TOTTENHAM ARE STILL A BIG CLUB!

The Lamela thing is basically what happened with Lloris all over again. He'll be a regular starter one he's had the chance to bed in. Reckon AVB had an eye to starting him on the left against Cardiff but dropping Gylfi after scoring two goals would have sent out all the wrong signals. And it's in the wider interests to keep Townsend in the team for the time being.

Squad balance is excellent at the moment - two players for each position means AVB should be able to rotate within the same system pretty easily. I expect everyone to get plenty of game time, except maybe Adebayor. And making him train with the reserves following his brother's death is probably a mistake, we might still need him.

seven clean sheets from eight games is confusing.

Not really, it's the solidity of the midfield that's doing it. Any two from Paulinho, Sandro, Dembele and Capoue is going to be very difficult for anyone to get through, like a less thuggish version of De Jong/Van Bommel from the Holland 2010 squad. Against Cardiff we were winning possession so far up the pitch, before they got anywhere near Vertonghen and Dawson, it's how we were able to pin them back again and again. Reckon the centre back situation will be okay what with Kaboul and Chvrches anyway.

still true for left, tho whether we'll be playing with a left winger as such seems to be in some doubt.

Chadli, Lamela and Sigurdsson can all play there, and we're not going to be playing high balls from the touchline in any case.

What I've said about solidity overlooks the fact that we've only had to play one team with any real wide threat yet, and that was the Arsenal defeat. I've been impressed with Rose but Naughton just isn't good enough and got caught out several times against Cardiff, and Walker always has a fuck-up in him.

Obviously Eriksen is amazing and Holtby looks more than capable in that role as well. Is this our best start to a Premiership season yet?

We haven't had to play any real long-ball merchants yet either, that's potentially a problem.

Obviously Capoue-Paulinho-Dembele didn't work against Arsenal and is probably unnecessary against most teams. The right balance for a midfield three in the long term is one of Capoue/Sandro, one of Paulinho/Dembele and either Eriksen or Holtby, with Sigurdsson there in an emergency.

None of that is too objectionable

Ah we had 12pts from 15 in 2009 as well.

not sure i can recall spurs having a proper squad before. still hopeful that things might speed up once everyone gets comfortable.

Yeah I mean, second place at this stage of the season with an entirely new front line and most of a new midfield is pretty impressive work.

is it worrying or encouraging that spurs have the most shots on target in the league (34) given the low number of actual goals (5)?

Worrying. Everything is worrying.

dunno if i'm into soldado tbh

As post-arsenal games indicate, Dembele is apparently totally lost when asked to play as one of two advanced CMs ahead of a Capoue/Sandro. Since that game he's played I believe exclusively as one of two CM's behind Eriksen/Holtby and his form has been excellent.

soldado should be more useful if&when spurs start moving the ball quicker

he's had/made chances, just been putting them too close to the keeper. had at least two of those against Cardiff

Soldado's looked better since we've started playing with a #10, his interplay with Eriksen is already excellent.

Ugh that ball from Holtby was sickening

I've just switched on, what did Vertonghen do? The commentators seem outraged in an entirely unconvincing way.

Pulled down big Nick Helenius's shorts in the area. Not a pen, bullshit

What where what

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70101000/jpg/_70101674_911b4778-2f1e-4f00-999a-983c2f628b49.jpg

I meant in general

You have tried to insert a duplicate message.

looks pretty two nilly

3-0 chadli
radio commentators i'm listening to thought that pantsing was the funniest thing ever

Fouls from straight out of a Carry On film don't count, I'm sure that's in the rules somewhere.

Conceding once in nine games is frankly unspurslike.

By the way Darragh if you're still shitting your pants every time Vertonghen goes forward then you'll have issued a fatwa against Chiriches by his third game for us.

Thanks for warning

My departure wasn’t straightforward by any means. It certainly wasn’t a case of walking in and being sacked.In fact, we had previously been talking about extending my contract.

Having had these discussions, I went to see chairman Daniel Levy again. ‘What’s happening, Daniel?’ I asked. He seemed very unsure. ‘Maybe, Harry, we’ve just come to the end.’

He was the first person to ring me up to wish me luck when I took over at QPR, and even on the night I left Tottenham, the car phone rang and it was Daniel.

‘Harry, let’s keep in touch,’ he said. ‘I hope we can still be friends.’

I thought, ‘He’s got some front. He’s just sacked me and now he wants to be mates.’

