Great Dane!: Thoughts on Spurs and More

photo by Laertes	via PhotoRee

Ed has thoughts on Spurs and more:

Spurs finally won.  More than that, they played at a pace that made them look like they wanted to win.  Granted, they picked up that pace after a somewhat fortunate red card sent Hull to ten men, but hey, they got it done.

 

For the first time in some time, Danish star Christian Eriksen finally had a good game.  His goal was terrific as was his creativity in the middle of the field.  Eriksen is a number 10 and dies not play wide to the same effect.  The modern game requires speed wide, and he doesn't have much of it.  

 

Which of course brings up the question -- where does Lamela play when Eriksen is central?  Well it turns out he played in pretty much the same position as Erikson.  Weird but on this day effective.

 

Another note is Harry Kane.  Kane is certainly not a top Striker -- he's big but not that big, average on the ball, and a good but not great shooter.  But...he's playing better now than any other striker Spurs have, meaning, of course he's scoring goals.  A brilliant commentator brought this point up not long ago in a blog piece titled "Your Only as Good as Your Front Two."  Spurs finally have someone who is putting the ball in the back of the net.  If that continues it will make all the difference.

 

Some additional thoughts from around the league:

 

-- Manchester United won this week against a better Arsenal side in typical Arsenal fashion.  Now United are in the top four.  Wow they don't seem to have played even remotely good enough this year to deserve that placement.

 

Was it All Just a Dream?

In which Scott asks the question all Liverpool fans have on their mind:

Did we really finish second last year?  Was that really Liverpool who nearly won the title were it not for a certain slip?  And, even if so, was that really just the first slip in this huge slide to mid-table, and then below?

 

After an Adam Lallana to Rickie Lambert connection gave Liverpool a dream start to the game last weekend, it was more of the season’s usual fare: sloppy defending and meek attacking.  Sure we can move the ball from the back to the tip of the forward third.  But then we seem to have no idea how to penetrate from there, aside from the odd dribble from Raheem Sterling (although not this past weekend) and Philippe Coutinho.  It is infuriating to watch such impotency.  And the defense not only lacks the disciplined organization that is required, but also is fraught with individual miscues and poor decisions

 

Liverpool is a team in disarray and in full downward spiral.  Normally, I can always see the light at the end of the tunnel, even if I can’t find the positives in a game.  Now, however, I don’t even know where to start.  Not only have they lacked the quality to win, it seems their belief in their ability to win has been throttled out of them.  The recently much-maligned Brendan Rodgers has much to repair, even beyond the porous defense and toothless offense.

 

What's it All About, Gylfi?!

Two days in a row; what's going on here?  Correspondent Ed is what's going on:

Spurs looked horrific this Sunday against Stoke, but sadly they are playing pretty much as I would expect them to play.  In short, the line up is pretty poor.  Uncle Harry had Kaboul playing pretty well at Spurs, but that was a long time and a long injury ago.  Vertonghen also seems to play as if he cares little.  At left back, Danny Rose has proven fast, quick, and otherwise mediocre, and the same can be said of the right back position.  Walker may have been reckless but he could also provide a lot of pressure from that side.  At midfield, Capoue is just about a step down from Huddlestone, and Mason is a poor man's Tom Cleverly (I know, that's too mean).  Townsend is a super fast one move pony, and on the other side is Nacer Chadli (great name!), whose proven to be pretty good, but not that good.  Finally at striker we have "I'm not in a contract year" Adebayor, the $28MM bust from La Liga named Soldado, and of course, the home town boy who is these days the best of the three, Harry Kane (plus he plays goalie).

Here's a ray of sunshine though:  Kane, Rose, Mason, and Townsend all came through the academy and all started against Stoke.  I get it and I like it, but right now they're not enough and the rest of the team is even less of enough.