Match Ratings Ratings vs Chelsea

[danielneeds]

This. We totally lacked any kind of independent thought out there or creativity. We were doing the same things repeatedly, watching them fail every time. I lost count of how many times Son and Kulu couldn't accept the ball and were easily bullied into the turnover. They were playing a high line; it would have made sense for Son and Kulu to play on the last shoulder and make runs to stretch them. Or have our WBs be braver, but unfortunately, the gulf in class between the two team's WBs was evident. Instead we made it incredibly easy for them to squeeze us and press our front three and midfield.

It’s kinda a consequence of Conte’s methods though. He’s drilled into the players that the automatisms have to be followed all summer. Maybe if this team grows with him they will be trusted to read games more themselves. I’m sure he trusted the like of Pirlo and Chiellini to change the plan after a few years at Juve.

 

[whitesocks]

... Those missed fouls are no different than all the other missed fouls that happen throughout a game, the impact on the game is exactly the same as, say, when Kane gets dragged down and nothing is given, it's just in one case a team happens to score at some point shortly afterwards, so suddenly now they are such outrageous decisions.
...

I agree and to be fair to Cucurella , he wasn't particularly complaining that he'd been unfairly assaulted - well no more than any of the players do about all the pulls and shoves at corners. He wears his hair like that and I dare say every manager he's had has told him to at least tie it up as it is giving the opponents an extra handle to control him. If he had made a fuss, the unhinged tuchel would have had him shorn the next day.

But he had a great game and was quite physical himself, deliberately standing on romero's knee in an early exchange - that should have been a yellow.

It's a london derby and it will go down as one of the games of the season. The ref let the game flow and had a good game.

 

[npearl4spurs]

Thought Sess looked out of his depth today.

and here I was slated for thinking Perisic should start because he has been in these matches over and over again and has proven his quality. But the thought was Sess should start on merit from last week.

But still, there is the thought as to how Perisic's fitness would have coped with James. So who knows? Perisic made the difference at the end though.

 

[spids]

I was expecting Conte to play 3 CMs away at top 4 rivals. For example, starting Bissouma instead of one of Son or Kulusevski.

 

[gavspur]

I think the game showed that we need someone in the middle who can pass and creat from there, get their foot on it and turn us to attack, like Eriksen used to for us. That’s why I’m surprised we dont seem to be targeting that kind of player.

 

[double0]

I think the game showed that we need someone in the middle who can pass and creat from there, get their foot on it and turn us to attack, like Eriksen used to for us. That’s why I’m surprised we dont seem to be targeting that kind of player.

Or better us of our wing backs to open up space . Imagine we had Adama Traore playing wingback or Maddison playing No.10 against Chelsea who do you believe would effect the game more.

 

[SpursSince1980]

We were awful. There is simply no getting away from it. Even the promoted teams will go there and compete physically but we just melted. It was clear from very early on that tuchel had set them up to nullify our out balls and conte should have acted much sooner before the rot set in. If you can't pass out then work the channels and bring the team up the pitch. We then turn their wingbacks around and can start to press when they try to come forward. Essentially do to them what they did to us. But conte refused for an hour. Kulu, bentancur and sess should all have gone at half time as they were clearly struggling.

Yes we got a point but it doesn't take away from the fact that we were embarrassingly bad for the vast majority of that game. The players know it, conte knows it and the rest of the league know it. We can be got at if we are pressed in the right areas, Brighton did it to us last season.

It also highlights our need for a press-resistant player in the middle and better wingbacks. Loftus cheek, reece james and cucurella looked levels above what we have and it made a huge difference.

It was a very chastening match for us and I hope that lessons will be learned!

Agree with a lot of that. Sadly, we don’t have the wing backs or another CM with the ability to breakthrough that type of pressing. Perisic will help. But unless Kane, Sonny and Deki are playing out of their skin, we will struggle.

 

[SpursSince1980]

I think the game showed that we need someone in the middle who can pass and creat from there, get their foot on it and turn us to attack, like Eriksen used to for us. That’s why I’m surprised we dont seem to be targeting that kind of player.

System. System. System. It’s all about component pieces that fit Conte’s system. Sadly, his tactics rely on wing backs who are highly skilled, very strong, and quick. Plus, at least one midfielder (like Brozovic) needs to have a high degree of footballing intelligence and skill to collect the ball in tight areas and find a way out. Bentancur is okay at that. But PEH is woeful in those situations. So. We have to rely on the front three to be super aggressive and play flawlessly. And as we know, Sonny and Kane can have games where they simply get bullied and stifled too easily.

 

[Serpico]

For your assessment. We were lucky to get a draw. My vote is nobody gets MOTM

The game was far from balanced. We got away with a draw

The team should get the vote although it didn't look good.

