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Style of play

cjbyid

Well-Known Member
Jan 4, 2009
7,167
25,013
The Arsenal game in two weeks will tell us a lot.

Not having a settled starting 11, especially through last season doesn't help.
 

Primativ

Well-Known Member
Aug 9, 2017
3,229
12,486
Since January 8th, we've played 28 games in all competitions. Guess how many we've been leading at half-time?
  • Leicester (H)
  • Southampton (A)
  • Huddersfield (H)
  • Everton (H)
Four. Just four out of 28 games we've gone into the break winning. By comparison, we've been behind in fourteen of them. Yes, we had a lot of injuries in the second half of last season. Yes, we had a fixture pile-up because of the cup runs. Yes, we had a lot of difficult Champions League matches to play (and you could say we were winning the City away game at half time even though we were 3-2 down on the night). Yes, we have had stadium move problems and uncertainty over player contracts. But this record is quite simply nowhere near good enough, especially when you consider that out of those four we dropped points in two of them.

We just don't seem to impose ourselves on games anymore - the famous high intensity pressing game that Poch made his name with seems to have died a long time ago. I know that very few teams will ever dominate for a full 90 minutes, but whereas we used to be able to get on top for the majority of a game apart from a few brief spells, nowadays we seem to struggle for 70-80 minutes of a game but manage to carve out a few sporadic chances when the opposition gets tired or loses concentration, and if we're not clinical then we drop points.

I really hope Poch has a plan up his sleeve, because I love the guy and would love him to succeed here. He's done a superb job with us thus far. But whilst he may be able to win a cup, I decided yesterday that I cannot see us winning the title under his management, barring a spectacular 2015/16 style collapse of all of the other big teams which is not likely. I really hope I'm wrong and that the introduction of Lo Celso and Sessegnon, as well as Ndombele's settling in changes things around and that my favourite ever Spurs manager gets to lift the trophy we've all wanted him to. But the reality of it is, he gets the big tactical decisions in the big games wrong far too often. Regardless of injuries and the quality of the opposition we were up against, you would NEVER see Klopp or Guardiola set up the way we did on Saturday, even if they had the same squad we had. They would have insisted on starting Lucas and tried to soak up the pressure to play quick counter-attacking football whilst pressing and dominating in City's half when they could see them getting tired or frustrated - in fact there was a time after Moura's goal when they were rattled and they did fall back so I thought it could have been the perfect opportunity to go for the jugular and to bring on Lo Celso early to win the game for us. But once again - Poch waited until the final few minutes to use his last two substitutions. I rate him above Emery overall but one thing you can say for that lot down the road is that their manager is far more proactive at changing a game that's slipping away from them early with good substitutions.

Yeah cue the negative ratings, and to be honest maybe our place in the footballing hierarchy at the moment is not to be challenging for the title but to make sure we finish in the top four and win a cup. Just my two cents.

That is certainly alarming. On one hand it shows we have a good mentality but it’s also true we are often so poor in the opening 45 minutes.

I do think there is cause for concern with Spurs at the moment but it could just be nothing and things sort themselves out from here but
I still can’t get a way with how poor we were on Saturday.

We seemed to play with no belief whatsoever and I have no idea what our game plan was. It was a mess.

Most one sided draw I’ve ever seen.
 

Hakkz

Svensk hetsporre
Jul 6, 2012
8,196
17,270
That is certainly alarming. On one hand it shows we have a good mentality but it’s also true we are often so poor in the opening 45 minutes.

I do think there is cause for concern with Spurs at the moment but it could just be nothing and things sort themselves out from here but
I still can’t get a way with how poor we were on Saturday.

We seemed to play with no belief whatsoever and I have no idea what our game plan was. It was a mess.

Most one sided draw I’ve ever seen.

It drains a lot of energy too I would guess. Not helping when everybody is already carrying an injury.
 

theShiznit

Well-Known Member
Jul 26, 2004
17,800
23,813
It drains a lot of energy too I would guess. Not helping when everybody is already carrying an injury.
What's interesting is it used to be the opposite under Poch. We would start fast but if we were only 1-2 up we would be left hanging on for dear life by the end. I Wonder if it's a case of him (over) reacting to those early performances? although it's pretty hard to suggest conserving energy for a half of football.

