Jose Mourinho - SACKED

[Bedfordspurs]

Did we struggle against deep lying teams? We did very well under Poch until the last season when teams realised they were better off pressing us than sitting back IMO.

We have always struggled against deep lying teams.
Even under Poch it was an issue
It’s to unusual for teams to have the problem but it’s why Poch chances system and for a period went 3 at the back as we didn’t need the extra defenders
But right now as Billy said the issue isn’t the opposition, it’s the lack of is creating anything

 

[Finney Is Back]

It's taking longer than I thought, but do you think he's had long enough to work on the mental issues in a squad that has choked multiple times over the past 5 years in a club that has been doing that for almost it's entire history?

Looks like the mental issues are getting worse to me. The issues are physical and not mental IMO. We don’t defend well because we have very, very average defenders (other than 2 of our full backs) and ask those average defenders to defend for 65% of the game by playing back foot football.

 

[billyiddo]

I don’t know if we are conceding a normal amount
I assume we’re conceding on par with the XG against as their easy chances generally to score
We definitely aren’t scoring enough though

number of goals conceded is about right for a team finishing in the top 4, having checked, we're at about a goal a game (20 games 21 goals)

we're not scoring enough goals to win the games/points to be where we want despite not conceding a high amount - it's clear that the blame being put on defenders is a misdirection to take the heat off the fact we can't attack as a team - and with Son, Kane and Ndombele in your team that is a damning indictment of the tactics im afraid

we're blaming the defenders for individual errors that wouldn't be costing us points if we could actually break teams down and attack - every goal you concede can be traced back to a defensive mistake (perfect game is 0-0 right @Baleforce ?)

 

[AdamB]

Liverpool had a LOT s’more chances in the first half at anfield... they didn’t score their goal that day in that half through anything other than a lucky deflection. And they were playing better then. The key in the recent game was we switched off again... on a key game, again... at a critical stage.
And out attacking efforts after that goal were woeful.
Big games hinge on big chances and mistakes and for a while our mistakes were missing chances we should have scored whilst conceding the soft goals. We’re now not even making the chances to miss

my point entirely

 

[Bedfordspurs]

We do but the tactics where we aim to keep a clean sheet and nick a goal rely on perfect defending.

Realistically, all teams have some good forwards, wingers, playmakers to varying degrees and its just a fact of life that sometimes those opponents will trick our defenders, or be quicker than them, or beat them to a header, or whatever means and they will score.

We cant rely on our defenders always being better than the opponents forwards. Perhaps it'll work if you spend £70m on each of 4 defenders, but we cannot do that.

If you sit back and give the opposition 60%-70% sometimes their players will be better than ours and score. Its why his tactics may no sense whatsoever

I’ll also add that the mistakes vs pool weren’t when we were under much pressure. It was a good we speculative ball over the top
Look at the Leicester defeat... under no pressure we gave away a shocking penalty

Brighton did have is under pressure but it wasn’t a hard goal to defend IMO. Fulham were putting us under pressure for sure

 

[Finney Is Back]

I don’t know if we are conceding a normal amount
I assume we’re conceding on par with the XG against as their easy chances generally to score
We definitely aren’t scoring enough though

I think we are actually conceding less than the XGA..... i.e. our tactics expose us to lots of chances and we’ve been lucky opposition often haven’t made the most of those chances.

 

[StephenH]

It's taking longer than I thought, but do you think he's had long enough to work on the mental issues in a squad that has choked multiple times over the past 5 years in a club that has been doing that for almost it's entire history?

Mourinho cant improve players, he just dumps and buys. So when he stops getting through to player or players, he seems to just stand on the outside and say they are "sad"! WTF is sad got to do with this, please foxtrot oscar, Mourinho.

 

[AdamB]

I’ll also add that the mistakes vs pool weren’t when we were under much pressure. It was a good we speculative ball over the top
Look at the Leicester defeat... under no pressure we gave away a shocking pelanty

Brighton did have is under pressure but it wasn’t a hard goal to defend IMO. Fulham were putting us under pressure for sure

again you make my point. If a team has 60%-70% possession then sometimes they will stress the opposition into mistakes.

Jose's tactics rely on zero mistakes...but by putting ourselves under pressure, we invite mistakes

The tactics just dont work

 

[Finney Is Back]

I don't think thats true, look at Jose's Chelsea/Inter/Porto teams, they just didn't make mistakes, and the raw materials he started with were no better than what he has here.

None of those teams played the kind of back foot football that he has us playing here.... maybe in the odd one off game but not consistently.

 

[Baleforce]

Mourinho cant improve players, he just dumps and buys. So when he stops getting through to player, he seems to just stand on the outside and say they are "sad"! WTF is sad got to do with this, please foxtrot oscar, Mourinho.

