Tottenham Hotspur vs Crystal Palace on a SATURDAY!!!!!

[Fryer]

Good point and I agree....its difficult because at this stage he is still clearly experimenting. Its a neccessary evil to keep chopping and changing in the build up to his first meaningful window I guess.

But as you say, I dont get some of the apparent basic mistakes he is making.

It was Palace at home, and we were getting destroyed by their LW, yet he had Eriksen on the right, as cover for Dier??

Eriksen is slow, and a creative artist and has never played there for us.

Lennon is fast as fuck, works his arse off getting back and plays RW.

What can we see that a pro manager cannot? Its bizarre.

Agree with you guys that poch prefers to play with wingers (like llana type roles). It's an issue and one I haven't thought about much because we've been a team with fast attacking wingers for as long as I can remember!

If Townsend and Lamela could get their act together we should be ok on paper, but Townsend has a weak end product and too selfish, someone needs to get a grip on him.

Same for Lamela, it's painfully obvious he hasn't got the ability to get past his man in the league games, he's drifting inside way too often. Again someone needs to grab these guys buy the balls and tell them to stop trying to be heroes!

Trouble is with the current coach, can anyone here really tell me he's going to be the big man in the changing room and dominate the players? I don't think so. The guy, when questioned about why he was starting Lennon in the league a couple of games ago comes out with shit like "He's a'very fast, he plays for tot-en-ham, he can be a'very good player for tot-en-ham" .

Seriously, unless the guy gets all the players he needs landing on his lap I can't see a change In fortunes for us at the moment. We just don't have the squad he needs and I don't think he's adaptable enough to get hold of our team.

 

[Simmo]

I really don't think it's difficult to see that Poch is way out of his depth AT THE MOMENT. He may be a good coach and he may get it right here eventually but....

- He does not have experience with a 'top 6' club in any country, in fact he's only been a manager about 4-5yrs!

- He has never had a fixture schedule like he has now. European football is new to him in respect of fixture/squad management and in general.

- He has not had the 'level' of players to deal with like he does now, by that I mean more wages and ego as opposed to actual ability and achievements (probably a more difficult circumstance to manage).

- His high-pressing philosophy, style, favourite game-plan or whatever it is was previously a result of intense, double training sessions and high fitness levels of his players. This cannot work when you have two games a week. We're currently in the middle of 8 games in 24 days. When you don't know your first XI and haven't imposed a style or many game-plans on them anyway, that is tough going and like nothing he has had to deal with before.

Facts are facts, this was the case on his appointment and being supportive of him then and now doesn't change that. The squad is in a bit of a mess as far as various individual form goes and, the team performances have generally been quite poor. It may be relatively early days but it is 22 competitive games into the season and do we see a consistent or effective style? No. Do we have a best 12-13 let alone 11? No. Are we still in cups and in touch with top 4? Yes. Could we be really struggling with that by January? Very possibly.

Poch may be the man but if he isn't we really are fucked because we've got to commit to him now.

 

[1882]

One of these days, we'll actually get to ENJOY a Saturday night MOTD!
Rather than either bemoaning having to wait another 24 hours until we play on Sunday, or not daring to watch a shoddy display on the one Saturday of the year the FA deem us worthy enough to play on!

SHOCKING SCENES!

 

[mouse]

For those of you expecting a win on Saturday, you obviously haven’t read the script properly.

We don’t take advantage of our rivals dropping points by beating weaker opposition at home.

Instead we leave it till the very end of the season where we need to get a result at a ground that we haven’t won at for 78 years and also rely on the results of 6 other games going in our favour.

It's like Roy of the Rovers minus the happy ending.

 

[Millbanks]

As ever, it's so obvious Chelsea and City have better RICHER owners than ours, and yet still so many (most?) Spurs fans deny this.

Fixed it for you mate. That useless chirping about wanting a trillionaire owner isn't the answer when you draw to Palace at home. Burnley would go for a win, but take a point, as would Leicester. Spurs, with the players we have currently, should not be failing to score against Crystal Palace, and we should be fighting for every ball and trying everything to get the win.

If we had, and we'd drawn 0-0 - it's one of those games. But to actually be 2nd best at home to Palace? We're far better than that.

Roll forward to Swansea away- lose because we are tired, should play on a Monday blah blah...

Oh wait, we play Newcastle on the Wednesday, our third game in 6 days. Write that one off as the players will be too tired.

Burnley at home 65 hours later, that will be shite too as that's 4 games in 9 days.

Such a shame that this schedule is a secret kept from Ponch. I mean if only he had a squad of 25 players + developmental squad & a chance to plan for the schedule of a successful club.

Guess we are fucked over Christmas too. Lots of games then, we will be shattered.

At least when we are out of all the cups & playing once a week we might get to 40 points.

Successful clubs play 3 times a week. All this guff about tiredness is a lame excuse. Use the squad !

Spot on mate. The tiredness bollocks is (rather ironically) tiring!! I saw someone say that we only beat Everton because they played away in Europa before the game. THEY PLAYED IN CENTRAL GERMANY, NOT TIMBUK-FUCKING-TU! You can drive there in under 10 hours, fly in what, 2 hours? It's hardly a rigorous schedule is it? They're not travelling with MegaBus! This is luxury travel, the best fitness staff and physio's around them, advising what to eat and drink. It's all a load of utter shit.

Trouble is with the current coach, can anyone here really tell me he's going to be the big man in the changing room and dominate the players? I don't think so. The guy, when questioned about why he was starting Lennon in the league a couple of games ago comes out with shit like "He's a'very fast, he plays for tot-en-ham, he can be a'very good player for tot-en-ham" .

He couldn't speak a word of English when he transformed Southampton into a hard-working, high-pressing, free-flowing, exciting, united squad. Not all managers have to dominate the dressing room, but they do have to have the respect of the players.

I would question whether he has that, but at least Levy isn't undermining him at the moment, like he did AVB.

We have to continue and give him time. He needs a few transfer windows to weed out the weak links and bring in players that will help build his team. I'm pretty convinced that in our current setup and mentality, we'd be able to nullify Messi were he to sign.