Moussa Sissoko

[Roland Beurre]

Ndombele got taken off with a minute to go for a standing ovation. Winks got injured.

The commentator on Sky said Spurs were about to take Ndombele off just before he scored the goal. I have no idea whether that was the case.

Sissoko's miss looked bad but it was from an angle so I would cut him some slack; the shooter only has to be a few degrees out with his aim and it can easily end up going out for a throw.

On the other hand, the one goal he has scored for Spurs should've been a simple tap-in but he still scuffed it, if memory serves. He seems more confident in his shooting when he pushes it past a player and then runs on to it to take a shot. Getting the ball out of his feet from a standing start so he can get a shot away is definitely not his forte.

I quite like Modric's "lumbering centre-half goes on a dribble" analogy. FWIW, Sissoko reminds me a bit of Paul Stewart when he switched to midfield; his role was to kick a few people, knock a few skittles over, get the ball and pass it to Gazza or whoever.

 

[DeanoAustin]

He’s been a starting player in a top 4 team for 2 seasons in a row now.

I’m getting a bit frustrated having to point out the obvious, but he got an assist yesterday with a good pass, and some spark to break the lines a bit in midfield. There were plenty of good touches, but he is someone that has some physical gifts, and I would say tactically is excellent.

Seems like it’s a new season and we’re back on not being able to appreciate Sissoko for what he is. And we’re having to blame him for everything that he isn’t. It is not news to say he gets by because of some physicality. It’s not a hot take to say that he struggles in front of goal. It is just ridiculous polarisation to call him not a footballer though.

He was a starter last season out of desperation because we had no one else to play in midfield. He won't be a consistent starter this season.

I'm not sure why you're getting frustrated. I've acknowledged the assist. It was Sissoko doing what he does best, powering past a couple of players and having a simple pass on. As Scara said, any professional footballer could have made the pass. Not every pro footballer could have gotten into the position Sissoko did but that was down to physicality and that's all he really brings to the party.

There was half a dozen particularly pathetic touches and very few completed passes that I wouldn't have fancied making myself.

 

[DeanoAustin]

The commentator on Sky said Spurs were about to take Ndombele off just before he scored the goal. I have no idea whether that was the case.

Sissoko's miss looked bad but it was from an angle so I would cut him some slack; the shooter only has to be a few degrees out with his aim and it can easily end up going out for a throw.

On the other hand, the one goal he has scored for Spurs should've been a simple tap-in but he still scuffed it, if memory serves. He seems more confident in his shooting when he pushes it past a player and then runs on to it to take a shot. Getting the ball out of his feet from a standing start so he can get a shot away is definitely not his forte.

I quite like Modric's "lumbering centre-half goes on a dribble" analogy. FWIW, Sissoko reminds me a bit of Paul Stewart when he switched to midfield; his role was to kick a few people, knock a few skittles over, get the ball and pass it to Gazza or whoever.

Yours is a decent post but regarding the bolded bit, I give to the travesty of an effort at Anfield last year. He's just not very good near goal. On that occasion, people said "you can't expect him to score, that's not his game". Bollox it's not. I expect anyone who isn't a goalkeeper to test Allison at the very least in that position.

 

[Legohamster]

He’s been a starting player in a top 4 team for 2 seasons in a row now.

I’m getting a bit frustrated having to point out the obvious, but he got an assist yesterday with a good pass, and some spark to break the lines a bit in midfield. There were plenty of good touches, but he is someone that has some physical gifts, and I would say tactically is excellent.

Seems like it’s a new season and we’re back on not being able to appreciate Sissoko for what he is. And we’re having to blame him for everything that he isn’t. It is not news to say he gets by because of some physicality. It’s not a hot take to say that he struggles in front of goal. It is just ridiculous polarisation to call him not a footballer though.

He could have had 3/4 assists and a goal if he had any form of composure, he does not.

He is one of the reasons (not the only) we struggle to break down banked defences.

