Analysis of the goal conceded against Newcastle (10/11)

Again another disappointing game where to be honest dispite going 1 down early we should have beaten them! First of I believe avb is the right man for the spurs job!! let's not forget the talent he can attract and is highly respected internationally... Evidently we need to bring in more talent!!!!! But the problem is he has bought like for like players which means competition is high and also I think that creates selfish players i.e Townsend !! Who would rather go for the glory and shoot rather then feed the team a create for saldado just trying to secure his spot rather then care about the team I couldn't give a toss whether he plays for England this guy is not better then lamela who I think is technically better in the last third of the pitch and I just can't understand why he doesn't play!!! £30million !! In order for him to settle he has to play the games, just as he gave paulhino the games he should of done so for eriksen and lamela from the start as I believe when they gel this will be spurs great threat!! Siggy is not good enough!! People screaming for Defoe ! I don't think so we need to strengthen in jan for sure !! The way this going we won't get top four, coz our players are more concerned with getting in the team then playing as one! Take out Townsend and his selfish big head and play lamela and Lennon on the wings with eriksen in the middle behind saldado !!!

I am seriously depressed. We have the best squad for years but I see no possibility of success while AVB is in charge. Sorry Windy I just rate AVB less week by week. His team selection and freezing out of players defies sense. Gomes has been frozen out so when we are missing Lloris we have a keeper who is incapable of playing in the same style the defence relies on. Friedel is too old, he lacks mobility and should not be playing at this level. No BAE, also frozen out, so we had to suffer week after week of Naughton showing just how bad he is at LB, until even AVB has had to admit defeat and play the excellent Vertonghen there. If Sandro was fit to be on the bench he HAD to start and from his 45 minutes he was fit and showed it with another excellent display. Dembele and Palinho continue to show that they don't work together, neither wants to hold, but AVB persists in playing them together. With a midfield with Tiote we needed some physicality so Holtby had to start for Eriksen. Thursday night saw a largely poor performance from Eriksen yet he is rewarded with a league start. Thursday night also saw an outstanding performance from Lamela, who is rewarded by - nothing - a place back on the bench. And as for the striking situation, it's a bit of a disaster. Ade is frozen out and whatever promise Kane shows gets no reward at all, not even a place on the bench. Adebayor would make the whole team look different, a striker who can hold the ball up would provide balance. And as for inverted wingers don't get me started, or the lack of a plan B, or Defoe on his own upfront or with Soldado. I could go on but I'm just too depressed. When Laudrup was appointed to Swansea I thought WOW. I need some wow at the Lane - soon.

AVB must never leave Sandro out in a premier league game, unless he is not fit. Also was at the game today, and it was Frustratingly slow boring football to watch. Not happy with AVB of late, another glorious chance to climb the league lost. The man needs a plan B when things are not working out, and not leave changes late on in the game.

Ok, when we concede like this, I drop back to my general theory of football. Goals come from mistakes. Even the best players playing for the best teams make mistakes. However, when you have a weak spot in your team, this means that mistakes from _other_ players will have catastrophic consequences. As you point out, the flow of this play was: a) Dembele losing the ball multiple times b) Chiriches loose pass (I'd argue about this, but lets go with it) c) Paulinho weakly losing the ball d) Friedel too deep So as soon as we saw the team sheet and that Lloris wasn't playing, we know we'd have a problem. Did that make Dembele have the worst 45 I've seen him play in lilywhite? I don't know, but I'm reasonably certain that we wouldn't have conceded that goal if Lloris had been playing. Mind you, it's possible it would have been a straight red and a penalty for his last ditch tackle on Remy. And TBH, I think the worst of the mistakes in conceding the goal was Paulinho - he had these options: 1) win the ball and drive forward 2) take out the ball and the man to clear the danger (maybe concede free kick) 3) give up the ball but just stay goal side and defend 4) make a weak tackle, lose, and get stuck the wrong side When I play football (for 'fun'), I notice that most players will commit themselves to tackles, always try to win the ball. It's great and very British when it works, but when you don't it generally means the other guy is basically through on goal. And it's why professionals don't just dive into challenges all the time. Paulinho should have known that the only thing worse than losing the ball in that situation was losing the ball and being stuck the wrong side. BUT, even though he made this stupid mistake, if we had our first team out, he probably would have been ok. _THIS_ is one of the few differences between us being a title challenger and struggling to get 4th. The other one is having a striker who gets one chance and scores one goal (like RVP did today).

