“The coach changes, the players stay the same, the results stay the same....” Sounds like the stuff some of us say
We’re the reason clubs like Burnley survive each season, praying on the mentally weak. Just a plague running through the club of players with no fight or bottle. Been that way for years no matter who the owner, manager, players are.
Conte wants to see the club heading in the right direction, I think he’s just as baffled and annoyed as we are with the inconsistency of results. He looks like he’s running out of ideas already which is worrying
I agree with this. But I also think he has to look at himself and how he’s setting up and instructing the team. The difference between first and second half tonight was huge. Why was that? After the City game Conte said that this was one of the best, if not the best, groups of players he has worked with. I respect him as a coach and I’m glad he’s our manager but where is the consistency in messaging to the public? He’s right that many if these players have failed other managers but also why hype them up so much? Everything at the club feels like a mess right now.
I also don't like how wildly the message is changing from game to game. But I think his comments after the City game were meant as a 'pat on the back' - a public show of approval after a disastrous losing sequence. However, for the millionth time we failed to capitalise on a positive moment and it feels like square one for the umpteenth time this season. Conte should shoulder a chunk of the blame but let's not forget he didn't choose the bulk of these players. It is hardly his fault we spent the best part of £60m on two WBs who cannot cross the ball. Sess put in one good delivery that had no one on the end of it while I didn't count a single good ball in from Emerson. In fact there was a farcical moment in the second half when Kane practically took the ball off him and showed him how to cross! We go into most games carrying 3 or 4 passengers and Conte didn't sign any of them. Today it was Sess and Emerson followed by Lucas who did absolutely nothing after coming on. I am confident that Reguilon and Skipp returning will help hugely but the right flank remains an area of major concern, plus we simply do not have any consistent goalscorers in the squad apart from Kane and Son.
Completely agreed. Plus it’s not helping that Kane and Son are not on song. Look at their goal totals. You’d expect both to be in low/mid double figures in the league at least, by now. Instead they’re stuck on 9 and 7.
They're not wingbacks. He persists with a system that doesn't suit the players he has. It's his fault.
he wants Spurs to play a system. He wants players to fit the system…he will stick with the system and I for one have no issue with that. His thinking has won him 5 trophies in the last 7 years. He’s not here to help develop players for 2026 and he isn’t here to chop n change his philosophy to suit a ‘let’s scrape top 4 to make money’ philosophy that has been running through the core of our club thanks to ENIC. He’s here to apply his winning formula and that is this system…if the players aren’t good enough they need replacing to give him what he wants. He can’t chop and change systems every week depending on who’s playing. That’s not how winning teams do things…they have a system and they have players that execute it brilliantly…we don’t have them players…we got the system because an elite manager has tried and tested it for years and it works. so it’s not about systems…you can stick some of these useless ****s in every system and they will still play sideways passes and fail to get a cross in. Harry Kane will still have a chance to score regardless of system and he will score some n miss some…Son will still try to dribble past 8 players when a pass is on…other days he gets it right. Lloris will still brain fart regardless of the system…he will also pull off wonder saves. Sanchez will still headbutt the turf regardless of system. Moura will still try to run head down until he runs out of grass or misplaces his pass or top bins it from 20 yards…**** all to do with the system. Emerson could turn out for Klopp and his winning system next game and I’ll bet you my house he wouldn’t all of a sudden cross it like Trent.
What last night did demonstrate is there's some games where playing WBs is the right setup - The Sheikh Mansour Team, Woolwich, Saltypool, Norwich, Leeds, Brentford - and that system will stretch them and we can have some superb passages of play that can (and usually do) get rewarded However, what it also proved is there's games where playing WBs is the wrong system, and that's a sentence we've heard quite a lot in recent weeks as the system tanked badly against Southampton, Wolves and Chelsea (repeatedly...), for example last night Burnley set up to give the WBs all the time in the world and just packed the middle so if they did get a cross in they had bodies to deal with it even before we aided their back line by alternating between terrible deliveries when we had people in the box and good deliveries when there was nobody in the box There were points last night where the obvious question was why we didn't have Dier trying to ping it to Son, which at the very least would've potentially put Burnley on the back foot, yet was there any moment where it even looked as if we were going for that? Instead we played into Burnley's gameplan instead of imposing our own and never seemed to try switching it Which, of course, can all be blamed on Emerson...
That's all well and good, but if the players can't play the system why persist when it clearly isn't working? You have to utilise the tools at your disposal at the time to get the best results until such time as better ones that fit your system are available. That doesn't strike me as rocket science.
He has to play the system every game in order to implement it enough to become 2nd nature. We are seeing the painful reality that some of these players who have been purchased by a collection of 3 previous managers aren’t good enough to play it so come summer time it’s time for Levy to put his hands in his pockets. If he kept on tweeking his system every other game to try to directly counter the opposition and it went tits up as has been the case for a few years before Conte, then the same fans would be criticising him for chopping and changing the system thus not allowing the players to adapt. he’s obviously frustrated…I’ve no problem with that…I’ve been frustrated for a few years too with some of this lot. It’s no coincidence to me that our 2 January signings under Conte have been positive and work for his system.
