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MOTM?


  • Total voters
    263

EastLondonYid

Well-Known Member
Jan 26, 2010
7,837
16,145
Dunno...I have felt the same in some matches.

Yeah, it's great when he scores, but it's all about percentages. In recent weeks, he seems to be taking far more out-of-the-area shots on, which are highly speculative, when he should be playing the percentage ball on more (Modric, too - twice, yesterday).

In the cold light of day, it is just a minor criticism, as he is still a great young play and mostly having good games. But, in play, it is quite annoying at times.

The point here is we are talking about yesterdays game, thats what i was commenting on alone,not the previous games, and Bale yesterday was on fire, a total menace and the main reason we won.
 

StartingPrice

Chief Sardonicus Hyperlip
Feb 13, 2004
32,568
10,280
The point here is we are talking about yesterdays game, thats what i was commenting on alone,not the previous games, and Bale yesterday was on fire, a total menace and the main reason we won.

He was atrocious yesterday...we won...it was a disaster...how dare he play so well...now we'll have to get cotton-picking optimistic again...but secretly pessimistic...because we are really sheeee-ite...worse than Accrington Stanley...who are day...exzactly...I blame Jenas Eek
 

EastLondonYid

Well-Known Member
Jan 26, 2010
7,837
16,145
He was atrocious yesterday...we won...it was a disaster...how dare he play so well...now we'll have to get cotton-picking optimistic again...but secretly pessimistic...because we are really sheeee-ite...worse than Accrington Stanley...who are day...exzactly...I blame Jenas Eek

Now your scaring me.:grin:
 

Bus-Conductor

SC Supporter
Oct 19, 2004
39,837
50,713
The point here is we are talking about yesterdays game, thats what i was commenting on alone,not the previous games, and Bale yesterday was on fire, a total menace and the main reason we won.

I think Bale was an attacking force yesterday that helped destabilise Swansea just by his sheer ebullience, but his end product was again a little bit more erratic than it should have been. If you really boil it down and watch the game the game again he actually barely makes any of his good prep work count. The closest is when his attempt to find Adebayor gets cut out by a defender and rolls serendipitously for VDV or his mazy dribble that almost by default ended up at Modric's feet (who then continued the Poor end product theme by selfishly shooting straight at their defender instead of squaring).

I'm not overly criticising Bale, he was very good and the chaos he caused helped destabilise them, but he wasted several chances to either hit the target with shots or find a player with a final ball instead of shooting.

And one of our problems is we don't always get enough bodies in tot he box and give him brilliant options.

But go back to ManC away. Defoe was partially to blame, but Bale definitely could have played that situation better, made it count, but he made the wrong choice initially - to try and take it on himself - and then made the cross less than perfect. Cost us a huge moment in our season. He wasn't entirely to blame, but it was indicative of the erratic nature of his end product sometimes.
 

StockSpur

Well-Known Member
May 20, 2004
4,945
1,537
Seems to me that the two bale and modric dont like sharing the adulation, as a result greed over pragmaticism in attack. both are guilty of downright foolish selfishness when a simple lay off would provide a higher % chance.
 

mendesstormer

Well-Known Member
Jan 11, 2005
644
418
Anyway most people have summed up the game very well, the only thing I'd add is wasn't it refreshing to see Harry bring on Lennon when we needed the goal, but stick to the same shape? This more than anything convinces me that Harry's finally settled in his mind the way he wants to play. Keeping Defoe on the bench, even though he's scored so many coming off it, demonstrates that Harry did the maths, subtracting the additional goal threat Swansea would present if we went 4-4-2, and the lack of possession we would have, from the additional goal threat Defoe would present, and comparing that to the similar equation with Lennon in the side. Lennon didn't score, like Defoe might have, but he enabled Ade to score, and Swansea had barely a sniff in the last 20 minutes.

Harry 10/10

Don't know if Sloth is still around, but can somebody clarify this, because I'd assumed that we went 442 when Lennon came on. It's interesting, particularly because 433/4231 seems to be really working, but we've actually won the recent games when we reverted to 442 (in the sense that we scored the winning goals after switching - clearly the other formation gave us a foothold in the games). Anybody care to comment??
 

shaqTHFC

Well-Known Member
Jan 28, 2011
1,546
807
Don't know if Sloth is still around, but can somebody clarify this, because I'd assumed that we went 442 when Lennon came on. It's interesting, particularly because 433/4231 seems to be really working, but we've actually won the recent games when we reverted to 442 (in the sense that we scored the winning goals after switching - clearly the other formation gave us a foothold in the games). Anybody care to comment??

