Match Threads Sporting CP Vs Spurs

This game reminded me off the dreaded away games we had to endure in the europa league over the years, even the kick off time was europa league esque. The teams in our group are also europa league quality and i think Spurs players started to believe there own hype and were complacent. Spurs lacked urgency when they had the ball, far too passive, thinking there "quality" will get them through.

I wish we had a tougher and a more glamourous group where we would have been the underdogs. I think it would have suited us better.

We need a better rwb offensively, Royal wastes too many opportunities for me.

Getting real Mourinho era vibes right now.
Loads of hype around the transfer window, talk of great squad depth, blah blah.
Good early results, despite poor performances. That season went to hell after the loss to Liverpool. Hopefully we can figure it out sooner rather than later.

VancouverSpur said:

Conte’s success relies heavily on proactive wingbacks making decisive counterattacks and crosses. I hate singling players out but Royal is not a Conte wingback and is presently doing my head in ….weirdly Spence is the right type of player so I hope he gets a chance sooner rather than later…..if only so my wife doesn’t have to put up with me saying “Royal couldn’t cross the road let alone the ball”

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But Conte is the one selecting him and the other players who are not in form.

Lol at those saying it's like Mourinho

This system does not work without 2 attacking wing backs. I'm tired of people pretending it will!

VancouverSpur said:

Conte’s success relies heavily on proactive wingbacks making decisive counterattacks and crosses. I hate singling players out but Royal is not a Conte wingback and is presently doing myf

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Well, he is, isn’t he? I mean, factually, he is. And Conte’s actual first team starting choice. But apart from that…

Barrd10 said:

20 yards from where he wanted it to go.

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I can’t remember who it was but one of ours played a left to right diagonal cross field ball in the second half that was not only behind the intended player but arced and actually end up behind the line of the passer across the park.

Nick said:

This system does not work without 2 attacking wing backs. I'm tired of people pretending it will!

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You mean Conte, don’t you? Doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks, does it?

Nick said:

This system does not work without 2 attacking wing backs. I'm tired of people pretending it will!

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But we look so ponderous in the middle of the park.

We need some energy in there.

I thought we'd of seen more of Bissouma by now.

VancouverSpur said:

Conte’s success relies heavily on proactive wingbacks making decisive counterattacks and crosses. I hate singling players out but Royal is not a Conte wingback and is presently doing my head in ….weirdly Spence is the right type of player so I hope he gets a chance sooner rather than later…..if only so my wife doesn’t have to put up with me saying “Royal couldn’t cross the road let alone the ball”

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I hear this so much but does it really? I can’t comment on Inter as don’t watch much Italian football but Chelsea’s title win wasn’t down to this heavily at all. It was all about Kante being absolutely dominant in the middle and Hazard completely running games. We have neither of those two types of players in this side.

TheChosenOne said:

I can’t remember who it was but one of ours played a left to right diagonal cross field ball in the second half that was not only behind the intended player but arced and actually end up behind the line of the passer across the park.

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Hojbjerg

DiamondLites said:

Conte is starting to grind my gears, spoke about improving the squad and rotating players but here we are running the same bozos into the ground. The only players he’s ‘rotated’ are our 2 best attacking players so far this season (Deki and Richy). If we were playing well you’d understand it, but it has been mostly turgid with flashes of what we can do here and there

And I know I’ll get pelters for this but I’m sick of watching Højberg trudging around in midfield. If he’s tired play Bissouma or Skipp

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Yeah it’s almost as if Juve and Chelsea fans may have known what they were talking about when they warned us about the downsides of Conteball…

rossdapep said:

Lol at those saying it's like Mourinho

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Yep it's absolutely no where near that bad.

Son is a big problem, but easily solvable. He needs to be dropped

Emerson. The man isn’t a wing back, he can’t play in attacking areas at all. To be fair to him, he puts the work in, doesn’t shy away and gets in positions constantly. He’s just a bit shit going forward

I actually thought we were well on top up until about 70/75 when we started to look like we were happy with a draw. They had a couple of breaks but we had a fair amount of pressure and actually 3/4 really decent chances, couple across the box from either side where the forwards were on their heels. Unfortunately a couple of good chances fell to Emerson. Richarlison should have timed his runs better on a couple of occasions.

