Match Ratings Ratings vs Man City

[SpursDave88]

A lot of uncharitable comments on here. I thought we played a better team and could not compete over the 90 mins.

I think the mistakes have to placed at Poch's door. He fucked up big time. Playing a high line against City. WTF is that? You can show your cojones by setting the team up smarter to counter attack. Bad decisions all game with subs made to late to change the game. He is still poor with his in game changes.

This game exposed our CM. We've got a young Winks who learnt a lesson in this encounter. You're not there yet lad. There;s a long way to go before you can call yourself a PL footballer. Take a lesson from this game and move on. You are good enough to be a future champion but your still learning. Moussa is showing that he is just not fit. He may be carrying an injury as well. But not having a full pre season is showing up now. They could not cope with City's movement. The lack of depth in the squad is there for all to see. As for these arm chair jockeys who think we have youth squad full of world champions who can step up tomorrow and fill in places. They need to be able to play in a game like this and boss it. So lay off the fucking fantasies for now please.

I dont want to get into the Trips discussion needless to say, anyone who thinks he is a match for Kyle has shit for brains. Poch and Levy got fucked over with that deal. I dont care what some 'pundits' say on here. We'd be better with him in the side.

I think Eriksen, Son and Alli are taking a lot of stick and that is unfair. They were off the boil, Shit happens. There are days when you have to accept you were not good enough.

I thought Kane, Lamela, Rose, Verts were all good for what was a 5 for the team as a whole. Love Lamela's fight and if only the rest of the team had 5% of it we'd be a better side for it. Lloris needs coaching on his distribution. Its fucking awful shite and I am getting tired of watching it week in week out.

As for all this talk about head turning. These are Spurs players and I have seen nothing to suggest that. You lot need to pull your fucking heads in over those comments. That's vile, nasty shit and we are better than that.

Both Rose and Dier wanted out this summer. Both will be kicking themselves for staying now.

Dele has been awful for months, there is something very wrong there, I think it's a safe assumption to make.

 

[1882andallthat]

There's no doubt about it that City are on a fantastic run at the moment, and I'm not saying that for sure it would have made a difference to us getting anything out of this game but there were three things that really frustrated me. Firstly it became apparent within the first 10 minutes that Sane was absolutely destroying Trippier with his pace, he had acres of space as Trippier could get nowhere near him. Poch should have seen that but he failed to do anything about it, it was a complete mismatch. Whilst Aurier has his critics I feel that he could have done a better job of nullifying the threat he was causing, he almost certainly couldn't have done much worse, it's horses for courses and it frustrated me that Poch didn't swap Aurier for Trippier when he could and should have seen that this was a complete mismatch. We may even have learned whether or not he would have been more effective in combatting pace. I lost count of the number I times I saw Sane in acres of space. It may have made no difference bringing on Aurier but we will never know because Poch didn't try it.

The other two things I was annoyed about was the fact we kept playing ourselves into real trouble at the back by putting ourselves under obvious pressure with backwards and sideways passes to and by Lloris ofor it to be played right into either of our corners by our own players only for it to be played straight back to person given the ball under the most pressure passes staring back to them in dagerouus positions as they pressed, any idiot could see it wasn't working yet we kept repeating the same mistakes and inviting more pressure.

The final thing I was annoyed about was the way we got ourselves into some good advanced positions with men over but our passing was awful in the last third and lack of foresight to pass it to a player in a better position or in open space on the few occasions we were able to was glaring and damning.

4-1 was a fair reflection of the game and it could have been worse. I feel unable to give anyone any positive ratings in this particular game including Poch who failed to try different options. Let's hope as the manager says "this is a learning curve ".

 

[southlondonyiddo]

Actually thinking about it that 1-4 yesterday was quite similar to the 4-1 we inflicted on City last season

We still kept trying to play throughout as did City last season

With a few tweaks and some investment here and there we'll be fine. Obviously we won’t/can’t invest the amount City did pre season!!

Also it’s a good job Mendy got injured early season! Scary

 

[BringBack_leGin]

Good news is, if we react v Burnley, which we absolutely must, our next five matches including Burnley could see us getting 15 points which would put us very much back on track.

 

[Japhet]

Trippier getting dogs abuse but Sane would have torn Walker a new one yesterday. Aurier would have been a red card waiting to happen. De Bruyne is getting all the plaudits but Sane's pace, awareness and technical ability were absolutely top drawer yesterday.

