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Nuno Espírito Santo - Sacked

Bedfordspurs said:
Wolves was a comfortable win
And Watford keeper made the most saves of any keeper this season
Both were good wins
They may not have been pretty or full of possession which is the thing people seem to want
But all 3 of our wins have been deserved, as was Saturdays defeat
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Wolves wasn't comfortable (1.5 v 1.53 XG). Watford was also too close for my liking (1.0 v 0.8).
 
Finney Is Back said:
Wolves wasn't comfortable (1.5 v 1.53 XG). Watford was also too close for my liking (1.0 v 0.8).
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I watched the game
I’m sure you did
Wolves barely had a shot of note. Their xG is pumped up by the volume of shots
Hugo literally made one decent save
Their keeper made quite a few
Same as Watford. Not sure how their xG is so high
The Watford keeper made more saves than any had at that point of the season
They were comfortable wins IMO
If xG meant anything we would have lost to city multiple times instead of them never scoring vs us
 
I don't mind playing from deep if there is sufficient attacking threat throughout the game. Its an economical way of playing and you can make heroes out of regular players in system. Teamwork is critical to set traps to regain possession, and then someone or two able to turnover and release the ball quickly to speedy attackers regularly. But have regular forays into the the opposition half, shots on goal, one to one's, enough to keep me excited about scoring and hoping about winning.

Many bottom half teams do this and with lesser players. NES knows how to do this. Then the issue is our players who can't or are unwilling to. Sissoko and Lamela were trusted because they played to the coaches ideas and we missed them in imo. Winks and dele are the more creative of the three midfielders looked poor not living up to their standards. And they didn't have any international games prior.

So we sold the wrong players. How long more do we want to keep players who keep us hoping for more but never fulfil their potential? Taraabt, Dos Santos, Boatenf come to mind and there's a bit more. If we want NES to succeed we need players who want to work with him. Beundia, Traore... It should have been done... And just get rid of winks, dier, Doherty, Ndomb and dele. One season is a long time in a players professional life, if they can't find a clear useful role in a year, just sell and hope to bring more others to spur competition, and get find replacements for less useful immediately.

OK I accept that we are in a transition but a stupidly long recruitment time and no plan B after sacking JM, the blame falls on Levy. And if we can't execute football according to spurs dna as he admitted then he needs to find another coach and accelerate transfers and even step away from any interference in decision making.

Right now everyone at the club looks scared to play the spurs way.
SpurMeUp said:
As we discuss pre-Palace with Bedford in the Royal thread, I also favour a more dynamic game plan where we try to retain some possession. As you say, if you play most of the game in your half, you are exposing yourself to more chances to concede. But a red and a pen is less than a 1 in 10 occurrences. Without one of them I think we draw that. And without either, maybe just maybe we pull a few more chances to score out the hat as the game enters the final quarter.

Yes we need to find ways to control games more, but 9 times out of 10 we'd take a point from that game at least. There is method to the boredom, but the balance isn't quite right, we need to be a little more proactive, and try to impose our game on the opposition.
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Sent from my SM-T865 using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
 
metalgear said:
Right now everyone at the club looks scared to play the spurs way.

Sent from my SM-T865 using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
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This. The thing is, every system has trade-offs - and truth be told, nearly any system can be adapted to resemble the 'Spurs' way, since beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some folks felt our team under Jol played the Spurs way - certainly there was a pride, organization and desire that was often lacking in previous years, but there was also a lot of bus-parking at times (hell, the term originated because Mourinho cried about us doing it to him back when he was actually a decent coach).

For some folks, the wild adventure we had under Harry was the Spurs way - carefree, almost tactics-free attacking in a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1, where we would come flying out of the gates and smother the opposition with passing, movement, inventiveness and pace.

But the tradeoff was that it only lasted 45m, max 60m, because after that we rapidly lost fitness and fell back to defending in our own box on a predictably regular basis.

For other folks (me included), the uber-fit, ultra-pressing style we had under Poch was the epitome of beautiful football - aggressive, swashbuckling, determined, and with the capacity to inspire. But, if you look at it as a system, essentially it took the thought and capacity for pure inventiveness out of the game - as Klopp memorably described it, the high press is the ultimate playmaker, and the reliance is on forcing a mistake or turnover in a dangerous area and then playing a fairly simple (but highly dangerous) pass to finish off. Plus, the press required so much work in terms of fitness and intensity that we rarely had a 'plan B', which got the better of us in the biggest games against richer opponents with more ambitious owners able to build multifaceted teams.

