Spurs v Leicester- bring on da juju

[Smoked Salmon]

I suppose I should be writing how livid I am and when you look at how we unravelled in the end you can't really defend that.

I have been here before, going out of the cup early and there was nothing to play for for the rest of the season. I am not going to say that makes it ok but clearly we're in a reasonable shout for the league cup (notice how no other semi finalist won yesterday?) a reasonable League position is possible and we're still in the Europa League.

The point is that we still have a hell of a lot to play for and though I don't ever want out of of the FA cup, it's a not as horrible as a barren rest of season as I have experienced in previous seasons.

We've all experienced that. But our club mottos are "to dare is to do" and "the game is about glory". Yesterday's "performance" was about as far as you can get from those. We went out with a whimper, exhibiting form and drive that was unquestionably sub par. We didn't are to do anything yesterday and we certainly didn't treat the competition as a shot at glory.

Sub par form has been a problem in a great deal of our games this season. But we've usually had Lloris, Kane or Eriksen there to save our blushes. Yesterday was a reminder that we can't always get away with that. We fielded a squad in the game that should've been more than enough to turn Leicester over. The player shouldn't decide only to put in effort when Chelsea turn up. They should do it in every game. Had they done that yesterday than I don't think most would've been bothered by the exit. Nothing new after all. But it was the manner of it that is what sticks in the back of the throat.

 

[Yorkshire_Spurs]

The result just highlights that we have a big squad, but not a good squad. Aside from 13/14 players we have a lot of shit on our books.

Outside of Chadli / Eriksen and Kane there is no one you would trust to score in the entire squad.

 

[78Spur]

We've all experienced that. But our club mottos are "to dare is to do" and "the game is about glory". Yesterday's "performance" was about as far as you can get from those. We went out with a whimper, exhibiting form and drive that was unquestionably sub par. We didn't are to do anything yesterday and we certainly didn't treat the competition as a shot at glory.

Sub par form has been a problem in a great deal of our games this season. But we've usually had Lloris, Kane or Eriksen there to save our blushes. Yesterday was a reminder that we can't always get away with that. We fielded a squad in the game that should've been more than enough to turn Leicester over. The player shouldn't decide only to put in effort when Chelsea turn up. They should do it in every game. Had they done that yesterday than I don't think most would've been bothered by the exit. Nothing new after all. But it was the manner of it that is what sticks in the back of the throat.

I actually agree with you on the nature of how we went out. I just don't buy in to the 'glory' mindset, we have won 2 league cups in the past 20 years, we may aim high but our recent history doesn't suggest it's been exactly glorious. That's not to deny fantastic performances and a lot of fun along the way...

I love ambition and I love us taking another team to the sword. We didn't do that yesterday and we should have got the game won before the 83rd minute. The fact that we didn't is lamentable but we still have a live season and pragmatism says we need to show a proper reaction on Thursday and learn from the loss of concentration that we normally take advantage of.

I may have become a bit ambivalent about winning and losing, being a spurs fan, I would suggest reading the poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling!

 

[palmers_green_yid]

I wouldn't blame Poch for yesterday. I'd blame modern football.

Honestly, the earlier rounds of the cups are almost like tossing a coin to see who progresses. Two teams full of reserve or squad players battling it out, they might as well call it the reserve cup. Not only that, but the reserve/squad players look like they don't give a fuck either, not just at Spurs but pretty much all the big sides. In fact, it seems that there is little difference between the FA and league cups, these days. In some cases, due to the time of year and fitness levels, some teams seem to field stronger sides in the earlier rounds of the league cup.

The levels of fitness required in the modern game mean it's not realistic to say "they could all play every game, in the 70s the same players played in every game without complaining, and back then there was only one sub, and infinite replays". Trust me...if we tried this tactic we would soon be out of all competitions, and with a number of injuries.

We need to make a choice of what competitions we want to prioritise. I'm not saying we should prioritise the league, I think that this season there was a good argument that we should prioritise the cups and rest players for the league games. But Poch's mission is to get top 4 and Levy would give him a bollocking for resting players in the league, or simply not let him do it, so you can hardly blame him.

The other thing is that, no matter how much us hardcore fans want to think of the cups as more meaningful than finishing 2nd, 3rd or 4th, the simple fact is that it is far easier to win a cup (at least the domestic cups, not sure about EL) than to finish fourth. So whilst I agree that there is more glory in actually winning something, I think the CL qualification is more the sign of a better team, i.e. more of an achievement.

