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***OMT - Tottenham Hotspur v Monaco***

One thing struck me about the starting 11. It had a look to it of rewarding the core players for getting Spurs to the top four last season.

Granted, it's a deserved honour, starting in Spurs first CL game, especially at Wembley. And most of them are due to be picked most weeks, but maybe Poch was simply trying to keep happy the guys who played the biggest roles last season. No doubt, Rose would have started, too, had he been healthy.

A more cold-blooded approach would have seen Wanyama in there for the first hour, just to play the attrition game and, hopefully, keep the score even until after the hour mark, when more attacking options could be brought on and we'd go for the win. So, the midfield looked a little lightweight and defensively frail. But if Poch was handing out rewards, I'm OK with it. It wasn't a complete disaster of a result and the players will have learned plenty from it.

He'll have them firmly in his grasp at training in the days ahead and now has license to pick squads as he sees fit and no one has grounds to complain.

Beyond that, it looked just great to see Wembley packed with Spurs fans. A big indicator of how the club is growing and how truly justified the new stadium is.
 
greatwhitenorf said:
One thing struck me about the starting 11. It had a look to it of rewarding the core players for getting Spurs to the top four last season.

Granted, it's a deserved honour, starting in Spurs first CL game, especially at Wembley. And most of them are due to be picked most weeks, but maybe Poch was simply trying to keep happy the guys who played the biggest roles last season. No doubt, Rose would have started, too, had he been healthy.

A more cold-blooded approach would have seen Wanyama in there for the first hour, just to play the attrition game and, hopefully, keep the score even until after the hour mark, when more attacking options could be brought on and we'd go for the win. So, the midfield looked a little lightweight and defensively frail. But if Poch was handing out rewards, I'm OK with it. It wasn't a complete disaster of a result and the players will have learned plenty from it.

He'll have them firmly in his grasp at training in the days ahead and now has license to pick squads as he sees fit and no one has grounds to complain.

Beyond that, it looked just great to see Wembley packed with Spurs fans. A big indicator of how the club is growing and how truly justified the new stadium is.
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The only counter argument to this is that Dembele played a much bigger part than Son in our 3rd place finish last season.... indeed it was nailed on a 2nd place finish until his suspension.
 
Speaking of Dembele, on reflection, that Bakayoko bloke was almost the spitting image of him yesterday, if a mite more defensive - driving runs forward, very difficult to dispossess, strong as an ox, quick and clever when under pressure.

Really, between him and Bernardo Silva, Monaco have the players to ape our style if they wished.
 
Since the season started i have lost count of the number of fans ( in the pub after the games) who have had a go at Poch off for playing both Wanyama and Dier together in CM, well he changed it last night and we suffered by doing so. We were wide open again through the middle, Ali is not a CM player and Dier was not at his best causing us to lose control in that part of the field.

Kane again was a shadow of himself and Lamela need to get his arse kicked for giving the ball away in such a dangerous posistion by being a fancy dan. I like Lamela but he needs to keep the showboating away from there.
 
5 official games into the season and we are seeing a number of issues emerge which Poch will need to meet head on, if we are to stay competitive in both CL and PL.

The principle issues are the form and physical condition of some of the players who were pivotal to last seasons success. In a nutshell, Dier, Kane, Alli and Eriksen have all started poorly and, in the case of the first 3 in particular, all look physically tired and quite a way off the pace.

Here's the thing though.., arguably this season and with the window we have just had (not to mention the fact that we finally have the opportunity to play Dembele again), we have, for the first time ever, a squad that can deal with this challenge.

A midfield of Wanyama and Dembele and a front 4 of Lamella, Sissoko, Son, Jansen, theoretically, should allow us to beat most PL teams, particularly those outside the top 6.

It looks pretty clear that the 3 English players aforementioned need a break. With the Dane it seems to be more an issue of form, however until such time as he regains his form, he too could be used more sparingly.

This was a hard defeat to take, however I think for the first time ever, there is enough quality throughout the squad to deal with the fact that 4 key players are off form/tired. Let's see if Poch is agile and flexible enough to move things around.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using Fapatalk
 
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parklane1 said:
Since the season started i have lost count of the number of fans ( in the pub after the games) who have had a go at Poch off for playing both Wanyama and Dier together in CM, well he changed it last night and we suffered by doing so. We were wide open again through the middle, Ali is not a CM player and Dier was not at his best causing us to lose control in that part of the field.
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We did however look much more creative with him Alli playing there so clearly it ticked that box and dare I say the show baiting was because he was confident due to the fact we were Dominant. They showed very little attacking threat for large chunks of the game but were well organised, however up to lamellas balls up we had been going through them easily and had created several chances

The key for us is Dembele as he brings it all and actually allows the more technical players to play there game with no concern for what's behind them. Play him and the records show were arguably the best side in our league. Play the likes of Wanyama (who has been good) every other player has to adjust too
 
Finney Is Back said:
The only counter argument to this is that Dembele played a much bigger part than Son in our 3rd place finish last season.... indeed it was nailed on a 2nd place finish until his suspension.
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Yeah, absolutely. But.

Dembele is just off that lengthy suspension and it's neither a shock nor a disappointment to see Poch being prudent with how he re-introduces him to full playing fitness. And to give Son his due, he popped in a couple of sweet, timely goals at Stoke to boost his stock.

I have little criticism to offer at this point. Lots of good things to focus on moving forward.
 
