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Fimbo
Member
I thought olsson easily earned another start. At times in first half there was simply nobody available down the line so getting his pass away was not easy.
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RhythmicTheory
New Member
I think so to, Olsson for once had a half decent game, although I could see what you mean about end product zlf, he was definitely fouled for the 3rd.
Pinto, ill reserve judgement when he actually had some cover ahead of him but he definitely should get tighter for the crosses, howson was woeful till the last 30 mins.
The team was so concerned about confining the space for Kane and Ali to run into they forgot about the wings in the first 20 mins.
splutcho
Moderator
I make that four straight losses after rolling over in the FA Cup while in good form. This always happens.
Scott
Active Member
Just back from the game (tongue in cheek) we were dreadful.
Rudd - 7 couldn't do much more than what he did, all he did was pick the ball out of the net
Pinto 5.5 - is he a footballer? cant throw, dreadful first half, looked decent in the second
Klose 7 - took a while to find his feet, had a solid second half
Bassong 6 - few dodgy moments but overall not too bad
Olsson 6 - unsure how he got man of the match, made a few good tackles, passing was awful, not helped by Jarvis keep drifting inside.
Tettey 6 - Battled well, attacking was appalling
Mulumbu 6 - Ditto Tettey
Howson 7 - started off really really *bleep*, shouldn't be played on the right EVER. showed why he is center mid, lots of tackles and good attacking
Jarvis 6 - looked fucked when he came off, AN had obviously told him to drift in from the wing towards the box, god knows why, Olsson left helpless on countless occassions
Naismith 8 (MoM) My man of the match, battled tirelessly, lots of organisation and commanding. He will be great for us.
Mbokani 7 - spent a lot of the time on the floor, did his job well, won loads of headers
Jerome - 5 he's gone right off the boil
VOO - 6 God knows why he took Naismith off for Vadis, still a mystery to me, very confusing, did okay when he came on though.
Overall a dreaful night at FCR against a good Spurs side. Hopefully pick up the pace against Villa on satdee. COYY
Rudd - 7 couldn't do much more than what he did, all he did was pick the ball out of the net
Pinto 5.5 - is he a footballer? cant throw, dreadful first half, looked decent in the second
Klose 7 - took a while to find his feet, had a solid second half
Bassong 6 - few dodgy moments but overall not too bad
Olsson 6 - unsure how he got man of the match, made a few good tackles, passing was awful, not helped by Jarvis keep drifting inside.
Tettey 6 - Battled well, attacking was appalling
Mulumbu 6 - Ditto Tettey
Howson 7 - started off really really *bleep*, shouldn't be played on the right EVER. showed why he is center mid, lots of tackles and good attacking
Jarvis 6 - looked fucked when he came off, AN had obviously told him to drift in from the wing towards the box, god knows why, Olsson left helpless on countless occassions
Naismith 8 (MoM) My man of the match, battled tirelessly, lots of organisation and commanding. He will be great for us.
Mbokani 7 - spent a lot of the time on the floor, did his job well, won loads of headers
Jerome - 5 he's gone right off the boil
VOO - 6 God knows why he took Naismith off for Vadis, still a mystery to me, very confusing, did okay when he came on though.
Overall a dreaful night at FCR against a good Spurs side. Hopefully pick up the pace against Villa on satdee. COYY
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Lavanche
New Member
Now that I have defended Olsson I have to defend Pinto as well. He had very bad start for the game, but after that he played ok and if you give him 5,5 you should clearly give 5 for Bassong, who made more errors and his contribution yesterday was poor. Both Pinto and Klose seemed to struggle finding the rhythm at the start and as we all knew Pinto isn't fastest fullback so he will struggle against faster players if we don't double the wide areas.
But after Kane and Rose had got past him few times he coped quite well and the reason he wasn't tight in crosses was that without help and too close to player they would have got past him many more times than what they now did. I still struggle to understand how Alli can win a header against Bassong from one of those situations where Rose managed to cross good ball in.
Anyway Pinto is player who will need time to adapt. In Croatia the tempo is probably at least twice slower and players are four times worse than in premiership and now two games against teams that are specially know to play very high tempo and have budgets of 5 Norwich City's so no wonder if he did seem out of place specially at the start of games.