 

[shelfboy68]

Rough with the smooth, but only if you show up after a loss though ...

If we win is this the same?

Of course it is I often say after a win well done to the players and management when I acknowledge their achievements but I suppose posters don't remember this.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

A lot of uncharitable comments on here. I thought we played a better team and could not compete over the 90 mins.

I think the mistakes have to placed at Poch's door. He fucked up big time. Playing a high line against City. WTF is that? You can show your cojones by setting the team up smarter to counter attack. Bad decisions all game with subs made to late to change the game. He is still poor with his in game changes.

So far, so good. Completely agree.

The lack of depth in the squad is there for all to see. As for these arm chair jockeys who think we have youth squad full of world champions who can step up tomorrow and fill in places. They need to be able to play in a game like this and boss it. So lay off the fucking fantasies for now please.

This is where it all goes a little bit wonky. Academy graduates, and other squad players don't have to turn up at places like this and "boss it" to be of worth to our first team group. They can provide rest and rotation in other games, easier games, that allows us to then approach games like yesterday with a stronger, fitter, more in form group of more senior/experienced players.

If Poch had played Winks between December and April last season a bit more in the league we might have a more rounded and battle hardened player by now. If he'd spent the previous two years giving Onomah more minutes/games at all in CM, instead of a about 20 minutes of 4/5 minute cameos as a winger we might not have to watch Sissoko as a CM now and we could have maybe had another CM option allowing us to play a different way than we did yesterday. If Poch had played KWP against Appoel he could have changed the rotation pattern and had Aurier out there yesterday. And if he'd played Amos instead of Alli against Appoel we might have a fresher Alli and a kid who's got 90 minutes of first team football in midfield under his belt, and more of that kind of integration means maybe this time net year we have more options than we do now (and the same could have applied to players like Onomah, Lesniak etc last year).

I dont want to get into the Trips discussion needless to say, anyone who thinks he is a match for Kyle has shit for brains. Poch and Levy got fucked over with that deal. I dont care what some 'pundits' say on here. We'd be better with him in the side.

You don't want to get into it, but you're going to say it anyway? I don't entirely blame you, I'm surprised there weren't more Trippier/Walker comments to be honest.

I think Trippier is more than a match for Walker in many tactical circumstances, and the facts bare that out. But circumstances like yesterday aren't one them, and would have made any RB we played look shit. Including Walker.

And it's well worth remembering that 3/4 years ago Walker was our RB there, who got fucking ripped apart as we lost 0-6 to a vastly inferior City side to this one, with no Sane and DeBruyne.

I don't think Trippier was the best choice yesterday, but lets not pretend Walker (or Aurier) would have coped much better with Sane and the 2/1 and 3/1 overloads Trippier had to cope with. We've seen players like Zaha and Bolasi tear Walker apart recently for us. You could have swapped RB's yesterday and it would have made very little difference to the actual score, although City might have actually created a bit more with Trippier on the ball in some of the situations. Walker did nothing all game, despite their superiority. And Trippier would have also had the type of easy game defensively that Walker had with fucking Son and Rose bumbling about likes pair of ****s.

City play a 433 most weeks, so Walker's athleticism, engine and recovery pace are a very good match, I get that, but we don't play the same way, and for most of our games, in a 3331 (and variations thereof) a RB paying as a de facto winger, constantly further up the pitch being covered by a RCB of 3, who can actually deliver better end product and more composed and intelligent game play and end product is a better match most of the time.

What is stupid is having two other RB's who were probably a better match for yesterday's tactics, and not using them instead.

 

[Japhet]

Not going to rate the players but a few words about Poch.

I think we had to play a back 4 with Toby and Sanchez out. Aurier, for my money, would (as I said above) have been a red card waiting to happen v Sane, but Trippier was obviously going to struggle. We needed 3 in MF, and 'my team' (in the thread) had Sissoko and Lamela for their work rate, defensive ability and physicality. Trippier was hung out to dry, which is on Poch.

Dembele played earlier in the week, which we know is an issue, and yet he was thrown in again. He looked slow and poderous but that didn't surprise me. De Bruyne makes players much younger and fitter than Dembele look off the pace. Dembele, like Trippier was thrown in at the deep end. Again, we needed 3 in MF.

