Shak

I mean the angle where you can't see the contact that he makes with the ball is obviously gonna look worse for the defender

Imagine it was with the feet though. Striker and defender go for the ball, striker gets there first and tries to nick the ball towards goal. However, just after the striker makes contact the defender gets his foot on the ball too before he makes contact with the striker. That's not a foul and neither was this, if you make contact with the ball before you make contact with the player you're considered to have won the ball.

Saliba makes contact with the ball though. Had Saliba not made any contact with the ball then I'd agree with you but he does. Horrible decision IMO.

This is the most annoying thing about his whinging. We were probably just about the better side overall and definitely had the better chances. He has every right to be proud of how they played given their health issues this week but the suggestion that they thoroughly outplayed us and it was some sort of freak result is ridiculous

It's worse than a standard "the decision was wrong and completely changed the game". The vague phrasing seems very much intended to hint at there being some sort of malice at work and that Spurs have been the victim of some sort of foul play, but the refusal to say what exactly he's talking about means he can't really get in trouble for it.

He's become this season what he always should have been, a very capable CB who can play LB in a pinch and do a serviceable job there. It's a pity he and Botman are both left footed because you could make a very strong case that they're our two best CBs at the moment.

I reckon if all things had been equal it would have been a draw.

The presenter with her "K" response and Brady looking furious

Fucking Murphy is playing his dick off

I mean it makes sense to put in a few of those at the keeper and see what he's made of. Maybe stop when he looks very comfortable on the first couple? Hopefully it's setting something up for later in the game.

Bruno man, it's a marvel he's as good a player as he is with how fucking slow he is

Great football there. Isak has to score there, not sure you can realistically expect him to know Gordon has a sitter behind him.

I'd probably be the same but it's mostly because we're conditioned by years of horrendous handball rules.

Find it very annoying that if a team has the ball and an opposition player is down you're expected to put it out of play, but if you have the ball and your teammate is down it's perfectly acceptable to keep playing.

God gonna be a game this

It's a very weird tweet but even if you remove all the casual noncery and do your best to see the analogy it's completely useless

There's so much space to control the ball into

I've never seen him play but Khusanov seems like the absolute right profile of player we should be targeting at CB. Come in with the plan for him to slot in behind Schar and take over for him at the start of next season. If he comes in and is an absolute colossus from day one and takes over sooner all the better but a bedding in period seems the most likely outcome.

I do think it's gonna be a challenge for Amorim and their recruitment team to build the team he wants, given his system is very different from what most teams do and most of their current squad don't seem a good fit for it. Seems their PSR situation isn't great and the big earners on their books could be hard to shift. Ideally you'd want a clear out and bring in a lot of young players to build your new culture and system, but I suspect Amorim is going to have to make do with some less than ideal pieces for quite a while. Obviously the people in charge will have known all of this before giving him the job so you'd imagine they plan to give him plenty of time. He seems a decent fella who wants to play good football so outside of the fact that he's the manager of one of our more direct current rivals I don't wish him any specific ill will. Would love to see Brexit Jim forced to pay him off early and look like a complete tit again, mind you

Love VAR, great for the game.

It's possible, but it seems a bit fanciful to me tbh. If we switched him and Bruno back I'd not be surprised if Tonali looked mostly like he did a month ago, a quality player in a side that isn't set up effectively. Fully agree that a lot of people overlook all the top qualities that Eddie brings to the role and just assume that a replacement will have all of those things too while maybe being better at some of the things which aren't necessarily Eddie's greatest strengths, when in reality we'd lose a lot of them. That doesn't mean we have to act like everything Eddie does that doesn't work out is part of some master plan, though. Most likely he had no real intention of moving Bruno out of the deep role permanently and Sandro only played there against Chelsea in the cup because Bruno needed a rest. It doesn't matter though. What matters is that he's tried something, it's worked and he's taken that and run with it and we look excellent.

I think that's probably a bit generous. The main reason Tonali has been so well recently is largely that he's playing a different role. I don't think it's outrageous to suggest that Eddie struggled to properly use Tonali the early part of this season. I really feel we've turned a corner. We've just absolutely played our opponents off the park for four games in a row. How often had we done that in the last year? Feels like everything has been a bit of a slog for so long but now we're fucking humming. Don't mind admitting that I was wavering a bit not that long ago. We've been trying to evolve our playing style this season and it didn't seem to be working or even be showing signs of starting to click. Performances were mostly poor and the football was largely dull to watch. The swapping of Bruno and Tonali though has impacted the team in so many ways. We look really good and it looks very sustainable. Bruno playing more advanced gives us a bit of craft in the final third, he sees passes nobody else in our team does and has the ability to pull them off. Additionally, his weakness of occasionally getting caught in possession isn't really an issue when he's got Sandro behind him covering, whereas before he was losing it in a way that could badly expose the defense. He has more license to try things where he is now. Sandro at the #6 position is a revelation. He just does everything at such a lovely speed, gets the ball and moves it out quickly and effectively to a teammate. The tempo is contagious, when attacks break down and we go back to Sandro he inevitably pings it back forward to a player in a good spot and we can try again. So rarely caught in possession. He's also a fucking animal defensively. First goal today came from that, he came powering forward and dispossessed the Villa player and started the counter. He's rapid and strong, wins the ball so well. He'll protect the back four so much better than Bruno did, while also having the legs to get forward from deep when the opportunity arises. You could criticise Howe for maybe not swapping them sooner and that would be fair enough. But fuck, being a manager at this level is so hard. We've found something and it's working and looks like the way forward. He brings so much to the table as a manager, I'll not quibble that it's taken maybe a bit longer than it could have for him to find the best way to evolve our style. Fucking delighted for him too, you could see in his interview that he's buzzing. Can't fucking wait for Monday now.

He's gonna be an excellent squad player for us for years to come. Ideal world we'll have a first choice RW and a talented young developmental prospect alongside Murphy there. Play the young lad when we feel it's a good scenario for him to get minutes in, while we can use Murphy when Eddie needs someone with a bit more experience. Murphy can also be a reliable option LW, while also being an emergency RB. Pleased for him the last few games, his general play has still been patchy but he's been productive.

Pass it to Bruno Joelinton you selfish fuck

Man, Bruno is so lovely in that advanced position looking for those passes