Well, all I can say is Antonio certainly knows he’ll have his work cut out. For the second game running though, Emerson our MOTM. Brilliant again tonight. Backing up the rumours as to why Conte wanted him as Hakimi’s replacement at Inter, think he and Reguilon are gonna love it under him.
Mental game, 5 goals, 3 red cards, pitch invaders and a crucial win. Many, many positives and also an awful lot to work on. Only this time it feels like we have a manager who can actually do that work. We know he’ll want to add players but the improvement in those he is currently working with will be important too.
Agreed, best he’s looked since the Man City game two seasons ago. Done more in his sub appearance than Hojbjerg and Skipp combined. Sanchez too, far better than Dier and Romero.
A very emphatic “I’m not Nuno” message from game one. From passive to aggressive in the blink of an eye.
More excitement in that 90 mins than in the last 2 years tbf . Last time I remember us showing that amount of back bone was when we beat Southampton in one of Pochettino's last games when Aurier got sent off. Kane needs to do something as he was poor tonight imho. The defence is a mess in terms of individual mistakes. But the stand out thing is how brittle our confidence is. The first set back sees us crumble.
Dier and Romero will have not impressed on first outing under Conte, as well as Hojbjerg, who I thought was very poor yet again, not sure what’s gotten into him of late. Skipp was meh, made some nice early tackles but then faded. Despite scoring, Lucas and Son also had very below par games, especially Son. On the other hand, Reguilon and especially Emerson have already benefited from Conte’s arrival as some of us expected. Despite conceding twice, Hugo made a number of important saves. Kane put in what m I’d say was a proper centre forward performance, nice assist and drew a good number of fouls. Winks and especially Sanchez impressed when they came on.
I thought Kane was decent. Clearly still struggling for form a bit but a lot of the attacking play in the first half was going through him as a pivot and he played his part in the second half game management too. Looked committed in his work. The goals will come as the attacking play develops.
Reminded me of Olympiakos, Mourinho's second game. In that one, we were 2-0 down and won 4-2. ****ing nuts...but very enjoyable. Next...
Gotta be honest I think we watched different Kane’s. I thought he played fairly well tonight, far from his best obviously but got a nice assist and drew a number of fouls to halt Vitesse’s momentum, you need that from a centre forward at times when under the cosh. He got next to zero service in that second half too but still tried getting involved.