I'm sure some folks liked Mourinhoball and thought it the Spurs way, too - certainly it had its moments of beauty, like controlling the game in a defensive sense and then superbly, clinically finishing the opponents off on the counter when they got tired, like a classic rope-a-dope. It all crumbled into a bleary mess, but there's defo an argument to be made.

I think right now everyone at the club just looks scared to *play* - simple as. We've spent three years drifting down from our peak under Poch, and the team is filled, top to bottom, with a) dross, and b) players who are just afraid to get their foot on the ball and hold it in the face of even the most miserable little press by the opponent.

Any way can be the 'Spurs' way apart from maybe sitting in the box for 90m (which also happened under Mourinho) - the essence is just to beat the other lot instead of waiting for them to beat themselves, and that comes in many forms. But at its heart, it requires *courage* - bravery, balls and fortitude.

This lot just lack that right now - as a whole. I think it's no coincidence that the likes of Hojbjerg and Lo Celso can shine in their national teams as attacking forces, but then come back to Spurs and look like uninspired plodders - part of it is Nuno's system, part of it the slightly easier rhythm of international football...but a much bigger problem is that these lads are terrified of..*something*, I don't know what, when they're at Spurs. They look half a yard slower, more tentative, and less skillful than on their national team excursions - the *same* players.

Lloris referred to as much after the EL embarassment last year. I wonder why that is.
 
Modric THFC said:
I'm on the give him until the end of the season bus.
But this is exactly how his Wolves team played.
The style isn't gonna change much from this.

Tottenham away are going to be unwatchable all season.
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One thing is for sure; we will not be signing a playmaker a la Eriksen or Pirlo any time soon...
 
Finney Is Back said:
I expect Levy was considering the bad press he would likely have got to have spent multiple millions of our not particularly large playing budget sacking managers to go from Pochettino to Potter (via Mourinho).
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I think what is far more likely is that Levy hitched himself to the DoF position and Paratici; people need to remember it could've been Gattusso...
 
DubaiSpur said:
This. The thing is, every system has trade-offs - and truth be told, nearly any system can be adapted to resemble the 'Spurs' way, since beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some folks felt our team under Jol played the Spurs way - certainly there was a pride, organization and desire that was often lacking in previous years, but there was also a lot of bus-parking at times (hell, the term originated because Mourinho cried about us doing it to him back when he was actually a decent coach).

For some folks, the wild adventure we had under Harry was the Spurs way - carefree, almost tactics-free attacking in a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1, where we would come flying out of the gates and smother the opposition with passing, movement, inventiveness and pace.

But the tradeoff was that it only lasted 45m, max 60m, because after that we rapidly lost fitness and fell back to defending in our own box on a predictably regular basis.

For other folks (me included), the uber-fit, ultra-pressing style we had under Poch was the epitome of beautiful football - aggressive, swashbuckling, determined, and with the capacity to inspire. But, if you look at it as a system, essentially it took the thought and capacity for pure inventiveness out of the game - as Klopp memorably described it, the high press is the ultimate playmaker, and the reliance is on forcing a mistake or turnover in a dangerous area and then playing a fairly simple (but highly dangerous) pass to finish off. Plus, the press required so much work in terms of fitness and intensity that we rarely had a 'plan B', which got the better of us in the biggest games against richer opponents with more ambitious owners able to build multifaceted teams.

I'm sure some folks liked Mourinhoball and thought it the Spurs way, too - certainly it had its moments of beauty, like controlling the game in a defensive sense and then superbly, clinically finishing the opponents off on the counter when they got tired, like a classic rope-a-dope. It all crumbled into a bleary mess, but there's defo an argument to be made.

I think right now everyone at the club just looks scared to *play* - simple as. We've spent three years drifting down from our peak under Poch, and the team is filled, top to bottom, with a) dross, and b) players who are just afraid to get their foot on the ball and hold it in the face of even the most miserable little press by the opponent.

Any way can be the 'Spurs' way apart from maybe sitting in the box for 90m (which also happened under Mourinho) - the essence is just to beat the other lot instead of waiting for them to beat themselves, and that comes in many forms. But at its heart, it requires *courage* - bravery, balls and fortitude.

This lot just lack that right now - as a whole. I think it's no coincidence that the likes of Hojbjerg and Lo Celso can shine in their national teams as attacking forces, but then come back to Spurs and look like uninspired plodders - part of it is Nuno's system, part of it the slightly easier rhythm of international football...but a much bigger problem is that these lads are terrified of..*something*, I don't know what, when they're at Spurs. They look half a yard slower, more tentative, and less skillful than on their national team excursions - the *same* players.

