Match Threads Spurs Vs Olympique de Marseille

[iddebu52]

It was not one of Kane's worst ever performances. Far from it. I don't think he played well but was by far our most successful forward in keeping the ball up, some things didn't work out but seen much worse from him.

Marseille are a good team, this was a good win. The performance meh. But let's not go overboard.

Bad performance yes and we also struggled with a man more. That's as ldpwr as crystal to see!

 

[djhotspur]

When haven’t we? Fulham maybe? I can’t see this keeping up.

Exactly. We haven’t actually played anyone with an attack that’s in form, so the amount of times we give the ball away we aren’t being punished. it was atrocious at times last night, we couldn’t string passes together, couldn’t control, couldn’t shoot it was very worrying.
The only positive was defensively I thought we were truly excellent, I don’t remember a single time I was remotely worried whilst we have our first 11 defence on

 

[dudu]

The fact is, were actually playing well in many respects. Our problems are almost 100% down to individuals.

Our movement is excellent, our defending is excellent our fitness, shape, drive is all fantastic.

Where we are lacking is being wasteful in possession, poor passing, careless dribbling etc.

This will sort itself out, our players have too much quality on the ball for it not to, and when it all properly clicks, just like it was looking on Saturday, we will be even harder to beat.

 

[crokey]

What a surprise. It's not enough to act like we should be comfortably winning every PL game, now we need to comfortably win every CL game too.

No wonder you don't get "entertained" at football if you go into it thinking we should wipe the floor with anyone. Where's the enjoyment in that?

The 11 players on the pitch for us are pretty good at football, and they would dominate most football teams. But we play every 3 days against some of the 50 best teams in the world. There's another 11 elite sportsmen on the other side of the pitch too.

Start having a bit of respect for our opponents and then you might start getting a bit more "entertained" by our wins.

The lads are fighting fucking hard out there and not only are you disrespecting the opponents you're disrespecting them.

Great CL win. Great to be back. COYS

 

[SaKkA.kenchiku]

Aside from his run that caused the red card (admittedly a game changing moment), Son was again really poor in general play. Fudged at least three great counter attacks by taking way too many touches and not releasing the ball quick enough. It’s been happening a lot recently.

Kulu and Richarlison are breathing heavily down his neck. Both seem to be making things happen far more consistently.

Im sure he’ll start versus City but after that it becomes a toss up between the three of them.

I think this fact that Son changed the game in our favour regardless of his overall performance is why Conte keeps playing him, no matter how badly he plays he will have a moment that can win the game and he did this today again, even when playing so badly for the other 89mins of the game… Harsh on the others but Son and his pace and constant runs in behind the opposition keeps them stretched and unbalanced…..

I agree Son will definitely start again against City as they are always exposed to a fast counter that Son is critical for, there’s a reason he has a great record against City. Hopefully that game sparks Son into form.

 

[THE SPURSBOY]

Three big away games coming up. Can’t imagine we will have lots of possession in any of them, hoping to be solid and hit them all on the break. Hope squad can remain injury free esp front 4

 

[Ron Burgundy]

What a surprise. It's not enough to act like we should be comfortably winning every PL game, now we need to comfortably win every CL game too.

No wonder you don't get "entertained" at football if you go into it thinking we should wipe the floor with anyone. Where's the enjoyment in that?

The 11 players on the pitch for us are pretty good at football, and they would dominate most football teams. But we play every 3 days against some of the 50 best teams in the world. There's another 11 elite sportsmen on the other side of the pitch too.

Start having a bit of respect for our opponents and then you might start getting a bit more "entertained" by our wins.

The lads are fighting fucking hard out there and not only are you disrespecting the opponents you're disrespecting them.

Great CL win. Great to be back. COYS

It's not that I'm against that statement, but to be fair, a lot of us are saying similar things in the main:
- can't be complacent
- they're a good side
- lots of games coming up
- we should be pleased with three points
- we're making a good habit of winning while not playing well

But we are also entitled to observe that, in my/our opinion, the team isn't fully functioning yet. There were A LOT of spells where we could barely pass the ball to each other. The ball retention generally was poor (even allowing for the fact that we were obviously inviting them on) and the lack of cutting edge was clear.

That performance last night - where , as you say, we won in the CL - would not merit wide spread post mortems. And yet at the same time, there are clearly various areas where we need to improve.

 

[Timberwolf]

What a surprise. It's not enough to act like we should be comfortably winning every PL game, now we need to comfortably win every CL game too.

No wonder you don't get "entertained" at football if you go into it thinking we should wipe the floor with anyone. Where's the enjoyment in that?

The 11 players on the pitch for us are pretty good at football, and they would dominate most football teams. But we play every 3 days against some of the 50 best teams in the world. There's another 11 elite sportsmen on the other side of the pitch too.

Start having a bit of respect for our opponents and then you might start getting a bit more "entertained" by our wins.

The lads are fighting fucking hard out there and not only are you disrespecting the opponents you're disrespecting them.

Great CL win. Great to be back. COYS

You could tell from the post match interviews that Conte was keen to drill into our players that Marseille were a very good team worthy of respect.

I think the first thing that came out of Conte, Kane and Perisic's mouth was a comment praising Marseille. I get the impression Conte really wanted to make sure we didn't go into this game complacent simply because they are the pot 4 team in the group.

Maybe we paid them a bit too much respect if anything, but given how we've done in Europe in recent years I don't think we can be too picky about how we get our wins.

