Tim Sherwood…gone \o/

[scaramanga]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I thought Lennon, Eriksen and to some extent Sigurdsson let us down in that game.

Bentaleb also probably had his worst game so far in short Spurs career.

What I'm taking from a description like yours though is just a reinforcement of the idea that we needed good technical players on the pitch to improve us in that aspect. Not that we shouldn't even try...

There's a caveat there - you can only play however you want if your players are massively better than their opponents. I don't think the gap between us and anyone in the PL is as big as the gap between City and us.

 

[NorwegianSpursFan]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I know I defend Bentaleb more than most, but if this is true then based on the City game we also learned that Eriksen simply isn't ready to be our first choice number 10. He too looked like a boy amongst men, most notably in the first half.

Today, like just about every game we'll play for the rest of the season, will be a completely different type of game to the one we played against Emirates Marketing Project. I don't think much of what happened against City can be extrapolated into being a general truth.

Don't get me wrong, I like Bentaleb and I've got alot of time for him, but what I've seen so far is that he is really good when given time on the ball, but struggles when he is beeing pressed. There were many times he got the ball and it looked like he almost went into panic mode. Against teams that will sit back he's a good option, but against the better teams that will try and match our midfield he'll struggle. I agree that Tim should play him, but using him as a first coice cm is too soon.

And I'm wondering if the City game has gotten Tim to change his mind about needing a dm, or if the only reason he hasn't really been using one is that he does'nt like Capoue.

 

[braineclipse]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

There's a caveat there - you can only play however you want if your players are massively better than their opponents. I don't think the gap between us and anyone in the PL is as big as the gap between City and us.

I'm not talking about playing however you want. This is clearly not what Sherwood is doing either...

I'm talking about having a focus on attacking and passing despite being the second best team on the pitch and under pressure. Being brave, trying to play football, not just hoof it and sit back and wait for the next wave of attack. We have a long way to go before we're good enough to consistently do this, but I applaud Sherwood for trying.

Obviously the extreme examples, but for me you can either lean towards the Swansea route or the Fat Sam route of football when you're second best. I would rather see us lean towards the Swansea route. Perhaps you take more beatings going the Swansea route, but long term I think it's the better approach to move the team in the right direction.

Along the continuum between Swansea and Fat Sam you can of course disagree with where we should try to position ourselves at any point, against any one opponent. I'm not saying that Sherwood is getting this spot on right all the time, no one does. There will be mistakes, but if we're going to err I would rather err on the side of not going out and waiting for the other team to die of boredom.

 

[braineclipse]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Don't get me wrong, I like Bentaleb and I've got alot of time for him, but what I've seen so far is that he is really good when given time on the ball, but struggles when he is beeing pressed. There were many times he got the ball and it looked like he almost went into panic mode. Against teams that will sit back he's a good option, but against the better teams that will try and match our midfield he'll struggle. I agree that Tim should play him, but using him as a first coice cm is too soon.

And I'm wondering if the City game has gotten Tim to change his mind about needing a dm, or if the only reason he hasn't really been using one is that he does'nt like Capoue.

I don't think Capoue would have dealt with that kind of pressure any better.

I don't think Bentaleb went into panic mode, but he certainly struggled to find the right options and perhaps on a couple of occasions he picked the pass that was slightly too risky. As has been pointed out for Chiriches by others in that game, it takes two players to make a pass. I would point the fingers not just at the player on the ball under pressure struggling to find the right option, but also on the players off the ball.

Bentaleb has coped really well with the pressure Southampton, United and Swansea put on him. Better than any of our other central midfield options. I think he will do fine if Sherwood decides to continue playing him when the Brazilians are back seeing as we're done with Emirates Marketing Project for this season.

 

[Spur of the moment]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I wouldn't get too worked up about it. I suspect that the two lines have been taken out of a far longer story because they make a good story. I wouldn't be surprised if they were a bad translation from an interview with the French press either

Fair point. Even so I retain certain misgivings about Capoue's level of commitment on the park. He has sometimes seemed too ready to just give up rather than chase back once beaten. You just don't survive in the EPL unless you are prepared to give your all for the cause and then a bit more besides.

Hopefully that overriding motivation of his to get on the plane to Brazil will help him learn this lesson pdq.

 

[Pirate55]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I thought Lennon, Eriksen and to some extent Sigurdsson let us down in that game.

Bentaleb also probably had his worst game so far in short Spurs career.

What I'm taking from a description like yours though is just a reinforcement of the idea that we needed good technical players on the pitch to improve us in that aspect. Not that we shouldn't even try...

Agreed. city's pressing was a thing to be admired. Our midfield were simply stifled. That is how I would love us to play.

