Analysis of the goal conceded vs Stoke

Whelan’s goal.

Oh dear. When are we going to learn? More defensive mistakes, another goal conceded. We were very unlucky not to get at least a point from this game but, as the cliche goes, if you make mistakes like this at the top level, you are going to get punished.

Again, it starts from a fairly innocuous situation. With Lennon off the field, we are a little short, but when Fuller receives the ball, he is only just over the halfway line.

Palacios makes up ground absolutely superbly to get back and help AssouEkotto. Notice the eventual scorer, Glen Whelan at this point, to the top right of the shot.

Palacios works hard to help AssouEkotto out, and it still seems like the situation is under control. Whelan has begun his run off Fuller here, hoping that he can work some space for a pass.

A couple of weeks ago, after the Bolton game, I accused Palacios of Zokoraesque defending – he seemingly hasn’t learnt his lesson. Having tracked back over half of the length of the pitch, and being so close to seeing this situation out, he has two options:

1. Keep shadowing Fuller with AssouEkotto, and make sure that we clear the ball.
2. Track the run of Glen Whelan and ensure that if Fuller makes a yard, he has limited options.

He chooses option 3 – stand still, do nothing, let the play unfold.

AssouEkotto is beaten for strength, and it is undoubtedly poor one-on-one defending from him – a shame because he otherwise had a decent game.

But if you look at this shot from the other angle, AssouEkotto forces Fuller to over play, and if Palacios HAD continued his tracking, he could have cleared the ball at this point.

Alternatively, he could have followed Whelan, who now has so much time and space when Fuller picks him out. Bassong is caught in two minds – in fairness, once Benoit is beaten, he has to come across to ensure that Fuller doesn’t have a free run at goal.

Dawson throws himself at Whelan, who probably should be helping the ball on to Tuncay, now unmarked. Instead, he launches an unstoppable drive.

I have to take some responsibility for this goal – as Whelan was coming on, I said “I’ve never rated Whelan“. So for that, I apologise!

Palacios has to take much of the blame for this, though. Yes, AssouEkotto is beaten one-on-one, but Fuller is a lot bigger and stronger than him and let’s not forget that he already had his work cut out once Lennon (who had switched to the left) had to go off. He needed help from Wilson, and he didn’t get it.

Join the conversation

  1. bang on windy. i posted same on coys in response to those saying wp had a good game. really bad play by wp. really exposed bae
  2. What you didnt see is the 5 mins before where Wilson covered most of the pitch chasing down the Stoke left back, centre midfield, right midfield while the rest of the team held there positions. Ok, he had done 95% of it, so should have given that extra 5% but there were 9 other players out there not chasing down covering!!
  3. Assou Ekotto was left sitting on his arse, end of. Cant defend for nuts.

    However the real reason we lost is that Rednapp keeps playing that useless twat Keane. Four goals against the mighty Burnley and thats it. Only contribution other than that was to wear the grass out. Not a clue how to play with another striker, done absolutely nothing since his return from Liverpool. If the truth be known wasn't much good before that either. He had a good 12 months alongside Berbatov, I bet that was difficult. I reckon I could have got 20 goals playing alongside him. Other than that a useless brainless Pikey. Picking him is as good as starting with 10 men. Why oh why can Rednapp not see that his best starting pair is Defoe and Crouch? I guess the Pikey has something in his contract that says he has to play. Rednapp is not that stupid. Therefore the Pikey has to go
  4. 2nd comment - yes, Palacios was like a man possessed in general for the last ten. But he was very poor on the ball again, and you can't overlook this error just because he worked hard.

    3rd comment - remember, this is one of our own we're talking about. Had you considered why Defoe wasn't playing this week?
  5. What isn't mentioned is that Palacios originally made a challenge but didn't win the ball. The Stoke player passed to OUR left but JENAS did not challenge. Palacios ran past Jenas to challenge that player. The ball went further left and with no Lennon, palacios chased toe ball to the next Stoke player. Jenas just jogged back and made no attempt to catch up and mark the Stoke player on the edge of our box. If palacios hadn't been trying to make up for jenas, he would have been able to funnel back to the edge of our area and possibly intercept. So palacios should in no way be blamed. Jenas was the lazy and/or unintelligent guilty party.
  6. I can't remember the lead up you mention, so can't comment. I realise that you can't judge players entirely on an isolated incident, but I don't see how you can say Palacios is blameless here.
    He'd done the hard bit - he was back in position, and just needed to make a decisive decision. The fact is that he didn't - he stood still and watched the move unfold.
  7. Well said Windy. I didn't really notice it at the game, but when I watched again on Sky it was quite obvious that Palacios had suddenly switched off. Having said that, I am not too suprised as he had to work tirelessly all game making up for Huddlestone's lack of mobility.
    By the way, I wondered how long it would take for someone to come on here blaming Jenas. After all, as far as some so called Spurs supporters are concerned, he is responsible for everything that goes wrong for Spurs. In my view, if Jenas had been playing from the off yesterday, we would probably have won. We were just too ponderous and, Lennon apart, didn't have anyone who could pull the Stoke defence around with pace, until Jenas came on.
  8. Palacios switched off? Yes he did, but he at least tried to help, when Krancjar was just watching the episode. Criminal.

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