Tottenham Hotspur vs Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[Percy McCarthy]

more verbal diaohrrea from Jenas

"On Sunday, they still managed to put in what I would call a positive performance, with what is essentially a B team".

Assuming he's talking about Spurs there, he's not wrong.

They were only missing 4 of their regular starting 11.
2 of them were suspended.

No one has claimed we put out a b team against Liverpool but we had just as many injuries for that game, and lost a player to injury early on as well.

It's an excuse to explain how 'little' villa went away and beat the mighty spurs and their all-conquering super manager who is revolutionising the entire sport.

From that quote and with no other context for it given, he's talking about Spurs being without some key players and still performing well. Which is factually correct.

We won. We got 3 points. We leapfrogged them in the table. We're now level with 3rd place. Who f**king cares what Jermaine Jenas has to say? The fact that so many on here seem to be actively seeking his opinions out today should tell you exactly why they all talk a load of shite on a regular basis. Engagement = money.

This is a good point. My kids love the Villa and we watch the TV matches together. They get up and leave the room at half time and say ‘tell me when the second half starts’. When we watch MOTD they leave to go and play their computer games when the Villa finish and I say ‘don’t you want to see what they say about us?’ and they don’t. I wish I was like that. Or maybe they just don’t like me.

[AV84]

If we had got to this point in the season and lost 5 players, for whatever reason, we'd be struggling too. We could very well face into Man City or Arsenal without Cash, Digne and Luiz, and given the amount of games we have to play over the next few weeks, an injury to someone isn't impossible either. And then every game we play, and every result we get, will revolve around the narrative that we're missing half the team.

I dunno, if were to go into a match with a lineup of Martinez - Konsa - DC - Pau - Moreno - Kamara - McGinn - Tielemans - Ramsey - Diaby - Watkins, I don't think many of us would be bemoaning our terrible fortune.

I'd like to think that we'd acknowledge that's why we have a squad, in case you lose players to injury or suspension.

That lineup only missing the 3 potential suspensions? If we had 2 (new) injuries on top of that, say Bailey and Zaniolo, we've got a decent 11 to start but if things go wrong we have very few options to change things up.

Look, my only points in all this was really that I don't think our injury situation is the same as Spurs injury/suspension situation, and mainly I don't understand why so many want to spend the day after a great win trawling the internet for angry Spurs fans or dim-witted former players' opinions on it all.

But clearly some do, and me spending my time disagreeing with them all is time just as poorly spent.

[London Villan]

I tend to revert to 5Live post TV matches as the match commentary teams (John Murray, Pat Nevin, Ian Dennis) are much more intelligent when it comes to summaries.

[Monty]

So, equivalent of the two centre-backs out would be Mings and Konsa. We're half there already, so just imagine Carlos and Pau in there.

Next, Bentancur goes off, so that's Kamara being replaced by Tielemans, maybe McGinn moving inside.

After that, imagine our number ten and best wide-forward getting injured. Again,  halfway there, so let's say Diaby is replaced by Bailey and - hey, shit, we did that and actually got better based on the form situation!

They still have Son, we still have Watkins. They still have Porro, we still have Doug. Etc etc. Their injuries are a bit worse than ours, but it remains incredible to me how much more attention and pity some clubs get than others.

[Dave]

Look at the cost of their starting line up as well. I don't remember us getting the amount of coverage Spurs are when we were fielding two reserve keepers.

Good point. That "bare-bones" back four cost £90m. The midfield two cost £60m. The four attackers cost £110m.

Poor, hard done-by Spurs.

[Dave]

Look, my only points in all this was really that I don't think our injury situation is the same as Spurs injury/suspension situation, and mainly I don't understand why so many want to spend the day after a great win trawling the internet for angry Spurs fans or dim-witted former players' opinions on it all.

I don't think our situation is anything like theirs either - but I think that if we were missing the two or three extra players on top of what we had missing anyway, that wouldn't mean we needed a whole load of sympathy or hand-wringing as to why we couldn't possibly complete. Like you're seeing from these Spurs nobbers.

[ADVILLAFAN]

I usually turn over ad soon as our games finish.

Don't want to hear about what a bunch of Red fans that have never been North of Watford think about us.

[AV84]

So, equivalent of the two centre-backs out would be Mings and Konsa. We're half there already, so just imagine Carlos and Pau in there.

Next, Bentancur goes off, so that's Kamara being replaced by Tielemans, maybe McGinn moving inside.

After that, imagine our number ten and best wide-forward getting injured. Again,  halfway there, so let's say Diaby is replaced by Bailey and - hey, shit, we did that and actually got better based on the form situation!

They still have Son, we still have Watkins. They still have Porro, we still have Doug. Etc etc. Their injuries are a bit worse than ours, but it remains incredible to me how much more attention and pity some clubs get than others.

It's not the same though as we've been playing without Mings, Buendia, Ramsey and Morneo all season.

If we had 5 players from the squad that's actually been playing all season suddenly miss a handful of games, it would be a concern, and certainly cause some disruption to our momentum. As it is there's endless criticism of our defensive lineup if we do anything other than a back 4 of Cash, Konsa, Torres, Digne. (And even that gets criticism)

[Monty]

So, equivalent of the two centre-backs out would be Mings and Konsa. We're half there already, so just imagine Carlos and Pau in there.

