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Ratings v WBA

MOTM?


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C-oops

Well-Known Member
Jul 27, 2008
4,037
3,373
No point in ratings as to a man we were fucking terrible. Lloris was ok and Capoue made a few great tackles. Soldado tried more ( although nothing came off) and made more runs within 5 mins of coming on than Adebayor did during the whole match. The whole performance was abject. I was annoyed at how we were holding on to the ball for too long, not passing it quickly and forward. Then you look ahead of the ball and Adebayor is just standing there. Eriksen is just standing there. Chadli just standing there. lamela was showing for the ball but he was being marked tightly. So what is the man on the ball supposed to do if there is no movement ahead of him and no pass on. He passes it back or sideways and in doing so takes all the momentum and pace a out of the game, not that there was any to start with. Just terrible from our front 4. No effort at all to try and move the defence, run into channels, run beyond the striker. So after the complete lack of effort you'd think you could at least rely on decent ball control and passing. nope. Lamela ran out of ideas after 5 minutes and constantly gave the ball away. Eriksen was anonymous as was Chadli. Rose made some good runs but there was noone (sometimes not even Adebayor) in the box to cross it to. Chiriches looks like a competition winner and how can you have a captain leading by example when said captain is in the worst form of his career. When they scored their goal I'd assumed the whistle had gone due to the lack of marking. Just unbelievably bad all round. ]

Stamboulli has to come in next to Capoue. dembele didnt do much again today and was back to taking all the momentum out of the attacks. Stamboulli's energy if nothing else will help. having seen him against Belgrade I think that fazio wouldn't have let their goal happen. He is too good in the air and we need that. Don't know what has happened with vertonghan to be not included ( fitness? attitude?) but he needs to be playing. Adebayor needs to be dropped for a couple of games and let Soldado have a run in the side. He showed more willingness to makes runs off the ball and get on the end of things than Adebayor today who was just terrible. He did nothing. Not sure that he even won a header.

Oh. Almost forgot about Paulinho... Jesus Christ almighty.

And Finally... what the hell happened to our high tempo, high pressing game? has Poch stopped bothering with it? Are our players too stupid and lazy to implement it? Did the players sack it off due to their general lazyness ?
 
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Mr Pink

SC Supporter
Aug 25, 2010
54,770
99,331
I blame AVB

Clearly the software memory brain implant virus that he put into these world class, witty, creatively abundant, intelligent footballers was not completely removed by either the Sherwood's reversion to Redknapp version 2.1, or Pochettino's system reboot.

Poor old Adebayor, AVB's software implant has almost completely wiped his memory chip and the ability for hard drive to communicate with his peripheral hardware. How an earth could anyone fall out with this loveable trojan.

That fiendish Portugeezer with his new fangled methodology, his note pad, his spending time coaching and shit, brain frazzling all our galactico lights and ruining them for life.

We all know it's pointless really assessing a new regime after a handful of meaningful games but we can call it as we see it. What we are seeing is much of the same virus we saw under AVB (and Sherwood), and not because of AVB, and thats even with some of these guys being a year wiser.

Fuckwittedness is rife.

But fuckwittedness does not excuse everything. Pochettino made some odd decisions, starting thursday and continuing today. Kaboul and Chiriches for me aren't a good pairing. Why was Vertonghen played thursday ?

Dier is not a right back, and offers absolutely nothing going forward. And with the players we are playing, in games like today with teams set up like WBA were (and we knew they would) we desperately need full backs who can offer some width.

If you want to move the ball quickly, important against obdurate deep sitting opponents, why play Dembele in central midfield ? Bentaleb (or even Carroll if we'd kept him) moves the ball much quicker and with more purpose.

And how the fuck Adebayor is still being picked after his earlier lethargic performances is anyone's guess, but today was the worst performance I have ever seen from him. He was atrocious, looked utterly disinterested and when the ball came near him looked like he'd played his first ever game of football a few days ago. He almost seemed to deliberately not put his head on Eriksen's cross in the first half. He must be dropped, even if the others aren't the answer, he needs an almighty kick up up the arse.

Some poor selection choices were compounded by a pretty poor tactical application. The higher pressing, vital against teams like this, to catch them before set, was non existent. Part of the problem is that it needs to be instigated by the CF (Adebayor today) and he just wasn't interested in moving quicker than nonchalant amble.

