Home » Tom From East Upper: ‘We Flunked It’

Tom From East Upper: ‘We Flunked It’

By The Boy -
A most welcome Guest Blog from our man in the East Upper.

They say attack is the best form of defence, and that’s exactly what Manchester City did yesterday.

Whilst we didn’t play the best game of our so far very impressive season, City threw everything at us from the start. Guardiola has built a reputation throughout Europe on performances like this, and has never been beaten by the same manager in any one season before. And you could see why. 2 nil down, draw 2-2.. It’s these results that convince some supporters that we’ve finally put our ‘Spursyness’ to bed. However for me, this was the complete opposite.

In the past 2 seasons we’ve been given golden opportunities to take advantage of truly glorious opportunities; Arsenal at home (top for a brief, fleeting moment) and West Ham away (great chance to breathe down Leicester’s neck) last year are 2 obvious examples. I see yesterday’s match in the same way. Simply put, we flunked it.

It sounds harsh, but whichever way you try to sugar coat it it’s true. To achieve big things you must win these massive, season defining games. Don’t get me wrong, City and Chelsea at home were great examples of how far we’ve come under Mauricio Pochettino’s leadership and I believe we will get there, but we need some reinforcements.

City were better than us yesterday and when you face quality opposition, occasionally they will be better than you – that’s football. It would be easy to say Poch “got it wrong, we could’ve played 4 at the back, why didn’t Son start?” Hugo made 2 seismic mistakes, but how many key saves has he made so far this season? City have spent a fortune on quality players and all were there to see yesterday.

I totally understand our transfer policy and realise until we have our new stadium we’ll have to make do with ‘punching above our weight’, but if we are to realise our ambitions sooner rather than later we must go headfirst into the transfer market and buy that special, creative player that we so desperately need. £40m+ on someone who can grab a game like that by the scruff of the neck and produce a moment of magic.

Our team is missing a big leader in the final third of the pitch, a Silva, a De Bruyne, a Hazard – all we’re missing is that sprinkle of fairy dust.

We could, and perhaps should’ve been 4 or 5 down at half time yesterday. But we weren’t. We’ve picked up 5 points from Liverpool and West Ham at home, and City away in games that if we were being totally honest, we deserved nothing from. Whichever way you cut it up that’s improvement, as well as the honest truth. Hard fought, resilient, occasionally lucky – Tottenham!!

Improvement is the order of the day in my book. That’s what’s important. We have a great manager and a great group of players. This young team are getting better, more confident in their own abilities and we must not underestimate our achievements this season so far.

We are 7 points better off than this time last year – we’d actually be top if we had the same points after 22 games in 15/16! OK, so at this moment we’re still not quite able to crack the whip when it’s really needed and as the Heineken commercial used to say, “it’s not ready yet” but it will be if we loosen the perse strings to bring in that bit of something special this month.

Averaging the most amount of shots on goal per game, 2nd best defence in the league, joint 3rd highest scorers, Eriksen 2nd highest amount of assists, Kane a goal away from highest goalscorer so far with Dele Alli not too far behind.. Fine margins.

14 games left, 42 points left to play for. There’s plenty of time for further improvement yet, as much in the boardroom as on the pitch.

———-

CHELSEA:

Liverpool (A)
Arsenal (H)
Manchester City (H)
Manchester United (A)

TOTTENHAM:

Liverpool (A)
Arsenal (H)
Manchester United (H)

LIVERPOOL:

Chelsea (H)
Tottenham (H)
Arsenal (H)
Manchester City (A)

ARSENAL:

Chelsea (A)
Liverpool (A)
Manchester City (H)
Tottenham (A)
Manchester United (H)

MANCHESTER CITY:

Manchester United (H)
Liverpool (H)
Arsenal (A)
Chelsea (A)

MANCHESTER UNITED:

Manchester City (A)
Chelsea (H)
Arsenal (A)
Tottenham (A)

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