The Poch Epoch

Article by Lee Mason

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It was only QPR, I hear the pessimistic say, with sweat from their frown beaten foreheads dripping off their face and into their half empty glass. The argument against this idea is that Arsenal in the first game of the season played Crystal Palace. A Crystal Palace without a manager. A Crystal Palace side that nearly took points off Arsenal at home. Yet Arsenal won 2-1 unconvincingly. No one said it was 'only Crystal Palace'. Quite the opposite, a few articles doing the rounds suggested that the Crystal Palace result, along with the incredibly fortuitous result against Everton have shown that Arsenal are title challengers and that they can 'grind out a result ugly'.

Conversely, I also have heard amongst some and through a few articles that 'we could go for the title' or 'we will get fourth this season'. The glass half full crowd. The argument against this is that we are still finding out feet and we have not yet played an opponent who will be challenging for the title or attempting top four. We have to bed in some players still, the transfer window is still open and not every player appears to understand the tactics of Pochettino.

Somewhere between these two viewpoints lies the truth. Yesterday, we could have been five nil up at half time. Was it because QPR were so bad? No, I don't think it was. I think it was because we were so good. The line of argument that anyone on the end of a thrashing was somehow awful is a fallacy. For example, when Real Madrid beat us 4 nil in the second leg of the Champions League a few seasons ago it was because they ground us down, attacking at every opportunity, winning the ball high up the pitch. Psychology has a lot to do with it in football.

From the opening minute our team harassed and harangued QPR so much that we had them pinned back in their own half for the majority of the game. Those quick to state that QPR were playing 3-5-2 forget that for large portions of the match they were playing a formation of 10 defenders, this was purely down to our high intensity pressing. We nullified areas of the pitch reducing them to speculative passes when they managed to get on the ball. The situation for Harry and Glenn will be that if they wanted to know whether their 3-5-2 formation works they will have to try it in their next game against Sunderland, because we didn't allow them to play it. Essentially we were like a long reach boxer, facing a boxer whose ability is to work on the opponent inside that reach. What we did was never let that boxer get on the inside, keeping them at arms length.

Dier, for me is the most fantastic of players. Looked solid at the back and good in forward positions. His header yesterday from a raking cross by Lamela was inspired. He was only meant to be one for the future but appears to be untouchable at the moment. Over to the other side and Rose has improved with more leaping and bounding than a border collie in a pedigree chum advert. Vertonghen was back to how he was 2012-2013. Kaboul improved from last week, but still needs to push on, I think our links with the centre back Fazio will be to usurp Kaboul. Bentaleb was okay, made some good passes forward which is unusual for him considering his penchant for back passes. But I am still undecided on him, he sometimes appears to be on a different page to everyone else. Capoue; a transformation, note only has he played like he looked like he would last year, he has excelled. Eriksen, still growing into the new system and building on last year, some nice quick passes and was incredibly unlucky with his free kick. Chadli and Lamela look like forces to be reckoned with, Lamela always looked like he had the goods but not the confidence, but Chadli was a pure surprise. I had pinned him down as a player who looked good for his country but couldn't transition to playing for Spurs. Adebayor scored but there is something amiss about him, he like Bentaleb does not link up as well as everyone else. Though Bentaleb is promising, Adebayor and his famous indifference and hot and cold act has been a fortnightly occurence. He is also set for African Cup of Nations and I'd like to see Bobby being given a bit more time, though I suspect his use in the Europa is to help build confidence back up. Soldado and his two bites of the cherry in the US friendly verses Seattle Sounders highlighted his confidence, even when he scored he looked distraught that he didn't put it away first time.

Limassol training match on Thursday: then...

Liverpool, a team that has spent around 160 million on their team this summer on 9 new players. Is it possible that we can get revenge for last season?

We now enter the Poch Epoch.

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