bad to worse.
When after a dull nil nil home draw with Crystal Palace people are talking about the positives of a point and clean sheet things are reaching rock bottom.
People are talking that way because despite Spurs having all the ball it was Palace who had the chances, Palace who are the ones unhappy at just a point, as Lloris again was the home teams man of the match.
Pochettino was almost there with the Everton game, it did help that they wanted to play and not just hang back and defend, but since that game the manager has made changes that just don’t make sense. In that game Lennon and Chiriches kept one of the most dangerous left sided players quite, Baines. The following game say them face Hazard on the left but Lennon was dropped.
Palace have Yannick Bolasie. Now he might not, yet, be in the same league as the other pair but he’s a handful and a player playing with a lot of confidence. Confidence of himself and the confidence of his manager. Warnock tells him to go out there and play. He did that. Didn’t help that Vlad wasn’t available but Dier could have used the help that Lennon gave against Everton.
One trick by Bolasie when he skipped past Eriksen beat Erkisen’s lovely nutmeg drag on the Palace defender early in the game. The led to a chance by the Dane, he should have done better, maybe have been less greedy and passed it off. Who knows what an early goal could have done for Spurs. Deflated Palace?
Chances didn’t come as play was way too slow. A number of times quick breaks were on, what followed was dithering. If the ball did get past Bentaleb then Lamela, Kane or Eriksen coughed it up with ease. That was when it got past Bentaleb. I read about how he passes it forward more than you think. You look at Squawka, nope. A ball isn’t a forward pass when it goes 15 yards sideways and one yard forward. Then I read about how he’s improved his defensive play. One tackle, he made one tackle, it came in the 90th minute. Lamela, again, made more in the half he was on the pitch.
When chances came they fell to Soldado – Kane was absent from the whole game, from impersonating Adebayor with his offsides he’s going the whole hog now. Soldado fluffed the lot. One header and one shot he should have done a lot better with. Who knows maybe if he hadn’t been dropped after scoring against Everton he would have had the confidence to put either or both of those away.
So it was left to Lloris and the woodwork to preserve the nil nil.
Puncheon hit the woodwork, he must be a Spurs fan deep down after last season’s penalty howler. Was surprised Warnock brought him on at the expense of Zaha who having a productive game, not matching Bolasie but effective.
Pochettino’s substitutions were again head scratching. Paulinho, bringing him on was bizarre, doing for Mason while Bentaleb stayed on even more so. Given Lennon that standard 7 minute run out at the end while bringing Soldado off, again strange.
You don’t know what he’s doing. Are certain players getting a game because the transfer window is approaching? Are they playing because hew ants to show Levy how crap they are? In reality there doesn’t seem to be any other plausible reason for some of them.
Just don’t get what what they are trying to do or what is going on. Hell this is not just palace, it’s palace managed by Warnock.