That said, I know that the memories I have of Nielsen's goal and Woodgate's goal far, far outweigh the memories of Crouch's goal at Man City, Crouch's goal at the San Siro, or Bale vs Inter etc.

I think, this season, league cup should be 1. priority. Then after that it is very arguable as to what should come next. Something had to give. We are nowhere near good enough to compete on all four fronts, in fact I don't think any team in the PL this season is good enough to do this.

 

[Lilly White]

Only saw the highlights unfortunately, were we that poor ?

I thought the highlights were pretty biaised towards Leicester. First half I thought all our players did ok, and we were all over them. When we let them get near our goal, they put in a couple of decent shots and Vorm did a couple of decent saves, but that's about all they did first half. My parents are Leicester season ticket holders and were there too, and were saying at half time that they were relieved to only be one nill down. Second half we clearly sat back and thought we'd get through on the one goal lead. By 80 minutes, my son and I were moaning that although we'd get the win, we'd hoped to see a few more goals - Leics really hadn't been in the game much. So the end result was shocking. Shame Soldado had to go off (back problem I think) as he had a good game, and Ade added nothing. We definitely looked poorer for him being on. Biggest mystery for me was when we were awareded a free kick in the 89th minute (perfectly scorable) and Lamela took it, whilst Eriksen stood by and just watched. Was well over the bar, and Leicester scored their winner immediately after that. All in all, we threw it away in the last few minutes. I'm still pissed off with the result today. We should still be in the cup, and could have won it (especially after the other results). Our C team should be beating Leicester, let alone the ones that played yesterday. We shouldn't have even needed to save players for Wednesday, as the semi-final should have been put to bed last week.

 

[Kboy32]

You say second string, but we started the game with £70M up top.

That side should be enough to beat Leicester at home. Poch did not disrespect the FA Cup, perhaps some of the players did when they let him down.........again.

We have a crucial semi final in a few days, and Im glad some of our vital players were rested for it.

Fair point. Those players should've seen the game out. I'm just saying that there are better players that could have started and possibly made it easier. That's down to Poch. On MOTD Jenas seemed to think that he needs to rotate the squad but nine changes is a push to maintain consistency. Personally, I'd like to see the FA cup taken more seriously.

 

[AlMacca_]

when we lose in the league I get over it fairly quickly unless it's one of the rivals. still fuming today. had another great chance at a cup run and we blew it. should be resting players in the league not in the cups.

 

[Mick Cooper]

Im a bit confused.
Our fans are cunts....but is it because:

a) Some are glad we went out, because they feel we cant cope with extra games?
b) Some are angry we lost, and over-reacting?
c) Some booed Adebayor
d) Some cheered Adebayor

Who is who in this game of cunt?

Everyone who thinks that because its their hearts desire to have something happen, and has an unreasonable expectation that it will be so, because they want it.
Some of us just deal with the grief and sense of loss a little bit better.

I realise that Poch is trying to use the resources he has at his disposal as wisely as he can, resting the "star" players, to save them for the bigger battles etc.
The sad fact is that our first team isn't all that great in terms of being relied on to put in a consistent and high level performance. So the diluted team is even less of a coherent unit and sadly our top performers just aren't good enough to turn games, simply by the power of their presence on the pitch.

as soon as we play a "weakened" team to play a "lesser" team we move straight into lottery mode over the result.
Which - getting back to the question, the cunts you asked about are the same sort of cunts who shout and rage every draw that their single lottery line doesn't scoop the jackpot.
Life just isn't like that

 

[Mick Cooper]

How the fuck does he manage NOT to save that? Cunt.

How did he manage to save the two certain goals before we went one up?

 

[Mick Cooper]

You say second string, but we started the game with £70M up top.

We didn't though, did we??
If the club put them both up for sale and took the highest bids on Jan 31st - how much do you believe we would recoup at the moment?
Vitriol aside - your best guess based on your accumulated knowledge of professional football?
20-25 million would be my guess - based on Lamela's potential and Soldado's age.
Frankly I'd take 10 and move on

 

[Mick Cooper]

I wonder what this place would have been like if we had been 3 up at half time - at home, with the opposition down to 10 men - and we had lost 3-4?
Quiet probably as about 50 people would have set fire to their computers.......

