Ratings v Leicester and MotM

[iluvsteffenfreund]

Just had a browse and those of us that we're getting slaughtered for being so negative before the Utd game about our team/squad and manager seem to be joined by a few more! Funny old game. Serious note it's so obvious to so many of us why oh why is it not obvious to our hierarchy ? Same problem this time last year. The joys of being a spurs fan and going absolutely nowhere

 

[theShiznit]

Here is another example of why you can't use stats. Yet again dembele was our best player and yet again Pamela our worst

Another that's fallen for the smoke and mirrors performance of Dembele....

a few dribbles or keeping it under duress with a body feint gets everyone purring, when his use of the ball, passing, decisions and time it takes him to do anything with the ball (that isn't another touch for himself) is quite frankly abysmal.

We play a possession game where too many players take too long to decide what to do with it missing countless opportunities to quicken the play or play a through ball because they haven't even looked up until they've beaten two men. Dier, Chadli, Walker, Dembele all chief culprits in slowing our game to snails pace and all of them offer pretty static targets for people looking for someone to pass to as well.

People think pace is the answer but Walker has such a slow brain that it negates any pace he has in his legs. That laughable 30 yard kick and rush he attempted was one of his best passes of the day. Has 2-3 brain farts a game as standard.

 

[iluvsteffenfreund]

Just had a browse and those of us that we're getting slaughtered for being so negative before the Utd game about our team/squad and manager seem to be joined by a few more! Funny old game. Serious note it's so obvious to so many of us why oh why is it not obvious to our hierarchy ? Same problem this time last year. The joys of being a spurs fan and going absolutely nowhere

 

[dontsalebale]

Just had a browse and those of us that we're getting slaughtered for being so negative before the Utd game about our team/squad and manager seem to be joined by a few more! Funny old game. Serious note it's so obvious to so many of us why oh why is it not obvious to our hierarchy ? Same problem this time last year. The joys of being a spurs fan and going absolutely nowhere

I think many of us were surprised by Pochs selections yesterday. Most people probably would have swapped both full backs and not played Dier or lamela. Not sure what the reasoning was behind these 4 selections but we looked slow and disjointed throughout

 

[iluvsteffenfreund]

Was auto correct donut!

 

[littlemandefoe]

Pamela? What are you, six or something?

Don't know if he meant that but on Mac's, they correct spelling from Lamela to Pamela. Happened to me a few times but now I know to change it back.

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

Was auto correct donut!

Cool.

Any chance you can set it up to put right the rest of the bullshit agenda driven crap you ruin the match thread with every week?

 

[littlemandefoe]

He gave us 13 goals from midfield last season, albeit being in and out of games. And despite your assertion that he is doing fuck all so far this season, he has scored 1 and assisted 1 in 3 games. If that is not enough, then maybe we should get messi or ronaldo. Name me 1 other player in the premier league who plays as a midfielder and scores that many goals and makes assists like chadli. You wont find many, if there are indeed any.

I will name you 3. Hazard, Silva, Sanchez. All play in the same position as Chadli.

In my opinion, we can do better. Those 3 mentioned players turn up every time.

 

[yusrisafri]

I will name you 3. Hazard, Silva, Sanchez. All play in the same position as Chadli.

In my opinion, we can do better. Those 3 mentioned players turn up every time.

And how much are their salaries? How much did the club pay for them? We cant compete. So chadli is the best we can get. And he isnt bad at all with those returns

 

[Flashspur]

Gave it to Mason with Dembele close behind. We dominated at times but there is no cut through and we don't look dangerous as we move too slowly and allow the opposition to close us down or close down the channels. I find some of the comments here about Walker, Lamela and Chadli are pretty bad from so called fans. Utterly vindictive, vicious and unnecessary. Seriously, while they didn't set the world on fire, they were not that awful either as you lot make out.

OK, from a general perspective, not a bad result as Leicester had momentum and have looked more than half decent over their last two games. Another time, another place you would fancy Spurs to beat this group but there are no easy games in the PL anymore. However, I don't think DL realises this because we have ended up with one of the weakest squads on paper and this 1 point may be gold later on in the season if we hit the wall.