You are certainly right about not making top 4. I would go futher & say we won't make top 10. We can't score against anyone at home. 99% of Kruls saves were bread & butter today. Truly incredible. "Oh but teams park the bus". Yeah right. City score 7, Liverpool score 4 at home every week,Saints scored 4 against Hull. I would love to watch our training sessions. I would bet a fortune they don't work on (ever) -Shooting practice -Corners -Any set pieces -Passing & moving forward quickly. All that clown (who got Chelski 6th place) trains them to do is pass sideways, backwards, sideways, backwards very slowly. Zzzzzzzz. AVB thinks 65% possession gets you points!!!! I predict a finish between 11th & 17th place. We have City & United next. We won't get 1 point. Not a chance. We won't score 1 goal & I predict heavy defeats. Last season would have been the same without Bale too. Absolute shambles!!!!! The end will be when the Spammers beat us again on Dec 18th. Then it's bye bye AVB. God willing!

AVB is making seriously poor decisions and is worrying me. sandro / kaboul on the bench? Surely it was worth bringing Lamela on for 20 mins given his MOTM performance midweek?

Made them look like Brazil as much as their kits did.... Massively sloppy goal to concede and one of a number of incidents that suggested a collective lack of confidence in the system and its productivity. If Sandro wasn't fit enough to start, then he shouldn't have been on the bench in my opinion. A poor choice by AVB to leave him out the starting line-up for the first half as the midfield was clearly disjointed and that goal would not have happened had the beast been there instead of Paulinho, who I'm really beginning to feel isn't mobile enough to play a dynamic role in central midfield, at least at home. If I recall to last season, I remember that the duo of Sandro and Dembele really excelled and I don't think we've seen this partnership at any stage in the league this season. I do think that AVB is conscious of keeping the big stars happy, which is why he may not have experimented with this yet but unless he starts adopting a system that produces tangible results, then it will be more than just one or two players that he needs to 'man manage'. After all, the players are worth a lot more to the club than the manager these days. That's the harsh reality of professional football. Windy, where do you stand on the whole Soldado thing? I think the guy is obviously lacking confidence. Is it a lack of confidence in his teammates? himself? English football? the manager? the system? Would you bring Adebayor back into the frame? I think that that however AVB deals with these issues will determine his success this season.

Under previous managers we used to come out of the blocks with pace and power putting opponents on the back foot and invariably scoring the first goal. Now we start slowly, applying the crablike tactics of passing the ball sideways and backwards with no real penetration into the other half. AVB must surely see from this match alone that putting opponents under real, intense pressure is a must. Not every visiting team will have a keeper that plays the game of their lives. Starting slowly and allowing opponents to settle doesn't work and making Dawson the focal point of orchestrating our attacks is not the way. The ball must be moved forward quickly and with purpose through the midfield, or with pace and power down the wings and crossed into their box. The second half today showed we can do this. But why only after going a goal down!? Dembele and Erikson have gone completely off the boil and Siggurdson today was a luxury. Defoe looks like he's sulking and Naughton is a fish out of water at left back, Lamela should have started with Lennon as backup and we badly missed Holtby's 110% energy and commitment. Sandro is immense and must play more often. Kaboul was also impressive today and that should be better recognised. All is not lost but it will be soon if the tactics don't change.

