A few points (ie STOP MOANING!)

[CanaryJames 0]

I’ve not really read the after-match posts on here but I imagine the doom-mongers are out in force so here’s a couple (9 to be precise!) of points:

1) No Bell, Lupoli, Kennedy (has he officaly joined yet or what!?!), Drury and no big strikers (probably 2). All these players will be in the 16 on matchdays more often that not, so that''s a sizeable chunk of our squad gone.

2) Clingan, Hoolahan, Stefanovic, Omozusi, Bertrand - just 5 of Roeder''s new boys. This is probably going to be approx. half his signings this summer, so we can hardly judge him fairly on this result!

3) We were forced to play Pattison at left back (although I would of personally brought Shackell or Eagle on), due to Bertrand getting a minor injury - taken off as a precaution. This is where alot of Tottenham''s attacks came from, unsuprisingly, and where their goals tended to come from.

4) We played one up-front for large periods of a match against good Premiership opposition, due to not having strikers in the squad. No disrespect to Cureton, who scored a good goal and worked hard, but he can''t lead the line against players like Huddlestone, it''s just not practical.

5) Croft and Hoolahan were very impressive on the wings, and our full-backs got foward at times, causing problems. The delivery was usually good, and had a big man been in he middle, we''d have score more than 1, no question. Also, a big man would of been able to keep hold of the ball alot better than Cureton, and thus we''d retain possession, meaning Tottenham wouldn''t counter so easily.

6) Tottenham are a good Premiership team! Our "big money" signing so far has been David Bell (who didn''t play!) for £600k or so. Compare this to Modric''s £15milliion, as well as the signing of Dos Santos (who not too far back was dubbed as the new Messi!) and it''s fair to say they should be beating us like this!

7) It''s a friendly!

8) Lee Clark was going mental on the touchline, so we can rest assured that they got the hairdryer treatment anyway. Pattison in particular was driving Clark crazy. My personal feeling is that Pattison only lasted the whole 90 because it became apparent that we have better options for the "real matches"(such as Bell). He''ll be a good squad player, but hopefully won''t grace the first team all that often on this evidence.

9) This was Stefanovic''s first game, and it was against opposition he''s now avoiding my dropping to this league. He looked assured, and I think he''ll do very well against most Championship teams. Equally, Omozusi looked decent, although I don''t believe he was signed as a CB. When somebody like Kennedy is alongside Stefanovic/whoever, then we can judge the defence.

A similar result against Colchester, moan all you want, but it''s not fair to judge the team on this. We didn''t actually play that badly, especially first half - admittedly Spurs dominated the 2nd completely - and as I''ve pointed out above, there are reasons for it not going right so to speak. Calm down!

[GJP 79]

[quote user="CanaryJames"]

 

9) This was Stefanovic''s first game, and it was against opposition he''s now avoiding my dropping to this league. He looked assured,

[/quote]

He look assured? When?

I was expecting him to be pretty decent but he looked horrendously slow and he bottled a tackle which resulted in their 2nd (???) goal.

Far from assured, in my opinion.

[CanaryJames 0]

Hoolahan bottled a tackle at some point which led to a goal as well.

Stefanovic left the Premiership was with the greatest will in the world he can''t cope at that level anymore. It''s just unfortunate his first game with us had to be against a good Prem side!

I thought he looked decent enough to add something to the squad. He couldn''t deal with pace well, but his reading of the game is impressive. At championship level he''ll be a good player to have in the squad. It was his first game as well so give him a chance!

[GJP 79]

Dejan Stefanovic is a 6''3" centreback and he should know that you have to go into every tackle like you mean it. He didn''t and it cost us.

On that performance I''d be very surprised if he started the first game of the season (unless we have injuries). It was only his first game but he looked switched off and slow. Hopefully he''ll improve because if not on that performance he''s not going to do much for us.