Lloris referred to as much after the EL embarassment last year. I wonder why that is.
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Because fans expect things at club level that they don’t at international level?
Or maybe because international level is sporadic it’s always a change for these players. Your day job has a certain level of monotony to it
It’s why I have to keep on highlighting Nuno has to fix a lot of issues at the club first.
Exiting the dead wood and possible bad apples was one thing. We still had an ego player here 2 weeks ago don’t forget
 
I posted this in another thread, but this is a better place to put it. Poch first chunk of games were not great. He actually felt the pressure quickly too and made the joke that Kane scoring the deflected free kick vs Villa gave him more time5FDA925C-A198-429A-B104-D420DF2FAB64.png

we lost to West Brom, Saudi Sportswashing Machine, city and Pool and drew with the mighty Sunderland in our first 10 games

It took Poch 7 league games to win 3

what is different to now? Expectation

expectation has grown from the work Poch did given time. He had to exit the bad apples and needed 18 months to get the players playing his way

pep came in and his first season was pretty gash despite the hype. He won the league next season I believe with the bottomless pit of money. He used that first season to change the set up and the way they played.

all managers and coaches need time. Our fans say they will give it but really don’t want too. We say what we think we want to say but actually emotionally that’s not what we want to say.

Nuno was our 8th choice manager or maybe worse and he is dealing with a real mixed bag of brick circumstances that can’t get much worse (maybe Kane getting injured as well)

he started the season with NO striker against the best team in the land and we won. Deservedly

he won the next game away (home crowds for the first time for Wolves) again deservedly.

we beat Watford at home again deservedly

then we lose half the first 15 players within 10 minutes of the next game. And we also have that wonderful issue of fatigue post internationals which weirdly our players suffer from the most of any club (mindset/fitness, who knows).

We lose and the knives come out ready. Their not the sharpest yet but people are sharpening them.

Nuno is IMO not here as a long term appointment. He is here to fix the rot. It’s what he did at Valencia and that’s a car crash of a club.

when people talk about a coaches style of football they should really look at the coaches style over his career. Certain managers do have fixed style, pep (£££ helps), Bielsa and Klopp. It’s how they have been successful.
Others have achieved success by taking what they have and getting what they can out of it. We have a coach who is in that category currently and he needs games and time to fix the team
 
I haven't seen many people saying Espirito Santo should be sacked right away after the Palace game (which I missed). From what I've read, everybody seems to be in agreement that he should be given at least one season to show what he's capable of.

Now, having said that, I thought the football on display so far has been extremely dire. I'm too old to be into xG but I felt that we were lucky to win against Wolves. Traoré's chance was massive and most decent PL forwards would have tucked it away, I think. And while it's true that the Watford keeper made a couple of great saves, he also let in a very poor goal. I'm not sure we'd be so happy to accept a loss if Lloris had the same kind of game.

The only difference, for me, between now and the last few days of Mourinho's tenure is that you can at least hope that Espirito Santo will turn things around. After the Zagreb game, it was obvious that Mourinho was done for. On a side note, it will be interesting to see how Roma fare under him. I was in the minority last season but I'm still convinced that this squad isn't good enough to achieve what we aim for. So far, Santoball looks a lot like Mourinhoball with a better dressing-room atmosphere and less creativity in attack.

We'll see where we go from here but since I couldn't care less about Esprito Santo's personality, I really hope he'll find a more entertaining formula because the idea of being bored to death by a 'nice bloke' doesn't appeal to me.
 
Mr Gogolak said:
I haven't seen many people saying Espirito Santo should be sacked right away after the Palace game (which I missed). From what I've read, everybody seems to be in agreement that he should be given at least one season to show what he's capable of.

Now, having said that, I thought the football on display so far has been extremely dire. I'm too old to be into xG but I felt that we were lucky to win against Wolves. Traoré's chance was massive and most decent PL forwards would have tucked it away, I think. And while it's true that the Watford keeper made a couple of great saves, he also let in a very poor goal. I'm not sure we'd be so happy to accept a loss if Lloris had the same kind of game.

The only difference, for me, between now and the last few days of Mourinho's tenure is that you can at least hope that Espirito Santo will turn things around. After the Zagreb game, it was obvious that Mourinho was done for. On a side note, it will be interesting to see how Roma fare under him. I was in the minority last season but I'm still convinced that this squad isn't good enough to achieve what we aim for. So far, Santoball looks a lot like Mourinhoball with a better dressing-room atmosphere and less creativity in attack.

