On the last blog there were a good few moans and groans about my analysis of the Manchester United win. Accusations of a begrudging acknowledgement that we’d won.
To underscore the points made on that blog, Tim Sherwood proceeded to field a 442 away to a bang in form side playing 451. As the teams took to the field all I could hear was Comfortably Numb playing as an ear worm. As the second goal inevitably went in, the melody changed to the theme tune of 1970’s TV show, M*A*SH.
The fragility that lurked beneath the win at Old Trafford came to the fore last night. The inability of United’s midfield to capitalise was replaced with an Arsenal midfield that licked its lips each time it received the ball.
It is easy for chancers like me to brand Tim naive, so perhaps it might help to spell it out. This is best done by a] watching the game and b] listening to what the boss said afterwards.
They outnumbered us in the middle of the park but we outnumbered them out wide. They can’t have it all ways. I think we were fine.
We didn’t lose the game because we were outnumbered in the middle of the pitch.”
This is an astonishing piece of fakwittery. A blind man with a bag over his head could see that Dembele and Bentaleb was utterly inadequate.
The plan to “chance it” – we’ve done this tactically in every game under Sherwood – and to hope to get the ball into the strikers was a disaster. We managed just 3 shots that were on target.
A lot is made of systems – 4-4-2, 4-3-3 or whatever you want to call it… It’s about passing the ball to your own team and keeping hold of it because when you lose the ball you are always going to be out of shape – otherwise you are going to be a rigid, boring team.”
Proof were it needed that this guy is more obsessed with not being mistaken for the last bloke, than he is focused upon common sense.
The rest is pseudo Redschnapps drivel:
It’s about funnelling back in, shuffling across. I don’t think we were overrun in the middle of the park. I think they did all right.
What in god’s name does that actually mean, in any language? But of course, he won’t get slated for this “run around a bit gibberish” as he’s a good ol’ British lad. He understands the game, football’s in his blood. It’s just a pity that there isn’t enough of this precious oxygen giving fluid, servicing his miniscule brain.
The deafening alarm bell here, is that this ex Blackburn midfielder without a Pro License, genuinely can’t see what he’s doing wrong. He comes out with lines like “keeping the ball better” but he doesn’t set out his sides to embrace that. Ball retention is something his methodology actively despises.
“A lot is made of systems” he says. Jesus wept. Yes, mush. Because without a credible template, without order, you have chaos.
Did anyone with even half a brain watch that game and think we weren’t chaotic in our play? I was watching Arsenal as well as us. They had “a system” and they didn’t look like a “rigid, boring team”, Arsenal looked good. Arsenal looked very good. They played just as many games as us over the holidays. Arsenal’s injury list was as long as ours was. Arsenal had a strategy thought out by a grown up.
Our off the ball play under Sherwood is static. Perhaps that’s another element of the game that doesn’t feature on the mental radar of the man who’s giving the fans what they want, giving the players a new voice to listen to. I’m not speculating, rather sharing what we’ve all seen.
The refusal to play Kapow! was insane. I don’t believe that’s overstating it. Why would anyone with a scrap of intelligence believe that we could simply take a punt on 2 centre mids (one a 19yr old) being sufficient?
Walcott’s first failed attempt came from came from lost possession in the middle of the park. Walcott’s second failed attempt came from came from lost possession in the middle of the park. Walcott’s third failed attempt came from tcame from lost possession in the middle of the park.
Carzola’s goal came came from lost possession in the middle of the park. Walcott’s fourth failed attempt came from came from lost possession in the middle of the park. Rosicky’s goal came from lost possession in the middle of the park.
Based upon the way he set up his side, the substitutions he made and his post match comments, this was a pattern that Tim neither saw emerging or was able to acknowledge immediately after the game.
I can’t be done sifting through the wreckage, player by player. Bentaleb however, needs to have a proper word with himself. His feigned stamp places him firmly in the same bracket as that other no mark spiv, Livermore.
Livermore, some might recall, was another pedestrian footballer who thought being undisciplined was somehow unacceptable. We can’t bemoan the like of scum like Charlie Adam and yet smile with pride at the likes of Bentaleb.
Some reading this will denounce me as some Victorian matriarch, but I’ve zero interest in this type of behaviour. It looks cheap and amateurish. More at home in the aftermath of punch up, in some 1970’s flat roofed nasty council estate pub. As classless as those that threw coins at Walcott when he was taken off.
If Spurs had been a racehorse last night, you’d say that the handicapper had got to her.
Next up is Palace who look more sincere under Pulis. Swansea away and a chance to play a side 4 points off the relegation zone. Then Manchester City II: The Search For Spock.
If Sherwood was a better idea, then he should be well placed to demonstrate this by the time we host City on the 29th of January. At home. Indoors. Spurs will be benefitting from the return of a number of missing key players, at that point.
If he’s incapable of demonstrating he was Levy & Co’s better idea, then he needs to discreetly advise the current chairman that the position of first team coach is above his pay grade.
It’s not ideal, but we need to get in someone, anyone who can manage effectively at this level.
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