-
The Fighting Cock is a forum for fans of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Here you can discuss Spurs latest matches, our squad, tactics and any transfer news surrounding the club. Registration gives you access to all our forums (including 'Off Topic' discussion) and removes most of the adverts (you can remove them all via an account upgrade). You're here now, you might as well...
Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports
We should never have got rid.He was a decent player who had a poor season.
WinksBerg are a pairing from hell
How soon will we be able to get that game on DVD from the club shop?
They certainly showed belief. Belief that sticking all ten outfield players in the box and hoping we couldn't get the ball past a meat wall would frustrate their way to a 0-0 draw.
Didn't quite work out that way though.
"Posters who slag off our team have no right to celebrate our wins"
Sammyspurs, repeatedly, 2016-19
From Italian press ( copy/paste by Google Translate)
LONDON - "Yes!", Screams Antonio Conte at the end of the match, after his Tottenham won over the Watford of the other Italian coach of this match, Claudio Ranieri, after a trench lasting 90 minutes and the goal in full recovery of the defender Sanchez. That spikes Son's close-range free-kick with his head and beats the home goalkeeper, the Austrian Bachmann, who was perfect until then. And therefore it is 1-0 for Tottenham. Conte still unbeaten, fifth win out of 7 for the Apulian coach in the league (and two draws), and all at home. Disappointment, however, for the Roman coach who thought he had finally broken a streak of five straight defeats for the "hornets", the last against West Ham 4-1. The sixth consecutive defeat causes Watford to sink to fourth from bottom, just two points from the relegation zone, and Burnley even have two games less.
Ranieri's bolt
In this very Italian match (Watford belongs to the Pozzo family with many former Udinese players), Ranieri took the field clearly with the bolt, to snatch the 0-0, a draw, and maybe win it with a lucky episode. Which perhaps he was denied in the 81st minute at 0-0 when Lloris intervened on the young Joao Pedro who was thrown into the net with an intervention on the edge: ball touched by the hands of the Spurs goalkeeper, legs of the attacker caught in full. But for the referee Robert Jones it is not a penalty and he does not even go to see him again at the Var. Unfortunately, however, in modern football Ranieri's strategy very often does not work and in the final Tottenham obtained a painful, but deserved victory that launches the Spurs in fifth place with 33 points, just two from the Champions League but with two games less than Woolwich, who today lost at home at the last minute to Manchester City. In a Premier League decimated by Covid like many other European leagues.
Defense ok, but almost zero counterattack
Of course, even if the catenacciara feat was unsuccessful, Ranieri had prepared it well and for most of the game he wrapped Conte's Tottenham, despite numerous absentees. Watford took the field with a 4-4-2 that often became a 3-5-2 on the mirror, with Kucka imperious on the right wing and best of the field, who marked Reguillon's gusts to man. The problem with the Hornets is that, despite defensive impenetrability, nine or ten players were almost always behind the ball. And therefore the restarts were very rare, if not impossible, apart from a weak shot by Dennis in the second minute in the arms of Lloris.
Doubtful penalty on Joao Pedro
So Tottenham played the game, always. Seventeen shots to six, 73% ball possession. A supremacy, however, sterile for large sections of the race. In the middle of the first fraction, Bachmann makes a big intervention on Reguillon, then Kane has the greatest opportunity but shoots wide from a good position in the area after the blunder of the Watford director, Louza, supported by an always overflowing Moussa Sissoko, former of the match. In the second half Ranieri inserts Joao Pedro, not that of Cagliari, in place of the team's top scorer Dennis. And here the game could change because with the 20-year-old Brazilian ex Fluminense, Watford increases its danger. Not only with the episode of the dubious penalty at the 81st that could overturn the game, with the audience roaring "Var, var!" In a sold out and maskless stadium. Joao Pedro's speed and dribbling bothers the Tottenham defense, and in the 62nd minute the referee fails to give him a dangerous lead to caution Skipp for a tactical foul. Ten minutes earlier, Lloris saved from attacker King's shot with a great intervention.
Sanchez's flash at 96 '
But the feeling is that Tottenham can win it at any time. Bachmann keeps the hornets afloat, first on Kane then with a miracle on Son. But he can do nothing about Sanchez's 96th match, after the match had been interrupted for about ten minutes due to the illness of a Watford fan in the stands, fortunately not in danger of life: "I'm very sorry because we conceded a goal like that despite all the tall players we have ”, says Ranieri at the press conference at the end of the match,“ we played well, we never conceded a counterattack, we were very solid in defense. We will do something on the market, I have faith in the company. We are alive and we will fight to the end ".
Obviously satisfied, Antonio Conte: “It was excellent to take the three points, unlike what happened against Southampton. Watford was very organized, with 10 players behind the ball, it wasn't easy. We need to improve in the last step. Also, it's another game without conceding a goal and that's very positive. " Finally, a note on Lloris, who has the contract expiring and could go away on a free transfer: “I want him to stay. He is a very important player, you can see it for how he remains in the game even if in a match like today he is not busy for long, see the parade on King. Lloris loves Tottenham and Tottenham loves Lloris. We will find a solution. "Meanwhile, Tottenham continue to eat spaghetti, as the last chorus of Spurs fans dedicated to Conte intones.
