Fabio Paratici has four gettable targets to improve Spurs defence

[Neon_Knight_]

Official | Real Madrid CF

Potentially good news for one of our rivals then, but almost certainly not for us. His wages at Real were more than we were paying Kane or Bale last season.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

eh?

According to Google Translate, he's leaving Real and tomorrow he will receive an official send-off.

 

[yid-down-under]

I really don't think any of that adds up to a toxic influence. As people, we really need to be wary of forming opinions on people's characters based on hearsay information when we're removed from the situation.

Backing a team mate is not a sign of a bad character, especially one with mental health issues. He was a consistent performer for us and considered captain material until his contract fuck up. After that he had a bad relationship with Poch so it is understandable that he wasn't interested in signing with us while Poch was still here. Why would that even make him a bad character?

Sorry man but there’s something about him I don’t like. It may be just a feeling and I get what your saying but I’d be happy if he went

 

[TheChosenOne]

eh?

Click on the link

 

[dontcallme]

Sorry man but there’s something about him I don’t like. It may be just a feeling and I get what your saying but I’d be happy if he went

Which is fine but that feeling isn't proof of a toxic infuence.

 

[parj]

We need someone better than Toby. A real leader. Someone who will be there 3-5 years and bring Rodon and Tanganga through with them. One CB could do it if we get the right one

 

[Shadydan]

personally I’d shift Toby along side Sanchez and Dier as they are all as bad as each other. Imo it appears that Toby is a toxic influence. He backed rose after his public outburst And only signed a new contract once Poch left.

Well we're not gonna shift all 3 this summer, if anything Toby should be the last to go out of them - Sanchez first.

 

[yid-down-under]

Which is fine but that feeling isn't proof of a toxic infuence.

if you read my post I said imo I think he’s a toxic influence. Never once had a stated it as a cold hard fact

 

[dontcallme]

if you read my post I said imo I think he’s a toxic influence. Never once had a stated it as a cold hard fact

True but what that has to do with anything I am not sure.

The internet is a social phenomena and has changed our interaction for good. A few people think someone has a bad personality and they share it online. All of a sudden people are discussing it and this character trait becomes an accepted truth.

Whether the original post was stated as fact or opinion is of no relevance.

 

[Freddie]

Just noticed I posted with one sentence only half typed (doh!), regarding poor defending as a team making a good CB look worse than they are. I have edited previous my post.

I'm not confident myself that Toby is still as good as the player we signed, but I do think he is still much better than we give him credit for and is well worth keeping around. His "decline" was first perceived when Walker left and Wanyama got crocked (both happened close together), with people commenting that he had lost a yard of pace, when I'm fairly certain he had always been just as slow - but had previously been pulled out of position less often, because the players around him were defensively better. He was only 28 at the time, so theoretically in his physical prime...not many players who aren't exceptionally quick in the first place suddenly lose a yard of pace at that age, unless they have a serious injury (he did not). I recall talk of him getting "back to form" somewhere around 2018, but then the talk of him being "past it" restarted after Dembele left (not coincidentally, we looked worse in and out of possession the moment he was sold in Jan 2019) and got louder after Jan's head injury (the club shouldn't have let him play him during the 2019-20 season).

Even if Toby isn't being made to look bad by the team around him, last season every other defender in the squad made more errors per 90 minutes than him (I have no stats to support that, but it appeared very evident to me), so he's the last player we should be replacing when our defence is our primary concern.

The most worrying thing is that despite having a team organised by Jose Mourinho, with a decent defensive midfielder and keeper, EVERY defender still looked confused and clumsy, apart from that early part of the season when we went ultra-defensive and had a good spell of results. Raises the question of whether some of them are beyond coaching, or is Jose that good at organising a defence or has he just been able to sign the best defenders in the past? Seemed unfathomable that every one of them could make telling mistakes so frequently. Can't imagine any new manager could do much with them without 2-3 new players at CB, RB/RWB/DM. Don't imagine we'll get a new LB with Sess returning. Not specifically related to your Toby point but I've typed it now

 

[newbie]

We need to get some signings right.

