Article by Sean WalshFollow e-Spurs on Twitter!
Anyone else getting sick and tired of these God awful spankings? I know I am. Yes, Danny Rose didn’t deserve a red card and it changed the course of the game, but I doubt we would’ve won anyway. In all honesty, the events will be able to cover up Sherwood’s poor selection.
I get that Tim doesn’t want to rush players back too quickly, but we needed some of those injured players more vs. Man City than against Hull. Dawson and Chiriches always look suspect together (personal opinion), and going up against the most ruthless team in the league certainly wasn’t a match made in heaven. I’ll cut them some slack; the staff’s decision to insist we didn’t need a holding midfielder backfired like Wile E. Coyote’s futile attempts to catch Roadrunner.
Neither Dembele nor Bentaleb are defensive midfielders- don’t give me that ‘but they can do the job’ crap. Physically they could play DM, but their positioning and decision making would be way off. Sandro admitted he wasn’t fit, but Capoue is more than capable of doing that job. Every time City went forward there were so many holes and gaps just waiting to be filled by a man in blue.
Against the small teams, okay, we probably don’t need a holding midfielder against bottom half teams, but City beat the European champions in their back yard for Christ’s sake. We needed a holding midfielder.
Whilst we’re on the subject, Bentaleb was out of his depth. He never should have been played in a match of this magnitude. Toure and Fernandinho weren’t brilliant, but his and Dembele’s pub-player performances hid that.
I love both Gylfi Sigurdsson and Christian Eriksen, but both were very, very poor. In my opinion, they should’ve swapped positions- Siggy as the no. 10, Eriksen in a free role. The Dane has been showing his potential coming in from the left recently, and that really didn’t need changing. Gylfi is pretty useless on the left (Sorry Thor). Anyone remember how good he was at Swansea as an attacking midfielder? Why not utilise that ability? When he gets going, he’s a top passer and has a killer strike, but his ability to be outpaced by a tree means playing him on the left is a big no-no.
I didn’t even think Lennon was playing, but no one else would’ve been better on the right, so…
Adebayor looked really eager in the first half to get one over his old team, but when we were reduced to 10 men, frustration kicked in, resulting in spats with Pablo Zabaleta, Yaya Toure and Vincent Kompany.
It wasn’t a good night by any means, but we have plenty of key players coming back. Vertonghen, Kaboul, Sandro, Paulinho, Townsend and Lamela should all be back soon, but we have to improve if any of them will stay. Plenty of our players are of Champions League standard, so if we aren’t there, they could easily jump ship. Tim’s got to realise we have a fight on our hands.
I realise it’s one defeat, and was against the best team in the league with 10 men, but our attitude looked very wrong. We need winners again.
We’re not out of the race for the top 4 yet, but we need those key players back if we’re going to be serious challengers.
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Yes I agree. I must admit that I have difficulty trying to pick the best team with so many talented players (if all fit), however we looked totally outclassed by City, so much so that it was rather embarassing. Clearly our players are better than that and so team selection and tactics had to be wrong. A holding midfielder was a must. The really worrying thing is that Tim Sherwood still thinks we didn't need one!
ReplyDeleteNo. Totally disagree.
ReplyDeleteWe have been starting slowly under Sherwood.
Cieth have, on more than one occasion, been absolutely unplayable one half and rather easier to handle the other, particularly away from home.
So, there was easily scope for a complete turn-around in the second half. If you think back, that is basically how the game went at the lane last season.
Yes, of course, we all know they could have kept it up.
But the point is - the officials DID ruin the game as a meaningful competition, so we never got to see whether it would have been a momentous come-back (which wouldn't have even needed to have been a comeback if Dawson's totally legal goal hadn't been ruled out by a RA who 'guessed'), 50/50 or an annihilation by Citeh. Guessing based on what 'did' happen 'after' we went down to ten against the best side in the country is futile, at best, and highly prejudicial, at worst.
Oh, and just in case you didn't notice, we didn't have our first choice centre-back and central midfield pairings, as well as Townsend and Lamela - I'm sure that would have effected just about every club in the EPL!
Why am I not surprised that one result like this, which, let's face it, was rendered meaningless by the incompetent officiating, and they are falling out of the woodwork to get on their hobby-horses about how much more they understand about football than Sherwood.