Modric THFC
Jimmy McCormick
Do you have the records of our rivals for comparison?
Klopp is W2 D2 L0 this season away against the top 6.
Wenger's is 1 win away against the top 6 in the last 3 seasons.
Do you have the records of our rivals for comparison?
Right, but against Liverpool, our style isn't different to our opponent's style. We both press. Just that Klopp's team seems to be *much*, *much* better, smarter and more skilled at it than our lads. And I'm wondering why that is - maybe we should be adopting Liverpool's pressing system instead of our own? Is there a substantive difference between medium block and high block pressing? If so, why were Liverpool the ones closing down all the way up to our keeper today instead of it being the other way around?
We *tried*, but every single 50:50, header and loose ball dropped to a Liverpool player. Kane was isolated up front, and even when he had support, a long ball to him would be picked up by a well-positioned red shirt before we could get there.
I don't think such simple tactics would have worked today. We needed something different - I don't know what, but something which breaks this voodoo Klopp has over Poch.
Edit: the pattern of the game was really repetitive, for what it's worth. We alternated between trying to build from the back (which always failed) and lumping it to Kane. Nine times out of ten, the latter approach would fail too, in more dangerous ways - the ball would fall to a Liverpool player, who would send it to Coutinho or Wijnaldum - both of whom would spin and avoid the tackles that came flying in, and were suddenly free in acres of space to advance the ball into the feet of the onrushing Mane/Milner/Firmino/A.N.Other on the edge of our area. We'd lose half the field in terms of territory, and would end it desperately snuffing out a Liverpool shot or cross. Then, we'd take the ball and either laboriously work it forward again (always failing), or lump it clear again and repeat the whole process. Only once out of maybe ten times did Kane actually bring the ball down to a Spurs pair of feet to start a rare foray forward.
That can't be solved by bypassing the midfield, because it's what we were doing anyway.
Or the players themselves thinkWe simply aren't as good as we think we are.
We're really good. We're just not good in all match situations.
Match situations that require quick pass and move football by our central midfield, vs. good high pressing or well organized bus parking teams, being my main concern.
Are you forgetting that we had one of the worse defensive records in the league in his first season or that this season we have one of the best as well the highest points totals at this stage of the season?Agree fully.
I find it a strange change from the trust and belief shown to ball playing midfielders in Pochettino's first season to the current approach.
I can only assume that there's something I'm missing or that Pochettino is simply rewarding our overall results with game time in big matches for our regular starters.
I think it's the performance not the result, we got away with a humilation against city, but we were humiliated tonight.Liverpool away is a tough gig. Overreaction much?
It seems the way to beat Liverpool is to adopt an organised defensive shape. Absorb the pressure and hit them on the break. They only turn up against the top 6 anyway.I'm probably not making myself very clear. But at this point if the kind of opponents we struggle against isn't clear enough from watching the games I'm not sure it's in me to make that clear.
My opinion on what is the main cause of these problems remains the same as it has been for some time. But apparently that's close to blasphemy on here and making my point clear on this is definitely beyond me tonight.
Has it been much better under any other recent Spurs manager?That's....not encouraging.
Just the win against City in all our away visits across three years.
There were a lot of differences. We still finished 5th with several areas being significantly weaker.Are you forgetting that we had one of the worse defensive records in the league in his first season or that this season we have one of the best as well the highest points totals at this stage of the season?
Look at how the teams deal with the press rather than the press itself. Liverpool don't pick central midfielders primarily because of size or tackling ability.Our style is quite different to Pool, honestly Pool is closer to AVB than Poch, its a suicidal high press with a badly exposed back line. Their midfield doesn't dominate possession (ours can), they break up, then hit a long ball to pace, which in turn finds 5-6 Pool players in the opposition final third, it overloads the defense and you get chaos (as we saw today).
Our press does not involve as many players, we don't overcommit in middle (we tend to wide with FBs), with our best system (3 at back), you always have 4-5 defense players (think MJ's attacking zone vs. defense zone instead of just formations), and two, maybe 3 players in opposition box (Kane, with Deli/Son running on).
The solution is
- don't give the space to hit into, don't have half your team in Pool's half (minimizes chance of your defense being left exposed)
- hit longs balls to expose their back line, you only need two or three players committed to making the runs and you expose them.
My verdict on today
- We were stubborn against a system that has worked against us repeatedly in past.
- Compounded by not being able to play our best team, 3-5-2 with Jan & Rose in the lineup would have countered a lot of the initial chaos.
Ah I feel for you. I try not to watch spurs out as I get into trouble by over zealous celebrating or by just being a complete Cnut.
There were a lot of differences. We still finished 5th with several areas being significantly weaker.
In my opinion, when teams of equal or more ability than us want to press us high, we struggle because we refuse to adapt our game plan and we don't have good enough technical players to handle it; namely, Dier, Lloris and Wanyama -- all pretty poor in possession when under constant pressure/given few passing options by opposition aggressive pressing.
Opposition will be more aggressive away from home, more so when they are equal/better teams.
The players I mentioned are mostly good for us and an asset. The way we play is perfect for most of our games, as we are better than most opposition we face. For away games against the best sides, Poch need to adapt the tactics and be more pragmatic. We'll still lose our share of these tough away games, but it's not good enough to do what we did today, namely suicidal football. We got lucky against City, we didn't get that today, but the overall game was similar.
I love Poch, but this performance is on him. He is asking players like Lloris, Dier, Wanyama and Davies to handle an aggressive high press with the aplomb of Guardiola's Barca. That's not going to happen and I don't blame those players, I blame the way they were asked to play today.
4 words from Poch would have seen an improvement -- sit deep, go direct.