Jelly and ice cream when Winks retires. With a bit of luck it’ll be tonight. How have we had 5 and a half years of this guy… bloody hell. Probably punishment for having Modric and Dembele I guess.
Forgot to add Lucas in that list too. Luckily for him the one thing he did right resulted in a goal, the other 77 things though were tragic.
In fact he effectively created both goals, so I guess he probably deserves a paa from that list despite his otherwise lacklustre display?
Maybe not Mystic Meg, but even I wasn't expecting to be proved so conclusively correct within 30 minutes!
Surely the bigger issue was the fact that no one closed down Ward-Prowse so he was able to put such good crosses in. In the system Davies, Reguilon and Son should be covering that area
We have no chance of top 4 on tonight’s performance Don’t let the late goals give you the wrong impression, Southampton thoroughly deserved the win from start to finish. Nothing changes with spurs does it? You have a good performance against Brighton where you really feel the team is moving forward and then it’s back to square one. You have to give Southampton credit but we shouldn’t be getting so outplayed at home against them. It must be inbuilt in the clubs make up just to generally inconsistent. You never know what kind of performance you are going to get. As others have said you cannot play hojbjerg and winks as a 2 in a midfield as you lose all control of the game. For Sundays game we need to bring in Bentancur and bench Moura. Wolves are better than Southampton and will have a field day against us if we line up like that again.
We have seen this many times, Southampton started in a very aggressive manner and many of the Spurs players literally looked scared. This is a trait of this Spurs side. It was also noticeable how the two new Juventus players and Romero were not cowed in the same way. In effect we did not have a midfield in the first half and it was only marginally better in the second half. Hojbjerg is in a bad run of form and Winks although he has improved his distribution under Conti is still prone to getting muscled off the ball. Clearly we miss Skipp and Bentancur who looks a good buy. With these two in midfield we are a different proposition. Hopefully they will start on Sunday or at least Bentancur will. But well played Southampton they fully deserved their win.
I don't think we were especially good against Brighton. Potter set them up all wrong yet we still never looked completely comfortable, relying too much on their unforced errors to pull ahead. Then he tweaked things at the beginning of the second half and they were battering us until another stroke of luck allowed us to add a third goal and kill the game (although Maupay STILL had two great chances to score after that). We cannot seem to control games for more than a few mins at a time and our gameplay seems to be either a hope that Kane or Son will score in those brief windows or the opposition will play like Brighton did and fail to capitalise themselves. Last night was a glimpse at what happens when the opposition doesn't give up and does capitalise. They could've scored 6. Literally every fan I know can see that a 2 in midfield doesn't work. Maybe it will with Skipp and Bentancur. But certainly not Winks and Hojbjerg who are painfully limited players and always have been.
Even though the 2 players are supposed to be sitting deep and shielding their defence as their primary job…I believe one of them must be a ball player with an eye for attack. That’s very different to being able to run forward. I don’t think we have that player from deep…maybe Bentancur can do something but we lack inspiration from the centre of the park imo
It’s been like this for years now too. Since the decline and departures of Dembele and Eriksen we’ve had no players capable of either controlling possession (Dembele) or dictating play (Eriksen). Our choice of midfielders since they left have been: Winks - dog awful player, always has been, luckily for him Lo Celso and Ndombele managed to be worse Sissoko - grafter who enjoyed about 15 great months but was only ever the standard of a squad player overall Ndombele - fat prick Lo Celso - when not injured, woeful Hojbjerg - combative and vocal but very limited in overall play Skipp - already our best midfielder but will essentially be the Wanyama/ Sandro of the team and not someone who’s going to control the possession Bentancur - already looking like our second best CM but again, like Skipp, is a DM and won’t be someone who’ll dictate possession or control the game, despite a lovely pass last night within seconds of coming on. As many others have said, 352 is the way forward but we still don’t have the creative midfielder to play alongside or in front of Skipp and Bentancur, maybe Kulusevski in the ten role could be tried but in the meantime we can just smile in the face of regret watching Coutinho improve his tally last night of making it two goals and two assists in just three league games.
So when Chelsea won the league playing 343 under Conte, which of Matic and Kante fits your description? They were certainly better then than any of our midfielders are now but neither are particularly creative.
i think Kantes attacking prowess goes under the radar a bit Hes probably got more goals/assists in his career than Winks n Hoj. I often see him in and around the box and he certainly tests the keeper more than any of our midfielders…he definitely carries an attacking threat
