*** Tottenham v Man U OMT***

[billyiddo]

Not in the PL it wouldn’t where there are 6 serious teams and only 4 CL places available.

Not saying outright failure that desrrves a change but any regression should be looked at - we didn't just finish 4th last season, we were playing well and once the Jan signings had settled we were looking the best side outside of Liverpool & City - i think points wise we were close to them also, so with Liverpool tailing off we should have/should be looking to continue that and progress further.

 

[Kandi1977]

They think they have turned the corner…. Again…

They certainly have to much higher degree than us! They play with purpose, belief, intensity, aggression and quick pass and move. Compare that to us, who lumber around, passing backwards at every opportunity, even free kicks in the middle of their half was passed backwards, every single one. We can't make easy 10 yard passes, and it's slow and lumbering. They are much better than us. They shouldn't be, but they are!

 

[AjaxDeSuperYids]

Not saying outright failure that desrrves a change but any regression should be looked at - we didn't just finish 4th last season, we were playing well and once the Jan signings had settled we were looking the best side outside of Liverpool & City - i think points wise we were close to them also, so with Liverpool tailing off we should have/should be looking to continue that and progress further.

We do seem to have regressed slightly compared to the end of last season which is weird.

Think we are missing Kulu who has hardly played this season through strange selection choices and now injury.

 

[glasgowspur]

We do seem to have regressed slightly compared to the end of last season which is weird.

Think we are missing Kulu who has hardly played this season through strange selection choices and now injury.

It was obvious to anyone that cared to pay any attention that our play improved markedly when kulu came into the side.
He freed up son and kane to do their stuff, he helped out in defence and he could keep the ball to take pressure off.
Why he spent time on the bench and was our first sub in games is a total mystery.

 

[Jurgen the German]

Last night was bad, no excuses, but I still fancy us for top 4. We can forget challenging for the title but I’d be pretty damn disappointed with anything lower than 4th. I saw people saying the same things after defeats to Soton and Wolves at home last season “top 4 is gone” etc. people get carried away with form. Would be nice if we could get some creativity from the CM’s though, if that means going into the market then bloody well do it. Liverpool had a workmanlike, pedestrian midfield trio in their heyday in comparison to their world class forwards, GK and CB’s, but their full backs more than made up for the lack of creativity in the middle of the park. So in a nutshell, we need improvement from the full backs, the CM’s or both.

 

[Bishop]

Last night was bad, no excuses, but I still fancy us for top 4. We can forget challenging for the title but I’d be pretty damn disappointed with anything lower than 4th. I saw people saying the same things after defeats to Soton and Wolves at home last season “top 4 is gone” etc. people get carried away with form. Would be nice if we could get some creativity from the CM’s though, if that means going into the market then bloody well do it. Liverpool had a workmanlike, pedestrian midfield trio in their heyday in comparison to their world class forwards, GK and CB’s, but their full backs more than made up for the lack of creativity in the middle of the park. So in a nutshell, we need improvement from the full backs, the CM’s or both.

Liverpool also had a Kulu on the left, right and through the middle. To get close to that level we definitely need to improve the WBs and the CMs.

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[Bedfordspurs]

They certainly have to much higher degree than us! They play with purpose, belief, intensity, aggression and quick pass and move. Compare that to us, who lumber around, passing backwards at every opportunity, even free kicks in the middle of their half was passed backwards, every single one. We can't make easy 10 yard passes, and it's slow and lumbering. They are much better than us. They shouldn't be, but they are!

I thought they looked poor at the weekend and great last night

 

[metalgear]

Disregarding the formation we are a very slow team. Man U pressed and won most of the time.

Perisic's crosses are a nice way of cedeing possession, especially as Man U were resolute in defence. Don't see any training routines there, thought Kane would benefit from Perisic the most, but not much so far.

Troubling to watch our close control too. Looks like strangers playing with strangers, I get the feeling we don't practice much.

