Match Ratings Ratings vs Swansea

[Hazardousman]

Trippier at left back was a waste of a jersey

Same could be said for him at RB as well frankly based on his first half performance.

 

[Deleted member 27855]

Trippier the Walker upgrade. Him at left back is a slap in the face to KWP, who can actually play there.

Nothing to do with the stadium, this was 100% Poch, but I won't hold it against him obviously.

Utterly sick of wankers sitting with 9 men on the edge of their box, but obviously it gets them a point they'd never normally get. 3 pens they got away with too. Mike Dean desperately trying to prove he's not a Spurs fan. Fuck travelling all the way from Wales to be served up that tripe.

Swansea infuriated me today. Not in their setup. Not with their diving and their time wasting. They did exactly what they were supposed to do and were excellent in doing so. What infuriated me was the way the players and their fans celebrated after the match like they just won the World Cup. After a draw where they were completely negative. Really? Such a small time club. I'd be embarrassed if I was a fan of theirs. I hope we beat them 7-0 in the return match and Kane teabags Fabianski's forehead after scoring his 4th while Alli and Son complete a handshake that lasts 10 minutes.

Alli and Trippier were poor today. 5 for me. Alli especially needs to get his head out of his ass. Everybody else deserves a 7 except for Aurier, who was electric when he came on and Son who should never have come off. I'd give both an 8.

 

[PostmanNat]

If anyone's rating anyone it should be the fans. We were shit today, but the fans were worse. The atmosphere was terrible. Why are tottenham fans so self entitled? 90 minutes of Swansea fans overpowering the majority of he stadium. Fucking joke.

Team: shit

Fans: fucking shit

 

[Tottenham_God]

Another great game by a CB playing CM

 

[LexingtonSpurs]

Gave it to Llorente - because he was the best looking player out there today.

Nobody played well. Nobody played poorly. 5's across the board.

I am not going to second guess Poch on the line-up - the players should have done better. I will say it is up to Poch to change the mindset of slowly walking the ball up every. single. time. We need a greater sense of urgency out there - even (or especially) when we are playing teams where we will dominate possession. We are placing too much emphasis on possession against teams that are not likely to hurt us on a counter. I'd like to see us move the ball forward quicker, and with greater determination, and if we lose the ball taking an attacking risk, so be it.

 

[Univarn]

A lot of onions on this one that are hard to phrase without writing a book but there has to be a record for the number of square passes made when on a break then we've surely given it a run for its money.

Ratings:
Hugo 'lawn chair and a margarita' Lloris - 6
Kieran 'The counter killer' Trippier - 5
Toby 'hair care for your stare' Aldeweireld - 6
Davinson 'The man in Abraham' Sanchez- 6
Jan 'still desperate for a goal' Vertonghen - 5
Heung 'Better left wing back than Trips' Min-Son - 7
Eric 'Lost that passing feeling' Dier - 5
Mousa 'Somehow one of the good players' Sissoko - 6
Christian 'Praying for a miracle shot' Eriksen - 5
Dele 'Outnumbered and outcared' Alli - 5
Harry 'Fuck that crossbar jesus' Kane - 6

Subs:
Serge 'Mike Dean dufus of the year award giver' Aurier - 6
Fernando 'wrong sub with the wrong lineup' Llorente - 5

This match should have been a victory lap and feels like Poch just botched it by overthinking our Tuesday cup tie.

 

[Setzthree]

I fear for BC's essay after this shitty performance.

 

[dricha1]

At least we've got 3 away games coming up...

 

[mpickard2087]

The starting line up was strange. I know we've had a tough game in midweek, but unless a player is really struggling, like Davies apparently was, I don't understand why changes were made, particularly Aurier. It's League Cup in midweek, if we want to give some players a chance to put their feet up for a few days after this.

Having said that, I don't actually think the selection/formation was the problem in the first half. It was most of the components that go into a performance, such as tempo/intent to our play that was the problem. Too sluggish and not good enough pass & move to drag them about and ask them questions. Indeed, Son playing LWB (in a loose definition of the role) was having a great old time out there, almost in a free role - he was popping up on the left forcing chances, he was involved in our best interchange through the centre, he even popped up on the right and put in a delicious cross. Selection wasn't going to badly, from that aspect.