There was very little coherence to anything anyone else did. Pressing, defending, moving or passing. It was one of those days where everything we did just looked disjointed, chaotic & careless.

Lloris set the tone, giving several really stupid balls out that put players under pressure, Chiriches with his ever present penchant for over playing was his brother in arms, but all of our defenders made hard work of simple tasks at times.

Worst of all, very poor movement was combined with abject carelessness with the ball all over the pitch. An absolutely catastrophic combination.

Just when you thought things couldn't get worse, Pochettino's subs disproved that theory. Leaving Adebayor on the pitch was poor tactical management. I would have swapped Ade for Soldado, Eriksen (who was having a poor game) for Bentaleb and pushed Dembele further forward where he could dribble at their defence instead of their midfield.

Only two players came out of this game with any credit, Capoue who was excellent first half, breaking things up and trying to get things going, sprayed some nice balls about to the flanks with both feet as well, but wasn't helped by Dembele's dawdling and positional indiscipline at times and then by Poch's subs which effectively left him alone in CM, and Rose who shades my MOTM vote for sticking to his task, defending better than the other defenders and trying to help out in attack.

All in all this was a bad day at the office for all concerned. Pochettino's selections and tactical input were flawed and the players application therein piss poor.

The transitional phase can be a fucking painful one.

Individual blame game:

Lloris - Poor distribution choices frequently.

Dier - He's not a rb and it shows.

Kaboul - Looking more Dawsonesque as his career winds down.

Chiriches - His tendency to fuck around was not what we needed today.

Rose - All things considered a very decent game. Our best defender and tried to help going forward.

Capoue - Very good first half but got a bit bogged down second half. Should never have been subbed though, just made us more vulnerable and Eriksen's wasn't passing well anyway.

Dembele - He does some good things but he plays too much with his head down, holds onto the ball too long and got caught dithering a couple of times. Also found himself wandering all over the place, leaving Capoue isolated and us structurally vulnerable.

Lamela - He tries hard but too much of what he did today was erratic and hap hazard and the choices he made were often poor or poorly executed.

Eriksen - Was poor today, not in the game enough and when he was his contribution was uninspiring.

Chadli - Didn't really contribute loads but more than Adebayor and I would have left him on.

Adebayor - Really, really piss poor. Disinterested, lethargic, clumsy, unfit for purpose. 13 passes. Defoe-esque.

Yeah I agree with pretty much all of this.

We have a serious problem with Adebayor, in that we seem to be at his mercy in terms of when he decides to be up for any certain game.

He's had a poor start to the season and yesterday was pretty shocking. He just doesn't play with any sort of appetite or urgency, he was second to everything.

The other point is, which you touched on, is his ambling about and not willing to press from the front. A vital feature of Poch's system is that the forward players initiate the high press.

It seems like a complete paradox with Adebayor. To me he expects to play now again and its showing. I will be disappointed if he starts against Arsenal.

Pochettino has to start picking a side that can reflect and implement his style best. Adebayor is the logical choice but if he's just ambling about he's not worth his place in the team, simple.

Again I'm in total bewilderment as to why Kaboul and Vlad played together. I winced when I saw the team news. I still find it odd that Kaboul was given the captaincy when you would hope that Vertonghen and Fazio would of been first choice soon enough. But one semi liability paired with another complete liability (Vlad) is just inviting trouble - and it inevitably did. I sincerely hope Pochettino has learned from this, it was obvious to me that it was a disaster waiting to happen and it concerns me a bit that Pochettino played them. Anyway lets hope that's the last time we see them together in a meaningful game.

Vlad is just not a good enough defender for me. Technically good on the ball and can read the game well at times is not enough to compensate for his piss poor decision making, unnecessary risk taking and lack of concentration. FFS he's a defender.

The movement and pace of our passing just isn't good enough. A combination of a lot things I guess. Its very early days under Pochettino but he'll have learned quite a bit over the last week, even couple of weeks, but he made mistakes yesterday that exacerbated our performance. Our defensive fragility gave West Brom confidence and allowed them to grow more and more into the game.

All that said he's got to start picking sides that can reflect more what he's trying to do. He might not have too many options for some positions that are handicapping him a bit, but we're surely capable of at least attempting to play his way a bit better than what we're seeing even though its early days and all that.

