Is it our players or our tactics?

[Bulletspur]

Possession football is the way forward IMO but what we do in certain areas of the pitch must be quicker....systems and tactics are important too otherwise you get caught out.


What teams tend to do against us now even City to a degree allowed us to have possession positioned and then broken with pace through the middle when we lost the ball.

Possession football is the way forward IMO but what we do in certain areas of the pitch must be quicker....systems and tactics are important too otherwise you get caught out.


What teams tend to do against us now even City to a degree allowed us to have possession positioned and then broken with pace through the middle when we lost the ball.

You do know that you are contradicting yourself. By the way we had 53% possession on Sunday and lost 6-0. Still think its the way forward?

 

[14/04/91]

I'm starting to believe its the players, City's first three goals were poor play by the players nothing to do with tactics.

AVB tactically is ok may overly tactical but to encourage and convince the players to execute the plan seems to be the problem.

That's not strictly true, it was a combination of poor play & tactics. Our set up was asking for trouble on the basis the 2 centre halves were too far apart and the full backs too high up the pitch - as soon as we lost the ball City pounced with pace and we were all over the shop.

 

[wwspur]

I think playing the high line is one thing that needs to be looked at.
We are having great possession in all these games but the oppositions half is so bunched up with no
space for our forwards and we're wide open for counters with balls over the top.

 

[Donki]

Tactics, we have International players throughout the sqaud and ATM they dont look anywhere near a team. As others have said AVBs is a ridgid system and it doesn't look like there is much if any creative freedom allowed to the players. Against Newcastle in the second half there were glimers of more free flowing football but against City everything that can go wrong did go wrong.

AVB needs to trust the players he has and aloow them to enjoy themselves, International players of the quality we have dont need strict guidelines IMO football isn't as complicated as its made out to be.

 

[Wardy]

The attacking system is all wrong.

Defensively, apart from Sunday, we are very organised and look solid. Going forward, we are atrocious though. Said it many times, but we majorly lack any width in the team and cut inside far too much. The tempo is also way too slow and gives the opposition loads of time to organise their defence against us

 

[aRTy]

It's abit of both for me. Should the players have the brains to actually pass the ball quicker and move into some space? yes. On the other hand if you judge our style of player over the last 18 months we've have probably regressed in our forward play. I used to get frustrated when, to me, it felt like we just crossed it in all the time under H and when we signed avb i think i just assumed we would be playing fast,tricky football around the edge of the box if we aren't going wide, ala Arsenal, but neither is happening atm.

 

[mattstev2000]

Id says it's a bit of both to be honest. I think some of AVB's decisions have been a bit strange and he hasn't always got everything tactically correct but I do find it hard to believe that players of real quality would be struggling with it quite so drastically.

I said it in another thread but I've seen nothing of Soldado (limited to a very certain style of play), Paulinho (generally rather uninspiring) or Lamela (weak, naive and underdeveloped) that suggests they should be our three record signings.

I'm not really 100% convinced that they would have been the players we would have signed had AVB had the final say on transfers either.

On top of that a few of our players still seem to lack the mental fortitude to bite back when things get tough.

 

[Donki]

Id says it's a bit of both to be honest. I think some of AVB's decisions have been a bit strange and he hasn't always got everything tactically correct but I do find it hard to believe that players of real quality would be struggling with it quite so drastically.

I said it in another thread but I've seen nothing of Soldado (limited to a very certain style of play), Paulinho (generally rather uninspiring) or Lamela (weak, naive and underdeveloped) that suggests they should be our three record signings.

I'm not really 100% convinced that they would have been the players we would have signed had AVB had the final say on transfers either.

On top of that a few of our players still seem to lack the mental fortitude to bite back when things get tough.

Ive said it before it looks to me like the players are being told what not to do rather than what to do, there is no excitment or individual creativity happening.

You say our record signings and rightly so, but they were record signings for a reason, in their previous employment they were very good at their job. Soldado scores for fun when given the type of ball he likes and IMO the players we have all have the ability to provide these balls. Paulinho looks a totally different player for Brazil and I seen alot of Lamela and trust me the kid has got the ability.

The thing that also makes me think its more tactics than players is that we have interchanged alot and there doesn't seem to be much of a change in fortunes. So either eALL our players are shit and like playing slow paced football or they are doing what they are being told to do. The more I think about it the angrier I get.

 

[Kingstheman]

Spurs are at a restaurant and have filled up on bread before the starter has even arrived.

Schoolboy error, that is.

Always go light on the bread.

 

[dontcallme]

In defence we are setup for our 2 full backs to provide the width. Walker can't get his cross past the 1st defender, Rose has been out, we have no real backup for our full backs so with one out we lose that part of the system.

