Fabián Balbuena’s goal, was West Ham’s first and came from a free kick which wasn’t defended well by Spurs at all.
West Ham put 4 men along the ‘d’ and it was Moussa Sissoko that was marking Balbuena as Cresswell prepared to take the kick. One must presume that the plan was for the bigger players to defend against the Hammers’ aerial threat.
By the time Cresswell has whipped the ball in, everyone has moved to within a couple of yards of the 6-yard line. Aside from Reguilon who irrelevant to the ensuing action.
It was Davinson that leapt early (too early), and Sissoko doesn’t appear to leave the ground at all.
Just for the record Sergio is 1.78 m, and Balbuena is 1.88 m. So that was hardly Defoe vs Crouch territory. In fact, Moussa blew out in respect of aerial duels in this match, losing out in the 3 his was involved in.
By the time the ball is in the net, Sissoko is bent in half, and Davinson Sanchez looks to see who scored, because he was facing the goal for the entirety of its flight in.
This was a goal that could have been easily denied. Neither Sanchez nor Sissoko did their jobs.
The fact that “we are Tottenham” should be all we need to know that the game is never beyond doubt. We’ve lost games after having a 3-0 lead, on more than one occasion
Thanks for putting this up H it has made me revisit a scene that was too painful and I was going to leave alone for fear of imploding. My take has changed so hands up and this is all imho.
1st goal was an unbelievable cross look at the height. Sanchez got off the ground well but it was too high and fell to the player with Sissoko marking who didnt attempt anything so keep him out of the box from now on.
2nd goal – a brilliant bit of interchange play on the right by them but somebody lost their man (Moura?) and their player was able to cross into an area that always causes trouble. What Krusty was doing I have no idea but their no20 had left his marker (Aurier?) so he would probably have netted.
3rd goal – I can’t find the foul/no foul but it is always Aurier involved remember his gifts against Arse & Newcastle last season. The circumstances were unfortunate I dont like Winks at all but he was a bit unlucky and their player hit a screamer that only came from belief that they could at least draw.
This exposed our soft underbelly more than Everton or Newcastle.
I think it was 3-0 at 81 minutes if he was managing another club he would be quoting Tottenham as a joke. He has been in long enough now to teach them how to defend it was shocking.
Just rewatched the Bale effort – he seems to have lost a bit of pace but I’m sure all will be good with a few games under his belt but I tend to disagree that it was a pen.
Watched it several times and it is hard to stop/start exactly but it looks like the player goes in to him just as he starts going down. As I say not an exact science just looks that way to me.
Still hopeful of 3d and a pot or two but come on Ledley teach them how to defend as if they are warriors and Spam (etc) are coming to their village to rape and pillage.
Get into the (word we don’t use on here).
About the push on bale, we should set up a petition to government, demand wet spam give us every point they get til xmas and also whichever talentless clodhopper pushed him is incarcerated for 2 years. Oh wait, we aint scousers…🤣
VAR just isn’t working.
Thats a penalty and it should have been given. At first I thought it was just a miss by Bale but having looked again the West Ham player literally jumps onto Bale and that is what made him miss. VAR surely should have picked that up?
A back three looks like the best option at the moment for Jose’s approach.
Personally I feel that the way Jose likes to defend and sit deep doesn’t really suit this generation of players. You can be defensively competent by playing on the front foot. All the best teams play that way. Perhaps he’ll recognise this.
These days almost every player on the pitch is a ball player, often including the goalie even. So if you sit deep and invite teams onto you it’s hard to control the game.
Most teams play with two attacking full backs, at least one of the two central defenders bringing the ball out. One of the deeper midfielders generally joins the front four in attacking movements.
So if you sit deep you’re often defending against seven or eight players pressing high. Unless you can get the ball efficiently and quickly turn the situation into a counter attack you are under constant pressure. Winning the ball and doing that is made even more tricky with the opposition’s high press limiting space in that area.
We lost the lead against the Spammers not only because of the individual errors but because we tactically got it wrong and brought out the worst in our team. Is that going to be just in this game or will it become a theme? If it does it will affect our season significantly…
Sorry didnt read the comments then immediately found this yeah like wtf?
We got a point and with more time on the clock we could have lost who knows, but please put me right on the Bale miss, when a player uses his arm to clearly push an opposing player about to shoot, knocking him down in the process is that ok?
Exactly!
Just watched it again. Absolute penalty. The West Ham player flattened him just when he was shooting and that is why he put his shot wide. How as that not picked up by VAR?
The weak links are aurier sanchez and sissoko. Hojberg looking a decent buy, ndombele starting to look the real replacement for dembele. Jose must play a 3 at the back with dier rodon and Toby or Davies. Doherty and reguilon are wing backs so play them as that, and if the two in midfield continue the recent trend we should be solid enough. Plus everyone will be wary of pushing too far up knowing those 3 are lurking so in a way that is a good way of keeping people pushed back. The other lads should be plenty good enough to qualify for the nxt round of europa league and see Stoke off so they have plenty of game time to prove their worth as well and the first team has basically the league to concentrate on. I wont make predictions but given how everyone seems to be defending that isn’t the total disaster it felt st the time. The worst bit is obviously the pathetic way rhem lot celebrated. Go and hate Millwall like your supposed to you mugs
I heard he has a slight muscle problem and at that point we were still 3-0 up.