The second half though things just unravelled, with plenty of things, mostly from Poch, leaving me scratching my head:

- The switch at half time. Putting Sissoko into a position he isn't effective, and the one footed Trippier into a position where he couldn't do anything but stand facing our own goal and passing it back inside. Son was doing ok playing off the left side, not sure why it needed to be changed? Fair enough if Davies wasn't fit, why's he on the bench then? KWP can play both flanks if needs be and can at least attack when played on the left. Trusting the youth again there... Then eventually Aurier is brought on, correcting the mistake from the start.

- General tactics in the second half. We did increase the tempo, but there wasn't much clarity to what we did. Things at times were a little desperate. We started by slinging quite a few (poor) crosses into the box, easily dealt with. When we then had Llorente on we didn't put crosses in. We also passed up opportunities to have a shot around the box a number of times, then other times we had players taking really low percentage efforts at goal.

- The Son sub. He was our busiest attacking player all game. This was a pretty crazy decision. He could have just binned Trippier and put him back on the left, he was looking more likely to make something happen than Alli or Kane. It was a bad call.

- Alli. We all know the drill with him. Do little in games, eventually pops up with goal, everyone says that's why you keep patience with him. Inevitably though there will be games like today, and this is a spell now of poor games. He was the worst player in pre-season, and he hasn't had a great start to the season. He doesn't have to be untouchable.

- Llorente. We bring him on circa 75 mins, route one football isn't my preference but things are getting a bit desperate, you'd assume we might try and play to his strengths and stick a few on his head and get men around him... It takes until the 92nd minute for us to realise this might be an option, and could maybe should have scored from his flick on. Now some of the 'blame' has to go to the players, who should be able to think for themselves, but the manager has to get the instruction out there - what was he brought on for otherwise?

- We're camped in their half mostly, time is running out, Swansea's 5-4-1 shape is getting even more defensive, yet we still have Dier, Toby, Jan, and Sanchez all on the pitch (plus the two fullbacks). It's not as if we even moved one of them up front to cross the ball to. Just carried on. Why not get a Winks/Dembele on, a midfielder who in their own ways could take the game to them, it might not work but it's another option on the pitch.

It's not just one thing here or there to quibble about, I felt a lot went wrong today tactically.

Overall I don't really think you could say we did enough to say we absolutely deserved to win the game, we did have two or three good chances, there were a couple of decisions that could have gone our way, but on the whole too many facets off our play weren't good enough today and I don't think we put them under enough sustained pressure or make life difficult enough for them. We only have ourselves to blame.


Lloris - A spectator for the most part.

Alderweireld - Ok.

Sanchez - Didn't look as comfortable today, got to be careful about getting too tight to his man.

Vertonghen - Decent first half taking the game to them, bit more subdued in the second.

Trippier - Meh. really meh. Putting him on the left was silly.

Dier - Pretty redundant.

Sissoko - Ok in the first half, lost when he moved out to the right.

Eriksen - Had a few good touches, including the ball for Alli's header, but struggled for space and was dropping deeper and deeper.

Son - The brightest of the bunch. Looked most likely to make something happen. Subbed for his reward...

Alli - Won some freekicks, half of which are only after killing the momentum of any moves, apart from that pretty woeful game.

Kane - Thought he was a bit lazy today. Too many times he was standing still and out of the game.

Subs:
Aurier - Crossing was pretty poor, but he at least added some urgency and took the game to them and was willing to make runs beyond their defensive line. Unlucky not to win a penalty.

Llorente - Came on, we didn't use him, eventually two got punted in his direction in injury time and he got two flick-ons.

 

[Colston]

Pretty much everyone - so he had to prove them wrong today.... and boy, was he wrong today...

Just give it a week, we'll find it in our hearts to forgive Deano, I'm sure.

 

[truebluespur]

Dele has been so poor this season... I'm starting to think his exploits in previous seasons and the hype surrounding him have gone to his head.

Such a shame Lamela is injured. He'd be a perfect alternative to Dele who could use some time on the bench. Lamela would also provide proper competition to forward third players.

I also wouldn't mind seeing Llorente lead the line at times, with Kane playing a slightly deeper role at the expense of Dele.

