Last night confirmed just how much work has to be done to make us competitive again. There were simply too many players whose limitations mean that they cannot start regularly for a team chasing European football. Sanchez may show signs of improvement, playing in a 3 under Conte, but he'll never be a proper defender. He has no instinctive understanding of how to defend. He rarely anticipates danger. Too often, by the time he reacts to dangerous situations, it's too late. He's also poor on the ball. It was said in the summer that we had enquiries for him and he really needs to be moved on. Winks is very much the same. Last week, when talking about Bryan Gil, Conte said that playing in the PL was about more than just footballing skills, listening in training and trying hard. Really good players have to be beasts physically and mentally. Winks isn't either. Like Sanchez, to cover for his deficiencies, he has to be played in a 3. We'd probably get enough money for him to buy someone of the level of Bentancur, which means that we should be parting ways this summer. We don't have a wing back at the club who is currently good enough, given the importance of the position to the way that Conte plays. Might Conte be able to get sufficient improvement out of two of them? It's not completely impossible...but I have real doubts. Unfortunately, there are also issues with a number of players in other positions. None of Hojbjerg, Davies, Dier, Lucas and Bergwijn should be starting regularly in a team that has realistic CL ambitions. All of them have attributes but at the same time, it's far too easy to identify their limitations. It's unrealistic to expect that we're going to qualify for the CL this season. We can only hope that the extent and quality of this summer's recruitment doesn't rest upon the finances that would come from qualifying, because profit plus the proceeds of sale aren't getting anywhere near to righting the wrongs. Not even close.
You don’t need ball playing midfielders to win leagues, only need that for tournament football. Kante’s ability in the final third is underrated. He’s a box-to-box midfielder, not a DM.
You’ve partly answered your own question with that bit. You've then got to take into account the other players in the Chelsea team that allowed that system to work with two combative players. Alonso and Moses were very good attacking WBs who chipped in with goals and assists. They generally had Hazard and Pedro in front of Kante and Matic, Hazard had his best goal scoring season that year I think and Pedro also racked up impressive numbers. Whilst we can boast that we have Son, Lucas however isn’t anywhere near Hazard or Pedro’s level. Then they had the likes of Fabregas and Willian to call upon in reserve… we have nothing like that on our bench, we don’t have anything like a prime Fabregas in our starting XI either. When you have better standard of players plus more talent to choose from then systems become far easier to make effective. There isn’t really a system at Spurs - and hasn’t been for a while - that’s fully effective because our playing personnel are so damn poor for the most part. There are players in our XI right now that wouldn’t have even made our squad in 16/17.
Extracts from Ally Gold’s latest piece: “…and the same goes for Kane, who must be bewildered at times at the quality, or lack of, that he's surrounded by elsewhere on the pitch.” We all are. “Winks lost the ball in key positions on more than one occasion” This has been happening so many times in recent games, it’s actually a miracle we’ve not conceded more. “Rodrigo Bentancur showed that he will soon be starting matches for Spurs” That better be soon as in Sunday. “Joe Rodon must still be wondering what needs to happen for him to get more game time.” We all are. But it ain’t gonna happen. Just need Dier back asap (who himself isn’t perfect) so we can bin Sanchez to the bench.
Every now again a match comes along that really makes me question my sanity, with regards to Spurs ability to destroy any feeling that we are making progress, and when there is other **** going on in your life you don’t need your football to team to add to it. Last night was one such night, I should first say that Southampton were excellent, they played with a plan and no shortage of skill, heart and technique that we couldn’t live with on the night, and they are all things however basic that we lacked. I think the criticism of actual players has been excellently covered off by many posters particularly Brian and DH, and I find myself in total agreement with their posts and can’t offer any more on the players and their short comings. But I do want to do is criticise the manager, he is without question the best we can get (in many ways better than we deserve with the current group of players). But at the moment he is not giving us the best chance of winning matches by sticking to his preferred system, and game plan when he should know that the opposing side will be dominant in the middle of the park if we only play 2 of our very average players in that area. In this particular instance we appeared to be totally surprised by the saints press, which is poor because the same thing happened recently at St Marys where they were totally on top until the sending off. We should have started last night knowing what to expect and whilst it might just be that the players didn’t do what he wanted, there was still no real attempt to change it and whilst we did enjoy some joy at certain points when we did break the press, the in game management by both players and coach was distinctly lacking. Still at least we have properly quashed any optimism and can get back to being the usual miserable, pessimistic bastards that makes us such a jolly bunch!