 

[Finney Is Back]

He's not just a coward (not sure if I fully agree to be honest), he's also just not very good. He may have the mentality, he certainly doesn't have the quality. He knows he can't make the pass so he goes safe and sideways. It kills the momentum dead.

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I think both of you are missing the root cause of the issue here. We were pinned deep in our half and being pressed effectively, there were no real passes on for our midfield. Any midfielder would’ve looked poor in that situation. You can’t be trying to play balls into feet to a central striker, closely marked facing their own goal. Casemero (who I thought was excellent last night) would’ve struggled just as much if he was playing in our team last night.

The main issue for Spurs is that we play with 3 CBs as we don’t have any defenders good enough to play in a two and at least two of the three players playing in the back 3 aren’t great passers of the ball. We’re therefore naturally deep and naturally outnumbered in midfield.

 

[Finney Is Back]

I do rate Bentancur as the best of the 3 and the one with the by far the best use of the ball but he's not consistently accurate often enough. I'd argue alongside (especially in a 352) another more progressive passer or a player good under the press that his best qualities will show through more but right now he's more of the same. We have 3 identikit players who don't cover enough attributes sadly.

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It doesn’t really matter how ‘press resistant’ a player is, they simply don’t have an out ball that isn’t very dangerous to play. We are overloaded in defensive positioned players. Swapping a defensive positioned player for another (as a few people have suggested in this and the Conte thread) won’t make a difference. If the away team press us in this 3-5-2 then they are very likely to get a result against us as we are set up for that to be successful against us.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Same here, i think of him as hollywood hojberg - someone who looks good on youtube clips but doesn't do enough in the overall game. I think him, perisic and davies don't have the legs to track back and leave lots of gaps in the spaces they vacate.

I think he is the complete opposite. Doesn’t look great on YouTube but those that have coached would see the value he adds to a team.

 

[parklane1]

I have several issues with the manner in which we lost yesterday, beyond the fact that we lost.

Losing at Old Trafford in it self is such a routine exercise for Spurs, that it should not surprise anyone. However, to concede the game in such a manner without making _any_ visible effort to try to change the game, introduce _any_ new elements, or make _any_ adjustments once it was blatantly obvious that Plan A didn't work is nigh on criminal neglect by Conte.

A blind man, robbed of his dog and cane, could see that Bissouma was singled out. Manchester Uniteds front and middle pressed very high and tight on every one of our players, except Bissouma. Yet, he was the one who misplaced most passes. Makes sense also, force the presumptive least creative player to be creative, makes it easier to force mistakes.

Ok, so he was the odd man out, and he also failed to be effective as screen for the defenders. If we identified this already in the first half, why on earth didn't we do anything before 80th minute? It was obvious that we weren't going to dominate the midfield, so let us rather concede that, and convert back to the regular 3-4-3, or 3-4-1-2 as we eventually did and at least _try_ to force the game to change a bit? Or replace Bissouma with a player with different creativity, ie Skipp? It clearly could not get that much worse?

I'm concerned that Conte's stubbornness when it comes to "Plan A is right, we don't need a plan B. And those guys on the bench are not good enough for Plan A anyway!" will alienate players, and eventually become a huge problem.

Now. We lost at Old Trafford. Not a big deal in the long run. But we also capitulated at Old Trafford. That is a big deal.

I can agree with all of that except the last highlighted sentence. I have been going up to Old Trafford since the early 60s and we have capitulated on most of those trips as we did AGAIN last night. Since the Prem lge started we have won 2 out of 27 Prem game. Its a graveyard for us.

Unlike most Spurs fans i actually was fond of AVB because it was him who got us our first win in the last 20 odd games at their place.. We roll over and die there and its brick.

 

[We are Tottenham]

We cut through arsenal very easily
We should have gone in a goal up at least
Today we didn’t do it more than once from memory

yeah..we were lucky to get nil...

 

[Bedfordspurs]

yeah..we were lucky to get nil...

