REACTION: Tottenham 0-1 Bournemouth - Spurs Limp To First Premier League Defeat Under Frank

0:00Welcome back to Rule the Roost. Yes, it's one of those annoying ad read type things at the top of a podcast you're looking forward to listening to. thanks for tuning in just a quick request before I start if you want to help support the show this season please leave me a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify you can drop me a follow on Instagram at Ted Trunk or if you really fancy head over to patreon.com slash rtrpod for extra episodes and access to the discord community all of these things really help the podcast to get discovered by more Spurs fans and it keeps the show growing for the new campaign.

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0:52Hello darkness my old friend I've come to talk with you again because a vision softly creeping left its seeds while I was sleeping and the vision that was planned something in my voice in the sound of silence I don't know

1:25look we we don't need a grand inquest do we? After that one we lost it's disappointing it's definitely disappointing, it's frustrating I mean, few of us not me, of course, never me were counting up all the points we were going to be getting in these next few fixtures wasn't it? We were looking impenetrable we were looking bulletproof nothing to lose fire away fire away it's what I will say is I think my main take away from this game the main reflection I had watching that is that we've

2:19allowed Bournemouth's game to influence too much what it is that we're doing I think it is great that Thomas Frank is flexible, Thomas Frank caters for different occasions and everything like that but you also run the risk of perhaps losing our own identity losing our own kind of game plan and i thomas frank is obviously a very talented manager and he will learn from a game like today but it feels like we've gone into that knowing full well that Bournemouth press Bournemouth are very organised and he's opted to go with quite surprisingly that kind of Polinia Saar Bentancur midfield I would imagine Polinia primarily has been put in there to stifle Bournemouth to add an air of press resistance to our midfield right and I don't particularly know if Jao Pelinho is a press-resistant player or not as a sort of technical characteristic.

3:23But what he is is a big, hard bloke, isn't he? He's a presence. So whether or not we've gone with Pelinho there in the midfield to stifle what it is that Bournemouth can do, to add ourselves a bit more armour, a bit more steel in that midfield, if you like. I think ultimately it's been our undoing. in games like Manchester City where I guess we're probably relying on being somewhat more transitional as people say relying on those turnovers knowing that Manchester City are going to launch wave after wave after wave of attack with lots of very talented technical footballers in there having a battering ram like Jaupelinha I'm not going to default to calling him a battering ram that's not fair but you know what I'm saying Having a presence like him in that midfield to break up play and then unleash the likes of Saar and Bentancur was absolutely world-class against Manchester City.

4:27And they weren't expecting that whatsoever. Against Bournemouth, it worked to a degree, but it also meant that we weren't really progressing the ball very well because of their press, I'm guessing. I'm guessing that their press was stifling our avenues too. Kudus looked pretty much cut off for large parts of the first half and second half. Brennan Johnson, I think we all know, is very, very handy, very useful in certain circumstances. those circumstances generally being if the ball is put in front of him in the box nine times out of ten he's likely to score if he's required to make things happen outside of the box it's not you know it's not really what he does is it um I think we saw that today we saw that lack of kind of impetus um no flow coming from the midfield Bournemouth just pressed the thing is as well I've got to say, as much as I can say, put this onto us, our selection was bad.

5:39You know what as well? Bournemouth just did us today. Bournemouth were really good. Bournemouth played really well. The goal was somewhat fortuitous. You know, it was a big old deflection. At first I wasn't sure if it was just a horrible flap from Vicario, but it was. It was a crude deflection.

6:02and yeah I mean look this is the start of the journey under Thomas Frank isn't it? It's almost like I think there's a sense of us wanting to jump the queue by us I mean like some of the fans mentally I know we've had a 10 year process to get to where we are with the stadium and we've gone through cycles and all this type of thing I get it but you know Unfortunately, we are still a club that when we do slide down a bit, we can slide further than teams like Arsenal, teams like Liverpool, teams like Chelsea when they have a couple of off-seasons. I don't quite feel like the foundations are yet in place for Spurs to be able to disappear for a couple of years and then come bouncing back.

6:55I think we are we're at the start of a process under Thomas Frank but it's very promising already and as soon as we did make those changes in the second half to be fair to him look you know as much as we can all sit here and say Frank made a mistake starting with Polina that midfield isn't the sort of thing you want to do against teams who are in the you know outside of the bracket of the very elite teams in the Premier League he's obviously acknowledged that because he took of Polini off, brought Bergwahl on and what we did start to see again was a team that was ticking, that was creating opportunities.