We'll see where we go from here but since I couldn't care less about Esprito Santo's personality, I really hope he'll find a more entertaining formula because the idea of being bored to death by a 'nice bloke' doesn't appeal to me.
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Excellent post. I think your summation of our games so far is spot on.

I agree about the state of our squad too which is why we can't be too harsh on Nuno this season. I think if he gets us top 8 he's done very well.
 
StephenH said:
I like and agree with that.
I’m trying hard not to be negative and rushing to judgment but boy it’s not easy
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What are we rushing to judge him on? He’s won 3 out of 4 games. 2 from 2 at home without conceding a goal. He’s not had chance to integrate or play his new signings and he remains vulnerable to one of Kane or Son being absent or off form due to the fact we prioritised refreshing the defence that seemed to be responsible for costing us winning positions.

what he has delivered so far is good and slightly above my expectations ahead of each game. He seems to be condemned on the basis that we will probably lose against Chelsea and Goons and he’s had the temerity to tighten our defence and not smash every team 3-0 with a 60% possession stat in his first two months of taking over the team that finished 8th last season.
75% win rate not enough?!
 
MKSpur said:
What are we rushing to judge him on? He’s won 3 out of 4 games. 2 from 2 at home without conceding a goal. He’s not had chance to integrate or play his new signings and he remains vulnerable to one of Kane or Son being absent or off form due to the fact we prioritised refreshing the defence that seemed to be responsible for costing us winning positions.

what he has delivered so far is good and slightly above my expectations ahead of each game. He seems to be condemned on the basis that we will probably lose against Chelsea and Goons and he’s had the temerity to tighten our defence and not smash every team 3-0 with a 60% possession stat in his first two months of taking over the team that finished 8th last season.
75% win rate not enough?!
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but everyone is forecasting we won’t have that win rate in a months time
The same people who thought we would beat cannon fodder palace and lose to city I’d hazard a guess
One thing we know in football is it’s unpredictable. Who would have thought that United would lose to the mighty young boys last night… even with Ronaldo there
 
thfcsteff said:
I think what is far more likely is that Levy hitched himself to the DoF position and Paratici; people need to remember it could've been Gattusso...
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The DOF situation could be interesting if we repeat Saturday a few more times.

He is always going to try and save his job, he will be in Levy’s ear telling him it’s the manager and not his signings soon enough.
 
Legohamster said:
The DOF situation could be interesting if we repeat Saturday a few more times.

He is always going to try and save his job, he will be in Levy’s ear telling him it’s the manager and not his signings soon enough.
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But we know that the DOF also had to sell Nuno to levy
I’m pretty sure levy recognises that Nuno needs time. He won’t care one bit about fan reactions as we have seen numerous times before
 
Bedfordspurs said:
but everyone is forecasting we won’t have that win rate in a months time
The same people who thought we would beat cannon fodder palace and lose to city I’d hazard a guess
One thing we know in football is it’s unpredictable. Who would have thought that United would lose to the mighty young boys last night… even with Ronaldo there
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That’s what I’m saying and I agree with most of your recent posts on this. It’s natural for us to speculate on the future and I know you’re only as good as your last game blah blah blah but I really feel Nuno got a couple of results we didn’t expect and then whilst I think he made a mistake with the way he used Winks and Dele with 11 against 11 we were still in the match with chance to make game changing subs. Taking a 0-0 would have been a good result in context for what we had on the board already, the disruption to our team and the in game changes that meant we had to use our 5th and 6th choice centre backs.
I was underwhelmed by the appointment and I think our transfer window didn’t address our total reliance on Son and a potentially demotivated Kane. But as at now Nuno has already shown he is a competent coach and that in turn gives some of the ‘deadwood’ to prove themselves too. Then we have new signings to integrate and a couple of attacking players that have yet to start a Prem game. My expectations are tempered by the window, so want to see an improvement on last season and Europa league football should be the minimum requirement.
The style of football thing is subjective and @DubaiSpur gave down good examples of how style can be subjective and sometimes linked to the relationship with the manager.
I’m not saying Nuno will be a success or will not make is a front foot team again, but he deserves the time to try and personally if we are winning more than half the games we play I’m agnostic to the style.
Usually when the team has been at a low ebb, the following manager has been given more time as expectations have lessened. Considering he’s following Mourinho and how we were performing at the end of last season I surprised by some of the early judgment, the Poch era may have raised expectations to an unrealistic level until we are in a position to spend the stadium gains imo.
 
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