Looking at his last 10 league games is not a good way to judge him either. Look over his career, he burns hot before Christmas but then the goals always dry up in the new year.
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Lack of goals
- Thread starter Mulletperm
- Start date
Looking at his last 10 league games is not a good way to judge him either. Look over his career, he burns hot before Christmas but then the goals always dry up in the new year.
Modric THFC
Jimmy McCormick
I dont know its only really happened 3 times
Looking at his league seasons:
01/02 - 5 before new year and 5 after
02/03 - 3 before and 5 after
03/04 - spent fist half of the season in the championship with west ham and 7 goals after
04/05 - 10 before and 3 after
05/06 - 5 before and 4 after
06/07 - 6 before and 4 after
07/08 - 3 before and 9 after (moved to portsmouth second half of the season)
08/09 - 8 before and 3 after (injured for much of the second half of the season)
09/10 - 14 before and 4 after
10/11 - 0 before and 4 after (injured for the first half of the season)
11/12 - 6 before and 5 after
12/13 - 10 before and 1 after
My view is that he scores in lower level competitions in the autumn that he doesnt get to play in after the new year.
NaijaSpurs
Les Ferdinand
I have no problem with Defoe not starting up front on his own in the league, especially as he only scored one league goal in the second half of last season
NaijaSpurs
Les Ferdinand
I bet you were not saying that first game of the season or two days ago, talk about ****ing knee jerk
NaijaSpurs
Les Ferdinand
What utter ****e. Townsend cannot create assists when attacks are not in the box for the tap in. Or maybe you blame Bale for the fact that Defoe scored only 1 league goal in the second half of last season or that Ade did **** all last season. Yeah **** off our best player today, sure you are entitled to your opinion but it is utter tosh
ringo
Tim Sherwood
Defoe isn't good enough first striker choice for a team with CL aspirations.
If he was a) AVB wouldn't be shopping for replacement strikers. b) his goals totals in the league per season would be higher c) his assists stats would be higher d) his caught offside stats would be lower.
If he was a) AVB wouldn't be shopping for replacement strikers. b) his goals totals in the league per season would be higher c) his assists stats would be higher d) his caught offside stats would be lower.
NaijaSpurs
Les Ferdinand
I have no problem with your assertion but even when Defoe is on the bench we are still struggling to score goals so I question if Defoe is the main issue.
ringo
Tim Sherwood
I think you will find (if you search back through my posts) I am one of the posters who has consistently (ie for several seasons) said we should play Huddlestone, and also that we should not sell him.
That's not saying our players aren't good, just that we lack a Huddlestone type player.
I also said we should give Carroll more playing time, from very very early on -and still think he should be in the squad rather than on loan.
I may be wrong - but it is not knee jerk.
ringo
Tim Sherwood
I agree, Defoe is just part of it.. there are a lot of factors behind our lack of goals, and it is going to be tough sorting out. I hope AVB is up to it..I guess we will find out eventually.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
I really hope 4-4-2 with Soldado and Defoe doesn't keep being our go-to emergency thing when we need goals. If we had Ade available then it's a fine option when we need goals, but taking off creative players to put on another poacher really doesn't fill me with confidence at all. It reeks of desperation and I do not enjoy the smell, I would honestly rather have seen us shift Vertonghen up front and started going for long balls and crosses than to see us (further) deplete ourselves of creativity and chance creating potential.
Not sure how many "tap-in" chances he created. There was the one that Defoe almost got on the end of, but quite a few of his crosses were more the lofted/chipped cross with his right similar to what Lennon does. It's a nice enough cross, and I'm not singling out Townsend as an individual, but against a deep defending West Ham side I think we would have to put in an awful lot of those crosses before we would score with Defoe, Sig and Paulinho the main targets in the box. When he came inside he more or less just ran into a wall time and time again and his touch kept letting him down unfortunately.
I didn't think before the game that this would be his type of game, I still don't think it was even though he probably was our better attacking player overall.
The thing about Defoe is that he keeps proving that he is who he is.
Protracted spells out of the team, either through injuries or because he's dropped always leaves people calling for him to come back and sort out whatever goalscoring problem the team is having. Usually he comes back in and disappoints by my memory.
Protracted spells in the team and sooner or later he hits a dry spell and people are calling for him to be dropped because he's not the answer to whatever goalscoring problem the team is having. Usually he is dropped, then the circle continues at some point as other strikers eventually also fail to deliver.
He's a good player, a fine striker of the ball and a willing worker. If we can give him the ball inside or close to the box with a bit of space to either shoot or shift and shoot without being closed down by multiple opponents he will bring goals with a decent, but not great, strike rate. That is who he is, I remember hoping for that to change, for him to improve and take the next step up, I stopped hoping for that some time ago though as it just didn't look likely.
Unless the problem for the team is that a striker like Defoe keeps getting chances and missing them then introducing him to the team won't solve a thing. If he's in the team and we're not creating chances for him then introducing another striker like him will similarly not solve a thing.
I like Defoe, particularly I like his energy and commitment to the team when he's in it. The joy he shows when scoring is great and he's been around for a long time now (with a short seaside break). But as a player I know and accept that he has his limits, by now we know what those limits are. Introducing him into the starting line-up or as a sub expecting him to fix a problem that he's never in his life fixed then turning on him for not being good enough when he doesn't fix it seems unfair to me. By now we should know better.
I still think Soldado is a somewhat similar, but better striker. And he should be first choice as long as he's not consistently wasting chances. And harsh as it might be I don't even think we should introduce Defoe off the bench for Soldado unless Soldado is getting exhausted. It just makes more sense to bring on a new player in a creative position to bring fresh legs on the pitch in a position where more high intensity running is required, or bringing on a new full back or central midfielder, or a new centre back to move a left footed cb to left back to give us width than to use a substitution to replace one excellent player with a very similar, but (imo) not quite as good player.