If I had only seen the first half, then the FT score, I could accept the result. But the result after going 2-1 up : moves away from smashable objects.
1. The folly of dogma over pragma. 2. We are led to believe that a great manager/coach can get a squad whose "on paper" collective ability will end in a league finish of Nth place, to finish X places better than N. So on that basis, what is the value of N for this squad, and what value of X is Conte capable of (ie how good is he) ??
I haven't read the thread yet, so forgive me if I'm going over old ground, but that was disgraceful. How Conte got in at half-time and thought, "This is fine", is beyond me. Awful decision making. Another manager married to one ****ty set of tactics and a single system, regardless of what's happening. This is on him. Individual players were not at fault for that ****show and he should hold his hands up to it.
I'd say pre-Conte we were destined for an 8th-10th place finish under Nuno, possibly even worse because Nuno was even managing to stifle Kane which no other manager has done before and without Kane scoring regularly it's scary to think where we'd be. With Conte, I'd say we can get top six, crazily enough we still have an outside shot of top four... god knows how though. So I'd say, despite some poor stuff last night from him and the players, he's getting more out of us overall but it feels like getting blood out of a stone with some of this lot.
He might get more joy if he played to our strengths. We have no playmakers at all now, so Kane's having to drop deep all the time, which nullifies him. Last night looked very Mourinho-esque and his excuses sounded equally hollow.
The fact that this system has delivered for Conte at many clubs and not always with world class players or anything near that but the majority of this Spurs squad and recent departures have delivered **** all suggests to me that I’d trust the system over the players. Levy needs to allow the overhaul of this squad to whatever Conte wants then we see his system working…or are we so poor as a club that we can break the best of systems, players and managers given time?
I don't think we have many strengths though and that's the worry and problem for every manager since Poch 2019. We've never had a playmaker since Eriksen, the two big money signings are no better at creating than Hojbjerg, Skipp or Winks and so them being here or not makes/ made no difference. We've tried different systems and managers but Kane and Son aside, we just have no goals or assists coming from elsewhere in this team of a significant level. Lucas and Bergwijn can grab an occasional goal and our midfielders between them can probably muster about 5 assists a season but there's just nothing about us nowadays. It's 2022 and Winks is still at this club, Sanchez still starts lots of games despite struggling to kick a football and remembering how to defend many times, Lucas is seen as a first choice player despite being of squad calibre, some have said this is his best season for us and yet he's got just two league goals... How are we still in this situation of relying on mid-table players when we want to be a top six side? I just don't get it... well I do, it's the hierarchy not acting well enough by keeping poor players and then signing poorer ones but we're literally clinging to the brilliance of Kane and Son to make us relevant. Without those two we'd be in a scrap with Everton, Newcastle and co and I don't think I'm exaggerating one bit there, it's actually really worrying.
maybe he wants us to be good enough to switch between the two surely a player isn’t made for just one system and I dont think top players are so limited tbh maybe we don’t have enough top players
I'm not sure that Dele, Ndombele or Lo Celso represented, or were any part in, our 'strengths'. Bryan Gil really wasn't any part of anything in relation to the first team. The 3 midfielders left us numerically better off, but what's currently missing is Skipp and to a lesser extent, Dier. Skippy is close to being/may be the most important player in the team. I'd put him up with Hugo, Kane and Sonny. With him, we compete in the midfield. Without him, we're overrun...game after game. His pre-injury level of importance is indicated in this... please log in to view this image He's a top talent and with the possible exception of Bentancur, the only all rounder we've got. Our other midfield options were/are nowhere near his level. I'd say that a 2 containing Skipp/Hojbjerg is about as effective as a 3 containing Winks, Hojbjerg and Ndombele/Lo Celso. In the back 3, the same is becoming true of Dier. Unlike Skippy, I have my doubts as to whether he's our long term defensive leader and how he'd fair in the CL, but right now, he's the one player who can glue together the 2 players either side of him, forming some kind of unit. Without those 2, Kane and Hugo, as the spine of the team, the rest just isn't good enough...or anywhere close to it.