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/sport...is-key-to-keeping-spurs-on-song-7608397.html?

“I just got a text from somebody saying ‘it was great that you went 4-4-2’ [when Lennon came on]. ‘I thought, I don’t remember doing that’. It was one of my scouts, which really scares me!

“We played 4-3-3 all the way through. We stuck him wide and played [Gareth] Bale wide and Adebayor up front and three in midfield still. We never changed the system. But suddenly he gave us that little bit more width.”

From Harry himself.
 

Legend10

Well-Known Member
Jul 8, 2006
10,847
5,277
Good to see we have our front 6 back for the run in, for me there's no doubt that we are at our best with:

Lennon...........Parker...........Luka...............Bale

..............................Rafa..............................

...............................Ade.............................
 

StartingPrice

Chief Sardonicus Hyperlip
Feb 13, 2004
32,568
10,280
Now your scaring me.:grin:

Send him to the academy...they'll teach the boy the basics in there, alright :wink:

Like I said, it is not a massive criticism of him, and I do take his age into account, it is just during match time sometimes you are left thinking oh, FFS, Gareth :bang:
 

mendesstormer

Well-Known Member
Jan 11, 2005
644
418
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/sport...is-key-to-keeping-spurs-on-song-7608397.html?

“I just got a text from somebody saying ‘it was great that you went 4-4-2’ [when Lennon came on]. ‘I thought, I don’t remember doing that’. It was one of my scouts, which really scares me!

“We played 4-3-3 all the way through. We stuck him wide and played [Gareth] Bale wide and Adebayor up front and three in midfield still. We never changed the system. But suddenly he gave us that little bit more width.”

From Harry himself.

So VDV dropped right back into the midfield 3 at that point? I can't say I noticed that, but presumably Harry knows what he was doing!
 

shaqTHFC

Well-Known Member
Jan 28, 2011
1,546
807
So VDV dropped right back into the midfield 3 at that point? I can't say I noticed that, but presumably Harry knows what he was doing!

I didn't notice that either, but when BAE was down and Lennon was being readied to come on I saw Harry have a word with Modric who then went and said something to VDV so maybe there was some sort of tactical order there.
 

Bus-Conductor

SC Supporter
Oct 19, 2004
39,837
50,713
Good to see we have our front 6 back for the run in, for me there's no doubt that we are at our best with:

Lennon...........Parker...........Luka...............Bale

..............................Rafa..............................

...............................Ade.............................


So we ignore the three superb performances this week completely, none of which featured that formation ?
 

sloth

Well-Known Member
Mar 7, 2005
9,018
6,900
Good to see we have our front 6 back for the run in, for me there's no doubt that we are at our best with:

Lennon...........Parker...........Luka...............Bale

..............................Rafa..............................

...............................Ade.............................

Funny that, because our record playing that formation this season reads:

P:13 W:7 D:2 L:4 F:22 A: 19

Hardly a ringing endorsement. Except that whenever we've lost playing that way loads of people have said things like "we just were not in form today!", "there will always be games like that..." etc., but whenever we've won it's been stuff like "that's our strongest formation", "we should always play this way..." etc.

Not necessarily directed at you Legend, but I think there's a definite group of people who think about team selection primarily in terms of what you do when you have the ball, and only as an after thought what happens when you don't, without seemingly connecting that one aspect directly effects the other. So time and again I hear or read people saying, "it's only [insert weaker team], we shouldn't be thinking about them, we only need two in CM, we should over-run them...". The point being that playing only two in CM against teams which pack the midfield very often gives us less control over what's going on, shackles our creatives with defensive duties, means we have less of the ball, they have more of the ball, in more dangerous areas, and thus more chance of scoring, winning and drawing (which leads to only a slight positive goal-difference, and fewer wins for us).

