Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Fulham

[Citizen Kane.]

But we've scored 30 goals as well. Teams with bad defenders can't score twice as many goals as they concede. It really isn't possible.

More than half of those goals (17) came from just 4 matches. If the goals were more evenly distributed, I wouldn't be as concerned.

 

[Dier Hard]

But we've scored 30 goals as well. Teams with bad defenders can't score twice as many goals as they concede. It really isn't possible.

And that's because we have arguably the best striker in world football and a wide forward in lethal form.

What we don't have are top four calibre defenders and that's why even with a defensive mindset in a lot of our recent games, we're still conceding sloppy and easily avoidable goals.

Jose's worked with some of the best defenders the game has seen; Terry, Carvahlo, Ramos, Varane, Pepe, Samuel, Lucio etc. The defenders we have right now aren't a patch on any of those and that's why his tactics aren't working as well with us as they were at those clubs. Toby once was someone who maybe could've given those a challenge but not any more.

We need better defenders but we also need Jose to at times play to our strengths and not try and rely so heavily on our poor defenders to keep the opposition at bay, because frankly, they can't.

 

[Citizen Kane.]

Individual errors and moments of brilliance can mask or obscure trends and patterns that are clear to the eye in games though. Sometimes a player scores a world class goal or a keeper makes a stunning save that wins a game that a team hasn’t played well in.

Part of being a successful football team is having top players who can do that. We have three such match winners in Lloris, Kane and Son, all of whom are reasonably regularly capable of moments of individual brilliance that can bail a team out of trouble.

Case in point would be Bale’s last season with us before his move. We largely played sub par football but Bale was so good that we picked up points from his sheer class. That isn’t sustainable though.

The most successful teams are coached to attack and defend coherently and know when to place the emphasis on each. We currently lean far too much towards defence and caution when we shouldn’t and our attacking structure is non-existent outside of counter attacking in broken play, when you’d expect players to work off the cuff anyway. That’s currently my big issue with Jose’s management.

A successful footballing system is one that minimises exposure to errors from your own team and minimises the fallout from spectacular moments from the opposition. The trouble is that we have so many dodgy defenders and no balance in midfield, so we can’t properly compensate for individual errors at the back using team selection and setup, and going forwards if we’re dominating possession we don’t seem to have a plan.

Brilliantly put

 

[Spurf]

As it happens I am not anti Jose at all, I hope he succeeds and I fully expect him to prove me wrong but I am disappointed at the moment because after the transfer window I was impressed with the squad Spurs had built and Bale as well and I think we were all up for it and then we thrash United at OT and we thought we were on our way. We beat City and Arsenal, stood up at the top of the league with everything looking rosy.
There is no doubt that Jose has taken us up a level in the eyes of the world and media which is no doubt what Levy wanted. Remember how not that long ago the pundits never expected Spurs to even make the top 4. now they talk about us being in the fight for the league. That's the Jose effect. The new stadium and the top manager has put Spurs up there in terms of expectations. That would be very difficult for Redknap to do even if the football was better.
I am disappointed not to see more creativity from Jose but maybe Sissoko up front and Dier at the back is proof that he is being creative and we will see it work as the league progresses. I think disappointment following the United result is the main factor.

 

[PowerSpurs]

More than half of those goals (17) came from just 4 matches. If the goals were more evenly distributed, I wouldn't be as concerned.

The main point I've been trying to make is that there is almost nothing anyone can do to change the distribution of goals whether scored or conceded. Changing tactics may slightly change the relative proportions of goals scored and conceded but we can't even agree in which direction. The inference that the worse your defenders are then the more you have to attack seems counter intuitive.
While I agree that our attackers are better than our defenders, I tend to go with Jose that the solution is to go more defensive. Generally scoring goals requires more skill than stopping them which is why forwards cost more than defenders. Most teams should therefore be better at defending than scoring so should set up to attack as far as I can see.

 

[PowerSpurs]

Debating "what ifs" is pretty irrelevant.

Testing assumptions against different scenarios is a powerful technique actually.

