Tottenham Hotspur @ Chelsea FC, 8 Mar 2014, Barclays Premier League [R]

Get Sandro out of there.

 

Certainly not interested in hearing any more from Vertonghen about how he needs to evaluate his career at Spurs if the aren't playing CL next season.

 

Chelsea players live on the ground.

 

Chelsea finally got value for throwing themselves down all match. Hopefully Oliver is reffing down in the Championship next week.

 

I wonder if Spurs are ever going to get fair treatment against a 'top' team.

 

North London Comedy Club

 

********s sake

 

Reminds me of the FA Cup game from two seasons ago when the referee handed the game to Chelsea.

 

That's the one, this wasn't as egregious a gift.

 

Well almost every big game this season the same story, suffer a setback and the team collapses. Weak management and a squad with not enough mental strength. Can only be sorted out with a proper managerial appointment in the summer and backing him fully. No more pissing about, otherwise it will just keep repeating.

 

6-0 at Man City
5-0 vs Liverpool
5-1 vs Man City
4-0 at Chelsea

At least the scores are getting closer.

Sorry that's all I have for positives.

 

Sherwood is pissed at what happened AFTER the 2nd goal. he says not enuf fight, lack of character, and not enough meanness.

I think Ade in particular is an object of his ire....

 

We've got to be in the running for highest ever point total with a negative goal difference.

On a serious note, so Levy fired (and paid severance to) AvB and replaced him with a Manager who:

- fails to recognize his defenders are ill suited to play a high line so continues to do so;
- seems unable to inject any fluidity into our play so that we rely on sparse moments of brilliance to scrape past poor sides and get stuffed by good sides; and
- occasionally alienates players who seem to fill clear needs (Capoue / Adebayor)

Great bit of business, Daniel

 

Well, at least that's over.

 

I don't know Pook. Let's disregard my third point because ultimately what's happened behind closed doors is unknown so it's hard to judge what were the correct decisions there.

In relation to the high line, I think AvB deserves extra "discredit" for getting rid of 2 players (Caulker, Assou-Ekotto) whose pace would certainly suit the system. However, how many times does Daws have to be booked for a body check on the half way line for Tim to realize either he gets dropped or we give up on the high line?

In relation to the fluidity issue, Tim came in saying the right things about a possession-based game. However possession is all about tempo (teams who move the ball slowly get closed down quickly) and Tim's favored central midfield pairing of Dembele and Bentaleb are too ponderous for us to keep the ball moving swiftly. The three players who could potentially change things are Eriksen (who Tim has out on the left or not playing at all when losing against Norwich), Holtby (who Tim jogged on to Fulham) and Carroll (left at QPR). On this point, Tim for me is as bad as AvB.

 

not sure it was totally players giving it their all, as much as the personality some of them have...Ade didn't look like he have given up or stopped playing, but Ade is pretty friendly with many players in the league, and was smiling and joking a bit too much with some Chelsea players, and Sherwood was expecting his players to be pissed off at being down 4-0