Cronky

It bugs me that just before their second goal, Shelvey had put a decent free kick into their box, and Maguire was able to head it away from near his goal area with none of our players within five yards of him. The clearance led directly to the goal. We do look tentative. With the players we've got, we've probably got no choice but to play defensively, but the down side is we can look too passive.

That was awful to watch, but ironically, with five minutes to go, we still had a chance of snatching something. Bruce isn't going to change the tactics on the basis of that match. Joelinton is ineffective in that position against the quality sides, where his lack of pace is shown up. I'd agree that Almiron is the better option. Krafth is improving and at least tries to impose himself.

He doesn't look like he wants the ball, which is a real problem for a central midfielder. Defensively, he doesn't seem to want to assert himself either.

They're going through our midfield like it's not there. Our midfield seems to be ASM - Hendrick - Shelvey - Joelinton (not the soundest defensively), with Hayden spending more time in a back five than in midfield. Trouble is, it means that Hayden isn't really figuring anywhere. ASM wasting a very good situation at the end there. He should have fed Wilson in.

He struggled to deal with crosses and high balls into the box, and fumbled the ball a few times. Conditions would have played a part, but it wasn't a good performance.

True. That's what I meant when I said he doesn't play with any conviction.

Whenever a Burnley player lost an aerial challenge, they hit the deck to try and get a free kick, and most of the time they succeeded. I think the minute Wilson made contact, Long decided to go for the free kick rather than get into a physical contest.

I don't know what he's offering to the team. He's poor on the ball, and doesn't seem to take responsibility for making anything happen. If he was good at defending I wouldn't mind so much, but although he gets into position, he doesn't put his opponent under any pressure and stays too far off. There doesn't seem to be any conviction behind what he's doing. It's like he's so afraid of making a mistake, he never really imposes himself. There was an incident at West Ham which sums up all my frustration with him. He'd got himself into a good attacking position in the final third, and Shelvey threaded a ball through to him. No opponent was near him, but he just banged the ball straight back to Shelvey.

Hendrick never looks happy in possession, and generally seems tentative. He doesn't seem to want to impose himself. Barnes is a diver. The ref needs to get a bit savvy with him. Joelinton looks a different player in that withdrawn position.

Yep

VAR would’ve been and still could be fine. The problem is they got referees to decide on the implementation and usage of it. If they’d given it to a panel of players, you know, people that have actually played the game, the implementation would’ve been fine. Exactly the same thing should be done when deciding on rule changes but instead they leave it to people who have never played the game and they consistently fuck it up. Who’d have thought?! I think you do need the input of people with experience of enforcing the rules. The job is much more difficult and complicated than many players and ex-players seem to think. It's a matter of having realistic expectations. VAR was never going to eliminate all debate and controversy. It's just a matter of improving decisions, or at least eliminating the obviously incorrect.

The penalty decision was correct, in the sense that it was consistent with the way in which VAR is now handling those sorts of incidents. Having said that, this and other similar decisions are ridiculous. It's like, for the sake of VAR, they are trying to make handball an issue of fact, rather than subjective interpretation. However, it leads to some very unfair decisions for defenders. Just because the issue of intentionality is a difficult one, doesn't mean they should abandon it altogether. Everyone needs to accept that this is always going to be a grey area, and there is never going to be complete consistency in how the rule can be applied.

Yep. Shelvey has good technique but is slow and tends to operate from deep, like a quarterback. We need someone who can create further up the field, and through the centre.

An absolutely brainless challenge for the penalty. He was embarrassed at being beaten and his ego prompted him to somehow get his own back. It was the mentality of a yobbo park footballer.

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that virtually every game of professional football in the world is filmed / televised. The need to have scouts trailing around live games can't be quite the same as it was. I like the idea of Nobby giving the club the tip-off, but I wouldn't have thought that footage of him playing would be difficult for the club to get hold of.

On Dennis-style scouting, he looks like a genuine No 10, which we do lack at the moment. The Premiership is a big jump, but at 250K it looks well worth the risk.

Needs to get a proper haircut too. Can we agree on that?

The Longstaffs are both works in progress, but they will improve and have the potential to add more technical ability to the midfield, which is where we are found wanting at the moment. Whether at this precise moment, for a particular game, you might prefer Hendrick is a fair point, but the Longstaffs have got to be given a chance if we are to develop.

His pace and strength can be an asset, but I would hope that he is used as a squad player in certain situations rather than as a first-team regular. To move forward, we need to improve our ability to work the ball through the midfield, and he is definitely not the answer to that problem. One or both of the Longstaffs would help in that area.

It just feels like a square peg in a round hole. Mourinho is a winner, for the most part, and Spurs have rarely won anything. They have a squad full of players who are not of the mentality Mourinho has been working with previously and as a result they aren't responding to what he is saying or doing. We've probably all become experts in Spurs from watching All or Nothing but I think he comes across very well but it seems obvious to me that the squad has no leaders. Kane might be their best player but that doesn't make him a leader, he's not particularly inspiring. If you could offer a defence, they were off the pace today as many teams will be in the first few weeks - Liverpool were bang average yesterday but their key man stepped up when it mattered, I know it was two penalties but he was their sharpest player on the pitch by a mile. The formation Mourinho is using seems needlessly elaborate though. Doherty (and previously Aurier) is so high up you've then essentially got a back three but with a gaping hole down the right when they lose possession. I guess Sissoko is meant to cover there but why not just play an actual right back? It's a strange hill to die on and for what? To get your right back playing further forward? They had the air of a team that has already peaked. They need a signing that will set things alight again - like Fernandes at Man U.

I watched the last half hour of the Spurs game, and they really were bad. No spirit, belief, leadership, fight. Is Mourinho a busted flush? He has a big club all right, but if you've managed Man U, Real, and won League titles and Champions Leagues, Spurs are a step down. It can't be easy to motivate yourself in the same way as when your career is on the up.

I think it's fair enough to argue that Rafa did a good job with the quality of players at his disposal, and that his managerial skills were very restricted by the transfer budget that we were operating with. What gets a bit irritating is the retrospective idea that the football he produced was in any way entertaining, even in the latter stages.

Howe seems too nice for that situation. Something went wrong at Bournemouth last season. It seemed like a lot of players' minds weren't quite on the job, and Howe wasn't able to get their focus back.

He looked like a good athlete, but technically deficient on the ball. I was disappointed that Bruce had both him and Hayden in the side, which did hamper our ability to play the ball through the midfield. But having said that, Bruce picked a team to do a job on West Ham, and it was effective. We always looked the more likely winners. Longer term, I'd like to see Longstaff in that position, with Hayden and Hendrick competing for that midfield anchor role.

Not easy on the eye, but we deserved the win. Of the three newcomers, Wilson looked good. Lewis looked a bit raw but showed promise. Hendrick showed a bit more confidence in the second half, but basically looked very awkward on the ball. A fit looking Andy Carroll is a big bonus. He did really well.