 

[worcestersauce]

Exactly. We haven’t actually played anyone with an attack that’s in form, so the amount of times we give the ball away we aren’t being punished. it was atrocious at times last night, we couldn’t string passes together, couldn’t control, couldn’t shoot it was very worrying.
The only positive was defensively I thought we were truly excellent, I don’t remember a single time I was remotely worried whilst we have our first 11 defence on

And nobody's played us with our attack in form. We are still far from our best so with the results we've been getting there's real room for optimism.

 

[shelfboy68]

I agree that we're not playing well, but if the player hasn't made that challenge was it doubtful that Son would have scored or that, if he had, at 1 0 up was it doubtful that we would have won the game? I don't think the sending off was unearned luck. We created a very good chance to score.

The lack of intensity and creativity is alarming but we won so for now it slides away but need to be better against city

 

[ShelfWatcher]

The XG was over a goal in our favour, more shots on target, etc. We won deservedly, we got the red card through good play exploiting the spaces
The way they played gave them certain advantages over us, but also left weaknesses up front and at the back.

 

[spursfan77]

Yeah was having disagreements with people about this a little bit recently, actually with United and Liv fans as they were talking up Arsenal performance at weekend and to their credit they did play well until Arteta fucked up with the subs (I wanted that to work for him so he kept doing but alas). I just think when you're performing well and still losing then what else do you have left really, sure you can try and push the limits further but if you have no gears left then you're relying on the opponent shower less. Same happened with the game vs Chelsea, people were talking about Chelsea performance but we were the ones who were better off that weekend as we got the same amount of points with a performance which suggested we certainly have some gears to ramp up to as the season goes on.

I think we will need to show something different vs City though admittedly but right now I'm happy that we as a unit and some individuals are underperforming but we're still getting the results because I think we're currently still in a phase where Conte is almost combining the some of the tactical and fitness work you'd anticipate in pre-season into the early parts of this season to try and elevate us further and eventually the training demands will dissipate.

I also find it funny how many times people feel we're looking lethargic in the first half of games only to see us go through the gears in the 2nd half, how many times does it have to happen before people realise it's by design. We seem to limit the overload and intensity first half and allow teams to come onto us to try and catch them a bit heavier legged 2nd half.

I really don’t mind it in the league but in an opening home champions league group game under the lights I think it’s the wrong move. Had we gone at them I think we’d have been a couple of goals up before half time. They really weren’t a good side and didn’t look like scoring at all despite how much we let them on to us.

Anyway it’s over, we won, let’s move on. Son to score against Man City. It’s obviously gonna happen.

 

[Spurslove]

Probably Joey Barton!

Yes, what the fuck was that little scrote doing in there!

 

[Dzejkob]

I dont have a problem with sitting deep. I dont think possesion is what you need to control the game. But I still think we were very poor yesterday because of decisions we were making on the pitch: Lloris punching, Son when he didn't pass to Emerson, simple pass and he is one on one; Kane going alone instead of crossing to Hojbjerg who had half of penalty area for his own. Those are the big ones but there was more of it. I just think players are not at full speed yet. With such an intense season maybe its on purpose so I will judge later. Especially that the results are great, cant deny that.

 

[TOLBINY]

The XG was over a goal in our favour, more shots on target, etc. We won deservedly, we got the red card through good play exploiting the spaces
The way they played gave them certain advantages over us, but also left weaknesses up front and at the back.

We had two attempts on target (both went in) at home to the team from Pot 4 who played circa 39 minutes with 10 men. The result is the most important thing, but the overall performance was far from impressive so I can understand some fans expressing concerns.

 

[Spurslove]

Conte won the title in Italy with similar possession stats to what we have right now.

Not saying we'll win the league, but control through possession doesn't guarantee wins. If you let the opposition have half of the ball but limit them to very low percentage chances you can still win consistently.

I think most people understand that possession alone guarantees you nothing, it's what you do with the ball which wins matches and entertains the punters.

 

[Joshua shepherd]

Throwing plastic bottles at one another , could have someone’s eye out

It was all a load of nothing. Marseille fans were brilliant all night, spurs fans close to them in the north gave back as good as they got. Handbags.

 

[Timberwolf]

I think most people understand that possession alone guarantees you nothing, it's what you do with the ball which wins matches and entertains the punters.

Based on some of the comments I'm not sure they do tbh. Even many pundits don't seem to grasp it - you'd think Marseille were peppering our goal with endless shots the way some of them were talking about the first half.

I get that Conte's style can be ugly at times, especially when we're as poor in possession as we were last night, but there's obviously an underlying game plan and the way we sit deep off the ball is a calculated risk.

Seen loads of people comparing it to Jose's football and while superficially it can look similar there are massive differences. Looks to me like we're a bit out of form and easing our way into the season but don't think we need to make drastic changes to the overall formula.

 

[djhotspur]

And nobody's played us with our attack in form. We are still far from our best so with the results we've been getting there's real room for optimism.

Yes but how many times can we keep saying oh well we’ll fire eventually… but who is to say we will? We are all assuming our front 3 will suddenly click but they don’t look like doing that. We played well in one game this season and that’s Fulham.
The players looked exhausted yesterday also but still there is next to no rest and rotation, if we keep running our players into the ground they won’t click.

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

Yes, what the fuck was that little scrote doing in there!

He played for them.