I remember Liverpool spending big on the likes of Henderson, Carroll, Charlie Adam (salary) and outside a few hits they were going nowhere. Then they bought Salah and Mane and they were going places.

Over the years Leicester have bought Mahrez, Vardy, Kante and others for peanuts.

The deals are all around. If we try to spend big right now and compete with the top clubs then I think we'll struggle.

If we make signings like Botman, Sabitzer, Thuram etc and get them right then we can start to improve.

I do t know if we need to spend big but we def need to spend smart very smart.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

The most worrying thing is that despite having a team organised by Jose Mourinho, with a decent defensive midfielder and keeper, EVERY defender still looked confused and clumsy, apart from that early part of the season when we went ultra-defensive and had a good spell of results. Raises the question of whether some of them are beyond coaching, or is Jose that good at organising a defence or has he just been able to sign the best defenders in the past? Seemed unfathomable that every one of them could make telling mistakes so frequently. Can't imagine any new manager could do much with them without 2-3 new players at CB, RB/RWB/DM. Don't imagine we'll get a new LB with Sess returning. Not specifically related to your Toby point but I've typed it now

Hojbjerg is not (and was not playing as) a deep holding CDM. Winks, who is hardly a 'destroyer', was often the deeper of the two. Therefore, our defence was not shielded as effectively as when we had Wanyama + Dembele.
Alderweireld was invariably playing LCB next to Reguilon who, despite playing well overall, made more than his fair share of defensive errors - including being out of position, which regularly left Toby to compensate.
On the other side of Toby was always a RCB who either isn't quite ready for a top 4 side yet or simply isn't good enough to regularly start in a back 4 for a top 4 side (but probably better suited to a back 3).
Then add into the mess that the RB was frequently causing the RCB to be pulled out of position, which then left too much for Toby to cover. In the past, Wanyama/Dier would have dropped in from CDM to cover the hole in a way that none of our current CMs will do (Hojbjerg does it to an extent, but is more reactive rather than dropping in as an extra CB).
Rose and Walker at their best did also make mistakes and get caught out of position when the opposition countered (as all attacking fullbacks will), but Wanyama and Sissoko (under Poch) were very effective at dropping in at FB whenever they committed to an attack.

I still think that Ndombele (now that his awful first season is long gone) and Lo Celso (if he can stay fit) could form a very effective CM3 with Hojbjerg. The issue for me is that we have four competitions to rotate the squad for, so those three will play together potentially less than 50% of the time. Reintegrating Skipp and signing someone like Sabitzer would be ideal (and viable!).
Aurier produced his best football in a Spurs shirt under Mourinho, and reduced his errors significantly, but is by no means error free. Doherty was too often caught out of position, but looked better at the end of the season. We should upgrade one and keep the other as back-up.

 

[Freddie]

Hojbjerg is not (and was not playing as) a deep holding CDM. Winks, who is hardly a 'destroyer', was often the deeper of the two. Therefore, our defence was not shielded as effectively as when we had Wanyama + Dembele.
Alderweireld was invariably playing LCB next to Reguilon who, despite playing well overall, made more than his fair share of defensive errors - including being out of position, which regularly left Toby to compensate.
On the other side of Toby was always a RCB who either isn't quite ready for a top 4 side yet or simply isn't good enough to regularly start in a back 4 for a top 4 side (but probably better suited to a back 3).
Then add into the mess that the RB was frequently causing the RCB to be pulled out of position, which then left too much for Toby to cover. In the past, Wanyama/Dier would have dropped in from CDM to cover the hole in a way that none of our current CMs will do (Hojbjerg does it to an extent, but is more reactive rather than dropping in as an extra CB).
Rose and Walker at their best did also make mistakes and get caught out of position when the opposition countered (as all attacking fullbacks will), but Wanyama and Sissoko (under Poch) were very effective at dropping in at FB whenever they committed to an attack.

