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Antonio Conte - officially NOT the coach of THFC

Bedfordspurs said:
But they had nothing up top
If they had, they would have won
Teams who sacrifice a striker or attacker for an extra midfielder generally have no goals in them
Unless you have players of city’s levels it’s a weak tactic if you actually want to win many games
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A regular goal scorer gives any team an advantage in most games, its lack of one that usually leads to relegation for many teams.
 
metalgear said:
hmm... got a point there, contract lengths don't count. anything can happen.
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They do count, in terms of compensation -- and what bigger component of the modern game is there than money? Also intent, which I think is what others have been saying.

If someone's got 4 years left on their contract, it's going to take a good wodge of cash to get them. There are plenty of clubs out there who wouldn't have been able to consider prising Potter away from Brighton, and of course the club got a enough cash to cover a player or two in January, which'll help their new manager.

I'm very glad that we've got Conte. However, do I like him the same way I liked Jol or Poch? Not a chance. And that wouldn't change, even if he won the Prem this season.
 
NaijaSpurs said:
My concern is that we seem to be regularly outmanned in central midfield, against Chelsea for instant we did not have a sniff in central midfield, we were totally dominated.
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I think we are seeing that Conte is very bound to his system, that we need world class at WB and that thankfully, Conte will switch to 3-5-2 during games to wrestle control and also get Sonny and Kane tighter to each other.

He is doing an outstanding job.
 
Spur of the moment said:
More to the point (one the writer obviously hasn't spotted) is that 13 of our 17 points so far this season have come against teams in the bottom half of the table, and ten of them against the current bottom four!

True, we did sneak a lucky point against Cheatski but have yet to play Arsenal, City, United and Liverpool.

So still very early days.
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Reversely these are teams we dropped points against last season so we’re doing better
 
All this "Spurs don't have control in the middle of the pitch" is just macaronic. Games are not won in the middle of the pitch.
We're very very good where it actually matters, which is at both ends of the pitch. That's were games are decided, not in the centre circle. Use the centre circle for it's best purpose; to let the opponent to take kick offs after you've scored.
 
Kandi1977 said:
All this "Spurs don't have control in the middle of the pitch" is just macaronic. Games are not won in the middle of the pitch.
We're very very good where it actually matters, which is at both ends of the pitch. That's were games are decided, not in the centre circle. Use the centre circle for it's best purpose; to let the opponent to take kick offs after you've scored.
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Careful you will have the anti football phalanx onto you …
 
Kandi1977 said:
All this "Spurs don't have control in the middle of the pitch" is just macaronic. Games are not won in the middle of the pitch.
We're very very good where it actually matters, which is at both ends of the pitch. That's were games are decided, not in the centre circle. Use the centre circle for it's best purpose; to let the opponent to take kick offs after you've scored.
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Normally I'd not agree with you there, but i have noticed that in the middle third we make times look very good, but we look better in the third either end of the pitch
 
Kandi1977 said:
All this "Spurs don't have control in the middle of the pitch" is just macaronic. Games are not won in the middle of the pitch.
We're very very good where it actually matters, which is at both ends of the pitch. That's were games are decided, not in the centre circle. Use the centre circle for it's best purpose; to let the opponent to take kick offs after you've scored.
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Games are advisory won in three middle of the pitch whether you play possession of coy be yet attacking football, it's the middle that gives the base to work from. In a possession style it's even more overtly the case.

The middle provided the cover for the defence, it also is the initiator of attacking play. We choose to let the opposition play in the middle because our play is to spring a trap, but that trap is still set off in the middle.

Sent from my XQ-BC72 using Fapatalk
 
Kandi1977 said:
All this "Spurs don't have control in the middle of the pitch" is just macaronic. Games are not won in the middle of the pitch.
We're very very good where it actually matters, which is at both ends of the pitch. That's were games are decided, not in the centre circle. Use the centre circle for it's best purpose; to let the opponent to take kick offs after you've scored.
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Bishop said:
Games are advisory won in three middle of the pitch whether you play possession of coy be yet attacking football, it's the middle that gives the base to work from. In a possession style it's even more overtly the case.

The middle provided the cover for the defence, it also is the initiator of attacking play. We choose to let the opposition play in the middle because our play is to spring a trap, but that trap is still set off in the middle.

Sent from my XQ-BC72 using Fapatalk
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I agree with both of you really.

I think the problem is how people talk about "control". Too often possession is seen as a proxy for control, sometimes that's the case, sometimes not.

As long as we 1. keep thy opposition at bay, restricting them to fairly poor quality chances and 2. manage to use our midfield to turn decent or poor quality possession into good attacking or counter attacking moves the other team aren't in control.

