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Ratings vs Liverpool

MOM

  • Lloris

  • Walker

  • Dier

  • Vert

  • Rose

  • Bentaleb

  • Mason

  • Lamela

  • Dembele

  • Eriksen

  • Kane

  • Paulinho

  • Chadli

  • Soldado

  • Undecided

  • None deserved


Results are only viewable after voting.

davidmatzdorf

Front Page Gadfly
Jun 7, 2004
18,106
45,030
The whole thread seems to be about "who made a mistake". It's a pinhead's view of football analysis.

If anyone were interested in discussing the actual performance of our team, we could consider how Liverpool are high-quality opponents who move the ball - and their opponents - about with craft and skill, we could note how the match could have gone either way, until our rather overworked midfielders began to tire and their replacements lost any semblance of grip on possession during the last 15 minutes. Then we might actually have a productive discussion.

Instead, it's a "debate" about whether Rose's error, Lloris' error or Dier's error was the most egregious and cost us the match.

We didn't lose the match because individuals made specific errors. Individuals made 10 other errors that didn't result in goals. Individual always make errors. It's a diversion and a misdirection to obsess about individual errors. We don't learn anything.

We lost the match because the replacements for tired players, especially Paulinho, did not win or retain possession, which resulted in our defence gradually drifting deeper, which resulted in pressure, which resulted in Lallana creating a chance that led to a freshly introduced striker outfoxing a young, very tired defender.

If we had cleared that chance, the narrative would be different, but the performance would have been the same. Focusing on individual errors just obscures what actually happened.
 
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Singayid

Well-Known Member
Dec 23, 2008
322
703
Worst fears came true in that game.

I feared the movement of the Liverpool team would cause us problems, it somewhat happened. I feared the 3-4-3 would cause us problems, and that definitely happened.

That was a frustrating game to watch, and not a good advert for the Premier League. Both teams lacked quality and so it was neck and neck. We did show more resolve than previous Spurs teams would, and by hook or by crook got back in the game, but ultimately we failed to adapt to the system we came up against and in the end we were punished for it.

@jonathanhotspur , as you asked elsewhere what I felt we did wrong...

Tactically I think we have had an awful night, and as much as I praised him on Saturday, tonight unfortunately Poch has had a bit of a 'mare. It was some more evidence that he isn't the best at adapting to what's happening in game.

The areas where we could hurt them were obvious early on. A couple of times we won the ball back, sprung forward and had a man spare on the outside. Unfortunately we didn't make best use of the opportunities. With the three man defence their was also space down the sides to exploit. Liverpool were also pressing us quite high and doing a reasonably good job of reading what we were going to do with the ball, particularly recycling it through our centre mids, and swarming us. This created a couple of alarmingly misplaced passes that could have been punished.

Without the ball, where we might get hurt was also abundantly clear. We made the error of trying to close down too high and got our 'marking' all wrong... Wide players were too high, leaving Walker and Rose pushing up to Moreno/Ibe and leaving gaps for Markovic and Coutinho to run into, and dragging our centre backs out (Sturridge also drifted into the space vacated in the channels well at times). Especially on our left this was an issue all night, where we were constantly two against one.

For me the solution was obvious. You accepted this was a night to play on the counter against this formation and approach. Let their centre backs have the ball, two disciplined banks of four (Lamela on Moreno - Mason/Gerrard - Bentaleb/Henderson - Eriksen/Ibe then Walker/Coutinho - Rose/Markovic and the centre backs deal with Sturridge). Let them have the ball at the back, be disciplined, then counter at pace and expose the gaps in a three man defence which isn't the quickest, neither is Gerrard getting back in to cover.

We never did quite do this though and for me it was disappointing, especially not getting to grips with what we were doing off the ball and getting organised against their shape. It took till the end for it to be really punished, Rose is left 2 vs. 1, has to go out to Ibe, the ball is slipped inside to the second man who isn't picked up, goal scored. I have little sympathy for us, because there was enough of a warning in the previous 85 mins to do something about it. I'd have had Davies on at half time, pushed Rose to left midfield and gone from there to combat that side in particular. The subs that did come on offered little, and I didn't see the thinking behind them, it was just like for like when that wasn't working.

I think tonight also showed we could probably do with more pace up top in one of those four positions. As I said, their was space to be exploited but we don't really have anyone who has enough about themselves to hurt teams in this way when the situation calls for it. One for the summer to sort out...

We were a tad unlucky, we kept scrapping away and the players kept trying... But I think we need to play smarter at times, and Poch, although having shown us some good things to look forward to under his stewardship, has to find a bit of nous for what's happening during the game and show some signs of reacting to it. Work to do...

Lloris - Very disappointing for the first goal. Nearly got to the penalty, and a couple of decent stops. That first goal though...

Walker - Meh. Exposed at times, but also made a few silly errors and lacked composure.

