thats just my opinion.

 

[Chuba]

Anyone would think that we lost this game and went out of the UEFA Cup, did anybody mention that Slavia played with a 5 man midfield that didn't stop harrasing the make shift defence that was in place, robbo did us proud with some very solid saves and we got the goal that we needed to go through, end of really.

Sunday we will be raring to go as we havn't been in a final for yonks, and our support is gonna be fantastic at wembley which it wasn't at the Lane last night.

 

[DC_Boy]

It was always likely to be a difficult tie - we got a tremendous result and put in a good/very good performance last week -

this game was too near a major final - it's why I wanted us to rest more players than we did - you could see Berbs for example doing his best to not get injured and I agreed with his attitude - I actually wanted to him to be involved as little as possible

we so need him for Sun - I would have beenso down had he got injured

however to repeat my mantra of 2008 - in JR I trust - we won - only Chimbonda got injured (hopefully not seriously) - so job done