So even thought his start in Tottenham game was very poor I think people judge him a bit too much. Martin and Whittaker have looked out of place against lot worse teams and this is league they have played few seasons already.
But after Kane and Rose had got past him few times he coped quite well and the reason he wasn't tight in crosses was that without help and too close to player they would have got past him many more times than what they now did. I still struggle to understand how Alli can win a header against Bassong from one of those situations where Rose managed to cross good ball in.
Anyway Pinto is player who will need time to adapt. In Croatia the tempo is probably at least twice slower and players are four times worse than in premiership and now two games against teams that are specially know to play very high tempo and have budgets of 5 Norwich City's so no wonder if he did seem out of place specially at the start of games.
So even thought his start in Tottenham game was very poor I think people judge him a bit too much. Martin and Whittaker have looked out of place against lot worse teams and this is league they have played few seasons already.
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GJP
Well-Known Member
Very generous.
hogesar
Well-Known Member
Well. First of all a diabolical refereeing performance which will be slightly overlooked because our poor performance means you could class it as irrelevant - although funnier things have happened and had he not given the Spurs pen or at least given one of our shouts, things could have different as unlikely as it looked.
Pinto didn't offer anything more than Martin or Whittaker except for a small amount of pace. Olsson gave it a really good go on the other side but was caught out several times. Both Howson and Jarvis were too central and the fullbacks were constantly exposed and Pinto certainly couldn't cope.
Howson was wasted on the right, again. He looks better on the left if he needs to be shoehorned into a position - being able to cut in gives him a little bit more time on the ball and opportunities to play one two's and dribble without being reliant just on his fairly limited pace.
Admittedly I found it a difficult match to watch from the Barclay and started to lose interest in all honesty so this could be wrong but I'm not sure why we didn't see Redmond and i'm pretty sure Howson has become undroppable even though he's offering nothing. Jarvis wasn't great but his crossing and ability to make some room for a cross was far more useful than Howson running up and down the line tirelessly yet us still getting horribly exposed defensively down that side. It also seemed like we couldn't create any space whatsoever in the middle of the park so Redmond stretching it a bit on the right might have made it possible.
As for Klose, hopefully he improves and you'd expect him to, but I didn't see him offer much more than any of our other CB's. Certainly the mistake where he lost the ball between his legs and Kane was clean through would have cause boo's and cursing towards Martin.
Finally, not sure about the love in with Rudd. Haven't been from the start yet understood why he was in the team and why he wouldn't have been dropped up until now. But simply blocking shots in the Premier League isn't really good enough. He needs to get them clear from immediate danger, if thats turning it round the post or using more strength to get it further from the goal. Kane loves to take pot shots and having it rebound centrally down the penalty area with our defenders like Bassong who's reactions are not the best is suicidal.
So a bad game but claims for AN to go etc are so far wide of the mark it's untrue. In the other thread someone mentioned Lambert kept us up with a weaker squad. I'd argue the bottom 8 teams in the Prem were also weaker, whilst we were riding the crest of a wave etc etc so don't see it as comparable.
Pinto didn't offer anything more than Martin or Whittaker except for a small amount of pace. Olsson gave it a really good go on the other side but was caught out several times. Both Howson and Jarvis were too central and the fullbacks were constantly exposed and Pinto certainly couldn't cope.
Howson was wasted on the right, again. He looks better on the left if he needs to be shoehorned into a position - being able to cut in gives him a little bit more time on the ball and opportunities to play one two's and dribble without being reliant just on his fairly limited pace.
Admittedly I found it a difficult match to watch from the Barclay and started to lose interest in all honesty so this could be wrong but I'm not sure why we didn't see Redmond and i'm pretty sure Howson has become undroppable even though he's offering nothing. Jarvis wasn't great but his crossing and ability to make some room for a cross was far more useful than Howson running up and down the line tirelessly yet us still getting horribly exposed defensively down that side. It also seemed like we couldn't create any space whatsoever in the middle of the park so Redmond stretching it a bit on the right might have made it possible.
As for Klose, hopefully he improves and you'd expect him to, but I didn't see him offer much more than any of our other CB's. Certainly the mistake where he lost the ball between his legs and Kane was clean through would have cause boo's and cursing towards Martin.
