- Jun 13, 2008
- 21,889
- 32,561
I often get accused of being overly negative in my assessment of our matches. Maybe so. This one though definitely isn't going to be pretty...
Firstly. Anyone still remember the Everton game just one month ago? I vaguely recall proclamations such as it being a watershed, the players had finally got it, we had the winning formula now blah blah blah. Whats happened since, guys...? Results are somehow going our way, but keep performing like this and it cannot continue.
I actually don't really class that as a win today, and if it was up to me then the club would hand back the points out of shame. We've had some lucky ones recently, but that we won that match was scandalous.
Lets be clear on one thing, this was not a good Leicester side nor was it a particularly battling one. This is a team that hasn't won a game for about 4000 days now and really, you could see why. They had a big lump up top and a couple of decent wingers, but the rest of the team was an absolute shower of Championship players. With the ball their game was littered with mistakes and defensively it looked like every time we got the ball we could score, in the first half. That we somehow ended up plummeting down way beneath their level was painful and embarrassing to watch.
After a lively first 20 mins or so, where we looked comfortable and really threatening on the break against their shambolic defence things after that were very, very bad. There were early signs of it coming though... If you go back and watch us in the middle of the half, you will get what I mean by 'sterile possession-ball' which has infected our game for three seasons now. The ball gets shuffled around across the backline, players are unable to turn and open up the game and instead have to play the way they are facing, its very slow, and its often inefficient and pointless passing for the sake of passing at times (for instance, one centre back can spread it to the other, instead the central midfielder comes and gets the ball off centre back 1, only to then make the pass to centre back 2, wasting 5 seconds. We have countless numbers of these 'pointless' passes that could be eradicated and instead go from A to B, instead of adding sub-routes C, D, E... etc. ).
When teams just sit off and let us do this, yes it isn't a great spectacle but at least we are untroubled. However Leicester eventually woke up and decided, like other teams previously, to give it a go at closing us down a bit. Unfortunately as we have also seen before, when the Tottenham team is unable to play pedestrian keep ball amongst themselves, and get the slightest bit of a hurry up, things fall apart completely. For a good hour of the game I don't think we managed to get the ball down and string together a composed period of possession. Against bottom of the league. Woeful.
What else...? Oh yes, tactics. I thought it was several shades of wrong today. On a good day, we just about manage to get away with the 4-2-3-1. But we don't really have the central midfielders for all the responsibilities in this cm2 and when they are having an off day its incredibly difficult for the team both attack-wise and in defence, and today was one of those days. I don't think Bentaleb/Mason is a good pairing on their own, Stambouli and Bentaleb in a cm2 seems even worse and if we do persist with 4-2-3-1 then we simply cannot afford to keep selecting three individuals who are all 'much of a muchness' in that they have similar tendencies - all three are a bit flimsy at times and are prone to having long spells out of the game and not really contributing a great deal. You can maybe put up with this from one individual, such as Eriksen, if he is chipping in with goals/assists, but not three of them...
Defensively we had a bit of a nightmare. Tactics and a struggling central midfield left us far too open. I presume Rose was picked in order to provide width and get forward down the left and this just left us even more open. The 4-2-3-1 needs looking at. Today was also one of those days where you saw no real gameplan in action and left feeling a bit disappointed with the efforts. We started off reasonably well nicking the ball back at times but there was no real pressing game, yet players were also not back in behind the ball and proving difficult to break down. You either do one or the other, do neither and you get the shit that we saw today. I was also incredibly perplexed with how narrow we defended at times. I'm not going to blame the fullbacks for this because its been a feature of our play in other games so I presume it is a tactical instruction, but by the time they get out to meet their man there is very little they can do often to stop a cross etc. and for me it was playing into Leicester's hands and allowing them to make use of the only really semi-dangerous players they had in the two wingers and targetman up top. If we did want to defend narrow, then it was imperative for the wide midfielders to be back in behind the ball and to defend the flanks but they were often nowhere to be seen. There was a lack of organisation, discipline and really it was all an incoherent shambles.
To top it all off I thought Poch's subs were pretty poor. Mason for Stambouli was an obvious one I'll concede, but he could maybe have gone to a cm3, and when you are under the cosh then i cannot think of many worse subs than Paulinho and Soldado and no changes to the shape. Really were a pretty dull set of decisions.
Very lucky win, must get better. Two big games coming up now, will the players wake up and rediscover the fight?
Lloris - <Insert standard 'Saved us on countless occasions. Motm' comment here>
Walker - Really poor display. To me he looks nowhere near fit and as if he has been rushed back, and this is just showing up the weaker parts of his game. Looks reluctant to get forward a lot of the time in my opinion, with the ball he's even more ponderous and erratic than his usual self and defensively some of the positions he is taking up are baffling. Chiriches, Yedlin, Fredericks... Your chance may be coming if this continues.
