The trip to White Hart Lane

[hawth121087]

Now i have had time to reflect on last nights adventure, here are some fairly blunt thoughts:

- Our back four was absolutely awful, not for the first time this season. We have depended a lot on Ryan and Abdy but they were extremely poor last night, highlighted more probably due to our inept full backs. I really like Danny, but he is not a left back that will keep us in this league.

- Tactics: before i lay into Tone here, im going to defend him a bit. Whatever our tactics were, or have been, as long as the players come out and make basic schoolboy errors in the first fifteen minutes, we are never going to see the tactics implemented as the game is over by then. Saying that, it was obviously a tactic last night to keep our full backs really tight. This led to the Lennon goal where Wilko was 20 yards from him when he received the ball and it led to David Bentley swinging in several good crosses. Firstly i cannot understand the tactic and secondly once it hadn't work we have to brave and bold enough to change it.

- Defending corners. One bit of advice for the boys and management: IF THEY ARE TAKING A SHORT CORNER, HAVE TWO MEN THERE TO DEFEND IT! Not the first time it has happened this season: it led to the Derby goal, the Dawson goal and possibly one against Blackburn. Breathtakingly worrying!

- Lawrence/Kitson- we obviously picked up injuries in that first half so subs were in a sense wasted on that. These two need to play as much football as possible, they are in the small (very small) group of our good footballers. Away from home we have tried Plan A, its now time for Plan B: its not too late to change, we still have to go to some fairly ordinary sides yet and picking up 2/3 wins will keep us up.

- Sidibe. No coincidence whatsoever that we haven't won without him in our side.

My side for Saturday (with no new signings)

Sorenson

Griffin Shawcross Faye Higginbotham

Lawrence Delap Whelan Etherington

Beattie Kitson

Surely Delap can play that holding role, he is an intelligent player and as far as our side goes, one of the more comfortable players on the ball. Also, at home, we need his throws. Come on Stoke

[apb1]

Drop Whelan and put Pugh in and I'd agree with the team

[hiyadad]

not a great deal wrong with your thoughts there friend.

how ever baffleing some of tones tactics are,nothing can compete with bad play.

[kevkj]

Noticed the short corner thing numerous times this season.One player goes acros to mark the taker and the receiver .

[twinedwitherlangen]

In response to that side for Sat you've posted i'd personally like to see...

Sorenson

Griffin Shawcross Faye Higginbotham

Lawrence Delap Whelan Etherington

Beattie Fuller

I think Fuller did well with the scraps he fed on after coming on last night, he just does stuff, makes things happen, has no fear, really missed watching him play and realised how much seeing him trying to power through the defence

[bgpotter]

Cant see a lot wrong with that - if you really need to keep Delap in (not saying you shouldnt) then an alternative would be to move him to right back (he has a lot of experience there) and put Pugh in centre mid (he has never let us down there, seems comfortable on the ball, can pass and works aaaaarrrddddd!

(would prefer to put on Kitson and keep Fuller as a super sub if needed)

[stokemark]

Play Fuller ahead of Kitson - Lets face it, Kitson has been into last chance saloon, had a couple of pints and now fucked off home with his souvenir glass !

[monkeycat]

Jan 28, 2009 9:47:34 GMT apb1 said:

Drop Whelan and put Pugh in and I'd agree with the team

Agree with Pugh ahead of Whelan.

Whelan is woeful, but at least he is consistent

[bgpotter]

SToke Mark - you really havent got a clue - hes had next to no proper chances. Pulis buys him knowing how he plays and how he scores his goals and then asks him to play in a totally different role. THen he gets injured and not been seen in a proper run of games since.
Had his last chance - you really are a numpty!

[Baggs]

I agree with Hawth - Kitson is one of our best players. Ricci is a selfish crunt who rarely passes and fks up lots and lots of opportunities this way. I think giving him 30 mins against tired defenders is definitely a good tactic.

We need to get into the mindset that at the start of a game there are 3 points to be won, not 1 point to try and defend.

[gpb]

Pulis needs to decide where we go from here, his signings of Beattie and Etherington are on paper exellent but to play them instead of Lawrance and Fuller we are actually no stronger, we need to play them with our best player from last year not instead of.
But this is the problem, Pulis likes to keep things tight and compact as we will be often opened up easily from better quality players, so if he plays to wingers and two forwards and i mean two forwards not one playing deep does this leave us short in other areas?

Another words i think it is decision time do we try and play with better players more football or do we play the way that has got us here, nine men behind the ball close everything down quickly, what we did not do last night, and try and pinch something from a set piece?

[Deleted]

Firstly, none of this makes any difference as our narrow-minded, stubborn boss will continue to tread the 'I know best' path and against Man City will line up with pretty much what he did last night. He shouldn't but probably will, and if he does, I think I might just lose the will to live.

Last night was my 3rd away game, Bolton and Newcastle being the two prior, and what was painfully obvious last night is that we are simply not good enough because a cluster of players we have are not good enough and neither are our tactics. I don't necessarily mean tactics as in 4-5-1, etc, but the way we approach & deal with certain situations (dead balls, stopping crosses coming in, giving silly fouls away, trying to play balls in to feet in too tight a space).

Wilkinson, Cresswell, & Whelan are simply not Prem footballers - which I'd kind of accept if they were our only options - but in each of their positions we have other, better options.

Cresswell (5th choice striker, for those not sure) was woeful last night, and for the umpteenth game on the bounce offered absolutely nothing to the Stoke cause, in fact he's a fucking handicap. If Pulis thinks that to have an Andy Cooke clone running around chasing fresh air is what we need then he's a dick.

Wilko, I'm sorry, will find his level, sooner rather than later with any luck, at somewhere like Blackpool. Enough said.

Whelan - people jizz over this bloke, I haven't seen him have a good game yet. He can't fucking pass, he's not physical, and he can't read a game. He gave stupid FKs away last night while generally trotting around like it was a practice match, woefully inept.

Sonko - fast becoming a pantomime figure, a bastard joke at this level.

For the first time last night, I thought we bore the hallmarks of a team destined for relegation. Every other team we've come across, whatever their league position, seem to have something that COULD make them spark. We continue to play the percentages game, hoping something will drop, and when we do try and 'play a bit' we aren't very good at it. Rory's throw has been sussed, and main player that out (only) style of play absolutely requires is injured.

The only plus for me last night was Beattie, who put himself about, ran his bollocks off, and did in one move what Kitson's failed to do in fuck knows how long. Not that I'm knocking Kitson, I hope he comes good. No point going on about TPs tactics as no matter what he set his stall out to achieve last night, his players let him down. To be fair though some of the wank on display was chosen by him to start the game.

Hello to SW Stokie by the way if you're reading, good to meet you last night, albeit in disappointing circumstances.