That god-awful cross attempt by Willock sums him up for me. Guy comes on as a nominally creative midfielder and completes 3 passes in 27 minutes. Useless.
FT 1-1. Woohoo!!! We... Earned a miraculous point (the hard way) Stopped our historic home losing streak Cemented 15th place by 4pts (Brighton can't catch us!... today) Onward??
Dunno Spurs remind me of us around 2010. Miss 3 gimme chances to open the second half only to bottle it and lose to a late winner. Spurs best ever season is a copy of one of our average ones.
I mean I will defend Willock here He's not ready. He looks OK playing in the Europa league against teams not in the top 100 in europe. But he is not an above average Premium League midfielder - like he is bottom of the heap He could make it - but throwing him into these games is harsh, especially when he has no one to learn from. Look at the rest of the midfield.
That last bit is the key for me. Remember when we brought Denilson in early? Or brought Fab in as a kid? Look who they were surrounded with, ignoring their own talent for a second.
Willock also may have been to save Ceballos' legs a bit. Playing twice a week, Partey injured, Xhaka suspended, that leaves Dani, Elneny, Willock and maybe AMN.
Willock can be a decent squad player he doesn’t show enough technically at the moment. But the team lacks confidence so this environment is not good for him saka and Nelson
dixon was talking about that a bit on handbrake off podcast last year where he thought guendouzi might have looked much better if he had come into a midfield where he had a viera, a petit, or a parlour telling him what to do and where to go.
Speaking of body language... I saw Auba’s post-match interview and it was a bad look. He seemed very down, unconfident, avoiding all eye contact, looking down, etc. This is our captain! And not long ago our scoring talisman. I found it very sad to watch.
Avoided the internet all day so I could watch on delay. Another good chance to get 3 points ruined by a red. You can moan about a lack of smarts or discipline all you want and you're likely on to something. I say there's a deep level of fear in this squad that is the root problem behind these silly bookings. It's a fear of failure that caused Gabriel to kick that ball away. Confident players don't do that. Mike Tyson bit Holyfield's ear off because he could see his life slipping away from him. His dominance vanished. His aura evaporated. Fear leads to desperation. Too many times we look desperate. With that being said there's fight in this team. Many times in this match I could see attacks bubbling beneath the surface, but there is a key component missing to make that happen. Is it Ozil? Is it a proper false 9 to play where we've shoe horned Nketiah or Laca? I don't know. I think either one helps tremendously. AMN had some troubling errors late, but my God, am I going overboard to say he was largely brilliant? Maybe. He was f---ing good. Enough said. I appreciated Pepe's chase. Our wide attackers will always feel isolated until we get that multi dimensional 8 or a 10. I gave Saka shit the other day. He was good today. His play that set up the goal was awesome.
i think it's why strikers tend to not make amazing captains - when they aren't scoring, they're just grumpy in general.