 

[yankspurs]

That was a "how to make yourself look amateur" coaching spectable from Poch

 

[DenverSpur]

- Llorente. We bring him on circa 75 mins, route one football isn't my preference but things are getting a bit desperate, you'd assume we might try and play to his strengths and stick a few on his head and get men around him... It takes until the 92nd minute for us to realise this might be an option, and could maybe should have scored from his flick on. Now some of the 'blame' has to go to the players, who should be able to think for themselves, but the manager has to get the instruction out there - what was he brought on for otherwise?



Llorente - Came on, we didn't use him, eventually two got punted in his direction in injury time and he got two flick-ons.[/QUOTE]

THIS

 

[DenverSpur]

Oh how I'd love someone who could just take the ball and run at them, cause some mayhem instead of just the ponderous sideway passing.

 

[AnotherSpursFan]

Im gonna get slated but i will say this again because it really pisses me off to see Ali throwing a strop whenever Sonny attempts shot on goal or lose possesion, this Ali has become Berbatov version 2, cancerous to team spirit.

He thinks hes good, but more and more looks like a one season wonder, work harder boy and stop partying too much, ur more like Raheem Sterling now instead of Berbatov, which means ur quite useless

 

[ohtottenham!]

That was a "how to make yourself look amateur" coaching spectable from Poch

True, if we're being brutal! But, breaking down teams is also proving difficult for Liverpool, Arsenal etc., The bus parkers are also getting better! Swansea set up well against us...pace on both flanks on the counter attack, and Tammy Abraham unsettled Toby, let alone Sanchez!

That being said...we had no service to our forwards, 'cause we had no effective WBs throughout the game to stretch the park, apart from Aurier when he came on. The Swanseas and Burnleys are finding it easy to nullify the flanks against the Trippiers and Sissokos...just park half-decent full-backs with pace on either flank, and the job's done.

Our choice, time and again, was to go central, and Eriksen had no space to do that effectively because we had no effective wing backs to create width, and he had no Dembele or Winks to either drive forward, or link up with him in advanced positions. We had precious little creativity going forward. Son had the most space, and he was good, but still had to work in really congested areas.

Result was, Kane and Alli saw very little of the ball. Kane nearly made it happen despite the little he saw of the ball, just 'cause he's that good! Alli tried, and did ok considering he was swamped every time he got possession. He had nowhere near the bad game being suggested by some.

We have an Aurier/Rose or an Aurier/Davies WB combo, and this game has more space for us. An Aurier/KWP as LWB would have worked too. In the end, everything went central for us and we didn't have the quality to make it work for us. Eriksen couldn't do that alone, 'cause he had no Dembele or Winks to help him. Poch could have done better...but, who'd be a coach!

 

[glospur]

The over reaction here is fucking ridiculous. We played against a team sat deep with 5 defenders and couldn't break them down, despite Kane missing a sitter, Dean incorrectly calling a handball on Aurier that actually should have been a pen and Dele bizarrely fluffing that header. It's not the first time that will happen to a top team this season and it's not the last.

Those digging out Dele, giving him 0, 1 or 2 and rating him lower than the likes of Sissoko genuinely have no idea. He won about 5 or 6 free kicks in dangerous areas that we couldn't capitalise on and was involved in some nice interplay that created a couple of nice chances. The really poor moment was that header that he tried to knock down instead of putting it on goal. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying he was MotM or worthy of anything above about a 6, but the reaction to him in the game day thread and here was nothing less than absolute nonsense. He really was no worse than anyone else out there, all of whom were largely ineffective.

Anyway, everyone gets a 6. They were all ok without anyone putting in an outstanding performance. Maybe Son gets a 6.5 and MotM because he was the most lively, despite playing out of position.

 

[Davo99]

Went with Eriksen, the only cerebral player we have. The man is overloaded.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Danny1]

Alli gets a 0 again! You are not the finished article lad so stop playing like you are! You have a lot to learn and a long way to go before you are deemed "world class"

 

[eddiev14]

very disappointed, Poch could of started Aurier and Davies and then give them the week off. later in the season I expect rotation, but we are not playing at the same pace at the moment. with Trips at left back we never looked dangerous at all

Exactly and we desperately need to find some consistency. That only comes by playing more games together.