Fazio - A couple of errors but a decent enough game. Needs to pick and choose when he steps out of the defensive line better at times. At least stood up well to Ulloa compared to...
Vertonghen - I thought he was fucking woeful. Got done prison-style by Ulloa for 90 mins. There were a couple of occasions where he just backed off and left it to Rose/Fazio to get sucked in and try and close him down as he stood back and watched. The times he did get close he got rag-dolled around the pitch. I've also noticed that positionally he gets caught in no-mans land a lot in regards to balls in behind him that Fazio has to sweep round and deal with. Finally, I still dont think he is a great ballplayer, he's far too ponderous on it and his dithering, then eventually deciding to play some tippy-tappy pass gets us in trouble. On the plus side, things can only get better...
Rose - First half I thought he did ok, bar a couple of errors where he tried to nick in and win the ball. Contributed a couple of decent moments in attack. Second half was very shaky and he seemed in no-mans land tucked way infield and not close enough to stop the winger (though as i mentioned, I think for both fullbacks a lot of this is tactical instruction). If we are going to play him to bomb forward then we need to play a 4-3-3 and have cover for when he inevitably gets caught up the pitch.
Stambouli - An awful display and can have no complaints about being hooked at HT. Looked totally lost, the game passed him by and the times he did get his first touch seemed to hand it back to the opposition. Not a great audition if he has eyes on a more substantial role.
Bentaleb - I thought he started quite brightly but then as the team struggled so did he. Isn't ready to anchor the midfield and provide the defensive resistance. Barbequed a great chance in the first half to put us 2-0 up and for the goal that we conceded he was really poor. At times he has to show more urgency and show better defensive qualities than he does.
Lamela - Couple of good moments. Worked pretty hard - though committed a lot of fouls it seemed. Some infuriating moments though and he flitted in and out of the game and we cannot have three players doing this.
Eriksen - Another curious case from him. I thought he contributed fairly little with and without the ball, but yet again the stats show he scored the winning goal. As I said, you can accept this and accommodate him at No.10, but maybe not the two others.
Chadli - His involvement in the opening minute/goal aside, I cant recall him doing a huge amount.
Kane - Pretty quiet game as we were struggling to get the ball down and play. However he was guilty of some poor decisions and biting off more than he could chew at times. Took his early chance well but should have scored with the header.
All 3 subs contributed very little.
Firstly. Anyone still remember the Everton game just one month ago? I vaguely recall proclamations such as it being a watershed, the players had finally got it, we had the winning formula now blah blah blah. Whats happened since, guys...? Results are somehow going our way, but keep performing like this and it cannot continue.
I actually don't really class that as a win today, and if it was up to me then the club would hand back the points out of shame. We've had some lucky ones recently, but that we won that match was scandalous.
Lets be clear on one thing, this was not a good Leicester side nor was it a particularly battling one. This is a team that hasn't won a game for about 4000 days now and really, you could see why. They had a big lump up top and a couple of decent wingers, but the rest of the team was an absolute shower of Championship players. With the ball their game was littered with mistakes and defensively it looked like every time we got the ball we could score, in the first half. That we somehow ended up plummeting down way beneath their level was painful and embarrassing to watch.
After a lively first 20 mins or so, where we looked comfortable and really threatening on the break against their shambolic defence things after that were very, very bad. There were early signs of it coming though... If you go back and watch us in the middle of the half, you will get what I mean by 'sterile possession-ball' which has infected our game for three seasons now. The ball gets shuffled around across the backline, players are unable to turn and open up the game and instead have to play the way they are facing, its very slow, and its often inefficient and pointless passing for the sake of passing at times (for instance, one centre back can spread it to the other, instead the central midfielder comes and gets the ball off centre back 1, only to then make the pass to centre back 2, wasting 5 seconds. We have countless numbers of these 'pointless' passes that could be eradicated and instead go from A to B, instead of adding sub-routes C, D, E... etc. ).
When teams just sit off and let us do this, yes it isn't a great spectacle but at least we are untroubled. However Leicester eventually woke up and decided, like other teams previously, to give it a go at closing us down a bit. Unfortunately as we have also seen before, when the Tottenham team is unable to play pedestrian keep ball amongst themselves, and get the slightest bit of a hurry up, things fall apart completely. For a good hour of the game I don't think we managed to get the ball down and string together a composed period of possession. Against bottom of the league. Woeful.