We're most definitely filed under the early stages of a work in progress at the moment but that's no excuse for us having a poor mentality on match days. Fans would be more forgiving if they could see a real desire in our play even if it was lacking cohesion, structure and fluidity. Those things will hopefully come but in the mean time I don't want to see Adebayor ambling about as if it was just a wee fun kick about in the sun.
 

EastLondonYid

Well-Known Member
Jan 26, 2010
7,837
16,145
Poch made Kaboul captain and Ade vice capt ?? he should have also made Chirches vice capt so as to complete the set....

I fucking despair.
 

Japhet

Well-Known Member
Aug 30, 2010
19,232
57,388
The only positive I can find from that performance is that Poch will have seen at close quarters just how complacent and lethargic we can be. Some of the selection I can understand. Demele looked a totally different player Sunderland but reverted to type. However, Kaboul and Chiriches? No sense in that at all. For me, Naughton starts at RB and Dier gets go at CB. I'd be tempted to strip Adebayor of the vice Captaincy after that! He's just picked up upwards of 100k or his 'week's work'. Poch needs to wield the big stick this week.
 

Gilzeanking

Well-Known Member
May 7, 2005
6,093
5,019
Nothing to add to the above . We've reached a critical point . Are the players going to work for Poch or not ?. This is the question now . Will his rage motivate them , or move them towards mutiny ?
AVB moved Ade to mutiny , can Poch succeed with Ade where AVB failed ? I wonder.

This is why Van Gaal had an appeal .His gravitas getting our notoriously inert players to run around (maybe). The match was a rerun of numerous Spurs performances under an array of different managers . I sincerely hope Poch has something in his locker that will get the players moving .
 

Spurs_Bear

Well-Known Member
Jan 7, 2009
17,094
22,286
Agree pretty much with @Bus-Conductor and his summary, although wouldn't even be as kind to Capoue as he was, he was also garbage, and as the lesser of two evils I would have taken him off instead of Dembele.

The only positive I can bring from the game is that Poch was genuinely angry with the players, there wasn't any bullshit, I hope...HOPE, this means we will at least see some sort of reaction from all concerned, but at least he wasn't hiding behind any long winded jargon to excuse our poor performance. For what it's worth, I've never been a big fan of changing 11 players for games, especially when the regime is so new. The players can't be tired, it's not like they've run themselves into the ground recently. I want a strong team against Forest, get a win then pick another strong team for the Emirates.

And wear a suit Poch, start looking the business, there's a good lad.
 

sloth

Well-Known Member
Mar 7, 2005
9,018
6,900
I switched off half-way through the first half, five minutes later I'd switched it on again. Then off at half-time and not back on until about 55 minutes, and then off for the final time at 65 minutes. As viewing goes that was pretty much unbearable.

I think Poch was right in his post-match interview, and although I don't expect him to admit it publicly, I think he should be pretty angry with himself too. Basically he picked a shit team.

His first and biggest mistake was picking Chiriches, I don't know what the guy's doing on the training field, but it must be pretty exceptional to overcome the shit he serves up virtually every time he plays. The guy is a rubbish defender, particularly unsuited to the PL. He's slow, he's weak, and he thinks he's a hundred times better on the ball than he actually is. In fact Chiriches by himself brings into question Baldini's position at the club as far as I'm concerned.

His second error was the centre-midfield pairing. Dembele's ability to beat his man has a siren like allure to coaches, but if it's not then allied to playing the right ball then the skill is a useless one. The commentator kept saying we lacked pace, but i think it's tempo, and tempo comes from pass and move, and we don't have any pass and move exponents in the side, the closest might be Bentaleb, or we'll have to wait and see on Stamboulli.

There is a tactical issue too, but I'm not sure if this is an error or just something that will take time to work out on the training field, whichever it is atm we're too susceptible to the simplest of balls over the top, partly this is to do with FBs playing kamikaze at times, not only moving forward, but moving central, leaving absolutely no cover for when we lose the ball, partly it's an issue with Chiriches, but as i say, maybe it's also an issue with players not having learned how to play they way he wants them too.