 

[BushHillSpurs]

The only positive I can take from this game is that I noticed the stewards seem to be leaving the park lane and the shelf alone to stand up.
Everything else was dreadful and I'm sure others have said it, but the team selection was awful.

 

[Builder]

How did he manage to save the two certain goals before we went one up?

Not sure what your point is.

Are you saying it's ok to concede a goal like that if you've made two world class saves before it?

 

[YTpaxton]

The result just highlights that we have a big squad, but not a good squad.

So by this rationale, neither Chelsea nor City have good squads either.

It was one game. It was annoying. They weren't as good as they can be. They will be better, they will be worse. It's football.

Not in any way having a pop at anyone here, merely trying to bring a touch of sanity to all this. And convince myself that life hasn't quite ended. That might be coming Wed night.

 

[ChiTownSpurs]

Anyone that regularly posts on this board shouldn't be anything less than livid about losing to Leicester and being knocked out of the FA Cup. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about Spurs. Not a single day. I imagine that is the same for quite a number of you as well. How can anyone just brush off losing today? Not just losing though. Completely blowing it. We blew it from the minute Poch didn't fully respect Sheffield United. If we had played our strongest squad on Wednesday, or maybe at a minimum hadn't played that walking calamity Adebayor we could have been comfortably ahead. We would have been able to start another strong squad against Leicester and not had to worry about the 2md leg of the semi-final.

Let's be perfectly honest with ourselves, if we had won today, given the results of the day, we would have more than likely gone quite deep. We all want to wax poetic about our chances at top 4. The chances of that happening are slim. However, a team that is on form as a whole and in all competitions has more confidence and that confidence could have played a major part in attaining a top 4 berth. Now, every single week that there is a FA Cup match, our players will be reminded that they're not in that competition anymore. That sort of mental blow is much worse than the physical blow we take by still being in all 4 competitions.

I have been wondering for a few hours why some people are seemingly taking it so well. I think it's because a huge number of people haven't seen the highlights still. It must be.

Many of us said that we didn't expect anything from this season at the beginning. I am one of those people. However, after our festive fixtures? I realized that we could legitimately make multiple runs. A season that in some ways I wanted to end before it even began had been transformed into one that we might be talking about for the rest of our lives. It now hangs on by a piece of thread.

So if that loss didn't ruin my day, I'm not a good fan? I really don't know what your point is here especially that you can somehow blame Adebayor for the loss yesterday. Jesus one loss and everyone loses their minds. Yes it sucks that we're out of the cup but it seems like the people that were actually there and saw the whole thing are taking it better than people that just watched the highlights.

We should've won, we didn't because of Paulinho missing a great opportunity and Vorm fumbling the ball. Not because Adebayor was in the squad, not because of Levy/Baldini, certainly not because of Pochettino. No the players on the field didn't execute and we've known that has been a problem for a while. I don't know how long you've been supporting Spurs but if you're not yet used to being disappointed then your watching the wrong team my friend. Everyone seems hell bent on making every loss a big picture issue when it seemed to me to just be extremely unlucky.

 

[1882]

Ade, capoue, soldado, Kaboul, chirches, paulinho are dead men walking.
... after selling the deadwood get a few top class players as well.

Every year/transfer window, we talk about getting rid of the deadwood... how about for once, we simply don't sign any 'deadwood' in the first place... then we wouldn't have to get rid the following year!

 

[Tomo]

Every year/transfer window, we talk about getting rid of the deadwood... how about for once, we simply don't sign any 'deadwood' in the first place... then we wouldn't have to get rid the following year!

Thing is we have to sign players, can't just have one decent striker in Kane. The reason we have so much deadwood is that baldini bought a load of unsuitable players with the Bale money that are wasting wages and could be sold to get cash.

We just need to make sure we get the right players which is why Levy should take the advise of Poch and Mitchell and buy players we need.

 

[Nick "Trevor" Sharp]

Not sure what your point is.

Are you saying it's ok to concede a goal like that if you've made two world class saves before it?

If Kane misses a sitter after scoring two stunners does that make it a shit performance?

 

[Revisland]

...you know it's a tin pot tourney when it's not even on TV...
COYS

 

[Joe Clash]

But you didn't, moron. Tell you what, I bet I can bandy more words than you.

Seeing that this reply makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, I find your claim to be vainglorious at best, and iniquitous at worst. Give it up you intellectually disabled hoodwinker.