Where is it going wrong in attack?

[billyiddo]

I'm stunned at the amount of people who have basically said this is it. This is AVB's vision. This is "as good as it gets" with AVB. "He's negative, cautious and ****ing boring".

Maybe we should start a vote to see how many people think we should sack him. Seriously. From what I've read tonight I think it will be a pretty close run thing.



I'm not saying he's perfect by any stretch. But this is a new side and I'm happy to give him a chance. He lost Luka, VdV and Ledley the season before. Last season he lost Gareth.

He practically has a brand new team from the side he inherited, and he still has us sat in fourth with one of our best starts to a league following on from our record points total. I can't believe this is "as good as it gets" with AVB. He deserves the chance to show us exactly his blueprint of success for this club. I'm sure he sees the same issues we do. He has shown he is capable of learning and I'm sure he can solve our goal scoring issues.

the thing which annoys me the most is that it so clearly NOT the end result of what he's aiming for - we've barely seen a ball kicked from our biggest ever transfer - our creative midfield signing is yet to bed himself in to a regular starting position, the attacking players have not found any rhythm with each other - yet there are people who think that 10 games in to a season where there has been a massive overhaul is when we should be drawing conclusions on where we're going - it's a ****ing joke frankly. come the end of the season with Lamela and Eriksen fully bedded in (or not as the case may be) and if we're still struggling through games, then yes i could at least begin to understand some of the more hyperbolic negativity coming from some posters - but these same posters have pretty much been complaining about the issues from day one which makes a mockery of their "i know we need to give the time" crap

 

[Jurgen the German]

I'm stunned at the amount of people who have basically said this is it. This is AVB's vision. This is "as good as it gets" with AVB. "He's negative, cautious and ****ing boring".

Maybe we should start a vote to see how many people think we should sack him. Seriously. From what I've read tonight I think it will be a pretty close run thing.



I'm not saying he's perfect by any stretch. But this is a new side and I'm happy to give him a chance. He lost Luka, VdV and Ledley the season before. Last season he lost Gareth.

He practically has a brand new team from the side he inherited, and he still has us sat in fourth with one of our best starts to a league following on from our record points total. I can't believe this is "as good as it gets" with AVB. He deserves the chance to show us exactly his blueprint of success for this club. I'm sure he sees the same issues we do. He has shown he is capable of learning and I'm sure he can solve our goal scoring issues.

Correct me If I'm wrong, but didn't you disagree when I said we needed to keep our top players? You need consistency, every season is a transitional season because we lose all of our top players. How does signing 5-8 players every season breed consistency? Our squad is big enough now, next season I hope we only make a couple of signings, but top quality signings which minimises the bedding in period, no wonder we're struggling to gel which so many new players.

I don't enjoy our games from a performance standpoint these days, I enjoy the results and would happily take another twenty 1 nil wins to secure the top 4 place, but we're dire to watch at times. I think some on this forum are far too sensitive when it comes to criticism of the manager, considering how some of them treated the last manager, it smacks of hypocrisy to get the hump now for people "not backing the manager". You can't just back the managers you like and don't back the ones you dislike (not you personally, just in general.)

 

[Kingdawson]

Thanks mate. I'm glad to finally read a reasoned debate from a fan offering a solution rather than something as simple as BUY BENTEKE. Interesting thought. So your thought is by allowing teams to come at us we can counter and not be faced with 10 men behind the ball?

Pretty much....naturally when a team has more possession they will get more comfortable and inevitably push more players up field (even if that isn't their strategy). If a player has possession and is not being pressed then his natural instinct is to push forward with the ball..BAM he's out of position...maybe another opposition player sense an opportunity to score..BAM he's out of position too. We need to start doing things to get the opposition players out of position because right now all they are doing is sticking to their positions because we hassle them too much.

 

[Modric THFC]

I also don't think it is too unfair to say that it's easier to gain a winning mentality by being solid and not losing before it is to try and be fancy and fluid and hope the solidity comes later. One is confidence building, the other is confidence draining.

So while it would be fantastic to turn up to a place like Everton, dominate possession AND create loads of chances, really only a select few teams in the world will be capable of that and not really us in this learning stage with new signings to acclimatise.

We are learning how to be solid, to press as a team and take care of the ball. We are learning to be intelligent in games with regards to our tempo and how to get results during this process. The next stage will be to have fluid football alongside this solidity. But right now it is clear the team is still learning when to make a risky pass and when to make an easy one in the final third. But while that happens, we are winding up crowds to a hilarious extent on away games because we are turning up to places and not letting the home team have the ball for long periods.

I'm sure everything else will come. We could have started off playing nicer football but I'm pretty sure results wouldn't be there if we did.