If 2 of the 20 shots on target went in, we wouldn't be talking like this. Agree with Lamela needing to come on, would push andros to left side as he can't be as selfish from there.. Didn't understand the Defoe sub.. The positive? With all these tactical errors and poor results & the team yet to really gel we are only 5 points off first. Chin up

When are people going to realise that Dembele is very poor, as was said on a forum the other day a "liability". Saldado cannot play up front on his own, and I can not believe we paid £26M. Naughton is NOT a LB. Ade is worth a punt and Lamala and Holtby need to play more. Siggy just does not look consistent / good enough. In AVB I see arrogance and a refusal to accept he is making poor decisions. We need a quality LB, CF, and a scoring creative midfielder. Rant over... COYS

This defeat could be put down to political correctness as I think Loris would have saved it, also I think it's time to have a plan B or ditch the type of formations cos everybody knows how to play against us.

Quite simple! Lloris Walker Kaboul jan Rose (when fit) Sandro Lamela eriksen Lennon Ade & soldado

I've come to the conclusion that the reason we didn't win was not that Krull had a great game, but that we lack confidence. When you have confidence you will try for the corner and not the centre of the goal. To have confidence at WHL, AVB has to win the crowd and he'll do that by playing like the second half. I think that we need Capoue and Sandro in midfield to allow the front four total freedom against the stronger teams as well defending the back four. Against weaker teams only Sandro should be the DM and we should play two up front: Ade/Kane with Soldado. AVB needs to drop the crap about competition for places. He's supposed to be tactical and that means being proactive and reactive.

Windy please can you enlighten us on the level of football you have played? And sorry FIFA doesn't count. Your tweets and commentary are absolutely absurd.

While I thought the last one was team error rather than keeper this one certainly was one Lloris would probably not have conceded. Freidel should have been intercepting that one right on the line, Lloris would have got it with his feet about two yards further out. We never seemed to be first to the ball, at any point in the match, against Everton we were there or there abouts both halves, any scrappy balls could be reliably challenged and won, in the first half we didnt have to they just fell to our feet, not the case against Newcastle even when we were in the ascendency, so sloppy passing and trying to pass one too many people was never a good idea, as shown by Dembele in the build up to the goal. I don't like the Dembele-Paulinho partnership, it should be one or other with Sandro or Capoue, I don't mind which of the four play, but don't match Dembele and Paulinho (I don't know how Sandro and Capoue would do, I suspect too defensive) But there it is, you have two positions with two competing players, not four, that should make it easier for manager and players alike to know what needs to be done to play, easier than deciding the three in front of them anyway. Eriksen's deadballs were bad but my gut feeling right from the moment they scored was to please stop passing to Townsend, it was the kiss of death for every move. I like him but he needs to learn to view the game from above, he doesnt seem to get the flow of the match besides run-trick-shoot, when he does get a cross in it's where he thinks the players are, not where they actually are, but then we have the other problem of only paulinho having any thought for pressuring the center of the box. Having said that, I dont actually think we played so badly yesterday, despite what other commenters have written some of Krul's saves were absolutely fantastic, there's a good chance that those same chances in the exact same position would have garnered one goal at least. The worrying side is that we are no longer a team that concedes a goal takes it as a wake up call, now we just seem to switch to panic mode.

Windy, I have to say.. Your blog is the bee's knee's. Keep up the good work. Also I enjoy your blogs on the youth team, it's second to none.

I do Windy. The guy is a 24 karat genius plonker.

I found it strange that you think that plonker is a compliment. Is it "street"?

For those who haven't read this, this is a very interesting article. http://spursstatman.com/2013/11/13/18-lessons-villas-boas-his-team-and-the-fans-have-to-take-on-board/

How early and incisive was that pass from Goufran to Reme. The kind of ball we rarely see at Spurs and which Soldado is crying out for. Lloris would have spotted that ball earlier and been further out to start with. Brad neither held him up nor got a hand to the ball. Chiriches almost did his desperate retrieving act again. But Reme is very quick and decisive. Think the video helps understand your analysis of the still frames.