7:31I think we still only had one shot on target, which was Bergwahl's one. But we were creating opportunities. We were breaking Bournemouth's press. We were pushing them back, pegging them back into their own half, really, almost into their own box towards the end of the game. And had we another five, ten minutes, I reckon we probably would have ended up equalising if not going on to win it. It was a bit of an off day from Richarlison given his sort of start to the season. But once again, you know, I don't feel necessarily that there was that much cohesiveness in the final third between the players.

8:12I think Kudus was somewhat cut off, but he was clearly getting a bit frustrated, I think, and that's not digging him out and that's not singling him out for criticism. but I do think he was getting quite frustrated. And I think a few of his actions were quite rushed. I think he at times sort of snatched opportunities. I think he, I don't think he got lucky. Bournemouth were definitely trying to wind him up. And was it, I can't remember which one of their players it was that went down holding their face, making out like he'd elbowed them or something. No, that's, you know, a few of them were doing that actually, Bournemouth they kept going down a couple of times because there was that later on that incident where a doggy was getting pulled down and he you know as a result of the Bournemouth player grabbing his arm he his hand came into contact with like his ear looked like it drew blood I think it must have been like a blood vessel or something like that one of those things that looked worse than it actually was.

9:18But I think Bournemouth just had our number today. They had our number and it just reaffirms really why it was so crucial and it is so exciting that we signed Xavi Simmonds because you don't want to put all the pressure on this sort of on his young shoulders. You can't be treating him as some sort of a messiah, if you like. But from what we've seen of his highlight reels, from what we've heard about people who have watched him, studied his time in the Bundesliga and various other leagues he's played in, he's going to be a talent. And he's going to be invaluable in games like this, where we have, over the past few years, really, I mean, let's be real, since we lost Ericsson struggled to break down dogged teams and I'm not going to sit here and call Bournemouth a low block team because I don't think they were playing a low block against us it didn't appear that way I think they were

10:26very energised very up for it it was a good performance from them good performance from them not particularly great performance from us but like I say we did start to find our feet towards the end and it is what it is isn't it you know i mean got an international that's the other thing as well the irritating thing is it's the international break um again again we've lost ahead of an international break we still haven't broken that curse but it is what it is you know and i know i know that type of stuff winds people up I know when you try and kind of just palm off a result in this sort of moment, it will annoy some people.

11:09And some people want to be annoyed and get angry and find somebody to blame for it. But really my sort of my knee jerk to that is, not even my knee jerk, just my feeling towards that game is that Bournemouth simply play better than us. they are further along in their process if you like they've been playing with this manager for Semenya as well what a player he is man he would be he would be a delightful player in this team honestly Semenya if you had kudos from one side Semenya on the other I mean that'd be just be like ridiculous um wonderful wonderful player he is um really really boss does for big parts of this game today i'm just like staggered nobody's gone in for him really like no nobody nobody big has gone sort of hard for him um i don't know maybe i'm missing something but i think he's he's a sensational footballer um but yeah like i say i'm not gonna rant and rave about it it's the third game of the season third premier league game of the season there's plenty to look forward to and as frank said himself at the start of the season you know it's a long road we're gonna to lose games um but i've seen enough of a positive impact from frank already that i'm not gonna start getting all wound up about it he tried something it didn't work and he rectified it in the second half so he was he was you know he was acutely aware that his gamble didn't pay off i think that's that's what it said to me and you know from games like this you have to try and draw positives out of it it's not worth me sitting here for however long half an hour an hour just complaining about the game and saying how terrible it was and how frank was you know he's a false prophet and we need to get 10 more players in before the window closes because you know i don't i don't really think a lot of that stuff and also what's that going to achieve so what i would rather do from a game like this is look for the positives and see that Frank acknowledged where he probably went wrong, made those changes pretty swiftly into the second half.

13:27And from that point on, Spurs did improve. We controlled the game and yeah, we didn't quite get it over the line. I think Richarlison has drawn quite a bit of criticism today. I'm not going to sort of start jumping on that. I'd rather sort of cast my mind back to what he's been doing for the rest of the games of this season so far and just see it as that, you know, we just didn't go into this game in an optimal state and Bournemouth did. Bournemouth did a number on us and sometimes that's just the case, isn't it? That's what we did to Manchester City last week. Are we a better team than Manchester City?

14:09We're definitely not, you know? Are Bournemouth a better team than us? I doubt it. Remains to be seen, obviously, but I highly doubt it. But sometimes teams can just do a number on one another. It's the Premier League, you know? It's the Premier League. It's the trickiest league. And I know, I know, we should be beating teams like Bournemouth, but we haven't done. We've got no right to. Premier League's a difficult league. There aren't, you know, there aren't really many walkover fixtures other than Manchester City, seemingly, for Tottenham Hotspur. um Stephen King says Jack why can't we have nice things we've got lots of nice things Stephen don't worry no desperandum my friend um Ando says international break defeat again another two weeks to stew on that mess uh yeah that I mean that's that's the kicker isn't it it's just it Had we next week a nice sort of European fixture, Champions League game to look forward to, I dare say it would soften the blow somewhat, but we don't.