But we have stayed in touch. I’m not one for grudges.

thread to get over a breakup for those who are lolbanned from tottenham hotspur

all these excerpts are brilliant. the england one yesterday too was an amazing cocktail of humblebrags and humblebarbs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24425709

There have been rumours flying around for a while that Levy didn't actually intend to fire Redknapp at the start of that summer, I guess Harry got cocky and pushed the chairman too far. Given the collapse he'd just presided over he had no real right to.

Redknapp, who was manager of Tottenham when the decision was made, said he wanted Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers - then with Swansea City - to be his assistant.

"My thinking on Brendan was this: if he can do it with players from the lower leagues at Swansea what can he do with Rio and Terry or Rooney and Gerrard?" he added.

This kind of shit is so dumb, Rodgers got results at Swansea and now at Liverpool because he got to work with those players day in day out.

Still waiting to see what he can do with Gerrard tbh.

Darragh - moving Townsend to LW to accommodate Lennon on the right? Y/N?

Erik Lamela £30 million well-spent

Lamela will turn out to be better than any of them but he is 21, relatively slight, and still adapting to the Premiership and looking nervous. I think it's fine to wait a while with him.

Yeah I was being disingenuous really, he's even come out and admitted that he's finding the change difficult to handle atm. I'm just impatient to see the guy, I'm extremely excited to see if he catches fire. Along with Eriksen he seems like the sort of player who could plausibly be a deal-breaker when it comes to Spurs emerging as legitimate contenders over the next few years

agree re lamela
unsure how chadli will work out

slight proviso- i think lennon is better on the left cutting in, his finishing/passing is better then his crossing.

so i'd have them each on their opposite side cutting in.

rose being so much better on the ball than walker would suit that i think?

not bad to have 3 or 4 wide options again tho, no complaints. lennon always suffers lapses in form and injuries so townsend as deputy would still see plenty of games if the squad were to be utilised correctly.

must admit i've not seen a lot of the action in full tho due to new commitments, what's the impression of chadli/paulinho, or is it too soon to say really.

i want sandro back :(

every time i remember we have adebayor i get angry/sad

it's not often tho tbrr

Think Paulinho would look better if he was fielded with Sandro rather than Dembele

Lamela will turn out to be better than any of them but he is 21, relatively slight, and still adapting to the Premiership and looking nervous. I think it's fine to wait a while with him.

― Matt DC, Friday, 18 October 2013 15:37 (44 minutes ago) Bookmark

idk, depends on the while. if they don't hit the ground running soon enough you're treading water, ie not qualifying for cl / selling superstar once he ripens after three years / rebuilding again. £100m in one go is supposed to break the cycle

imagine avb's probably a bit naffed off with andros becoming england's andros and fucking with his rotation game

ebsm

i'm gonna have to learn as a supporter that we now have to pick these things on a game-by-game basis based on opposition- i don't really remember us having a squad that rotated on anything other than exhaustion/injury before (except for maybe the keane/defoe/berbatov/mido moment some years back before a settled forward line emerged).

maybe this kind of angst is nothing new to supporters of...well i cant say 'big clubs' can i i mean we a re a big club says so on the title.

im not sure that picking to suit the opposition is an area that AVB has excelled at tho tbph. his central three always seems neither conservative enough (dembele and paulinho don't really provide _that_ much effective cover to the cb nor attacking enough (eriksen alone picking holes is already proving not enough imo).

imo, a few goes at picking dembele sandro paulinho against midfields where we're likely to be up against it and a few trios of holtby eriksen and sandro or dembele holding where we're likely to struggle to break down a recalcitrant norwich or w/e would be more than welcome.

don't wanna put too much on lamela as yet. not even sure where it's assumed he'll play.

xp i would actuall yimagine so, and lol at ebsm

Paulinho has been excellent I think, although way better playing in a more advanced role. Deserves to be playing alongside Sandro/Capoue and instead of Dembele.

We need to start rotating more really, would be happy with starting against Villa with Andros + Lamela and then bringing Lennon on as a sub. We do need to start giving Lamela some gametime, think it's confidence as much as everything.

Time to work Adebayor back into the squad I think, if he's mentally there, which is a pretty massive 'if'.

ebsm

England's Brave Space Monkey?

oui

agree that ade and jd should be match fit for us til next summer

nngh should be kept

Let's take the #AVBOUT bandwagon discussion here. FWIW I agree with most of this:

http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/tottenham/id/1582?cc=5739

No

On AVB
plus Spurs so far

Not so sure Lamela is the answer the author seems to think he is, and I'm also unsure about Dembele vs packed defences. Was amused to see that the average distance Townsend takes his shots from is over 26 yards out!!! AVB get him to stop. Seriously.