I found this a strange game. Ranieri's side played for large parts of the game as if they were the away team. They positioned 11 behind the ball and I was impressed by their compactness and discipline. They look so much better coached then us, its frightening. We still have an immaturity about the side and a lack of discipline. We spent so much energy celebrating the Dele goal that we allowed ourselves to be royally screwed up the ass 25 seconds later with Mahrez scoring. Hopeless. That's simple training ground discipline - concentrate by getting back into position and focusing. Our defence was poor in reading each others positioning throughout and there was a collective sense of nervousness as soon as they attacked us and that seems to run through the whole side at times. The whole team looks disjointed and play as if they met each other for the first time on the way to the stadium.

Ranieri seemed to pay us too much respect. But he may have been playing the waiting game and he wasn't wrong because you can play against this Poch team all day and you know that if they score, it will either be an accident or a miracle. Plus you would fancy your team to put once past Spurs because the nervous Nellie's go to water as soon as a serious attack takes place. Jan's Bambi on ice performance was disconcerting through passages and you always felt we have a lack of confidence in ourselves that could be broken easily.

I don't think we are a bad side and we have some excellent players but something is just not happening with the formation at the moment. Yes we are competitive at times and harass the opposition but we never look as if we are going to overrun anyone and look less likely to score than the teams we have played so far. Plus the football is boring me shitless.

I started a thread sometime ago about us not getting very far without an established creator and playmaker. You can play a static 4-2-3-1 if you have a player that can open up the opposition. There is a heavy reliance on Eriksen and he is too inconsistent for my liking plus I think he lacks the will for a fight. To be frank, we look just as moribund in that respect without Eriksen as we do with him. Sooo, I fear that the goals are not going to come by for us easily.

We miss Rose's bombing down the flank and Davies is so flat footed and while he did well against Stoke, he lacks pace for the PL and gets turned too easily. Walker looks off the pace since the injury so our main thrust down the flanks through the FB's is non existent. And we have no player who can create through the middle so while we pass the ball around a lot and possession stats look OK, we don't look like we will score much more then we will concede this season.

I don't know, but it was comforting to know that you had seasoned players and internationals on the bench last season. The bench looks awfully scary at the moment. There is a bunch of kids there who could be easily stressed out by a few defeats or a bare knuckle fight lower down in the table. I hope Poch knows what he is doing and isn't just sucking up DL with this mantra of 'get rid of the deadwood and sign no one because the kids will be alright'. Frankly, they don't look alright at all, at the moment.

There is not an impact player who can come on and change the game for us. So many players were available that we could have got for reasonable prices that could have done a job for us in the summer. Instead we have dicked around with a bizarre group of targets. Some of which were just dumb like Evans or completely ungettable like the Krauts. Now there is no one easy or cheap to get who can do a job for us because no Club is going to be stupid enough to sell in the last week of the window when they have to replace players they sell. Its a pathetic amateurish travesty and complete cock up.

Really, for a club that aspires to top 5 let alone CL its deeply worrying and embarrassing at the same time.

 

[mpickard2087]

Watching that 90 minutes and how the team was going about its work and the only way I could sum it up was that we were playing with the handbrake on. Yes it may have been played in hot conditions and in general the game was always going to be played on the slow side, but we never showed enough urgency and barely got above a stroll. Especially first half we were exceedingly competent at retaining possession and playing a session of keep ball, but at no time did we look to inject a bit of tempo into proceedings. That doesn't have to be through pacey players, it can be in other ways such as moving the ball quicker and short, sharp interchanges. I cant recall one instance where we suddenly tried to go through the gears. We were far too conservative in our play, often slowing things down unnecessarily and afraid to take any risks/chances and try to create something.

On a related note. I think we need to be much braver in how we play and look to work the ball up pitch and create openings. I mentioned at half time yesterday how I really have a problem with how deep certain players come and just pick the ball up off another player. This is mainly the two central midfielders coming and picking it up off the centre backs and virtually being along side them, but there were also a few times where even Hugo could have had the ball at his feet instead of the centre backs. To me, this is pointless and ends up with players in 'nothing' or useless positions and leaves a massive space which then leads to everyone else getting dragged backwards and us starting moves with no initiative and going the wrong way.