Dier - I felt he did ok and acquitted himself well on the whole. A few times his pace and recovery challenges dug us out of danger. Maybe can fault him for losing Balotelli for the winning goal, but it was rifled across the 6 yard line between defence and keeper and one of those that's a nightmare to deal with.

Vertonghen - Did ok. Maybe a bit weak for the opening goal.

Rose - One on one defending was shaky, but in mitigation was left completely exposed and had two men to mark all night long. Silly challenge for the penalty. Not a good nights work.

Mason - Just about ok. Tried to drive forward a few times to reasonable effect. Never really stamped his authority on the game though.

Bentaleb - Pretty anonymous tonight.

Lamela - Tricky one. He got a nice assist, forced a great save and put in a real shift as per usual... Its just when he gets it wrong, he gets it spectacularly wrong... The one second half where he passed right for some reason instead of going left being one of them. I also thought his dribbling was very below par at times, got crowded out a lot. Did ok overall, but leaves you tearing your hair out along the way.

Dembele - first half especially did pretty good as a conduit for the ball. Less effective in the second. Still not much in terms of output...

Eriksen - I thought he was our most disappointing player. Booked early on and then seemed totally reluctant to get involved. Could/should have been subbed off even earlier. Week off will do him good.

Kane - A goal and an assist, but I felt he had a slightly below par game overall. Didn't really go for him, and when he did get it often made a poor choice. Tracked back well on a couple of occasions though, and as I said a goal and an assist, so I feel bad for pointing out the bad stuff and shows how far he has come and what we are starting to expect from him.

Subs:
Paulinho - No impact, where was Stambouli?
Chadli - Disappointing cameo, major culprit for the winning goal.
Soldado - n/a.

MP
I think a really good assessment of the game & players as I saw it anyway. Clealry others didn't. Massively disappointing.
 

fortworthspur

Well-Known Member
Nov 12, 2007
11,244
17,536
according to Opta, Paulinho matched Mason for tackles (2 attempts, 2 won) in 20 minutes to Mason's 70. He had 12 passes to Mason's 38 in 1/4 the time and a higher completion rate. He won 75% of his duels to 23% for Mason (whatever that means). They both had one clearance. People want to blame Paulinho, but the stats dont back it up.
 

Main Man

Well-Known Member
Apr 11, 2013
2,314
1,699
Mental exhaustion is a real thing, you know.

Mental exhausation is a real thing.

If you were talking about a soldier in the battlefield who hadn't slept for five days I would accept your point.

But there is absolutely no way that our players were mentally fatigued three days after the Arsenal match.

And science would dictate if they were it would have effected their physical performance - which you have already admitted wasn't the case.
 

Main Man

Well-Known Member
Apr 11, 2013
2,314
1,699
The whole thread seems to be about "who made a mistake". It's a pinhead's view of football analysis.

If anyone were interested in discussing the actual performance of our team, we could consider how Liverpool are high-quality opponents who move the ball - and their opponents - about with craft and skill, we could note how the match could have gone either way, until our rather overworked midfielders began to tire and their replacements lost any semblance of grip on possession during the last 15 minutes. Then we might actually have a productive discussion.

Instead, it's a "debate" about whether Rose's error, Lloris' error or Dier's error was the most egregious and cost us the match.

We didn't lose the match because individuals made specific errors. Individuals made 10 other errors that didn't result in goals. Individual always make errors. It's a diversion and a misdirection to obsess about individual errors. We don't learn anything.

We lost the match because the replacements for tired players, especially Paulinho, did not win or retain possession, which resulted in our defence gradually drifting deeper, which resulted in pressure, which resulted in Lallana creating a chance that led to a freshly introduced striker outfoxing a young, very tired defender.

If we had cleared that chance, the narrative would be different, but the performance would have been the same. Focusing on individual errors just obscures what actually happened.

That's just a bit contradictory. Ignoring individual errors equally obscures what actually happened, but I can appreciate your sentiment.

Are you really trying to blame the defeat on Paulinho and defend the poor "young, very tired defender" in Rose?

Rose was the ultimate difference between the teams in my opinion. He was that bad. I thought we should have took him off at half time.
 
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davidmatzdorf

Front Page Gadfly
Jun 7, 2004
18,106
45,030

Main Man

Well-Known Member
Apr 11, 2013
2,314
1,699
I meant Dier. He was marking Balotelli.

The team lost. Not Rose. The whole team.

I think the critisicm of Dier is harsh. He was certainly stood in the right position. Verthongen however should have been better placed, and if he was he would have stopped the ball across the goal.

But Rose et al should never have let them get in that position to start with.

The whole team lost, but it was Rose's individual performance that cost us the game. Others didn't perform, including your mate Paulinho, but they didn't cost us goals - apart from Super Hugo of course.
 

lukespurs7

Well-Known Member
Feb 21, 2006
4,833
4,259
The whole thread seems to be about "who made a mistake". It's a pinhead's view of football analysis.