Playing out from the back was erring on suicidal, especially with City pressing the hell out of every situation. Launching the ball long to Llorente with Kane playing off him for the last 20 would have been less risky IMO.

The one thing I would say is that we didn't try to strangle the game. Again, I don't think it would have affected the game and at least we gave it a go. The huge difference though was in City's passing. The ball was constantly played into space with a player moving onto it. Ours was all to feet, or behind the man or to a man under pressure which allowed them to turn us over at will.

Still, onwards and upwards.

 

[Houdini]

Both Rose and Dier wanted out this summer. Both will be kicking themselves for staying now.

Dele has been awful for months, there is something very wrong there, I think it's a safe assumption to make.

There is always the next transfer window (opening soon!) That the pair of ungrateful ****s can throw themselves out of!

 

[markdadude]

You could have swapped RB's yesterday and it would have made very little difference to the actual score, although City might have actually created a bit more with Trippier on the ball in some of the situations.

Sane is the type of player we are crying out for. Someone who can carry it to the box from wide areas, something Trippier, Davies cannot do. Its impossible to defend against, even for the shitty park the bus teams, and would get us a hatful of goals every game because the rest of our players can punish a defence when its in disarray. Rose used to do it and so did Walker, but Sane is another level. The only thing Trippier can do is hit the ball in the fucking air and the occasional one-two or pass it backwards. There is no trickery, no ball carrying, no pace. Landing the ball on a dime in time and space for Kane from 30 yards does not produce enough goals. Its too predictable and easy for our opponents to plan a counter strategy. Bar the Stoke game (who don't count) we don't look like scoring for entire games. No, fuck, even against stoke we didn't look like scoring for more than the 1st half. This is the most worrying thing. The results are secondary.
I hardly know a fucking thing about KWP, other than he played well against newcastle and got MOTM, and that Poch doesn't like him. Shame. Poch is a bit like the head bully in the school playground and its much harder to get included than you might think.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

BC what would have been your starting line up ? When you say “ wrong personnel “ who would you have played and left out ? You have said Aurier for Trippier but in the absence of Sanchez, TA and VW I’m not clear who else you think should have played that didn’t ? Lamela is the only one that stands out but perhaps Poch did not think he was ready for 90 minutes of this highly physical challenge against a City team who , as well as their abilities with the ball , hunt it down when they lose it. We don’t have strength in depth because the back up players we have , notably Llorente, Nkoudou and Sissoko , are just not good enough. I’m also not sure that Aurier is good enough either and I’m not sure he is as good defensively as you suggest.

Personally I would have played Lamela for Alli and switched them if Lamela ran out of gas.

As for our formation we could certainly have pulled Eriksen back closer to the outnumbered Winks and Dembele .

So we could have gone :
Lloris
Aurier Dier Vertonghen Rose
Winks Dembele Eriksen
Lamela Kane Son

Would it have been better ? Possibly. Would we have avoided defeat ? Unlikely.

Where to start really....

If Poch was adamant on playing a back four, why not go 433, sit a lot deeper and play Aurier at RB with Eriksen dropped back into the CM3, and instead of Alli or Lamela, why not do something different like play Nkoudou/Kane/Son to counter with a bit of vim. But also have the pace of Nkoudou and Son to help protect the FB's. We could clog the middle better and stifle the wide areas better like that.


Without the ball:

Aurier--------Dier---------JV-----------Davies/Rose

Winks---------Dembele---------Eriksen

Nkoudou--------------------------------------------Son
Kane​

My preferred choice though would have been to play similar to the way we did Liverpool, with a back 5, and CM3. So put Foyth and Davies in as CB's, drop Eriksen into the CM3.

Foyth-----------------Dier--------------------JV
Aurier-----------------------------------------------------------Rose

Eriksen--------------Dembele---------------Winks
Son---------------
---------Kane

​

Both of those structures would have seemed much more logical answers to the questions City pose. Their CM3 will cut you apart, to go into that game with the CM2 system we did, and not really remedy it properly was tactically very naive, as was picking and then leaving Trippier really exposed like he did.

But biggest failing of all is to think you are going to get a high press that has the wrong components and hasn't even managed to press passive aggressive bus parkers well all season, to press City into playing badly was just an epic fail.

