You know it's been a bad day when.....
· ....Your goalkeeper is deemed your best player with a moderate grade (5.7), thanks to him restricting the margin of defeat by three or four goals through a combination of his saves, and your opponents' misses, which included a penalty.
· ....Your best outfield player was one of the substitutes. That was Erik Lamela (5.5), about whom there were positive comments made by Spurs Odyssey voters.
· ....10 of the fourteen players used scored less than 5 out of 10, and your worst player was deemed by voters to have been the boy wonder of the last two seasons - Dele Alli (3.8). Does that make Dele worse even than Kieran Trippier, who everyone agreed had a nightmare against Sane? I think not, and think that Dele was marked down for his reckless challenge when he was fortunate not to see red.
· ....The team, and their manager offer their worse performance of the season so far against the best team of the season.
· ....Spurs' form over the last five games is as bad as that of West Ham (who have improved under David Moyes), and far worse than that of Everton, who have dramatically improved under Sam Allardyce with four wins and a draw, lifting themselves into ninth place, out of trouble, and now only six behind Spurs, who face a struggle to win back a place in the top four.
Some of the comments made about this performance and the game can be published, and were worthy, I think. Here is a selection:-
"Depressing, for a manager and team that's been praised to the hilt. Under Pochettino we were totally outplayed by an awesome, pacey, one touch passing team. Dele needs to grow up. Trippier had a nightmare but to be fair Sane is powerful and very quick"
"...Too many mistakes from normally reliable players. I think this has to be the worst display in a Spurs shirt for Dier and Trippier. It would be too easy to excuse the performance by saying Man City were so good, they are but I think we made them look better."
".......Winks was an ornament for the first goal and you could smell the fear in the tunnel"
"Thank God Lamela is not only back but to my eyes, looking better than when he was injured"
"Magic got it wrong today. We needed a disciplined performance, as in Madrid. Instead we were too open. The start of the second half was a bit better, but why oh why did we push forward and leave ourselves open after goal no 2. We needed to be tight and see if we could nick a goal to get back in, not leave ourselves open to conceded."
"Why play from the back when the opposition from the start were closing us down so quickly, it is ok to play like that when teams are putting 10 men behind the ball. Where has the pace gone that we played with last season???!
Thanks for all your votes and comments everyone. You now it's been a bad day when .....your next game is away against Burnley, and they are above you in the Premier League!
· See the spursometer in full.
Results 16-18.11.17
Leicester 0-3 C. Palace
Arsenal 1-0 Newcastle
Brighton 0-0 Burnley
Chelsea 1-0 S'hampton
Watford 1-4 Hds'field
Stoke 0-3 West Ham
Man City 4-1 Spurs
West Brom 1-2 Man Utd
B'mouth 0-4 Liverpool
Everton 3-1 Swansea
Premier League Table - 2017-18
P W D L F-A GD Pts
1. Man City 18 17 1 0 56-12 44 52
2. Man Utd 18 13 2 3 39-12 27 41
3. Chelsea 18 12 2 4 32-14 18 38
4. Liverpool 18 9 7 2 38-20 18 34
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5. Arsenal 18 10 3 5 31-20 11 33
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6. Burnley 18 9 5 4 16-12 4 32
7. Spurs 18 9 4 5 31-18 13 31
8. Leicester 18 7 5 6 27-26 1 26
9. Everton 18 7 4 7 24-30 -6 25
10. Watford 18 6 4 8 27-33 -6 22
11. H'dsfield 18 6 3 9 16-30 -14 21
12. S'hampton 18 4 6 8 17-24 -7 18
13. Brighton 18 4 6 8 14-23 -9 18
14. C. Palace 18 4 5 9 15-28 -13 17
15. West Ham 18 4 5 9 17-32 -15 17
16. B'mouth 18 4 4 10 15-24 -9 16
17. Stoke 18 4 4 10 19-39 -20 16
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18. Newcastle 18 4 3 11 16-27 -11 15
19. West Brom 18 2 8 8 13-24 -11 14
20. Swansea 18 3 3 12 10-25 -15 12
