JDY

Think this window will be pretty simple. KdB departs on loan/transfer - Bertrand Traore takes his place in the squad. If Essien stays we buy no one. If he leaves it seems like Guarin is being lined up.

Indeed. I mentioned that before in this thread. He does seem to be getting a lot of little niggling injuries though, the same thing happened to Bale when he was younger.

So classy. Bullet finish!

Absolutely fantastic apart from the dive. Him & Willian provided that injection of pace and willingness to make runs in behind which we were desperately lacking.

Only player that can come out of tonight's match with any sort of credit. Worked his ass off and had a very simple yet effective game.

The only positive to take is that we can't really get much worse in the second half. Terrible so far.

Of course not, but at the same time I think it's way too early to be writing their transfers off as (mostly) wasted money. The Bale money shouldn't even be relevant in response to TC's post about how their spending is one of the main contributors to his high win %. If anything, the points picked up last season has mostly attributed to that, with that % taking a hit this season after poor results.

Great draw for us. Also some other tasty ones. I have a feeling Barca are shitting themselves. City are the best equip English team to deal with Barca's style. As long as they don't go 2 upfront like against Bayern I think they'll go through.

That's actually a fair point. But you also have to take into account that they've had a net spend of only £5m since he's been in charge. It's not like he's spent millions without losing players. He wasn't fired for just missing out on the CL. He was also fired because he kept flirting with the idea of wanting to manage England, only for it to backfire with Hodgson's appointment. AVB actually got more points than Redknapp did when his side finished 4th. Not a case of 'performing worse', just everyone getting better (I believe it was record points for Spurs in a PL season to). I agree that when I've seen them the football hasn't been great. But when you change a team around completely surely you just need time to implement your ideas and get them playing the way you want? Newcastle bought a whole raft of players last January and the same thing happened to them. Poor football, lingering above the relegation zone, and suffering humiliating defeats (0-6 to Liverpool, 0-3 to Sunderland). The football isn't fantastic now but they're certainly 100x better than they were towards the end of last season. I'd like to know where I've said that AVB is a quality manager, because I haven't. All I'm saying is that he atleast deserved time to try and turn it around until the end of the season. How have you come to the conclusion that I'm 'still supporting this guy'? I felt that he deserved more time to turn it around. Had he kept Bale and not signed anyone (still performing how they are at moment), it would be 100% justified for me. Considering the circumstances, and the chairman entrusting him (and Baldini?) with a massive amount of money, I expected him to get more time. Had it been any other manager I would've thought the same, so please stop the patronising comments about buying into the hype surrounding him.

Zola resigned just now. Everyone who has been associated with us dropping like flies!

Highest win % of any Spurs manager, just sold their best player and have changed 80% of their team. Levy proving again that he knows nothing about football and should just stick to the financial aspects of the game. He should've at minimum had until the end of the season

Those two mistakes were shocking. It's not the fact that he sloppily gave the ball away that annoys me (most) there, it's the half-arsed attempt to get back and defend. And I agree with the latter part. It wasn't me that said he's been more consistent than Ramires and Frank this season (if you're mistaking me for someone else), I was just arguing the point about the supposed bad game vs. Schalke. As I said, I thought the first 20 minutes was poor but he recovered to play well. I remember Cahill also had a shaky start but then went on to put in a MOTM performance.

I still can't tell which game you mean. The home or away win? If I recall correctly, I was happy with his contribution when he came on vs. Schalke away. Looked really tidy on the ball, we needed to take a bit of the sting out of the game and Mikel did that perfectly. In the home game the whole midfield and defence was all over the place in the first 15-20 minutes. But after that I thought everyone recovered and played well.

You can't praise Juve for giving Pogba the chance and platform to perform how he is at the moment as it would go against everything you're trying to preach. Juve had a talented lad called Luca Marrone, who like Chalobah, is capable of playing as a central midfielder and as a central defender. Instead of giving Marrone a fair chance what did Juve do? They signed Pogba last season which gave him almost no chance of featuring in midfield. The only opportunities that arose were at CB due to injuries/suspension. And even then, any hopes he had of featuring more in this position were dashed in the summer with Juve signing Angelo Ogbonna. It happens all the time at the bigger clubs.

Successful dribbles in 14(2) appearances (minus last 3 games) = 40 Successful dribbles in last 3 games (Sunderland - Stoke - Steaua) = 36 If he shoots more and becomes consistently good at getting those shots on target he will be incredible.

No doubt you'll have some people claiming 'he didn't take his chance'

Was watching MNF earlier and Jamie Carragher was saying Eto'o is a player that can't hold the ball up/bring others into play to save his life. The 30 minutes or so that Eto'o played vs Stoke must have been the only time he's ever watched him play

Hard to say as he was never given a consistent run in our system (to compare him to the others). But I really doubt he'd be much worse than them

Lovely finishing! I thought he had a good game (only behind Hazard despite scoring the goals). Worked hard but sometimes sloppy in possession, but this was his first game in a while to be fair.

Awful decision from Cech to come out but that doesn't mean the defending cannot be criticized. How was Crouch afforded the time to bring the ball down and get his shot away? Our players were man marking, so someone in there lost his man.

So I put in Andros Townsend as I anticipated a must win game for Spurs & AVB. Not only that but I changed my captain to him. Who did I take out for Townsend? Nathan Dyer. Who did I change as captain at the last minute? Well..

I wouldn't make too many changes. Mikel for Lampard possibly and bring in Walters for Torres. One thing to note is that Huth is out injured which is a big plus. Other than Shawcross, their defence has been chopped & changed quite a lot.

Best performance I've seen from him by a clear distance. Suarez will grab the headlines but Eden was simply unstoppable. Just needs to do this more often!

After that abysmal night vs. Basel he's bounced back with a few top notch performances. I was clapping in the last minute when he was about to go for the shot but his experience led him to corner flag instead. Moments like that can win matches. Remember last season vs. Liverpool when were giving the ball away cheaply and the referee suddenly decided to play over the added time and Suarez scored?