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***TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR vs Saudi Sportswashing Machine OMT***

glasgowspur said:
How we are playing now is what I expected in the first half of the season. What I seen in the first 10 games of the season is what I thought we could be next season.
Fans need to be patient.
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Well, that makes it even more weird! In the beginning of the season, We looked unplayable at times. Fantastic going forward, and decent at the back.

Now we're absolutely rubbish all over the pitch! And it's not only the oppition tactics. Saudi Sportswashing Machine did absolutely nothing special, they just did basic things. All the goals were totally of our own making.

At the moment were pathetic going forward, constantly playing into the most crowded areas, and doing that same thing over and over and over again, and not even trying to get shots on goal. To top it off we're even more pathetic in defence!

We've regressed.
 
The only explanation I can come up with for our performance is that teams have figured us out. There's no other way to explain why we were flying in the first half of the season (yes, we continued to play well even with the B team, but were unlucky with the results) and we've looked like a pub team lately.

But even that explanation doesn't fully make sense, because we played exceptionally well against Villa, who did try to negate our tactics, as well as Palace and Forest.

So it has to be something else. Is it that Ange doesn't have his team yet? Is it psychological? I'm honestly at a loss.
 
glasgowspur said:
In my humble opinion it's ground to halt because we have had a real knock to our confidence.
Ange plays a high risk game, our players appear to be worried about the consequences of that going wrong.
Instead of free flowing instinctive football that was a joy to watch and tearing teams apart we've become a cautious, over thinking team worrying about what happens if it goes wrong rather than the rewards when we get it right.
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Hard to disagree with that! Reminds me of what I've said many times, especially about players like Sissoko and Jenas, very good players more afraid of doing something wrong than motivated to do something right. They probably had a pass completion % of 99,8 or something. I like us trying difficult threaded passes, taking shots outside the box etc. But it has to be done with the team mostly in balance and with a certain probability of success. We often resort to high risk passes just to move the team 5 yards upfield or butting against the defense because players are just standing with their hands down their shorts nicely spaced out in the opposition's formation. At least we have stopped consistently passing to the most heavily marked static player with his back to the goal.
 
Craig_J said:
Always the same circular arguments. Never a defeat where it doesn’t become Levy out vs Levy in.

Both have their merits but think people need to agree to disagree. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Think one of the things I find interesting is seeing people say that Ange doesn’t learn and makes the same mistakes. That there’s no plan B.

To be honest I don’t think plan B’s exist much when it comes to managers. Every coach has their way of playing and it usually doesn’t change that much.

You might get exceptions like Guardiola but there’s a reason he’s in the absolute top bracket of managers.

Everyone else has a distinctive playing style and they don’t compromise on it cos it’s what they believe in.

Cheesy as it may sound we sang “we’ll play the way we want to, with big Ange Postecoglu whether we’re RIGHT OR WRONG”

All I know is I’d rather have two games where we get spanked in a debut season cos of our front footedness then ever watch the kind of crap we churned out under out last 3 managers.

fudge it I’d rather get spanked 10 games a season for the next few seasons running then watch that shower of brick again.

Let’s enjoy the good days (which there’ve been many off), resist the temptation to turn toxic and back everyone associated with our club for the last few matches?

I still believe we’ve got it in us to get top 4 and to do Arsenal over when they come to us. And even if we don’t, least we’ll know we dared to do and failed attempting to play like Spurs.
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Many good points, although to be fair Guardiola has pretty much always had the resources to assemble top players to his system - at least compared to his opposition. I'll wager he wouldn't do much better than Ange with our current framework, in terms of overall results/league position.

Edit: as mentioned it all comes down to expectations, and asking our players to be better or rating them higher than they really are - just because that's what "real fans" do. If someone genuinely believes that, say Arsenal isn't that much better than us right now and it all comes down to form, well of course we would be underperforming and play like brick. Most people on here doesn't do that fortunately, and are begging for us to do basic stuff right.
 
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metalgear said:
I'd like to see vdv and dragusin for a change. don't think it will happen as ange seems to trust his captains a lot.
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It's an interesting idea but VDV was the worse of the two today or at the least was as bad, but even then the problem wasn't with the CBs specifically, if the defenders having to defend 1v1 running back to goal then the system has already failed at that point.

Collectively we weren't good in possesion or defending the traditions, changing a CB here or there isn't going to make a difference.
 
fernadez said:
I understand that but no team converts more than they cough up the ball.

Difference is when we cough it up we give up good chances to the opposition cause of our set up.

Every time we fail to score shouldn't result in a counter attack and panic.
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Exactly this and too many people on here today seem to missing that and blaming the attack. There's no attack in history that kept the ball perfectly all the time. We will always lose the ball at some point, it's about how we deal with that transition at that point and that's where we totally failed today. If we had been able to deal with it then we could have just restarted the attacking pattern rather than constantly digging the ball out of our net.
 