If anyone were interested in discussing the actual performance of our team, we could consider how Liverpool are high-quality opponents who move the ball - and their opponents - about with craft and skill, we could note how the match could have gone either way, until our rather overworked midfielders began to tire and their replacements lost any semblance of grip on possession during the last 15 minutes. Then we might actually have a productive discussion.

Instead, it's a "debate" about whether Rose's error, Lloris' error or Dier's error was the most egregious and cost us the match.

We didn't lose the match because individuals made specific errors. Individuals made 10 other errors that didn't result in goals. Individual always make errors. It's a diversion and a misdirection to obsess about individual errors. We don't learn anything.

We lost the match because the replacements for tired players, especially Paulinho, did not win or retain possession, which resulted in our defence gradually drifting deeper, which resulted in pressure, which resulted in Lallana creating a chance that led to a freshly introduced striker outfoxing a young, very tired defender.

If we had cleared that chance, the narrative would be different, but the performance would have been the same. Focusing on individual errors just obscures what actually happened.
I see your point and agree the tired players and changes made a difference but you can't really say those errors didn't cost us the match.

Lloris for as incredible as he's been this season should've saved that shot and it was sloppy defending to let Markovic have some much space anyway, if he had 0-0 after 15 mins as opposed to 1-0 down would've made a difference what if we'd then scored our goal and now its 1-0 to us and they're chasing the game.

Rose then gave away a penalty which again gave them impetus when they really weren't looking a huge threat or especially not more of a threat than we were looking.

Not really complaining about the errors at all as i've previously stated we played a fantastic game thoroughly deserved a point at least and that was a huge huge improvement vs a team who's been spanking 3/4 past us even at our own ground!

Good performance from the boys, some tiredness and some sloppy defending/errors did i'm afraid cost us/ at least influence the result.
 

StartingPrice

Chief Sardonicus Hyperlip
Feb 13, 2004
32,568
10,280
The whole thread seems to be about "who made a mistake". It's a pinhead's view of football analysis.

If anyone were interested in discussing the actual performance of our team, we could consider how Liverpool are high-quality opponents who move the ball - and their opponents - about with craft and skill, we could note how the match could have gone either way, until our rather overworked midfielders began to tire and their replacements lost any semblance of grip on possession during the last 15 minutes. Then we might actually have a productive discussion.

Instead, it's a "debate" about whether Rose's error, Lloris' error or Dier's error was the most egregious and cost us the match.

We didn't lose the match because individuals made specific errors. Individuals made 10 other errors that didn't result in goals. Individual always make errors. It's a diversion and a misdirection to obsess about individual errors. We don't learn anything.

We lost the match because the replacements for tired players, especially Paulinho, did not win or retain possession, which resulted in our defence gradually drifting deeper, which resulted in pressure, which resulted in Lallana creating a chance that led to a freshly introduced striker outfoxing a young, very tired defender.

If we had cleared that chance, the narrative would be different, but the performance would have been the same. Focusing on individual errors just obscures what actually happened.

This.

This result wasn't about some crap players but about context.

I wouldn't want to blame fatigue, because Liverpool played mid-week when we didn't and played later than we did on Saturday, and they had injury concerns were we didn't. At the same time, we did physically and mentally exhaust ourselves against the Goons, whereas the Mersyside derby was a bit limp. They were at home and they played well, Ibe looks like a good find for them. But Mason and Bentaleb didn't look quite on it all game, and then their replacements just cannot play the game that Pochettino wants. Mason was integrated into the team straight away because he does play that game. But these are young players, both, really, in their first break-out season, without the consistency and the nous of veterans and sometimes their naivety showed. And, to repeat, Pochettino started to rely on these two early on primarily because the options for playing his high pressure, high press game with emphasis on immediate transition forward from the midfielders, precisely because the senior options in the squad just aren't suitable for it.

What was more interesting was that the more sensible Scousers were commenting on how good we were, and that we look like a really good team, while we were thinking we looked a bit jaded. A very young team, in these circumstances, yeah, it was disappointing to lose, but also the type of game were we can still see continued improvement and some very obvious reasons why we weren't quite at the races.

I agree, it's not all about blaming Paulinho - but I would like to know why Stambouli wasn't at least on the bench.

Looked to me like the ball bobbled just as it reached Lloris's hand for their first goal - that could happen to any player in any game at any time - just makes it look much worse when it is in front of goal. Don't see why anyone is blaming Hugo or saying he isn't quite World Class (which I did see rival fans saying online).

Toss up between Lamela and Dembélé for MoM in my opinion - I gave it to Lamela. Amazed therefore to see comments singling out the occasional thing he did, or that went, wrong. Seems like they look out for an error and remember it - his work-rate, contribution to our passing game, and creativity are all getting better. Becoming a very good functional part of the team. Interestingly, our best players were those who had played rather less than average.

