The defence

[WiganSpur]

I think Trippier may help as we won't have Walker's brain farts but apart from that the problem with the defence lies more with lazy forward players and the CM2. I don't like to be critical of Kane but I did notice he stopped pressing towards the end of the season, and Eriksen's defensive efforts got more pathetic as the season went on despite showing mid season promise. Lamela and Dembele were the only ones showing any true willingness to defend.

Pointless signing players like Toby and Wimmer if we are going to offer them fuck all protection. We'll properly solve the problem when we get a couple of hard working forwards and or we improve our pressing and get a solid DM.

As is we'll probably conceded 3 or 4 less goals, but we won't see a major improvement unless we get a DM in particular and we alleviate pressure on the rest of our midfield and defence by defending from the front.

 

[HotspurFC1950]

I disagree that Rose's defensive game was 'horrendous' last year. He was our best defender last year and not just for his additions in attack.

Question. Does Rose being our "best defender last year" make him a good defender ?

 

[HotspurFC1950]

Scares the crap out of me.

This is not because of the individuals that we have as I'm pretty sure we have as solid a group of defenders as we've had in a really long time (loving the early impressions from Toby, Wimmer and Trippier).

What scares me is the formation/organization (fucking American auto correct) of the back line. Yesterday we started with Toby and Jan in central defence and I was looking forward to seeing the partnership between the two since they've obviously played quite a lot of football together. However we saw almost immediately that this:

Vorm

Walker Alderweireld Vertonghen Davies

Dier Bentaleb

Dembele Eriksen Chadli

Kane
​

Turned into this:

Vorm

Alderweireld-----------------------------------------------------------Vertonghen
Dier

Bentaleb

------------------------------DeErChmbikadelselilen--------------- Davies

Kane

Walker--------------------------------------------------------------
​

The centre backs split so far they were almost positioned as fullbacks, Dier (the experiment which hopefully isn't ever repeated) sort of dropped in to cover the central gap but sort of held his midfield position and was basically in no mans land from a defensive positioning point of view. Vertonghen looked clearly shaky not having his partner closer and it nearly exposed us twice in the opening minute as his mistakes had no cover. A bit more powerful team would have buried us really early in that game.

I get that we want to have our full backs bombing on and giving us width to since we lack any sort of width or penetration from our 3 behind the striker but the amount of split that happens from out center back partnership to cover the gap left behind was pretty alarming. It was almost as though they were forcing it to allow Dier to drop back in and make a 3 man defence but it just left us all at sea. We did it last season but at times last night it was just taking it beyond the extreme.

Dier's role also was a complete muddle. He tried to help cover centrally but was behind the play when the opposition attacked and then didn't really offer anything going the other way. He's not able to transition play from deep and didn't really look like he was comfortable with the defensive side of the game from that role either.

Fazio and Wimmer played tighter together and it looked more natural also in part because we played with midfielders in front of them who looked like midfielders and we weren't trying to force a defensive positioning that looked awkward.

I hope it was simply an experiment but I worry about us getting exposed by long balls through the middle again.

​

Don't worry so much.

 

[eViL]

Question. Does Rose being our "best defender last year" make him a good defender ?

How many goals are you under the impression he cost us?

 

[HotspurFC1950]

How many goals are you under the impression he cost us?

It was a question.

 

[Spursidol]

I think Trippier may help as we won't have Walker's brain farts but apart from that the problem with the defence lies more with lazy forward players and the CM2. I don't like to be critical of Kane but I did notice he stopped pressing towards the end of the season, and Eriksen's defensive efforts got more pathetic as the season went on despite showing mid season promise. Lamela and Dembele were the only ones showing any true willingness to defend.

Pointless signing players like Toby and Wimmer if we are going to offer them fuck all protection. We'll properly solve the problem when we get a couple of hard working forwards and or we improve our pressing and get a solid DM.

As is we'll probably conceded 3 or 4 less goals, but we won't see a major improvement unless we get a DM in particular and we alleviate pressure on the rest of our midfield and defence by defending from the front.

Ever thought that Kane and Eriksen's effort went down over the season went down as they were played too much as there were no alternatives ?

Pritchard in as Eriksen's alternative means Eriksen will not be as tired - maybe Eriksen plays PL and Pritchard EL and cups, but maybe it'll be less prescriptive than that.

And all the ITK is we are trying to get in one or more strikers to do the same for Kane

 

[Damian99]

I am still to be convinced Poch can sort out or defensive problems regardless of the personnel, it worried me through most of last season the lack of any real evidence of minor improvement. Just seemed we shipped goals and gave opposition far too many chances, week in and week out.