Name the most exciting attacking teams in Europe and the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Borrussia Dortmund won't be far from your lips. Nearly every single match they play is against weaker or much weaker opposition, and yet virtually exclusively they play 4-2-3-1/4-3-3. Their coaches, Pep, Jose, Klopp etc. are probably thought of as amongst the most effective, imaginative coaches in world football atm, why do they keep playing this way? Is it because they're conservative? Why don't they play 4-4-2 if it's more attacking?

4-3-3/4-2-3-1 is what you play if you dare to believe you can dominate, if you think you have the players to hold the ball, control possession and create the chances. If anything it's the formation that you should definitely play against weaker opposition. 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 is what you do when you want a punchers chance against stronger opposition, in that sense it's positive, because you're saying we won't have as much of the ball as you, but we're not going to park the bus and hope for a draw, we're going to try and win it or go down in a blaze of glory trying. It's the gambler's way, and I agree there are times where you should let the dice roll. But they have to be considered gambles. For me, I love the 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 because it allows you to take that gamble within a game, one substitution and a small switch around and you can change the game. That's when I think we should mainly be thinking about 4-4-2. Other than that, go attacking, try and win it, stick with the most offensive formation we have the 4-3-3/4-2-3-1.
 

ravo

SC Supporter
Jun 4, 2004
4,787
2,885
Good to see we have our front 6 back for the run in, for me there's no doubt that we are at our best with:

Lennon...........Parker...........Luka...............Bale

..............................Rafa..............................

...............................Ade.............................

Have to say that I used to think this. However, the last few weeks have shown me otherwise. The 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 set up we are currently employing is working. We have to stick to it. Lennon off the bench is not a bad thing either.
 

danielneeds

Kick-Ass
May 5, 2004
24,179
48,764
Funny that, because our record playing that formation this season reads:

P:13 W:7 D:2 L:4 F:22 A: 19

Hardly a ringing endorsement. Except that whenever we've lost playing that way loads of people have said things like "we just were not in form today!", "there will always be games like that..." etc., but whenever we've won it's been stuff like "that's our strongest formation", "we should always play this way..." etc.

Not necessarily directed at you Legend, but I think there's a definite group of people who think about team selection primarily in terms of what you do when you have the ball, and only as an after thought what happens when you don't, without seemingly connecting that one aspect directly effects the other. So time and again I hear or read people saying, "it's only [insert weaker team], we shouldn't be thinking about them, we only need two in CM, we should over-run them...". The point being that playing only two in CM against teams which pack the midfield very often gives us less control over what's going on, shackles our creatives with defensive duties, means we have less of the ball, they have more of the ball, in more dangerous areas, and thus more chance of scoring, winning and drawing (which leads to only a slight positive goal-difference, and fewer wins for us).

Name the most exciting attacking teams in Europe and the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Borrussia Dortmund won't be far from your lips. Nearly every single match they play is against weaker or much weaker opposition, and yet virtually exclusively they play 4-2-3-1/4-3-3. Their coaches, Pep, Jose, Klopp etc. are probably thought of as amongst the most effective, imaginative coaches in world football atm, why do they keep playing this way? Is it because they're conservative? Why don't they play 4-4-2 if it's more attacking?

4-3-3/4-2-3-1 is what you play if you dare to believe you can dominate, if you think you have the players to hold the ball, control possession and create the chances. If anything it's the formation that you should definitely play against weaker opposition. 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 is what you do when you want a punchers chance against stronger opposition, in that sense it's positive, because you're saying we won't have as much of the ball as you, but we're not going to park the bus and hope for a draw, we're going to try and win it or go down in a blaze of glory trying. It's the gambler's way, and I agree there are times where you should let the dice roll. But they have to be considered gambles. For me, I love the 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 because it allows you to take that gamble within a game, one substitution and a small switch around and you can change the game. That's when I think we should mainly be thinking about 4-4-2. Other than that, go attacking, try and win it, stick with the most offensive formation we have the 4-3-3/4-2-3-1.

So, if we play

Lennon...........Parker...........Luka............ ...Bale

..............................Rafa................ ..............

...............................Ade................ .............

We are in with a puncher's chance?


Yet, if we play

......................Parker...........Luka...........................

Lennon.......................Rafa.................. Bale

...............................Ade................ .............

We are tactically innovative?
 

