Ratings vs Everton

[Gilzeanking]

Can you remind me of the Vertonghen pass GK, I was at the game but don't remember it.

Fantastic thing BC . 2nd half he threaded a defence destroying 35 yarder from the left side of our midfield along the ground into the stride of a left winger , probably Chadli , ball put him right through in to the area .It went through numerous defenders with amazing precision. The player (Chadli ?) crossed from inside the area but muffed it .

Verts went on his run around this time too , just after I believe . Be good to have this beauty confirmed if you can check it .

 

[littlemandefoe]

Fantastic thing BC . 2nd half he threaded a defence destroying 35 harder from the left side of our midfield along the ground into the stride of a left winger , probably Chadl , ball to put him right through in to the area .It went through numerous defenders with amazing precision. The player (Chadli) crossed from inside the area but muffed it .

Verts went on his run around this time too , just after I believe . Be good to have this beauty confirmed if you check it .

Whats new?! Chadli is a squad player at best, Son should replace him from here forth, at least this is what I think.

 

[DeadleyLedley]

Dier was the standout player and has played well at DM in each of our four games but Rose and Mason also impressed. Vertonghen was also very good, probably the best I've seen him play in quite some time. We didn't win but I'm hard pressed to pick out anyone who didn't perform. Kane arguably. He didn't get a lot of service but should have done better when put through on goal by Mason.

 

[riversmonkey]

It's a shame Pritchard didn't get on the pitch earlier, but I was cautiously optimistic about this performance. We arguably should have won the last three games, but the fact that the performances are slowly improving plus the new recruits means that we should hopefully go on a winning run post the International break. I picked Mason as MOTM as he was trying to make things happen.

 

[double0]

I agree. I like Bentaleb, and he was good yesterday. But if were looking for a cm who can defend and pass the ball positively, well then Dier is putting in a stronger case frankly. His game for me yesterday was summed up somewhere around the 75th minute, where we won the ball back, and rather than look forward (and he had loads of space). He turned around and passed back 10 yards to Vertonghen. Now I'm all for a tidy midfielder, but at the moment for me his game is just to limited to go alongside another DM.

What is your agenda when you say on 75 mins ' Dier wins the ball' key word wins being a DM then ' plays it back in loads of space 10 yards to Vertonghen '

Seriously! were you not seeing the forward and cross field passes Dier was making in that game.

Know,
I was of the impression Dier was just a CB swore by it and couldn't understand all the Stone hype (may still end up there) until he was played RB and at a point I thought he was actually better than Walker putting in good deliveries.
He is know playing DM I was adamant Bentaleb Mason were the way forward and in a way still do, but this kid has surprised the hell out of me....I'm totally confused because I can see him being a superior DM so I'm taking off any pre conceptions like I did with Bale and Rose and just like the fact tell me the truth.

Basically I think we need to see more of Dier in this position at the moment Dier has been our best player this season imo.

 

[Graysonti]

Diet for me - still need a DM

Critical position

 

[BringBack_leGin]

The Hobson conundrum.

As football fans we chase the eternal nirvana. The wonderful performance yielding result. Unless you support ManC on alternate years you rarely get that, the further down the EPL food chain you go the less frequent that Nirvana materialises. It arrived once last season for us, maybe twice or three times we got close if we are feeling benevolent.

So failing that, what would we rather have, some of the disorganised and disjointed shit with wins we saw last year, or decent performances that yield much less ? This is a philosophical question that we all struggle with. Before we even get to what constitutes "decent performances" which is as likely to cause more offence than calling into question the honour someone's mother on a football forum.

But let's say for argument's sake, I'm not talking about bus parking or deliberate tactical pragmatism that involves relinquishing control of the ball for control of the grass underneath it. Or any deliberate tactical plan. I'm talking about just winging it, lottery bullshit that ends up winning or showing some evidence of coaching, some ingenuity, some cohesion, some desire to win, and yet, not winning.

My feet, both of them, are pretty much in the latter camp. I like to believe that performances are much harder to achieve and are indicative of something more long lasting. But not everyone on the train out of Northumberland park was coming at it from my philosophical direction I guess:

Bloke 1: Three years ago we ad Modric, Bale and VanderVaart, nah we got a bunch of fuckin shit nobodies.

Bloke 2: That's what we are nah, just fuckin shit

Bloke 1: Who the fuck as ever heard of Ming Sun anyway

Bloke 2: Or fuckin Clinton Energy


Personally, I enjoyed that game for the most part. As is often the case with Che Poch, the best football invariably arrives in the first 45 minutes, and as with the Stoke game I thought we played some cracking stuff. But unlike stoke we also managed to do so for some of the second half too. There was organisation without the ball, but for the omnipresent Walker mind fuck Everton were utterly sniffless, and going forward there was verve, movement and tempo and we created - I repeat - we created clear quality chances, against a team trying ever so hard to pretend to be pragmatic.

