The case for the defence

[harr1984]

I think that's the way it is, we kept ball better and take chances and we become a better side.

I've seen us sit back in 2 banks of 4 and lose games like last night and it be alot worse than last night even though the clubs emphasis was on "sounder defensive fundementals".

Teams get punished at this level for not killing games, we ain't Aliens from Mars in that respect

Agree - whilst we do have our issues I've seen posts about how weird and worrying it is that we didn't score more and then conceded. This happens literally every week and everywhere in football, you see it all the time. One team dominates, doesn't take its chances and the other team scores against run of play. It's not some new concept specific to Spurs.....

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Agree - whilst we do have our issues I've seen posts about how weird and worrying it is that we didn't score more and then conceded. This happens literally every week and everywhere in football, you see it all the time. One team dominates, doesn't take its chances and the other team scores against run of play. It's not some new concept specific to Spurs.....

Seems to be new to our fan base

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Because the end of a season doesn't wipe everything that came before it. Our defensive lapses are nothing new, our struggles Vs counters are nothing new, conceding easy goals despite dominating the possession of games is again nothing new.

I think you're being unrealistic to expect a new season to herald a complete and utter change in performance level or basic systemic issues without wholesale changes to the components (ie. Players or manager).

It's not about writing us off (I can't imagine many are doing that right now). It's just recognising that we are still suffering from many of the same issues this squad players of players had previously. We can bury our heads in the sand and pretend nothing that came before has any impact on today but that's not actually how reality works.

I stead we use the past as a guide to the future and you use your past experiences to learn and inform your next actions.

For me the sky isn't falling by any means but it is more of the same. We are still incredibly gung ho and that makes us vulnerable on the counter. Ange's way to solve that is to be more lethal when we do have our chances.

I’ll judge after more games

Last season is last season

I don’t carry baggage otherwise life is grim

I like to assume that we had done some pre season work and the new signings are fit for purpose

 

[Raziel]

I’ll judge after more games

Last season is last season

I don’t carry baggage otherwise life is grim

I like to assume that we had done some pre season work and the new signings are fit for purpose

That is the assumption we have to make

- Royal, Sess, Skipp, PEH have effectively been replaced by Spence, Gray, Bergvall, Wilson plus the addition of Solanke
- Vic, Udogie, VDV, Sarr, to some extent Porro are all now in their 2nd full season in PL

Inherently, should be some level of improvement by that measure alone

 

[DubSpur]

Exactly, said it earlier

- Go watch the City/Chelsea game, zero reality that City conceded less or less quality challenges than we did (and yes, I get the quality of opposition difference)

There is some weird new thing that teams don't conceded chances, Arsenal conceded challenges against Wolves. We played Leicester off the park for large parts of the game, unfortunately Vardy (as much as I don't like the guy) is probably the best striker outside top 6, and he took one of the two chances ..

Teams concede chances but they were two practically open goals for Leicester yesterday. We dominated the game but the Xg for both teams was almost the same. That shows, against one of the weakest teams in the league, that we are unable to create good chances and that we give up a low number of very good chances, just like last season.

City will give up the odd clear cut chance but they create way more chances than they cough up.

 

[Jurgen the German]

I’ll judge after more games

Last season is last season

I don’t carry baggage otherwise life is grim

I like to assume that we had done some pre season work and the new signings are fit for purpose

We can use last season as a rough guide. We know we are not going to be wildly different in a good or bad way compared to last season. We will still concede silly goals from counter attacks even though Son is no longer playing CF as you wanted. I see us somewhere between 4th-6th this season, I hope we can win something. I’d expect us to kick on and challenge either next season or the one after. I’m content with 4th-6th as long as there is gradual improvement. People need to manage their own expectations, if they think we are seriously going to challenge then they are just going to be disappointed.

 

[Raziel]

Teams concede chances but they were two practically open goals for Leicester yesterday. We dominated the game but the Xg for both teams was almost the same. That shows, against one of the weakest teams in the league, that we are unable to create good chances and that we give up a low number of very good chances, just like last season.

City will give up the odd clear cut chance but they create way more chances than they cough up.

Data doesn't agree with your view

Leicester had less than 50% of the chances we created, both in shots on goal/total, they also had less than 30% possession
City was almost par with Chelsea on chances, Chelsea also had 48% possession
You could probably go through ever stat, territory, set pieces, it all says the same thing
xG for us was 15% better but the graphic below will tell the story better, we had more opportunities in their box, you want a stat that should tell you something? Deki had the 2nd most touches in the opposition box for the whole week-end of games, for a guy who came in on in our "worse half"

While I get that Chelsea is better opposition, the fact is, City took their chances, we didn't

The goal chance was a defender mistake, not a high quality chance conceded (regardless of xG), the 2nd Vardy chance that Vic saved was the real high quality opportunity we gave up.

