Spurs Away Post Match 3-1

[inckley fox]

We weren't hard done by. We got the rub of the green as regards refereeing decisions and simply didn't take our chances - three for Barnes, a penalty, headers for Maguire, Gray, Chilwell. Then there were the usual self-inflicted wounds. Maguire defended poorly for one goal, Pereira had a shocker for another, Chilwell's distribution - at the death - was the difference between a final chance for us and the icing on the cake for Spurs. 

 

So you can have no complaints, not unless you also want to strip ourselves of credit for grinding out points in games like Man City or Everton, when the opposition had more of the play. As for the bigger picture, we can't beat good or bad sides, or even fourth tier sides right now, home or away, and are on our worst run in four years, so the grumbles are understandable.

 

But all that aside, I thought there was massive promise in that performance. Ndidi looked transformed with the pressure to spread play taken off him, Tielemanns was very effective. It was brilliant to see us ticking over properly in midfield, and encouraging to see such a young side look like a match for title-chasers. It reaffirmed my feeling that something is very close to clicking beautifully into place.

 

On the critical side, the foraging full backs still leave us hugely exposed. It's very exciting to watch them burst forward but they've surrendered a lot of possession in useful areas over the past few games and struggled to be in a position to deal with the consequences. Maguire continues to have a couple of lapses in him per game, and in terms of shape, it still looks as if we could surrender one of our three attacking midfielders (how often have we seen two of them, let alone three providing much of a creative threat in a game?) in favour of a back three. I'm not sure you can have a solid defence and play such advanced full backs unless there's ample cover. I also felt Ghezzal struggled to make an impact, and Barnes - while doing well to get in the right positions - should obviously have buried one of his chances. Gray continues to be one of Puel's less justifiable eyebrow-raisers at centre forward.

 

Overall, though, I'd be positive. And I agree wholeheartedly with the commentator who said that, watching Leicester recently, there's scant evidence on the pitch of them not playing for their manager.

[fox in notts]

Great display today. Didn't deserve to lose. Any moaners out there get a grip.

[whoareyaaa]

Shearer and Jenas speaking a lot of sense

[shailen_patel4]

Don’t understand how puel still gets blamed today, when it was the players who missed the chances.

[Dave Fishwick]

1 hour ago, st albans fox said:

I think we got the rub of the green from the ref today .......just shows how diff perceptions exist on the same performance 

agree with this, I thought the Son "dive" was a penalty to be honest

[Dave Fishwick]

Ghezzal shouldn't be starting ever again for me. Not even against the likes of Newport

[Nickfosse]

1 minute ago, Dave Fishwick said:

Ghezzal shouldn't be starting ever again for me. Not even against the likes of Newport

Interesting. The man who who could have kept us in the cup if it hadn’t been for a handball penalty.

[Stoopid]

Jenas got it right (for a Spurs loving Forest fan). Vardy's exclusion was bizarre. Especially against a seriously underpowered Spurs. 

Didn't buy the 'options' argument for playing 'Dimi'. More like Claude showing Vardy who the boss is.

Probably cost us the game - along with our usual woeful finishing.

Does yer bleeding head in!

[vanity]

5 hours ago, SuperMike said:

We lost.

The why matters.

[Nickfosse]

13 minutes ago, Stoopid said:

Jenas got it right (for a Spurs loving Forest fan). Vardy's exclusion was bizarre. Especially against a seriously underpowered Spurs. 

Didn't buy the 'options' argument for playing 'Dimi'. More like Claude showing Vardy who the boss is.

Probably cost us the game - along with our usual woeful finishing.

Does yer bleeding head in!

I’d suggest that “showing Vardy who the boss is” or any other player for that matter, is very important for the future of the football club, whoever the manager is. 

[MPH]

2 hours ago, daddylonglegs said:

Only just logged on - I can’t believe how negative people are being about today. I completely understand the calls for Puel to go after games like Southampton, Newcastle etc.

 

But today, with an outfield team of an average age of what, 23(?), went to Wembley and dominated the game. 

 

For us to score one time today is absolutely criminal. A fair result would’ve been a comfortable away win. We’ve got a great run of fixtures coming up, it will be interesting if we can be confident against these teams and play like we did today.

 

will you at least admit it made a difference for us having a striker on the bleedin pitch!?

[MPH]

1 hour ago, shailen_patel4 said:

Don’t understand how puel still gets blamed today, when it was the players who missed the chances.

 

 

Because he set out to go Away to spurs without a striker in the starting 11?

[MPH]

 

[Jattdogg]

The only post match comment  that matters is mine.

 

FUK OFF SPURS!

[Nicolo Barella]

7 hours ago, Jon said:

Gutted about this. Hearing Spurs fans on social media laughing about it, saying we finished 2nd today in a 1 horse race. :-(

Social media is a gutter, don't worry about it.

[Nicolo Barella]

Ghezzal was fine

[Dahnsouff]

Anyone who cannot see that apart from finishing, we played well yesterday is pushing their own agenda, in my opinion anyway. 

[Arkie Bennett]

9 hours ago, Blue ROI said:

A rousing performance that on another could well have been a win but it's another brave defeat.

