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Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

Shouldn't the smaller pitch make our pressing game better though?

It maybe stifles our attacking ability and allows teams to camp on us but we should be able to get in the faces of the opposition quicker and for longer - to me that doesn't seem to be happening.
 
milo said:
I think that is partly because crossing is pretty easy to defend against.
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It should also be mentioned that 6 of our 11 league goals have come from delivery from the wide areas of some sort. 2 goals were the result of winning the ball high up the pitch. 2 goals the result of shots from outside the box, and only 1 goal was the result of us opening up a defence through combination play centrally.
 
I don't think the remarks about the pitch are at all helpful. If there are genuine issues to be addressed in terms of the way we play on it, address them. Even if it's not making excuses, it comes across as such, as if other sides are able to come here and make tactical capital out of the dimensions of our playing surface, but we can't, and we play on it every week.
 
mudshark said:
I don't think the remarks about the pitch are at all helpful. If there are genuine issues to be addressed in terms of the way we play on it, address them. Even if it's not making excuses, it comes across as such, as if other sides are able to come here and make tactical capital out of the dimensions of our playing surface, but we can't, and we play on it every week.
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Agreed......even if it is true, there is no point saying it (in public) as there is no f*cking way to change it anytime soon.

Unless Poch asks Levy to give up a couple of rows of the West Stand so we can eek out another 6yds. I wonder how that meeting would go:-k
 
thats the pitch we have to play 19 games a season on, work around it, transition the ball from back to front much quicker, get behind them, don't dawdle up the pitch
 
ricky2tricky4city said:
Agreed......even if it is true, there is no point saying it (in public) as there is no f*cking way to change it anytime soon.

Unless Poch asks Levy to give up a couple of rows of the West Stand so we can eek out another 6yds. I wonder how that meeting would go:-k
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Its a strange comment to be honest. And one that if tim had made, he would get absolutely slaughtered for it.
 
mudshark said:
I don't think the remarks about the pitch are at all helpful. If there are genuine issues to be addressed in terms of the way we play on it, address them. Even if it's not making excuses, it comes across as such, as if other sides are able to come here and make tactical capital out of the dimensions of our playing surface, but we can't, and we play on it every week.
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Spot on. Smacks of weakness.
 
Mulletperm said:
Spot on. Smacks of weakness.
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But it's obviously going to favour a more defensive outlook than an expansive one, isn't it? If a team comes to compress the space, surely it makes it easier for them that there is less space to cover in the first place.

It's been a problem under both AVB and Poch, whereby the actual system of controlling the ball isn't a bad one, but it naturally allows opposition to set because we aren't playing kick and rush football. It's quite a quandry, because if we want to evolve into a top team that can control the ball, we need to do this, but at the same time the smaller playing area would be a hindrance.

Can people please apply their brains though when talking as if this shows 'weakness', as if it has any tangible meaning whatsoever. Does anyone think the players are going to try any less because Poch has raised legit concerns about the pitch? Really?
 
Poch would have more of a point if our players utilised the width given to them.... but they stand 20 yards infield, so it doesn't make much sense.

Did you guys see the article about Lamela starting from the middle rather than from the wing? I pasted it in the Saudi Sportswashing Machine thread yesterday.

Also on MotD they highlighted how victims couldn't create chances against someone rubbish (QPR or Villa or similar?) because they didn't have any width, their attacking players were all within 20 yards of one another, sound familiar?

It is not rocket science. Let Dier sit deeper, force a wide man to stay wide or sub him off. The end.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
But it's obviously going to favour a more defensive outlook than an expansive one, isn't it? If a team comes to compress the space, surely it makes it easier for them that there is less space to cover in the first place.

It's been a problem under both AVB and Poch, whereby the actual system of controlling the ball isn't a bad one, but it naturally allows opposition to set because we aren't playing kick and rush football. It's quite a quandry, because if we want to evolve into a top team that can control the ball, we need to do this, but at the same time the smaller playing area would be a hindrance.

Can people please apply their brains though when talking as if this shows 'weakness', as if it has any tangible meaning whatsoever. Does anyone think the players are going to try any less because Poch has raised legit concerns about the pitch? Really?
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Talk about it internally and try and figure out a way of dealing with it. That's what he's paid for. Don't start bleating out excuses in public which will obviously get pounced on by all and sundry.

Like others have said, if Sherwood or Redknapp had said something similar they would get slaughtered for not keeping their mouths shut.
 
We can do it. We regularly tonked teams at home under Redknapp and even dished out quite a few tonkings at home under Hoddle, Jol and even Ramos. It's less about the pitch and more about the effectiveness and implemtation of the system and the players employed.

Ultimately, all pitches have to be within a certain tolerence and our pitch is regulation. It might be on the small side of regulation, but we're only talking about a few feet/metres.

When a team comes to sit deep, its about turning that scenario around as quickly as possible. I.e. getting infront, so they have to come out and then we can be the ones who sit deep at counter into the space at speed.

The sooner you hit these rubbish teams and put pressure on them, the quicker you knock them out of their comfort zone, get them making rash decisions that lead to defensive mistakes, the quicker you get the crowd behind you etc etc.

The slower you do things, the more you're going to have your players come up against 8 players positioned in 2 banks with no space to play.

We have the players to do it. You look at the player e.g. Lamela looks when he has space on the break and he's faced with just one or two defenders scrambling back into position rather than 2 banks of organised players. He looks a different player. So do most players to be fair.

Our players look clueless because of the slow transition from defence to attack and our failure to press the opposition high up the park and put enough dangerous balls into the box.

It was a problem under AVB as he changed the squad and system to a slow transitioning one. Not a bad move in itself if you had the right players. It worked a treat when we had Bale in the hole who could and would regularly score out of nothing in the tight stalemates these tactics often generate.

The problem for me is we are in transition from this kind of tactics that the players are used to, to the tactics we have seen only glimpses of under Poch. Okay we got butchered 4-1 in the end, but I can't have anyone on here tell me our performance against Emirates Marketing Project wasn't promising.

We're going to suffer poor results as the entire philosophy is changing. You can't compare us to Southampton, as although peronnel-wise they've changed, they've bought good like-for-like replacements and kept the same high-press, fast-counter tactics that they'd ingrained under Pochettino. The transition is less dramatic.

We've tonked QPR at home on our pitch, finding plenty of space. The key was getting the early goal and continuing to press high and win ball around their area without giving them the chance to settle.

Against Saudi Sportswashing Machine we started high tempo again, got infront and then lapsed into the slowly-slowly 'protect what we have' mentality which led to our sloppy 2nd half performance.

Pochettino knows the problems and he's said as much. I don't agree with his comment about the pitch and it's a bit of a silly thing to say. It probably isn't ideal, but its far from the big handicap some have made out in the past.

We can create space by playing the way we have done in the past and actually the way Pochettino WANTS us to play. Its just down to him to imbed his ideas on the players as quickly and as effectively as possible.
 
Ok let's talk about our corners. Regardless who takes me we seem to be hitting them mostly at the near post - into a defender. Quite wasteful when we have two centre backs usually waiting for it .
 
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