Mason's ball for Kane was beautiful. And when Chadli wasn't doing his daft shit he was creating two great chances for Mason and Kane. Dembele was working hard but unfortunately fucked himself getting himself into the most dangerous position he's been in for months. Bentalab looked back to something like his usual self and even Dier had a pretty decent game. And it was good to have the chippy Rose back, with his puffy chest and desire to bomb forward. Vertonghen and Toby marshalled the lively Lukaku and Kone better than anyone I've seen so far this season, eventually seeing both sent packing.

The only real negative yesterday was Pochettino's continual inability to make tactical substitutions. His inability to introduce the right player at the right time. That game was crying out for Pritchard much earlier than the stupid 7 minutes he got. And as much as Alli's enthusiasm was good, and I don't mind him getting on, for me Pritchard would have been the perfect solution when Dembele was forced off. Instead he put Alli ACM, completely killed Mason's influence by pushing him right and it was a change that I felt lost us some momentum, made us look disjointed for the first time in the game and eventually led to Everton actually clawing themselves back into a game they had previously had very little control over.

Pritchard's craft and guile and ability to pick passes and put in great crosses in forward areas was exactly what that game needed. By all means bring Alli on at some point as well but he could have come on for one of the CM's to give us an even more attacking bias as the game wore on or for an AM is we'd got a goal up to help shore things up. What we then see is Pritchard being brought on to play ACM and Alli then shunted out to ARM, a position as unnatural for him as it was for Mason who was subbed instead of the by now, frustrating Chadli. And this kind of knock-on tactical clusterfuck which saw our momentum squandered some what - at least until we picked it up again towards the last 5-10 minutes - was all down to the first poor tactical choice. Which marred an otherwise good performance.

I have no issue with the chances the keeper saved really, when put through the least you can do is work the keeper. My bigger grumble would be the dire crosses that people made in good wide positions. Walker, Mason, Chadli and Rose I think spring to mind.

There has often been stuff to criticise with Pochettino and god knows I have, but so far this season we've been playing pretty well, and just haven't got what we deserved from 3 of the 4 games. Stoke being the exception where we were so insipid second half we deserved to get punished. But other than that if we'd got what we deserved we'd be 5 points better. Performances have been better IMO than this time last year. Tactically Pochettino's no genius, but at least we are seeing some coached ethos, some cohesion. We are not allowing teams the continual quality chances on our goal we were throughout last season.

My biggest worry is that train bloke 1 and train bloke 2 are the kind of fuckwits whose voices get louder and louder when you go through phases when the ball just doesn't roll your way and before you know it you're in the Ramos or AVB zone. I have always had reservations about Pochettino, but I hope we - the fans - don't start getting all fucking spursy and demanding our tottenham back if results continue to mock performances.

Individual stuff

Lloris - one bad mistake when passing out, apart from that he had absolutely nothing to do.

Walker - The obligatory brain fart first half and again, didn't contribute anything of quality when in decent forward positions. Unless Trippier is looking like Paulo Tramazani in training I fear the end is creeping ever closer to nigh for he of the vacant brain region.

Alderweireld - Good game

Vertonghen - Good game

Rose - He isn't perfect but a least you notice him, unlike his understudy. And his competitiveness is infectious.

Dier - Easily his most competent performance in CM but against the plodding Barry, vastly overrated McCarthy and Martinez's inability to ever do tactical pragmatism, and our improved cohesiveness he had it easier today than our CM's had it for most of last season. I really don't understand what Pochettino thinks he can do that he can't get the more dynamic and progressive Mason (or Bentaleb or Veljkovic) to do with good coaching.

Bentaleb - Back to something more like his old self.

Dembele - Was having a decent game and was great to see him do his twisty turn "thang" inside the box instead of the centre circle.

Mason - Was having a very good game until shifted right. Got himself into a couple of great positions.

The conundrum that is Chadli - Why does the god of football play such cruel tricks. He has talent and is capable of doing some really good things, and he gets himself involved, but he's also capable of the utterly infuriating vacuous.

Kane - Kane worked hard but it was another frustrating day for him. The coaching staff have got to pull him to one side and have a serious word about the stupid choices he makes to shoot instead of getting his head up or trying to dribble instead of laying it off. It's not the end of the world if he goes through a lean spell, it's more important that he keeps doing everything else right, making better decisions, more of the time.

Alli - Showed enthusiasm and got involved and tried to make things happen, but I'm still not sure exactly what he's going to be for us. I can't quite see him playing in a CM2 and he's not crafty enough to play as an ACM or dribbly/crafty enough to play as a wide AM. At the moment he seems to kind of be our Fallani. Clearly the boy has some ability and drive, what he will become in the future I'm not sure ?

Good post and very much agreed. As far as I'm concerned, if this becomes our standard performance then we will win the majority of our games. A lack of shooting boots was the difference between 0-0 and 3-0.