We clearly don't have enough top players and we're limited in several roles. If we can both see that, then why can't Conte? Playing Winks and Hojbjerg as our whole midfield against a pressing team was suicide.
I think we can add Romero to the spine, he's class and alongside Dier will help create a solid foundation at the back. In terms of overall XI, I think we can rely on Lloris, Dier, Romero, Reguilon*, Skipp, Bentancur**, Son and Kane as players who would make meaningful contributions to our chances of top four and a trophy. That leaves us a LCB, RWB and a creative midfielder short of having a good first choice XI. In terms of squad, I think Davies, Hojbjerg, Lucas and Kulusevski*** are players worthy of being here as backups, beyond that everyone else can be binned (young players like Gil, Sarr, White, Scarlett etc excluded). I do still believe Emerson can come good but with performances like last night he makes my faith in him look blinded and we should be offering a blank cheque to Brighton for Lamptey regardless of whether he does or doesn't. * - Not rated by some which I find quite surprising, there are few better than him in the Prem and anyone significantly better is likely at a better and bigger club, domestic and foreign. ** - Early days of course but initial impressions suggest he's already our second best CM, which after about 40 minutes of football is damning to the others. *** - May well become a first XI player either as a RW or CAM, certainly get Chadli vibes from him, which in games we'll dominate he'll be perfect for, on the back foot perhaps not so much.
For me the takeaways are: Bentancur needs to start whether we play 3 or 2 in midfield. Him and Skipp are probably our best midfielders, which is damning on the rest of them Emerson needs to be benched for a bit because it’s just not working. Give Doherty a run in the position he made his name in. He’d struggle to be any worse Dier is more important than many of us gave him credit for. We know his inconsistencies as a player but every coach at Spurs has also appreciated him as a vocal presence on the pitch, which we sorely miss. And he’s better than Sanchez anyway. We need to play a 3 in midfield. None of the wingers are putting their hands up convincingly to play alongside Kane and Son so there’s no point compromising the midfield to fit them in. It should basically be Bentancur, Skipp and a +1. Winks at the base if we try and control possession because he can play others in, as he did 3/4 times last night, or sit Bentancur and play Højbjerg if we need more energy. Neither of those combinations are ideal but they’re what we have. Ideally in time we’ll get a more creative midfielder or play Kulu there (Conte has said he can play 10) and have Skipp and Bentancur controlling the base with a more creative outlet ahead. But… It looks like Kulu is going to need a bit of time. To me he looks like he needs to shift a bit of timber, or learn to use his body more effectively. Nice left foot but a bit cautious on the wing in terms of his decision. Making. Maybe being central might help him be more involved in the play and let his use his size to disrupt players rather than trying to beat them for pace If we have everyone fit I’d like to see us try: Lloris Romero Dier Davies Doherty Bentancur Skipp Regulion Kulu Kane Son But I don’t think we’ll see that for a little while, if indeed we ever do.
A lot of people are pointing to Dier's absence and I think that's fair. Why isn't Rodon being used to replace him, though? That's what he's there for. We shuffled people around instead and I think it resulted in some confusion. Having said that, the two late goals weren't even about the defence, in my opinion. Why is Ward-Prowse being allowed to get two balls into the box unchallenged? He's easily their most dangerous passer of the ball. Going by position of delivery, that's down to Son. Anyone think he should be picking up their playmaker or that he'd be effective at it? I don't. Play him and Kane as a front two and it's down to someone else who might actually do it.