Legend10

Well-Known Member
Jul 8, 2006
10,847
5,277
Funny that, because our record playing that formation this season reads:

P:13 W:7 D:2 L:4 F:22 A: 19

Hardly a ringing endorsement. Except that whenever we've lost playing that way loads of people have said things like "we just were not in form today!", "there will always be games like that..." etc., but whenever we've won it's been stuff like "that's our strongest formation", "we should always play this way..." etc.

Not necessarily directed at you Legend, but I think there's a definite group of people who think about team selection primarily in terms of what you do when you have the ball, and only as an after thought what happens when you don't, without seemingly connecting that one aspect directly effects the other. So time and again I hear or read people saying, "it's only [insert weaker team], we shouldn't be thinking about them, we only need two in CM, we should over-run them...". The point being that playing only two in CM against teams which pack the midfield very often gives us less control over what's going on, shackles our creatives with defensive duties, means we have less of the ball, they have more of the ball, in more dangerous areas, and thus more chance of scoring, winning and drawing (which leads to only a slight positive goal-difference, and fewer wins for us).

Name the most exciting attacking teams in Europe and the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Borrussia Dortmund won't be far from your lips. Nearly every single match they play is against weaker or much weaker opposition, and yet virtually exclusively they play 4-2-3-1/4-3-3. Their coaches, Pep, Jose, Klopp etc. are probably thought of as amongst the most effective, imaginative coaches in world football atm, why do they keep playing this way? Is it because they're conservative? Why don't they play 4-4-2 if it's more attacking?

4-3-3/4-2-3-1 is what you play if you dare to believe you can dominate, if you think you have the players to hold the ball, control possession and create the chances. If anything it's the formation that you should definitely play against weaker opposition. 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 is what you do when you want a punchers chance against stronger opposition, in that sense it's positive, because you're saying we won't have as much of the ball as you, but we're not going to park the bus and hope for a draw, we're going to try and win it or go down in a blaze of glory trying. It's the gambler's way, and I agree there are times where you should let the dice roll. But they have to be considered gambles. For me, I love the 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 because it allows you to take that gamble within a game, one substitution and a small switch around and you can change the game. That's when I think we should mainly be thinking about 4-4-2. Other than that, go attacking, try and win it, stick with the most offensive formation we have the 4-3-3/4-2-3-1.


We've lost once this season with those 6, at Stoke, where we hardly played badly and those 6 only featured for 45 minutes.
 

sloth

Well-Known Member
Mar 7, 2005
9,018
6,900
So, if we play

Lennon...........Parker...........Luka............ ...Bale

..............................Rafa................ ..............

...............................Ade................ .............

We are in with a puncher's chance?


Yet, if we play

......................Parker...........Luka...........................

Lennon.......................Rafa.................. Bale

...............................Ade................ .............

We are tactically innovative?

Who said anything about innovative? It's only the dinosaurs who think 4-3-3 /4-2-3-1 is somehow innovative or exotic.

But your point is valid giving my earlier post in this thread, but for what it's worth I withdraw my assertion that we stuck with 4-3-3 when Sandro came off for Lennon, I think we reverted to 4-4-1-1. My excuse is that I was fighting off a horrible hang-over yesterday morning when I wrote that.

So in answer to your question, I think you can set those particular players out however you like to make pretty formations on a piece of paper, but if you play them, then you will naturally and inevitably end up with 4-4-1-1.
 

sloth

Well-Known Member
Mar 7, 2005
9,018
6,900
We've lost once this season with those 6, at Stoke, where we hardly played badly and those 6 only featured for 45 minutes.

We played those players against Wolves at Home in January at drew 1-1, against Stoke at home the other week we played 4-4-1-1, (but no Lennon), and snuck a draw. Against Stoke away we played that way, and only came back into it when we switched to 3-5-2, Fulham away we were absolutely battered they hit the woodwork, had chances cleared off the line they took 31 shots, 13 on target, to our 4 on target, they had 54% possession etc., in short they should have equalised, but we nabbed one at the end to make it 1-3, it was a horrible performance and I remember saying so at the time. Against Blackburn away it was a similar story they had 19 shots five on target, five blocked 9 off target, to our 9 shots in total. We won because individually we had better players, but collectively we were less than the sum of our parts, they were greater than the sum of their's. I got castigated for coming on here and having the temerity to complain when we'd just won the game, as if winning this game or that was more important than putting in the kinds of performances which promise long-term success, regardless of whether you win, draw, or lose, this particular game or that. City at home was another run-out for the 4-4-1-1, but albeit without Parker or Livermore.