Most worrying thing for me is we seem incapable of creating as a team, our patterns of play are so predictable and slow that most of our creative input comes from the fullbacks or wingers beating a man and if that is what your whole game plan rests on then all it takes is for your wide men to come up against someone they can't beat and your attacking threat is nullified.
 

Hakkz

Svensk hetsporre
Jul 6, 2012
8,196
17,270
What's interesting is it used to be the opposite under Poch. We would start fast but if we were only 1-2 up we would be left hanging on for dear life by the end. I Wonder if it's a case of him (over) reacting to those early performances? although it's pretty hard to suggest conserving energy for a half of football.

Most worrying thing for me is we seem incapable of creating as a team, our patterns of play are so predictable and slow that most of our creative input comes from the fullbacks or wingers beating a man and if that is what your whole game plan rests on then all it takes is for your wide men to come up against someone they can't beat and your attacking threat is nullified.

The ideal scenario would be to be in the lead and then slow down the game/play on the counter.

I agree, we don't have that much unpredictability in the team (so far).
 

THFC_SWE

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2012
1,233
3,914
I'm also cocerned about the formation and Poch decisions. I'm really happy with a draw away against Man C, but I also think the formation was all wrong. When you play a midfield diamond or a 4-3-2-1 you need the wing backs to push forward and provide width. I don't know what Poch expected against Man C, but there's no way our full wing backs could push forward and provide the width needed for the formation we played. We made it very easy for Man C to defend. All they had to do was to choke us in central areas of the pitch. I don't understand how Poch can't understand something simple as this.

A 4-3-3/4-5-1 or a 4-2-3-1 would be better. In the end we got a point, but it was luck more than anything else.
 

onthetwo

Well-Known Member
May 19, 2006
4,583
3,407
A lot of good points being made, especially about us pacing ourselves better in games, but yesterday was a stark reminder of how poor we were yesterday. I actually think the plan was to draw them onto us and then break the press with N'Dombele and Sissoko, but it didn't work for multiple factors.

My main concerns though;

1) It starts from the back with Lloris. He's one of the best shot stoppers in the league, sometimes a bit flaky with his decision making, but for the most part safe. His one glaring weakness is his passing. I'm not talking about how he actually kicks the ball, more his passing choices. There were times yesterday when he continuously went side to side, putting the CB's under increasing pressure when Winks and N'Dombele were good options. His lack of confidence in either himself or his CM's causes a lot of problems and eventually leads to the long ball.

2) Receiving on the turn. If you watch Liverpool and City, they are always able to get the ball to players on the turn who are then able to face forwards and put their opponents on the back foot. We do not. Every one of our players receives passes either whilst facing our goal or backpedalling.

3) Which brings us to positioning. Our shape to pass it out from the back cannot be right if we are struggling to do it throughout pre-season and in the opening two match days. To be fair to the team, there were times in the game where we actually worked it well along the flanks before moving it inside for N'Dombele, but the occassions were rare.

4) Speed of ball. Vertonghen is criminal for this tbh. The passing needs to be crisp yet our CB's and GK play really slow football. The ball travels so slowly that we are already under pressure upon receiving it. Any time/space created through good movement can be negated by this.

5) The press. I honestly don't think it's worth it against City, they are that good at getting past it that all you do is open up the pitch for them. Yesterday it was all mistimed, Lamela and Eriksen were a couple of steps behind Kane so that when he initiated the follow up was just off and City got out whilst cutting out three of our players with ease. I'd want to at least make them commit more men to getting out of their own half.

Now I would expect point five to improve over time, but it's 1-4 that I think we really need to work on. I would expect our attacking play to improve exponentially if these were non-factors.
Absolutely spot on IMO re point 2. We simply dont have the defenders who can offer the ball this way OR enough midfielders who can receive it hence Eriksen ends up coming deep in many games as hes one of the few who can. Fingers crossed that the new players are an upgrade on this particular point.
 