 

[Dier Hard]

Testing assumptions against different scenarios is a powerful technique actually.

Asking people if they’d be happier if we’d scored more goals in certain games and thus picked up more points than we got at the time will give you an obvious answer because it isn’t talking about what’s actually happened and more about what we’d have liked to have happened.

What if Spurs had won the champions league, would everyone have sulked like the way we did when we lost it? Course they wouldn’t have.

So as I said, talking about what ifs is irrelevant - and pointless.

 

[PowerSpurs]

Individual errors and moments of brilliance can mask or obscure trends and patterns that are clear to the eye in games though. Sometimes a player scores a world class goal or a keeper makes a stunning save that wins a game that a team hasn’t played well in.

Part of being a successful football team is having top players who can do that. We have three such match winners in Lloris, Kane and Son, all of whom are reasonably regularly capable of moments of individual brilliance that can bail a team out of trouble.

Case in point would be Bale’s last season with us before his move. We largely played sub par football but Bale was so good that we picked up points from his sheer class. That isn’t sustainable though.

The most successful teams are coached to attack and defend coherently and know when to place the emphasis on each. We currently lean far too much towards defence and caution when we shouldn’t and our attacking structure is non-existent outside of counter attacking in broken play, when you’d expect players to work off the cuff anyway. That’s currently my big issue with Jose’s management.

A successful footballing system is one that minimises exposure to errors from your own team and minimises the fallout from spectacular moments from the opposition. The trouble is that we have so many dodgy defenders and no balance in midfield, so we can’t properly compensate for individual errors at the back using team selection and setup, and going forwards if we’re dominating possession we don’t seem to have a plan.

Life has taught me to be very suspicious of patterns that are clear to the eye because they often occur by chance and literally tell you nothing.
It is interesting to discuss managers' decisions and indeed what the Chairman does. But I think it needs to be done from a point of humility. If you think you can see something obvious that one of the most successful managers in history can't see, isn't the most likely explanation that he is right and you are wrong.

The main reason I posted my what if analysis is that most posters seem to think that a simple change in tactics would win us more games but simultaneously we've got a load of dreadful players. So if @Dier Hard or @C. Kane was our manager it seems we would be both top of the league and shipping out about 10 players this month!

 

[PowerSpurs]

Asking people if they’d be happier if we’d scored more goals in certain games and thus picked up more points than we got at the time will give you an obvious answer because it isn’t talking about what’s actually happened and more about what we’d have liked to have happened.

What if Spurs had won the champions league, would everyone have sulked like the way we did when we lost it? Course they wouldn’t have.

So as I said, talking about what ifs is irrelevant - and pointless.

What you feel about bad events isn't the right place to start when thinking about avoiding them in the future. That needs analysis. We attacked much more in the game against Fulham than the one against Southampton. Yet people are both claiming the opposite and drawing conclusions fron that.

 

[The Huddlefro]

Life has taught me to be very suspicious of patterns that are clear to the eye because they often occur by chance and literally tell you nothing.
It is interesting to discuss managers' decisions and indeed what the Chairman does. But I think it needs to be done from a point of humility. If you think you can see something obvious that one of the most successful managers in history can't see, isn't the most likely explanation that he is right and you are wrong.

The main reason I posted my what if analysis is that most posters seem to think that a simple change in tactics would win us more games but simultaneously we've got a load of dreadful players. So if @Dier Hard or @C. Kane was our manager it seems we would be both top of the league and shipping out about 10 players this month!

You’re right to an extent. We’re all experts on here but none of us are managers and there’s probably a reason for that. And we don’t see what goes on behind the scenes, what the coaches and players are discussing and trying to do etc. I wouldn’t try and pretend I have all the answers to something like this.

But I don’t think football always lends itself perfectly to statistical analysis, and I do think that moments of individual quality can mask long-term worrying trends. What concerns me about Mourinho’s Spurs right now is not the goals scored or conceded or shots on target stats or possession or whatever, it’s that our defenders are error prone, our midfield is unbalanced, and we have no attacking plan and structure apart from counter attacking.

