- Jan 16, 2019
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Winks at the base and GLC and ndombele in their is what I’d likeBut how can you say the diamond does not work when half the players have not yet featured ion it? I agree Sissoko and Winks in a diamond midfield is poor.
Winks at the base and GLC and ndombele in their is what I’d likeBut how can you say the diamond does not work when half the players have not yet featured ion it? I agree Sissoko and Winks in a diamond midfield is poor.
Winks at the base and GLC and ndombele in their is what I’d like
I have agreed with this for the last couple of seasons. The quality of the football has been scattered at best.Im not one to usually start any kind of thread, I tend to tag onto any thread available but felt a tad compelled to start something on our style of play. This isnt a trigger happy post but a post based on whats happened over the last couple of years in terms of performances in the main.
When Poch first came and particularly at WHL we had a style of play an identity which I feel over the last couple of years has since disappeared. It could be as Poch calls it adaptation or perhaps it is evolving into something else but the question is "to what"?
We had a style of play that meant our full backs bombed forward supporting our attack, we played with intensity and purpose and that bought the best out of all our players - Kane, Dele, Eriksen, Dembele at the time etc. Now our play and tactics is such that it kinda makes our players look tired, lackadaisical, slow. Kane for example today had nothing, Eriksen was useless as were one or two others but i dont really blame them, I blame how we play and how we are set up. I dont think it is right that we have one of the best strikers in the world who was running around like a headless chicken searching for the football... and it isnt the first time.
So my question is has our actual play gone backwards, are we really getting the best out of our current players? Is Poch overthinking things eg the diamond formation or not playing our best formation and tactics to our strengths?
I appreciate it sounds ludicrous given how far we have come and how close we were last season to winning the CL.
Thank you for your time...
Im not one to usually start any kind of thread, I tend to tag onto any thread available but felt a tad compelled to start something on our style of play. This isnt a trigger happy post but a post based on whats happened over the last couple of years in terms of performances in the main.
When Poch first came and particularly at WHL we had a style of play an identity which I feel over the last couple of years has since disappeared. It could be as Poch calls it adaptation or perhaps it is evolving into something else but the question is "to what"?
We had a style of play that meant our full backs bombed forward supporting our attack, we played with intensity and purpose and that bought the best out of all our players - Kane, Dele, Eriksen, Dembele at the time etc. Now our play and tactics is such that it kinda makes our players look tired, lackadaisical, slow. Kane for example today had nothing, Eriksen was useless as were one or two others but i dont really blame them, I blame how we play and how we are set up. I dont think it is right that we have one of the best strikers in the world who was running around like a headless chicken searching for the football... and it isnt the first time.
So my question is has our actual play gone backwards, are we really getting the best out of our current players? Is Poch overthinking things eg the diamond formation or not playing our best formation and tactics to our strengths?
I appreciate it sounds ludicrous given how far we have come and how close we were last season to winning the CL.
Thank you for your time...
Just playing devil's advocate here but why is at acceptable that we don't start the season well under Poch? He's meant to be one of the best managers in the world, and he's got a squad full of too class players now..... It shouldn't take him until November to get them playing well.
@Shadydan
To challenge that narrative...
Last season we won 10 of our opening 13 games through to the end of November, including the first 3. We lost away to Watford and home to City and Liverpool. We beat Man Utd and West Ham away early on.
https://www.worldfootball.net/teams/tottenham-hotspur/2019/3/
Our problem was the opposite - relegation form in the final third of the season!
Season before our points per game was higher in first 9 games than the season as a whole even if there were some disappointing results!
I don’t think we’re that slow to start..
I see a lot of excuses from people on here, some of which are quite laughable.
"it's difficult to play with intensity at Wembley"
"we have new players to bed in"
"key players missing"
A lot of excuses, but it's fair to say over the past 18 months our good performances can be counted on one hand.
We do not look tactically slick or accomplished, our style of play is generally poor, and it's a consistent thing for quite a while.
I know it's early days this season, but people seem to be putting a hell of a lot of weight on our new signings miraculously making everything ok? It's only really two senior players we have bought in, are they going to offer such a dramatic effect on our style of play? They might do, but I'm going to wait and see on that one.
Personally, I feel their is something missing from the side and there has been for 18 months now. We just don't seem at it. I know City are on another planet, but for me Liverpool are a much better baromter for us to compare to. They do NOT have better individuals than us but they look a far better team.
Yes VVD had an immediate and huge impact, but even going forwards, they look much better than us. I don't understand why most of the time we look so clueless, when we have Kane, Son, Moura, Alli, Eriksen etc It's not the individual quality that is lacking, but Poch seems to struggle big time with getting our attack to really gel nowadays. We don't look very coherent. It's what pundits allude to when they say we don't look at the level of Liverpool or City, we just don't have "it". We just don't look as well coached. There, I said it.
I do wonder if some of Poch's magic has started to wane at Spurs. He has been here 5 years and the first three years was a constant improvement until we peaked two seasons ago. Since then we have declined and this season seems to be similar to how we were performing last season.
Early days and no one can fairly judge until Xmas time really to see if performances have improved, but I feel concerns with are performances are valid in the context of the last 18 month period.
Just playing devil's advocate here but why is at acceptable that we don't start the season well under Poch? He's meant to be one of the best managers in the world, and he's got a squad full of too class players now..... It shouldn't take him until November to get them playing well.
@Shadydan
To challenge that narrative...
Last season we won 10 of our opening 13 games through to the end of November, including the first 3. We lost away to Watford and home to City and Liverpool. We beat Man Utd and West Ham away early on.
https://www.worldfootball.net/teams/tottenham-hotspur/2019/3/
Our problem was the opposite - relegation form in the final third of the season!
Season before our points per game was higher in first 9 games than the season as a whole even if there were some disappointing results!
I don’t think we’re that slow to start..
But also we had no pace apart from sissoko so why sit back and play on the counter that clearly wasn’t going to work with Eriksen LM and lamela Kane and winks, none of them have pace or all ball carriers. Ndomble isn’t really then either tbh. Very odd tactics and not the first time we’ve said that about poch.This.
Our game plan fell over because we couldn't play out under the City press. On the few occasions we did manage to get through the first line of the City press, the 2nd line of press was just as aggressive and 99% of the time we were dispossessed or forced into an error before the ball got anywhere near Harry.
We had no answer at all and that is what Poch and the team need to work on because I think both City and Liverpool will attempt to do this to us.
I thought Poch would try and break the lines through Winks & Ndombele but I don't remember it happening once in the game. Maybe Pepe anticipated this and shut it down?
Ok but compare to Man City then then have a clear way of playing and 4-3-3 and If they lose any of their attacking or midfield players they have others who can come in like for like. The fact we play about 10 different formations means we can’t build a like for like squad like lpool and city which means when we don’t for example have son or Kane we look far worse.If you're using last season as factual evidence that our cohesion is what not it should be then that's fair enough I guess but if you're gonna dismiss the mitigating factors as excuses then that argument is dumb.
Kane, Alli, Eriksen and Son only played 10 (ten) matches together last season, they still haven't played once together this season, for reference Liverpool started without Firmino against Chelsea and their whole team fell apart, this is what tends to happen when you lose vital cogs in your team.
Lets wait till we get those players back on the field before we start the concerns at least.
I've been through our mitigating factors why we went downhill last season enough times on this site, but if you want to ignore the evidence and make them out the be excuses then that's your choice.