What else...? Oh yes, tactics. I thought it was several shades of wrong today. On a good day, we just about manage to get away with the 4-2-3-1. But we don't really have the central midfielders for all the responsibilities in this cm2 and when they are having an off day its incredibly difficult for the team both attack-wise and in defence, and today was one of those days. I don't think Bentaleb/Mason is a good pairing on their own, Stambouli and Bentaleb in a cm2 seems even worse and if we do persist with 4-2-3-1 then we simply cannot afford to keep selecting three individuals who are all 'much of a muchness' in that they have similar tendencies - all three are a bit flimsy at times and are prone to having long spells out of the game and not really contributing a great deal. You can maybe put up with this from one individual, such as Eriksen, if he is chipping in with goals/assists, but not three of them...
Defensively we had a bit of a nightmare. Tactics and a struggling central midfield left us far too open. I presume Rose was picked in order to provide width and get forward down the left and this just left us even more open. The 4-2-3-1 needs looking at. Today was also one of those days where you saw no real gameplan in action and left feeling a bit disappointed with the efforts. We started off reasonably well nicking the ball back at times but there was no real pressing game, yet players were also not back in behind the ball and proving difficult to break down. You either do one or the other, do neither and you get the shit that we saw today. I was also incredibly perplexed with how narrow we defended at times. I'm not going to blame the fullbacks for this because its been a feature of our play in other games so I presume it is a tactical instruction, but by the time they get out to meet their man there is very little they can do often to stop a cross etc. and for me it was playing into Leicester's hands and allowing them to make use of the only really semi-dangerous players they had in the two wingers and targetman up top. If we did want to defend narrow, then it was imperative for the wide midfielders to be back in behind the ball and to defend the flanks but they were often nowhere to be seen. There was a lack of organisation, discipline and really it was all an incoherent shambles.
To top it all off I thought Poch's subs were pretty poor. Mason for Stambouli was an obvious one I'll concede, but he could maybe have gone to a cm3, and when you are under the cosh then i cannot think of many worse subs than Paulinho and Soldado and no changes to the shape. Really were a pretty dull set of decisions.
Very lucky win, must get better. Two big games coming up now, will the players wake up and rediscover the fight?
Lloris - <Insert standard 'Saved us on countless occasions. Motm' comment here>
Walker - Really poor display. To me he looks nowhere near fit and as if he has been rushed back, and this is just showing up the weaker parts of his game. Looks reluctant to get forward a lot of the time in my opinion, with the ball he's even more ponderous and erratic than his usual self and defensively some of the positions he is taking up are baffling. Chiriches, Yedlin, Fredericks... Your chance may be coming if this continues.
Fazio - A couple of errors but a decent enough game. Needs to pick and choose when he steps out of the defensive line better at times. At least stood up well to Ulloa compared to...
Vertonghen - I thought he was fucking woeful. Got done prison-style by Ulloa for 90 mins. There were a couple of occasions where he just backed off and left it to Rose/Fazio to get sucked in and try and close him down as he stood back and watched. The times he did get close he got rag-dolled around the pitch. I've also noticed that positionally he gets caught in no-mans land a lot in regards to balls in behind him that Fazio has to sweep round and deal with. Finally, I still dont think he is a great ballplayer, he's far too ponderous on it and his dithering, then eventually deciding to play some tippy-tappy pass gets us in trouble. On the plus side, things can only get better...
Rose - First half I thought he did ok, bar a couple of errors where he tried to nick in and win the ball. Contributed a couple of decent moments in attack. Second half was very shaky and he seemed in no-mans land tucked way infield and not close enough to stop the winger (though as i mentioned, I think for both fullbacks a lot of this is tactical instruction). If we are going to play him to bomb forward then we need to play a 4-3-3 and have cover for when he inevitably gets caught up the pitch.
Stambouli - An awful display and can have no complaints about being hooked at HT. Looked totally lost, the game passed him by and the times he did get his first touch seemed to hand it back to the opposition. Not a great audition if he has eyes on a more substantial role.
Bentaleb - I thought he started quite brightly but then as the team struggled so did he. Isn't ready to anchor the midfield and provide the defensive resistance. Barbequed a great chance in the first half to put us 2-0 up and for the goal that we conceded he was really poor. At times he has to show more urgency and show better defensive qualities than he does.
Lamela - Couple of good moments. Worked pretty hard - though committed a lot of fouls it seemed. Some infuriating moments though and he flitted in and out of the game and we cannot have three players doing this.
Eriksen - Another curious case from him. I thought he contributed fairly little with and without the ball, but yet again the stats show he scored the winning goal. As I said, you can accept this and accommodate him at No.10, but maybe not the two others.
Chadli - His involvement in the opening minute/goal aside, I cant recall him doing a huge amount.
Kane - Pretty quiet game as we were struggling to get the ball down and play. However he was guilty of some poor decisions and biting off more than he could chew at times. Took his early chance well but should have scored with the header.
All 3 subs contributed very little.