Explain This One Please Ref?
The Christmas fixture congestion has been in the news and
a league table has been published regarding how long each team has got to play
its three Christmas and New Year games.
Needless to say – we’ve been shafted with 3 games in 6 days, Wednesday,
Saturday, Monday. Chelsea for example
have Monday, Saturday, Wednesday, so an extra two days rest for the 2nd
and 3rd games. Fair isn’t
it. We have Spurs at home today followed
by West Brom on Saturday who will have had an extra days rest and Everton on
Monday who will also have had an extra days rest. Good old level playing field brought to you
by the Premier League and Sky. Cheers.
Spurs – we beat them last year at White Hart Lane at the
end of the season when they were on the beach but usually we get stuffed by
them, usually with us contributing greatly to our own downfall with a shocking
back pass or calamitous defensive error.
We have returning people of course today with Mauricio Pochettino and
Big Vic and Spurs have been decent this season without tearing up any
trees. They are however firmly ensconced
in the top 6 of the league in this season of two distinct divisions within the
Premier League.
Spurs players I don’t like (when they’re playing for
Spurs) include Danny Rose who is a good player but a horrible little shit and
that’s a description that could be applied to Dele Alli as well. Then there’s Jan Vertonghen who is a complete
thug and our old mate Toby Alderweireld – fantastic footballer but like Koeman,
pretended to be an honourable man but turned out to be nothing of the sort.
We change a few from the Bournemouth game with Romeu returning from suspension in place of Reed and JWP replacing the injured Clasie. The only other change sees Davis start ahead of Hojbjerg. Spurs are as you'd expect aside from Alderweireld being injured and replaced with Dier.
We tear into them from the kick off – Boufal has a run
and beats a player before laying it offto Bertrand who is trashed by Big Vic.
Free kick to us and up steps JWP with a perfect in-swinger and up goes Virgil
above Vertonghen and nods it past Lloris for 1-0 before Spurs have touched the
ball. Get the fuck in there and another
£5 million gets added to the made up figures that the papers are spouting about
his transfer fee.
Spurs are clearly rattled and we keep up the pace. Vic tries to play out of defence in exactly
the way he did for us when we all shat ourselves and he gives it away and José
and Davo both have shots blocked. We
eventually work it down the left with Davo and Cedric before Redmond has a dart
and hits a cross shot inches wide of Lloris’ far post. It looked a fuck sight closer on the replay on
the big screen than it did at the time. More
great play as Berrtand megs Walker and he’s off, a low cross and the ball gets
half blocked in the middle and Vertonghen gets a boot to it ahead of
J-Rod. This is an interesting challenge
to say the last from the thug. When you
see the replay he clearly sticks his hand in J-Rod’s face and scratches it, in
the same way he did to Fernando Torres a few years back. Vertonghen is a horrible fucker.
Spurs finally get a foothold and start to pass it
about. We halp them by sitting back and
letting them do it. It’s infuriating as
we’re virtually running backwards all of a sudden like someone has sounded the
retreat. We have the back four and the
wingers, Boufal and Redmond are also back.
The midfielders aren’t getting near the Spurs midfield and it’s horrible
to watch. After a minute or so, Spurs
work it wide to Sissoko whose cross, hits Redmond’s back and loops over Fonte
and falls perfectly for Dele Alli to nod into the top corner. Bollocks.
One shot, one goal, large slice of luck with the cross. You have to ask why Redmond was in the right
back position with Cedric inside him.
As the ‘back 6’ formation has failed to keep us in the lead,
we inexplicably decide to keep playing that way and it’s all Spurs. We try and play out and lose it and then it’s
full scramble defence. Romeu covers for
Virgil who is upfield but no one covers for Romeu and so Eriksen has a free
shot from the edge of the box which he balloons. There’s almost a fucking nightmare as Big Vic
twinkle toes into the penalty area and past Virgil but José knows the shit he’s
going to get if Vic scores so throws himself in the way.
We just need to get to half time at 1-1. J-Rod is not getting a sniff of the ball up
front and when Boufal gets it, he’s so deep that when he beats someone, there
is no one he can pass to so he has to beat the man again and then either loses
it or gets crowded out. Still, we make
it to half time all square and surely Claude is going to sort this shit out.