15:14And you know, that isn't our future. Let's not forget that, you know. We've got Champions League this season. We just had the Champions League draw. We've got a very nice draw in the Champions League. And I expect us to do quite well in that competition as well. Canine McGurn one says, it's going to be okay. We need a left winger. Yeah, maybe. I thought, I'll do the players obviously, but I did think Odeber was very positive when he came on though in the second half. I was actually really quite taken with his performance. Tell also. Beatplate says, Do you think the club enjoys the smell of our own farts too much following our annual win over City?

15:53This is now a repeat pattern of playing very poorly and losing directly after that fixture. That's quite interesting. That is quite interesting. Maybe. Maybe there's something in that. could be. Something to mull on. It's not something I have an answer for, but there's definitely something to mull over. Benedict Fox has said, I'll take the upside. I loved seeing Bergvall, Odeber and Tell both good too. Okay, so I loved seeing Bergvall and then Odeber and Tell both good too. We move forward. Yeah, I think that's pretty sanguine. Is that what you're saying? way of looking at things and i said bournemouth were very good was surprised frank had no answers at half time more of the same wasn't what we needed yeah i mean he did he did move pretty swiftly after half time i think it was even before 60 minutes was the late 50s i think if i remember off the top of my head we did move pretty swiftly after half time so i guess there's probably an air of not wanting to be too reactive to a half give the players that you've and the you know the system that you've gone out with one last kind of opportunity to to to rectify things that I guess had been identified and pointed out in a halftime team talk you would hope um or maybe not I don't know but that would just be my guess on it um beat plate says on a positive note have you watched alien earth yet jack i have we i'll do know i'll talk about that towards the end let's stay on the football for now um now uh you know for anyone that is one of the uh you know whatever percentage it is that's 30 something percent isn't it that stay on to the end of podcasts i've gone a bit about alien earth then if you want um um darren says haven't seen the game but the stats look atrocious uh it was a pretty stinking performance darren i can't lie like i'm you know i'm choosing to be quite you know like i say positive about not positive yeah i guess positive but I'm choosing to sort of not let it get to me at this stage of the season but it was quite an ugly performance, it wasn't very good from Spurs to be honest it's a bit all over the place Alan Leslie says one of the most frustrating games I've seen in years, Richarlison reverting to type and throwing himself to the ground yeah, it wasn't I mean, yeah, it wasn't a wonderful performance from him today, was it?

18:49But he has been brilliant up until this point. So I kind of feel like the majority of the forward line, our forward line, just ended up getting quite frustrated today.

19:03And yeah, you know, it's what happens, isn't it? Day says, despite the lineup not being as progressive as it should have been, considering Bournemouth liked to press man to man, I thought we could have gotten the lead early if not for Brennan Johnson. Shouldn't start anymore. This is the thing. This is the thing about Brennan Johnson. The man is a conundrum because he scores. I know he hasn't done today, but you get him in the right position. He scores nine times out of ten. I can imagine he's a very, very difficult proposition for any manager. so yeah that's I mean that's my kind of thought on it David G says oh here we go here's another similar to what was said earlier David G says I reckon a lot of our players believe their own hype after a brilliant start to the season you could see Bournemouth were better in every duel all over the pitch hopefully Frank will ground them yeah and if that is the case then I would imagine that he will he's I think he's brilliant I do think Frank is brilliant and this is the this is the this is the start of everything right I mean of course of course it'd be lovely if we could go and do a Leicester this year and win the league in the most unlikely fashion or something like that but that's what it would be right it would be unlikely What would be nice though is if we can build ourselves into a likely outfit.

20:41If we are at the start of a road of building ourselves into a likely outfit. And what I mean by that is a team that at the start of the season people are talking about saying Spurs are solid, Spurs are a dark horse or even one of the favourites for the title. As we were under Maurizio Pochettino. But that took two, three years.

