*** OMT Tottenham Hotspur v Ipswich Town FC ***

[Roland Beurre]

Just watched the game.
If sons challenge in the centre circle on 10 mins is a foul then that challenge on danso is a pen.
You can make mistakes but there is no excuse for a lack of consistency.

If the referee did not give it, and the VAR team did not give it, then my assumption would be, that they are interpreting the incident as per instructions, so there should be consistency (cf. the Mikey Moore incident). As such, I just shrug my shoulders, grit my teeth and say "fair enough"; however, I would prefer it if that sort of shoulder barge was interpreted as a foul (at the very least it is obstruction).

This whole "shielding the ball as it goes out of play" thing is OK if the player doing the shielding is close enough to be in possession of the ball; otherwise, I would deem it to be obstruction. In American football, it would be called as a foul if performed on an eligible receiver (he said, with barely any knowledge of NFL rules). Apparently, I am out of step with the refereeing authorities.

There were plenty of incidents where Spurs players were felled by a strong breeze but the Danso incident was not one of them.

Danso did go down a bit too easily for their goal but other than that, I thought he did the bread-and-butter centre-half stuff well, and was pretty decent at setting up attacking movements. I like him better than Dragusin and I am not even sure I'd have Romero back instead of him. I'd maybe opt for Danso when we expect to be under an aerial assault and Romero when we expect to dominate possession.

 

[braineclipse]

Have a little look at Spence though. He doesn't engage as a 6 because if he does they have the overload on the left. McKenna has their LB doing exactly what I said. He first tucks in when the ball is on the other side so he can be the pivot. Then as they get possession he is soon wider and sprinting forward. Spence knows he's in trouble as Johnson is one of the 6 pressing and has gone into the middle. Spence is thinking like a full back who is out of position and exposed. Bents is thinking like a centre mid who is out of position and exposed.

I just think that other teams press in their positions better than we do. Poch's team was great at it. Walker and Rose did so much pressing in the wide areas. The front 4 did most of the rest. The double pivot midfield pressed intelligently taking in turns. They all sort of held their positions though. You didn't see gaps appearing in the way we do with Ange.

I'm actually all for pressing. I just see cracks when Ange's team do it and it is not all on the players.

I agree that our pressing has room for improvement. I think a similarity with the Poch team is the need for quite bit of emergency and really strong one vs one defending. Gaps being there when the press gets bypassed is for me the norm, but the frequency and size of that happening is obviously important.

I just don't think that has anything to do with the inverted full backs. When Walker and Rose pressed up that too left gaps. You can't press high successfully with your full backs staying conservatively wide and deep.

To what extent those issues with pressing are related to the players missing is another question. Not sure, but thought our pressing looked better in the early phase of the season before the injuries struck.

 

[braineclipse]

We shall see on this one. In the last 3 league games our goals results have been actual 7-1 vs xG 4.5-5.

Not sure whether I trust the xG system yet, but what I do know is that us only conceding 1 goal in 3 games is not representative of the 3 games I've watched with my own eyes. I'm definitely not declaring victory.

When we play City, B'mouth and Fulham it will be interesting based on their manager styles.

For sure our last three league games have not been perfmances that typically would lead to 9 points. Both watching the games and xG tell a similar story imo.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Tell me more.

Are you saying that xG has consistently looked higher for the goals we've actually conceded and vice versa for the goals we are scoring?

I’m saying I’ve seen us play games where we should have scored more
And also games where we should have scored less
Xg balances out across all teams eventually

 

[Lilbaz]

I’m saying I’ve seen us play games where we should have scored more
And also games where we should have scored less
Xg balances out across all teams eventually

Better teams should outscore their xg. As they have better players who score more of their chances.

 

[parklane1]

Stat junkies are at it again i see.

 

[FatBloke]

Better teams should outscore their xg. As they have better players who score more of their chances.

No, teams with better strikers should outscore their xG -- like we did for years with prime Sonny and Kane up front.

Better teams will have higher xG as they're making more chances (and/or higher-quality chances).

A mediocre team with a top striker might score 3 from an xG of 1. A good team with forwards who can't hit a barn door would "need" an xG of 5 to score those same 3 goals.

It's just a stat, like possession, shots on goal, etc. At the end of the day, all that matters in football is goals, but it would make for a much more boring forum if that's all anyone ever talked about.

 

[K.D.D.D.D.Soc]

If the referee did not give it, and the VAR team did not give it, then my assumption would be, that they are interpreting the incident as per instructions, so there should be consistency (cf. the Mikey Moore incident). As such, I just shrug my shoulders, grit my teeth and say "fair enough"; however, I would prefer it if that sort of shoulder barge was interpreted as a foul (at the very least it is obstruction).

This whole "shielding the ball as it goes out of play" thing is OK if the player doing the shielding is close enough to be in possession of the ball; otherwise, I would deem it to be obstruction. In American football, it would be called as a foul if performed on an eligible receiver (he said, with barely any knowledge of NFL rules). Apparently, I am out of step with the refereeing authorities.

There were plenty of incidents where Spurs players were felled by a strong breeze but the Danso incident was not one of them.

Danso did go down a bit too easily for their goal but other than that, I thought he did the bread-and-butter centre-half stuff well, and was pretty decent at setting up attacking movements. I like him better than Dragusin and I am not even sure I'd have Romero back instead of him. I'd maybe opt for Danso when we expect to be under an aerial assault and Romero when we expect to dominate possession.

I think to be fair to Danso he appeared to lose his balance which does happen even to professional sportsmen and you look a complete mug.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Better teams should outscore their xg. As they have better players who score more of their chances.

Yep
And inferior teams don’t
So it levels out