player.
The only player so far to outbeast Sandro during his stint in English football has been Sandro when he somehow injured himself so badly last season. Lloris outbeasted him on Sunday.
Sandro spent most of the weekend’s game putting Lukaku on his backside as he Dawson and Chiriches kept the big Belgian loanee quiet. Then when finally given some space Lukaku was stopped by Lloris’s speed off the line to collect the ball and then puts on his arse and eventually out of the game by the French ‘keeper’s head.
Knocked sparko an laid low for a few minutes Lloris was making more excellent saves after the incident while Lukaku was nursing a knee strapped with ice on the bench. Also nursing a yellow card which shouldn’t have been given to him for the incident.
Queue the outrage.
Well they (the media) had to attack Spurs and AVB over something. Already the game was attacked for what I can only presume was a lack of goals. It was a not bad game of football. Maybe they would prefer if one side played a flat back 10 with no intention of playing football, they seemed so impressed when West ham did it. Or would they be more happy if one team barely bothered and were rolled over as in the Citeh v Norwich game which enthralled them so much.
No there wasn’t the goals, there wasn’t many saves to make by the ‘keepers but there was two teams with an intent to play football. In the first half Spurs did most of it and in the second half of the second half the hosts, Everton, did.
Another game when Spurs looked defensively very secure, against a striker in Lukaku that would previously have run them ragged. Sandro being that big helping hand in the middle. It looked like an immediate mistake by AVB when he brought off the Brazilian for Dembele with just over an hour gone, but with news that the midfielder was injured and asked to be replaced it’s understandable. Also understandable that Everton had their best moments after Sandro’s departure.
But with the standard clean sheet also came the standard lack of clear goal scoring opportunities for Soldado. Another stick to beat AVB with by the dimwits that thinks Defoe is the answer.
Think he did make a mistake in Lennon’s starting place. Done nothing in the previous games to keep that spot and again did nothing in this game to keep it for the next.
The lack of chances created was one that frustrated Soldado. You could see it with him getting a touch narky at others having shots when he’d placed himself situation. Of course your media types claim he doesn’t move, you wonder what they’re watching. No, he’s not running about all over the place but he just positions himself with minimal effort to not be fed by whoever has the ball. Of course they’d prefer a big fella who runs about and did nothing like Lukaku.
So not much created, bar one lovely ball through by Holtby – who else? – who again ran himself into the ground. Vertonghen should have had a penalty – no matter what the media, AVB or Martinez say – in the first half and should have given one away in the second but the ref was pretty useless. And the home fans sounded more like the lot in red from just down the road with their constant moaning and bitching.
Vertonghen was also pretty damn good going forward from left-back, just a joy not having Naughton there. While at the back Chiriches really is getting used to the game here. He does like to let the ball bounce but certainly has confidence in his own playing ability, one glorious tackle was bizarrely left out of a certain highlights package.
While those lot across Stanley Park are talked of as title challengers, those lot in red from South London are title contenders, and we’re told how great they’ve been Spurs sit on the same amount of points as the former and are just a handful behind the latter without scoring and not hitting any sort of form.
And AVB is the villain because he let Lloris do what Lloris wanted to do and that was keep on playing.