21:04Until we got to the point where we were a truly exceptional outfit. And I think if we just have a bit of patience and we just allow this team to grow, because it's such a young, such a young core we have again. A lot of the tools, and I know I'm commodifying human beings there, but a lot of the tools at Frank's disposal are brilliant, young footballers, like promising, brilliant, brilliant players. so stick with him give him a bit of time give him a bit of space to develop under his tutelage and sky's the limit you know

21:46Day says imagine Brennan Johnson imagine instead of Brennan Johnson it's Xavi instead we'll probably win that game maybe and that's that's what we're hoping isn't it but do you you know I don't know if he'll be starting off the heft I know he's played off the left quite a lot for Leverkusen and he is quite a versatile player. But I think his favourite position is that more number 10 role, isn't it? So he might well be playing alongside Brendan Johnson. I mean, I dare say he will be playing alongside Brendan Johnson at various points.

22:17Chris Bell says, mate, what were you watching? This was a disgusting performance. Bournemouth pressed the life out of us and took Kudis' threat away. Without him, we have nothing. Wake up call. I would say, Chris, I don't think I've said anything that is contrary to what you've said there. I think I've pretty much acknowledged every single thing you said there. As part of my sort of chat about the game so far, I did feel that this was, you know. So I guess maybe because you said we never had control. In a follow-up comment a couple of seconds later, you said we never had control of this game at any point.

22:58So maybe this is what I was talking about later on. but I don't think that's true I don't think that's true I do think in the last third of the match I think we were all over them really we were pressing them and they were they had been restricted to having the odd break of trying to sort of get Semenyo through Clive had that Clive had that lovely little touch as well he did like a sort of almost like back heel through ball which was yeah was very good but no I agree with you Chris I do think Bournemouth pressed the life out of us. I said that definitely they shut off the avenues to Kudus. I said that at the top as well.

23:38But I do think I disagree with you in the respect that I do think we did start to control the game towards the end. Pretty much as soon as we brought on Bergwahl into the midfield, who was being perhaps more positive in his build-up play than, say, Polina was. Hacker BLCPS says not that I would ever know better than Frank but he needed to break the Bournemouth lines, kept going over the top or to the sides limited space in the middle really well

24:11JJJ said that should have been 7-0 the worst performance from a Spurs team in 3 years against a mid-table team I'm not really buying that JJJ and I would say I'm just guessing, I'm just projecting onto you that you're coming at this from a perspective of being somebody that was a very big angi postacoglu fan because i think if you think that was the worst performance we've had in three years you know i'm not really buying that mate um julian big says better to have our pants pulled down early than 10 games in yep bournemouth were at it and we weren't fair play move on yeah I mean that's that's uh that's a good way of looking at we do have I think we've got Chelsea 10th game of the 10th game of the season again don't we the infamous Chelsea 10th game so at least we've got it out the way before then Cameron Arthur says whenever you wear the billabong we lose put it away yeah I am wearing my like nice cover I'll tell you I'll give you some insight into why I am wearing the uh the billabong today this is basically now being resigned to it's one of those t-shirts I wear when I'm like doing stuff so do it like doing the gardening doing something around the house and uh we've actually been uh so Charlotte does dog sitting every now and again right um and uh so at the moment she's you know she can't actively do much of that sort of thing at the moment so i've i've basically i'm doing the dog walking and all that type of thing and it's it's not a big rottweiler but it's a rottweiler so it's a big dog playful dog lovely dog um but i sort of just took it out for a nice big walk in the woods this morning saturday morning get up nice and early walk through the woods with the dog lovely um but yeah I'm just wearing my sort of my little I'm doing stuff because it's like lifting a muddy dog up and out of a why am I going on about this on a post born with going you don't need to hear all this I'm just I'm just excusing why I'm wearing the cursed billabong t-shirt um but it's very comfy it's very nice I do like it it's just like I said it's gone from one that I would wear out and about to just one where I walk Rottweilers in the woods.

26:39Snow Sniper Gaming says, Frank got it wrong, Bournemouth forced all the ball to be played out via Van der Venn. I can't believe I've done that. I'm really annoyed. I always hear other podcasters do that and I've done it now. No better than any of the rest of them. Spence and BJ couldn't progress the ball up the field so Kudus was frozen out of the game Bergvall and Odeberg played well yeah agree with all that mate I thought Odeberg was really nice when he came on really good he had that one opportunity dropped him really nicely a really really nicely made opportunity as well and he fluffed it way over the bar um

27:29hacker uh blcps also reckons that our players are out there uh tying flags to to lampposts i mean i i was i was just saying because like um tom foyne's friend of the show he was saying to me on whatsapp during the game that it's obviously such a thing that our players um our players get too distracted ahead of international breaks and i say you know the only the only thing to solve that is have them out there have them out there tying flags to lampposts show that they're dedicated to this country to this not um no no not to this club is what i meant to say before you didn't slip there innit um have them tying tottenham flags to lampposts down the high road.