We can see way less possession overall, spend less time with control of the ball in the middle third while having more control of the game than he other team.
 
braineclipse said:
I agree with both of you really.

I think the problem is how people talk about "control". Too often possession is seen as a proxy for control, sometimes that's the case, sometimes not.

As long as we 1. keep thy opposition at bay, restricting them to fairly poor quality chances and 2. manage to use our midfield to turn decent or poor quality possession into good attacking or counter attacking moves the other team aren't in control.

We can see way less possession overall, spend less time with control of the ball in the middle third while having more control of the game than he other team.
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Yes, because we let the opposition have the ball, the macaron commentators and pundits say we are getting dominated and don't have control, but we actually do. We keep the opposition where we want them, and as seen in all our games so far, restrict them to very low probability chances.

This creates the illusion that the other team have "control" and it often leads them to over commit, and then we punish them. It's very clever.
 
braineclipse said:
I agree with both of you really.

I think the problem is how people talk about "control". Too often possession is seen as a proxy for control, sometimes that's the case, sometimes not.

As long as we 1. keep thy opposition at bay, restricting them to fairly poor quality chances and 2. manage to use our midfield to turn decent or poor quality possession into good attacking or counter attacking moves the other team aren't in control.

We can see way less possession overall, spend less time with control of the ball in the middle third while having more control of the game than he other team.
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The question of how to define control is an interesting one. I used to play an online football management game, Hattrick, where winning midfield won you 90% of your matches. I’ve heard that the algorithm has been changed since those days, thankfully. In the ‘00s, perhaps that was largely true – while there were counter-attacking sides, they weren’t really controlling games.

Going back to the ‘90s, before the back-pass rule came in, some sides (cough, Arsenal, cough) would actually control games with their defence, passing balls between CBs and GK until the opposition got bored enough to give them space to build an attack instead.

The great Italian club sides have, it seems to me, always controlled the game in between defence and midfield, playing catenaccio until there was an attacking opportunity. MUCH riskier now that you can’t just knock it back to the keeper with impunity.

The likes of Fergie’s late ‘90s ManU side and Guardiola’s Barcelona, on the other hand, controlled the game higher up the pitch, relying on excellent short-passing midfielders. I like to think that Poch’s Spurs were in that school, with Eriksen and Dembele controlling games from attacking midfield.

So where does Conte’s Spurs control the game? Can they be said to exert control at all, or is it just reaction to what the opponent does?

I’d say that we do control the game, but with the centre of control being just in front of our back line – and based on allowing opponents the ball in non-dangerous areas. The illusion of control or a deeper level entirely?

Now I’m getting overly tossy though, so I’ll stop there. Time for a coffee!
 
FatBloke said:
The question of how to define control is an interesting one. I used to play an online football management game, Hattrick, where winning midfield won you 90% of your matches. I’ve heard that the algorithm has been changed since those days, thankfully. In the ‘00s, perhaps that was largely true – while there were counter-attacking sides, they weren’t really controlling games.

Going back to the ‘90s, before the back-pass rule came in, some sides (cough, Arsenal, cough) would actually control games with their defence, passing balls between CBs and GK until the opposition got bored enough to give them space to build an attack instead.

The great Italian club sides have, it seems to me, always controlled the game in between defence and midfield, playing catenaccio until there was an attacking opportunity. MUCH riskier now that you can’t just knock it back to the keeper with impunity.

The likes of Fergie’s late ‘90s ManU side and Guardiola’s Barcelona, on the other hand, controlled the game higher up the pitch, relying on excellent short-passing midfielders. I like to think that Poch’s Spurs were in that school, with Eriksen and Dembele controlling games from attacking midfield.

So where does Conte’s Spurs control the game? Can they be said to exert control at all, or is it just reaction to what the opponent does?

I’d say that we do control the game, but with the centre of control being just in front of our back line – and based on allowing opponents the ball in non-dangerous areas. The illusion of control or a deeper level entirely?

Now I’m getting overly tossy though, so I’ll stop there. Time for a coffee!
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I think we have a fair bit of control. 100% control throughout games pretty much never happens. I don't think it's an illusion of control, most of the time at least.

The issues arise when we aren't able to launch good counter attacking moves ourselves, like for extended periods against Chelsea. Then it becomes more a reaction to what the opposition do, we would like to get out more, but can't. Get forced to defend deep without doing much else.

As we can't just play it back to Lloris, that ability to play through pressure is crucial. We're quite good at that, with some issues left to be sorted out.
 
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