LONDON - "Yes!", Screams Antonio Conte at the end of the match, after his Tottenham won over the Watford of the other Italian coach of this match, Claudio Ranieri, after a trench lasting 90 minutes and the goal in full recovery of the defender Sanchez. That spikes Son's close-range free-kick with his head and beats the home goalkeeper, the Austrian Bachmann, who was perfect until then. And therefore it is 1-0 for Tottenham. Conte still unbeaten, fifth win out of 7 for the Apulian coach in the league (and two draws), and all at home. Disappointment, however, for the Roman coach who thought he had finally broken a streak of five straight defeats for the "hornets", the last against West Ham 4-1. The sixth consecutive defeat causes Watford to sink to fourth from bottom, just two points from the relegation zone, and Burnley even have two games less.
Ranieri's bolt
In this very Italian match (Watford belongs to the Pozzo family with many former Udinese players), Ranieri took the field clearly with the bolt, to snatch the 0-0, a draw, and maybe win it with a lucky episode. Which perhaps he was denied in the 81st minute at 0-0 when Lloris intervened on the young Joao Pedro who was thrown into the net with an intervention on the edge: ball touched by the hands of the Spurs goalkeeper, legs of the attacker caught in full. But for the referee Robert Jones it is not a penalty and he does not even go to see him again at the Var. Unfortunately, however, in modern football Ranieri's strategy very often does not work and in the final Tottenham obtained a painful, but deserved victory that launches the Spurs in fifth place with 33 points, just two from the Champions League but with two games less than Woolwich, who today lost at home at the last minute to Manchester City. In a Premier League decimated by Covid like many other European leagues.
Defense ok, but almost zero counterattack
Of course, even if the catenacciara feat was unsuccessful, Ranieri had prepared it well and for most of the game he wrapped Conte's Tottenham, despite numerous absentees. Watford took the field with a 4-4-2 that often became a 3-5-2 on the mirror, with Kucka imperious on the right wing and best of the field, who marked Reguillon's gusts to man. The problem with the Hornets is that, despite defensive impenetrability, nine or ten players were almost always behind the ball. And therefore the restarts were very rare, if not impossible, apart from a weak shot by Dennis in the second minute in the arms of Lloris.
Doubtful penalty on Joao Pedro
So Tottenham played the game, always. Seventeen shots to six, 73% ball possession. A supremacy, however, sterile for large sections of the race. In the middle of the first fraction, Bachmann makes a big intervention on Reguillon, then Kane has the greatest opportunity but shoots wide from a good position in the area after the blunder of the Watford director, Louza, supported by an always overflowing Moussa Sissoko, former of the match. In the second half Ranieri inserts Joao Pedro, not that of Cagliari, in place of the team's top scorer Dennis. And here the game could change because with the 20-year-old Brazilian ex Fluminense, Watford increases its danger. Not only with the episode of the dubious penalty at the 81st that could overturn the game, with the audience roaring "Var, var!" In a sold out and maskless stadium. Joao Pedro's speed and dribbling bothers the Tottenham defense, and in the 62nd minute the referee fails to give him a dangerous lead to caution Skipp for a tactical foul. Ten minutes earlier, Lloris saved from attacker King's shot with a great intervention.
Sanchez's flash at 96 '
But the feeling is that Tottenham can win it at any time. Bachmann keeps the hornets afloat, first on Kane then with a miracle on Son. But he can do nothing about Sanchez's 96th match, after the match had been interrupted for about ten minutes due to the illness of a Watford fan in the stands, fortunately not in danger of life: "I'm very sorry because we conceded a goal like that despite all the tall players we have ”, says Ranieri at the press conference at the end of the match,“ we played well, we never conceded a counterattack, we were very solid in defense. We will do something on the market, I have faith in the company. We are alive and we will fight to the end ".
Obviously satisfied, Antonio Conte: “It was excellent to take the three points, unlike what happened against Southampton. Watford was very organized, with 10 players behind the ball, it wasn't easy. We need to improve in the last step. Also, it's another game without conceding a goal and that's very positive. " Finally, a note on Lloris, who has the contract expiring and could go away on a free transfer: “I want him to stay. He is a very important player, you can see it for how he remains in the game even if in a match like today he is not busy for long, see the parade on King. Lloris loves Tottenham and Tottenham loves Lloris. We will find a solution. "Meanwhile, Tottenham continue to eat spaghetti, as the last chorus of Spurs fans dedicated to Conte intones.
Traore is a completely different beast to Royal. A fit and firing Traore takes people on for fun drawing the opposition defenders towards him and by doing so creates space for his team mates. You are comparing apples with oranges.
Disappointing dropped points v Southampton but one positive, we make 1 point up on Liverpool if you want to look at it like that. Win our 2 games in hand, we go 5 points behind them. Considering the so called blistering season they are having, that’s nothing in terms of points. Woolwich play City and Chelsea play Liverpool. Any of those lot will be dropping points. Win against Watford we make up those points. Fuck Westham, we have 2 games in hand on them and they will drop points all season
