Are we still statiscally the 3rd best defensive team in the PL? Shows

[Dorset Gooner]

what a load of *******s stats are. Shambles.

[Redflag]

[Monty91]

in the table. *******s too?

[Dorset Gooner]

pointing to how wonderful our defence is. Where we finish will tell us how good we are come May. probably 5th best I would imagine.

[Monty91]

simplistic conclusions. With regard to our surprisingly impressive defensive stats, I'd be more inclined to attribute them to our potency as an attacking team than to our defensive attributes.

[Dorset Gooner]

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Correct also as it was pish but equally if we had a time machine and those goals were passes from Bergkamp or Vieira onto a runner like Ljungberg or Pires we'd be on our knees in a collective act of masturbation at the quality of the attacking play.

[Peter]

Interesting that we conced fewer goals away, and score fewer. And you believe that is caused by the quality of pur attacking play?

[Monty91]

we're 5th for a reason. And I'd say that reason is because we score a lot of goals, and if this is accompanied by a (relative to the rest of the league) good defensive record, then I'd be more inclined to attribute it to this attacking potency than defensive solidity.

Or to put it another way, you won't hear me arguing that we have a particularly good defence.

[Luis Anaconda]

[Peter]

Is the pressure on the ball and the movement of the defensive line- means the ball has to be perfectly wieghted and angled, the run has to be subtle and borh have to be timed perfectly.

Take away pressure on the ball and add in a static and crooked defensive line that dont react and it is a piece of piss. They ctually f**ked up two easy opportunuties to do exactly the same thing earlier in the game.

This time you have to blame the backline for failing to react. The midfield actually did a great job for much of the game.

[Peter]

Possession is what makes the defensive issues look even worse. The mistakes often arent from constant pressure, just from the few moments we get even partially exposed.

We gifted spurs those goals and almost gifted them two more, in a game where we were argusbly the better side for long periods.

[Luis Anaconda]

to track Siggurdson's run - far more about that than the defence. The second was a f**king foul as well -c**ts

[Peter]

Were protected well throughout the game and the minute thy werent they failed to react at all.

You cannot block every pass, every angle, every bit of space. At some point your defence is going to get tested to do its job. They failed.

Tought to blame jack for that, even if the situation arose partly from him. They should have dealt with the problem better, or at least reacted to it.

[Luis Anaconda]

Sorry to disappoint you by agreeing. Still pissed me off because it was a clear dereliction of duty

[Peter]

Hardly created a chance, aside from the goal and an. Opening for ramsey. The front threehad a poor day and the energy leel really dropped after an hour.

Spurs got nervous at 2-1 but we just didnt put them under enough pressure. Giroud had a really poor game, theo as well.

The only thing that really hurts is how well we played in the first half hpur and how easily we threw it away. I cant seeus rescuing tihs situation now and part of me is intrigued to see what happens if we drop out pf the champions league.

[Luis Anaconda]

I agree with most of that too. I'm hoping for some interesting German teams in the Europa Cup draw

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

"... what happens if we drop out pf the champions league".

Nothing different will occur.