And yes while we’re all amateur experts on here, I don’t think it’s wrong to be concerned by the fact that Jose, for a reputably defensive coach, hasn’t managed to improve the majority of our defenders (Dier has arguably improved a bit but everyone else who has been here long-term has regressed or stayed the same), and hasn’t instilled a plan of attack when we have possession outside relying on individual moments of quality. I can forgive him the midfield because I think we lack the players.

FWIW I don’t think all the players are awful, but I do think the in-game tactics need refining and we need to do different things at different times. I think the squad is good enough to get top 4 and win a trophy but I think they’re currently being mis-managed in-game and undercoached in certain areas.

 

[Dier Hard]

What you feel about bad events isn't the right place to start when thinking about avoiding them in the future. That needs analysis. We attacked much more in the game against Fulham than the one against Southampton. Yet people are both claiming the opposite and drawing conclusions fron that.

Bad events provide opportunities to assess where we’ve gone wrong. As they say in MMA “you win or you learn”.

When bad events or scenarios in football becomes repetitive it gives a further idea as to what needs changing.

Many posters on here predicted a Fulham equaliser and were duly proven correct, this was due to how we were tactically set up and playing. This has been a problem in games against Fulham, Palace and Wolves, we can see our defence isn't good enough to cope with sustained pressure yet the manager has done little of late to change that. We have very good attacking players, we should be utilising their strengths in games we’re expected to dominate rather than sit back and rely on inadequate defenders to keep a tight lead.

 

[Dier Hard]

The main reason I posted my what if analysis is that most posters seem to think that a simple change in tactics would win us more games but simultaneously we've got a load of dreadful players. So if @Dier Hard or @C. Kane was our manager it seems we would be both top of the league and shipping out about 10 players this month!

Agreed, CK and I would make a good managerial team.

Though I think you’d find there aren’t many here who’d willingly keep if given the choice to replace:

Dier, Sanchez. Aurier, Rose, Winks, Lamela and Lucas.

 

[Spurf]

You’re right to an extent. We’re all experts on here but none of us are managers and there’s probably a reason for that. And we don’t see what goes on behind the scenes, what the coaches and players are discussing and trying to do etc. I wouldn’t try and pretend I have all the answers to something like this.

But I don’t think football always lends itself perfectly to statistical analysis, and I do think that moments of individual quality can mask long-term worrying trends. What concerns me about Mourinho’s Spurs right now is not the goals scored or conceded or shots on target stats or possession or whatever, it’s that our defenders are error prone, our midfield is unbalanced, and we have no attacking plan and structure apart from counter attacking.

And yes while we’re all amateur experts on here, I don’t think it’s wrong to be concerned by the fact that Jose, for a reputably defensive coach, hasn’t managed to improve the majority of our defenders (Dier has arguably improved a bit but everyone else who has been here long-term has regressed or stayed the same), and hasn’t instilled a plan of attack when we have possession outside relying on individual moments of quality. I can forgive him the midfield because I think we lack the players.

FWIW I don’t think all the players are awful, but I do think the in-game tactics need refining and we need to do different things at different times. I think the squad is good enough to get top 4 and win a trophy but I think they’re currently being mis-managed in-game and undercoached in certain areas.

I would undermine your comment by pointing out that yes Dier has improved under Jose but so Has Toby who has been excellent in many of our recent games Aurier has also improved considerably. On top of that our defence has been much better organised and all players have increased their defensive awareness, Kane has made a few penalty box clearances as well. I don't buy into our defence being as poor as some describe, far from it, they just have too much to do. No defence will withstand without some problems for the best part of 80 minutes of a 90 minute game or even 60 or 70 minutes which is why I would like to see us using our considerable attacking skills much more than we are.
Joes is successful because he is very strong minded but sometimes you have to doubt yourself a little to move into somewhere new.