High pressing needs to be from the first whistle as well like they did it. I think this is something TS needs to address with the utmost urgency. There is no excuse for starting games as slowly as we are. I know this is a hangover from the last regime, but in my opinion it is absolutely vital to take the initiative straight away. Lets hope we do so today.

 

[Pirate55]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I'm not talking about playing however you want. This is clearly not what Sherwood is doing either...

I'm talking about having a focus on attacking and passing despite being the second best team on the pitch and under pressure. Being brave, trying to play football, not just hoof it and sit back and wait for the next wave of attack. We have a long way to go before we're good enough to consistently do this, but I applaud Sherwood for trying.

Obviously the extreme examples, but for me you can either lean towards the Swansea route or the Fat Sam route of football when you're second best. I would rather see us lean towards the Swansea route. Perhaps you take more beatings going the Swansea route, but long term I think it's the better approach to move the team in the right direction.

Along the continuum between Swansea and Fat Sam you can of course disagree with where we should try to position ourselves at any point, against any one opponent. I'm not saying that Sherwood is getting this spot on right all the time, no one does. There will be mistakes, but if we're going to err I would rather err on the side of not going out and waiting for the other team to die of boredom.

Top post.

 

[Baleforce]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

not that I'd want him back, but that was the sort of game that was crying out for Parker or his ilk

we probably would have lost regardless but it would have been a different game if we'd have ratcheted up the physicality somewhat from the start, they certainly lost a lot of momentum when we put a few tasty challenges in

 

[africanspurs]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

i think the reason why eriksen and lennon let us down is cause sherwood didnt play the wonky.

didnt play a creative wide man on the flank, didnt play aggressive offensively by having someone right up there on the regs with ADE

instead he played to counter their offence , which is potent due to, ironically, they play 442. we could have made better showing of ourselves in that game but we cowered IMO.

Thank heavens we dont have to play those guys again

 

[africanspurs]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

not that I'd want him back, but that was the sort of game that was crying out for Parker or his ilk

we probably would have lost regardless but it would have been a different game if we'd have ratcheted up the physicality somewhat from the start, they certainly lost a lot of momentum when we put a few tasty challenges in

i dont think that was parkers type of game along...it would have been parkers type of game in conjuntion with a carrick....that kind of pairing would have been ideal for that game

failing carrick...a sandro or capoue playing with one of bentaleb or dembele or paulinho or holtby

 

[Kingdawson]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

i think the reason why eriksen and lennon let us down is cause sherwood didnt play the wonky.

didnt play a creative wide man on the flank, didnt play aggressive offensively by having someone right up there on the regs with ADE

instead he played to counter their offence , which is potent due to, ironically, they play 442. we could have made better showing of ourselves in that game but we cowered IMO.

Thank heavens we dont have to play those guys again

Good post.

 

[milo]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

i think the reason why eriksen and lennon let us down is cause sherwood didnt play the wonky.

didnt play a creative wide man on the flank, didnt play aggressive offensively by having someone right up there on the regs with ADE

instead he played to counter their offence , which is potent due to, ironically, they play 442. we could have made better showing of ourselves in that game but we cowered IMO.

Thank heavens we dont have to play those guys again

I thought that 4-2-3-1 worked well in the second half against Swansea and Eriksen has been in good goalscoring form, so I can understand why he wanted him further forward. Unfortunately, the three behind Ade had shockers.

 

[Jurgen the German]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I thought he was making a comparison - you can defend or attack but if you concede shots you'll concede goals?

Maybe I read it wrong, bit that's how it can across to me.

As for City, they didn't need to screen the defence because we only had the ball where they wanted us to have the ball - look at the pass maps from our best 15mins that I posted, we have the ball but only managed to keep passing it along the halfway line.

Criticism of Sherwood after the game on Wednesday is 100% fair, but you're acting like we didn't go to the Etihad in November and get pumped 6-0 despite having Sandro and Vertonghen and only playing one striker. You said people "overreacted" after that game and then again after the Liverpool game when in reality both games could have been cricket scores. I don't have any problem with Sherwood getting stick but you're showing absolute zero consistency.

 

[scaramanga]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

i dont think that was parkers type of game along...it would have been parkers type of game in conjuntion with a carrick....that kind of pairing would have been ideal for that game

failing carrick...a sandro or capoue playing with one of bentaleb or dembele or paulinho or holtby

I don't think football is Parker's type of game.

 

[scaramanga]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I'm not talking about playing however you want. This is clearly not what Sherwood is doing either...