 

[Legohamster]

He quite literally is a top 4 starting player. He’s also a starting CL finalist.

The ‘he’s not a footballer’ trope is just nonsense. He is terrible at shooting, we can all agree on that, but he brings us a lot in terms of balance.

The facts are, and Poch has acknowledged this in his post match comments, that the diamond didn’t work. Nobody was any good, not Sissoko, not N’Dombele, not Winks. Everyone showed some nice touches here and there, but the team wasn’t functioning in the way that we hoped. Once we changed shape in the second half, we looked a lot better. Sissoko got an assist, N’Dombele got a goal, and we could have had more.

He was a bit part player the season before, which most have said should be his role.

Last season we recorded 13 defeats in the league, scored the least amount of goals and conceded the most since Mopo has been here.

Is that down to him alone? No

He is a part of it.

 

[Maltese Falcon]

He's wrong. It's no more complicated than that.

and of course, your exhaltedness is always right... seeing as you have managed in two countries, achieved Champions League finishes on successive seasons and took teams to the Champions League final.

Why were worried about Poch leaving had we won the CL final, when we had the world renowned Scaramanga ready to step in, with his world acclaimed knowledge of football coaching....

 

[scaramanga]

and of course, your exhaltedness is always right... seeing as you have managed in two countries, achieved Champions League finishes on successive seasons and took teams to the Champions League final.

Why were worried about Poch leaving had we won the CL final, when we had the world renowned Scaramanga ready to step in, with his world acclaimed knowledge of football coaching....

What was wrong in the first half, and whose fault do you think it was?

 

[DeanoAustin]

and of course, your exhaltedness is always right... seeing as you have managed in two countries, achieved Champions League finishes on successive seasons and took teams to the Champions League final.

Why were worried about Poch leaving had we won the CL final, when we had the world renowned Scaramanga ready to step in, with his world acclaimed knowledge of football coaching....

Ah here. The answer can't always be "well it's right because Poch says so". If so, there's no point having a message board, we all just agree with whatever Poch decides. I'm sure there is no possible way we could have been better than Villa in the first half yesterday so...

Although I will agree, Scara is a smug, know it all clam.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

He could have had 3/4 assists and a goal if he had any form of composure, he does not.

He is one of the reasons (not the only) we struggle to break down banked defences.

He’s actually one of the reasons we break down tight defences too.

 

[milo]

He’s actually one of the reasons we break down tight defences too.

He's one of the poorest players in our squad and is likely to find himself on the bench once the new players are settled.

Poch did a great job finding a role for him last season but let's be honest, it was forced on us and he wouldn't have had a starting place in any other Poch side during his time with us.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

He's one of the poorest players in our squad and is likely to find himself on the bench once the new players are settled.

Poch did a great job finding a role for him last season but let's be honest, it was forced on us and he wouldn't have had a starting place in any other Poch side during his time with us.

The revisionism in this thread is slightly awkward...he’s been starting for us for 2 seasons now, and helped us win huge games on the way to a CL final. ‘Finding him a role last season’ :ross:

He’s going to be on the pitch for plenty of minutes this season too.

 

[Legohamster]

The revisionism in this thread is slightly awkward...he’s been starting for us for 2 seasons now, and helped us win huge games on the way to a CL final. ‘Finding him a role last season’ :ross:

He’s going to be on the pitch for plenty of minutes this season too.

17/18 season he started league 15 games.

You think if Dembele/Alli/Son/Wanyama had been fit/here he would have got anywhere near the starts he did?

 

[milo]

The revisionism in this thread is slightly awkward...he’s been starting for us for 2 seasons now, and helped us win huge games on the way to a CL final. ‘Finding him a role last season’ :ross:

He’s going to be on the pitch for plenty of minutes this season too.

It's not revisionism to say that he is a poor footballer, people have been saying the same thing throughout his time with us.

He's a great athlete and was useful last season breaking lines but all too frequently he fails to use the ball intelligently once he has got past an opponent. His range of passing is poor which is a massive disadvantage in a possession side. The only position that he has looked comfortable for us is as a ball carrier in central midfield which is what Ndombele will be doing this season.