Bishop said:
Exactly this and too many people on here today seem to missing that and blaming the attack. There's no attack in history that kept the ball perfectly all the time. We will always lose the ball at some point, it's about how we deal with that transition at that point and that's where we totally failed today. If we had been able to deal with it then we could have just restarted the attacking pattern rather than constantly digging the ball out of our net.
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our attack doesn’t keep the ball at all though
It’s either a pass to goal or we lose the ball
No second balls
No second phase of presure
So the defence steps up to apply pressure and when our Cf loses it 30 yards from their goal we are horribly exposed
Today we saw arguably the stand out CB in the league have a mare but if there was more presence in attack they wouldn’t have turned over the ball
It happens too often, too quickly and the same players are losing the ball
There is a theme
 
Bishop said:
Exactly this and too many people on here today seem to missing that and blaming the attack. There's no attack in history that kept the ball perfectly all the time. We will always lose the ball at some point, it's about how we deal with that transition at that point and that's where we totally failed today. If we had been able to deal with it then we could have just restarted the attacking pattern rather than constantly digging the ball out of our net.
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Look at it from a FB point of view. You've run forward and tucked in, now instead of just running back in a straight line like normal or facing up the play, you're suddenly sprinting back trying to get into position. Your DM has gone AWOL. The opposition wingers and striker are now ahead of you, so it's a desperate game of hope VDV holds up the striker.

Which I why I was saying even just the change of one FB going and one staying governed by where the attack is building up from would completely change us a defensive unit
 
Bedfordspurs said:
our attack doesn’t keep the ball at all though
It’s either a pass to goal or we lose the ball
No second balls
No second phase of presure
So the defence steps up to apply pressure and when our Cf loses it 30 yards from their goal we are horribly exposed
Today we saw arguably the stand out CB in the league have a mare but if there was more presence in attack they wouldn’t have turned over the ball
It happens too often, too quickly and the same players are losing the ball
There is a theme
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Bro there is no attack that will keep the ball perfectly. So the second phase and third phase is super important as is the the need to compress the space and cut out passing lanes.

What I keep saying to you and what you're refusing to understand is it doesn't matter who is in attack, we will lose the ball at some point and so we will have to defend the transition. We need to do better at defending those situations rather than taking about a mythical attack that never loses the ball in and around the penalty box. It's not going to happen and if that's your suggested solution you might as well just accept the transition goals..
 
Bedfordspurs said:
Did he?
He came into a team that had a good previous season finishing 5th, one place higher than the previous year
Under Arteta they actually got worse league position wise
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Yeah I think so.

thefootballfaithful.com

Remembering the Arsenal XI Mikel Arteta picked in his first game as manager

Remembering the Arsenal XI from Mikel Arteta's first game in charge, a 1-1 draw with Bournemouth in December 2019.
thefootballfaithful.com thefootballfaithful.com

His first selection

How many of those get in Anges first selection?
 
Bedfordspurs said:
our attack doesn’t keep the ball at all though
It’s either a pass to goal or we lose the ball
No second balls
No second phase of presure
So the defence steps up to apply pressure and when our Cf loses it 30 yards from their goal we are horribly exposed
Today we saw arguably the stand out CB in the league have a mare but if there was more presence in attack they wouldn’t have turned over the ball
It happens too often, too quickly and the same players are losing the ball
There is a theme
Click to expand...
I think it's hard to have a second phase when the majority of the team is in line with the ball. One of the goals (or two) Bissouma our most defensive midfielder lost it just outside their box. If the protection to the defensive line is that high how can we recycle.

We lose the ball and it's VDV and Romero v the attack. There seems to be no 2nd attacking wave.

Last week Hojberg came on, played on the edge of the centre circle and shut down attempted counter attacks.
 
fernadez said:
Look at it from a FB point of view. You've run forward and tucked in, now instead of just running back in a straight line like normal or facing up the play, you're suddenly sprinting back trying to get into position. Your DM has gone AWOL. The opposition wingers and striker are now ahead of you, so it's a desperate game of hope VDV holds up the striker.

Which I why I was saying even just the change of one FB going and one staying governed by where the attack is building up from would completely change us a defensive unit
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I think we do need to stagger our FB attacks but also need a DM who has a better understanding of marking space. You rarely see the best DMs changing back after attacks, their understanding of space means they are usually taking them on facing forward or from the side. With Bissouma and Hojberg you often see them trying to challenge from the back, it just means they already got their positions wrong for that specific attack.

A new DM is of Uber importance in the summer along with a LWF who keeps possesion but also adds incision. I really don't think our wide players offer enough tbh, but that's a debate for another day.
 
Bishop said:
Bro there is no attack that will keep the ball perfectly. So the second phase and third phase is super important as is the the need to compress the space and cut out passing lanes.

What I keep saying to you and what you're refusing to understand is it doesn't matter who is in attack, we will lose the ball at some point and so we will have to defend the transition. We need to do better at defending those situations rather than taking about a mythical attack that never loses the ball in and around the penalty box. It's not going to happen and if that's your suggested solution you might as well just accept the transition goals..
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We lose the ball every time
The turnover form our central attack is horrendously high
We would be better defensively with Chris woods in attacn
He would keep the ball better in our attacks and defend the set pieces
I’m not disagreeing about the counters. But they came constantly today because son lost more ball than he retained
And because he lost It coming deep they had less ground to cover and easier passes
1st and 3rd goal came from just that
Son as a striker had 26 touches… And he lost the ball 9 times if the stats I’ve read are right. That’s a HUGE an issue for the main target man. The ball then just comes back at us whilst everyone is in attack
 
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