Jose goes all out defence with a back 5 and Hojberg basically forming a back 6, plays 3 up and Ndombele getting over run in midfield, 6-1-3 formation. Stifles the game, late late goal in the first half and a Lane injury. He changed to a back 4 and they immediately crumble.

Jose was riding the crest of a wave but his management style and the way spurs were playing were never sustainable. If Kane is out for any period of time and results go pear shaped expect Jose to start flinging mud wherever he can. If Kane is out he’ll start to have to answer some tougher questions on Bale, paying half of his £650k a week wages and not good enough to start a game, it’s been a disaster of a transfer. Supporters have not focussed on style because they were getting results - but results based on having Kane and Son score 50% of chances they get - soon enough those spurs fans will get fed up and then Jose starts burning down his own house usually blaming lack of signings, poor quality players etc and before you know it he’s gone.

If they do win the League Cup final (I so hope City beat them), I think the Tottenham fans may give Mourinho some breathing space. They’re not used to winning trophies, and if he gives them one that’ll count for something.

Jose was trying to nick a goal on the counter or end up nil nil. Liverpool had to win the game. He knew that. Tottenham aren't set up for Jose's style. Also, if they lose Kane and Son that's it.

Great negotiating lads

https://www.marca.com/en/football/premi ... b459e.html

Bit bananas that he’s earning more here than he would have at Real, but if he plays as well as he has at his best for the time he’s here it should be worth it right?

I doubt very much that he will to be honest, and not because he’s not any good, just that as a January transfer who hasn’t played much this year, and who’s last 90 minutes was june 2020, the odds are stacked against him adapting to a new league and overcoming his injuries and lack of fitness in time to make any sort of meaningful impact before he’s back in Madrid. The more I think about it I’m not getting too excited about this one.

Dean is the worst for us

And in comes Wenger .... that would be hilarious. Speaking of which, has Wenger ever complimented Saka?

We are now only 3 points from Spurs, albeit with a game more. What a change from just a month or so back. May this relative trajectory of both clubs continue.

Man Utd's Lingard used to grate me the wrong way. I just found him annoying personally for whatever reason, but he is a good player. West Ham has gotten a fine player. I hadn't realized he was 28, he seemed much younger.
I wouldn't object to having him with us instead of Willian frankly.

Have I understood this situation correctly:
We won't play Balogun because he won't sign a contract. The reason he won't sign a contract is because Arteta has not played him. The argument goes that if we play him we could be just preparing him for another club. His costs are already paid for as he is on our books and is actually a home grown player. All this despite playing Eddie and others who have not cut the mustard. Balogun has been denied similar opportunities.

But we get a loan of a young player who has not been deemed good enough at a very ordinary Real Madrid. But we pay them a fee for the loan and then pay him a very large wage despite the fact all we are doing is preparing him for another club. Hold on wasn't that the problem with Balogun. He is not a home grown player, we have no option, they will ask a large fee if he succeeds and wants to move here full time and money is tight at the club. Plus he has hardly played for months.

Congratulations - great way of going forward as a club. Last question does he earn more than S-R, Saka or Martinelli?

I'm nervous about this game. Even when we were at our best I was worried about Man Utd.
We were at our best spring 2004 and Man utd were sputtering and we lost to them in the FA Cup. Yes, there was a fixture congestion where we played Chelsea twice, Man utd and Liverpool all in a little over a week's time but still it hurts.

I want to repay that 8 goal thrashing we have one day.

Perhaps. However, I do think the gamble is worth it. The alternative to rolling the dice on players like this is simply perpetually never getting quality players in the positions you need.

I would say you have understood the situation in the most negative way imaginable, as usual.

It might just be that Arteta doesn't thinkg Balogun is quite ready, and part of playing him would be to develop him - no point in doing that if they think he's likely to leave. And it might just be that he's trying to strengthen a side severly lacking in creativity by adding one of the most highly rated creative talents in football, and the only way we could get it one is to loan him in now and try to make the deal permanent in the summer.

I’m with you here on not understanding the Balogun / Nketiah situation. Every time that Nketiah appears I find myself wishing that it was Balogun.

Agree with that, and I think too much of the analysis of the signing is black and white where he's either a huge success and we try to sign him or he fails to make any sort of impact and goes back to Madrid in the summer. To me, a more likely scenario is that he doesn't revolutionize the way we play, but show enough flashes of talent to make signing him permanently an option to ponder in the summer.

It's clearly not meant as just a loan with no view to sign him permanently. If we only wanted someone to come in and help us for four months, they probably wouldn't pick a 22-year old who has never played in the league before. And like you say, I think it's a gamble worth taking, especially considering that there is very little risk involved for us.

