Vice President, @ITVStudios. Member @BAFTA & Board Member of various industry bodies. Film/TV Exec & lifelong Spurs fan. Views are my own & not of my employer.
Joined February 2009
- Tweets24.8K
- Following595
- Followers532
- Likes1
It’s a refereeing display for the ages, but there’ll be plenty of discourse on that & rightly so (inconsistent, incompetent, incoherent). But we equally can’t look away from problems of our own making - a strange XI & formation, undermined further by numerous poor performances.
At least DCL had some range of motion & made runs both short & in behind, using his body to make defenders uncomfortable, move them around & offer an outlet. Solanke should sharpen up or get gone. We’d have relieved much of their pressure on us with a proper performance from him.
Adored that. Full of power, pace & propulsion but also guile & smarts. You can see De Zerbi DNA starting to come through. I loved how we kept going, pushing, recycling & making off-the-ball runs the likes of which we’ve not seen in years. To think Thomas Frank was our manager!
The reality: we chose to not have another right back, we have no fit number ten & we only have one striker who is unfit & uninterested. These are choices. We should never forget that, for all the signings & fanfare, this is the same Club run by the same clowns as last season.
I’m fed up with Spurs players feeling so sorry for themselves. Tiny little violin. Timid meh-ball. Put in some sprints, put your foot through the ball, stick your shoulders back & your chest out & stop moping about. It’s not even that bad! We should have scored twice! Get a grip!
And the second half encapsulated that. Maybe we gave it a bit more of a go, maybe we should have scored again, maybe… - but we also looked bereft of any kind of swagger, any kind of X factor, any kind of oomph. Some flashes, but mainly mediocre. It’s simply just not good enough.
🍏🍯
Dip a good ball in the mixer
Make a half chance really clear
Shana Tova, it’s gone over
Maybe we will score next year?
🍏🍯
It feels worse because we needed something after last week & in the context of last season. It was ok for an hour in an even game that we were just about shading, worryingly sloppy for both goals & then heads dropped, morale sapped & we looked dejected & devoid of inspiration.
Enjoyed the first half. Perfectly fine. Liked Fernandes growing into the game with some lovely movement. Nobody will consider this a tactico hot take but I will always have a lot of time for Ben Davies. Plus an excellent needle drop of Nine To Five as soon as we hit half time 👏
I know the team is all akimbo. Transfer timings out of sync. Fitness & fatigue a factor. But you can make an opposition work hard for a win. There are still eleven on the pitch & the basic expectation is to at least compete, make it hard for your opponent & do simple things well.
Put proper pace on passes. Track your man. Get up in the air to challenge. Drive forward when it opens up & dare to sprint. None of that requires new attacking signings. None of that should be beyond the competence, integrity and physicality of those out there wearing the shirt.