If anyone is bothered to watch, the game is on NBC. Believe it or not, we have a 3 game unbeaten run in the league against the Citizens and have won 3 of the last 6 against them in all competitions. All of that should end tomorrow. It doesn't really matter who is available, at least one of the starting XI is capable of making the kind of colossal gaffe that always proves to be fatal in this kind of fixture. Our best bet is to go all-in for the Europa League since that is the only level of competition we have been able to consistently beat this season, it gets us a trophy AND CL football for next season, although it will also mean having to listen to You-Know-Who remind everyone of how great he is.
One of which was this one: ... the highlights of which take less than a minute-and-a-half for a reason. We put everyone behind the ball and were clearly just trying to stay in the game/tie. It was very much like the first leg of the AC Milan tie under Harry, where we nicked a goal on the counter, but if we're honest, the opponents were the only ones really trying to play. What's interesting is that those are two of my favorite Spurs performances. Setting up defensively can be gratifying, if done selectively (and well).
I disagree, I thought Pep was surprisingly cautious approaching this game and that allowed us to give as good as we got. It was actually one of the rare big-game performances we've had where we actually looked like a team that knows how to win things. I would agree about the AC Milan one for the second leg at WHL when we were protecting a lead from the first leg. But I thought we were the better team at the San Siro and that Milan team was stacked with the likes of Zlatan and Pato
City may be the only opponent against whom we have overachieved in recent years. Which makes me more sure than ever that we'll be mullered today.
It had all turned quite brutal by the second half at the San Siro, and in the end it didn't look like anyone was trying to play. But we'd set up with both Sandro and Palacios sitting in front of the back four, and while we may have looked for (and got) one on the counter, we were set up as defensively in the first leg as the second. Everybody remembers it for Flamini's horror tackle(s) and Gattuso's meltdown, but what we don't always consider is that those were largely reactionary. We were definitely the ones who initiated the more, shall we say, combative elements into the game. Crouchy and Daws definitely put some elbows where they'd be felt, and we were getting stuck in all over the pitch. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I certainly don't remember us as being better on the pitch, in terms of attacking football, anyway. When they got their late equalizer, I remember thinking it (1-1) was probably a more fair result, and just being pleased for the away goal. When it was disallowed, I was euphoric.
Loads of traffic here for this one, eh? Spurs down 1-0 at the half. We haven't played poorly (or well, for that matter). Kane hit the inside of the post from a free kick that came very close to putting us up a goal. Penalty conceded by Hojbjerg thereafter that VAR absolutely should have denied, but did not. Lloris got to it but couldn't keep it out. From there on we've done nothing of note, save not conceding. We'll have to open up a bit, and they'll get their chances. I'd guess that 2-0 is a likelier next score than 1-1, but here's to hoping. I'll have to go to work about ten minutes before it ends, and won't know the final scoreline until around 7pm. Hopefully I won't know the result until then, either.
At 3-0 that's enough for me. Gundogan with two goals early in the second half, the second a single long ball from the keeper over the top that Sanchez is unable to cope with. It's City, and they're very good; but I'm not sure that's a satisfactory enough explanation. Whereas our counters were explosive early in the season, they now look ponderous. We've been sorted, I'm afraid. C'est la vie. ... Now for another ten-hour work day.
Lloris concedes 2 more soft goals (he could have thrown his cap on the pen) and Sanchez with a total shit-show on the third. Virtually nothing in attack. My co-ed rec team defends better than this. It's Europa League or bust folks.
Hopefully Levy will axe him before or at the end of the season so at least we can get a new gaffer in before the start of next season. The nightmare scenario will see him starting next season, only to get the chop mid-season leaving us in a situation where we have to scramble to find a new manager.
From the Guardian: If City were a gourmet chef with a reliable menu of recipes, Tottenham’s approach felt more like simply throwing random foods into a blender and then blaming the customers for complaining. This, perhaps, is the major issue with a Tottenham side whose fall from the peak of the Mauricio Pochettino years feels ever more inexorable with every passing game. Right now, they aren’t just a bad team, they’re a boring, plodding, joyless team. And in many ways, that’s worse. The starkest contrast was perhaps between the two defences. While John Stones and Aymeric Laporte confidently stepped up to launch attacks, Davinson Sánchez and Eric Dier looked utterly spooked every time they received the ball, as if haunted by the memory of something foul and unspeakable.
It will become increasingly harder to keep our talents... Another disappointing season, another reason for Kane and Son to seek to leve the club to win trophies elsewhere
For me it all comes down to poor decisions from the top. The chairman refused to back our best manager in a generation, then sacked him and replaced him with a has-been. All the progress we made from 2015-2019 has been thrown away in a season and a half.
This one sentence* pretty much sums up my feelings on Jose Mourinho's THFC. *ok, technically that's two sentences.
Can you imagine what it'd be like if the stadium was full? It's not a pretty thought. Jose would be under far more pressure by now. He'd have to be.
Agreed. He would have been gone by now. I remember the crowd reaction after the 0-5 to Liverpool that was AVB's coup de grace. Like a Shakespearean production, the camera zoomed in on a dazed and confused AVB, then on an ominous looking Daniel Levy in the director's box. The next morning AVB was toast. I also remember during Jose's second spell at Chelsea my Norbury cousins who are Chelsea folk were telling me the crowd at Stamford Bridge where chanting "Eff-You-Mour-in-ho, Eff-You Mour-in-ho...", it was that bad. And they also were mocking me when we announced him as our new manager. Can't say that I disagreed with them...
Joe Jordan was shut a shit-disturber. My cousin once had seats near the dugouts at WHL and she said she had to cover her daughter's ears as Jordan spent the whole game spewing invective on a) the opposition coaches, b) the officials and c) the opposing players in a semi-comprehensible Scottish.
That's what cracked me up about the Gattuso incident. He'd played for Rangers (which I knew) and has a Scottish wife (which I did not). Anyway, after the game, he'd done a bit of a mea culpa for losing his shit, but he admitted that it had been down to Jordan riding his ass non-stop in Scots Gaelic.* *or whatever the moon-man gibberish is that only those two in the San Siro could understand.