Ok, here goes first of the season an all that. Firstly if we play like that against the majority of teams this season we will be fine. All the team and subs played well bar 2 players.

1 - Nolan, ineffective all game, and when we were down to 10 and Spurs started to press he showed how slow he really is.
2- Cole, his knees are shot and it is as painful watching him play up front as it must be for his knees.

I can't dig Noble out for the pen as his conversion rate is fantastic so he bound to have a miss or get one saved eventually.

Sometimes games are won by fine margins in this division and the way I see it, Spurs' subs were effective at a time when Noble dropped deeper (picking the ball too many times of Adrian and his subsequent distribution was terrible) and Nolan was too slow to cope with Holby and Townsend running either from deep or from the flanks into central midfield.

I think Kouyate had an excellent good game both in midfield and in defence, I'd rather see him in a central midfield 3 with Diame and Kouyate, with Valencia for Cole and Zarate in for Nolan. Cresswell looked shaky early but grew in confidence and Downing was running the game when we had the man advantage.

Collins' 2nd yellow was as a direct consequence of Noble's lack of player awareness, Vaz Te had made a early run and the space was there for the early through ball, Noble opted not to play the pass but run 5 yards to Vaz Te before playing the pass, the space created had gone and the Spurs player had a 1 on 1 run at goal with Collins who had no option but to draw the foul.

I have said in pre season we need to play with more speed and today was a clear indicator of that, if Noble had played the ball quicker to Vaz Te, Collins would not have been sent off and we would have not lost the game.

Hopefully the Palace game will give us a chance to do better.