Bit of talk this morning about AMN going on loan for 6 months. I'd probably rather see Nelson and Willock go on loan first because AMN can cover lots of positions in a crisis and I think he should be further up the pecking order than 3rd choice RB, 4th choice LB and 6th choice CM.

West Brom are keen and David Ornstein says a club in the top 4 want him on loan. I assume he was talking about the top 4 before last nights results and therefore meant West Ham as it would be strange for City, Man U, Leicester or Liverpool wanting him on loan and be even stranger if we considered giving him to them.

I'm not convinced West Brom would be the best loan for him, they look awful. I'd rather he went on loan to someone like Wolves who were interested in the summer. I think AMN will be sold this summer to fund other purchases

and if rumours of our interest in Buendia were true, and Norwich were asking for £40m this window then it is sensible to get a temporary solution and go after your main target in the summer. We desperately need better quality in a number of positions but not so much that we should rush or panic buy and leave ourselves with another problem we can't fix.

Set aside the Willian transfer and our business of late has been in stark contrast to that of recent years, we seem to be taking a more decisive attitude to moving players on and making smarter decisoins in bringing players in to fill obvious weaknesses in the squad.

The thing with Balogun for me is we are mostly in a lose/lose situation if you take the club's view on things. If we don't play him we lose him for free at the end of the season - lose. If we do play him and he doesn't sign we lose him for free at the end of the season and we potentially look weak for giving opportunities to a player who has no intention of staying - lose.

My view is a bit different, if we take the above as the starting point then rather than looking at it that we're helping develop Balogun just for another team to benefit from it, look at it in a more positive way and Balogun (who I believe is better than Nketiah) can help us climb the league and help in Europa for the next 6 months. So if we think he's better than Nketiah -which it is clearly possible Arteta doesnt - then we benefit from him playing for us. AND......it might convince him to stay.
Don't play him and he's definitely gone
Do play him and there is maybe a 10% chance he might stay

What do we gain as a club from not taking that 10% chance?

We need to make a decision on Nketiah this summer as he has 12 months left on his deal, I would hope that that decision should be pretty clear in the clubs mind now
1) sell him
2) new contract and he plays
3) new contract and he goes on loan

I don't like Dean for his arrogance as a ref, and his 'look at me' style of refereeing - but one thing I would give Dean credit for is I think he's probably the least swayed ref in the league. I don't think he can be influenced or pressured in to decisions, he's too arrogant for that. So whilst you might not agree with his decisions and find him fussy etc I don't find him unfair or inconsistent.

There are lots of refs who wouldn't give a yellow in the first minute for a blatant awful tackle, Dean would. There are lots of refs who wouldn't give a team a clear penalty if he's already given them 2 controversial penalties in the game already - Dean would.

I know our record isn't great with him but I'd rather a ref be strong and stick with his decisions, ignoring all background noise and past reputation.

The Balogun thing is a bit of a storm in a teacup, isn't it? He has potential but that is all it is at this stage. He has no experience at the top level and he's 19 ffs. He should keep working and wait his turn. If he doesn't want to then cheerio.

I had forgotten they were in the League Cup Final, yes hopefully Pépé can win that one as I'd agree there would be some breathing space for him if he won a trophy. For a start Jose wouldn't let anyone forget it at the end of the season irrespective of where he finishes in the league!

With our group of young academy players coming through, and talented young players from abroad it is worth shining a light on Spurs' academy. Clearly they produced a generational talent in Kane, but his breakout season was 2014 - what or who else have they produced in the last 7 years, including foreign players that join the club at 16-18 years of age? I can think of Harry 'sideways pass' Winks but that's it.

Our record of buying 'experienced' player on their way down to fill gaps is pretty poor. The risk of accumulating expensive dead wood is extremely high. So I'm delighted with this sort of business. Ødegaard's wages are high, but its only for five months. I'm also delighted that we seem to be decisive. People shouldn't constantly second guess how we have dealt with the likes of Saliba, Guendouzi and Balogun. The beauty of having such young talent is that they can easily be moved on or loaned if they are not fitting in for whatever reason.

Yes, it's strange to use those instances to bash the club when we have players like Saka and Smith-Rowe basically saving the team in recent weeks, with others like Martinelli and Gabriel playing important roles in our future. Not every young player is going to be perfectly handled and make it with us.

I agree. Many on this forum have made their minds up that Nketiah is not worth persevering with, which seems rather hasty to me. A little while back Rowe-Smith was considered equally dispensible, a potential sale to help fund a bigger name. Things have changed there, so why not for Nketiah?

Im not sure the alternative to getting Ødegaard on loan in January is “never getting quality players in positions you need”. All the other quality players in the squad in positions we need them weren’t January punts on loan.