I don't think history backs that up, or the huge amount of his ex players who say that he did.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

number of goals conceded is about right for a team finishing in the top 4, having checked, we're at about a goal a game (20 games 21 goals)

we're not scoring enough goals to win the games/points to be where we want despite not conceding a high amount - it's clear that the blame being put on defenders is a misdirection to take the heat off the fact we can't attack as a team - and with Son, Kane and Ndombele in your team that is a damning indictment of the tactics im afraid

we're blaming the defenders for individual errors that wouldn't be costing us points if we could actually break teams down and attack

But we would have to outscore the opposition that way which is a gamble too when you can’t defend
He is choosing what he thinks is the lesser of two evils but that’s not the Spurs way

 

[DeanoAustin]

Mourinho cant improve players, he just dumps and buys. So when he stops getting through to player or players, he seems to just stand on the outside and say they are "sad"! WTF is sad got to do with this, please foxtrot oscar, Mourinho.

He's improved Hugo, Aurier, Dier, Davies, Ndombele for me. Without question. He's also developed Harry and Sonny's games.

 

[billyiddo]

But we would have to outscore the opposition that way which is a gamble too when you can’t defend
He is choosing what he thinks is the lesser of two evils but that’s not the Spurs way

you always have to outscore the opposition if you want to win a game and the facts are most of the goals we have conceded have come in phases of play where we have been sitting back - rarely have we conceded when chasing a goal.

 

[Finney Is Back]

We have always struggled against deep lying teams.
Even under Poch it was an issue
It’s to unusual for teams to have the problem but it’s why Poch chances system and for a period went 3 at the back as we didn’t need the extra defenders
But right now as Billy said the issue isn’t the opposition, it’s the lack of is creating anything

That’s just words though. My recollection was that we pretty much always beat the smaller teams under Poch (as much as any team did anyway).

Late in his reign though I think teams realised that a team with Sanchez, Davies, Dier and Winks in it is an absolute dream to press against as it contains so many players who are below average on the ball and likely to turnover possession when pressed aggressively. That was when the wheels fell off I think.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

again you make my point. If a team has 60%-70% possession then sometimes they will stress the opposition into mistakes.

Jose's tactics rely on zero mistakes...but by putting ourselves under pressure, we invite mistakes

The tactics just dont work

Teams are not scoring against us with 60/70% possession. I’ve shown that in games before. They may have a brief spell with the ball
The way his tactics work before at other clubs worked because the defenders didn’t make basic errors consistently.
But their has to be a balance and we’re no where near that currently

 

[harr1984]

Mourinho cant improve players, he just dumps and buys. So when he stops getting through to player or players, he seems to just stand on the outside and say they are "sad"! WTF is sad got to do with this, please foxtrot oscar, Mourinho.

Must be my imagination the amount of ex players I’ve seen credit him with improving them A quick google search and you could see for yourself. I’m all for criticising the guy for legitimate tactical errors etc but let’s not make things up....

 

[Bedfordspurs]

That’s just words though. My recollection was that we pretty much always beat the smaller teams under Poch (as much as any team did anyway).

Late in his reign though I think teams realised that a team with Sanchez, Davies, Dier and Winks in it is an absolute dream to press against as it contains so many players who are below average on the ball and likely to turnover possession when pressed aggressively. That was when the wheels fell off I think.

It’s not words. It’s my recollection of the many many games I went too
We had poor games vs teams like Burnley because we couldn’t break them down
We always struggled to get over the line at palace despite getting the wins by the odd goals because we struggled to break them downs and relied on worldly strikes
It’s hard to beat teams who dig in if they don’t make mistakes. We have shown that ourselves this season when we have done just that

 

[billyiddo]

I think we are actually conceding less than the XGA..... i.e. our tactics expose us to lots of chances and we’ve been lucky opposition often haven’t made the most of those chances.

we're outperforming both our xg and xga - this was used on here as a sign that Pochettino was on the wane over the last year of his managment iirc

 

[Finney Is Back]

But we would have to outscore the opposition that way which is a gamble too when you can’t defend
He is choosing what he thinks is the lesser of two evils but that’s not the Spurs way

When you can’t defend then outscoring the opposition is all that you can do.... When we limit our goal threat to virtually zero, the likelihood with our poor defence is that we will lose.

 

[Diamond Lights]

When you can’t defend outscoring the opposition is all that you can do.... When we limit our goal threat to virtually zero, the likelihood with our poor defence is that we will lose.

Not sure why people struggle with the concept mentioned above. We can't defend, we know this, we will make mistakes. Why are we relying on not attacking when that will simply exacerbate poor results?