The likes of Sandro, Paulinho, Dembele aren't gonna overnight be able to dictate play in the midfield and start passing the ball properly. Lennon and Townsend likewise aren't gonna learn how to be creative players. And AVB is going to continue playing them because he's more interested on playing 'vertical' football on the break.

 

[billyiddo]

Correct me If I'm wrong, but didn't you disagree when I said we needed to keep our top players? You need consistency, every season is a transitional season because we lose all of our top players. How does signing 5-8 players every season breed consistency? Our squad is big enough now, next season I hope we only make a couple of signings, but top quality signings which minimises the bedding in period, no wonder we're struggling to gel which so many new players.

I don't enjoy our games from a performance standpoint these days, I enjoy the results and would happily take another twenty 1 nil wins to secure the top 4 place, but we're dire to watch at times. I think some on this forum are far too sensitive when it comes to criticism of the manager, considering how some of them treated the last manager, it smacks of hypocrisy to get the hump now for people "not backing the manager". You can't just back the managers you like and don't back the ones you dislike (not you personally, just in general.)

please let's not start down that route because it will only get ugly - what i will say is that if by the end of his third season in charge we're still showing no improvement in the areas we currently struggle in then im sure most of the posters you're singling out will more than likely have had their opinions changed.

you seem to understand the need for time and patience in your first paragraph with regards to this season - big change around etc i can't imagine we'll see anything like last summer for some time now so i don't think we should be hanging anyone out to dry for what may or may not happen in the future

 

[Robspur12]

Correct me If I'm wrong, but didn't you disagree when I said we needed to keep our top players? You need consistency, every season is a transitional season because we lose all of our top players. How does signing 5-8 players every season breed consistency? Our squad is big enough now, next season I hope we only make a couple of signings, but top quality signings which minimises the bedding in period, no wonder we're struggling to gel which so many new players.

I don't enjoy our games from a performance standpoint these days, I enjoy the results and would happily take another twenty 1 nil wins to secure the top 4 place, but we're dire to watch at times. I think some on this forum are far too sensitive when it comes to criticism of the manager, considering how some of them treated the last manager, it smacks of hypocrisy to get the hump now for people "not backing the manager". You can't just back the managers you like and don't back the ones you dislike (not you personally, just in general.)

=D> absolutely agree we are told to argue our point by the mods not too attack posters with a different view from yours.

 

[diego_maradona]

Correct me If I'm wrong, but didn't you disagree when I said we needed to keep our top players? You need consistency, every season is a transitional season because we lose all of our top players. How does signing 5-8 players every season breed consistency? Our squad is big enough now, next season I hope we only make a couple of signings, but top quality signings which minimises the bedding in period, no wonder we're struggling to gel which so many new players.

I don't enjoy our games from a performance standpoint these days, I enjoy the results and would happily take another twenty 1 nil wins to secure the top 4 place, but we're dire to watch at times. I think some on this forum are far too sensitive when it comes to criticism of the manager, considering how some of them treated the last manager, it smacks of hypocrisy to get the hump now for people "not backing the manager". You can't just back the managers you like and don't back the ones you dislike (not you personally, just in general.)

I disagreed? When was that? Was I saying we shouldn't try and keep Bale or Modric and if they wanted to go we should let them?

I don't expect that high a turn over of players for a long time now. When AVB took over we lost a lot of our top players. He was given Dempsey, Siggy, Dembele, Lloris and Vertonghen to plug some pretty big gaps. Then our only genuine world class talent leaves for a record transfer last season. Baldini is someone AVB said he wanted to work with for a long time and I do believe he was happy with the signings he's got.

In all honesty I always backed Harry. And now I'm backing AVB.

 

[diego_maradona]

=D> absolutely agree we are told to argue our point by the mods not too attack posters with a different view from yours.

I don't understand your point here.

 

[billyiddo]

The likes of Sandro, Paulinho, Dembele aren't gonna overnight be able to dictate play in the midfield and start passing the ball properly. Lennon and Townsend likewise aren't gonna learn how to be creative players. And AVB is going to continue playing them because he's more interested on playing 'vertical' football on the break.

it's almost as though we could do with an intelligent goal scoring wide forward and a creative no.10 - if only we had those two here and they were ready to be included every week and fully settled in

 

[Nigeyman]

We are too far down AVB's road to start changing our ethos now.....I can see what we are trying to do and I can see our limitations in pulling it off. Playing the way we are its a hard tactic to perfect.

Rome wasn't built in a day.....precisely the sentiment that will annoy people but its true......thinks like perfecting this system WILL take time.

Really surprised at some of the strong views here though regarding AVB.....some of them imo are over the top.