Lighty64

I believe
Aug 24, 2010
10,400
12,476
Since January 8th, we've played 28 games in all competitions. Guess how many we've been leading at half-time?
  • Leicester (H)
  • Southampton (A)
  • Huddersfield (H)
  • Everton (H)
Four. Just four out of 28 games we've gone into the break winning. By comparison, we've been behind in fourteen of them. Yes, we had a lot of injuries in the second half of last season. Yes, we had a fixture pile-up because of the cup runs. Yes, we had a lot of difficult Champions League matches to play (and you could say we were winning the City away game at half time even though we were 3-2 down on the night). Yes, we have had stadium move problems and uncertainty over player contracts. But this record is quite simply nowhere near good enough, especially when you consider that out of those four we dropped points in two of them.

We just don't seem to impose ourselves on games anymore - the famous high intensity pressing game that Poch made his name with seems to have died a long time ago. I know that very few teams will ever dominate for a full 90 minutes, but whereas we used to be able to get on top for the majority of a game apart from a few brief spells, nowadays we seem to struggle for 70-80 minutes of a game but manage to carve out a few sporadic chances when the opposition gets tired or loses concentration, and if we're not clinical then we drop points.

I really hope Poch has a plan up his sleeve, because I love the guy and would love him to succeed here. He's done a superb job with us thus far. But whilst he may be able to win a cup, I decided yesterday that I cannot see us winning the title under his management, barring a spectacular 2015/16 style collapse of all of the other big teams which is not likely. I really hope I'm wrong and that the introduction of Lo Celso and Sessegnon, as well as Ndombele's settling in changes things around and that my favourite ever Spurs manager gets to lift the trophy we've all wanted him to. But the reality of it is, he gets the big tactical decisions in the big games wrong far too often. Regardless of injuries and the quality of the opposition we were up against, you would NEVER see Klopp or Guardiola set up the way we did on Saturday, even if they had the same squad we had. They would have insisted on starting Lucas and tried to soak up the pressure to play quick counter-attacking football whilst pressing and dominating in City's half when they could see them getting tired or frustrated - in fact there was a time after Moura's goal when they were rattled and they did fall back so I thought it could have been the perfect opportunity to go for the jugular and to bring on Lo Celso early to win the game for us. But once again - Poch waited until the final few minutes to use his last two substitutions. I rate him above Emery overall but one thing you can say for that lot down the road is that their manager is far more proactive at changing a game that's slipping away from them early with good substitutions.

Yeah cue the negative ratings, and to be honest maybe our place in the footballing hierarchy at the moment is not to be challenging for the title but to make sure we finish in the top four and win a cup. Just my two cents.

as I have already posted especially taking last season into it, that due to playing CL now instead of Europa, and trying to win a domestic trophy and not always getting the best of luck in the draws, rotation especially last season hasn't been available. so like someone else has posted in here it looks like we haven't been going full steam for the 90, but have been picking up the tempo in the 2nd half.

also the last 2 seasons most of the other 14 teams we have played are not as open against us, and at a guess I'd bet because those teams sit do deep we most probably average over 65% per game. the high press doesn't work as easy when 8 to 9 of the opposing teams players are in their own half when the regain possession. the 2 previous seasons when we chased Leicester and Chelsea our high press was working because we was nicking the ball off teams high up, and they never had as many defending
 

AnotherSpursFan

Well-Known Member
Dec 4, 2006
1,799
1,778
Completely agree. When I watch games I no longer have any idea what we're trying to do.
Today I thought Sissoko was there to add protection to KWP but so often he was too far forward or out of position and KWP was constantly dealing with an overlap.
Pressing has gone
Pissing about passing at the back seems to be flavour of the month as does passing sideways for ages and then finally giving it to Lloris to lump aimlessly.
Today Eriksen and Kane simply jogged around up front closing down