At some point you have to trust the man on the ball. If they cant pass their way out themselves then you get someone else in who can. I don't mind occasionally the midfield anchor dropping to make an extra man and allowing us a way out, but he doesn't need to every single time. And it definitely doesn't need fucking both of them to do it. I'd really like to see us automatically trying to position ourselves higher up the pitch, and we trust those at the back with the ball. Doing this we may even see passes through the lines and have numbers higher up the pitch to cause more damage.

So lets take the handbrake off, and play braver. Get to work Poch.

 

[idontgetit]

Another that's fallen for the smoke and mirrors performance of Dembele....

a few dribbles or keeping it under duress with a body feint gets everyone purring, when his use of the ball, passing, decisions and time it takes him to do anything with the ball (that isn't another touch for himself) is quite frankly abysmal.

We play a possession game where too many players take too long to decide what to do with it missing countless opportunities to quicken the play or play a through ball because they haven't even looked up until they've beaten two men. Dier, Chadli, Walker, Dembele all chief culprits in slowing our game to snails pace and all of them offer pretty static targets for people looking for someone to pass to as well.

People think pace is the answer but Walker has such a slow brain that it negates any pace he has in his legs. That laughable 30 yard kick and rush he attempted was one of his best passes of the day. Has 2-3 brain farts a game as standard.

Totally agree with that about Dembele. Walker wasn't as bad as usual in that regard yesterday but can't believe how people can't see Trippier offers way more going forward.

 

[Flashspur]

http://streamable.com/571l

the more I watch this the more i think Lloris screwed up

 

[guiltyparty]

I didn't, but listening to the doomsday brigade on here most were anticipating it and were almost lining up Poch out threads.

I think that's a very vocal minority. I would hope so

 

[Good Doctor M]

the more I watch this the more i think Lloris screwed up

You'll have to explain that to me... Verts let him on his strong foot. That's verts fault, all day long.

His positioning could have been more central, but that's clutching at straws. Verts shouldn't have let a shot come in, or at least not have allowed the cut inside of him.

 

[mpickard2087]

To be fair to Vertonghen and not saying he didn't make errors for the goal, that was a classic example of a good two footed player. Mahrez had set the seed of doubt with the right footed shot off the post, he showed he was prepared to go that way. Vertonghen also lacks pace and I think he was shit scared about getting done down the outside and then he was away at goal. So he tried to cover a bit of everything and ended up doing nothing. Also in fairness to Mahrez, he didn't shift it that far at all before his strike. Was pretty clinical.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

I agree completely on Dier, and the reasons you give for how it impacts on us. But with that very much in mind, I fail to understand how you rate that performance so highly?

Fair enough we had more possession and controlled large spells of the game at a tough ground against a side doing well currently, but we're still extremely blunt in attack IMO.

Anybody looking at just the stats would think we absolutely battered Leicester, we really didn't. And herein lies the problem. With far less ball they still looked more threatening than we did. We might of won the possession and long range pot shots but they looked more like hurting us when they came forward than vice versa.

A slow, methodical control of games is good at times - especially away from home if you're leading. The way we're playing reminds me of the way United use to play a goal or two up away from home under Fergie - slowing the game down and controlling it at their own pace.

We seem to be playing this way under all circumstances. But there's certain areas that need addressing, we know that.

This league is now richer, scientifically fitter, players are better prepared, has higher quality players from top to bottom, is tactically smarter than it has ever been. I don't expect us, or anyone, to go away and batter anyone.

In my opinion, Pochettino has constantly struggled with 90 min game management, here and at Southampton. But the truth is a reactive team, that sits deep and looks to break will often create better chances or what appear better chances by the nature of that strategy. The counter attacking team are nearly always catching the opponent short of men and unprepared. And the dominant team will always look more bereft because they are trying to break down organised, prepared banks of defending.

You need very good defenders to play the way Pochettino wants to play and you need to defend tenaciously from CF backwards. ferguson always made sure of those two things - it allowed his teams to pile forward. We aren't god enough in either aspect.

But I thought we were actually pretty good defensively against both ManU (1 shot on target) and Leicester (2). And of course we lack craft, we have for a very long time, but creative genius is hard to come by. We still created far more "situations" than Leicester - and ManU for that matter. We also created some decent stuff against Stoke.