This game plan at the moment is designed to take chances, we were woeful in the final third

But we did need a wake up call, Conte needs to realise that starting XI can most definitely be improved upon using the bench

We definitely were not “awful”, on another day it’s a comfortable 2-0 win the way we played the majority of that second half

TheChosenOne said:

I can’t remember who it was but one of ours played a left to right diagonal cross field ball in the second half that was not only behind the intended player but arced and actually end up behind the line of the passer across the park.

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Think that was Hojbjerg. He tried to pass it across field first time and hoiked it behind the runner.

rossdapep said:

Not that.

We lost because we didnt capitalise on the spells we had when we we're on top.

We got a bit stretched at the end as tiredness crept in. But I dont think we were ever outnumbered in midfield and it was more a case of Hojbjerg and Bentancur getting sloppy on the ball and a very good set piece that killed us.

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The problem is we weren't ever that on top. Sporting's game plan was to counter attack. Most of their possession was in their own half. But they defended very well and limited our chances. In many ways they played like we do. It was an even game throughout and could have gone either way. So we had our best period at the start of the second half and a few better balls and we could have scored. But ultimately it was an even game between two evenly matched teams.

There were issues. Our forwards were rushing on the ball, particularly first half. Emerson put one amazing cross in but most of the time his balls and decision making wasn't good enough. Sporting also played their relatively high line very well, I think we were trying to expose it but they were actually very impressive in how they held it.

But it was one of those games. I was pretty happy at 90 mins, it would have been a good away point. Poor defending at the set piece, frankly an awesome header it was as well. The second goal doesn't really count we weren't trying to defend at that point. Emerson gets caught out but he can't push him wide, as it would just send him to the corner, he has to get close to the attacker, but when you are one down with a few minutes to go that's what happens.

The balance isn't right. I think you need Deki in the team to be the best team, because he links things that other people can't. It's not a case of dropping Son, if we want to do very well this season we need Son working. I think his performance wasn't as awful as some might think, he moved the ball much better than in previous performances but we really focused on attacking their left flank more, and Richy had a mixed performance to say the least.

I'm not too worried about it all in all. xG had it as a draw and my own perception was it was a draw, and I would have taken a draw before. Football is football and we have yet to get everything working but this performance wasn't a disaster nor was it a cause to be hopeful. It's more or less what I expected and really not very different than any performances against that sort of team in the CL with Poch as well, or even under Redkapp, under redknapp we scored a lot but we are also drew against twente and a really poor Werder Bremen

ComfortablyNumb said:

You mean Conte, don’t you? Doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks, does it?

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Fellow Spurs fans opinions matter to me and have actually changed my opininon on certain situations. Obviously the final opinion is Conte's, but I don't have direct communication to him at this current momment...

Hotspur33 said:

Getting real Mourinho era vibes right now.
Loads of hype around the transfer window, talk of great squad depth, blah blah.
Good early results, despite poor performances. That season went to hell after the loss to Liverpool. Hopefully we can figure it out sooner rather than later.

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I’m inclined to agree. I bet we’ll end y up getting conte sacked and ruin another proven winners perfect trophy haul record

VancouverSpur said:

Conte’s success relies heavily on proactive wingbacks making decisive counterattacks and crosses. I hate singling players out but Royal is not a Conte wingback and is presently doing my head in ….weirdly Spence is the right type of player so I hope he gets a chance sooner rather than later…..if only so my wife doesn’t have to put up with me saying “Royal couldn’t cross the road let alone the ball”

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It's really quite strange when you see Conte time and time again talk about needing wingers as wing backs and then persist with Emerson there. I'm not a huge fan of Doherty but our best run of form under Conte coincided with him playing at wing back and he worked well with Kulusevski. And as you say, Spence would be my pick as I think he'd be less hesitant in the final third and can beat a man.

On the other side whilst Sessegnon has improved he still has limitations and Perisic whilst we can clearly see he's got a brain it looks as though he's lost a yard of pace to me.

spursfan77 said:

I wonder if we’ve become a bit complacent?

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Complacent with what ? Cos whilst results so far have been ok they haven’t been outstanding. Complacent with that ? Nah, hope not.

when I think of complacent I think of the old utd team.

not having a pop by the way. If they are complacent and happy with this, my word …..