Article by David LevyHaving arrived back in the UK on Saturday evening I was looking forward to watching Spurs on my sofa rather than in the middle of a mini rave at a bar during the early hours of the morning in Thailand. Our mini resurgence over the last two weeks had me and my peers feeling guardedly optimistic about playing Liverpool at home.
Not only did I think we would have the bulk of possession but also a new found killer instinct inspired by some better performances in our last 4 games. Clearly that wasn’t the case and what we all witnessed instead was, quite frankly, one of the worst performances I have seen at the lane for many years, one which proved to be the nail in the coffin for Andre Villas Boas, ex-Spurs Manager.
AVB had to take full responsibility for this latest humiliation and there was nothing he could say in his defence. It is one thing to have a mini injury crisis at the back and have to rely on players playing out of position. It is another to not change the way you are going to defend based on the strengths (weaknesses) of the players being brought in to cover.
Why play the high line? Capoue isn’t a CB and Naughton isn’t even of a standard yet that he should be playing in his preferred right back position. It’s not a question of having belief in the players in this kind of situation. It’s about adjusting your team to get the most out of its abilities against each opposition played and this is where we are being let down. Even playing a marginally fit Sandro as a get out of jail player to compensate for the weakened defence was a huge error, one that didn’t need to be made.
Brenden Rogers set up his team to counter every tactic of AVB’s yesterday and we had nothing to counter with in return. Liverpool suffocated our midfield trio, not allowing for any time on the ball and passing around them as if they were invisible. Our play, in comparison, was laboured, unimposing and easy to defend against from the offset. These were all too common a characteristic of a spurs side that is, in its raw form, bursting with dynamic players capable of producing much better performances than what we have generally been seeing.
Sunday’s game epitomised the problems we have seen with our beloved team this season. I have spoken in recent times about the need for our relatively young squad’s confidence to be kept up high and used as a catalyst to bring this team out of their shell, allowing for their natural abilities to shine through. AVB, however, decided otherwise and brought the end of his tenure as Spurs’ Head Coach to an end with no one to blame but himself.
I’m not sure the players would have been able to believe in what he was trying to achieve any longer. They have already had to be picked up and have their confidence rebuilt enough times this season and after being humiliated on national TV once again you could hardly blame them for losing faith.
I had lost mine.
The text to my brother and friend yesterday said so.
It nearly looked as though the faith had gone after 30 minutes. 0 shots on target, 10 men on the field after an hour and no pride anywhere to seen. That performance was a shell of the Tottenham I fell in love with and the removal of AVB after taking the blame for the entire performance was the only thing that could be done. I wish him luck in his future endeavours and hope he finds a way to be more flexible in his future managerial appointments.
Things aren’t all doom for us. We are still in the mix at the top, still in all cup competitions and we still have a squad capable of doing magnificent things. It is now up to Lewis, Levy and Baldini to find the right man to do the job.
Our squad would be tempting for any manager but its slim pickings out there. The Clubs statement on AVB’s dismissal slightly implies that there is someone lined up. As I write this article no one has been named as care taker manager from within the club and we have a rather huge game on Wednesday in the shape of a Quarter Final Cup Tie against West Ham.
I just hope whoever we appoint is capable of pushing us on this season. The team is there, in place and it is a capable team at that just waiting to be moulded into something great, something awesome, something Spurs.
Time to dare to do.
COYS
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If Vertonghen and Vlad were not injured, look at the backup AVB had in defense if those 4 players didn't work... Fryers.. that's it. Naughton was terrible. Dawson had a bad game.
ReplyDeleteHighline was never going to work with these players, but when Paulinho got the red and we were 10 against 11 we never had a chance.
But he had Lamela, Sigurdsson, Defoe on the bench. There were options to take in attack but Holtby and Townsend were not going to change the game.
Let's see how the team responds to this and what happens against West Ham. If Sherwood get's a couple of good results given his relationship with the boss, it would not surprise me if he get the manager job.
I agree with you. By the time we were two goals and a man down it was always going to be hard to come back. I just don't understand why we started with the tactics we did, it showed either naivety or a slight stubbornness with regards to being flexible with his game plans.
ReplyDeleteEither way i am excited for (another) new era. Lots to play for and hopefully everyone will be working towards bringing some pride and exciting football back to the lane. COYS