The fourth thing i want to talk about is the make-up of the side and in particular Baldini and Levy's role in it. Levy wants the DoF and personally I agree with him, but as far as I'm concerned he keeps choosing pups for the role. Commoli was all talk and no trousers, his Billy Beane methods weren't backed by any footballing insight. Baldini doesn't seem to have grasped that we play a different game in this country to what they have in France, or Italy, or Romania. In those countries the game's played at walking pace, players dwell on the ball and take their time to pick the pass, and it's frankly slow and boring. It seems with some of our recruits Baldini's picked players who'd do well in those leagues, but who may be unsuited to our one, even with the likes of Chadli, who comes from a quick league, within that league he's a languorous type of player. Lamela thinks he's better than he is, and has got to learn that rolling your foot over the ball and then tripping over it is shit football, and that trying to play the final glorious ball all the time is not the answer, but quick progressive, but simple passing then move is. I hope the return of Broomfield might address some of these issues.

All of that said, it is far too early to judge the effect Poch can have on this team - even if I do worry when our play has gone backwards since pre-season, with the early signs of the front four being willing and able to press, having seemingly melted away into PL disinterest - and we'll see if he can find a way to get us passing and moving quickly, and with purpose.
 

thinktank

Hmmm...
Sep 28, 2004
45,893
68,893
Yeah I agree with pretty much all of this.

We have a serious problem with Adebayor, in that we seem to be at his mercy in terms of when he decides to be up for any certain game.

He's had a poor start to the season and yesterday was pretty shocking. He just doesn't play with any sort of appetite or urgency, he was second to everything.

The other point is, which you touched on, is his ambling about and not willing to press from the front. A vital feature of Poch's system is that the forward players initiate the high press.

It seems like a complete paradox with Adebayor. To me he expects to play now again and its showing. I will be disappointed if he starts against Arsenal.

Pochettino has to start picking a side that can reflect and implement his style best. Adebayor is the logical choice but if he's just ambling about he's not worth his place in the team, simple.

Again I'm in total bewilderment as to why Kaboul and Vlad played together. I winced when I saw the team news. I still find it odd that Kaboul was given the captaincy when you would hope that Vertonghen and Fazio would of been first choice soon enough. But one semi liability paired with another complete liability (Vlad) is just inviting trouble - and it inevitably did. I sincerely hope Pochettino has learned from this, it was obvious to me that it was a disaster waiting to happen and it concerns me a bit that Pochettino played them. Anyway lets hope that's the last time we see them together in a meaningful game.

Vlad is just not a good enough defender for me. Technically good on the ball and can read the game well at times is not enough to compensate for his piss poor decision making, unnecessary risk taking and lack of concentration. FFS he's a defender.

The movement and pace of our passing just isn't good enough. A combination of a lot things I guess. Its very early days under Pochettino but he'll have learned quite a bit over the last week, even couple of weeks, but he made mistakes yesterday that exacerbated our performance. Our defensive fragility gave West Brom confidence and allowed them to grow more and more into the game.

All that said he's got to start picking sides that can reflect more what he's trying to do. He might not have too many options for some positions that are handicapping him a bit, but we're surely capable of at least attempting to play his way a bit better than what we're seeing even though its early days and all that.

We're most definitely filed under the early stages of a work in progress at the moment but that's no excuse for us having a poor mentality on match days. Fans would be more forgiving if they could see a real desire in our play even if it was lacking cohesion, structure and fluidity. Those things will hopefully come but in the mean time I don't want to see Adebayor ambling about as if it was just a wee fun kick about in the sun.
I still wanna see this....

Capoue Mason

Lamela Eriksen Ceballos

Soldado

It's all about chemistry. Also, Mason and Ceballos actually seem to get what poch is trying to achieve.
 

Spurs_Bear

Well-Known Member
Jan 7, 2009
17,094
22,286
I still wanna see this....

Capoue Mason

Lamela Eriksen Ceballos

Soldado

It's all about chemistry. Also, Mason and Ceballos actually seem to get what poch is trying to achieve.

The only issue I have with that is that neither Mason or Ceballos have excelled in any high or even mediocre level of football, are you judging Mason on his performance against the MLS reserve sides we played in pre-season? I'm all for giving youngsters a go and would be inclined to stick a kid in at right back through genuinely not being able to do worse than Dier or Naughton, but the changes you propose just seem like changes for the sake of boredom?
 
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Bulletspur

The Reasonable Advocate
Match Thread Admin
Oct 17, 2006
10,690
25,246
I had the benefit of watching the game for the first time after both knowing the final score and then reading the first few of the comments on this thread. Based on that I think I am able to give a more objective opinion not based on emotions or anger.