 

[tottenmal]

What is your agenda when you say on 75 mins ' Dier wins the ball' key word wins being a DM then ' plays it back in loads of space 10 yards to Vertonghen '

Seriously! were you not seeing the forward and cross field passes Dier was making in that game.

Know,
I was of the impression Dier was just a CB swore by it and couldn't understand all the Stone hype (may still end up there) until he was played RB and at a point I thought he was actually better than Walker putting in good deliveries.
He is know playing DM I was adamant Bentaleb Mason were the way forward and in a way still do, but this kid has surprised the hell out of me....I'm totally confused because I can see him being a superior DM so I'm taking off any pre conceptions like I did with Bale and Rose and just like the fact tell me the truth.

Basically I think we need to see more of Dier in this position at the moment Dier has been our best player this season imo.

Haha, sorry I was still talking about Bentaleb in that poorly structured example.
Dier's passing range was great, relative to were he was being asked to play. I think seeing the improvement over his first few games was great to see. Hence all the excitement I guess.

 

[glospur]

Yeah, that's what it is. Not the idiotic idea of declaring Dier as a great CM because he has finally managed a competent performance, at home to a poorly organised Everton, and Bentaleb, the 20yo player who played a massive part in us finishing fifth over the course of a whole season, including some outstanding performances against proper teams, either side of playing in the ACN, as inadequate.

I stand by what I said in your quote of me. I don't think I flattered Bentaleb (it was hardly a glowing eulogy) or damned Dier, I'm just not prepared to call Dier the next Marcel Desially because he's managed one game where he wasn't laborious, careless and immobile as a CM.

Except that he was none of those things in the first 3 games and was absolutely outstanding against Everton. He ranged from fair to good across those games, but never poor. On this season alone, he's been far better than Bentaleb who has struggled to start the season well and was terrible against United. You're also overrating Bentaleb's last season; he was great in some games, reasonable in others and absolutely horrific in a few. In fact, in Dier's first 4 games in CM he's not produced anything as bad as Bentaleb's worst performances across the last 18 months. Actually, Dier's game was as good as any game put together by a CM for us in the last 2 seasons.

On Alli; I don't know why you can't see him in the CM2. That's where he played a majority of his games last year when he scored a bucket load of goals as an 18 year old and was named the Football League Young Player of the season, albeit in a poor league. I think that's where he will play for a majority of his career at Spurs. I actually think he's better suited to the CM2 than Mason who I think is better utilised playing further forward, as he showed against Everton when he was fantastic whilst central.

 

[Bulletspur]

Dier was the standout player and has played well at DM in each of our four games but Rose and Mason also impressed. Vertonghen was also very good, probably the best I've seen him play in quite some time. We didn't win but I'm hard pressed to pick out anyone who didn't perform. Kane arguably. He didn't get a lot of service but should have done better when put through on goal by Mason.

Soldado playing the way Kane did on Saturday would have been slated on this forum. Just saying

 

[kmk]

Soldado playing the way Kane did on Saturday would have been slated on this forum. Just saying

Except Soldado always played like that for us.

 

[Bulletspur]

Except Soldado always played like that for us.

Not true as he won us the game in the same fixture last season.

 

[kmk]

Not true as he won us the game in the same fixture last season.

Was that his second and final goal which he scored from open play in two seasons for us in the league?

 

[tttcowan]

Do people not think it's a bit telling that everyone played pretty well, nobody had a shocker, the system seemed to be played as intended but we didn't really create many chances... And the best ones came from there mistakes. Playing devils advocate somewhat here but yeah... Narrow and rigid and not terribly fun and isolating Kane. Hmmmmm....

 

[Shadydan]

Soldado playing the way Kane did on Saturday would have been slated on this forum. Just saying

But Kane has earned the right not to be slated after a bad game where as Soldado hadn't...plus whatever way you want to look at it people expect more from a player bought to....score goals as opposed to someone coming through the youth system.

 

[poc]

Soldado playing the way Kane did on Saturday would have been slated on this forum. Just saying

Kane's got goodwill in the bank, sold ado never got that. When it runs out he'll get grief same as everyone else.

 

[Shanks]

Watching the game in the stadium is always a different experience to watching it on TV, as yet I've not seen the game back on TV.

Being at the match, I would have given Dier our MoTM, a proper grafting DM performance, and limited Everton to very few chances, in fact I don't really recall us being under much pressure.

Weird game though, it seemed we had most possession, so was suprised it was only 50/50, and I can really find fault in any player. Kane should have scored, probably the biggest negative, but we just seem to run out of ideas in the last 3rd.

I'd like Kane to start getting his head up, rather than shoot on site, but I'd also like us to start getting crosses into the box. I'm reasonably impressed with the performance, we've only lost once so far, and 3 draws isn't so bad, and I'm sure with added attacking strength we'll do just fine this season.

Great atmosphere at the lane, shame about our fans fighting each other on the way out of block 33 though, there really are some twats out there!