Ok – the Bale “miss” – how the F was that not a penalty? if you look at the play, just as he goes to hit it, the defenders pushes him. Far more a penalty than the 2 free kicks that led to the hammers goals.
Tanguy coming good, Poch knows a good youngster when he sees one.
Gotta attack more rather than sit on leads, it just doesn’t work these days. You end up giving free kicks in deep areas etc, that was a big part of the problem as the game wore on.
Yeah, Ndombele was a beast yesterday and seems to be getting stronger with every game. His tackling has really improved also, whereas last season he seemed to be limping half the time after robust challenges. He’s now looking like a cross between Moussa Dembele and Kevin de Bruyne in the centre of the park! I agree, in the absence of Lo Celso, we need him to be able to play for the full 90 minutes.
Yes indeed H. Which again, I am sorry to say, puts the attention firmly on the Achilles heel of this otherwise terrific squad, which is our centre backs. As I have highlighted already, with an analysis of every goal we have conceded so far this season, CB is the one egregious weakness of this team and set pieces, in particular, act as the catalyst which exposes this weakness time and time again.
This time it was Moussa Sissoko, acting as an ersatz CB, who was the main culprit, although Sanchez hardly covered himself in glory either on that first goal and then his boneheaded intervention was responsible for the second goal. Only Toby, of the CB’s, was once again blameless for any of the goals and as I mentioned before, has been at fault for none of the goals conceded so far this season.
Ledley is really going to have to earn his corn to sort this shambles out. I agree with Mourinho that the defence has actually improved considerably from ‘open play’, but if you keep leaking like a sieve from set pieces, then all the brilliance of Kane and Son will be for naught. Very frustrating, but on the bright side, we are top scorers in the EPL, so if we fix this defensive issue we will be right up there.
I certainly noticed with Kane, he was almost unprofessional at 3-0 up. V selfish and ‘non fussed’ wasteful.
The only time this stopped is when Bale came on and the entire attack looked obsessed with trying to tee him up.
I certainly noticed with Kane, he was almost unprofessional at 3-0 up. V selfish and ‘non fussed’ wasteful.
The only time this stopped is when Bale came on and the entire attack looked obsessed with trying to tee him up.
We’ll sort it. No need to worry. Goals galore gonna cover it till then.
Max%
For me, we lost control when Ndombele went off. It wasn’t so much who came on it was that he was so strong in the middle. Just a constant obstacle. The sooner he can play 90 minutes the better.
There’s one easy solution, stop giving away soft frees in wide areas so they can swing in balls. Other teams know we’re poor in the air and are looking for fouls. Stop lunging in, stay disciplined, same in the box, stop sticking a leg out.
We can solve the problem with new personnel and more drills on the training ground. Cut down on individual errors and learn to concentrate for nínety minutes. It’s a process as they say and we have to learn or we won’t win the big prizes.
To be fair to Harry that sweet left foot strike deserved a goal.
We had cnuts in this game,the only trouble was they were irresistible cnuts in the first half and casual cnuts in the second half.We have to get the consistency.
Lloris may be a figurehead for what he has achieved internationally but he is no captain.I would have no problem with PEH being made captain.
Seems Mou does too, lets hope he’s the answer then.
Maybe thats the issue allcthatd changed is jan gone 22 yr old replacement, one area that they know no matter how they play they will get another chance next week
I know he’s given away a few pens, but I think he can learn and be better in future. he does most things very well as a CB. No one is perfect but he ticks most of the boxes. Just my opinion but I like him.
3-0 with ten mins to go, the game was beyond doubt, but we are Tottenham!
We still don’t have enough nasty c*nts. Just give the captaincy to Hoijberg now to make sure this farce never happens again. Lloris is damn all use when games require leadership and composure.
We going to have another season where the Argentinians let us down…bringing on Lamela yesterday instead of Moura would of made a difference…
Every year we say we lack cover in multiple positions to compete…for once Levy has addressed the issues – apart from the one player he couldn’t get – and now look…
Trouble is Dier is just as wonky on his day, but prefers giving away penalties to scoring home goals. He tends to be out of position too many times. I think perhaps we should have pushed the boat out for Skriniar if at all possible. Lets hope Tanganga and Rodon can help us.
I think we missed Dier. Sanchez for me is probably toast now. He’s been too shaky for too long. Dier, Tanganga and Rodon look like they’ll be the future.
Sanchez was a horror show from start to finish. Just hoping Rodon can hit the ground running; and we can get a settled and solid back line. If we can sort that out, we can be contenders. Did anyone else notice that Kane became far too motivated on getting his hat trick, rather than putting the game beyond doubt? I’d be surprised if that wasn’t picked up by Mourinho
We routinely do this against free kicks and corners, it’s just basic defending for goodness sake. We seem incapable of defending them, so many examples – far too many to mention.
It’s a case of how many the front line can score to help the defence out. Hardly ideal. What’s particularly worrying to me is that our defence is approx the same as when Mou took over all those months ago, so cannot be blamed on new players bedding in.