I agree that he will get games though and I am happy with him as a squad player. I just see him filling in unless he manages to become first choice RB/RWB.

 

[ShipOfTheseus]

It's not revisionism to say that he is a poor footballer, people have been saying the same thing throughout his time with us.

He's a great athlete and was useful last season breaking lines but all too frequently he fails to use the ball intelligently once he has got past an opponent. His range of passing is poor which is a massive disadvantage in a possession side. The only position that he has looked comfortable for us is as a ball carrier in central midfield which is what Ndombele will be doing this season.

I agree that he will get games though and I am happy with him as a squad player. I just see him filling in unless he manages to become first choice RB/RWB.

He’s never looked comfortable as any kind of right winger so that conversion doesn’t sound plausible. Hope he still gets a fair number of games doing precisely what he does best.

 

[metalgear]

He's been a great physical presence and forward force. He will keep his place until someone else can do that for us.

Sent from my SM-T819Y using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app

 

[scaramanga]

The revisionism in this thread is slightly awkward...he’s been starting for us for 2 seasons now, and helped us win huge games on the way to a CL final. ‘Finding him a role last season’ :ross:

He’s going to be on the pitch for plenty of minutes this season too.

Dembele, Dier and Winks were all crocked last season.

Sissoko actually has two things going for him; his physicality and the fact that he never gets injured.

 

[milo]

He’s never looked comfortable as any kind of right winger so that conversion doesn’t sound plausible. Hope he still gets a fair number of games doing precisely what he does best.

The only reason I say that is because it looks the biggest gap in the first team at the moment and marauding runs from deep is what he does best. I am not too worried about end product from full backs as long as they occupy a man and play the ball to a team mate.

As things stand, I would agree that he is most likely to be Ndombele's understudy.

 

[milo]

He's been a great physical presence and forward force. He will keep his place until someone else can do that for us.

That player was playing along side him yesterday. Once Son and Dele are back, Lo Celso is integrated and if Eriksen stays, the team is going to look very different. It is hard to see a starting place for Sissoko if everyone is available.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

It's not revisionism to say that he is a poor footballer, people have been saying the same thing throughout his time with us.

He's a great athlete and was useful last season breaking lines but all too frequently he fails to use the ball intelligently once he has got past an opponent. His range of passing is poor which is a massive disadvantage in a possession side. The only position that he has looked comfortable for us is as a ball carrier in central midfield which is what Ndombele will be doing this season.

I agree that he will get games though and I am happy with him as a squad player. I just see him filling in unless he manages to become first choice RB/RWB.

It really is. It’s a tired, boring trope. He isn’t the best footballer we have, but his ability is exaggerated to a negative extreme.

The thing about having someone like him in a ‘possession side’ is that it makes us more difficult to counter. To have a team full of Winks’s would mean that it’s easier to break our lines because if we don’t play the perfect football, the opposition will get through. The amount of times Sissoko shuts down an attack by using his physicality to cover more space than anyone else could is actually quite large. Not to mention his tactical discipline and fitness, which enable him to stop these things happening before they occur. By virtue of his physicality, we can actually be more expansive and more unpredictable.

He’s also clocked up plenty of assists, and plenty of good performances in important games for us to the point that we should be long since past the ‘he’s not a footballer’ rubbish. I think with everyone else fit, he’s N’Dombele’s understudy. But there’s two things that should just be done once and for all. #1 is that he doesn’t use the ball well or is incapable of doing so. #2 is that his value to the team almost doesn’t count because his exceptional strengths are physical and tactical.

 

[Modric THFC]

He only really came into the team in the role people expect of him when Dembele went out injured.
He was given the task of running through the middle like Dembele did.
He never played well when Dembele was around.
His complete drop off now might be because he can't play with Ndombele.
We really don't need two players trying to do the same thing in our central midfield.