Match Ratings Ratings vs Wolves

[Caco]

I think Dier has reached the Michael Dawson stage of his Spurs career, nobody would ever question his effort and commitment, but he is never going to amount to anything more. Probably still has a role to play to an extent, but I don't think we'd be worrying if he was in the final year of his contract.

With regards Sanchez, I feel he always has that one lapse of concentration in every game, I'd put Foyth in the same bracket. Difference with Sanchez is he usually makes up for his mistake, as he did yesterday, but with Foyth you just expect him to square it to their center forward or else lose control and lunge into a wreckless challenge in the box.

Hard to disagree with Jenas, but an ironic case of do as I say and not as I do about it, classic example of a player with great potential but never achieving anything near it.

Still think that a clarification of the contract cloud would refocus a lot of the players though.

 

[Timberwolf]

I think Dier has reached the Michael Dawson stage of his Spurs career, nobody would ever question his effort and commitment, but he is never going to amount to anything more. Probably still has a role to play to an extent, but I don't think we'd be worrying if he was in the final year of his contract.

With regards Sanchez, I feel he always has that one lapse of concentration in every game, I'd put Foyth in the same bracket. Difference with Sanchez is he usually makes up for his mistake, as he did yesterday, but with Foyth you just expect him to square it to their center forward or else lose control and lunge into a wreckless challenge in the box.

Hard to disagree with Jenas, but an ironic case of do as I say and as I do about it, classic example of a player with great potential but never achieving anything near it.

Still think that a clarification of the contract cloud would refocus a lot of the players though.

Yeah that's true. Sanchez makes a higher number of 'low key' bad mistakes that don't always change games whereas Foyth looks the absolute mustard about 95% of the time then single handedly fucks over an entire match with a moment of unparalleled idiocy.

Both have very high ceilings but they also both terrify me to no end.

 

[Blake Griffin]

Surprised so many went with Dier.

Jenas was tearing into him on MoTD just now, too.

agree, he's being lauded for his defensive work and yet he actually made 0 tackles and 0 interceptions over the 90 minutes, even winks who came on in stoppage time made one of each. i guess showing a bit of passion and hacking down traore is enough for most.

 

[ClintEastwould]

agree, he's being lauded for his defensive work and yet he actually made 0 tackles and 0 interceptions over the 90 minutes, even winks who came on in stoppage time made one of each. i guess showing a bit of passion and hacking down traore is enough for most.

Yeah I watched the game later on in the day after reading all the plaudits he received and I kept waiting and waiting for him to do anything of quality and it never came. Certainly a better performance than at Bayern though which was dreadful but that’s a pretty low barometer to set.

 

[Yid]

Don't agree with that evaluation of Sanchez at all. He had that one Sanchez-moment with the long ball he can't get under control. And he fumbles the ball at one point during the second half - but there I blame the midfield players for not giving him any good passing options (ref Jenas' analysis). For crosses he was like a magnet. Proper old school CD play. Very solid as far as I could gather.

For all the crosses and set pieces Wolves had they never created much. Credit to Sanchez and Alderweireld for dealing so well with them. Even Aurier covered his back post brilliantly on that one occasion. Very Mourinho-style some of that defending.

Hrmm. Perhaps I misjudged my take on Sanchez in this game. I'll go back and review the extended highlights, to try and get a better perspective on his performance.

 

[DannyNZ]

Gazza for me, couple of outstanding saves that he steered away from danger. Special mention for Jan he had a torrid time with Traore but kept at it despite probably being dizzy from being turned inside out. Thought Moura and Kane battled hard.

 

[Havre]

Hrmm. Perhaps I misjudged my take on Sanchez in this game. I'll go back and review the extended highlights, to try and get a better perspective on his performance.

I see opinions vary on how many times Sanchez did a Sanchez on the ball. I can't be bothered watching the game again just for that, but would be interesting to hear if I am the one that remembers things incorrectly.

In the MOTD short analysis from Jenas you can see how Dier is making it difficult for our CDs with his passing. Obviously not helping Sanchez. I will never argue that Sanchez is good on the ball, but when you are average borderline poor then you really don't need the kind of passes he was getting from Dier and occasionally Sissoko.

Also we don't have the kind of forwards that will make themselves available for shorter passes from our CDs. City will always have Silva, KDB (depending on his starting position), Sterling etc. giving their CDs an alternative up the pitch. While someone like Rodri be available on the 45 degree pass (funnily enough Jenas of all people points out one situation where Dier just hides behind the attacker instead of making himself available for that 45 degree pass from Alderweireld - I believe it was Toby on the ball).

 

[Black]

For so many people to have Dier as MOTM just shows that people are not actually watching games

 

[Havre]

For so many people to have Dier as MOTM just shows that people are not actually watching games

Lovely. Enlighten me?