 

[The Huddlefro]

I would undermine your comment by pointing out that yes Dier has improved under Jose but so Has Toby who has been excellent in many of our recent games Aurier has also improved considerably. On top of that our defence has been much better organised and all players have increased their defensive awareness, Kane has made a few penalty box clearances as well. I don't buy into our defence being as poor as some describe, far from it, they just have too much to do. No defence will withstand with some problem for the best part of 80 minutes of a 90 minute game or even 60 or 70 minutes which is why I would like to see us using our considerable attacking skills much more than we are.
Joes is successful because he is very strong minded but sometimes you have to doubt yourself a little to move into somewhere new.

Definitely fair points, though I think Toby’s level and his consistency have definitely dropped since his peak, and Aurier’s improvement may be down as much to competition as it is to Jose.

 

[Spurf]

PLUS Jose you promised us you would respect the Spurs football tradition. Nobody asked you to say that (unless Levy did) what we have seen recently does not do that and winning the reindeer cup is not compensation enough either.

 

[Spurf]

Definitely fair points, though I think Toby’s level and his consistency have definitely dropped since his peak, and Aurier’s improvement may be down as much to competition as it is to Jose.

Jose created the competition and Toby has improved from the level of the last two years under Poch not on his earlier form.

 

[PowerSpurs]

You’re right to an extent. We’re all experts on here but none of us are managers and there’s probably a reason for that. And we don’t see what goes on behind the scenes, what the coaches and players are discussing and trying to do etc. I wouldn’t try and pretend I have all the answers to something like this.

But I don’t think football always lends itself perfectly to statistical analysis, and I do think that moments of individual quality can mask long-term worrying trends. What concerns me about Mourinho’s Spurs right now is not the goals scored or conceded or shots on target stats or possession or whatever, it’s that our defenders are error prone, our midfield is unbalanced, and we have no attacking plan and structure apart from counter attacking.

And yes while we’re all amateur experts on here, I don’t think it’s wrong to be concerned by the fact that Jose, for a reputably defensive coach, hasn’t managed to improve the majority of our defenders (Dier has arguably improved a bit but everyone else who has been here long-term has regressed or stayed the same), and hasn’t instilled a plan of attack when we have possession outside relying on individual moments of quality. I can forgive him the midfield because I think we lack the players.

FWIW I don’t think all the players are awful, but I do think the in-game tactics need refining and we need to do different things at different times. I think the squad is good enough to get top 4 and win a trophy but I think they’re currently being mis-managed in-game and undercoached in certain areas.

Generally agreed. I have a background in trading and getting 53% of decisions right leads to world class trading performance. If you get 52% right then most other people in the team can easily see how to improve 1% of those which are wrong. What they don't notice however is that their proposed changes will also make 2% of the previously right ones go wrong.
I have a suspicion that football management has an even lower hit rate and that Mourinho is at about 51% right. And if our ideas were implemented that would drop to 49%

 

[Spurf]

Generally agreed. I have a background in trading and getting 53% of decisions right leads to world class trading performance. If you get 52% right then most other people in the team can easily see how to improve 1% of those which are wrong. What they don't notice however is that their proposed changes will also make 2% of the previously right ones go wrong.
I have a suspicion that football management has an even lower hit rate and that Mourinho is at about 51% right. And if our ideas were implemented that would drop to 49%

You do realise Power you have just dropped your popularity rating a lot more than 52% by admitting to having been a trader. You could improve you social standing by becoming an estate agent or a bailiff.

 

[PleaseNotPoll]

What you feel about bad events isn't the right place to start when thinking about avoiding them in the future. That needs analysis. We attacked much more in the game against Fulham than the one against Southampton. Yet people are both claiming the opposite and drawing conclusions fron that.

I'm definitely not saying that.

We were poor in the first half against Southampton, for the most part, but they played an insanely high line against us and it cost them badly.
We had chances before they got the opener and they didn't learn from it at the time. We shouldn't be as naive.

Fulham don't set up in the same way that Saints do, so we shouldn't expect the same opportunities.
They play a much more conservative back line with three centre-halves and not pushed up anywhere near as high.
They also made appropriate substitutions, which largely worked for them. Lookman got the assist, for example.
Ours were reactive, too late and we didn't use all of them.

 

[PleaseNotPoll]

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