Ange in or out?

[tommysvr]

The guy who lives in Japan supports the guy who managed in Japan. Got it.

Wait til you learn where I was born.

 

[Mcfee]

The guy who lives in Japan supports the guy who managed in Japan. Got it.

Which is fair enough. @tommysvr knows more about Ange than most of us. If anyone had asked me in 1996 who should Spurs target as manager I would’ve told them to get Raddy Antic as I had a particular insight into Spanish football at the time (he remains the best manager we never had imo). He’s unavailable now unfortunately.

 

[monkeybarry]

He is going to start getting his players back in the coming week, plus with added additions. He will have to improve results because the excuses (valid ones at that) will no longer exist, he has to improve us for the sake of his own job if anything

I was about to say "it would be hard not to".
I then remembered I've supported spurs a loooong time

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Richi or Kulu.
In the context of yesterday, "long" would have been halfway line.
Liverpool nullified the out ball options and the short ball options and simultaneously pressed the man in possession. It was very impressive

Kulu was almost in front of bentacur
And nothing stuck
I fully agree they were impressive
Was like they had extra players
They nullified passing lanes

 

[Finney Is Back]

How can anyone expect it to?

The reason the wheels have fallen off is Ange has spent 18 months coaching/pushing 1 way only. Now (and for last few weeks) we have no choice, we have to adapt somehow, try to be a little more pragmatic, but the players haven't been drilled/coached in that for almost two fudging seasons, so surprise, it doesn't look good, they look out of sorts, uncoached.

It's exactly the same brick that is happening at United and to a lesser extent City (they just have better players), coaches with minimum flexibility struggle to adapt, players look fudging lost

Hilarious.... A whole bunch of people have been saying that Ange needs to have the team playing more pragmatically, especially with the injury crisis. Ange then plays more pragmatically and the same fans criticise him for doing it.

 

[Finney Is Back]

He's simply playing the same way, but moving the positions of the players, but not the tactic.

There was no need for Sarr to be Usain Bolting it up the pitch yesterday or Davies to play that pass. But we continually tried to play quickly in a game where we were under immense pressure. The job is to kill the game, control the ball when you get it and probe. We as usual we're playing basketball against a team with an organised press.

I disagree that we were trying to play basketball. It looked to me as though the plan was play deep and defensive and try to break where possible. When breaking we committed Sarr as well as the front three but didn't really have the full backs pushing up high or either of the other two midfielders trying to get high up the pitch.

You say the job is to control the ball when you get it and probe but we were unable to control the ball and probe because Liverpool were playing very high up the pitch and pressing with real intensity. I actually thought we looked reasonably comfortable in that first half until the terrible pass from Bissouma that led to the first goal.

 

[Kompakted]

Losing is what we do mate (in an Australian accent)

Reporter: "So Ange, you've had your pants pulled down in front of a global audience once again, what did you make of it?"
Ange: *stares at the floor and shuffles his feet awkwardly then walks out*
Ange: *walks back in and stares angrily directly at the reporter*
Ange: "Way to start an interview ya flamin gallah!"

 

[Finney Is Back]

Forget the ones who are injured, are the remaining players better than our performances. I think you know the answer, in which case it's the manager who is failing to motivate and organise them correctly

I'm not convinced they are. They are massively inexperienced, have played together little and have no focal point up front (and that's before we consider that they are getting nowhere near enough rest).

 

[Mikey10]

I'm not convinced they are. They are massively inexperienced, have played together little and have no focal point up front (and that's before we consider that they are getting nowhere near enough rest).

I'm not sure Son, Richarlison, Davies, Bissouma, Bentancur and Deki can be described as massively inexperienced.

Conor Bradley is 21 and was running rings round us last night.

 

[Kompakted]

I'm not convinced they are. They are massively inexperienced, have played together little and have no focal point up front (and that's before we consider that they are getting nowhere near enough rest).

Which players yesterday fall into that description?
We had Richarlison, Son, Kulu, Bentancur, Sarr, Bissouma, Davies and Spence all of whom have been at the club for a good few years and Gray is not actually "massively inexperienced" he played first team football all last season and has played many games this season. He is a young developing player that lacks the experience of older established PL players, but he's certainly not rabbit in the headlights straight out the academy either.

There's been a handful of games this season where we've had to field basically a rag-tag team. Other than that we've been able to field perfectly reasonable sides of a quality that should be nowhere near where we are in the table.

 

[Finney Is Back]

I'm not sure Son, Richarlison, Davies, Bissouma, Bentancur and Deki can be described as massively inexperienced.

Conor Bradley is 21 and was running rings round us last night.

Knackered, came off injured quite early in the game, recently back from injury and past it, not very good, poor since injury last season, knackered.

 

[Diamond Lights]

Are you saying it's not true? That missing:

- Vicario
- Romero
- van de Ven
- Dragusin
- Udogie
- Maddison
- Johnson
- Odobert
- Werner
- Solanke

won't have an affect? That it won't affect the way we play? That it won't affect other players who can't get a rest because the only remaining players are 18 or younger, literally never played a game?