Neither Paulinho nor Dembele are what you'd consider defensive midfielders though and both venture forward a lot of the time. They fact that they have to cover for our FBs when they get into advanced positions doesn't mean we have too many defensive players. A defensive midfielder is someone in the Makelele or Mikel mould, someone who stays in his own half most of the time, a ball winner, someone who mostly passes sideways and backwards.
SpurMeUp
Les Howe
I think the high defensive line we've been playing needs some attention. It has helped us keep clean sheets. With Lloris as the sweeper and keeper, and by compressing the game we've stopped other teams from scoring. But we also compress our game and don't always have a way to break down teams.
We need to be able to mix it up. So today, instead of playing a high defensive line, we could have tried playing a lot deeper. Then taken the game to WH knowing that we can try things in their half, and if we lose the ball to them they will come on to us. We defend deeper, regain possession and have much more space to break into.
We need to be able to mix it up. So today, instead of playing a high defensive line, we could have tried playing a lot deeper. Then taken the game to WH knowing that we can try things in their half, and if we lose the ball to them they will come on to us. We defend deeper, regain possession and have much more space to break into.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Strange one, for me it was almost a case of the exact opposite.
I thought our high pressing lacked intensity and unity today, so we rarely won the ball back high up the pitch. West Ham were allowed to play through us and we weren't able to build the kind of sustained pressure we have been able to in some games. I really don't think winning the ball back too often in their third of the pitch was a problem for us today.
On the ball there's only so much we can do, we could pass it back and forwards between our centre backs for 5 minutes and they still wouldn't commit men forward I think. Off the ball we could have sat back I suppose, but I fear they would have been more than happy to time waste themselves by keeping it at the back until we pressed up again.
More or less the nature of the game when one team is delighted with a 0-0 and the other team isn't.
Jurgen the German
Erik Thorstvedt
Think Braineclipse hit the tickle my balls with a feather. Defoe sits on the bench, scores goals against weak European/lower level prem sides, there are calls for him to be starting games, he then ultimately fails to deliver and we proclaim he isn't good enough. And the cycle repeats.
SpurMeUp
Les Howe
If the opposition players are all in position, ready to defend, you won't score. You have to pull them out of position and open up space somehow. How you do that is the question.
One way is allow teams to come at you more - give them the space to advance. Then when you get possession, you can break into the space.
The Manu away victory last year - Sir Red Nose said after the game - he was trying that exact tactic on us first half. It backfired as we scored 2 or 3 was it (?). Clearly a tactic that is used by some mangers.
One way is allow teams to come at you more - give them the space to advance. Then when you get possession, you can break into the space.
The Manu away victory last year - Sir Red Nose said after the game - he was trying that exact tactic on us first half. It backfired as we scored 2 or 3 was it (?). Clearly a tactic that is used by some mangers.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Sure, against teams that will look to attack and commit men forward at 0-0. Doesn't really work against teams that want to do exactly what you describe to you.
The sad thing (for me) is that we're good enough to create that space by passing and moving, we've shown it against Cardiff and Norwich I think. But today we didn't.
SpurMeUp
Les Howe
Its all hypothetical, but had they had a chance to attack, they would have allowed what 4 players to get forward. We should be able to defend against them (especially if drilled to) and then you have 4 less players to beat when you do get possession. It could have been the difference today. We needed to change things and try something else. They got all their players behind the ball. We kept the high line and committed more and more forward - and lost 0-3.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Meanwhile they've wasted a considerable amount of time getting forward in the first place, because we sat back and let them. And we might have given away a considerable amount of set plays in dangerous areas in the process?
And we get what, 5 seconds of attacking against them when they have 4-5 players committed forward until they get back and for most of that we have the ball in our half and quite a few of our players behind the ball too?
When was the last time you saw a big team, at home to a bottom half defensive counter attacking team, sit back somewhat consistently to counter attack themselves? I just can't see how it would work out.
Two pages of stats, one from the Cardiff game and one from today:
http://epl.squawka.com/tottenham-hotspur-vs-west-ham-united/06-10-2013/english-barclays-premier-league/matches
http://epl.squawka.com/cardiff-city-vs-tottenham-hotspur/22-09-2013/english-barclays-premier-league/matches
Have a look at our tackles and interceptions for both those games. I would claim that both happened further up the pitch in the Cardiff game on average and that we were better off for it. (Not saying that this the end all be all of stats to end this discussion of course)
SpurMeUp
Les Howe
Its interesting anyway. We don't know what may have been.
Against Cardiff we left it late. West Ham to their credit were ready for us to press them high up the pitch, they dropped off themselves to create more space, and passed the ball around us. Our pressing did not work today.
I would have liked to have seen us try something else. Had it been a more open game going toe to toe with them - I think we'd of won. Letting them 'out' - in other words move out of their own half into ours - could have allowed us more space to get that vital first goal.
I'm not saying the high line doesn't work - its worked fantastically so far. Just that when we're looking at a lack of goals, a compressed playing area may have some effect.
Against Cardiff we left it late. West Ham to their credit were ready for us to press them high up the pitch, they dropped off themselves to create more space, and passed the ball around us. Our pressing did not work today.
I would have liked to have seen us try something else. Had it been a more open game going toe to toe with them - I think we'd of won. Letting them 'out' - in other words move out of their own half into ours - could have allowed us more space to get that vital first goal.
I'm not saying the high line doesn't work - its worked fantastically so far. Just that when we're looking at a lack of goals, a compressed playing area may have some effect.