In short, 4-4-1-1 has seen several poor performances regardless of the eventual result, when it clicks it looks good, but the potential for the wheels to come off are that much greater, whereas 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 adds balance. We should dare to believe we're better than our opponents, that we can dominate them and win.
 

Mr Pink

SC Supporter
Aug 25, 2010
54,770
99,329
Funny that, because our record playing that formation this season reads:

P:13 W:7 D:2 L:4 F:22 A: 19

Hardly a ringing endorsement. Except that whenever we've lost playing that way loads of people have said things like "we just were not in form today!", "there will always be games like that..." etc., but whenever we've won it's been stuff like "that's our strongest formation", "we should always play this way..." etc.

Not necessarily directed at you Legend, but I think there's a definite group of people who think about team selection primarily in terms of what you do when you have the ball, and only as an after thought what happens when you don't, without seemingly connecting that one aspect directly effects the other. So time and again I hear or read people saying, "it's only [insert weaker team], we shouldn't be thinking about them, we only need two in CM, we should over-run them...". The point being that playing only two in CM against teams which pack the midfield very often gives us less control over what's going on, shackles our creatives with defensive duties, means we have less of the ball, they have more of the ball, in more dangerous areas, and thus more chance of scoring, winning and drawing (which leads to only a slight positive goal-difference, and fewer wins for us).

Name the most exciting attacking teams in Europe and the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Borrussia Dortmund won't be far from your lips. Nearly every single match they play is against weaker or much weaker opposition, and yet virtually exclusively they play 4-2-3-1/4-3-3. Their coaches, Pep, Jose, Klopp etc. are probably thought of as amongst the most effective, imaginative coaches in world football atm, why do they keep playing this way? Is it because they're conservative? Why don't they play 4-4-2 if it's more attacking?

4-3-3/4-2-3-1 is what you play if you dare to believe you can dominate, if you think you have the players to hold the ball, control possession and create the chances. If anything it's the formation that you should definitely play against weaker opposition. 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 is what you do when you want a punchers chance against stronger opposition, in that sense it's positive, because you're saying we won't have as much of the ball as you, but we're not going to park the bus and hope for a draw, we're going to try and win it or go down in a blaze of glory trying. It's the gambler's way, and I agree there are times where you should let the dice roll. But they have to be considered gambles. For me, I love the 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 because it allows you to take that gamble within a game, one substitution and a small switch around and you can change the game. That's when I think we should mainly be thinking about 4-4-2. Other than that, go attacking, try and win it, stick with the most offensive formation we have the 4-3-3/4-2-3-1.

Absolutely.

Think that's an excellent post.
 

Bus-Conductor

SC Supporter
Oct 19, 2004
39,837
50,713
We played those players against Wolves at Home in January at drew 1-1, against Stoke at home the other week we played 4-4-1-1, (but no Lennon), and snuck a draw. Against Stoke away we played that way, and only came back into it when we switched to 3-5-2, Fulham away we were absolutely battered they hit the woodwork, had chances cleared off the line they took 31 shots, 13 on target, to our 4 on target, they had 54% possession etc., in short they should have equalised, but we nabbed one at the end to make it 1-3, it was a horrible performance and I remember saying so at the time. Against Blackburn away it was a similar story they had 19 shots five on target, five blocked 9 off target, to our 9 shots in total. We won because individually we had better players, but collectively we were less than the sum of our parts, they were greater than the sum of their's. I got castigated for coming on here and having the temerity to complain when we'd just won the game, as if winning this game or that was more important than putting in the kinds of performances which promise long-term success, regardless of whether you win, draw, or lose, this particular game or that. City at home was another run-out for the 4-4-1-1, but albeit without Parker or Livermore.

In short, 4-4-1-1 has seen several poor performances regardless of the eventual result, when it clicks it looks good, but the potential for the wheels to come off are that much greater, whereas 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 adds balance. We should dare to believe we're better than our opponents, that we can dominate them and win.

Exactly the point I was about to try and make, and again, repeat the last three games we have largely played 4231/433 and have put in three exceptionally good performances so find it weird that anyone would still be claiming the 4 man midfield containing Bale, Lennon & Modric is the only way.
 
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