Leicester vs Tottenham: Match Thread

[Spurs' Pipe Dreams]

I see we're still shit then, I blame Poch, Levy, ENIC, the players, international fixtures and the Illuminati, curse you all for not putting a ball into a net. Life is so unfair

 

[glacierSpurs]

That ref last night was just a prick for booking Lamela on a soft foul.

This lad had been out over a year and was coming back for less than 15 minutes ffs. A warning is most suitable.

Not booking Mahrez was even more criminal. Disgraceful.

 

[JayB]

For all the posts about how bad we supposedly were, we created enough really good chances to have won that game.

We didn't take them. That's why we lost. Not because of the line-up, not because Eriksen, Dier or Dele, the current scapegoats of choice did or didn't do this that or the other, not because we're suddenly a bad side and not because of any the 101 pet theories being floated about as SC's sport of choice, the blame game goes into overdrive.

We just didn't take our chances. That's it.

You know it's getting ridiculous when the kid on loan at Villa is being touted as our saviour

This is absolutely spot on. We're on a horrible run in the league and I can understand why there is so much moaning, but we really deserved more than we got last night. Take a look at this expected goals map:

They took their chances (with aplomb), we did not. That was it.

 

[knowlespurs]

I thought Lamela played better yesterday than he ever has before for us, maybe playing within himself and not overtrying is the way to go for him.

thats certainly as good as i have seen him for a year or so

 

[southlondonyiddo]

We're coming for you
We’re coming for you
Crystal Palace
We’re coming for you!!

 

[thePessimist]

This is absolutely spot on. We're on a horrible run in the league and I can understand why there is so much moaning, but we really deserved more than we got last night. Take a look at this expected goals map:

They took their chances (with aplomb), we did not. That was it.

Disagree. To some extend we've been 'found out', or at least teams have found a way to play against us that works in their favour. We've shown in the last few games that we struggle to find solutions or lack alternatives against teams that either sit back and defend (wba, swansea, burnley, palace) or come at us and disrupt our game (scum, leicester)

It's about scoring goals and taking your chances, yes, but you can't just brush every poor performance away as 'one of those days'. This year has shown a pattern imo that is a little bit worrying.

Hopefully Poch will sort it out

 

[Hazardousman]

I'm not saying your wrong but do you not think you're going a bit early? Maybe if we're still in this form by Christmas but at the moment it's very much a blip and I remember people saying the exact same thing this time last year after a poor run

I think it's the manner in which our players are applying themselves in games that is worrying me, last season it felt more like a blip, it was frustrating, especially in the CL but I felt like we had the ability to come back from it because we believed we had a chance of winning the title.

This season that belief seems gone and along with it, any form of effort or care from most of the players, they don't seem to be breaking themselves hard for Poch like they have done in previous seasons, our pressing is all but gone and our attitude towards games (other than the CL games) seems to be poor.

That's my biggest concern, along with the fact that I think many of them will be casting envyous eyes at someone like Walker now who has effectively tripled his pay and is on course to win a PL title in his first season since leaving and I can guarantee in terms of training he only has to work half as hard as he would have done here.

I think Poch has a tough job on his hands motivating them in the league now and we have already seen how this team can fold when they lack the motivation of a title, just look at that Newcastle result and our run in after we lost it to Leicester, we seemed to rectify that last season to prove a point but this season we are already out of the race and we still have more than half a season left to go, not sure it will be that easy to get them going, especially if we keep playing as we are doing now.

 

[Hazardousman]

Teams were doing that last season mate, the difference is that we miss a bug units to win the ball back (Wanyama/Dembele). Watch the games against West Brom, Watford, Stoke etc...last season, they're not doing anything different, they just didn't have any time on the ball to get out of their half.

I don't even think our problems are tactical right now, I think it's the players and their attitude towards the games, they aren't fighting hard enough and Poch has even said so himself.

It's that and the fact that when Eriksen is off the boil we lack a creative output

 

[JayB]

Disagree. To some extend we've been 'found out', or at least teams have found a way to play against us that works in their favour. We've shown in the last few games that we struggle to find solutions or lack alternatives against teams that either sit back and defend (wba, swansea, burnley, palace) or come at us and disrupt our game (scum, leicester)

It's about scoring goals and taking your chances, yes, but you can't just brush every poor performance away as 'one of those days'. This year has shown a pattern imo that is a little bit worrying.