 

[DubSpur]

Data doesn't agree with your view

Leicester had less than 50% of the chances we created, both in shots on goal/total, they also had less than 30% possession
City was almost par with Chelsea on chances, Chelsea also had 48% possession
You could probably go through ever stat, territory, set pieces, it all says the same thing
xG for us was 15% better but the graphic below will tell the story better, we had more opportunities in their box, you want a stat that should tell you something? Deki had the 2nd most touches in the opposition box for the whole week-end of games, for a guy who came in on in our "worse half"

While I get that Chelsea is better opposition, the fact is, City took their chances, we didn't

The goal chance was a defender mistake, not a high quality chance conceded (regardless of xG), the 2nd Vardy chance that Vic saved was the real high quality opportunity we gave up.

View attachment 17541

The data does agree with my view. We dominated possession, check, we gave up a low number of very good chances, check, and we didn't create high quality chances (we created a lot of low value ones) check.

As stated, we gave up fewer chances but they were of higher quality. You see those two big circles in the middle of the box that show Leicester chances that are bigger than any circle in the box that show our chances?? That means their two big chances were of higher quality. Even their xG per shot was double ours. The xG was slighly above 1 for both teams, so both teams got what was expected.

It doesn't matter if a chance came from a defender fudge up or as a result of our defence not being in shape and letting the opposition in. They're still mistakes or poor defending from us.

The amount of touches Deki or anyone else had in the box doesn't make any difference if they don't do anything with it. I don't know how many times we walked the ball into the box allowing Leicester to pack the box making it almost impossible to score.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

That is the assumption we have to make

- Royal, Sess, Skipp, PEH have effectively been replaced by Spence, Gray, Bergvall, Wilson plus the addition of Solanke
- Vic, Udogie, VDV, Sarr, to some extent Porro are all now in their 2nd full season in PL

Inherently, should be some level of improvement by that measure alone

We will see more over time

 

[Bedfordspurs]

The data does agree with my view. We dominated possession, check, we gave up a low number of very good chances, check, and we didn't create high quality chances (we created a lot of low value ones) check.

As stated, we gave up fewer chances but they were of higher quality. You see those two big circles in the middle of the box that show Leicester chances that are bigger than any circle in the box that show our chances?? That means their two big chances were of higher quality. Even their xG per shot was double ours. The xG was slighly above 1 for both teams, so both teams got what was expected.

It doesn't matter if a chance came from a defender fudge up or as a result of our defence not being in shape and letting the opposition in. They're still mistakes or poor defending from us.

The amount of touches Deki or anyone else had in the box doesn't make any difference if they don't do anything with it. I don't know how many times we walked the ball into the box allowing Leicester to pack the box making it almost impossible to score.

But the data also has a timeline
None of their defenders fudged up like ours did
If Romero doesn’t fudge up the things that follow don’t happen
It was an individual error. But because of a tactical thing or even an effort thing. Just plain stupidity from an experience pro. The fact I’ve seen it blamed on Johnson is scary enough for me though.

 

[Baleforce]

But the data also has a timeline
None of their defenders fudged up like ours did
If Romero doesn’t fudge up the things that follow don’t happen
It was an individual error. But because of a tactical thing or even an effort thing. Just plain stupidity from an experience pro. The fact I’ve seen it blamed on Johnson is scary enough for me though.

They did, but Bentancur bottled his shot.

 

[Mikey10]

Agree - whilst we do have our issues I've seen posts about how weird and worrying it is that we didn't score more and then conceded. This happens literally every week and everywhere in football, you see it all the time. One team dominates, doesn't take its chances and the other team scores against run of play. It's not some new concept specific to Spurs.....

I suppose the worry is that we have seen it as something which has happened frequently with this team under Ange, rather than something that happens once or twice a season.

 

[glasgowspur]

How reliable is xg, we had a chance acrobatictaly cleared off the line that 9 of out 10 ends up an og, their keeper made several good saves and one of thier cbs had a couple of good blocks in the 6 yard box. Then the goal and the one Johnson flashed across the goal that son was fairly close to at the back post.
That feels like more than the 1.69 I've seen quoted.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

How reliable is xg, we had a chance acrobatictaly cleared off the line that 9 of out 10 ends up an og, their keeper made several good saves and one of thier cbs had a couple of good blocks in the 6 yard box. Then the goal and the one Johnson flashed across the goal that son was fairly close to at the back post.
That feels like more than the 1.69 I've seen quoted.

The chance across the box would be measured as a cross if someone touched it or a shot as no one did
The shot if they did would be the Xg…
Does that make sense?
Xg is a reasonable yard stick but it can’t factor in so many variables that matter… what else is there though

 

[Baleforce]

How reliable is xg, we had a chance acrobatictaly cleared off the line that 9 of out 10 ends up an og, their keeper made several good saves and one of thier cbs had a couple of good blocks in the 6 yard box. Then the goal and the one Johnson flashed across the goal that son was fairly close to at the back post.
That feels like more than the 1.69 I've seen quoted.

An OG wouldn’t count on xG as its not a created chance.

 

[DubSpur]

How reliable is xg, we had a chance acrobatictaly cleared off the line that 9 of out 10 ends up an og, their keeper made several good saves and one of thier cbs had a couple of good blocks in the 6 yard box. Then the goal and the one Johnson flashed across the goal that son was fairly close to at the back post.
That feels like more than the 1.69 I've seen quoted.