Next, Bentancur goes off, so that's Kamara being replaced by Tielemans, maybe McGinn moving inside.

After that, imagine our number ten and best wide-forward getting injured. Again,  halfway there, so let's say Diaby is replaced by Bailey and - hey, shit, we did that and actually got better based on the form situation!

They still have Son, we still have Watkins. They still have Porro, we still have Doug. Etc etc. Their injuries are a bit worse than ours, but it remains incredible to me how much more attention and pity some clubs get than others.

It's not the same though as we've been playing without Mings, Buendia, Ramsey and Morneo all season.

Isn't...isn't that worse?

[AV84]

So, equivalent of the two centre-backs out would be Mings and Konsa. We're half there already, so just imagine Carlos and Pau in there.

Next, Bentancur goes off, so that's Kamara being replaced by Tielemans, maybe McGinn moving inside.

After that, imagine our number ten and best wide-forward getting injured. Again,  halfway there, so let's say Diaby is replaced by Bailey and - hey, shit, we did that and actually got better based on the form situation!

They still have Son, we still have Watkins. They still have Porro, we still have Doug. Etc etc. Their injuries are a bit worse than ours, but it remains incredible to me how much more attention and pity some clubs get than others.

It's not the same though as we've been playing without Mings, Buendia, Ramsey and Morneo all season.

Isn't...isn't that worse?

In terms of how we'd cope in the exact position Spurs are in it's neither better or worse, it's irrelevant.

We have a consistent starting 11 with 2 or 3 regular subs, and we've had a great start to the season, same as them. If we were to now be without 5 of those players for a handful of tough games we'd be very limited in how we could play.

The main difference is we've benefited from extra non league games and have utilised pretty much the full squad at this point so if we were suddenly without 5 players Emery wouldn't have to be experimenting in the league games to try and figure out how to deal with it. He'd have a pretty good idea of who can play where and in what combinations.

[Monty]

'We've benefited from extra non league games'! And here I was hearing that we'd fall away due to our other commitments while Spurs, out of Europe, will have more left in the tank.

I appreciate what you're saying about it being neither better nor worse, but I must say the reasons you give for Spurs having it harder than us seem pretty backwards!

[paul_e]

So, equivalent of the two centre-backs out would be Mings and Konsa. We're half there already, so just imagine Carlos and Pau in there.

Next, Bentancur goes off, so that's Kamara being replaced by Tielemans, maybe McGinn moving inside.

After that, imagine our number ten and best wide-forward getting injured. Again,  halfway there, so let's say Diaby is replaced by Bailey and - hey, shit, we did that and actually got better based on the form situation!

They still have Son, we still have Watkins. They still have Porro, we still have Doug. Etc etc. Their injuries are a bit worse than ours, but it remains incredible to me how much more attention and pity some clubs get than others.

It's not the same though as we've been playing without Mings, Buendia, Ramsey and Morneo all season.

Isn't...isn't that worse?

Yeah, I'm struggling to see how them losing Van Der Ven and Maddison for 8-10 games is worse than us having lost Buendia and Mings for the entire season before half time in the first game.

[AV84]

'We've benefited from extra non league games'! And here I was hearing that we'd fall away due to our other commitments while Spurs, out of Europe, will have more left in the tank.

I appreciate what you're saying about it being neither better nor worse, but I must say the reasons you give for Spurs having it harder than us seem pretty backwards!

I'm not implying they have it harder than us, I just think it's 2 different situations at this current point in the season.

And as for having extra games vs no extra games, there's positives and negatives to both. I thought at the start of the season they'd benefit from only having to focus on the league, but after watching Emery tinker with our lineup in the European games, I'd have more confidence in him having to adapt to 5 sudden absences than I would have in whatever the f**k Ange was trying to do yesterday.

[AV84]

So, equivalent of the two centre-backs out would be Mings and Konsa. We're half there already, so just imagine Carlos and Pau in there.

Next, Bentancur goes off, so that's Kamara being replaced by Tielemans, maybe McGinn moving inside.

After that, imagine our number ten and best wide-forward getting injured. Again,  halfway there, so let's say Diaby is replaced by Bailey and - hey, shit, we did that and actually got better based on the form situation!

They still have Son, we still have Watkins. They still have Porro, we still have Doug. Etc etc. Their injuries are a bit worse than ours, but it remains incredible to me how much more attention and pity some clubs get than others.

It's not the same though as we've been playing without Mings, Buendia, Ramsey and Morneo all season.

Isn't...isn't that worse?

Yeah, I'm struggling to see how them losing Van Der Ven and Maddison for 8-10 games is worse than us having lost Buendia and Mings for the entire season before half time in the first game.

It's not like for like. First of all we had Torres and Diaby to step in for Mings and Buendia. Secondly we didn't play 12 games, build our game around them, and get to the very top of the table, and then lose them, with no quality replacements there to step in.

Losing 2 players the opening weekend is shit. Losing 2 players to injury 3 months in, in the middle of an excellent run of form and going into some big games, is also shit.

[Monty]

Ha, fair, I agree with you in that we're just in two different situations. However, that also runs counter to the woe-is-Spurs narrative the media are trying to sell to the Talksport marks.