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Andre Villas-Boas - Head Coach

Did anyone see Benny's Tweet this morning?

Benoit Assou-Ekotto ‏@AssouEkotto
Hello every 0ne!!!!! b strong at work and thînk positif!!!! Even if u hâte ur boss LoL
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He did just post this though

Benoit Assou-Ekotto ‏@AssouEkotto
My last text is not about my boss lolol. Is for all my followers!!! :)
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markysimmo said:
Reminds me of Hoddle, Hoddle thought he was the only one who was right at his time at Spurs, played 3-5-2, never worked, in the end it cost him his job
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3-5-2 definitely did work at the start, when he had Richards and King at the back with Bunjy sweeping behind them (his actual position, always looked quality there) and Ziege LWB and Carr RWB, that certainly worked. The trouble was when Bujy and Ziege got injured and we had noone to replace them. But that 3-5-2 got us to 4th in the league at christmas time IIRC, at a time when top 10 was completely alien to us let alone 4th.
 
ArcspacE said:
Sorry - just to confirm - you want to intentionally give away possession to the opposition and have us chasing the ball?
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Yes that's exactly what i want us to do. I want us to intentionally give away possession so please please more misplaced passes, more long range shots to row Z, and less penetrative through balls to team mates.
 
Juicebox said:
Did anyone see Benny's Tweet this morning?

Benoit Assou-Ekotto ‏@AssouEkotto
Hello every 0ne!!!!! b strong at work and thînk positif!!!! Even if u hâte ur boss LoL
Expand Reply Retweet Favorite

He did just post this though

Benoit Assou-Ekotto ‏@AssouEkotto
My last text is not about my boss lolol. Is for all my followers!!! :)
Expand Reply Retweet Favorite
Click to expand...


:-k
 
the biggest problem tactic-wise is the speed with which we play.

Away from home playing it carefully and more considered is not an unreasonable approach for a team in transition, although arguably our best result away came at Utd where if it wasn't for us going at them quickly in the first half we wouldn't have won that game IMO. The problem is we should be playing the ball quicker at home but the players don't seem to have the confidence to do so, rather we are taking too measured an approach.

I'm all for possession of the ball, and tippy tappy football is great if you have the technical players for it. But we're not Barca. Slow and steady is great if you have a couple of geniuses on the ball in your team that can unlock defences with defence splitting passes. Even with a fully fit team we don't currently have any creative spark in the team. If we we're going to play it quick we need the players to show some movement - too often our players are static and miles away from the ball.

In the past we played well when we were pinging it wide to Bale and Lennon hugging the touch lines, providing ammo for Ade and VDV. We've moved on from there - Bale clearly doesn't want to be stuck on the left touchline doublemarked out of a game. So he switches flanks and cuts in, fair enough. The problem is with one up front, and him being Defoe, the wide me need to tuck inside, so it's up to the fullbacks to provide the width. BAE being injured hasn't helped, as verts has had to play LB and as good as he is he doesn't have Walkers pace to get back into position after a surging run forward which has left the team exposed at times. So we're a little lopsided. Hopefully when BAE gets back to full fitness we get a bit more balance in terms of the full backs providing the width.

but the problem still remains that when we have the ball rather than the players moving to help the player in possesion of the ball by giving him an option for a forward pass, we dawdle on the ball, we don't give ourselves any options, invariably the ball has to be played backwards as teams pressure us and it goes back to Friedel, who without any options has to lump it forward and we lose possession.

If we move the ball quicker we give the oppo less time to press us, if we move towards the ball rather than away from the ball we give more options to retain possession. It should actually be a simpe thing to practice and get right but our team just don't seem technically up to pass and go and movement I hate to keep harking back to it but when we had modric we were mostly better in possession of the ball as he kept it really well and always made himself available. With a midefield of hudd, or sandro, or dembele, or livermore, we don't have anyone with the ability to keep possession and move it on quick. Hudd hasn't got Modric's engine, Sandro is a beast but more a destroyer than playmaker but he has the engine, dembele has the engine but he can' dictate play and livermore has a long way to go.