Lamela my MOM. Because, despite most things he tried was not coming off for him, out of all our players I thought he was the only one who was both pressing, tried to get the ball back when he lost it (numerous times unfortunately), making himself available for everyone and kept pressing (yes I repeated myself here). All this even though being heavily marked. He was really trying to make things happen but other but not the same effort by others I am afraid.

Credits also to Lloris Capoue Dembele and Rose

Much discredits to Adebayor and Chiriches (I was one of his biggest fan and now realising that he is not that good). Neither of these two should have been on the bench never mind starting based on their performances today.

The rest I know can and will do better, but as a team today, they were all on different wave lengths.

Still very optimistic as for me it was just a bad day at the office. COYS
 

Bulletspur

The Reasonable Advocate
Match Thread Admin
Oct 17, 2006
10,690
25,246
Lamela 5 - O.k. for the first twenty minutes but anonymous thereafter. Lost Morrison for the goal but shouldn't have been the marker.
You etiher did not watch the game or do not know the meaning of anonymous. Even when playing poorly he was very visible and involved in most aspects of our play
 

HappySpur

You Can't Unfry Things Jerri
Jan 7, 2012
7,666
19,601
All I know is that I am rating Adebayor as .51 just to see how serious OP is. *maniacal laugh*
 

Bulletspur

The Reasonable Advocate
Match Thread Admin
Oct 17, 2006
10,690
25,246
I've been thinking about the ratings threads recently, and how early days under a new manager that forensic analysis is probably a waste of time seeing as it will take time for ideas to be put across and for the performances to click. However, a result, and of more concern the performance, today and I find myself dragged back in to essay writing once more...

I don't know where you start with such a disaster. Right from the outset we barely had any control and gifted West Brom numerous openings. We couldn't complain that they eventually punished us. Individually I though the two fullbacks and Lloris were the only ones that had ok games, the rest were well below par.

There seemed a real lethargy to our game, and its puzzling to know why. The Europa League cannot be used as an excuse, given none of those who started also started on Thursday. Most didn't travel. We just didn't seem at all bothered, with or without the ball. Our movement was atrocious and lazy, and there was absolutely minimal pressing. Even someone like Lamela took half hour to start chasing things. As a collective it was completely unacceptable.

I was also tearing my hair out at our attempts to play football throughout the game. If I see much more of that I am going to take an active dislike to it. For starters, and as I have mentioned across a few threads this afternoon, we overcomplicate things far too much. Players are faffing around and taking every (wrong) opportunity to look flash whenever the ball comes to their feet, without achieving anything. Whether that be Dembele trying to take someone on 15,000 times, Lamela rolling his foot over the ball and doing his shimmy's and feint's, or Eriksen and Adebayor taking far too long and far too many touches to release the ball, a lot of it is pointless and doesn't aid our play whatsoever. There needs to be a wholesale attitude change. Get the ball, control it, pass it, move so you are in a position to receive it again. Short, sharp and at tempo.

And as always the movement needs to be far better. Too many players stood around, too many players run to the same areas. No one tries to stretch the play. No one runs in behind... I wont go on any more about it. I have been for years, no doubt I will still be in the years to come. You just cannot though be playing slow, static football in front of the opposition, it wont get a team anywhere.

We really do lack someone who drives the play on and can be relied on to be the hub that everything goes through. Either in centre midfield or at No.10 position. I am still really non-plussed with Eriksen and Lamela despite their plaudits so far this season. Now before I get negged to oblivion they are clearly good players who have quality, but I have to say that I think a lot of people are being fooled by eye-catching, flash stuff that hints at potential and masks the fact that the actual output is not exactly stellar. Too many bad decisions, too often the ball is coughed up and too inconsistent. I know they are both young, but the roles they have we are going to need one of them to step up to the plate on a consistent basis. Whether that will happen...

It was also abundantly clear again today that we lack leaders, and more importantly organisers out on the pitch. Countless times a Spurs player rushed a clearance when he had time, or played himself into trouble, or someone was stood in space yet not demanding the ball... Where is the communication? Sunday League players manage it, why can Premier League? Again, basic shit that should be a given yet it isn't and once more, making things harder for ourselves...

We also seem no closer to some effective set pieces more than once in a blue moon. Crap delivery as always trying the same old whipped in routine. How about we just go back to basics, and chip it into a good area for our numerous 6ft+ players to attack hey?