We deserved a draw although they outplayed us in fancy football terms. Its not down to us to make it easy for them and turn over. We found a away to hang in there and got a deserved point with belief in our game. They missed a couple of chances, thats not because we played badly, they couldn't finish (we took our chances). That was a brave performance form us and when watching, I felt we would pull it back both times. How many occasions did we score late last season, scoring late on is what we do. They tired a little and we got stronger as the game went on-thats credit to us. Our game plan was wrong overall but we deserved a point all day because we matched them for goals.

​

 

[Serpico]

The match was a big occasion and we held our nerve. We didnt perform but found a way through the pressure of it all.

 

[Push & Run]

I am going to give my views which many may not agree with but hey ho. Sunday Chelsea targetted a left sided triangle of Ben, Sess and Sonny knowing that Ben can be pressurised into mistakes, Sess is not a competent defender and Sonny a crap defender. I know you will howl how much work Son does getting back behind the ball BUT when he does so he is ineffectual. He cannot tackle, he loses his man and then marks space and he is weak in physical challenges for the ball. So what should we do. Firstly Sonny is a quality striker, quick and two footed, so he should be given instructions to stay on the shoulder of their last defender. This would of meant James (their best player) would have to track back and taken him away from the danger area. Sess and Ben should not have started, Bousy should have joined the midfield at the expense of Kolu. Sorry as much as I respect Ant and bow to his greater knowledge, and expect many to disagree with my tactics, these are my thoughts which are not just based on one match.
Have a good day COY

 

[Serpico]

Agree with a lot of that. Sadly, we don’t have the wing backs or another CM with the ability to breakthrough that type of pressing. Perisic will help. But unless Kane, Sonny and Deki are playing out of their skin, we will struggle.

We had an influence on the game although we seem to play badly.

I thought we kept it too calm-we wanted to control/stifle the rhythm rather than play. Critics wanted us to match their frantic energy and battle hard (as derby's go ) to give s better visual impression of ourselves. The way Chelsea came at us, was a sign of respect towards our game. They didn’t want us to settle. They were so concerned on stopping us, they didn’t play their normal game. They tired - we equalised- it’s credit to Conti and the team.,

 

[JUSTINSIGNAL]

In terms of being able to tell how good a chance is, your eyes are absolutely not more reliable. Eyes are much better at understanding the flow of a game mind, as well as context.

Chelsea were clearly better. But there failure to win wasn't down to luck. It was down to their failure to convert pressure into actual clear chances. The xG is even more skewered when you consider their better chances came later in the game.

This is why presenting this as an absolute shit performance is wrong. It absolutely wasn't that. I mean I hope we can perform better, but I suspect people's take on the performance is in part down to overconfidence at the start of the match and disappointment that Chelsea, yes where better than us.

Another statistical tool, an unreliable one is who scored, who gives a rating by just breaking down numbers and assigning it a value (which is quite arbitrary) they're system actually has Tottenham as very fractionally the better team in the game (by 0.01 a point).

Now clearly that tool is not giving an accurate description of the performance. But, it does further corroborate on the xG that shows that the game maybe wasn't as uneven as people here might think.

When you watch a game there is actually a lot of inherent bias. There's confirmation bias, so if you think a player is shit you are more likely to see things that indicate that they are shit (Say Royals final third contribution) rather than what they did well (Royals wonderful last ditch tackle after really poor defensive work from Persic) for example.

But you also have a lot of emotion pumped into it that of course informs how you interpret what you see. It's inevitable, everyone does it. So our eyes are not that reliable either. Not are statistics good at telling how a match really went.

What I think is a good thing to do is to rewatch matches. When you take away the emotional element you can better see what is happening, and I reckon if you were to rewatch this match maybe you will have a slightly different perspective.

Don't get me wrong. Chelsea were better and should have won. But it's not like we were completely overwhelmed and somehow managed to get away with it. We were always in the game, while never in control of it. And actually we did defend well over large parts of it. We did create chances throughout the game (in fact we even had more shots on target) and there was always the possibility for us to get something out of it.

Excellent post. I actually rewatched the second half last night and concluded we definitely improved massively in comparison to the first. Also Perisic was all at sea defensively when he came on, Royal was very solid defensively, and Romero had probably his worst match for us.

 

[Japhet]

He needed a 3 man midfield.... it cried out for that.... Deki wasn't his usual best and I'd have brought on Bissouma and gone 5-3-2 in the 2nd half.... playing 4 at the back only helps if you offer them proper protection via DM.

Conte ceded midfield to them by picking a pivot. Probably looking to hit on the break but their passing was too crisp and accurate. We couldn't get into the game at all in the first half and resorted to inaccurate long balls over the top. With no effective press up front it just kept coming straight back at us. Don't know why Conte didn't drop Deki in deeper to make us a bit more competitive in the middle tbh.