Spurs head coach Andre Villas-Boas isn’t the type of manager to use too many clichés in his post match analysis but he does like to find positives in defeat. However, even that task was beyond him as his side succumbed to a heavy 5-2 trashing at the hands of Monaco and Andre admitted that he wasn’t happy with the outcome.
“Obviously, we’re a bit disappointed,” said AVB.
“The first half wasn’t good for either team, played at a slow tempo and both teams only really had one chance at goal.”
Despite the half time team talk, the hosts ran away with the game early in the second period.
“We had a good meeting at half-time and the problem was that we conceded the two goals straight away,” he added.
“We wanted to avoid that because the players left the dressing room with the spirit that we could turn the game around and go on to win it.
“So we paid a price for that and it made it difficult for the second half.
Villas-Boas summed up by praising the strength of the opposition and insisting that the return of senior players would make us stronger.
“Monaco looked strong with individual quality, we made some mistakes and they punished us. We had belief that we could have got a better result but we’ll now work hard to improve before the season starts.
“We were missing lots of players and they will help us improve, but we wanted to do better. We’re aware we’re better than this, but we’ll take our lessons from it,” he concluded.
Is that a fair assessment or is the margin of the defeat giving you cause for concern ahead of the new campaign?
Ramos all over againg, theye did not seem to know what was expected of them. 433 is going to be problematic I think.
We can take nothing from it as we had nothing close to a functional defense. We had our 7th choice CM and a LB whose never played a senior match as our centre-back pairing against one of the best players in the world. In the modern game the CBs squeeze up the pitch and orgainse our play, we were always going to lose as soon as we saw the team sheet.
If anything it’s Hugo who was the most embarrassing, of course the CBs made errors but a keeper of Hugo’s class should never give away that first goal.
4 out of the 5 goals would never have happened in a real match with our normal CBs and Lloris not being away with the fairies, but the goal we gave away on the free kick was alarming. Walker is still getting caught in the air and we have got to sort that out.
Couldn’t agree with you more……..With Caulker gone Spurs need to sign a good CB/LB. What do you think of Chiriches?
All I can say is if we play a scratch team (or include Parker) against a full strength side (who were able to field 3 players who were acquired for about £125m) we will lose more than we win. Also if the keeper throws in 2 goals, my grandmother would have saved, a game we will lose more than we win. Other than that there was nothing to learn from what was basically a fitness exercise with a woefully understrength team.
Nah.. Ramos won cups! Formation is horses for courses, I can’t see us going to the arse or utd an playing 433, we’d never have the ball. The real worry for me is spurs always seem to have one player they can’t play without.. No king no win.. Then it was no modric no win and now it’s no bale no win.. Soon to be, no soldado no win. Hopefully this season will be different as levy is spending money but lots of changes is never good for any team. Fingers crossed the bale deal falls through as real don’t actually have the money.. Then we will be flying 🙂
Tottenham defending from set pieces have been crap for a while now. why there are no players running into the box with the attackers is beyond me. It always happens if a striker is running on to the cross a standing defender will never reach the ball, players should be running with attacker to clear the ball simple. As for bale I thought he was different to modric but there all the same somebody taps them up and there gone. I wish he came out during last season and said he would move on if we don’t make CL, then we would have been ready for this but no “i’m happy at spurs with AVB” he said now it’s all changed, he can move at any time why now.
Was always going to be thus, as already said this was a training exercise at best, so many players missing. Only down side was injury to JD, like to see him start season alongside Soldado. COYS.
The time to judge is August 17th onwards. I have no interests in friendlies as all they are is to get the players back into the swing of playing, giving the whole squad a run out and getting match fit. The metanlity of AVB and the team will be different and the starting 11 will be also against Crystal palace onwards.