***OMT Tottenham Hotspur v AFC Bournemouth ***

[Bedfordspurs]

Correct call to disallow the Sanchez goal, should've been a pen for the other one. Their second goal wasn't offside we had a defender nearer the goal line on the edge of the area, may have been Aurier?

Yep it was him

 

[Jurgen the German]

Lot of back tracking on Alli for people to do me thinks

There’s nothing to back track. He was playing below par for an extended period of time, part of that was down to the position he was deployed in but he was also below his best when playing further forward and wasn’t scoring enough goals. He’s getting deserved praise now as he’s playing really well.

Southgate dropped him from the England squad too so it’s not just some ungrateful Spurs fans who think he wasn’t playing to the level and standards he had set himself.

 

[Spurs7891]

It is good to continue the winning run under Mourinho. It shows our attack is improving. But have to be worried about us unable to keep clean sheets. We have now scored 10 goals in 3 matches but we have also concede 6 goals. Mourinho still needs to do something about our defence. Thought we would win comfortable when we scored the magical third goal but instead we conceded the 2 goals. It was really tense after that until the match was over.

Credit to Alli and Sissoko for the goals. Alli seems to be back to his best since Mourinho become the head coach. Hope he can continue his good form. But both Kane and Son had disappointing game and didn't look like scoring.

Our midfield had a mixed match. We started well but finished poorly. Great to see Sissoko scoring his first goal in 2 years for us. His finishing seems to be improving under Mourinho. But Ndombele seems to be struggling as he had a poor match. Dier had a decent match but started to make mistakes late on.

Our defence cannot seem to keep any clean sheets now. It is disappointing to concede 2 goals at home to Bournemouth. Annoyingly, it was the first time Bournemouth has ever scored against us at home.

We have now won all 3 matches under Mourinho. We need to go on a long winning run to get back into the top 4 race. Let's hope Mourinho will improve our defending for the coming matches.

 

[Finney Is Back]

I listened to Howe at the end of MOTD saying how he felt the scoreline was unfair and they were outdone by two long balls. At the time I hadn't seen the game, but saw the stats and thought he had a right to be upset. Now I've seen the match, I can't help but feel like the man was watching a different game.

We started poorly but from the 20th minute to the 70th, we were head and shoulders the better side. They showed a little threat every now and then but our passing, pressing and combination play cut them open again and again. Had a few players been less greedy and a few others been more clinical Sissoko's third would have been our fifth or even sixth goal. Yes we tinkled away the lead in the last 20 minutes, but up until then we were great value for the win.

Bournemouth did get into lots of good positions between our midfield and defence in that first half (IMO mainly down to either/both of Dier/NDombele being woeful with their defensive positioning) but didn't execute on those good positions and create too many decent opportunities. We had by far the better chances over the course of the match as I suspect the XG for the game would be likely to show.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Typical "new manager" game.

You could see the players trying to tune into what a new manager wants from them.

They were trying, but it wasnt clicking for a large part, and so there were lots of stray passes etc.

Looked to me like theyve been working on defensive shape a lot, there were a number of instances where two tight banks of four were very clearly organised in game, though it did leave a huge gap between midfield and attack.

Obviously its stuff that will improve with time as players get on the same wavelength, which leaves me feeling positive, because broadly I thought we played pretty well - so its exciting to think what will happen when we are at 400%

I didn't see it that way at all. I thought a lot of our stray passes were just through carelessness or poor passing ability. I also thought that our defensive shape was poor. We had defenders on the pitch defending but there was little help from the midfield in that defending. On numerous occasions Bournemouth found a player in the pocket between our defence and midfield with both Dier and NDombele 10 or 20 yards higher up the pitch and casusally jogging back. There was a big, dangerous gap between the defence and midfield that a decent team would've exploited. Conversely though I thought the interaction between the midfield and attack was very good. I really do think fixing this is quite simple though, simply replace Dier with a decent player and we should have better balance straight away.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Bournemouth did get into lots of good positions between our midfield and defence in that first half (IMO mainly down to either/both of Dier/NDombele being woeful with their defensive positioning) but didn't execute on those good positions and create too many decent opportunities. We had by far the better chances over the course of the match as I suspect the XG for the game would be likely to show.

Did they???
Looked to me at the game that they struggled going through the middle and needed pot shots from distance
Then they started going wide and again didn’t really test us

 

[Finney Is Back]

Did they???
Looked to me at the game that they struggled going through the middle and needed pot shots from distance
Then they started going wide and again didn’t really test us

I thought the pattern of the first half was mainly them tending to work it wide down our left hand side exploiting the fact that Son isn't the best defensively, Vertonghen would peel out to the left to cover this and then one of Wilson or Solanke would drop back into the big gap between our defence and midfield and get on the ball with time and space. Luckily their quality from these positions was poor and they didn't capitalise. We had a big 'defensive minded midfielder' gap there though.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

I thought the pattern of the first half was mainly them tending to work it wide down our left hand side exploiting the fact that Son isn't the best defensively, Vertonghen would peel out to the left to cover this and then one of Wilson or Solanke would drop back into the big gap between our defence and midfield and get on the ball with time and space. Luckily their quality from these positions was poor and they didn't capitalise. We had a big 'defensive minded midfielder' gap there though.

Solanke spent most of the half going done our right and falling over... the guy is awful
Wilson I barely noticed
The guys who stood out (if that’s the right word) are their right back and the lad with the Afro supporting him Groeveld, but they still didn’t muster a decent chance. Their pot shots reminded me of us under latter days with Poch... bit of huff and puff but no quality. We stopped them IMO being anywhere near effective
5 of their shots in total came form Wilson when he came on... and Callum Wilson didn’t hit the target all game with his 3 shots nor did Solanke with his 2!!!!

 

[Finney Is Back]

Solanke spent most of the half going done our right and falling over... the guy is awful
Wilson I barely noticed
The guys who stood out (if that’s the right word) are their right back and the lad with the Afro supporting him Groeveld, but they still didn’t muster a decent chance. Their pot shots reminded me of us under latter days with Poch... bit of huff and puff but no quality. We stopped them IMO being anywhere near effective
5 of their shots in total came form Wilson when he came on... and Callum Wilson didn’t hit the target all game with his 3 shots nor did Solanke with his 2!!!!

What about the chance where their player shot just wide of the far post from inside our box (probably should've scored.... I was surprised when the net didn't bulge).

As I said earlier on, I didn't think that their lack of chances was due to us having a good defensive shape but more down to them lacking a bit of quality and failing to capitalise on the occasions when they had the ball in space between our defence and midfield (and there were too many of those for my liking). Note that I thought both Alderweireld and Sanchez defended well on Saturday and they had to because the cover from the central midfielders was non existent at times.

I was watching Lerma for them on Saturday and I couldn't help but think that even a limited player like him would improve our defensive shape a lot.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

What about the chance where their player shot just wide of the far post from inside our box (probably should've scored.... I was surprised when the net didn't bulge).

As I said earlier on, I didn't think that their lack of chances was due to us having a good defensive shape but more down to them lacking a bit of quality and failing to capitalise on the occasions when they had the ball in space between our defence and midfield (and there were too many of those for my liking). Note that I thought both Alderweireld and Sanchez defended well on Saturday and they had to because the cover from the central midfielders was non existent at times.

I was watching Lerma for them on Saturday and I couldn't help but think that even a limited player like him would improve our defensive shape a lot.

That was their right back after he turned son inside out
He possibly should have done better but it certainly was nothing to do with The CMs