It's based off 10k shots in each region of the pitch to calculate the chances of scoring, so it's decent for judging shots taken. It fails when it comes to situations where a shot is not taken e.g. a cross comes across the 6 yard box and the forward missed the ball by 0.5 inches for a certain goal wouldn't be counted.
It's a good guide, especially over longer periods than one match, to be used alongside what you see, not just on it's own.

 

[parklane1]

How reliable is xg, we had a chance acrobatictaly cleared off the line that 9 of out 10 ends up an og, their keeper made several good saves and one of thier cbs had a couple of good blocks in the 6 yard box. Then the goal and the one Johnson flashed across the goal that son was fairly close to at the back post.
That feels like more than the 1.69 I've seen quoted.

Anyone who takes XG as the bible is fooling themselves, its vastly overated and is no more then yet another stat that never really tells the whole story. And i say that as someone who has worked in football most of my life.

 

[metalgear]

Having maddison in the is not good. He does not cover enough of the pitch.

True

I disagree here. Vardy is Romero's man in every sense of the word. Yet for some strange reason Romero chooses to ignore Vardy and then compounds his mistake by going and taking up a position in the centre of our box that isn't really defending against any threat, but worse still he takes up a position that is three yards deeper than our lovely straight defensive line, thus also playing onside their goalscorer. It was absolutely terrible defending that if somebody like Sanchez or Dier had done then our entire fan base would be apoplectic

Warch the goal again.

Romero was marking the other forward and vardy was at the far post totally unmarked. There's also reason to think Vicario could come out as its in the 6 yard box especially when the two attackers are short.

I've mentioned this many times last season. Even in games we won
Ange doesn't defend the far post much for some reason.

 

[tommysvr]

What is really insane is your refusal to admit that there are any issues with the team.

You’d do well to read my posts then. I’ve said there are a couple of major issues: we aren’t clinical and don’t kill teams off, and as a team we don’t deal with setbacks at all; injuries, red cards, goals against, goals ruled out. These things all caused us major issues last season and last night it was a similar pattern.

My feeling is that both of these things will be fixed with time. Ange is building a system. It’s a system that can very much expose players when it doesn’t go well. It exposes Porro when he’s in CM and leaves an attacker completely open when we’re countered. It exposes Vicario when he tries to play out and it gets intercepted. My feeling is because of this, when the team has a setback players go into their shells. Suddenly Maddison isn’t buzzing around, Sonny isn’t facing towards the goal but instead looks back to Udogie for the safe pass.

The only way to get better is to keep making mistakes and learning how to reset. Go back to the system. Go back to what clearly works so well — the thing that absolutely dominates teams for so much of our matches.

Until then, you can look for every single little thing that goes wrong…or just sit back and enjoy the ride a bit. Teams take more than 12 months to build. The fact that so many Spurs fans expect it to be done by now is frankly embarrassing.

With that…I’m going to take another break from this board because the negative types are taking over again. It’s not fun talking about Tottenham when all you see is what is wrong.

 

[DubSpur]

You’d do well to read my posts then. I’ve said there are a couple of major issues: we aren’t clinical and don’t kill teams off, and as a team we don’t deal with setbacks at all; injuries, red cards, goals against, goals ruled out. These things all caused us major issues last season and last night it was a similar pattern.

My feeling is that both of these things will be fixed with time. Ange is building a system. It’s a system that can very much expose players when it doesn’t go well. It exposes Porro when he’s in CM and leaves an attacker completely open when we’re countered. It exposes Vicario when he tries to play out and it gets intercepted. My feeling is because of this, when the team has a setback players go into their shells. Suddenly Maddison isn’t buzzing around, Sonny isn’t facing towards the goal but instead looks back to Udogie for the safe pass.

The only way to get better is to keep making mistakes and learning how to reset. Go back to the system. Go back to what clearly works so well — the thing that absolutely dominates teams for so much of our matches.

Until then, you can look for every single little thing that goes wrong…or just sit back and enjoy the ride a bit. Teams take more than 12 months to build. The fact that so many Spurs fans expect it to be done by now is frankly embarrassing.

With that…I’m going to take another break from this board because the negative types are taking over again. It’s not fun talking about Tottenham when all you see is what is wrong.

The issues may be fixed with time but they are there for a full season. I'm not too concerned about the team not being clinical enough, we'll improve on that front. We have players that are developing that are a step up from what is playing at the moment and that alone will improve us up front. The concern is the same repeated mistakes that lead to us giving goals away. For most coaches fixing that would be their priority.

It's a forum, for discussing the good and the bad. Wouldn't be much discussion on here if we just sat back and enjoyed the ride (which I am mostly, much more fun that the last 4 or 5 years).

I don't think negative types have taken over, just a few rightly highlighting their concerns. Hopefully Ange will address the things that are wrong at the moment and this match will soon be long since forgotten.

I hope the break from here isn't too long, need someone overly positive to balance out us negative types