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warspite1 -> RE: All things Football (soccer) related (6/3/2019 8:30:25 PM)
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ORIGINAL: loki100
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ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus
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ORIGINAL: wodin
said Kane plays from start we (reds) will win.
Talented players should always play. Recent injuries, loss of form though... Tough dilemma for any coach. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
The problem is we've been around this issue 3 times in the last 2 years and the same thing happens. Fully fit, Kane is superb, his ability to hit the ball etc but he also links play and causes endless hassle for the defenders. When he's not, the last bit goes and Spurs lose one important means of disrupting an opposing defense.
There is no easy answer, if he's been injured he has to have the chance to play his way back into the game. Its clear that Spurs are better with a fit Kane, its marginal whether he improves us when he is regaining full fitness. Now it didn't help on saturday that Dele went missing and Eriksen tried to compensate by running around a lot.
So it might have been a brilliant decision if Dele had turned up but I struggle to remember a really good performance from his since his injury in January. In that sense wonder if the mistake - if there was one - was not to play Moura in place of Dele?
warspite1
It’s probably best to stay away from most forms of social media at the moment. The abuse, being directed against Poch is just staggering, the sheer hatred for Harry Kane is beyond belief.
As always it’s difficult to always know who is posting (in terms of motivation) but when its Tottenham fans it just makes me sick. For non-Tottenham fans, I don’t really give a stuff (apart from the personal abuse of Harry which is bang out of order) because they don’t go to games, they don’t see the reality and they are essentially talking mindless sloblocks. For supposed ‘Tottenham fans’ they don’t have any such excuse.
And when anyone – Spurs fan or not - writes things like ‘Liverpool were there for the taking’ then they are clearly an intelligence free zone.
So what are these ‘fans’ so incensed about? Well in no particular order:
1. Pochettino is [weak] [Stupid] (insert to taste) for picking Harry
2. Pochettino is a useless coach who doesn’t know what he’s doing
3. Pochettino is disrespectful to Moura who basically got Spurs to the final
4. Spurs will never win a trophy under Pochettino
5. Kane is selfish and it’s all about him, he knew he wasn’t fit but put himself before the team
6. It was obvious, play Kane and we lose
7. It was madness to change the Spurs team given the form we were in
It’s difficult to know where to start. But we’ll start with the absurdity – and yes I’ve read this – that Poch shouldn’t have broken up the team that was in such good form…..
So let’s look at Spurs form since Harry was injured against Manchester City:
Tottenham 4-0 Huddersfield – We beat a team already relegated and with one of the worst premiership records for a season ever, at home.
Manchester City 4-3 Tottenham – We lost, but scoring 3 away from home was a great achievement and got us the aggregate win
Manchester City 1-0 Tottenham – We lost.
Tottenham 1-0 Brighton – We scrapped a 1-0 win in the last minute against a Brighton team that finished one place above relegation
Tottenham 0-1 West Ham – We lost at home and couldn’t score against a team with an appalling away record
Tottenham 0-1 Ajax – We lost at home
Bournemouth 1-0 Tottenham – We lost against a team that was struggling for form and finished 14th in the premier league
Ajax 2-3 Tottenham – We scrapped a win in the first minute of extra, extra time added on but Ajax should have been out of sight after the first leg and the first half of the second leg when he continued with our abysmal football
Tottenham 2-2 Everton – Last game at home needing a win to finish third and…….
So these are just the bald facts (which are bad enough) but when you add in the ‘quality’ of the football, then ….. Shouldn’t change a team on such form? Right……
It was Poch who made the decision to play Harry. It was a gamble given his recent injury and, having made the decision, then decided against substituting him. An obvious decision? Well there are two reasons why it was far from obvious. A) look at the performances above to show how much we missed Harry, and B) it’s great being wise after the event. But look at Harry’s scoring record – it is phenomenal – against big teams too. Liverpool then scored after 2 minutes. We needed a goal. Who do you take off when you need a goal? One only has to recall the rightful opprobrium that was heaped on Graham Taylor in Sweden in the 1992 European Championships. England are losing, we need a goal – what to do? Yes, that’s right, he takes off Gary Lineker…. Of course…..
Possibly an even worse aspect is the idea that if Moura had been picked we would definitely have won…. again. of course….. I mean it was only Liverpool right? And what did he do when he came on? The team – no not just Harry – just never got going. It happens – and maybe Liverpool’s defence had something to do with that too.
Pochettino has never struck me as weak. He did not take long at all to get rid of the deadwood from the team. He didn’t do it immediately, he gave people a chance to shape up and buy in and, if they didn’t, they were out. I don’t think weakness was a factor. He wasn’t sentimental either – he and Ryan Mason had a good relationship, he was a Spurs boy but…..
A useless coach who doesn’t know what he’s doing. Well I have certainly been critical of Poch on limited occasions in the past – playing Son at wing back in the FA Cup semi-final was a bit of a shocker. But that – and the Kane gamble not coming off – does not make him a bad coach let alone useless. I say again, no new players, no pre-season, an ageing squad, a lack of replacements available (unlike Guardiola who has the resources at City to have two world class players in every position), the permanent loss of our best midfielder (for financial reasons), the temporary loss of just about every key player at least once this season (to injury or the Asian Games) and a string of players deciding 2018-2019 was the season they were going to be rubbish – Trippier, Eriksen, Alli, Dier (woeful) Lamela (always woeful) Moura at best brilliant but mostly woeful. Add in the stadium uncertainty for almost two seasons, and I think Poch has done a pretty damn remarkable job.
But wanting him sacked? Careful what you wish for – how many Arsenal fans wanted Wenger gone? How many Chelsea fans wanted Sarri out a few weeks ago? Manchester United speaks for itself and yes (though no red would admit it now) how many were calling for Klopp’s head two seasons ago?
I got chatting to two Spurs fans while queuing to get in – one slightly older than me and the other in his early 60’s. We remember only too well what it has been like at Tottenham - a club going the way of the likes of Huddersfield Town, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Leeds United – clubs that dominated English football for a spell and then….. The days of signing Ramon Vega and Nicola Berti (remember them?), the days of just being rubbish are all too clearly etched on our memories.
Spurs couldn’t stay at 36,000 White Hart Lane and hope to remain anywhere near the top of the English game. But unless you are owned by a country or a billionaire a billion times over, then everything can’t be achieved at once. Building that stadium is going to continue to hurt the playing side no doubt about that. That is what makes having someone like Poch so important to the future of the club. We’ll never be able to compete with the oil and gas billionaires, but we can be a successful and sensible football club if things continue to be done correctly.
But all we get are whingers who seem to forget the dark days all to quickly and seem to have some crazy notion of entitlement for no apparent reason. For Spurs, getting to the Champions League final was incredible. Thanks Poch (he's magic you know) and Harry, Moussa, Jan, Hugo, Son and the rest. But thanks too to Daniel Levy [&o]
COYS!!
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