I'm hoping that Lo Celso and Ndombele getting up to speed will see us passing forward quickly and breaking through the lines at pace but I am really starting to wonder about Poch's tactics. Seems odd to say given top 4 is now regualr and last seasons CL run but for me so often our football is too slow and turgid.
And they blame Lloris for distribution when the outfielders has got some serious distribution issues
 

gerishep

Connected to the Spurs.
Aug 2, 2004
1,159
1,955
Since January 8th, we've played 28 games in all competitions. Guess how many we've been leading at half-time?
  • Leicester (H)
  • Southampton (A)
  • Huddersfield (H)
  • Everton (H)
Four. Just four out of 28 games we've gone into the break winning. By comparison, we've been behind in fourteen of them. Yes, we had a lot of injuries in the second half of last season. Yes, we had a fixture pile-up because of the cup runs. Yes, we had a lot of difficult Champions League matches to play (and you could say we were winning the City away game at half time even though we were 3-2 down on the night). Yes, we have had stadium move problems and uncertainty over player contracts. But this record is quite simply nowhere near good enough, especially when you consider that out of those four we dropped points in two of them.

We just don't seem to impose ourselves on games anymore - the famous high intensity pressing game that Poch made his name with seems to have died a long time ago. I know that very few teams will ever dominate for a full 90 minutes, but whereas we used to be able to get on top for the majority of a game apart from a few brief spells, nowadays we seem to struggle for 70-80 minutes of a game but manage to carve out a few sporadic chances when the opposition gets tired or loses concentration, and if we're not clinical then we drop points.

I really hope Poch has a plan up his sleeve, because I love the guy and would love him to succeed here. He's done a superb job with us thus far. But whilst he may be able to win a cup, I decided yesterday that I cannot see us winning the title under his management, barring a spectacular 2015/16 style collapse of all of the other big teams which is not likely. I really hope I'm wrong and that the introduction of Lo Celso and Sessegnon, as well as Ndombele's settling in changes things around and that my favourite ever Spurs manager gets to lift the trophy we've all wanted him to. But the reality of it is, he gets the big tactical decisions in the big games wrong far too often. Regardless of injuries and the quality of the opposition we were up against, you would NEVER see Klopp or Guardiola set up the way we did on Saturday, even if they had the same squad we had. They would have insisted on starting Lucas and tried to soak up the pressure to play quick counter-attacking football whilst pressing and dominating in City's half when they could see them getting tired or frustrated - in fact there was a time after Moura's goal when they were rattled and they did fall back so I thought it could have been the perfect opportunity to go for the jugular and to bring on Lo Celso early to win the game for us. But once again - Poch waited until the final few minutes to use his last two substitutions. I rate him above Emery overall but one thing you can say for that lot down the road is that their manager is far more proactive at changing a game that's slipping away from them early with good substitutions.

Yeah cue the negative ratings, and to be honest maybe our place in the footballing hierarchy at the moment is not to be challenging for the title but to make sure we finish in the top four and win a cup. Just my two cents.

Totally agree with what your saying. It's difficult to write a post that's seemingly negative while trying to be constructive.
 

ralphs bald spot

Well-Known Member
Jul 14, 2015
2,777
5,177
I can't understand going to City and being so passive. It might be old fashioned but City's weakness is Zinchenko and their two centre backs. Put the ball in behind Zinchenko and stretch them. By playing short football we allowed them to press on LLoris would have been better served by playing the ball long and turning their full backs around.
i

I can't understand the lack imagination and thought - you are going to the best side in the country and you try and outplay them at their game. It clearly wasn't working so you have to change - long ball football might not be popular but watching us on Saturday we had to make the game longer and what is wrong with sticking someone on De Bruyne rough him up he is immensely fragile though a great player.

Good point gained but did we ride our luck
 

Ronwol196061

Well-Known Member
Apr 9, 2018
3,925
3,646
I can't understand going to City and being so passive. It might be old fashioned but City's weakness is Zinchenko and their two centre backs. Put the ball in behind Zinchenko and stretch them. By playing short football we allowed them to press on LLoris would have been better served by playing the ball long and turning their full backs around.
i

I can't understand the lack imagination and thought - you are going to the best side in the country and you try and outplay them at their game. It clearly wasn't working so you have to change - long ball football might not be popular but watching us on Saturday we had to make the game longer and what is wrong with sticking someone on De Bruyne rough him up he is immensely fragile though a great player.

Good point gained but did we ride our luck

Brilliant post!