Hopefully Poch will sort it out

I'm not brushing off every poor performance, I threw a strop in the WBA match thread. I think we have been poor recently, and that our mentality and desire has been shocking, but I don't actually think that was the case in last night's match in particular (and especially the second half).

We missed two one-on-ones and two open nets, that's why we lost the match. Look at that expected goals map -- those chances we missed were huge opportunities that on average result in goals most of the time. It was, IMO, actually "one of those nights".

 

[thePessimist]

I'm not brushing off every poor performance, I threw a strop in the WBA match thread. I think we have been poor recently, and that our mentality and desire has been shocking, but I don't actually think that was the case in last night's match in particular (and especially the second half).

We missed two one-on-ones and two open nets, that's why we lost the match. Look at that expected goals map -- those chances we missed were huge opportunities that on average result in goals most of the time. It was, IMO, actually "one of those nights".

Fair enough. I actually don't think we deserved anything from last night. Apart from the last 15 min we showed nothing to suggest we wanted the points

 

[Pellshek]

- Sissoko 1-on-1
- Dele 1-on-1
- Llorente open goal
- Eriksen open goal

Put me firmly in the camp of "they took their chances, we didn't." No existential crisis.

 

[JayB]

Fair enough. I actually don't think we deserved anything from last night. Apart from the last 15 min we showed nothing to suggest we wanted the points

I agree by and large that the effort in the first half was poor, and I think we need to freshen up the squad with someone like Barkley in January to light a fire under certain players. I just think that last night's performance, on the whole, was not as bad as it felt and that the stats show that we deserved more.

 

[diamondlight]

Who are you referring to as one of the best strikers of the ball in the world?

Son

 

[Shadydan]

This is absolutely spot on. We're on a horrible run in the league and I can understand why there is so much moaning, but we really deserved more than we got last night. Take a look at this expected goals map:

They took their chances (with aplomb), we did not. That was it.

What the entire fuck is XG?

 

[JayB]

What the entire fuck is XG?

I don't claim to be an expert, and different analysts have different formulas they use to calculate it, but it's basically a measure of the statistical likelihood of goals scored given the quality of chances each team has over the course of the match.

It's derived from data on actual goals scored from all of the different positions on the field over the course of entire seasons. So if a pot shot from 35 yards results in one goal scored every 200 times it is attempted on average, that shot would be assigned an xG value of 0.005. Shots from inside the six-yard box with the goalkeeper out of position on the other hand would have an xG value closer to 1.

This is represented visually by the size of the boxes on the map (pink being shots resulting in goals, white/blue being missed shots), the larger the box the larger the xG value. Leicester's two goals both had very low xG values, reflecting the quality of the finishes. As you can see we had a number of shots that on average would have been goals that we managed to fuck up.

The overall value (0.8 for Leicester and 2.5 for Spurs) is the cumulative sum of the xG values for all of the shots each team took throughout the match.

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

What the entire fuck is XG?

No idea but I’ll take a guess at x (times) goals

 

[southlondonyiddo]

So we should have scored 2.5 goals and Leicester should have got 0.8 of a goal

BC will love those stats

 

[shelfboy68]

This is absolutely spot on. We're on a horrible run in the league and I can understand why there is so much moaning, but we really deserved more than we got last night. Take a look at this expected goals map:


They took their chances (with aplomb), we did not. That was it.

I thought we got what we deserved imo no excuses

 

[shelfboy68]

I'm not brushing off every poor performance, I threw a strop in the WBA match thread. I think we have been poor recently, and that our mentality and desire has been shocking, but I don't actually think that was the case in last night's match in particular (and especially the second half).

We missed two one-on-ones and two open nets, that's why we lost the match. Look at that expected goals map -- those chances we missed were huge opportunities that on average result in goals most of the time. It was, IMO, actually "one of those nights".

But how often do we attribute this saying "One of those nights" it happens a little bit too often to be that mate.

 

[Streetspur77]

But how often do we attribute this saying "One of those nights" it happens a little bit too often to be that mate.

To deny that aswell as being below par we haven't had the rub of the green in this blip would be crazy