He doesn’t. Well,
if he does then no one is listening as it’s all Spurs again after the restart
with us really not doing much to stop them, paralysed with fear. It’s easy as you like as a Walker chip over
the top is hacked behind by Fonte and from Eriksen’s corner, Romeu loses Kane
who crashes a header into the near top corner for 2-1. No chance for Fraser, shite marking and this
is horrible.
We plug away for another ten minutes without any
conviction at all and it gets exciting when Walker trashes through Bertand and
we get a free kick in a decent area. Jwp
tosses it in, it’s headed away and Spurs break through Sissoko, a good ball and
Alli is clear on goal. Redmond is back
and in a flurry of arms and legs, Alli hits the deck as per usual and Mike Dean
has his opportunity and it’s a penalty.
There’s not too many complaints and no Spurs players are waving
imaginary cards but you that the ref won’t be finished and sure enough after a
bit of a delay, red card. Fair play to
Harry Kane for leading Redmond away from the ref and off he went and up stepped
Kane for the penalty to surely kill us off but the Saints support erupts into
laughter as he smashes it miles over and I mean miles. The replays show that a fucking great divot
of earth came up from his standing foot and actually lifter the ball up an inch
which means his striking foot just ballooned it. I’m only surprised that the cunty little ref didn’t
order a retake.
To be fair, we actually respond a bit. Claude decides against freshening it up and
we go 4-4-1 with JWP right and Boufal left.
It’s not really achieving much and Big Vic is enjoying himself and
having a shot from the edge of the box which Fraser shovels over. Rose then tees up Eriksen again and this time
he smashes an effort against the bar. Finally
Claude decides that he’s allowed to make subs according to his rotation
document for the next two games and on come all three of Tadic, Hojbjerg and
Long to replace Boufal, Davis and J-Rod.
I can’t imagine any of the three departing players will be missed much
as Boufal has been too deep, Davis has just been muscled out of everything and
J-Rod has only had about 5 touches of the ball.
JWP has obviously only been left on for his free kicks and corners as he’s
be woeful in open play.
Hugo Lloris is very sportingly keeping us interested by
buggering about with his clearances.
From one the ball gets presented to Hojbjerg who tries to find the empty
net with a long range left footed effort but all he does is pass it straight to
the keeper. He at least got a shot away
which is more than Tadic managed when presented with a similar shanked
clearance. Spurs make a substitution and
the only reason I’m mentioning this is because Dembele went to trot off then
turned round and went to the ref. This
wasn’t just a quick handshake but almost a high five. Whatever it was it was fucking odd.
Long has done fuck all in the 15 minutes he’s been on and
he’s on his heels and losing the ball when Hojbjerg tries to find him. Spurs break again and a ball left flicks off
Romeu and kindly falls to Son who is through against Fraser and he makes no
mistake to bury us and 3-1. Three
minutes later and JWP gets totally manshamed by Rose who dribbles forward
before finding Alli who produces a really calm finish past Fraser and into the
corner. 4-1 and the exodus that started
at 3-1 becomes a stampede. I’m staying –
the 10 on the pitch have tried their hearts out but the damage was already done
and Spurs are just too good for us, especially a man down.
Even though the game is gone, a couple of Spurs players
manage to confirm my reasons for having a low opinion of them. Firstly, Vertonghen gets involved with Long
for no reason at all and picks up a yellow card and then Alli decides that at
4-1 up in the 93rd minute, with a very pissed off Saints side, it’s
a good idea to do some showboating so I really enjoyed the fact that Romeu
decided to kick the diving little showboating cunt up in the air. Needless to say, Alli got all pissy about it. Don’t be a twat then. Thank fuck that’s over. I’m kind of resigned about it really, they
were far too good for us, the referee didn’t help but at the time (from up the
other end) I could see why he got the red card out and we’d have lost anyway.
This wasn’t a game of two halves, more a game of three
thirds.
In the first third which lasted the opening 20 minutes,
we were superb, 1-0 up and battering them.