That said other teams seem to be able to play the ball quickly without having a modric in the team. Wigan did it really well against us at the weekend, swansea did it last season, and seem to be able to do ti again this season, which shows it can be done by average players, our players just need to have the confidence to play that way. Hopefully with players coming back from injury and an astute signing or two in the January sales and it would make all the difference.

I fear until AVB has the proper ingredients in the team we won't see this style of play, if ever. but the top sides do it, and if we want to break into that elite group on a more consistent basis IMO it's something we need to do more of.
 
Ganter said:
so, our squad is crap and it is the new managers fault?

lol
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If AVB brought the players then he is stuck with those players so therefore yeah it is his fault as he didnt buy well (as at this time)

If Levy did buy those players then where the fudge is his backing of the new Manager and yeah it would be his fault.

Which one is it
 
DHSF said:
If AVB brought the players then he is stuck with those players so therefore yeah it is his fault as he didnt buy well (as at this time)

If Levy did buy those players then where the fudge is his backing of the new Manager and yeah it would be his fault.

Which one is it
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Is there no option saying that:

A: The players he bought are good enough but haven't shown it yet.

B: We have an inordinate number of injuries and have been shifting personnel around.

C: The playesr still haven't gotten over the way they lost out on CL last season and have not gotten into their stride yet


Or are we stuck in your 'one of Levy or AVB MUST be to blame' world and we should grab our pitchforks now?
 
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Spursalot said:
Is there no option saying that:

A: The players he bought are good enough but haven't shown it yet.

B: We have an inordinate number of injuries and have been shifting personnel around.


Or are we stuck in your 'one of Levy or AVB MUST be to blame' world and we should grab our pitchforks now?
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a) I did say 'as at this time'
b) the previous poster suggested the squad is crap and it is a bit crap past the first maybe 12-14 players. So the poster obviously suggested that the squad is crap enough not to be able to deal with three or four injuries.

We should grab a shotgun now.

Oi Spursalot wanna fight?
 
DHSF said:
a) I did say 'as at this time'
b) the previous poster suggested the squad is crap and it is a bit crap past the first maybe 12-14 players. So the poster obviously suggested that the squad is crap enough not to be able to deal with three or four injuries.

We should grab a shotgun now.

Oi Spursalot wanna fight?
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It was the same last year. If we had sustained injuries to Ade, Modric, Kaboul and Sandro (who was injured so fair enough) in the first half of the season do you think we would have played anywhere near as well?

Of course not.
 
Spursalot said:
It was the same last year. If we had sustained injuries to Ade, Modric, Kaboul and Sandro (who was injured so fair enough) in the first half of the season do you think we would have played anywhere near as well?

Of course not.
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I also said it last year too - that our squad was overrated. Except people said that Levy didnt want to back Harry properly as he wanted Harry out or rather he 'knew' that Harry was going to leave. This is why I put the point up about Levy backing the Manager. He backed the Manager in terms of money maybe but not neccessarily in terms of players.
 
Spurs7891 said:
You have to give due credit to AVB for never blaming the injury problems for our recent poor form. He could have easily blamed our defeat to Wigan on Sandro getting injured early on. But he didn't. Similiarly, I don't think he has mentioned the fact we are still missing the likes of Dembele, Kaboul, BAE and Parker. Most managers, including Redknapp, would always blame the injury problems whenever their team lose. But AVB seems more intend on using the available team instead of being bothered by the injured players.

I think we can only judge AVB's performances as a Spurs manager when he is able to field all our best 11 players. It is silly for the media and the fans to question AVB now when so many important players are missing.
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Have to agree with this, but the knee jerkers will not see it that way.
 
Kingdawson said:
He's not even making the same mistake he made at chelsea so how anyone can say he hasn't learnt from his mistakes is beyond me. His main problem imo is that he persists with this pressing tactic at home. Once we start sacrifising possesion to the opposition in order for them to feel comfortable then we'll be ok but i don't know if he's willing to change it.
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He's not learning from his mistakes in that he is too stubborn to change his philosophies. They're not working regardless.
 
Spursalot said:
That's very vague.


If challenging for fourth is 'not working' then what are you expecting when they actually work?
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Our league position doesn't mask over our home league form. I have said it before though if your happy with how things are going then I'm happy for you!
 
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