[Dr. Dwayne]

See how different the outlook on your whole week is after a positive result? Honestly, I feel so much better today than recent weeks!

Weeks? Try years!

 

[Rozay]

Weeks? Try years!

Well, on the whole, perhaps, but any good result still provides a short-term lift, even if darkness has inevitably been around the corner!

 

[Roosney]

- Tottenham are good at diving

Absolutely. Even my 8yr old son was like WTF when he saw the replay of some of the so called tackles we did.

And they're very good at crying to the ref too. Every fecking chance they possibly had they were whining like a bunch of wuzzies.

 

[Sereques]

useless cnuts Tottenham.

 

[Yorkeontop]

Didn't Danny Rose injure another player recently?

 

[marlowe78]

This was a good result but I am still very unconvinced about our defence. Rojo and Jones were themselves very good in breaking up Tottenham's forward play and I would be slow to change that pairing, even with Bailly returning. Having said that, our backline still does not look settled.

Darmian I thought was a complete mess on the left side. He was being abused repeatedly by Dembele and Sissoko and couldn't hold his position against a runner for the entire game. He also supplies no outlet for the CBs and no attacking threat which leaves Martial isolated on the wing and often in a 1 v 2 when he gets into the attacking half. I thought Darmian would improve under Mourinho but he shows no aptitude at all for high pressure situations like this. Shaw and Blind should be well ahead of him in the pecking order and we should sign a veteran who can play both sides on a 1 or 2 year deal (or recall CBJ) as cover, after which Darmian is sold.

Rojo and Jones did a good job of securing the box but a lot of our play in the back was sloppy. We struggled to pass out of tight areas and there were times where we needed some composure, which often Carrick supplied from his MF position. Carrick gave the ball away a few times himself but it was still an unheralded performance for him because he was pretty much holding that entire mess together. It's a shame that Blind doesn't have the attributes to be a regular CB because he gives us a lot of the calm and steady decision-making that we're lacking back there. Work also needs to be done on how we defend set pieces, on the first free kick we gave them too much space to aim for our goal and on that free header to Wayama, I really want to know what Pogba was trying to do. He completely lost track of his marking and then tried to play Wayama offside when he clearly was going to be on. Luckily Spurs were being Spurs and they shat on a goal we handed to them.

I think we would've been in much for a much harder time on Sunday if the opponent showed up, to be honest. Spurs were absolutely awful (especially Kane) but they still had a few decent looks at our goal and De Gea was much busier than he's usually been this season. There were some positives - we looked dangerous again on the counter, Mkhitarian was superb, and we look capable again of seeing out a result against a top 4 squad. Still some way to go, though, in reaching where we want to be.