I think the line up can be explained by the fact it was the XI on the pitch where we have looked most convincing so far this season, second half v Stoke - I don't think we fell two behind because the way the team was set up and I don't think at any point we looked like we deserved to be losing, we just conceded two very sloppy goals and try as hard as we did we just couldn't claw it back. A defeat is very harsh for us on the balance of play but a good lesson learned in that you can't afford to switch off defensively at this level because you can/will get punished
 
Team ... tactics ... tired ... etc etc

The bigger difference was that we made too many poor/terrible passes, too often with that extra touch or two before passing directly to an opponent (no interception required).

Monaco did simple, quick passes .... and did them well. So while we struggled to make 30 yds in 30secs, they would do it in 3 secs.
 
Whiffler said:
Team ... tactics ... tired ... etc etc

The bigger difference was that we made too many poor/terrible passes, too often with that extra touch or two before passing directly to an opponent (no interception required).

Monaco did simple, quick passes .... and did them well. So while we struggled to make 30 yds in 30secs, they would do it in 3 secs.
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I think that fails to take into account how each team was set up and where they were playing the game.... Monaco tended to sit quite deep and look to play on the break. We therefore didn't really have much room to operate in when we had the ball in their half as they got everybody back. However when they turned over the ball they were able to exploit the fact that we had a lot of players forward and (most pertinently I think) only Dier purposely staying behind the ball as opposed to having two midfielders usually doing this. In the first half as soon as Monaco had either dribbled past a single opponent or played a neat little triangle of passes around them, it seemed that our defence was instantly exposed. I thought that changed in the second half as on the occasions that they beat our initial press we still had Dembele further back to help Dier, resulting in us winning the ball again before our defence was exposed.

I know that we played our best spell of the Stoke match with that same attacking formation that we started with against Monaco. However at the point when we deployed that formation against Stoke we were already winning, this meant that Stoke were pushing forward and we could exploit the space in behind them. Against Monaco it was the opposite scenario with them sitting deep and looking to exploit the space in behind us. It was quite a strange decision by Pochettino I felt, it was certainly brave of him, but also surprising to change our personnel and shape for a big game.
 
i wonder how the players are feeling now ... i mean kane, alli ... they will know that they are not match fit - will they feel that they have let the team down? But anyone and everyone can see that they are far from ready.
 
Finney Is Back said:
I think that fails to take into account how each team was set up and where they were playing the game.... Monaco tended to sit quite deep and look to play on the break. We therefore didn't really have much room to operate in when we had the ball in their half as they got everybody back. However when they turned over the ball they were able to exploit the fact that we had a lot of players forward and (most pertinently I think) only Dier purposely staying behind the ball as opposed to having two midfielders usually doing this. In the first half as soon as Monaco had either dribbled past a single opponent or played a neat little triangle of passes around them, it seemed that our defence was instantly exposed. I thought that changed in the second half as on the occasions that they beat our initial press we still had Dembele further back to help Dier, resulting in us winning the ball again before our defence was exposed.

I know that we played our best spell of the Stoke match with that same attacking formation that we started with against Monaco. However at the point when we deployed that formation against Stoke we were already winning, this meant that Stoke were pushing forward and we could exploit the space in behind them. Against Monaco it was the opposite scenario with them sitting deep and looking to exploit the space in behind us. It was quite a strange decision by Pochettino I felt, it was certainly brave of him, but also surprising to change our personnel and shape for a big game.
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Yes, they exploited the spaces, but only because their passing was much much better than ours. Again, whatever you try to do will fail if you give the ball away needlessly. This is what happened on Wednesday.
 
Finney Is Back said:
However with Alli playing in this position instead of Dembele/Wanyama our defensive shape was extremely different. If you look a the way players naturally play - Dier, Dembele and Wanyama all naturally like to be behind the ball and have the game play out in front of them. This gives them a massive defensive advantage in terms of the positions they take up if we lose the ball anywhere on the pitch. Alli is completely different in that he likes to get beyond the ball. I thought that the general position that Alli took up last night was quite a bit further forward than the position typically taken up by Dembele or Wanyama. This meant that our attacking play could end up being quite congested but, more crucially, on the few occasions when Monaco broke through our press they were instantly in 3 on 3 in good central positions against Alderweireld, Vertonghen and Dier. The first goal was a good example of this.... Irrespective of the fact that Lamela had a brain fart and took a terrible option, it seemed to me that Alli had got himself ahead of the ball to join in the potential counter attack. I don't think this is something that you really ever see Dembele or Wanyama do. It is also why I wouldn't play Alli in Dembele's position at this stage of his career in any situation other than one when we're chasing the game in the last half an hour or so.
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After a pretty bright opening 20-25 mins, our play started to slow down and become quite laboured after the 2nd goal, somewhat reminiscent of the early season performances where we were playing Dier/Wanyama. I do think that our play is a little ponderous with 2xDMs. Neither Dier nor Wanyama have the ability to break a press or pull the opposition out of shape. So...on occasions where Dembele is unavailable who would you turn to if we didn't play 2xDMs?
It looks like Winks isn't ready, and from what I can see from the rest of the squad, Alli looks to be the next best fit.
 
Mustn't forget that it was a very warm night, and breezes may be few at the Lane - but non-existant at Wembley.

The sweat must have been pouring off them in that sauna. Monaco perhaps a little more accustomed to it.
 
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