In our defence I think Poch is trying to work out how we will play,this game came too early.
With saying that City are fine tuned and it was no real accurate test of where we are.
Last year often we banged our head against a wall until we broke it down by the end sometimes as lucky as we were in this game.
Still I'm sure we are much better than this.
Eriksen,Kane and company should have done better as individuals never mind the system and maybe created something but little was created.
 

TorontoYid

Well-Known Member
May 30, 2013
1,640
1,691
Brilliant post!

In our defence I think Poch is trying to work out how we will play,this game came too early.
With saying that City are fine tuned and it was no real accurate test of where we are.
Last year often we banged our head against a wall until we broke it down by the end sometimes as lucky as we were in this game.
Still I'm sure we are much better than this.
Eriksen,Kane and company should have done better as individuals never mind the system and maybe created something but little was created.
Have to agree. This is a City team that are capable of destroying the best teams in the world and we went to their ground with new players and still grabbed a point. I said before the game that I thought a draw would be the best result we could realistically hope for. Our defense barely held them off and had we been more attacking we may have scored another goal but they almost certainly would have scored more as well and we likely would have lost. Once our new signings gel with the team it may be a different story but for now we did all we could. Not may teams will beat City this season and those that do will do so only because they played better than they usually do and City made mistakes not because they are a better team.
 

Ronwol196061

Well-Known Member
Apr 9, 2018
3,925
3,646
Have to agree. This is a City team that are capable of destroying the best teams in the world and we went to their ground with new players and still grabbed a point. I said before the game that I thought a draw would be the best result we could realistically hope for. Our defense barely held them off and had we been more attacking we may have scored another goal but they almost certainly would have scored more as well and we likely would have lost. Once our new signings gel with the team it may be a different story but for now we did all we could. Not may teams will beat City this season and those that do will do so only because they played better than they usually do and City made mistakes not because they are a better team.
I'm in T.O. too!
 

Hakkz

Svensk hetsporre
Jul 6, 2012
8,196
17,270
Have to agree. This is a City team that are capable of destroying the best teams in the world and we went to their ground with new players and still grabbed a point. I said before the game that I thought a draw would be the best result we could realistically hope for. Our defense barely held them off and had we been more attacking we may have scored another goal but they almost certainly would have scored more as well and we likely would have lost. Once our new signings gel with the team it may be a different story but for now we did all we could. Not may teams will beat City this season and those that do will do so only because they played better than they usually do and City made mistakes not because they are a better team.

The xG stat was 3.23 to 0.11 for them with 30-3 shots. We were really lucky they didn't convert more chances. We did as well we realistically could have.
 

Woodyy

Well-Known Member
Jan 3, 2016
1,402
3,391
It’s a strange one as we do seem to bring out that intense high press every now and then but nowhere as consistently as 15/16 & 16/17, the last time I remember us doing it was again Chelsea at Wembley last season and we absolutely blew them away within 20 minutes.
 

RichieS

Well-Known Member
Dec 23, 2004
11,916
16,436
It’s a strange one as we do seem to bring out that intense high press every now and then but nowhere as consistently as 15/16 & 16/17, the last time I remember us doing it was again Chelsea at Wembley last season and we absolutely blew them away within 20 minutes.
Horses for courses. Try and do that to City and you're asking for trouble as all of their midfielders can play their way out of it. Chelsea were vulnerable because Jorginho couldn't hack it.
 

Kiedis

Well-Known Member
Aug 4, 2013
2,926
8,490
The 14/15 and 15/16 season went by with numerous people complaining that Poch wasn't tactically flexible enough. 16/17 and 17/18 showed that not to be the case, whereas last season was a bloody masterclass in how to squeeze the max out of a team riddled with fatigue and injuries through various tactical tweaks.

I think we'll see a lot of different setups this season, but that we'll generally look better seeing as we've added two top midfield prospects that in terms of profile can do the stuff our midfield wasn't able to do last year, and that it'll lead to a lot more games where have a better control over preceedings.

The game vs. Villa was a prime example of how we've often looked in august, even in our best seasons. Dominant, but still not firing on all cylinders.
 
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