 

[markdadude]

For so many people to have Dier as MOTM just shows that people are not actually watching games

I think they did watch it. They just have macaroni for brains... probably voted Boris into no. 10 as well.

 

[alamo]

People have a right to voice /write their views but I am astonished with amount of criticism Sanchez gets. I swear it's not the same as others. He made a couple of poor passes mainly because he wasn't given good angels from the midfield (its not his strength), the one poor pass that resulted in a panic he got back to block his mistake.

Who doesn't need an angel in midfield. It's a blessing ?

 

[JimmyG2]

For so many people to have Dier as MOTM just shows that people are not actually watching games

Average players can have good games
and good players can have average games.

Dier was good on Sunday
and Son was average.

It's a match by match assessment
not a lifetime award.

 

[Timberwolf]

Don't agree with that evaluation of Sanchez at all. He had that one Sanchez-moment with the long ball he can't get under control. And he fumbles the ball at one point during the second half - but there I blame the midfield players for not giving him any good passing options (ref Jenas' analysis). For crosses he was like a magnet. Proper old school CD play. Very solid as far as I could gather.

For all the crosses and set pieces Wolves had they never created much. Credit to Sanchez and Alderweireld for dealing so well with them. Even Aurier covered his back post brilliantly on that one occasion. Very Mourinho-style some of that defending.

I think people saying he was terrible are probably just focusing on his 2 errors as he was really solid otherwise.

However, those 2 errors WERE really big ones and completely his fault (if there are no passes on he can always go back to Gazza). On another day we could've easily conceded a goal or two as a result so I can definitely see why people aren't exactly overjoyed with him.

Remove the errors and it's a solid 8/10 match but with them it's hard to give him more than a 5 IMO. "If my auntie had 3 balls she'd be a pinball machine" etc.

 

[1966]

For so many people to have Dier as MOTM just shows that people are not actually watching games

It's football's "adaptive difficulty" conundrum. Often, a player is judged as good or bad relative to nothing but their own baseline. So even though Kane was clearly better than Dier in this game, Dier significantly outperformed people's fairly dismal expectations of him while Kane didn't outperform people's justifiably high expectations. Player ratings thus become a subjective or relative topic.

On how good Kane was, here's a quote from another thread:

Kane was fantastic again against Wolves.

He had one of those games he used to have when he was at the top of his game: even without any quality chances to score, he was running things from central midfield onward and putting himself everywhere.

His hold-up and aerial play was as good as it's ever been and he was a bit unlucky not to get at least an assist from a pass or second ball or something. His dribbling was probably better than it's ever been: I remember a couple of darting forward runs of the kind that we're more used to seeing from the likes of Son or Lucas and every time he attempted to beat a man, it came off in style.

I'm not necessarily criticising relativism, by the way. Relativism is necessary to prevent the same few players winning MOTM and POTS all the time.

 

[Havre]

I think people saying he was terrible are probably just focusing on his 2 errors as he was really solid otherwise.

However, those 2 errors WERE really big ones and completely his fault (if there are no passes on he can always go back to Gazza). On another day we could've easily conceded a goal or two as a result so I can definitely see why people aren't exactly overjoyed with him.

Remove the errors and it's a solid 8/10 match but with them it's hard to give him more than a 5 IMO. "If my auntie had 3 balls she'd be a pinball machine" etc.

One is more comical than terrible in my opinion. Always tricky for central defenders to deal with "soft" and high long balls. He should have just cleared it with his head, but such a clearance would be very difficult go get much distance on. Might very well have led to a counter attack for Wolverhampton either way. Also quite disappointed by how poorly the rest of our players anticipated the issue. Not a big surprise that Sanchez might struggle to control that ball.

Not suggesting it isn't a mistake by Sanchez, but I think it is exaggerated how much of a mistake it is due to the high visibility of the error.

The other one I think Sanchez is trying to do the right thing. He is trying to be constructive on the ball, but he gets no help. Again - clearly a mistake, but as Jenas' little analysis shows it isn't always safe to play it safe.

I guess we agree on the longer term - he can't keep on making those kind of bad decisions, but I don't agree that he didn't play overall really well against Wolverhampton considering the amount of pressure we were under.

This could end up being another Sakho situation though. Good player, but not suited to play for a "top" team. The same way Mourinho described the difference between being a goalkeeper at a "top" club and a bottom one. A bottom half team need a goalkeeper that will be good at making a lot of saves while a "top" team need a goalkeeper that will make that one save. Concentration is probably a bigger issue than pure ability to save shots. Sakho is excellent as a CD for a team defending a lot - preferably deeply. He is rather poor when asked to control play from the back for a good team. Dawson also would kind of fall under that category.

Sanchez has to learn how to play. Maybe I'm a bit kind on his errors because I like that he is trying. Or he will fail at Spurs. Big next 5-6 months for him.