One more thing, Phil Dowd...FFS, when both sets of fans are p*ssed you know you've done something wrong - neutrals were probably p*ssed as well with him restricting the flow of the game with yellow carding virtually anything that moved. But the thing that got me, and then I saw plenty on the match thread had also spotted, was how we played 4 minutes injury time (probably should have been more anyway), and then allowed Liverpool to waste 2 minutes of that, and then blew the whistle with the ball going into the danger area. He certainly didn't allow for the two wasted minutes. No referee does that (or, at least, they shouldn't)! On top of which, while Sakho was wasting a considerable stretch of injury time, Skrtel, who had already been yellow carded, lifted his hands to Harry Kane.

All told, peeved at losing to them...but under the circumstances it is hardly hand-wringingly bad. Liverpool could go on a run, now, of course, but anyone too feared of them should remember that they are still in Europa, same as us, still in the FA Cup and then go and check their full fixture list in the EPL. They have a pretty tough run-in.
COYS
 

stevenqoz

Well-Known Member
Apr 10, 2006
2,776
553
This was a very even game and could have gone either way. A few things to add....
1..That is not an EPL standard pitch...lumpy and bumpy contributing to many unforced errors for both teams
2. Our substitutions added nothing to our cause tonight whereas theirs.....
3. We got sloppy towards the end....I feel Rose is challenged to concentrate the whole 90 minutes....Davies and maybe Chadli instead of the ineffective Paulinho
 

Bus-Conductor

SC Supporter
Oct 19, 2004
39,837
50,713
The whole thread seems to be about "who made a mistake". It's a pinhead's view of football analysis.

If anyone were interested in discussing the actual performance of our team, we could consider how Liverpool are high-quality opponents who move the ball - and their opponents - about with craft and skill, we could note how the match could have gone either way, until our rather overworked midfielders began to tire and their replacements lost any semblance of grip on possession during the last 15 minutes. Then we might actually have a productive discussion.

Instead, it's a "debate" about whether Rose's error, Lloris' error or Dier's error was the most egregious and cost us the match.

We didn't lose the match because individuals made specific errors. Individuals made 10 other errors that didn't result in goals. Individual always make errors. It's a diversion and a misdirection to obsess about individual errors. We don't learn anything.

We lost the match because the replacements for tired players, especially Paulinho, did not win or retain possession, which resulted in our defence gradually drifting deeper, which resulted in pressure, which resulted in Lallana creating a chance that led to a freshly introduced striker outfoxing a young, very tired defender.

If we had cleared that chance, the narrative would be different, but the performance would have been the same. Focusing on individual errors just obscures what actually happened.


You start by saying lets not blame individuals, then go on to blame Paulinho, who was only on the pitch for 1 of the 3 goals and also actually saw the ball marginally more (pass every 1.6 min) than Mason (1.7min - the player he replaced) and also gave the ball away less (Paulinho 83.3%) than Mason (81.6%).

I accept Paulinho is not as dynamic or tenacious without the ball, and I am not a fan of his, but I don't think he was really a major factor in us losing that game.

Individual and possibly tactical errors were a major factor, and though I chose not to dwell on them in my ratings post either, because I was very happy with our general approach, it's valid to to call them.

I don't share you view that we started sitting deeper either, I think when they scored and in the final phase, we'd actually started to look more in control and they had started to look more tired than at any other time.

I think the latter stages we'd started to edge it.
 

Mr Pink

SC Supporter
Aug 25, 2010
54,776
99,336
You start by saying lets not blame individuals, then go on to blame Paulinho, who was only on the pitch for 1 of the 3 goals and also actually saw the ball marginally more (pass every 1.6 min) than Mason (1.7min - the player he replaced) and also gave the ball away less (Paulinho 83.3%) than Mason (81.6%).

I accept Paulinho is not as dynamic or tenacious without the ball, and I am not a fan of his, but I don't think he was really a major factor in us losing that game.

Individual and possibly tactical errors were a major factor, and though I chose not to dwell on them in my ratings post either, because I was very happy with our general approach, it's valid to to call them.

I don't share you view that we started sitting deeper either, I think when they scored and in the final phase, we'd actually started to look more in control and they had started to look more tired than at any other time.

I think the latter stages we'd started to edge it
.

I felt the same. For me, I was really starting to believe that a 3-2 win was on the cards for us, that's why I was so disappointed when we conceded as I felt a draw was the least we'd get on how the game was developing.

Sloppy errors were the reason we lost IMO as overall our collective performance was good. If we continue to develop as we are, and apply the same intensity to our play, we're on to a very good thing.

The movement and interchange in the build up to Kane's goal was by far most impressive of the night.
 
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