The agony of losing another penalty shoot out means that our dreams of European glory are over for another year, but Spurs head coach Andre Villas-Boas believes that the squad can be proud of what they have achieved.
With scores level after 210 minutes of football over two legs, the penalty curse came back as we were thoroughly humiliated in the shoot out that followed. But AVB was upbeat as he spoke to the press after the game.
“I think within all of this disappointment we are extremely happy to set a great standard and a great example this season for English football for the way we approach this competition,” Andre said.
“It’s not up to me to brag about it, but I would like to compliment the players because changing the mentality towards the competition from one season to another is extremely difficult. They have done it like heroes, played like heroes.”
Andre went on to defend his penalty takers, with Tom Huddlestone and Emmanuel Adebayor receiving plenty of criticism this morning.
“Penalties are always very, very difficult,” he added. “We had assigned the strongest penalty-takers and we practiced the penalties.
“The nature of penalties is very, very difficult and you can never recreate the same stress and emotion in training.
“They had their preferred slots where to put the ball but it changes dramatically in live situations.”
So Europe is over for another year but the final six games of the season will determine whether we return to the Europa League next year or whether the squad can recover and take it a step further.
Proud? Is he kidding?
One of the richest clubs on the planet went out to a Swiss team. A team with a wage budget 1/5th of Spurs
We had two opportunities to beat them and couldnt manage either.
Proud? Get a fucking grip AVB. This is a humiliating day to be a Spurs fan. Losing to a Swiss team over two legs FFS. Were you also pround that we managed a narrow defeat against Leeds in the FA Cup?
MUST. DO. BETTER
That attitude is our undoing. Basel are a good site. Blame Levy, he’s been buying Poor or cheap strikers for the past 4 seasons and we wonder why we don’t beat these teams
Both of Basel’s strikers could be signed for free. Every single one of their players is worth soingle digit millions. You may not like the facts or this ‘attitude’, but what do you want me to do, lie about it?
Basel looked good because we were fking awful. Lets see how good they look against Chelsea, shall we?
Blaming Levy is crazy. ‘Poor or cheap strikers’? They would stroll into Basel’s team! Theyd be amongst the best players ever to play in the Swiss league. If the coach cannot get them to play to a standard good enough to beat, essentially, a plucky championship club, then he has problems. I can accept that shocks happen in 90 minutes ties, but over two legs, this result is desperate. Its humiliating. This is SPURS we are talking about, not Milton Keynes Dons. Spurs Vs Basel. It shouldnt even be close over 2 legs.
Lack of consistent quality from the strikers is certainly an ongoing problem and will prevent consistent goal-scoring. But what I’ve noticed from this team is really a lack of mental toughness. They are making really silly mistakes at the worst opportunities. Walker and Defoe’s back passes against Liverpool doomed Spurs when they were looking incredibly strong. Dembele’s square ball yesterday when Spurs had taken all the momentum with Dempsey’s goal was an unconscionable mistake. Every time the opposition has a corner kick, my heart stops because I’m sure a quality chance will be generated (two goals off corners in two games). These are stupid mental errors, and they are killing Spurs. Every time they get a lead, they seem to relax and back off. Is that coaching? Lack of experience? All of the above?
As much as I am buoyed by the fact that without 4 of our key players, bale, lennon, defoe and sandro, we still took it to the wire and knocked out on penalties in the quater finals I haver to agree with King Paul. I appreciate that without hazard, mata, oscar and Lampard Chelsea would not be half the team they are and would more than likely be out as well, I am totally disgusted that we were knocked out the way we are. Feel AVB did too little too late at the end btu if anything it did hilite a couple of players that I would like to keep at the club. man of the match for me was Holtby and he is starting to show his quality by non stop running and getting stuck in which is more than I can say about the rest of the team. I hope Friedel never plays for us again and the same goes for Parker. It is now time that Levy pulls his finger out and invests in our club cause if he doesnt then we will not have any chance of finishing top 4 again and AVB will leave as he needs a team that will match his ambitions. I blame LEVY for any heartache we will face for the rest of the season.
Why blame Levy? He doesnt pick the team. He doesnt send out a team incapable of mounting any sustained pressure in any match since Christmas. When we were losing 2-1 last night, you’d have thought we were winning fromo the way we were playing. No pressure. No chances. No players in their box EVER.
Levy has done a briliant job at Spurs, taking us from a laughing stock to regular top 4 challengers. Its our coach who worries me. I cant remember the last time we played well. Even the games we have won have been poor, brightened up by flashes of Bale brilliance.
Proud? I can’t be the only one who watched Adebayors performance last night. Once again he provided little or nothing of an attacking threat, his movement off the ball is awful, his first touch is worse than Crouchy and his attitude makes Berbatov look like a hard working, grafter of a team player. To cap it all just when you need someone to get their head down and get a no nonsense penalty on target he decides to run up to the ball like a show jumping pony and blast it over the bar. Please can someone get this gooner out of the club as soon as.