I have some tactical concerns and things that I think need to be addressed ASAP. We have a severe lack of pace up top. This needs rectifying in one of the four forward positions. We just cannot hurt teams. Also on the right hand side we don't have a lot of width and that makes our play a bit predictable. The best possession teams, Barca when they were at their best etc, would have width right and left as an out ball to stretch the play and to try and get in behind and possibly allow room in the central areas. Our play is too clogged up in my opinion by comparison and we need width on both sides.

I'm also struggling to see how Adebayor is going to fit in currently, it seems he is being told to stay up top more and we know from previous that when this happens and he is out of the game he stops offering much. He needs to be coming short, linking play and others going beyond him. I don't know what the solution is, Soldado I think would have much the same problems. Until we start getting players in and around the striker, better movement and runs and trying to stretch teams rather than play in front of them this will be a continuous problem.

Poch didn't impress me with the subs. No-one had a good game but to keep taking off central midfielders left us even more a mess in my opinion, and the last sub... Why not take off Dier (or put Chiriches out of his misery and move Eric inside) and just stick Lennon on the right hand side? For me it was a bit strange.

Time to work your magic Poch...

Individuals:

Lloris - Couple of smart saves. Must be painful having the best seat in the house watching the clusterfuck in front of him.

Dier - Did ok, out of position so wont fault him for not offering much with the ball but the right hand side needs sorting ASAP.

Kaboul - Nowhere near the force of old, but ok... Especially compared to his partner.

Chiriches - Just disastrous throughout. That was Doherty/Gardner level bad. Fuck expanding any further on that horror show.

Rose - As I said earlier in the thread, I thought he was maybe our best outfield player. There were a few mistakes but he at least drove forward with the ball and showed a bit of urgency and intent, something that seemed alien to the rest of them.

Capoue - Not massively impressive in my eyes. Broke up play well a couple of times but thought he didn't screen the back four that well at times and he never really stamped his authority on the game.

Dembele - Back to his infuriating worse to be honest. Diabolical use of the ball and was often getting himself in trouble.

Eriksen - Another who took too long to release it on many occasions and I think a 6 year old could have put in better setpieces than he did today. Far too much on the periphery for my liking. Get hold of the game and really impact it.

Lamela - See my thoughts on Dembele and Eriksen and add them together for him. Looks nice, actual output though... And he lost his man for the goal it seemed. Must do better.

Chadli - Popped up everywhere to start with, then seemed to disappear from the game.

Adebayor - Way below par. Stood up front not involved and offering nothing movement wise. Again, must do much better.

Subs:
Paulinho - Impressive array of passing...
Soldado - One half decent shot, one poor pass, one aimless flick round the corner. That was about it. Standard.
Lennon - Saw some ball as they sat back towards the end. Couple of half threatening crosses I suppose.
Do you always look for the negatives in life? Well written but I think you could have balanced it a bit because irrespective of the result and performance, I still saw a lot of positives. But then I suppose I am like @Mr Pink, an optimist in nature! (y)
 

mpickard2087

Patient Zero
Jun 13, 2008
21,886
32,513
Do you always look for the negatives in life? Well written but I think you could be balance it a bit because irrespective of the result and performance, I still saw a lot of positives. But then I suppose I am like @Mr Pink, an optimist in nature! (y)

Positives, yesterday? :LOL:

I do tend to look at where we can improve and highlight deficiencies, no matter how our season is going. For me, its the only way to push forward + actually win something, and it also provides additional discussion points. I don't think anything I put is unfair, there is no point in brushing it under the carpet and ignoring it.
 

stemark44

Well-Known Member
Mar 17, 2005
6,598
1,829
I switched off half-way through the first half, five minutes later I'd switched it on again. Then off at half-time and not back on until about 55 minutes, and then off for the final time at 65 minutes. As viewing goes that was pretty much unbearable.

I think Poch was right in his post-match interview, and although I don't expect him to admit it publicly, I think he should be pretty angry with himself too. Basically he picked a shit team.

His first and biggest mistake was picking Chiriches, I don't know what the guy's doing on the training field, but it must be pretty exceptional to overcome the shit he serves up virtually every time he plays. The guy is a rubbish defender, particularly unsuited to the PL. He's slow, he's weak, and he thinks he's a hundred times better on the ball than he actually is. In fact Chiriches by himself brings into question Baldini's position at the club as far as I'm concerned.

