TOTTENHAM ARE STILL A BIG CLUB!

Maybe we'll make the pitch smaller next year. Or maybe I just fucking hate going to Wembley.

"Wembley is spectacularly ill-suited"

O Rly? It's the stadium? Cmon now...

It's not just the stadium obviously, especially when the gameplan appeared to be 'pass it to Kyle Walker at every available opportunity' but we have completely fucked up there on three out of four occasions.

Wembley pitch seems to be 5m longer and 2m wider than WHL. Is that much of a difference?

Must be weird playing home games there. Didn't work for Arsenal either, of course (2-1-3 over two seasons).

THFC have a fair chance of their best finish since 1963.

Not surprised to be trailing CFC. Surprised to be, till now, still so far ahead of LFC, City, United et al. It's very odd that they cannot reel us in.

I thought this was a good article btw.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2017/may/01/mauricio-pochettino-tipsy-tottenham-hangover

Eleven shots none on target at half time against Barnsley

How the fuck hard can it be to tell some cunts to stop shooting if they're not going to hit the target

It's Tuesday night tbf

At Wembley!

Theatre of Screams

A goal! An actual goal!

Huddersfield losing to fucking Crystal Palace fucks me up. I'm not even half invested in the "Caraboa Cup" or w/e but goddamn that is a sad result.

Otoh Enobakhare <3

On a separate note, Paulinho has two in two for Barca and will probably end the season with 20 goals.

Fuck paulinho

Worse than a nothing player is a player that has it and can't bring it

He's a-ok. Has been from the start, last weekend too. It's nice that a moustached player brought in from China can make a difference.

that was an xp lol

big fan of tached players, need more imo

luiz gustavo still rocking his?

Not to seem ungrateful but Alli sissoko son are not a great trio for keeping the ball are they

Foyth won't be breaking into the team them

Vintage stuff this

It's easy to say it

But sissoko has been comically bad tonight apart from popping in his finish.

His retention rate cannot be fifty percent and he's not even created anything for all of his risky flicks and touches

lol wtf is going on there?

Didn't want to clog up the premium thread

Think that spurs are in a very interesting place rn

The current position (not the most recent very poor form, but the stuttering bumps with only a handful of decent team performances and a reliance on solidity with one or two moments of quality to get the results) is more honest imo as a reflection of the longer-term project and where we are with it.

the realisation that this team is in a fight for cl qualification would be a very healthy one for our younger players and I think lloris meant this when he said it very bluntly recently.

The bigger clubs with better squads were always going to come back, two seasons in a row of the majority of them stinking the place out was a happy fluke for poch in establishing himself firmly- hopefully that happy success gives him the base required to slug this next period of adjustment out because afaict he is now in a position where quite a few of the players on whom he has relied and who have thought themselves title challenging players are now pretty squarely in the way of the development of the club and it will be a massive challenge to coordinate their efforts now that they are in demand, have international recognition etc etc

There's a few Lee sharpes waiting to be fucked out imo, hopefully poch gets rein to do what he reckons is necessary

Would rather we started again with youth players and poch than keep watching Alli and Dier in particular play like they did tonight for much longer.

Can't help but think that Rose has contributed heavily to the whole thing, even if his on-pitch commitment can't be questioned. Even leaving his summer fuckaboutery aside, the constant dripping of shittalk to the press since he presented back fit for duty four or five games ago is a stark contrast to how this team was running when it was performing.

Also.....I enjoyed his book but he somewhat puts a few first team players in their place in it....and we've been shit (in the league) since it's release

Obviously we've been killing it in the Champions League and we're within touching distance of everyone that isn't City so this is hardly a crisis just yet, but these things neede addressing.

- Lack of a defensive midfielder when Wanyama and Alderweireld are both injured. We don't need to be playing five at the back against Leicester or West Brom if it means no real defensive presence in midfield. We need to be moving Dier back into midfield, where he's actually good. Our attacking players were much better last year when they were playing in front of a defensive base in which everyone clearly had full confidence. Vertonghen and Sanchez have both looked merkedly less assured since Toby's injury as well.

- Overreliance on fullbacks for width. Chelsea, United and City all play with two wide forwards either side of the CF, Kane is usually flanked by Alli and Eriksen who are really twin number 10s, so we look very narrow in attack. This doesn't always work against teams who defend deep and loses a little something on the break against teams that don't. We looked a lot more threatening with Son and Lamela on the pitch, which won't work against everyone and necessitates moving Alli into a deeper role, but he can do that.

- Dodgy team selections. The system and the balance of the team worked perfectly last year but moving Sissoko and Aurier in and out of the team for no real reason has unbalanced things. Aurier will get there but Sissoko should be nowhere near the team.

merkedly otm

Other thing

Nobody ever in the box. Ever!

Like a team afraid to do anything but show for the ball on the halfway line and play it quickly back to where they found it

Poch unassailable obv but I think the absolute adherence to some aspects of the doctrine at all times gives players a place to hide

the movement in the final third is very uncoordinated; without many attempts to make runs or move defenders, players slow down as they approach the box and see nothing on. aurier in particular kept passing backwards when he received the ball in good positions. rather than work opportunities players optimistically punted the ball in to a densely packed box and it was easy to defend. at times it feels like the team is blunt and can only grind opponents down and exploit mistakes, especially when the team selection skews so much towards the powerful dribblers; aurier, rose, dembele and sissoko felt excessive especially when not playing on the counter. lamela's quick, short one-touch passing was a very welcome relief, and with winks and even trippier back in the side I think they'll move the ball around quicker. I confess I really enjoyed the end of the match even though it was frustrating, it was just fun to see such an attacking team out there. also sanchez remains fantastic.

lads

God now what

Goran Bunjevcevic fuck. I was only thinking about him while watching Serbia yesterday.

It's extremely fucked up that two members of our early 00s squad are dead already.

what

He had a stroke a few days ago apparently.

lamela signing a long term deal is it a good thing i feel we can discuss here

also lack of transfers either in or out is it enough to keep what we have and trust that the mgmt team improves them incrementally, that injuries dont hurt us as much this season, that the rest of the top teams have enough underperformances in them, etc

or would sixth, out of cl in groups and a uefa run be a result

liverpool are looking stronger, city & united similar, arsenal and chelsea are unknowns. fourth would be lovely.

utd due jose collapse

Or the opposite.

But, yes, can't see them carrying on like last season.

Seem to be conflicting reports on Grealish since Villa's new investment.

Some saying deal is done barring medical this week and others that he wants to stay and Villa no longer need to sell him.

Pretty confident we'll make at least a couple of signings before the start of the season, even if the stadium is clearly looming over everything.

It would be enough just not to sell players TBH, but a dynamic central midfielder and another CF have to be the priorities.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/6838337/harry-kane-booed-scottish-fan-the-open-tottenham/

seven up for sale

janssen llorente alderweireld rose nkoudou dembele edwards

three if fit and contracted walk into first team, two didnt solve a problem we still have, two never solved a problem that im not sure we still have

highly doubtful that more than say four of the above leave, and three of em in that scenario would be janssen, nkoudou, edwards.

injuries being kinder this year that leaves the squad no worse off tbh

quite enjoying how pochesque this team of subs and youngsters are looking tbh

oooh woof nkoudou

Currently top of the ICC league for what it's worth

Spurs - Barca in the CL!

PSV and Inter too. Should be fun.

That's a pretty tough fourth seed team looking at the other groups

Lmao we are SO fucked