The team plays so much better when Gray is up front rather than Deeney Gray may not be a good player, but he allows us to play a certain way which suits Richarlison, Hughes, Doucoure etc.
H/T and surprisingly looked decent for once away from home. But, it’s results that matter at this stage of the season.... If it ends like this, I’ll take little consolation from a decent run-out but no points. Fingers crossed though....
It is 3 at the back. Only thing is we've decided to play a right back and 2 centre backs. I would say I've never seen a defensive shape like that before, but then I've watched us a number of times this season so I'd be lying.
Did OK. Good impact from Hughes, Deulo and Carrillo. Unfortunately... If you can't score goals or defend properly, you lose games. So clear which departments need work, Gino.
Again. ******* again. We need to get rid of Deeney and Gray. Never play Holedisaster again and buy 3-4 decent prem/champ league defenders. Also sort the medical team out. Maybe replace with girl guides or 2nd century AD spirit healers
Could have played until tomorrow morning and we wouldn't have scored. The annoying thing was that Spurs were well below par Looking forward to not having to think about football for two months
Gave it a go , If only we could finish. Don't understand why he keeps taking Hughes off. Perhaps saving him for Saturday.
@Steve Leo Beleck basically called it right in shoutbox. That sort of performance beats a lot of the lesser lights in this division, but we've rarely played like that against them this season. So frustrating. Thought the team acquitted themselves well tonight. Karnezis' error was catastrophic in terms of both technique and timing in the game. And then a subdued start to the second half ended the game as a contest. Overall, loads of hard work out there and at times really positive to see us hunting in packs, winning the ball back and going forward with it. Capoue my MOTM.
Gracia’s Watford of late can neither defend nor score, although in fairness they can play some quite decent football at times. I didn’t feel at the time of his appointment that he deserved a crack in the PL as our Head Coach, and tonight hasn’t dissuaded me from my opinion that to keep him next season would be an act of folly, risking our top flight status. Spurs were there for the taking tonight, flat after their cup defeat. Instead we gift them a goal, miss multiple chances when on top, lose concentration soon after the restart and then go on to miss more opportunities. Are the players not receiving any sort of coaching between matches? Oh and our best player on the night gets hooked early. Crazy.
They are just better than us all over the pitch We had 2 or 3 chances but none of our strikers up to the task... but then we all know that already. It must be fixed in the summer, can't go another season like this. Thought Capoue had a good game, he's been on a decent run of performances. Hughes too.
We really weren't that bad. Karnezis - 0 Don't think he did anything that actually helped us? Gifted them a goal and then for the free kick where Vertonghen hit the post I would have expected a GK to claim that, it was very deep. Don't think he made a save. Mariappa - 6 Fairly average performance, a few errors but wasn't all bad Cathcart - 6.5 Loses .5 for poor awareness for their second goal but apart from that he was solid Kabasele - 7 Pretty solid performance, definitely our best CB pairing with Cathcart Holebas - 6.5 Not his biggest fan but he wasn't that bad tonight and pretty good going forward. He will likely get some stick but he had no support from Richarlison defensively. Doucoure - 6.5 Can't fault his effort and at times played very well but a few mistakes as well Capoue - 8 MOTM Excellent performance, broke up play brilliantly and always looked for the ball Hughes - 7 Very good in the first half but not involved at all second half Femenia - 5 Pretty anonymous throughout Richarlison - 6.5 Very good going forward but had an awful miss. Also provided no defensive support. Gray - 6 Tried hard and made the right runs but just not a very good footballer. Finishing and first touch is nowhere near the required standard for a PL striker. SUBS: Deulofeu - 7 We have badly missed him. Effort was top class closing down defenders and he actually looked threatening Deeney - 5 Anonymous and wasted a great opportunity by not playing in Hughes. Did well though to head across for Richarlison's miss. Carrillo - 6 Didn't seem to want the ball much but the two times he got it he looked more likely to score than most of our team Gracia - 6.5 Plenty on here seem to want to see him fail, including a few who have been slating him since the day he joined. Tactically we were set up well to deal with Spurs today and he made the right decision to drop Deeney. Good subs as well.
No criticism of Gracia tonight from me. We played ok, carried a threat throughout the game and missed some good chances. An absolute howler from Karnezis and the whole defence switching off and Cathcart deciding not to mark Harry Kane has done for us. If we played at that level all the time, we would beat the likes of Huddersfield, Palace, Bournemouth, Newcastle. The problem is we don't play like that against them, we turn in lame, half-baked performances. On the basis of tonight, no issue with Gracia. Mixed in with the rest of our recent games, and real concerns persist. Great performance from Capoue by the way. He won 7 tackles, used the ball intelligently and quickly - MOTM by a mile. Poor old Will Hughes - if he was surrounded by better players, he'd look so much better. Kiko's worst performance by some distance, hopefully Deulofeu will start against Newcastle.
Also, for those complaining at Hughes being subbed... what did he do second half? I'm a massive fan of his and he was brilliant first half but he didn't get into the game at all second half.
Winning headers does not make him worthy of a starting place. Thanks Troy but time to move on. Even your team mates can see you are yards off pace.
Also anyone else notice when we had our one counter attack second half and Troy was so unaware he completely missed the final pass to Hughes, who had bust a gut to be the only player on the edge of their box directly in front of goal, and instead turned around, faced the other way, and killed the attack?
there's some good players in this team, it's just a shame there's little in the way of a team. for now, our defence is so completely disorganised that it's obvious we're never far from the next mix up. so it proved today. there was some decent attacking play, some good moves, and good pressure high up, but when the team has no idea how to defend collectively in our half then it's no good and i'm afraid that lies with the coach. clearly, having deulofeu back is vital for the newcastle game and having a front three which involves him plus any of richarlison, hughes and pereyra is an inviting prospect for next week and going beyond that. we just need a coaching system to bring the best out of the defence.
That is mainly because we have had a big lump up front playing who offers nothing to stretch defences whereas today we had some pace. Something that I have been saying we needed for a long time on this forum.
A goalkeeper that can't catch, a coach who can't coach, a Brazilian who can't kick and fans who sing about Arsene Wenger and Arsenal. I love this club! COYG!
Missed the first half but thanks to everyone in the Shout Box tonight for keeping me company. From what I heard on the commentary we didn't play terrible just (as so many have said) cannot put a chance away. Well, technically we did score but if was (rightly) offside and to be fair Kane had one chalked off too. A fair scoreline would of been 1-1 and that would of been a great result for us. Gray sounded a bit better but his lack of games and confidence is killing our meek attack, and Deeney coming on at HT was a mistake, but I guess you need to change things around. Hughes was brilliant, Delifu was great again in the middle and proved that we missed hum so badly since his throat infection. Get them two playing almost every week and sort out or crappy attack we can go further next season. Still looking over our shoulders after this loss but I really can't see us going down. Spurs sounded toothless and missed some sitters so it could of been worse for us, but 2-0 away to a side in the top four when we could of got smashed five or six hasn't hit our goal difference to badly. I just hope the lads can see what good did come out of tonight performance wise and take that into Newcastle. It's our last home game - lets at least send us all home happy one last time before we get decked at Old Trafford, or do a WBA... Overall, a much better away performance than of late but it's killing us not taking chances.
Depends which Newcastle turn up. They have 40+ points so may not be up for it in which case Deeney could get a hat-trick, lol
