Andre Villas-Boas - Head Coach

[DHSF]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

I don't think there is much tinkering needed to make it work. Possibly Siggy would be sacrificed for Chadli??

No tinkering needs to be done away from home - I think AVB has that down to a T more or less. I think Siggy has proved his worth this season and would want him in the team.

If AVB is going to play the same way but use different players, some of those wont suit those tactics or rather those players wouldnt flourish under those tactics. So AVB needs to change his tactics slightly to get the best out of those players.

 

[braineclipse]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

It worked on Wednesday.
Defoe and Soldado is not good but Kane or Ade with either is an option worth trying.
I don't like having just 1 striker on the bench. An injury does not even give us the 4-4-2 option.

Oh, it worked this one time, yeah now I'll change my mind...

There are a lot of potential options. I don't see why Kane is a better option to try than Holtby or Eriksen. Of course if Kane comes on someone is bound to call it a 4-4-2 because "he's a striker" whereas if Eriksen, Holtby or Sig comes on to play the same role it's not a 4-4-2 because "they're midfielders".

AVB himself said that he was playing with two strikers at some points last season with Dempsey being one of them, but I'm not sure everyone on here agreed that he could be classified as a striker.

Just to illustrate the point that demanding a formation as a solution to a problem is a bit overly simplistic, to me at least.

 

[braineclipse]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

AVB has broken so many records while at Spurs : record points total, a player scoring more than 20 league goals, beating ManU etc. Now he has got us win a penalty shootouts after so long. Maybe next he will get us win the league title after waiting for 52 years ! But for that, we need to give him some time. Want us to give him atleast 3 more years atleast.

I won't say at this point that we should give him that long unconditionally, but I'm definitely for giving him time.

What we're now primarily discussing, breaking down stubborn defensive sides that sit deep, is one of the hardest things in football to get right consistently. We've had a lot of problems that have needed sorted out and we've experienced quite a bit of turmoil with top class players leaving and having to replace them. I'm willing to give AVB quite a bit of time sorting this out, at least as long as we're otherwise good and solid.

 

[onlyme]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

Football is a simple game. Strikers score more goals than midfielders.

Of course a few (not many) midfielders score double digit goals. They are the exception not the rule.

 

[Jordinho]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

Football is a simple game. Strikers score more goals than midfielders.

Of course a few (not many) midfielders score double digit goals. They are the exception not the rule.

In that case, shouldn't we go for 3 strikers? Or maybe 4? Or 10? Imagine how entertaining our matches would be.

 

[braineclipse]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

Football is a simple game. Strikers score more goals than midfielders.

Of course a few (not many) midfielders score double digit goals. They are the exception not the rule.

You should google translate your opinion and email it to Bayern Munich, their 7-0 win on aggregate against Barcelona might have been a double digit win if they'd just accepted your thoughts and played a second striker.

But why stop there? Why not 4-3-3? Or 4-2-4? Or a good old 1-1-8? After all, strikers score more goals than midfielders.

 

[Robspur12]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

In that case, shouldn't we go for 3 strikers? Or maybe 4? Or 10? Imagine how entertaining our matches would be.

No because that would unbalance the midfield and other aspects of our play essential to getting a result, as Onlyme says football is an easy game, you need to score and defend. Arsenal are master exponents at having midfield runners into the box. Ours for some reason don't do that so we are not threatening enough. So 2 options imo get the midfielders to run into the box more, but risk conceding more goals or put a hardworking ball holding striker (e.g. Ade on form) next to soldado/defoe. Worked well for us in the past.

 

[Jordinho]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

No because that would unbalance the midfield and other aspects of our play essential to getting a result, as Onlyme says football is an easy game, you need to score and defend. Arsenal are master exponents at having midfield runners into the box. Ours for some reason don't do that so we are not threatening enough. So 2 options imo get the midfielders to run into the box more, but risk conceding more goals or put a hardworking ball holding striker (e.g. Ade on form) next to soldado/defoe. Worked well for us in the past.

In our last 2 or 3 games I've been trying to watch more closely what we're doing wrong and we do have more players getting into the box compared to last season, but almost every attempt at playing the final ball through has gone straight at a defender. We need more time to get the timing right and improve our accuracy. It's about getting our midfielders to move and interact better. Just putting another player in the box to be left isolated isn't going to help.

 

[Robspur12]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

In our last 2 or 3 games I've been trying to watch more closely what we're doing wrong and we do have more players getting into the box compared to last season, but almost every attempt at playing the final ball through has gone straight at a defender. We need more time to get the timing right and improve our accuracy. It's about getting our midfielders to move and interact better. Just putting another player in the box to be left isolated isn't going to help.

I agree with your last sentence. But an on form Ade doesn't just stay in the box a la defoe and soldado but gets involve with the general build up play.

 

[Jordinho]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

I agree with your last sentence. But an on form Ade doesn't just stay in the box a la defoe and soldado but gets involve with the general build up play.