Finally, not sure about the love in with Rudd. Haven't been from the start yet understood why he was in the team and why he wouldn't have been dropped up until now. But simply blocking shots in the Premier League isn't really good enough. He needs to get them clear from immediate danger, if thats turning it round the post or using more strength to get it further from the goal. Kane loves to take pot shots and having it rebound centrally down the penalty area with our defenders like Bassong who's reactions are not the best is suicidal.
So a bad game but claims for AN to go etc are so far wide of the mark it's untrue. In the other thread someone mentioned Lambert kept us up with a weaker squad. I'd argue the bottom 8 teams in the Prem were also weaker, whilst we were riding the crest of a wave etc etc so don't see it as comparable.
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GJP
Well-Known Member
Surely we've been riding the crest of a wave under Alex Neil?
Ultimately he has to be judged on this season and not last.
Ultimately he has to be judged on this season and not last.
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Lavanche
New Member
I personaly think we were very lucky under Lambert and even thought his style worked somewhat alright and games were "exiting" most likely one season more and we would have gone down. Also as said midtable teams didn't have this kind of funds back then and there were more than one team having monetary problems to keep their squad up and running.
I think Alex has played more mature football with us than what Lambert did, but of course he has to be judged by the end result. He is young manager and he will make mistakes like in Spurs game, but he has shown that his tactics evolve and that is always a good thing.
I think Alex has played more mature football with us than what Lambert did, but of course he has to be judged by the end result. He is young manager and he will make mistakes like in Spurs game, but he has shown that his tactics evolve and that is always a good thing.
Din
Well-Known Member
Comfortably outplayed by the form team in the division. Spurs were superb but we didn't do anything like enough to pose them a threat or to stop their creative players. I didn't really expect a victory here but even so it's disappointing.
That said, it doesn't help when the man in charge of the game is completely incompetent. The referee made some diabolical decisions, 3 of which, were massive. The decision to award Spurs a penalty was wrong. Not only is there minimal contact at best, but Ali has already taken the shot by the time 'contact' is made. Nine times out of ten Rudd collects the ball and play continues, but for whatever reason Kevin Friend felt it was a foul. That decision was made to look even more stupid by the fact that later on in the half when Naismith is trying to collect the ball to go through on goal, he is barged to the ground by Wimmer, not getting anywhere near the ball, and yet the ref gave nothing. Truly unbelievable. It was all compounded then by the fact that Spurs go onto score a 3rd even though Eriksen clearly goes through the back of Olsson to get the ball in the build-up. Every 50/50 seemed to go Tottenham's way and all-round Kevin Friend had a shocker. On a different day with a less biased ref we certainly don't lose this 3-0.
Have to say I thought Alex Neil's substitutions could've been better. Odjidja for Naismith I thought was the right move, but Jerome for Jarvis didn't work at all. Jarvis had been doing alright, although admittedly did look tired, but bringing Jerome on for him didn't really work. Jerome was played out on the left hand side where he offered practically nothing, and surely bringing Redmond/Hoolahan on at that point would've been the smarter move? I also thought at 2-0 down with 15/20 minutes left we should've gone for it a bit more. I would've liked to have seen Mulumbu taken off with Howson moved into the middle and Redmond bought on down the right, just to offer a little more attacking threat. The fact that he didn't do that was disappointing.
Villa on Saturday is absolutely massive. Our relegation rivals are picking up points and if we don't start soon then we will have a big job on our hands.
As for the players:
Rudd - 6/10. All in all didn't do a lot wrong. Made a good save from Eriksen only for his defence to let him down.
Pinto - 5/10. Struggled at times in the first half, in particular when Kane drifted out to the left wing. More solid in the second but overall not brilliant.
Klose - 7/10. Solid enough debut. A couple of iffy moments but overall he looked good. Nice to hear him say after the game as well that he was disappointed with his performance, suggesting he is capable of better.
Bassong - 5/10. Didn't react quick enough to stop Ali scoring the first goal. And did exactly the same later on in the half which lead to the penalty being (incorrectly) given. All in all not a good day for him.