An alternative is getting in someone who’s match fit if you are literally paying for short term impact. The talk about M-N to WH if that happens, whilst far less ambitious than a prodigy from RM, has lots more chance of working out as he’s ready to go. That sort of thing.

I realise we’re not in the same situation and really I like the clubs ambition here - it could lead to something that really helps us. However I doubt it, and it seems much more likely that it doesn’t make much of a difference and whilst you can describe it as small change the club is spending 3M on it in fees and wages.

With Ødegaard, what have we got to lose? If he plays for us anywhere near his games at Sociedad we will enjoy him, albeit just for a few months.

Exactly

Also the club are well within their right to not play him if he’s refusing to sign a contract. He’s 19 years old so he’s probably been running his contract down since he was 17.

Any nonsense that he’s not signing because we aren’t playing him is ridiculous because we are throwing youngsters in at the deep end left right and centre so he knows he’s getting his chance.

He shares an agent with Saka so his agent should be chuffed his clients are at Arsenal where we give young talent a real go.

To be honest he sounds a bit of a wrong un

To add to the melodrama, Balogun also shares an agent with Nketiah, doesn't he? It's like Days of Our Lives, but with footballs, and better scripts.

Lets hope the players are better too! Although I do note that Betty White played in two episodes of Days of Our Lives which raises the average a bit ...

Reading Rich's and a couple others view on Balogun, if he's good enough play him. Whether he wants to leave or not. It's not the first time we have done that. Edu was leaving at the end of the season when he last played for us. We knew it, we played him, he did well.

The latter 'lose' in the lose/lose scenario for me is the better. Also, one never knows. He plays well, enjoys himself, he may decide to stay. If he doesn't, we have the summer to replace him. Right now, we need quality players in the side. If we were in a different situation, okay, but right now, lets play the best players we have.

Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano has some great stories on his channel. This particular story, reminds me of a guy I knew (or more accurately knew who he was) growing up in Philly. He was a guy the neighborhood (as well as other surrounding neighborhoods), could go to for 'help'. I had a friend who was opening up a clothing store years ago, when I moved to California. They bought a run down corner store near our area and the city inspectors said it wasn't up to code and it needed thousands of dollars worth of work, upgrades, etc.

Someone suggested they talk to the guy we knew. He told my friend and his business partner it would cost a certain amount to open the store right away. It was about 5k I think which was way below the tens of thousands of work needed to be done.

Another city code inspector came, basically checked off certain areas as okay that the prior code inspector said wasn't up to par (my understanding is these were subjective) and then said 'but this has to be fixed'. But instead of having to be done before they can be opened as the other inspector said, this guy said they had 6 months for this, a year waiver on that, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNYbLjQpuDc&t=615s

I wonder what Arteta will do with Aubameyang still out of the side and possibly Tierney back? The left side has been quite a dominant side for us to attack from under Arteta and it has worked because the balance has been right. If we play Pépé and Tierney down that side it might seem the easy decision because Tierney is in good form and really adds quality and natural width but Pépé is also left footed and he could end up in Tierney’s way. Tierney played well with a left winger who drifted in to the middle, so it may be in Arteta’s mind to play Martinelli. However I think we’ve made a mistake with Pépé before by dropping him after he’s gained some confidence from a good game.

The thing I really want to see against Man U is that high press. Man u’s defenders are not as comfortable on the ball as they are at just doing basic defending, I’d include their defensive mids in that as well. None of Matic, Fred or McTominey strike me as having a short, sharp one touch game with pace and mobility.

Woke up feeling like we might get a result today.

Partey to do a job on the united midfield.

The left side has been dominant for us off and on for a while. The Cole-Pires (and Henry usually coming in from the left) was lethal. When Reyes came even more so. Van Bronckhurst and even Gibbs and Clichy to a lesser extent.

Anyway sounds like a good problem to have when you have if we aren't sure which quality player to keep out.

ITV4 are showing an old The Big Match from 1975. One of the games was Arsenal v Stoke. Reminded me just how bad the pitch at Highbury used to get.

Nervous about the match. I always hated that feeling of anxiety. Haven't had that feeling in a while, and having it is a good thing. The match means something. In the most recent few years, I was just hoping not to lose.

Buendia sent of for Norwich today. He has that in him. Will be interesting to see where we go for our creative player in the summer

Derby v Stoke was on a couple of weeks ago. The Derby pitch was the worst of the lot. A total bog. Alan Hudson managed to glide across it mind you.

Big blow with Saka not in the squad today. Tierney still not fit and Aubameyang in quarantine.

Martinelli comes in for Saka

Well... bugger.