Lets get the things we can effect more right, more often. Lets stop making counter intuitive selections. And for all the doubts I have about Pochettino, and as much as a tactically diverse genius would be marvellous (but lets get real, they are rarer than Ronaldo tackles) I still prefer my managers to have a pro-active strategy, even if that means you run the risk of getting caught on the break at times.

 

[Xeeleeyid]

I think many of us were surprised by Pochs selections yesterday. Most people probably would have swapped both full backs and not played Dier or lamela. Not sure what the reasoning was behind these 4 selections but we looked slow and disjointed throughout

We looked slow. We don't have a lot of pace or directness in the team. It is something that Pochettino obviously sees too, because if you look at who we have and are trying to bring in, they are all players that will remedy this situation.

N'Jie has joined, we're after Berahino, we've been linked to looking at Hernandez, Bolasie, Moses among other names. Regardless of people's thoughts on the relative quality of some of those, what they all have in common is the thing missing from our team at the moment: Pace and directness.

You have to ask yourself why so many of our players slow the play down. I think part of the problem is a lack of an option to play a direct ball over the top or into space for a runner with pace to run onto. So many of our players are accused of slow sideways passing. I seriously doubt all of our players are players that do this out of habit or natural inclination, or even training.

Poch's Southampton and Espanyol teams were hardly slow sideways passing, boring teams were they? They were very direct. But to be direct you need players with pace who will play on the shoulders.

What I don't agree on, however, is that we looked disjointed at any point yesterday. We looked solid and 2bh apart from a couple of lapses of concentration, Lloris was very rarely troubled and we did have Leicester at arms length for the vast majority of that game, comfortably. What we lacked was the directness and pace threat to really get in behind to turn our considerable possession into more chances and goals.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

To be fair to Vertonghen and not saying he didn't make errors for the goal, that was a classic example of a good two footed player. Mahrez had set the seed of doubt with the right footed shot off the post, he showed he was prepared to go that way. Vertonghen also lacks pace and I think he was shit scared about getting done down the outside and then he was away at goal. So he tried to cover a bit of everything and ended up doing nothing. Also in fairness to Mahrez, he didn't shift it that far at all before his strike. Was pretty clinical.

I agree with all of that, and I like Vertonghen, I think despite not being perfect, he's a damn good footballing CB for a club like us to have, but I still think he should show him outside onto his right for all the reasons I stated earlier, plus it's showing him onto Verts stronger side.

 

[Xeeleeyid]

I terms of my ratings:

Lloris - 6 - very little to do, but when he was called on he delivered.
Walker - 5 - bit of a mixed bag going forward, but I thought overall he did ok against some tricky players in that leicester side.
Alderweireld - 7 - looked composed and solid
Vertonghen - 5 - could have easily given away a penalty and had quite a few sloppy moments throughout the game that put us under unnecessary pressure, but was part of a mostly effective defensive unit.
Davies - 5 - I actually thought he did ok like Walker, he was up against some tricky opponents at times and handled them ok.
Dier - 5 - Did his job really, not sure what some are expecting, Leicester didn't get at our defence often and that's partly due to Dier's positioning and tactical awareness. Kept it simple in possession.
Mason - 7 - I like Mason, he's always looking for the ball and not afraid to receive it in tough areas and keep the play ticking over, works really hard, won lots of tackles and he was always looking to make something happen.
Dembele - 7 - Just shaded MOTM for me, he was our biggest threat and always looked like he could make something happen. Great at carrying the ball, he needs to have a game like this more often.
Lamela - 5 - He's not as bad as everyone makes out, he's a hard worker and decent on the ball. The problem is he was never a £30m player, he was a £10m kid with potential. If you forget we paid £30m for him, then he had and often has decent games. Nothing mind-blowing, but he was part of an effective tactical performance pressing Leicester all over the pitch.
Chadli - 5 - Been our most productive player so far this season and got an assist. Needs to involve himself more for 90 minutes though, if he's not to lose his place once our transfer dealings are done.
Kane - 5 - Struggled, Leicester had him surrounded and it was very hard for us to get the ball to him in any kind of threatening area.