 

Possibly our most respectable loss of the season because we played quite decent at times. Our workrate was admirable throughout but just the finishing as ever was our downfall. It's cost us around 10 more points that we could easly have had by now.

 

Tielemans was outstanding. Dragged N'Didi's display up with him.Barnes missed a lot of great chances but played well.  Yes Ricardo was at fault for the second but no one was Junior Lewis/Musa level bad.

 

In fairness to Spurs they battled right through aswell and were clinical when the chances came their way.

 

It's better that we lose a game like today with nothing to play for than this time 3 years ago.

 

There's a lot of similarities to 2014/15 in that we play well but don't have the wins to show for it. Claude has been a tad unfortunate that he hasn't got results of late but not having a formidable attack is a huge issue the last 2 seasons.

 

Looking at the team today it was really all change. Only 1 of the title winning X1 started today (Kasper) so going to a top 6 side lie Spurs and giving a good account of ourselves gives us optimism for the future. Surely too strong to get bogged down in a relgation battle too you could argue.

 

Need to bring that level of erm intensitee to Palace and Brighton now. Easier said than done!

Those fine margins that Pearson referred to. We are a couple of decent players away from becoming a real force. Even now, if we can start putting the chances away we are very soon going to give someone a hiding.

[Babylon]

Before...

 

"It's not the results it's the style of football".

"Id rather finish lower down the league and play well".

 

Now...

 

"Stop sugar coating it by saying we played well, we lost"

 

I hope we can stop this falacy about it just being about style or entertainment, because our style of late has actually been good and the games entertaining.

[Dahnsouff]

Careful, you are pushing some outers into a francophobe corner...

[st albans fox]

6 hours ago, Nickfosse said:

I’d suggest that “showing Vardy who the boss is” or any other player for that matter, is very important for the future of the football club, whoever the manager is. 

this group of players has never ‘downed tools’ for their manager. There are plenty of illustrations at other clubs clearly where this has happened. 

 

i would argue that that there are other ways of showing a player who is in charge than benching him without a proven alternative (which is detrimental to the club). If this is the only sanction that the manager can find then perhaps man management is an issue ...... 

 

if we had proper options up top then I wouldn’t be replying to you on this as we would have won yesterday and everyone would be happier. We’ve all had situations like this at work ...... there are always choices. making the group suffer (including the supporters) isn’t a good choice imo. 

[Foxhateram]

13 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Before...

 

"It's not the results it's the style of football".

"Id rather finish lower down the league and play well".

 

Now...

 

"Stop sugar coating it by saying we played well, we lost"

 

I hope we can stop this falacy about it just being about style or entertainment, because our style of late has actually been good and the games entertaining.

As I said yesterday I've been Puel out for most his tenure. But our last few performances, despite being losses, have given me hope that he can finally change the style of play to suit these players and this league.

 

But it's taken a long time for that to happen, for over a year we have been lethaegic and slow in our build up play. 

 

I stand by what I said. Entertainment and quick paced football (which I guarantee will bring us far better results in the long term) over boring safe football that actually didn't get results anyway. 

 

I'm now on the fence, but he doesn't help himself at all with decisions like leaving your top scorer on the bench, then watching chances go begging as your make shift strikers put them all wide/ straight at the keeper. Vardy would finish Barnes' second half chance. 

 

I want it to work. It's close I think. Is he the right man to fill what is missing? I'm not sure.... But I'll stay open minded while our chairman backs him. 

 

Come on Claude, be brave and stick at this new style, but for god sake, don't alienate your top players, you need experience as well as youth. 

[Babylon]

3 minutes ago, Foxhateram said:

As I said yesterday I've been Puel out for most his tenure. But our last few performances, despite being losses, have given me hope that he can finally change the style of play to suit these players and this league.

 

But it's taken a long time for that to happen, for over a year we have been lethaegic and slow in our build up play. 

 

I stand by what I said. Entertainment and quick paced football (which I guarantee will bring us far better results in the long term) over boring safe football that actually didn't get results anyway. 

 

I'm now on the fence, but he doesn't help himself at all with decisions like leaving your top scorer on the bench, then watching chances go begging as your make shift strikers put them all wide/ straight at the keeper. Vardy would finish Barnes' second half chance. 

 

I want it to work. It's close I think. Is he the right man to fill what is missing? I'm not sure.... But I'll stay open minded while our chairman backs him. 

 

Come on Claude, be brave and stick at this new style, but for god sake, don't alienate your top players, you need experience as well as youth. 

Vardy was on the pitch when Barnes missed the sitter. Him being there doesn't mean suddenly everything falls to him, others still need to be able to finish.

[AKCJ]

10 hours ago, Ashley said:

Bit like Pearson and Claudio then yeah? 

??

[SuperMike]

8 hours ago, vanity said:

The why matters.

Why?

Cos Spurs scored three and we scored one.

Cos Puel decided to bench the only player who can score for us.

Cos, basically, this side has forgotten how to win - loss after loss after loss - confidence totally drained by an inept manager who is completely out of his depth.