Race for the Top 4 - 2018/19

[hellava_tough]

Looks fairly promising but this overlooks that we’ll be playing twice a week now until New Year.

11 games in just over 5 weeks. Totally mental.

We’ll need to get players fit and use the squad cleverly. I’d always focus on the league but you just know Poch will be hammered if he rotates for the cup games.

Don't think he cares what people think; he's been rotating for cup games for a few seasons now

To be honest though, I think our squad is now good enough to rotate and remain competitive

 

[chinaman]

That Chelsea game has made me a bit more confident now. That is the first time this season where we have seen the real Pochettino Spurs - we were back to our pressing best of old.

Hopefully this is the start of Son's purple patch, as we have desperately missed his contributions. The trio of Kane, Alli and Eriksen is also something that hopefully stays together, as we just play so much better with those three on the pitch.

In my opinion we are still a bit too weak in central midfield, even with the massively improved Sissoko and Winks. However I think Jan and Toby at the back plus our attacking players including Lucas and Lamela as options off the bench should be able to cover this.

You're Levy? Sounds like we don't need to buy.

 

[Spurs 1961]

I think so. Our star players were all at the World Cup and I think this played a part in our worse performances.

However as a team we still picked up points and I believe we will now go on a good run.

On Saturday our bench had Lamela, Lucas, Winks, Vertongen and Llorente. All of those are players able to come on and make a real difference in different parts of the pitch. Yet still we have full backs and of course Dembele and Wanyama out. Our squad when fit is not as threadbare as pundits seem to make out. This season we have seen Lamela back, Foyth make the grade, Lucas come out of the shadows, plus Gazzaniga emerge as number two goalkeeper and all these players have been called up to their international teams

The future looks bright. The future is Lilywhite

 

[dude573]

You're Levy? Sounds like we don't need to buy.

No...

But I do also think that our season ticket pricing is more than fair and we can always just move into the new stadium in the next five years or so .

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

Have to say, I don't remember those chances, although it was a pretty forgettable game for us.

Just had a look at the XG for the game, which I tend to think is a pretty accurate reflection of attacking performance of the two sides, and it was 0.43 for us vs 2.24 for them. We had one shot on target, they had 6.

That's what I meant about "not direct shots on goal" It was one of those games where we opened them up loads of times. Their LB was in a worse state than David Luiz. But we didn't take that into a direct chance.

XG aren't the be all and end all anyway. According to the BBC, we only had 3.09 XG against Chelsea but should, as anyone can see, have scored a minimum of 5 goals.

 

[Phomesy]

Should we? City should have been out of sight by the time Lamela missed literally our only chance of the game.

Not my memory of the game having been there. I thought we were well worthy of a point and if that Lamela chance had gone in that we were more likely winners.

We had them rattled - pep admitted as much.

 

[coys200]

City only really had one other clear cut chance against us when David silva somehow contrived to miss from 5 yards. But for a very sloppy goal it may have been a very different game.

 

[SixtyFour]

Update..

The (expected) ‘top 6’ are judged against the following ridiculously high expectation: they will win ALL home games; they will win all away games – except those against ‘top 6’ rivals, which they will lose. That would give a total of 105 points.
As the season progresses a running total is kept of points dropped or gained against that standard (examples: City draw at Wolves = minus 2; City win at Arsenal = plus 3).

After 13 games (deviations from expectation shown)

By this measure, City and Liverpool´s advantage over the 3 London teams is more decisive than the actual league table indicates. Bollocks. United resume their steady leaking of points.

City +5 Arse(a)+3; Wolves(a)-2; Liv(a)+1; Spurs(a)+3
Liv +3 Spurs(a)+3; Chels(a) +1; City(h)-2; Arse(a)+1
Spurs -6 Utd(a)+3; Wat(a)-3; Liv(h)-3; City(h)-3
Chels -8 Wham(a)-2; Liv(h)-2; Utd(h)-2; Everton(h)-2
Arse -9 City(h)-3; Palace(a)-2; Liv(h)-2; Wolves(a)-2
Utd -12 Bright(a)-3; Spurs(h)-3; Wolves(h)-2; Wham(a)-3;Chels(a)+1; Palace(h)-2

 

[Shadydan]

Chelsea will drop IMO, been watching them and they play an extremely open brand of football but I reckon good teams that have a strong defence will pick them off, Arsenal should have beaten them - they constantly opened them up especially in the full back areas. Azpilicueta isn't that quick and Alonso defensively is suspect, not to mention David Luiz who can be got at. Also as much as how fun it may look it's counter productive to play Kante as anything other than a holding midfielder, there's a big gap between defense and midfield that better teams can exploit.

Oi oi

 

[King of Otters]

Not my memory of the game having been there. I thought we were well worthy of a point and if that Lamela chance had gone in that we were more likely winners.

We had them rattled - pep admitted as much.

Again, I think that’s a generous interpretation of a game in which we created one goal scoring chance and City created several.

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

Again, I think that’s a generous interpretation of a game in which we created one goal scoring chance and City created several.

Check out the highlights for yourself


Forget scoring chances, this clip alone shows 3 and there were more.

https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/11539603/tottenham-0-1-man-city

 

[Saoirse]

xG is a very helpful statistic, but perhaps its biggest flaw is not having a way to account for strong chances where the attacker fails to actually get their shot away because they're trying to improve their position (e.g. tries to turn one defender too many, or tries and fails to round the keeper).

 

[Phomesy]

Again, I think that’s a generous interpretation of a game in which we created one goal scoring chance and City created several.

Again - I think you're being harsh. Pep was very glad to come away with those points. RIghtly so. We had them flustered at times and you don't often see that with City these days.

Thought it was our best game against them since we dicked them at WHL.

 

[King of Otters]

Check out the highlights for yourself


Forget scoring chances, this clip alone shows 3 and there were more.

https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/11539603/tottenham-0-1-man-city

Fair enough, we did create more chances than I remember.

 

[hellava_tough]

xG is a very helpful statistic, but perhaps its biggest flaw is not having a way to account for strong chances where the attacker fails to actually get their shot away because they're trying to improve their position (e.g. tries to turn one defender too many, or tries and fails to round the keeper).

But isn't most of the time this resulting from a defender forcing him into do these things; hence good defending, rather than clear attacking opportunities?

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

Another thing to consider with XG is that an XG of 1.0 isn't 1 chance necessarily.
It could be 3 chances rated at 0.333 each IIRC.

 

[Tit&Ham]

But the lamela chance should be more than 0.43 alone? And we had a few more... strange me think

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

It's daft what you have to do to get a 1.0 XG. Practically shooting at an open net with the ball under control. Lamelas was a volley at full stretch.

 

[Tit&Ham]

It's daft what you have to do to get a 1.0 XG. Practically shooting at an open net with the ball under control. Lamelas was a volley at full stretch.

I agree on first sentence, but if my memory isn’t playing games with me; It was a rolling ball on the turf with lamela fully in balance... IT bounced if that what u mean..

 

[fortworthspur]

Poch is doing the best job yet as far as Im concerned. No signings and we have had the best starting third of a season in our prem history and maybe ever.