His second error was the centre-midfield pairing. Dembele's ability to beat his man has a siren like allure to coaches, but if it's not then allied to playing the right ball then the skill is a useless one. The commentator kept saying we lacked pace, but i think it's tempo, and tempo comes from pass and move, and we don't have any pass and move exponents in the side, the closest might be Bentaleb, or we'll have to wait and see on Stamboulli.

There is a tactical issue too, but I'm not sure if this is an error or just something that will take time to work out on the training field, whichever it is atm we're too susceptible to the simplest of balls over the top, partly this is to do with FBs playing kamikaze at times, not only moving forward, but moving central, leaving absolutely no cover for when we lose the ball, partly it's an issue with Chiriches, but as i say, maybe it's also an issue with players not having learned how to play they way he wants them too.

The fourth thing i want to talk about is the make-up of the side and in particular Baldini and Levy's role in it. Levy wants the DoF and personally I agree with him, but as far as I'm concerned he keeps choosing pups for the role. Commoli was all talk and no trousers, his Billy Beane methods weren't backed by any footballing insight. Baldini doesn't seem to have grasped that we play a different game in this country to what they have in France, or Italy, or Romania. In those countries the game's played at walking pace, players dwell on the ball and take their time to pick the pass, and it's frankly slow and boring. It seems with some of our recruits Baldini's picked players who'd do well in those leagues, but who may be unsuited to our one, even with the likes of Chadli, who comes from a quick league, within that league he's a languorous type of player. Lamela thinks he's better than he is, and has got to learn that rolling your foot over the ball and then tripping over it is shit football, and that trying to play the final glorious ball all the time is not the answer, but quick progressive, but simple passing then move is. I hope the return of Broomfield might address some of these issues
.

All of that said, it is far too early to judge the effect Poch can have on this team - even if I do worry when our play has gone backwards since pre-season, with the early signs of the front four being willing and able to press, having seemingly melted away into PL disinterest - and we'll see if he can find a way to get us passing and moving quickly, and with purpose.

This........I have said it before,this team was created with the Italian League in mind and the guy whose fingerprints are all over this creation is Baldini.
Now he may well be a good man at negotiating a transfer deal but at identifying talent for this league,he is shocking.
This has to stop immediately.
 

InOffMeLeftShin

Night watchman
Admin
Jan 14, 2004
15,104
9,113
This........I have said it before,this team was created with the Italian League in mind and the guy whose fingerprints are all over this creation is Baldini.
Now he may well be a good man at negotiating a transfer deal but at identifying talent for this league,he is shocking.
This has to stop immediately.

Sorry even with the set of players we have there are no excuses for the way we played. Do you really think that the players we have aren't capable of moving the ball on in less than 4 seconds? Do you think that none of them are capable of moving after making pass (because way too many times to count the player passing then just stood around). Do you think they aren't capable of any type of movement to stretch a defence in any kind of way?

They are capable of way better than they played at the weekend and there is no reason that with decent coaching and tactical nouse that they can actually perform to a really high level.
 

Bulletspur

The Reasonable Advocate
Match Thread Admin
Oct 17, 2006
10,690
25,246
Positives, yesterday? :LOL:

.
Seek and ye shall find! We will now go forward knowing that Kaboul and Chiriches have proven that they should not be 1st choice. Adebayor should be benched. We have a new signing in Danny Rose (Dont know where the old one is gone). We cannot play any worse. Complacency will not be an issue. We still have Stambiouli, Fazio, Walker, Verts, Bentaleb to come. levy has not fired Poch yet and the lists goes on..!
 

theShiznit

Well-Known Member
Jul 26, 2004
17,799
23,813
We should have got rid of Adebayor when we had the chance.

The only possible reason i can see from him not being dropped or subbed early is that Poch doesn't want to upset the precious one.

We all know what an unloved Ade can do, become a divisive character split the dressing room, hasten the manager's end.

The whole Vice-captain thing says to me the management think "we need to treat him like a special delicate flower"

Well he's not worthy of a spot on the bench at the moment let alone the honour of the Vice-captaincy (inspirational yestarday in his first game as Vice-captain)

Maybe Poch's assistant can ask him to wear a hat to a team meeting so that Poch can tell him to remove it (we all know that's one way of getting him out of the team...)
 
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