This is a little different to a normal episode, a look back at the month of February and taking a more considered view of how it went. The regular pods are an immediate reaction to a game. This is an attempt to be more reflective and look at the bigger picture. This is something that we are planning to do every month, so let’s hope it works!
Wolfsberger
Bear Hard
This week The Game Is About Glory celebrates our 4-0 thumping of Burnley, our 4-0 thumping of Pellets, cult heroes and ponders whether we have seen the back of nervous bogies flicked onto sofas and errantly delivered poo emojis in the heat of tactical battle. You know you’ve been there…
Derek Myer
THERAPY, THERAPY
This week, The Game Is About Glory couch offers counsel on the defeat at West Ham, a Covid in football conversation and even the odd dash of comedy. We’ve been here before, we know how to navigate the choppy waters, we know how to protect our knees and we even know that our squad desperately needs Darth Vader at the back and Yoda as our metronome midfield maestro. Tune in now…
Under The Frog
Wolfsberger walloped. The team get together for a special edition pod where the 4-1 win over Wolfsburg, Dele Alli, Bart Simpson, Dier hair, Star Wars, pyscho eyes, Martin Scorcese AND Moura’s super-dribble-finish are all discussed…well, one of these isn’t, so tune in and find out what’s what on your favourite THFC pod.
How have we done away in the Europa?
Before everyone (including me) loses their shit when we succumb to a late equaliser in what will be a very underwhelming performance its worth remembering how generally uninspiring all our Europa away performances have been over the last decade where we’ve been in very different motivations and cycles with tons of different players involved.
Since the start of the 2011/12 season we have played 27 Away Europa League games (this excludes 4 qualifiers). This period of time covers 5 managers – Redkanpp (3), AVB (9), Sherwood (2), Poch (10), Mourinho (3). You might also be interested to learn that the starting XI of the first of these matches included in the data – 0-0 at PAOK in Sept 2015 included Harry Kane.
Although this has included some stellar opposition – Dortmund (2015/16 – went on to win it), Lyon, Inter, Benfica it also includes fixtures against your punchline Europa sounding IKEA furniture teams like LASK, Qarabag, Asteras, Tromso, Sheriff.
Our record is as follows:
Won 7
Drawn 11
Lost 9
Scored more than twice – 3 (LASK 3-3, Ludogorets 3-1, Shamrock 4-0)
Biggest win – 4-0 v Shamrock
Winning by 2 goal margin – 5
Add to this the ‘sense check’ and what you can remember from watching the game and if your memory is anything like mine most of this merge into one vision of grey, insipid, low intensity football. Coming over such a long period with such different players and managers you’ve got to recognise a pattern and one I don’t see getting much better this evening. Even our incredible 2016/17 team in Peak Poch managed to lower their levels considerably during a period of free flowing winning football domestically to crash out to Gent after a very indifferent performance in Belgium.
Fortunately our home record is very different. In the same 27 games we have:
Won 19
Drawn 5
Lost 3
So I’m reasonably confident that we’ll get through over 2 legs but not expecting anything very exciting tonight. In the context of the last few weeks this could further fuel the negative narrative that’s consuming us but important to be aware of this for wider perspective.
Brainfarts And Boo-Boys
In what has been another “week” in modern Tottenham Hotspur history, the team tackle it all from leaky d’s to booing fools and everything between, including whether a left foot is enough and hateful music. There we are now, entertaining you!