Yes I’m totally gutted by the result last night, but I have to stick up for AVB. Based on the way he’s been hamstrung this season for one reason or another, it was an achievement in itself just to get to penalties last night! Does anyone think that AVB came in during the summer and said “No problem, we can win a trophy and finish top 4 with the squad we’ve got”? No, he would have wanted a playmaker and a striker ON TOP of the incoming Adebayor, who is frankly a disgrace to all strikers who have worn the shirt over the years (yes, even the Rebrovs and Postigas!!) OK, Levy didn’t back him in the Summer transfer window because he was coming in off the back of the Chelsea failure and had to prove himself, but what happened in January?? There are numerous strikers and playmakers out there, either warming benches at big clubs or plying their trade at smaller ones. We could all see that having only 2 senior strikers (excluding Bale and Dempsey) was never going to cut it and quite frankly AVB’s worked a bloody miracle to get us to where we are right now!! We lost Ledley, Modric, Rafa before the season began, then lost Kaboul early on to injury, before we even secured the long-winded Adebayor deal! Imagine Fergie losing e.g Vidic, Rio, Carrick and Rooney from the spine of the team and then not getting any like for like replacements! Not sure they would be cruising at the top of the league right now…
I blame Levy and the board for continuing to penny-pinch and basically hang AVB out to dry. The way I feel right now, if Real Madrid came calling for him in the summer then I’d say good luck to him, because he’s over-achieved with the players at his disposal, with no backing from above. Yes we’ve been unlucky with injuries, losing Bale, Lennon and Defoe all at once (not counting Gallas!!) but had we strengthened in January before these players all got crocked, we’d surely have had another established striker, winger/playmaker starting or on the bench last night! Who was our “impact” sub last night? We didn’t have one!
We didn’t get hammered last night, we lost on penalties. One taken chance in normal time would have been the difference between a semi-final spot, optimism for the rest of the season and where we are now. The team that played last night was (apart from Lloris) the most senior 11 available. What else could we have done?? The sooner we invest in a proper strike force, the better and get rid of that smiling mercenary.
To echo another Spurs blog, Brendan Rogers doesn’t get half the criticism that AVB gets and his Liverpool side are sitting in 7th spot, 9 points behind us!! They chuck £35m on a striker, £20 million each on an average couple of midfielders, but it’s OK, he’s rebuilding!!!
Time to get behind the manager and the team (even the mercenary, unfortunately) for the last 6 games and vent our frustrations at the chairman and the board – all very well squirrelling the pennies away for a new stadium, but at this rate we’ll end up like West Ham, all decent players eventually sold and back to playing mid-table….
“I blame Levy and the board for continuing to penny-pinch and basically hang AVB out to dry”
This is complete and utter nonsense. ‘Penny pinching’? Take a look at whats been spent. Take a look at our wage bill. Penny pinching my arse.
“Based on the way he’s been hamstrung this season for one reason or another, it was an achievement in itself just to get to penalties last night!”
Excuse me? An achievement to get taken to penalties by Basel? AM i the only sane person on this board. It was BASEL we played, not fucking Real Madrid. Basel. Basel. Are you getting it? We were knocked out by Basel. For their supporters this is the biggest result in their history. They cannot believe its happened. Whereas most of our fans seem to think its perfectly normal for a top English club to be knocked out by a small Swiss one.
“To echo another Spurs blog, Brendan Rogers doesn’t get half the criticism that AVB gets and his Liverpool side are sitting in 7th spot, 9 points behind us!! They chuck £35m on a striker, £20 million each on an average couple of midfielders, but it’s OK, he’s rebuilding!!!”
That wasnt Rogers, that was Dalglish. And he got fired for it.
Not happy at losing but gave away 2 poor goals which were down to dembele bad pass and friedel who will never come off his line but thats thats, But must give AVB his chance although I find some off his tactics baffling next season swe should judge him I think.
One thing for certain is that adebayor must be outed dont like him attitude stinks but last night summed him up smiling when he misses the penalty, no surprise there the bloke is a lazy useless c**t and aint bothered win or lose.
Levy this is down to you should have bought berbertov but no sign some ex gooner c**t on the cheap you are now stuck with a player on your wage bill, which will now cost us champions league.
King Paul – fair enough if we’d played the second leg with our strongest side, but this was no giant-killing, Basel are the Swiss Champions and played in this season’s Champions League! We’ve had one season in the CL and haven’t won any kind of league championship for decades, so what makes us so amazing right now?? I’ve been a season-ticket holder since ’89 and believe me I’ve seen a lot of games and a lot of good teams at the Lane. Basel might not be a prestigious name like Real Madrid, but they’re in the last 4 of the Europa now and have been in the CL for the last 3 seasons, so no mugs and more than what we’ve done recently. Regarding the board, what exactly’s been spent and recouped on players in the last 3 transfer windows? Apart from Rafa, I can’t recall any big name signings coming in, just those that have moved on. Vertonghen was not an AVB signing and I seriously doubt that Dempsey was too. We’ve splashed out on big money players in the recent past when we were struggling for top 6 so why, after being 4th, 5th, 4th in the last 3 years are we now pleading poverty??
I take your point about Dalglish making those signings, but the fact remains that Rodgers is more popular than AVB with the press for achieving much less this season!!
I don’t think it’s a matter of what AVB has not achieved. Rather it’s the perception (perhaps soon to be reality), that Spurs are folding at the end of the season AGAIN. Obviously AVB was not a part of last year’s collapse. What I don’t understand is these continued mental errors and breakdowns which snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Clearly, this side needs better options at striker and left back. A more creative midfielder in the center would be nice (isn’t Dembele supposed to fill that role though??). As much criticism as Dempsey has received, he has scored 10 goals in all competitions this year while battling injury. Having play just behind a quality striker where he can poach like he did yesterday wouldn’t be a bad thing. Put Bale along side him, and that could be a potent strike force. But it still wouldn’t solve the lapses in concentration and judgement that we’ve seen of late.
You gotta give it up to AVB, he stays positive. However, I don’t know how he is going to spin Arsenal winning again today. Ugh. We are still on our back foot and they are full on. C’MON SPURS!
After being in superb form they have lost there
last three matches in all competitions, but if the stats are anything to go by then they have every chance of coming away with all three points.