But if your second striker drops deep to get involved, couldn't we just as easily achieve that with an attacking midfielder like Eriksen, Holtby, Siggy, Lamela? It would be more of a 4-4-1-1 than a straight 4-4-2. The classic 4-4-2 has usually had one little and one large, where the large is a target man and the little one a poacher.

 

[ringo]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

Watching Dzeko score yesterday made me think what current Spurs player would get us that kind of goal. hold the ball up in the box, turn, shoot score. Ade, Kane maybe?
We need that striking option for when plan a) doesn't work.

 

[Armchair Expert]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

Before worrying about plan b we need to get plan a sorted/come up with one. We obviously didn't buy Lamela, Chadli, Erikssen, Siggy invest time in Townsed and keep on Lennon in order to start playing 442. Lets just get our main tactic correct first - as others of said our problem is utilising our players and getting the most out of them. Our squad certainly doesn't lend itself to a 442.

I've heard Lamela is supposed to be good, Erikssen has a reputation etc, so if we can actually get them playing as a team and with tactics and philosophy you would hope that the goal scoring might not be so much of an issue.

Whast we don't want to do is switch to 442, open ourselves up, lose the little bit of a platform we have and then still not create. I think we're all agreed that Soldado's movement is fine, its just getting the ball into the final third that's proving a nightmare. I don't see that chucking another forward into the mix at the expense of creativity further back can be contsrrued as a legitimate solution to our obvious problems.

 

[ringo]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

Before worrying about plan b we need to get plan a sorted/come up with one. We obviously didn't buy Lamela, Chadli, Erikssen, Siggy invest time in Townsed and keep on Lennon in order to start playing 442. Lets just get our main tactic correct first - as others of said our problem is utilising our players and getting the most out of them. Our squad certainly doesn't lend itself to a 442.

I've heard Lamela is supposed to be good, Erikssen has a reputation etc, so if we can actually get them playing as a team and with tactics and philosophy you would hope that the goal scoring might not be so much of an issue.

Whast we don't want to do is switch to 442, open ourselves up, lose the little bit of a platform we have and then still not create. I think we're all agreed that Soldado's movement is fine, its just getting the ball into the final third that's proving a nightmare. I don't see that chucking another forward into the mix at the expense of creativity further back can be contsrrued as a legitimate solution to our obvious problems.

I don't mean 4-4-2. I mean replacing one forward with another, different one. I thought that was reasonably clear.

 

[africanspurs]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

thought today was a good game today

 

[onlyme]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

thought today was a good game today

We did not get men in the box today. Andros was on fire then looking up and seeing Soldado and 4 Everton guys. He even tried picked out Lennon and even when Lennon got the ball to the fecking by line there is still only Soldado and maybe Paulinho on the edge of the box.

We were all over Everton today in the first half. Two orthodox strikers and we win this game by two at least.

 

[braineclipse]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

We did not get men in the box today. Andros was on fire then looking up and seeing Soldado and 4 Everton guys. He even tried picked out Lennon and even when Lennon got the ball to the fecking by line there is still only Soldado and maybe Paulinho on the edge of the box.

We were all over Everton today in the first half. Two orthodox strikers and we win this game by two at least.

So you don't think having a 3 man midfield was perhaps part of the reason we were all over Everton in the first half?

 

[Gazza Dazzla]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

We did not get men in the box today. Andros was on fire then looking up and seeing Soldado and 4 Everton guys. He even tried picked out Lennon and even when Lennon got the ball to the fecking by line there is still only Soldado and maybe Paulinho on the edge of the box.

We were all over Everton today in the first half. Two orthodox strikers and we win this game by two at least.

Do you think the game changed in the 2nd half then?

 

[onlyme]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

Do you think the game changed in the 2nd half then?

Are you on a wind up? The game changed 3 or 4 times. We finished on top but the result was a draw.

I am trying to draw a lesson not score silly points.

 

[colin fishwick]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

AVB has broken so many records while at Spurs : record points total, a player scoring more than 20 league goals, beating ManU etc. Now he has got us win a penalty shootouts after so long. Maybe next he will get us win the league title after waiting for 52 years ! But for that, we need to give him some time. Want us to give him atleast 3 more years atleast.

Not really sure the records he has broken mean much.

The top 6 , spend a lot more than the others, so there is very likely to be a gap.

Blimey we really should be beating Hull or even Everton ,based on how much we spend compared to them .

We have recovered from the Sugar era to our rightful place as a top 6 team, so coming 5th and winning nothing, is no big deal .

We should finish above all other teams apart from the other 5.

 

[AdamB]

Re: AVB - Making Tottenham His Own

The main problem with our tactics currently is that, despite not creating chances, we still leave our most creative player (Eriksen) on the bench. Really baffles me. Holtby offers nothing whatsoever in that no 10 role and, combined with the wingers staying wide, it means soldado has no support and we don't create chances. Holtby looks more like a normal CM to me and doesn't look remotely suited to that no 10 type role