The injuries aren't the only problem. But they're a fudging huge one and, like I said in another thread, you are an absolute fudging macaron if you think they don't have an impact. It doesn't take much to understand.

I was sat in my usual seat North Upper. Our starting line up.

Vicario
Porro Romero Dragusin Udogie
Kulu Bentancur Sarr
Johnson Solanke Son

Spurs 1-2 Ipswich.

Like I said. you can hide behind injuries all you want. it's blind faith.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

I was sat in my usual seat North Upper. Our starting line up.

Vicario
Porro Romero Dragusin Udogie
Kulu Bentancur Sarr
Johnson Solanke Son

Spurs 1-2 Ipswich.

Like I said. you can hide behind injuries all you want. it's blind faith.

Did none of the other games count before that game?

 

[Bedfordspurs]

I'm not sure Son, Richarlison, Davies, Bissouma, Bentancur and Deki can be described as massively inexperienced.

Conor Bradley is 21 and was running rings round us last night.

That’s a combination of technically limited players and tired ones

 

[Finney Is Back]

I was sat in my usual seat North Upper. Our starting line up.

Vicario
Porro Romero Dragusin Udogie
Kulu Bentancur Sarr
Johnson Solanke Son

Spurs 1-2 Ipswich.

Like I said. you can hide behind injuries all you want. it's blind faith.

Yep and I was sat in my usual seat in the East Upper. Our starting line up.

Vicario
Porro Romero Dragusin Udogie
Kulu Bissouma Maddison
Johnson Solanke Son

Spurs 4 - 1 West Ham

The team and squad we had pre the injuries starting to hit was a 6th or 7th placed finish type PL squad (maybe 5th at very best) and that is roughly where we were likely to be finishing.

 

[Jurgen the German]

I don’t know —it’s a hard question. He has to be given to the end of the season, and hopefully we’ll have a sustained period without an injury every match (almost literally every match for the last 3 months there’s been something.) But I don’t expect performances to pick up that much because it doesn’t work that way. Teams just don’t play well because they have their best 11 out there. They need time to build up an understanding, to grow into the tactics. The utter disruption that Ange has faced since Chelsea last year is on a level that I literally have never seen before.

The rough patch was always expected, it’s followed him every where. I thought that would be the first few months of this season, and I predicted it would take until November to get going. We beat Villa 4-1, had a shocking loss to Ipswich, beat Emirates Marketing Project 4-0 and then a poor performance against Fulham but I was feeling pretty good. But that was when the injuries hit. Every thing since there has to be taken with a massive dose of reality of the situation the squad has been in. 3 months solid Wednesday - Saturday / Thursday - Sunday without a break, for 10-15 players.

The insane expectations that we’re going to perform well, perform consistently and get results, when you combine that with the absolute shambles this club was not even 2 years ago…it’s just absolutely bewildering that people are ready to give up on it, to start again with the latest hot manager. The people who in one breath complain about Ange because he’s done nothing, then yearn for Iraola who’s…done what?

If we get players back, results don’t pick up that much and we go out of the cups, then I’d expect him to go in the summer.

Trouble is we were picking up injuries on a regular basis last season too so this season isn’t unknown territory re the injuries. Celtic had similar albeit not as bad injuries when he managed there too. Gotta be some link there, can’t just be all down to luck.

 

[Jurgen the German]

Did none of the other games count before that game?

We had a strong team out against Palace and lost that one too. And against Brighton when we let a 2 goal lead slip. And the countless games last season where we conceded 3 or 4 goals.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Trouble is we were picking up injuries on a regular basis last season too so this season isn’t unknown territory re the injuries. Celtic had similar albeit not as bad injuries when he managed there too. Gotta be some link there, can’t just be all down to luck.

Has there got to be a link?

The sample size is still too small to be able to tell really.

It could absolutely be down to luck. Equally it might not be and could be because of something Ange is doing. The sample size is too small to know really.

Perhaps we just have a few very injury prone players?
Perhaps we have a really poor medical department?
Perhaps we have poor fitness and conditioning coaches?
Perhaps Ange has them doing mental things that is injuring them?
Perhaps we have just been really unlucky?

None of us know

 

[Finney Is Back]

We had a strong team out against Palace and lost that one too. And against Brighton when we let a 2 goal lead slip. And the countless games last season where we conceded 3 or 4 goals.

From what I noticed earlier in the season prior to our injuries biting:

We tended to do well when having about the same time to prepare/rest as our opponents did.
We tended to do less well when we had a midweek game and had less preparation/rest time as our opponents did.

 

[veryoldspur]

I'm not convinced they are. They are massively inexperienced, have played together little and have no focal point up front (and that's before we consider that they are getting nowhere near enough rest).

Yeah, especially holding down full time jobs