Jase

Tottenham take strong squad to Azerbaijan for Europa League tie despite clash with Chelsea looming on Sunday

This.

Fact - 11 of our last 15 goals in all competitions have come from set piece situations.

Yes. Spurs are unbeaten since the opening day loss at United and Leicester have only lost 2 of their last 22 league games.

Is anyone's else avatar appearing erm...smaller than usual? EDIT: Never mind. Problem fixed.

The former - http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/20753-ucl-qualification-permutations-and-combinations/?p=1180085

Nope. The first tiebreaker in the H2H record if 2 teams are level on points is the number of points collected from the two matches. So a draw with Porto will mean they have the better H2H record against us because they got 4 points while we got only 1.

Yup. So, Dynamo Kiev MUST win to qualify, which they likely will. Chelsea v Porto is basically the do-or-die game.

Looked average in defence again. Lost out on a few individual battles and got caught out of position on several occasions. But that cross for Oscar's goal though...

Only 4 posts in here so far while the post-Maccabi Tel-Aviv thread is going into overdrive mode because of the permutations...

You are wrong there mate. If we draw with Porto and Dynamo Kiev beat Maccabi Tel-Aviv, then all 3 teams will have 11 points and a mini-league between the 3 (Chelsea, Porto, Dynamo Kiev) will be created to decide who qualify for the last 16. If that turns out to be the case, then Dynamo Kiev and Chelsea will go through. The H2H rule only comes into play if 2 teams have the same number of points.

Matchday 6 permutations: We can afford to lose and still qualify if Dynamo Kiev fail to beat Maccabi Tel-Aviv but that's unlikely...

It's been unlocked.

Tottenham vs Chelsea PRE-MATCH DISCUSSION AND LIVE CHAT 2015/16 Premier League Match 14 29th November, Sunday, 2015 White Hart Lane 12:00 Kick Off (UK time)

Tottenham 0-0 Chelsea POST-MATCH DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS 2015/16 Premier League Match 14 29th November, Sunday, 2015 White Hart Lane 12:00 Kick Off (UK time)

Seriously? I didn't even criticize Mourinho's decision to play Kenedy at LB. I can understand why he did what he did. I was merely responding to Henrique's point about him being capable to play in that position. And anyway, Mourinho's decision to use Kenedy at LB was because he thought Norwich would play 3 at the back and that he would give us more impetus in attack. Playing 3 in defence doesn't mean a team would be more defensive. Norwich never really intended to play on the offensive anyway, regardless whether they played with 3 or 4 in defence.

But the likes of Willian, Oscar, Fabregas have all been consistently bad at it. Even if you can find examples of Lampard, Ballack etc failing at delivering set pieces in 2011/12, they weren't as bad on the whole as the first trio mentioned there. If the players practice them regularly in training, then the end result wouldn't be so inconsistent.

As far as I remember, this wasn't much of a problem until like 2-3 years ago. It's like we don't even practice taking set pieces in training because if we really do, the deliveries wouldn't have been so inconsistent. Used to remember we have an excellent set piece takers before this current crop of players - Lampard, Ballack, Deco etc (can even throw Mata in there too).

Not buying that. We're talking about something that can be improved in practice/training, not something that can only be done by a few footballers. I'm not saying that we have to score from every corner or free kick but the least a player should do is deliver the ball into the box without hitting the first man. If it only happens once every blue moon, then fine. But it has happened way too often and it's the same problem every time even with different takers - Willian, Fabregas, Oscar etc. It's absolutely criminal that you get a chance to score from a set piece and you can't even beat the first man!

Need to see more of him at LB first then because as well as he did on Saturday, Norwich barely attacked us and even when they did, they were more interested in targeting Ivanovic than a 19-year-old playing out of position in the backline.

Jorge Jesus is taking the piss out of Benfica with Sporting this season. 3 wins out of 3 in the Lisbon derby. At Benfica, he only lost 1 out of 15 (W10 D4). Legend.