28:14We do that, yeah? So, been all the other ones. No Sweden, no Holland. None of that. No Argentina. Just Tottenham flags. Tottenham flags up and down all the lampposts on the high road.

28:34HS says players getting space jammed before international break. Jane Poland says as always Spurs fans have a meltdown for crying out loud give us a break we're going to lose games and Frank is going to make errors he is as human as the rest of us I don't know if that's a general comment to like Spurs fans in general like on like Twitter and all that sort of thing or if you're directing that at me Jane but I feel like I've been pretty light down the line with this I think I've been alright don't you? I mean obviously not if you felt the need to direct that comment at me but if it was just a comment at large at the fan base then you know fine

29:23C Alds says Ange had an injury crisis to use as an excuse, what does Thomas Frank have? Hopefully he can learn from today's shambles and we don't need to see that again I mean just a fact check just a fact check Ange had an injury crisis for yeah part of the season but not the not like half of the end of the season he didn't so you know just saying just saying right

29:58Chris Bell says again Oduber Tell Johnson etc are bang average I don't look Oduber and Tell I think jury's out mate I reckon they've got a bit of time to go those two I thought Tell's shot that he got onto the end of in the second half it was a beautiful technique you have to give him that man he's showing a bit of talent to be able to do that but I don't think they're championship players I don't really agree with that

30:32let's do let's do the players though this time let's just you know get through this bit because I don't think there's an awful lot more to say today. I think the grand inquest is not required at this point in the season. Julien Mavicario, yeah, he was all right. My confirmation bias was tingling, wanting to dive in on him for the goal, but it did look like a vulgar deflection. so fine we'll let him off the hook Jed Spence not at his very best today has the England call-up gotten to his head no I don't think it has I just think Bournemouth pressed us really well and he just had a bit of an off game um Mickey van der Ven I thought was one of our better players today um got to say there are a couple of times when he managed to make last-ditch tackles or blocks um when Bournemouth were quite successfully breaking through us um as they did at various points throughout the game so yep that's um that's one thing for Mickey Van Der Ven I thought it was very good performance um quite unlucky to get the yellow card I felt but is what it is Christian Romero uh one thing actually going back to Vicario one thing I will say is players are still going for him.

32:04I saw it was, was it Turner? Was he called? Turner, Tavernier? Might have been Tavernier or it could have been Adams. One of Bournemouth's players kept, for the whole game, they kept having an ongoing back and forward every time Bournemouth got a corner. And Vicario, he tries his best, but he still just doesn't exude that confidence. He gets a bit too rattled by it. He just needs to kind of deal with it in a more authoritative fashion. Stop kind of like flapping his arms about and looking to the referee to help him and just kind of get on top of it because it's clearly something that players are being briefed to do to him.

32:50And he does get rattled by it still. Romero, fine, solid enough performance. he kept sort of trying to bring the ball out of defence trying to get us playing football I thought his end effort was there and good performance from him Pedro Porro not his best performance again today both basically pushed back Spence and Porro today

33:22Porro probably didn't offer Kudis enough support at times as well. I'm not really sure what was kind of going on there, but yeah, I don't know. It just wasn't a vintage performance from Poirot today, I don't think. Papsar was pretty much pressed out of the game. I love him. He's had a lovely start to the season. Was not particularly great today. Pelinia, I think, did what he does pretty well. I think he did break up some of Bournemouth's play. I think he did provide something of a presence in our midfield, but I just don't think the occasion called for him. We struggled to transition, and you would probably say that was down to him because as soon as Bergwahl came on, we started to play with a lot more freedom, a lot more thrust.

34:14Rodrigo Bentenka, I did think was all right today, though. I've got to say, despite all that, I think he was probably the best of our midfield today. I think he kept things ticking over was trying his hardest to make things happen a decent performance from him today I felt Brendan Johnson largely ineffective we didn't get him into any good positions to do what he does best which is you know in space attack that space and generally score goals but he's never that effective in the build-up and that's been proved today, especially by a clip that's already kind of doing the rounds of him, you know, kind of an unforced error basically in some of our approach play that people are sort of using to vilify him with.

35:07And I know people are going to get bored of people like me saying this, but it's not that, you know, I don't think Brendan Johnson is beyond criticism or anything like that, but also he scored a winning goal for us in a European Cup final. So I kind of, you know, got quite a sort of soft stance towards him really in that respect. I don't really have the will to sort of want to gun him. I'm just kind of like, yeah, it's Brennan, mate. Good lad. Alley, alley. Kudos. Not at his best today but wasn't allowed to be at his best. I do think, like I say, when he did get opportunities, I think his frustration was shown because I do think he rushed a lot of what he was doing, snatched at certain chances.