Tottingham Hotspurs v Aston Villa PREMIER LEAGUE Saturday 10th August 17.30 k.o. | Page 33 | Vital Football

Tottingham Hotspurs v Aston Villa PREMIER LEAGUE Saturday 10th August 17.30 k.o.

Thought Mings was superb tonight. He seemed to clear everything. Engels too looked really solid. We won't play Spurs every week My only concerns... Wesley seemed to drop at the smell of a fart, Grealish was a bit complacent and Luiz didn't really impact anything as far as I could see
 
Spurs were relentless, powerful and mobile. How the hell we kept them out for as long as we did was the result of incredible defending and poor finishing.
Jack was let down by the inability of players around him to hold the ball or give an outlet. I agree with all the positive comments and am thankful that we have more players to bring in. I can understand the reasons for playing Elmo and Hourihane today but after spending over £130m I am not expecting them to be our best players in those positions. If they are, we’re doomed. We have to play a proper defensive midfielder to take the pressure off the back four and give oxygen to Jack and SJM. I believe we have those players and expect to see Fred and Marvelous or Douglas against Bournemouth.
 
defence were great and yet we shipped 3 against a weakened spurs side.
good players come in and have an immediate impact - Heaton.
The signings we've made have to be better or it's going to be a struggle
 
Heaton quality, defense ok just about including Taylor. Hourihane not seen, Trezeguet mustard first half until he was blowing out his arse second half. McGinn decent, Grealish ditch the Alice band along with dicking around with the ball around our area. Wesley fuckin stay on your feet your a big boy. TBF not a bad display against the big boys.
 
BringbakMON said:
defence were great and yet we shipped 3 against a weakened spurs side.
good players come in and have an immediate impact - Heaton.
The signings we've made have to be better or it's going to be a struggle
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It's not going to happen overnight, this club has had so many changes in 12 months, new owners, new manager, total overhaul in players, its what we needed and us as fans have to support it. We are in far better hands now than we have been for a long time, losing is not easy to swallow without being critical, just give them time.
 
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Villan57 said:
Thought our Fans were fantastic especially the first half, couldn't hear the Spurs fans until they equalised
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Quite right 57, couldn't believe how quiet it was until they equalised....close to an Emirates atmosphere up until then.Impressive stadium though to be fair. Away following terrific as usual...especially Langoe and Junior...who were both in fine voice for the new campaign....!!
 
The comments about Wesley going to ground to easy are spot on but hopefully today was an eye-opener for him - he has to adjust to the English game and learn that he has to earn the right to compete. I’d imagine (hope) that when the coaches are going through the video of his performance on Monday, they will be showing him how he needs to use his physique against the defenders if he wants to succeed in the Premier League.

Engels looks a really intelligent defender - he and Mings will be more than up to the challenge against the majority of this league.

Heaton - as excellent as I expected.

Grealish - getting some stick and definitely the main culprit for their second but I thought he was quietly excellent first half. Tackled, disciplined defending, found space, kept the ball moving and made an outstanding run that, had Trez made a better run or showed more composure finishing, should have put us 0-2 up.

McGinn - looks made to be a success in this division. Throwback to the era of ‘proper’ midfielders in the mould of Keane, Ince, Batty, Speed, Townsend, Taylor etc...

Taylor - surprised me! Best performance for us?

Hourihane - not what we need as the holding midfielder that will allow Jack, McGinn and the wide players to thrive but backed up my belief that he will have something to offer the squad this season.
 
1-0 up against last seasons CL finalists [yeah I know]. They equalised with 17 mins left. We damned well gave them the second goal, it was such a shame but ffs! I thought Heaton and Engels were great. I thought Mings was awesome, absolutely wonderful, a real powerhouse. I effing hate spuds but £100m 'worth' of Sissoko and Ndombele were just too powerful in midfield and then along comes Eriksen.
 
Fair few pints on me now but here's my opinion (for what it's worth) Champions league finalists vs newly promoted team.... i held hope but realistically.... statistically...had this down as a loss..... but the longer it went on- the more i thought we could win this. Their finishing was bad, but saw a bit of nice play out of us to hope we could be ok for the rest if the season. Some good defending for most of the game.. thought Jack and wesley were playing for "championship" fouls- they need to play the whistle, thought engels was decent, heaton & mings were immense- next 4 or so games will show where we're really at. As i said.... fair few pints, i love you all
 
Overall I thought it was very promising, despite the result. The pace of the game is a different level to the championship against the top sides - which we have to admit spurs are which is quite painful as a fan of a historically bigger club. How we kept them out for so long was unbelievable, I thought Heaton, Mings and Engels were excellent all things considered.

I couldn’t understand our choice of full backs luckily spurs wanted to play through the middle for most of the game, the positive is that our new reinforcements are still to come in? Guilbert wasn’t even on the bench so I assume he was injured?

The game plan was good and we were able to change it. We made mistakes which cost us, but it doesn’t matter. I’d rather us make mistakes on the first game of the season against a side not in our part of the league, as long as we learn quickly and correct them for when we play the likes of Bournemouth, Brighton, Geordies, Sheff Utd and norwich’s of the league.

As for Wesley, similar to Deano’s point about likening him to Benteke - I think there was a lot of reason for optimism. Some of his hold up play was good and he looks like he could be a handful. Let’s give him games to settle in.
 
Lots of positives first half but the second half we were very poor I thought, we came out after half time all smiles and just did not seem focussed compared to Spurs.

We looked very lightweight second half and jeez Wesley looked awful.

Mings, Engels and Taylor were excellent all game I thought along with Heaton.

Our midfield needs to be far stronger as game goes on, they were nowhere second half as we just kept giving the ball away.
 
This is a feeling I don't like and don't want to get used to, getting up on a Sunday morning having lost.
I've had that winning feeling for 6 months!

That second half was like the bad old days, it was like watching Burnley desperately hanging on but without any goal, threat what so ever.

The only good thing to come out of it is now Dean has an excuse to put the new boys in
 
danvilla2 said:
As for Wesley, similar to Deano’s point about likening him to Benteke - I think there was a lot of reason for optimism. Some of his hold up play was good and he looks like he could be a handful. Let’s give him games to settle in.
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This is my take on Davis but he didn't cost us 20m and I think he'd have bullied Spurs more or just as much as Wesley.

I know it was Spurs I get that but I really expected him to show more with his runs and at least being able to hang onto it a bit more, in fact, a hell of a lot more.

£131m and we couldn't get out of our own box second half worries me or it will if we are the same against Bournemouth
 
One thing they better learn quickly is stay on their feet. Apart from Wesley, El Ghazi was through before he embarrassingly threw himself to the ground. I’m pleased that premier refs won’t buy this. By the second half Spurs more powerful and aggressive play as well as their extra class won out. Looking forward to Bournemouth now and seeing some of the benefits from yesterday’s lesson. And getting Freddie and Douglas in for Elmo and Connor. Connor too lightweight and Elmo had only one pass - up the wing to Trez. In the first minute he gave the ball away which was the forerunner of a lot of aimless hoofing up field. Some great performances too of course but this was truth in all its harsh reality.
 
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