 

[El Guepardo]

I think we should only play one of Townsend or Lennon. I think that we need either Lamela or Sigs. I think that offers us a balance. No point having two out and out wingers when we are deep in the opposition half. We should use width from the full backs and use Lamela/Sigs as a creative inside winger. Sigs can actually score too which is something that Lennon appears incapable of doing at the moment.

 

[diego_maradona]

I think we should only play one of Townsend or Lennon. I think that we need either Lamela or Sigs. I think that offers us a balance. No point having two out and out wingers when we are deep in the opposition half. We should use width from the full backs and use Lamela/Sigs as a creative inside winger. Sigs can actually score too which is something that Lennon appears incapable of doing at the moment.

Right now for me Siggy is a must. He is out most likely scorer and playing with confidence.

 

[the dza]

Surely all we need is for Lamela and Eriksen to settle in and take a regular place in the lineup? I think we'll move towards this after the next international break.

We've seen Sandro come back from injury and gradually take Dembele's place in the side. I think we will see similar with Eriksen (for Holtby) and Lamela (for Townsend). AVB seems pretty big on squad harmony, so he hasn't rushed to turf anybody our or put too much pressure on the players coming in.

There is a LONG way to go. Double the amount of league games played so far, and we'll only be just over half way through the season. We've made a solid start, and have an excellent foundation to build on. We have talented players to come in and perform to their potential. We have gears to move through, when the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool are playing at their maximum -- yet they aren't very far infront of us.

Infact, by the end of next weekend, I predict we'll only be 2 points behind the goons.

 

[Robspur12]

We are too far down AVB's road to start changing our ethos now.....I can see what we are trying to do and I can see our limitations in pulling it off. Playing the way we are its a hard tactic to perfect.

Rome wasn't built in a day.....precisely the sentiment that will annoy people but its true......thinks like perfecting this system WILL take time.

Really surprised at some of the strong views here though regarding AVB.....some of them imo are over the top.

There are no views suggesting AVB should be shown the door. But some posters are concerned about the ineptness of our attacking play and it may cost us champs league football. This criticism is perceived by other posters to be an attack on Spurs who react accordingly.

 

[colin fishwick]

There are no views suggesting AVB should be shown the door. But some posters are concerned about the ineptness of our attacking play and it may cost us champs league football. This criticism is perceived by other posters to be an attack on Spurs who react accordingly.

Great post

 

[billyiddo]

There are no views suggesting AVB should be shown the door. But some posters are concerned about the ineptness of our attacking play and it may cost us champs league football. This criticism is perceived by other posters to be an attack on Spurs who react accordingly.

and in turn some posters think that time will heal the problems we're facing (or whatever else) - so ensues the debate. If someone isn't prepared to have their views contested they shouldn't be positing on a message board where that is exactly what happens.

 

[Nigeyman]

There are no views suggesting AVB should be shown the door. But some posters are concerned about the ineptness of our attacking play and it may cost us champs league football. This criticism is perceived by other posters to be an attack on Spurs who react accordingly.

Time will tell.......but as the season draws on I Believe our way of playing our link up in the final third will improve.......we bought Lamela and Erikson for the magic so YES its time we start using them.

I totally get your concerns and no amount of reassurance from me will help im sure..... who is wrong.....who is right only time will tell.

But I would bet we are going to get better and that there is much more to come from us in an attacking sense......

If we are still labouring well into the new year on a regular basis like now I will be the first to doff my hat and admit you got it right and I was deluded.

I don't see it as an attack on spurs....all views are welcome....if some are having a pop at avb it doesn't mean I am the better fan because im behind him.

but all I ask is look where we are.......have we ever amassed this amount of points 10 games in before?????

 

[diego_maradona]

There are no views suggesting AVB should be shown the door. But some posters are concerned about the ineptness of our attacking play and it may cost us champs league football. This criticism is perceived by other posters to be an attack on Spurs who react accordingly.

If not suggesting AVB should be shown the door what else is the possible solution to our "inept attacking play"? I'm responding to those who think believe this is how AVB genuinely wants us to play. Nice 1-0 wins.

TBH football will always polarise opinions and the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. I'm just stunned at some of the level of criticism levelled at AVB as I was with some of it directed at Harry at times.

 

[Robspur12]

and in turn some posters think that time will heal the problems we're facing (or whatever else) - so ensues the debate. If someone isn't prepared to have their views contested they shouldn't be positing on a message board where that is exactly what happens.

By all means contest away, as you say it makes for interesting debate but it's the tone of the contesting which sometimes makes it feel like an attack. Not meant at you in particular by the way.

 

[Gazza Dazzla]

and in turn some posters think that time will heal the problems we're facing (or whatever else) - so ensues the debate. If someone isn't prepared to have their views contested they shouldn't be positing on a message board where that is exactly what happens.

Great post.