At the very least, he showed that Lo Celso is ahead of him in the pecking order Calcio Mercato take note...
Passmap time please log in to view this image Wow, you can actually see where the bus was parked, can't you? It's not the first time under Conte where we've seen similar, where our back three and FBs are passing it amongst themselves when what we really need is some penetration in the final third, and once again we can see that Emerson is far better (at present) linking up with Skipp than he is with Lucas or Kane, and you can once again see Reguilon not pushing up as much as you'd like to, which means Hojbjerg and Skipp are trying to make sausage through the centre - against a team doggedly defending On the other hand, it is good to see Harry Kane as our most forward player for the first time in, what, two years? What this shows more than anything else, and watching the match did likewise, is that as much as we generally love Hojbjerg (although I did see some anti-Hojbjerg sentiment creeping into the tweet announcing our lineup...) while his workrate is admirable his passing tends to be pragmatic which, coupled with Skipp maybe being a season shy of really showing what he's capable of, means that games like this do need a spark in the centre of the pitch sometimes to wrongfoot the opposition and send us on our way or, at the very least, somebody who'll be bloody-minded enough to actually try and make something through the middle on their own So, how long before the next Argentina game ****s that up for us yet again?
We don't generally love Hojbjerg. On this forum alone there are 3 or 4 posters (myself included) who see him as having a ceiling that is far too low compared to where this club aspires to be. Plays with a lot of heart and passion and that is to be admired, but when all is said and done his passing is limited, his tackling is hit and miss, ball control poor and pace non existent. And for a supposedly experienced player, his positioning is far too undisciplined. If and when we sign a new CM, he drops straight to the bench.
The Spurs manager said: "Honestly, when Tottenham put me in charge, I asked for time to make my evaluation about the squad. Now I have and for sure we will have a meeting. "It is important always to be honest, to understand where we are at in this moment and then I will see. January is not simple, but maybe we will see what happens," he added.
He’s also repeatedly mentioned that we struggle to break down teams who sit deep. That he made changes when and how he did in this and the Southampton game, says more about what he thinks of the options we have in the squad than his ability to analyse the game. This is encouraging as long as he is backed to make the changes we need. He sees the issues offensively and has made us much, much more solid at the back.
Just realised that Chelsky play the Poool today (so at least one of them is dropping pts) . Even more reason why the win at Watford was so important.
There's been a lot of criticism of Emerson for this match and it's a little excessive. He's quite young, it's a slightly different position for him and our other players didn't help. He crossed it loads of times to no effect, but the movement was non-existent. Watford were happy to let him cross it because they dominated the middle of the box. It's perhaps a little ironic that they were eventually undone by the thing that they didn't fear. Failed to deal with a pretty predictable free-kick and allowed Sanchez a simple header.
When you have more time to put in a cross, you expect more accuracy. That was the issue yesterday. He also looked quite lethargic in his running (though that could have been due to fatigue or winter lurgey) .
His accuracy was poor, but he didn't have much to aim at/for. I thought his lethargy was down to waiting for something to happen and taking too long when it didn't. He could've been getting balls in early, saw there was nobody there, then got closer. Still nothing, so he'd either hit the first man, play it to a packed box or try to lay it off.
It hasn't cost the game, it is not a persistent pattern (yet) , and no doubt Conte will give him a lecture on it. We shall see in the games to come what has been learnt.
I think both Emerson (and Reguilon) and Hojbjerg (who's come in for some stick) are suffering from issues that are out of their control. Emerson and Reguilon are seemingly making good runs into space but aren't getting the ball quickly enough and by the time they do get it are either closed down or the box has become crowded to deal with the cross. Hojbjerg on the other hand is trying far too hard to compensate for the lack of creativity as he's getting too far forward trying to do it himself and then being caught out at times, he just isn't a creative player but I think as he wants to give 100% all the time he's trying to take too much on which then comes as a detriment to his game. The formation we're playing now isn't so dissimilar to the one Poch deployed for parts of the 16/17 and 17/18 seasons where we finished 2nd and 3rd respectively but the one thing Conte's really missing is a creator like Eriksen. If we took Eriksen out of Poch's one it probably would've seen similar issues for Rose and Walker along with having to ask Dembele/ Wanyama to be more creative... which neither really were despite Dembele's ability to dominate the middle of the park. For me, one position/ player fixes a number of issues.
Am always happy that he proved me wrong for the 18 months or so where he was excellent for us. Glad he knows how much the fans recognise his contribution to the team.
You make a strong argument DH and I think you're right in saying that a single signing could take the whole team up a notch, but let's be honest we need to go up several notches before we're challenging at the very top again. Also let's not forget - Poch essentially built our best PL team (the 16/17 - 17/18 one) over 4 transfer windows. We were extremely fortunate in that 3 out of 5 signings he made were excellent and upgraded the team. Nowadays we're delighted if that is 1 in 5. Also he built at a time when our rivals were all over the place. Conte faces a league miles harder than the division Poch faced in his first 2 seasons. The margins for error are therefore far narrower. Poch spent his first half a season settling on a style and unsurprisingly most of the players we signed in his first window didn't last long as first team options. Ahead of the second season, we added Dele, Toby, Son and Trippier. We also switched to a midfield of Dembele-Dier. The next year we added Wanyama which took our midfield to another level and also opened up 3ATB which we used to devastating effect as you said. So I think in hindsight, Poch's success was premised on a number of complementary steps spread over 2 years and aided by our rivals being in disarray.
The crucial fact is that the ball deflected almost ninety degrees to Hugo's right, and Hugo dove almost straight right, while Pedro was going almost straight forward (slightly left, actually) with his leg straight out. Pedro couldn't have knocked the ball to his left, and it would have had to have gone that way off Hugo's hand. please log in to view this image
When I watched the game live on Supersport(SA) the commentators declared the incident as definite penalty. When I watched the highlights on MOTD the lady commentator said “Penalty? Not for me.” I don’t know if they redo the commentary for the highlights but if not, she was spot on. Well done to her
Yeah...it was interesting that there were people that were adamant on both sides, so I went through it frame by frame. In short, it's understandable why there was confusion. You needed at least a couple of screen shots to make it clear. But I realized there was actually one reason why that wasn't necessary, which was the way the ball deflected sharply to Hugo's right. We think it's easy enough to kick a ball in any direction, but not when you're racing forward at top speed, the ball is in front of you, and your leg is extended, trying to reach it. The laws of physics do apply, and the force of your forward momentum will launch the ball more or less straight forward. If the ball travels at a sharp right angle to the direction you're running, it means it hit an obstacle, in this case Hugo's hand(s). That means he got the ball and it's not a pen. It's similar to the most famous local sports officiating dilemma, the so-called immaculate reception, when a Steeler plucked a deflected pass out of the air and won a playoff game on the last play. If it had deflected off an attacking player, it should have been incomplete (a strange rule, since rescinded). If off a defensive player, the score should have stood. For a decade people argued about it. Finally someone pointed out that the ball deflected 20 yards straight back to the quarterback. The attacking player it might have hit was more or less stationary. The defender was sprinting towards the ball. If it had hit the attacking player, it only would have deflected a yard or two backwards, if that. Therefore, it had to have hit the defender, whose momentum made the ball ricochet so far. I have more documentation, in case anyone still doubts...but I probably spent way too much time on this. please log in to view this image please log in to view this image