We were on the front foot and bringing the Bournemouth 2nd
half display to a team who are of a much higher standard. We had them rattled and there was only one
team who looked scoring the second goal of the match
The second third started with a bit of Tottenham
possession and us dropping deeper, playing the 6-3-1 formation and a lucky
deflection on a cross giving Alli the equaliser. Then we persisted with 6-3-1 until we were
2-1 down and Redmond got sent off. We
lost the match in this third of the game, before the sending off happened.
The final third of the game post red card was better
because it had to be. Players like Romeu
and Fonte suddenly woke up and we looked like a team again, only to get picked
off on the break to make it look worse. The
red card meant we lost 4-1 instead of by a smaller margin but it doesn’t
obscure the fact that we completely handed the initiative to Spurs in the
middle third of the game.
Claude echoed what I’ve said about the good opening 20
minutes and then bad until the red card.
Where I have to disagree is him saying that it was dead once the red
card happened. No it wasn’t or it
needn’t have been. A few will point at
the fact there was a triple substitution and that showed intent but did it
really? It was like for like subs. Hojbjerg for Davis, Tadic for Boufal, Long
for J-Rod. I remember playing Wimbledon
at home years ago and they had a man sent off at 2-1 down and they took off a
midfielder, brought on a tall striker and played a 4-2-3 formation, missing out
midfield altogether and just launching long balls. They beat us 3-2. Why not really go for it? Take Davis off, stick Maya on, bung Virgil up
front and launch it. OK, it probably
wouldn’t have worked but why not – doing the same things and expecting
different results sure as hell isn’t going to work. Even without my ‘Virgil up front’ scheme,
Redmond should have been followed down the tunnel by Boufal with Shane Long
coming straight on to at least stretch the Spurs defenders. Were we saving the subs to the 70th
minute so as not to tire them out for the West Brom game or was it just a case
of the manager being too defensive minded?
A bit of both methinks.
What the f*ck was going on from the 20th
minute until the red card?. Our back
four were stretched the width of the penalty area, Boufal was to Bertrand’s
left, Redmond to Cedric’s right and our three midfielders was five yards in
front of the line of 6 with J-Rod standing in another post code on his
own. Spurs just passed it around in
front of us with so much time. We gave
Victor Wanyama, a player who we know inside out, time on the ball. He’s not the best if he’s rushed so get into
him and he’ll cough up possession. We
know this but we stood off. They worked
it wide, cross, deflection, header, goal.
Easy. You can’t let teams who are
better than you just play – they will score eventually. You have to unsettle them, you have to make
them play under pressure.
The 6-3-miles-1 had another problem and that was
J-Rod. He’s not a striker who is going
to hold the ball up for a few seconds to let others get near him so why play that
way and expect him to do it? The ball
goes up to him, Spurs win it back, away they go again passing it about . Easy.
With our wingers playing at right and left back we could never get out
and our midfield was right on top of the back 6. Davis and JWP were completely ineffective and
not physically strong enough against Wanyama and Dembele and not quick enough
to get away from them. Romeu was off the
pace in the first half, always arriving at where the ball had just been moved
on from rather than getting there earlier and making the tackle. In short, it was absolute shit.
The referee – Mike Dean.
He is clearly bent and favours Spurs.
Statistically it’s proven and today just underlined it. It’s harsh to give a penalty but once he’s
given it then the red card is necessary and even if he’d given a free kick then
Redmond would still have had to walk.
There was definitely a foul in there so there you go. The problem for me is the high five with
Dembele. He must know that that looks
horrendous – he’s already sent a player off and given a contentious penalty so
having a special handshake with a player is not good form. As for Dembele – shake hands with the ref at
the end of the game like everyone else you twat.
I think that overall, this season is proving what an
anomaly last season was. Last year we
managed to finish above Chelsea and Liverpool but this year has seen the Big 6
move on another level. Chelsea and
Liverpool are clearly better and you could argue that all of City, United,
Spurs and Arsenal are better too. The
rest of the division can all beat each other but getting any points at all
against the top 6 is going to be much harder this year than last.
Next up is West Brom, a team near the top of our division
within the Premier League. Hopefully we
won’t bring our ‘scared to death’ tactics to this game and play to win it for
90 minutes.
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