Operating a poor press and a high line is stupid at the best of times, doing it to this City team is just utterly fucking bonkers.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Sane is the type of player we are crying out for. Someone who can carry it to the box from wide areas, something Trippier, Davies cannot do. Its impossible to defend against, even for the shitty park the bus teams, and would get us a hatful of goals every game because the rest of our players can punish a defence when its in disarray. Rose used to do it and so did Walker, but Sane is another level. The only thing Trippier can do is hit the ball in the fucking air and the occasional one-two or pass it backwards. There is no trickery, no ball carrying, no pace. Landing the ball on a dime in time and space for Kane from 30 yards does not produce enough goals. Its too predictable and easy for our opponents to plan a counter strategy. Bar the Stoke game (who don't count) we don't look like scoring for entire games. No, fuck, even against stoke we didn't look like scoring for more than the 1st half. This is the most worrying thing. The results are secondary.
I hardly know a fucking thing about KWP, other than he played well against newcastle and got MOTM, and that Poch doesn't like him. Shame. Poch is a bit like the head bully in the school playground and its much harder to get included than you might think.

If all you are talking is offensively, then whatever Trippier does and doesn't do, he produced more goals for our team than what Walker did last season, in a third of the time.

If you want to talk defensively that's a different conversation, but you aren't. And comparing Trippier and Davies - or even Walker - to Sane creatively is totally irrelevant as they are completely different players, playing completely different roles.

 

[Grapo2001]

Trippier getting dogs abuse but Sane would have torn Walker a new one yesterday. Aurier would have been a red card waiting to happen. De Bruyne is getting all the plaudits but Sane's pace, awareness and technical ability were absolutely top drawer yesterday.

Agreed. Sane is the best wide forward in the league and was a level above yesterday.

 

[TropicalYid]

Yes, City are a good team. A good team in outstanding form.
But spurs didnt show up.
Trippier, Winks, Dier was the worst of the lot.
Dele and Eriksen gone missing.
Dembele...hm...he not what he used to be.

Poch, as usual, making changes really late. He needs to sort things out. And he needs to stop using Sissoko. Hes a total waste of space. Has he contributed to anything?

 

[am_yisrael_chai]

Watching the game again one other issue we need to resolve is the GK / playing out from the back. If we want to play out from the back then however good he may be as a shot stopper Lloris isn’t the man for the job. If Poch loves Lloris so much that he has to play then he needs to change system so that it doesn’t rely on the GK being able to pass the ball with his feet. I know I will get loads of neg rep but I don’t think Lloris is as good the hero status we as fans have given him. Personally I’d be looking for a younger keeper who is good with his feet as I don’t think you can carry a keeper who is as poor with his passing as Lloris.

 

[dannythomas]

Where to start really....

If Poch was adamant on playing a back four, why not go 433, sit a lot deeper and play Aurier at RB with Eriksen dropped back into the CM3, and instead of Alli or Lamela, why not do something different like play Nkoudou/Kane/Son to counter with a bit of vim. But also have the pace of Nkoudou and Son to help protect the FB's. We could clog the middle better and stifle the wide areas better like that.


Without the ball:

Aurier--------Dier---------JV-----------Davies/Rose

Winks---------Dembele---------Eriksen

Nkoudou--------------------------------------------Son
Kane​

My preferred choice though would have been to play similar to the way we did Liverpool, with a back 5, and CM3. So put Foyth and Davies in as CB's, drop Eriksen into the CM3.

Foyth-----------------Dier--------------------JV
Aurier-----------------------------------------------------------Rose

Eriksen--------------Dembele---------------Winks
Son---------------
---------Kane

​

Both of those structures would have seemed much more logical answers to the questions City pose. Their CM3 will cut you apart, to go into that game with the CM2 system we did, and not really remedy it properly was tactically very naive, as was picking and then leaving Trippier really exposed like he did.

But biggest failing of all is to think you are going to get a high press that has the wrong components and hasn't even managed to press passive aggressive bus parkers well all season, to press City into playing badly was just an epic fail.

Operating a poor press and a high line is stupid at the best of times, doing it to this City team is just utterly fucking bonkers.

