"crisis, what crisis?" was the question the commentator asked after gilberto put away that penalty to give us a 2-0 lead.
my question would be: "who says we can't play physical?"
in fact, i would be very happy if we get called for fouls. because it shows that we are on our way to learning how to play the physical game. and the nicest part, albeit frustrating, was adebayor's run past ledley king, which was eventually stopped because the ref deemed he had fouled king on his way through. nice, because king is big-sized(no doubt adebayor is tall) and we can bring him to the ground. frustrating because i dun think it was a foul, and he would have been 1 on 1.
the nature of the physical game is such that you can never be 100% clean, because not every challenge and tackle can be perfect. and sometimes, good challenges can be deemed to be fouls by the ref. so there is no 100% clean.
learning the physical approach would be taking a step towards the great ajax team of the 1970s, which ruud krol had described as "we can play any style, beautiful or physical"
anyway, i think we dominated the first half, although the possession stats at halftime showed spurs with 51 percent, us with 49 percent. and the commentators certainly felt that arsenal played better and dominated. but whether we outplayed them is a big question mark, because they never got around to playing their game, so how can we compare?
what does outplay really mean? i always associate it with dominate. but just now, while watching, it suddenly occured to me that maybe outplay encompasses another meaning. or maybe dominate encompasses another bit.
but the second half, we played badly, safe for the defending. in fact, i think overall we did well defensively. but in the second half it was more even, and the last 15 min, maybe we were too relaxed. but the introduction of hleb certainly brought some fluency into our game. it was more fluid, although we clearly had less of the ball.
but did we play stylish football? not really. did we play physical? quite. did we play with heart? definitely. i love the way we keep winning the ball back, the way we keep robbing them, catching them in possession. and yes, i tink clichy did very well defensively, but there were a few stray passes and djourou as well. but eboue, learn to shut up. play. dun whine. dun react negatively. react by beating them. react by sending in good crosses. react by scoring. do anything but something stupid. and ljungberg, i just feel that his time is up. which, as i reiterate, is a pity. fabregas wasnt really inspired, van persie wasnt really in the game, gilberto recovered from a poor start, thank god. i think there were alot of negatives from the game on our part.
but overall, we deserved the win. especially when spurs werent really playing most of the time. look at the number of times they got robbed. think you would cringe. so we win because we played, and they didnt. good enough, i suppose.
the offside question, van persie's handball. controversial decisions abound, but i think rather than blame these decisions, spurs fans should take a look at their own mistakes. the atrocious defending. how they always got caught in possession, how theygive the ball away carelessly, how they cocked up their own offside trap in adebayor's goal. go and count the times they got caught in possession. and what about the way van persie surged beyond king and jenas? you know what happened? van persie started running in the middle of his own half, after he was knocked off balance by some spurs guy tracking back. and if you still let him get in front of you, something is very wrong. those were the real reasons why they lost, not the refereeing decisions.
3-0 the final score.
tottenham hotspurs. Try Harder, next time.
my question would be: "who says we can't play physical?"
in fact, i would be very happy if we get called for fouls. because it shows that we are on our way to learning how to play the physical game. and the nicest part, albeit frustrating, was adebayor's run past ledley king, which was eventually stopped because the ref deemed he had fouled king on his way through. nice, because king is big-sized(no doubt adebayor is tall) and we can bring him to the ground. frustrating because i dun think it was a foul, and he would have been 1 on 1.
the nature of the physical game is such that you can never be 100% clean, because not every challenge and tackle can be perfect. and sometimes, good challenges can be deemed to be fouls by the ref. so there is no 100% clean.
learning the physical approach would be taking a step towards the great ajax team of the 1970s, which ruud krol had described as "we can play any style, beautiful or physical"
anyway, i think we dominated the first half, although the possession stats at halftime showed spurs with 51 percent, us with 49 percent. and the commentators certainly felt that arsenal played better and dominated. but whether we outplayed them is a big question mark, because they never got around to playing their game, so how can we compare?
what does outplay really mean? i always associate it with dominate. but just now, while watching, it suddenly occured to me that maybe outplay encompasses another meaning. or maybe dominate encompasses another bit.
but the second half, we played badly, safe for the defending. in fact, i think overall we did well defensively. but in the second half it was more even, and the last 15 min, maybe we were too relaxed. but the introduction of hleb certainly brought some fluency into our game. it was more fluid, although we clearly had less of the ball.
but did we play stylish football? not really. did we play physical? quite. did we play with heart? definitely. i love the way we keep winning the ball back, the way we keep robbing them, catching them in possession. and yes, i tink clichy did very well defensively, but there were a few stray passes and djourou as well. but eboue, learn to shut up. play. dun whine. dun react negatively. react by beating them. react by sending in good crosses. react by scoring. do anything but something stupid. and ljungberg, i just feel that his time is up. which, as i reiterate, is a pity. fabregas wasnt really inspired, van persie wasnt really in the game, gilberto recovered from a poor start, thank god. i think there were alot of negatives from the game on our part.
but overall, we deserved the win. especially when spurs werent really playing most of the time. look at the number of times they got robbed. think you would cringe. so we win because we played, and they didnt. good enough, i suppose.
the offside question, van persie's handball. controversial decisions abound, but i think rather than blame these decisions, spurs fans should take a look at their own mistakes. the atrocious defending. how they always got caught in possession, how theygive the ball away carelessly, how they cocked up their own offside trap in adebayor's goal. go and count the times they got caught in possession. and what about the way van persie surged beyond king and jenas? you know what happened? van persie started running in the middle of his own half, after he was knocked off balance by some spurs guy tracking back. and if you still let him get in front of you, something is very wrong. those were the real reasons why they lost, not the refereeing decisions.
3-0 the final score.
tottenham hotspurs. Try Harder, next time.
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