In midfield Sandro is playing the deeper role which suits him perfectly and when he has played he has been one of our best players. Paulinho is a real box-to-box midfielder who makes intelligent runs into the box, something we seriously lack, but playing him so deep is seriously restricting him.

The 3 behind the striker are a choice of Lennon, Townsend, Holtby, Sigurdsson, Lamela, Eriksen and Chadli.

Eriksen and Chadli haven't looked great so far. Lennon has never been a goalscorer, Townsend, Holtby and Siggy all like to take 20 yard shots which isn't going to get a lot of goals and we have no one in the box bar the lone striker so no one there for the rebounds.

Lamela is our hope for this position.

Soldado as a lone striker with no AM's getting into the box means he is being easily marked by the opposition's 2 centre backs. No one has built an understanding with him yet and he receives no service.

Without any of our AM's making good runs off the ball we end up with lots of slow passing and relying on long shots.

We are functional but uncreative. It worked last season because Bale stepped up and got goals out of nothing. We need one of our AM's to step up and create something special. I believe only Lamela has the potential to do this job to a very high level. Don't think he'll produce it this season though.

So to answer the OP I think some of our individuals aren't good enough especially in AM.

But I think the setup is more of a problem as it is too restrictive. Paulinho can't make his runs into the box, Soldado has no service and our AM's are too similar.

 

[ultimateloner]

The only moan i have with the tatics is not making use of Solado. I dont know whether it's always been his style (a Valencia expert please chip in) but he hasn't been involved enough. He could justify touch the ball 15 times in a game if he scores for fun but he doesn't.

 

[ItsBoris]

Yep, i'd say a combination of both. The tactics are limiting/restricting the players in general.

The Man City game was full of defensive errors. We conceded early then responded really well, I wasn't too worried at this point and thought we might get it back level pretty quickly. After the second went in, a lot of heads dropped and more and more mistakes occurred.

I think the rigidity of AVB's tactics are a big part of the problem. I think some our more creative players need that freedom to be just that. Each player should know their role within the team by now. Maybe not against Man U but I'd like to see AVB take the Redknapp approach and sod the plan...let them go out there and run around a bit...I think we'd see a much different performance.

We're bloody brilliant at possession - the problem is we pass it out from the back, we move the ball around slowly up into the opponents 3rd and then in the name of possession move the ball backwards usually back to the defence and sometimes even Lloris. We see this a lot, we have the ball on the left or right flank high up the pitch, all it takes is a decent through ball, a run from Soldado or Paulinho into a space or even our wingers taking on their man but no - we go backwards and start the build up again and it annoys the fuck out of me.

So for my sanity...they should try playing without a plan and see what happens. Thems are my apples.

Harry!?

Jking. I think there's a balance to be struck. Harry is correct that players need freedom to express themselves. AVB is correct that a team needs a system that players can slot into that creates greater collective understanding. The problem with either is that they don't see the other side, AVB is so concerned with the system that it limits the expression of the players (plus his system has some strategic flaws imo - the most effective way to set up a football team is the way Dortmund play imo). Harry didn't understand the need for the structure that will turn 11 individual players into a collective unit. So of course it is our luck that we go from one extreme to the other without ever getting the happy medium.

Just to expand on the Dortmund point - players leave Dortmund and don't look the same (Kagawa, Sahin, Gotze, etc). They come back and look excellent again. Players go to Dortmund and look better than they did at their previous clubs. Players come here and look fucking clueless. It's because they have a system in place that works to the players benefit. The players aren't restrained by the style of play but enabled by it. We are the exact opposite - the system works to the players' detriment.

The way forward for us is pretty clear - drop the defensive line deeper, drill the team with movements that always enable a forward pass - always plan to break forward with pace and numbers and catch the opposition off guard. Have wingers/fullbacks get into positions that they can supply the most effective service to Soldado (imo getting to the byline and cutting the ball back into the box). To be honest it's not that fucking difficult, I'm pretty sure I could get these players scoring at least 1 goal per game (or pretty much anyone on this forum with half a clue about football) just by altering the style of play to suit our strengths. Not that hard, it's baffling that people who get paid millions per year can't figure it out.

 

[sim0n]

easy point made with this example from AVB's former boss:

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/25179761

"Mauricio Pochettino's side dealt well with Chelsea in the first half, but Blues boss Jose Mourinho changed from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-4-2 formation at half-time, opting for a more direct style, and it worked."

EDIT -- this is an example of flexibility to change games and not just dogmatic 4-2-3-1 possession as plan A only.... NOT simply just that Spurs should change to 4-4-2...