Unfortunately Poch did not even put Nkoudou on the bench against Stoke or Brighton after a promising game against Apoel. Foyth was on the bench but given zero minutes. That made it highly unlikely that either would be given a start against City. It’s a bit like the argument you rightly use about Winks and Onomah last season, that neither was given enough minutes . We persistently see Sissoko and Llorente , or one of the rotated full backs, coming on. Southampton fans always complained about Poch’s uninspired substitutions and that is clearly not one of his strengths. Meanwhile however badly Alli plays he stays in the team.

 

[jonathanhotspur]

Watching the game again one other issue we need to resolve is the GK / playing out from the back. If we want to play out from the back then however good he may be as a shot stopper Lloris isn’t the man for the job. If Poch loves Lloris so much that he has to play then he needs to change system so that it doesn’t rely on the GK being able to pass the ball with his feet. I know I will get loads of neg rep but I don’t think Lloris is as good the hero status we as fans have given him. Personally I’d be looking for a younger keeper who is good with his feet as I don’t think you can carry a keeper who is as poor with his passing as Lloris.

Over the last 2 or 3 years, I have gone from having complete faith in Lloris, to having misgivings about him, to almost disliking him. In the fucking crucible, he is almost guaranteed to spread sheer panic throughout the side with a bad first touch and wretched passing. Many is the time that his fucking clearances don't even reach the halfway line.

 

[Pat Rice Spurs fan]

Where to start really....

If Poch was adamant on playing a back four, why not go 433, sit a lot deeper and play Aurier at RB with Eriksen dropped back into the CM3, and instead of Alli or Lamela, why not do something different like play Nkoudou/Kane/Son to counter with a bit of vim. But also have the pace of Nkoudou and Son to help protect the FB's. We could clog the middle better and stifle the wide areas better like that.


Without the ball:

Aurier--------Dier---------JV-----------Davies/Rose

Winks---------Dembele---------Eriksen

Nkoudou--------------------------------------------Son
Kane​

My preferred choice though would have been to play similar to the way we did Liverpool, with a back 5, and CM3. So put Foyth and Davies in as CB's, drop Eriksen into the CM3.

Foyth-----------------Dier--------------------JV
Aurier-----------------------------------------------------------Rose

Eriksen--------------Dembele---------------Winks
Son---------------
---------Kane

​

Both of those structures would have seemed much more logical answers to the questions City pose. Their CM3 will cut you apart, to go into that game with the CM2 system we did, and not really remedy it properly was tactically very naive, as was picking and then leaving Trippier really exposed like he did.

But biggest failing of all is to think you are going to get a high press that has the wrong components and hasn't even managed to press passive aggressive bus parkers well all season, to press City into playing badly was just an epic fail.

Operating a poor press and a high line is stupid at the best of times, doing it to this City team is just utterly fucking bonkers.

Even at half time I felt like we should go to 3 at the back by adding Foyth or Davies - possibly even both and pushing Dier into midfield to sit on de Bruyne.
I think an extra centre half would have helped Trippier, too.

 

[mpickard2087]

To me it looked like we went 4-4-2 with a diamond midfield for the meat and drink of the game, certainly first half. The problem being that when you have the outside midfielders (Winks and Eriksen) constantly having to engage their fullbacks then City's 4-3-3 is going to punish us in midfield - and lo and behold that's what happened, Dembele swamped and De Bruyne having the freedom to do whatever he wanted. In this situation you really need the No.10 and the strikers to do a big shift for the team, getting across, pressing relentlessly, and covering their defensive players - Son, Alli, Kane didn't do this.

I haven't been posting in the last few weeks, seen most of the games though and it's not been a good sight in all honesty. Every aspect is down on the last couple of years. Pressing/work rate/shape/compactness is really bad right now, we used to have a team of players who would run through brick walls for the cause, not too many of them right now. Bigger pitches like Wembley just exacerbate all that. And with the ball I'm not too impressed either... Even a good win like Stoke last weekend, in all honesty I thought some of the passages of play were so messy and scrappy it was unrecognisable to the standards set in the last few years.

A lot of work needs to be done and some need a real kick up the backside. Including the manager.

 

[Flashspur]

Its a big question being asked of Poch. Can we stay competitive instead of turning up for the odd big game or game against the beatables. The famed coaching methodology has gone awry. The team seems disjointed. There's very little to look to on the bench to change things and the energy has gone out of the side. I don't know what it is but we are in a poor way at the moment compared to how we have been, when at our best. This is a challenge for Poch. Players who aren't performing need to be dropped.