Stellini questions the mentality of the Spurs squad “something has to change”

[mawspurs]

Tottenham assistant manager Cristian Stellini says something has to change after watching Spurs lose 4-1 to Leicester in the Premier League. Antonio Conte returned to the sidelines after missing last weekend’s win against Manchester City owing to gallbladder surgery. However, he left the post-match press conference to his assistant. Tottenham next have fixtures against AC Milan and West Ham.

Source: Eurosport

 

[slartibartfast]

Its not mentality thats the problem imo. We dont have an out and out defensive midfielder or an out and out creative midfielder.
It makes our defence vulnerable and our attack ineffective.
Also makes us boring to watch most of the time.

 

[UbeAstard]

Its not mentality thats the problem imo. We dont have an out and out defensive midfielder or an out and out creative midfielder.
It makes our defence vulnerable and our attack ineffective.
Also makes us boring to watch most of the time.

We havent really had an out and out defensive midfielder for years, under Poch Dier was put in that position but still we did OK without one. Almost every team can say we dont have this or that. We dont have the best defenders in the league and I certainly dont think we have the worst.
But I'm not sure its all down to mentality. We keep playing the same out of form players week in week out (Son). We have made a drastic change to the back line today which imo was unessessary (the suspension apart). And us playing on the back foot all the time instead of the front foot, all down to how we are being managed.

 

[whitesocks]

"If it's only about the mentality, we could solve the situation, because the mentality of this team is really strong, believe me. But reduce [it to] only about the mentality is a poor consideration, in my opinion" - Conte.

This was from a cracking press conference in Jan, where he also explained that our defence could not push up to compress play in the opponent's half for long periods as they were too vulnerable to the break. They have to drop back.

ie there is a reason we play as we do and it is not down to mentality.

 

[DanielJohnCosta]

'something has to change'

yeh have a look at your manager's bullshit system

 

[tobias]

Its not mentality thats the problem imo. We dont have an out and out defensive midfielder or an out and out creative midfielder.
It makes our defence vulnerable and our attack ineffective.
Also makes us boring to watch most of the time.

Romero would be an outstanding DM. But not convinced it's a role we need or would solve anything.

We are ineffective as a team because we dont have any real strengths. We dont press. We dont counter. We cant defend. We're not dynamic.

As individuals I rate our players.

Perisic - great player, but what does he bring to this team? Hojbjerg - what's his role? Son - a passenger? Richarlison playing out of position and under utilised. Etc.

 

[Chedozie]

A defence of Forster, Tanganga, Dier and Davies is pretty much championship level. They wouldn’t look out of place in the West Brom line up.

 

[longtimespur]

A defence of Forster, Tanganga, Dier and Davies is pretty much championship level. They wouldn’t look out of place in the West Brom line up.

Can you have a word with them when you're up the midlands. They might not realise we have their back line and keeper.

Just joking, need cheering up after that.

 

[Japhet]

One of the best performances for mentality recently was Gil. He got his chance through injury, came in with hardly any minutes under his belt, ran his nuts off and got stuck in at every opportunity and then promptly got dropped again and then punted out on loan. A lot of our players are far too secure and seem to be undropable which must play a part in the complacency which rears it's ugly head so often.

 

[Chedozie]

One of the best performances for mentality recently was Gil. He got his chance through injury, came in with hardly any minutes under his belt, ran his nuts off and got stuck in at every opportunity and then promptly got dropped again and then punted out on loan. A lot of our players are far too secure and seem to be undropable which must play a part in the complacency which rears it's ugly head so often.

I agree with your point on Gil, but I don’t think most of them are complacent, I think they’re inconsistent, because they are playing at a level to which they have to be at they’re very best to compete and they can’t maintain that level of play.

 

[Japhet]

I agree with your point on Gil, but I don’t think most of them are complacent, I think they’re inconsistent, because they are playing at a level to which they have to be at they’re very best to compete and they can’t maintain that level of play.

My comment about complacency was really born from the observation that v Man City everybody turned up, worked hard and maintained concentration. The drop off from that to the Leicester game was quite astonishing really and in such a short space of time I don't know what else to attribute it to, other than complacency. I feel it's something that has afflicted us for many years, and it is a mentality issue.

 

[Chedozie]

My comment about complacency was really born from the observation that v Man City everybody turned up, worked hard and maintained concentration. The drop off from that to the Leicester game was quite astonishing really and in such a short space of time I don't know what else to attribute it to, other than complacency. I feel it's something that has afflicted us for many years, and it is a mentality issue.

Personally I think it’s an ability issue and we need players in defence with more of it.

 

[marion52]

To be fair our ‘mentality’ has been called out for years?
Remember the MU ‘it’s only Spurs’ comments!
We‘ve had spells where we’ve been better but when the going gets tough our mentality is always questioned.

 

[Trix]

"If it's only about the mentality, we could solve the situation, because the mentality of this team is really strong, believe me. But reduce [it to] only about the mentality is a poor consideration, in my opinion" - Conte.

This was from a cracking press conference in Jan, where he also explained that our defence could not push up to compress play in the opponent's half for long periods as they were too vulnerable to the break. They have to drop back.

ie there is a reason we play as we do and it is not down to mentality.

It is mentality, one mistake and they are fragile as hell for the remainder of the game. Been saying it for years now, if they make an error early doors expect more because they can't shake it off and get on with the game.

 

[Jamturk]

Starting to hear the same things that we heard towards the end of the Jose reign.

 

[theShiznit]

Well Conte and his team have had enough time with the players now to assess the players' mentality and improve it or remove those with the weak mentality from the squad and if they haven't what are they getting paid for?

TBH yesterday we looked like we were playing for Tuesday and didn't want to get injured (How'd that work out?) pulling out off things and not committing.

 

[TOLBINY]

For quite some time we have been an attractive proposition for those players who the really top clubs don't want - we are London based, great facilities, decent wages & bonus structure and you're not actually expected to win anything or perform consistently well. You don't need a winners mindset to join Spurs and in truth I think quite a few of those we buy seem to lack genuine self-belief, which means when things are not going that well on the pitch they become even more vulnerable mentally.

 

[Metalhead]

To be fair our ‘mentality’ has been called out for years?
Remember the MU ‘it’s only Spurs’ comments!
We‘ve had spells where we’ve been better but when the going gets tough our mentality is always questioned.

True. We were known as being soft for years and years (stretching back into the 90s). It improved under Poch but has regressed since.

 

[spark7586]

There is weak mentality but then there are players like dier and tanganga that should’ve been shipped out a while back as they are not good enough and never have been. I’d add Davies to that as well but I think he’s a good squad player.

 

[daveduvet]

I agree that something has to change … is Contes system beyond our group of players? Is he trying to get an operatic performance from a group of street musicians?
we showed against City we can cut the mustard.. why can we not translate that mentality against Leicester!?
Although, I felt Leicester did play to their strengths, and exploit our weaknesses