Olsson - 8/10. Deserved man of the match. Was the only player trying to make things happen going forwards, decent enough defensively as well.
Howson - 6/10. Didn't look comfortable on the wing and offered no real attacking threat. Didn't do too badly though considering he was out of position.
Tettey - 7/10. Did an alright job up against Dembele. Made a stupid challenge at the end of the game though which means he'll miss the Villa match.
Mulumbu - 6/10. Looked a bit off the pace and nearly gifted Spurs a goal when Kane ended up hitting the post. Wasn't too bad but not that impressive either.
Jarvis - 6/10. I liked his directness and he worked hard on and off the ball. His end product though often lacked and he looked knackered by the hour mark.
Naismith - 6/10. Unlucky with a header that went just wide, but didn't really get into the game too much and was rightly taken off in the second half.
Mbokani - 7/10. Won a lot in the air and showed some nice link-up play with Naismith. Had very limited service though so wasn't really able to pose much of a threat.
That said, it doesn't help when the man in charge of the game is completely incompetent. The referee made some diabolical decisions, 3 of which, were massive. The decision to award Spurs a penalty was wrong. Not only is there minimal contact at best, but Ali has already taken the shot by the time 'contact' is made. Nine times out of ten Rudd collects the ball and play continues, but for whatever reason Kevin Friend felt it was a foul. That decision was made to look even more stupid by the fact that later on in the half when Naismith is trying to collect the ball to go through on goal, he is barged to the ground by Wimmer, not getting anywhere near the ball, and yet the ref gave nothing. Truly unbelievable. It was all compounded then by the fact that Spurs go onto score a 3rd even though Eriksen clearly goes through the back of Olsson to get the ball in the build-up. Every 50/50 seemed to go Tottenham's way and all-round Kevin Friend had a shocker. On a different day with a less biased ref we certainly don't lose this 3-0.
Have to say I thought Alex Neil's substitutions could've been better. Odjidja for Naismith I thought was the right move, but Jerome for Jarvis didn't work at all. Jarvis had been doing alright, although admittedly did look tired, but bringing Jerome on for him didn't really work. Jerome was played out on the left hand side where he offered practically nothing, and surely bringing Redmond/Hoolahan on at that point would've been the smarter move? I also thought at 2-0 down with 15/20 minutes left we should've gone for it a bit more. I would've liked to have seen Mulumbu taken off with Howson moved into the middle and Redmond bought on down the right, just to offer a little more attacking threat. The fact that he didn't do that was disappointing.
Villa on Saturday is absolutely massive. Our relegation rivals are picking up points and if we don't start soon then we will have a big job on our hands.
As for the players:
Rudd - 6/10. All in all didn't do a lot wrong. Made a good save from Eriksen only for his defence to let him down.
Pinto - 5/10. Struggled at times in the first half, in particular when Kane drifted out to the left wing. More solid in the second but overall not brilliant.
Klose - 7/10. Solid enough debut. A couple of iffy moments but overall he looked good. Nice to hear him say after the game as well that he was disappointed with his performance, suggesting he is capable of better.
Bassong - 5/10. Didn't react quick enough to stop Ali scoring the first goal. And did exactly the same later on in the half which lead to the penalty being (incorrectly) given. All in all not a good day for him.
Olsson - 8/10. Deserved man of the match. Was the only player trying to make things happen going forwards, decent enough defensively as well.
Howson - 6/10. Didn't look comfortable on the wing and offered no real attacking threat. Didn't do too badly though considering he was out of position.
Tettey - 7/10. Did an alright job up against Dembele. Made a stupid challenge at the end of the game though which means he'll miss the Villa match.
Mulumbu - 6/10. Looked a bit off the pace and nearly gifted Spurs a goal when Kane ended up hitting the post. Wasn't too bad but not that impressive either.
Jarvis - 6/10. I liked his directness and he worked hard on and off the ball. His end product though often lacked and he looked knackered by the hour mark.
Naismith - 6/10. Unlucky with a header that went just wide, but didn't really get into the game too much and was rightly taken off in the second half.
Mbokani - 7/10. Won a lot in the air and showed some nice link-up play with Naismith. Had very limited service though so wasn't really able to pose much of a threat.
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