Lost me there
We scored vs arsenal
We’re you referring to last nights game?

 

[Bedfordspurs]

I can agree with all of that except the last highlighted sentence. I have been going up to Old Trafford since the early 60s and we have capitulated on most of those trips as we did AGAIN last night. Since the Prem lge started we have won 2 out of 27 Prem game. Its a graveyard for us.

Unlike most Spurs fans i actually was fond of AVB because it was him who got us our first win in the last 20 odd games at their place.. We roll over and die there and its brick.

Doesn’t help conte thought he had lost before the game
His record there is weak

 

[braineclipse]

I think both of you are missing the root cause of the issue here. We were pinned deep in our half and being pressed effectively, there were no real passes on for our midfield. Any midfielder would’ve looked poor in that situation. You can’t be trying to play balls into feet to a central striker, closely marked facing their own goal. Casemero (who I thought was excellent last night) would’ve struggled just as much if he was playing in our team last night.

The main issue for Spurs is that we play with 3 CBs as we don’t have any defenders good enough to play in a two and at least two of the three players playing in the back 3 aren’t great passers of the ball. We’re therefore naturally deep and naturally outnumbered in midfield.

We play with 3 centre backs because we hired Conte, not because of any particular shortcoming of our centre backs.

Playing three centre backs is in no way an issue. Nor is playing deep in general.

Two best attacking players on the pitch for us - Son and Kane. That's good.
Third best - Perisic. That's fine.
Fourth best? Doherty? Bentancur? Hojbjerg? Romero? Seriously. Who was our fourth best attacking player, even on paper? That's rather obviously only going to work just in some circumstances.

Good news is that this is not what Conte wants. This was thy emergency option with Kulusevski and Richarlison out, Lucas just back from injury.

 

[Bishop]

It doesn’t really matter how ‘press resistant’ a player is, they simply don’t have an out ball that isn’t very dangerous to play. We are overloaded in defensive positioned players. Swapping a defensive positioned player for another (as a few people have suggested in this and the Conte thread) won’t make a difference. If the away team press us in this 3-5-2 then they are very likely to get a result against us as we are set up for that to be successful against us.

To play the Antonio Conte way we are going to need some midfielders that are capable of receiving a pass under pressure, with their back to goal. Or hopefully with superior natural movement to be in a position to receive a better pass in the first place. It's about the natural attributes suited to certain roles and positions in a side. He might be " defensive positioned" but his intentions will differ. An Eriksen for United this season if you will.

A player of that Ilk will allow the WBs to become the attacking pieces we need them to be. We can't get them involved due to the poor quality of the passing around our box, which definetly includes Lloris. I recall in the first half yesterday we had the beginnings of some reasonable probing, but everytime we had the ball and the next pass wasn't something completely obvious and easy it ended up going backwards and petering out into nothing and sometimes even into a United attack. Deeper and deeper we went with no way out. [emoji28]

The system has some obvious flaws and gaps that we can all see. It is though, how we will play, so we need to fill those gaps to get the best out of it. A midfielder makes a bigger difference to the end product of this side than a new CB imo, but we need both. [emoji848]



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[seaside spur]

I thought they looked poor at the weekend and great last night

It's because they played a good, well organised side at the weekend. Utds game against the geordies was two teams playing with unrelenting intensity and full commitment,the opposite
of us on Wednesday.
We might be at home on Sunday but if we play with low intensity and commitment we won't win.
Massive improvement needed.

 

[metalgear]

All the talk about fitness, we can't keep up back to back low intensity games lol

 

[thfcsteff]

I don’t understand how they did this so well when they only played Saudi Sportswashing Outfit a couple of days earlier.

Where did those energy levels come from and how did they nail that game plan when they had hardly anytime to prepare for us.

I’d like all their players to be drug tested.

Perhaps the energy they've had from realizing Ten Haag is shoving Ronaldo out the door is like crack to the squad?