OMT *** Tottenham Hotspur vs AFC Richmond/Crystal Palace - Sunday 27th October 14:00 ***

[thfcsteff]

Fully agreed that you can play with the same principle with different players. That much seems obvious. We played with the same principles last season when Sarr started a lot.

For me our main problem against Palace was our inability to beat their press. We lost the ball a ton. We created very little in terms of successfully playing through their press and getting into good areas.

That is something Sarr doesn't excel at either. Why we failed at that is for me the biggest question. So many times it's been one of our biggest strengths and being good at that is vital for this system in games when opponents press high.

I think where Sarr would've helped is in picking up scrappy passages of play, second balls, progressing the ball when he had it. It was so scrappy at times we simply needed someone to telegraph a leg out, nick it back and power through. Biss is good at this too but was isolated from that perspective IMO.

I also think that one or two players are off-form. Udogie is off-form. Romero could be argued as a little off-form. I wouldn't have personally minded seeing Dragusin and Spence given a run, if only to keep the squad competition. I understand it can be sacriligious to talk about resting Romero, but he has been average by his standards.

 

[Mikey10]

Very few managers get much above 50% win rate without managing super clubs for long periods.

Not disagreeing…but are we a super club? (Overall win rates in the right hand column.)