I'm talking about having a focus on attacking and passing despite being the second best team on the pitch and under pressure. Being brave, trying to play football, not just hoof it and sit back and wait for the next wave of attack. We have a long way to go before we're good enough to consistently do this, but I applaud Sherwood for trying.

Obviously the extreme examples, but for me you can either lean towards the Swansea route or the Fat Sam route of football when you're second best. I would rather see us lean towards the Swansea route. Perhaps you take more beatings going the Swansea route, but long term I think it's the better approach to move the team in the right direction.

Along the continuum between Swansea and Fat Sam you can of course disagree with where we should try to position ourselves at any point, against any one opponent. I'm not saying that Sherwood is getting this spot on right all the time, no one does. There will be mistakes, but if we're going to err I would rather err on the side of not going out and waiting for the other team to die of boredom.

I'm not sure that having a deep-lying player is inconsistent with attacking football - in fact, I think the opposite.
As long as that player is a Carrick type rather than a Parker type then the extra space they gain from sitting deeper allows them to be more creative. If the opposition press that player heavily then we have all that space behind to attack as Liverpool did against us.

I get the impression that Timmeh thinks that our deepest midfielder has to be high up the pitch to be playing attacking football - I think that's far from the case. I also think that there's very little point wanting to play attacking football if you don't have the ball.

 

[Rorschach]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I don't think football is Parker's type of game.

:ross:

 

[scaramanga]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Criticism of Sherwood after the game on Wednesday is 100% fair, but you're acting like we didn't go to the Etihad in November and get pumped 6-0 despite having Sandro and Vertonghen and only playing one striker. You said people "overreacted" after that game and then again after the Liverpool game when in reality both games could have been cricket scores. I don't have any problem with Sherwood getting stick but you're showing absolute zero consistency.

I think the high-line high-press method is very much all or nothing. Most matches in works and means we keep the ball and control the game. When it goes wrong, it looks terrible (especially with the wrong defensive personnel).

Timmeh (as far as I can tell) wasn't trying something that was likely to win, he was just doing the same thing we've been lucky to get away with for all the time he's been here. I've been saying it was a problem, the literate part of the press has been saying it's a problem, even idiot pundits can see it's a problem. Timmeh apparently doesn't.

 

[Baleforce]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I think that's a fair point, sometime you are the cat, sometimes you are the knife

 

[Jurgen the German]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I think the high-line high-press method is very much all or nothing. Most matches in works and means we keep the ball and control the game. When it goes wrong, it looks terrible (especially with the wrong defensive personnel).

Timmeh (as far as I can tell) wasn't trying something that was likely to win, he was just doing the same thing we've been lucky to get away with for all the time he's been here. I've been saying it was a problem, the literate part of the press has been saying it's a problem, even idiot pundits can see it's a problem. Timmeh apparently doesn't.

How have we been lucky to win the other games under Sherwood? We've had poor spells in most of his games but we've deserved to win all of the games we've won under him ultimately once we eventually got going after slow starts. Please tell me what else he could have done despite pressing them more? There's no guarantee it would have worked anyway it certainly didn't work in November. Capoue has hardly set the world alight since he came to Spurs so playing him wouldn't have seen us win the game. The only game we haven't won under him that we should have won was West Brom, which was a poor performance. Again, you're showing no consistency at all, Sherwood's style of play may be unsustainable but AVB's style of play was also unsustainable, people on here called it even when we were winning games, we ended up losing by scores of 3-0, 6-0 and 5-0.

Do you still think people were overreacting after the Liverpool and Emirates Marketing Project games considering we could have lost both games by double figures?

 

[Millsy_Yiddo]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I'm not sure that having a deep-lying player is inconsistent with attacking football - in fact, I think the opposite.
As long as that player is a Carrick type rather than a Parker type then the extra space they gain from sitting deeper allows them to be more creative. If the opposition press that player heavily then we have all that space behind to attack as Liverpool did against us.

I get the impression that Timmeh thinks that our deepest midfielder has to be high up the pitch to be playing attacking football - I think that's far from the case. I also think that there's very little point wanting to play attacking football if you don't have the ball.

As I mentioned in the defensive midfielder thread, it completely depends on the situation on the pitch at the time. If we are in possession of the ball and in the final third our 'defensive' midfielder should be high up the pitch just outside the final third, our defence should also be somewhere around the halfway line.

You are talking as if what you want is someone to sit in one deep position whether we have the ball or not. That's not what Carrick (to use your example) does.

What I've found interesting here is that Sherwood has been criticised for being an old school manager. What he suggested (Not playing a dedicated defensive midfielder and instead trying to build a team of players who can each comfortably slot in and do that job) is something not many teams do, and could be considered forward thinking. Yet he's being criticised for that also.