Time to fix up

Article by Michael Halepas

Prior to kick off at the Etihad, Spurs had taken only 1 point from their last two league games. In neither of those two matches did Spurs find the net. Up against Man City a week before a match at home to Man Utd, Spurs needed things to go their way. Had Spurs won both games against the Manchester clubs we’d be talking about them being serious title contenders.

Man City will probably win the league title this year and if not they will most likely occupy 2nd place come mid May. This tie is obviously therefore a tricky one to win if you’re the visiting team to the Etihad. What does help, you’d expect, is two full weeks in which to plan, prepare and drill your team. No excuses.

If AVB is the man to lead us to the top four again and if these players, who all command at least five figure weekly salaries are worth anywhere near those sums – Spurs do not get their trousers pulled down against any side. Instead, Spurs were bossed in every inch of the pitch and lost the match by an embarrassing margin having failed to score a single goal.

In a season in which all the noises emanating from WHL have been about the aim being a top four spot – this game might not have been a ‘must win’ but was most certainly a ‘must not get hammered’. Spurs failed miserably with the task at hand.

It is unfathomable to those outside the football bubble that a man can be paid fortunes to play football every day and yet can put in a performance so abject as to defy belief. How a team can train all week and yet perform so woefully is madness. This Spurs team found a way.

With the mammoth task at hand of keeping City’s forwards at bay, you couldn't have wished for a much worse start to the game than going behind after 16 seconds. That opening goal put Spurs in a position to do what we hadn’t all season – to win a match after conceding a goal. Having failed to score against either of their previous two league fixtures the pressure was on for Spurs to get any kind of positive result from the Etihad. No such luck this time.

City are blessed to have such lethal attackers and time after time they cut through our defence with relative ease. Even if City’s forward four are seriously good, that much is not breaking news and Spurs should have been better prepared for wave after wave of attack.

Spurs were found out and the score could rightly have been a lot higher than 6-0. One of the few positives was a tackle of Sandro’s on Aguero midway through the first half. Against the odds, Sandro slid in from behind as Aguero readied himself do bury a shot. With a beautifully timed, world class tackle Sandro nicked the ball and saved us momentarily.

Sandro was sure to start the game yesterday to provide some bite in front of the defence. The difficulty he had was that City set up with two such players in their own midfield. Two big boys against one. Would Moussa Dembele not have provided a better partner next to Sandro in that midfield? Or even in place of Lewis Holtby? This squad must surely have smarter starters in Holtby’s position?

Lamela looked well underprepared for this match. A few times he tried to beat a man 20-25 yards in front of goal rather than pop the ball off to one of the runners. Nothing wrong with that if you can beat the man – as Lamela did. Problem was that it looked as though nobody had warned him that Yaya Toure and Fernandinho have a tendency to come back for another bite once you get past them. For Negredo’s goal, as well as for at least one other, Lamela was not switched on when marking. Lamela was not marking tightly enough from a throw in and within seconds of his man getting the ball, a goal was scored. His naivety and/or his laziness cost us. Being alert to those types of danger have nothing to do with language barriers. These are basic principals in football.

Why Townsend did not start is beyond me. With Kompany out of the match, Demichelis took his place at the heart of the City defence. His lack of pace was exposed by a marauding Vertonghen once in the first half. Could Townsend not have been used to exploit that weakness more?

Soft goal after soft goal was conceded all while we had the majority of the possession. This is nothing new either. Unfortunately for Spurs fans, the team hasn’t yet shaken that guilty pleasure of gifting to goals on a plate to teams that are well capable of getting goals for themselves.

A lot of commentators have mentioned that the whole team played poorly. It’s hard to disagree.

Kyle Walker, even with a number of England caps to his name, showed immaturity and lack of experience getting a cheap yellow card just before half time on the half way line. Why risk being the man sent off in the 2nd half because of a stupid yellow card in the first place? Why run the risk of letting your teammates down in such a way?

Even if the league stats predicted a tough game for Spurs - these are the games where title winners manage to win. Title winners find a way to win. Instead, Spurs found a way to lose this game.

When the half time whistle blew, AVB might well have looked shell shocked but this was his time to really earn his money. At the interval, AVB rolled the dice and brought on Adebayor to play up front with Soldado. Now it was four in the midfield for Spurs. This was the time when we’d find out if this was AVB’s secret weapon. We’d find out if this is the strike force to smash team apart this season and to lift us in to the top four, or not.

There were signs as to which of the two it would end up being. With Adebayor’s first effort, possession of the ball was lost. As the minutes ticked down it became all too apparent that the hairdryer had not even been plugged in at the away dressing room let alone unleashed on the players.

At one point down the City left, Samir Nasri raced over the turf and ended his run with a ball into the box which hit the bar. The glaringly obvious omission to act in the lead up to that move was Kyle Walker’s – he trotted back despite the attack going through the space that he had left when advancing forward. The least you’d expect from a fully committed, professional, international footballer was to sprint back to help his team mates.

Overall we were clueless up front –as we have been many a time this season. A number of players looked not to be at the races and to make things worse, AVB does not know to distrust Adebayor. That of itself is very worrying. For anyone who has ever watched football knows that Adebayor is unreliable. It is hard to even sum up an Adebayor performance without using expletives! If Adebayor’s salary is not an insult to the poor, his attitude is. To be paid a basic salary of upwards of £170,000 a week and to have the temerity to act as he does is shameful.

We were found out at the back. This Spurs team does make defensive mistakes and isn’t always tight. It has been hinted at when lesser teams have a go at us but it was really highlighted when City exploited space behind the full backs. Even when we look strong at the back, opponents have figured out how blunt our attacks are – they therefore don’t fear pressing us in our own half.

While we thankfully took as many points from the game as we would have done had we lost by a single goal, our weaknesses were exploited too easily and we now boast a shockingly bad goal difference.

The time to panic has not yet arrived on Tottenham High Road but this defeat must serve as a wake up call. Fans and board alike have been patient with AVB so far. He’s still not that long into his tenure and has had to make do with the departure of Gareth Bale.

However, £100m has been spent on this squad over the summer and AVB has been allowed to pursue this project of his for long enough now that his team should not be getting schooled at the Etihad. There can be no excuses for that.

Whatever tactics it is that AVB is intent on sticking to are clearly not working. They haven’t been working all season. AVB is not to be afforded any more time with seriously sub standard performances. Get it right and get it right quick time or else a footballing disaster looms!

COYS!

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