The old Tottenham returns.
Thoughts of banishing the Tottenham of the last 10 years was dealt a cruel blow yesterday as Palace blew us away in 11 second half minutes to run out 3-0 winners. The inablitiy by Spurs to beat rubbish like Palce has haunted us for years and struck again with poor marking to blame for the first goal and a lousy offside trap for the second. The thrid was a penalty. I have no idea if it was but I'm not going to watch the replays. What good will it do?
To be fair to Spurs it is our first away defeat since November and needs to be put into context with the fine run of form we have been on recently. However our squad is still weak in places as demonstarted by yesteday's subs bench. Atouba was there along with Kelly, Yeates, Eyre and Gardner. We desperatly lacked any height up front and neither Defoe or Keane had a good game. Defoe recieved little service and while Keane dropped back to get the ball he did little with it. I noticed that he was so slow in getting forward and we must work on counter attacking much faster. Ziegler also limped off with a hamstring problem and could be out for upto 6 weeks. He also needs to learn to take a corner.
Arnesen and Jol cannot let the transfer window pass us by. Routledge was average and still hasn't impressed me but we did need more width on the right side. We also need to think about how we play teams who pack the midfield. Palace, Brighton and Chelsea all played 5 in the middle and we have struggled against all of them. Mendes and Carrick don't seem able to compete when hasseled by opponents and I was disappointed to see Carrick and Atouba "bottle" 50-50 challenges today. We need Sean Davis to return to break up the opposition's midfield, especially when they pack it out.
WBA is now even more important. The form needs picking up and a good win there will hopefully filter down to the league again so we can push on.
posted by Paxton Road at 1:29 AM
4 Comments:
Don't panic. We had a bad day at Palace & lets not forget it's our first defeat away since Nov.
8:25 AM, January 23, 2005
having watched the game in the palace end, surrounded by my palace mates, I must admit, I'm a bit stunned at what ahppened yesterday. First 30 mins, and I thought it was only a matter of time before we ran out comfortable winners, like at norwich for example.
Good passing, inventive up front without actually cutting them open, I thought we looked pretty good, and I remember sitting there at half time thinking thats the best football I've seen spursplay for a long while (I cant get to home games very easily you see).
Then it all fell apart 15 into the second half. Keane looks more and more a luxury player the more I see of him - which pains me to say as I'm one of his biggest fans. Atouba looked hopelessly out of his depth, as well as looking like Alice the Goon from Popeye.
Marney didnt offer too much on the right, and after ziegler went off, the left was closed down by a palace player who last year was playing in Div 2 with Luton.
I'm trying not to be too critical because as the original post says, some context needs to me attached to this. Palace are fighting and we didnt look up for it at the end. The first goal, Edman turned his back on it rather than get clattered by liegerwood (sp?), the second I swore that was miles offside, but MOTD replays showed me that whoever was covering the RB position there was in a world of their own. The pen was a stick on as well. What was a pity is that once that first goal went in, it just seemed that we lost belief.
The need for a right midfielder is very apparent. Yates looked tidy in patches when he came on, but as I've said on various sites, Routledge is NOT a Spurs player. Hansen last night was singing his praises, but the whole game he was being given the bird by the Palace fans, saying we could have him for free. For me, he is too lightweight and too full of pointless tricks. Like Ronaldo before he learnt how to be effective for Utd, only with a fraction of the skill. Surely we need pace, not tricks?
8:55 AM, January 23, 2005
once more we lacked height and the ability to hold the ball up and bring other players into play up front. we only have kanute that can do this and how many more games will he miss?.also we have no wide man to beat defenders and put in good crosses. we have only 8 days now to do something about it.we need andy reid and another centre-forward now before we sink back into the bottm half of the table again. every year we miss out because we dont do right thing at this stage of the season.please mr jol do the right thing.
3:42 PM, January 23, 2005
A bad 45 minutes is not cause to panic - yet. I've read criticism of Keane, Atouba, Pamarot, the midfielders etc etc, but I really wish JERMAINE would stop standing around like a fucking superstar and get stuck in. Either play for us or fuck off to Chelsea and let us have the money to buy someone else.
9:05 AM, January 24, 2005
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