I still think that Ndombele (now that his awful first season is long gone) and Lo Celso (if he can stay fit) could form a very effective CM3 with Hojbjerg. The issue for me is that we have four competitions to rotate the squad for, so those three will play together potentially less than 50% of the time. Reintegrating Skipp and signing someone like Sabitzer would be ideal (and viable!).
Aurier produced his best football in a Spurs shirt under Mourinho, and reduced his errors significantly, but is by no means error free. Doherty was too often caught out of position, but looked better at the end of the season. We should upgrade one and keep the other as back-up.

I agree with the assessment of why we were so exposed but I'm bemused as to why none of them seemed to understand the game under someone like Jose, who is always caution first. PEH isn't a sitting midfielder but actually most teams don't seem to have one of them. Most defensive midfielders seem to press further up the pitch these days, teams like United compensate by having two of them, Chelsea play Jorginho who will sit deep but dictate from there, I guess Fernandinho has regressed to more of a Makelele these days but it's a rare role, but we had no one to drop back when PEH went on a headless forray. We just didn't seem to have a clearly defined system, and we didn't have the players to succeed playing the way we tried to play. Combine this with a bucketload of individual errors and that explains the season.

Not sure I like the idea of PEH, Ndombele and GLC. A bit of everything and not enough of anything in that for me, unless they're all prepared to work their asses off I can see us being opened up easily. Ideally I'd like to sign someone who would sit deep but has a pass in him but that's down to how the new manager wants to play.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

I agree with the assessment of why we were so exposed but I'm bemused as to why none of them seemed to understand the game under someone like Jose, who is always caution first. PEH isn't a sitting midfielder but actually most teams don't seem to have one of them. Most defensive midfielders seem to press further up the pitch these days, teams like United compensate by having two of them, Chelsea play Jorginho who will sit deep but dictate from there, I guess Fernandinho has regressed to more of a Makelele these days but it's a rare role, but we had no one to drop back when PEH went on a headless forray. We just didn't seem to have a clearly defined system, and we didn't have the players to succeed playing the way we tried to play. Combine this with a bucketload of individual errors and that explains the season.

Not sure I like the idea of PEH, Ndombele and GLC. A bit of everything and not enough of anything in that for me, unless they're all prepared to work their asses off I can see us being opened up easily. Ideally I'd like to sign someone who would sit deep but has a pass in him but that's down to how the new manager wants to play.

We have only Hojbjerg, playing alongside box-to-box and attacking CMs who are either inferior (Winks & Sissoko) or less settled (Lo Celso & Ndombele) than those of our rivals.

Chelsea has Jorginho + Kante, of which they can play one or both, depending on their opposition.

Man City has Fernadinho + Rodri, and also several CMs who are very disciplined and effective in deep CM roles. For example, although Gundogan was relatively advanced this season, he played in a similar role to Hojbjerg for Dortmund at times (including a CL performance against us, where he broke up nearly every attack we initiated with interceptions, tackles and clever tactical fouls).

Man Utd has Matic, Fred and McTominay (who Mourinho apparently wanted to sign for us and convert into a CB!). They also have Van der Beek and Pogba (when he feels like it) who can do a decent job in a deep role.

Liverpool had Wijnaldum (just left) and Keita who are both good defensively, as well as being effective in more advanced roles. Henderson and Thiago are tactically decent out of possession and they also have Milner who can fill in at CDM (or anywhere else apparently).

When you compare our midfield to our rivals' man-for-man, it's clear that we need to another CM/CDM who is good defensively (even if they also have attacking qualities)...in addition to not sending Skipp back out on loan.

 

[Neon_Knight_]

Not sure I like the idea of PEH, Ndombele and GLC. A bit of everything and not enough of anything in that for me, unless they're all prepared to work their asses off I can see us being opened up easily. Ideally I'd like to sign someone who would sit deep but has a pass in him but that's down to how the new manager wants to play.

I think Hojbjerg would be best utilised as the second deepest CM, not the deepest, which means we should be focusing on signing another deep CM/CDM (could be a destroyer like Wanyama/Sandro or a playmaker like Carrick/Modric). PEH + Ndombele + Lo Celso should be fine against weaker opposition. Skipp is defensively decent, so him + PEH + Ndombele/Lo Celso might give a nice balance, but Skipp shouldn't be more than a rotation player at this point, so that's where the new signing comes in.