I think we lost to the usual suspects away from home....United, arsenal, Chelsea. We've both watched enough of Spurs to know that he has a point in the grand scheme of things
We are talking about how we perform against the big teams in general. We have enough over the 90 to overcome mid table teams more times than not, even if behind. Does our system not rely on us scoring first? I think the theory is we score first and it forces the other team to open up and then we do what we are supposed to be good at. That's the general mechanism of it imo.
That will only get you so far though. A top manager should be able to have more than one way of playing
And this is the issue with how we are using Perisic: what he would excel at doing is coming off the bench and playing as a LW to send in crosses for Kane, as that would be a tactical switch and give us a new dimension that we can hopefully exploit when needed What he is currently doing as a regular starter at LWB is removing Son from the equation going forward, not because of any nebulous talk of whether he and Son can play together, but because Son is not good in the air so cannot make anything of Perisic's crosses - which in turn makes Perisic's options predictable for opposition defenders, albeit less predictable if we have a Kane/Richarlison pairing up top That being said, as it was confirmed that Sessegnon is sticking with Perisic like glue hoping to learn a few things, he does have potential as a Football Manager-type signing. Now, if we could maybe also have him with with Bryan and have him turn into a crossing machine...
So goes conventional wisdom. But to challenge it, how many of the top managers today change their system game to game? Styles evolve as players and managers develop and change clubs but the top teams impose themselves on others. One criticism of Nagelsmann at Bayern last season for example is that he tinkered too much when they were out of form - he couldn’t settle on a solution. Perhaps that’s a bit of how it comes with Conte - the 343 by its nature looks more passive than, say, Pep’s possession and positional play, or Klopp’s press-heavy style. But last season we controlled games even without the ball at times because we were so solid. Teams couldn’t create much against us and we always had a threat. That in itself is a measure of control. There is absolutely a place for having the option to be able to switch systems in game to react to the state of the match - as Conte did this season against Everton and Chelsea for example. But I don’t think there are many top managers out there who change the starting system every game. The mantra seems to be to get so good at what you do that teams have to react.
He was a LWB, though. Just look of the data of where he was playing all night, he was playing in the space Perisic should have been in - while Perisic was playing in the space that nobody should have been in This is why I wonder if it was tactical, because surely if Conte saw our left flank look like a bunch of Tories in a voting lobby last night he would have given both players a bollocking for creating an easily exploited space on our left flank - and if it was tactical, why the hell did Conte choose something so illogical and not rectify it ASAP? Similar can be said of why he didn't see Bentancur getting pressed and rejig our midfield so Bentancur was sending passes from deep while Hojbjerg and Bissouma worked as a shield while breaking the Man Utd press
We are back to where we we in 2018/19. Decent but inconsistent. I am patient cos what followed from jan 2019- December 2021 was bloody unwatchable (bar the CL in 2019, and a hand full of Premier league games). What bothered me in the NLD and this match was that we were out fought from minute one. I get that we can be out played and out thought but like @Spurlock I don't get any spurs team being out fought and out run. Millions of people in very hard jobs go to work when over worked and tired. They may not always have the best co workers, may not be mentally or physically perfect but give it their all in very testing circumstances. It's this that frustrates me ... I do not think the whole team gave their all, mentally and physically in these two games. Just an opinion but think it's valid
The issue with Perisic goes way beyond his crossing style. If anything, that is the strongest element of his game. Even the best wingers will struggle to launch more than a dozen successful crosses in an entire match. It's what he's doing when he's not crossing it that is of greater concern. Last season, the brief for Reg and Sess was to help out defensively when needed and to create space for Son at the other end of the pitch. This has reversed with Perisic playing the role: He isn't doing enough defensively and more often than not Son's chief contribution to a game is creating room for Perisic to cross the ball. As good as the Croatian is, Son is by far the better player in the here and now. As such, the remit of whoever starts at LWB - it could be Fraser Forster for all I care - is to service Son's game. Helping out defensively is part of that service. It is as simple as that and I stand by the point I made to DH earlier today: it is true that Perisic's deliveries will earn us x number of goals this season, but the negative impact his role is having on Son means that the Korean will be hindered to the point that we end up experiencing a net loss in goals by the time the season is over.
I don't think we've been fighting much in many games to be honest, we've just not faced teams as good as Utd and Arsenal most weeks to be punished enough for it. Our football has been so dour for pretty much the whole of this season barring about 3 or 4 games, we've just been fortunate that most opposition don't have top strikers/ players to finish chances and we do. Chelsea should've battered us, Wolves can feel aggrieved at losing, Brighton was a complete borefest but perhaps understandable due to Gian Piero's passing, West Ham was also a borefest and they had a late chance to snatch all three points, even the Forest game we were out played in large periods but similar to problems Brighton have had over the years, Forest just couldn't finish their breakfast let alone chances. With the way many key players are being run ragged too, I fear we're gonna see more results like Utd and Arsenal as games go by - and I don't even want to think about how we'll look after the World Cup.
The bottom line is we do not have a deep enough squad to manage 3 games a week and it is littered with too many players who are not of high enough quality. If we are still in the cup, in the ko stage of the CL and in the PL top 4 when the world cup starts, I will be happy.
There is the stat going around that, in every match between the top seven thus season, the home side has won every one of them Well how long before we fix that...?
I agree with your second point but not your first one. On paper, we currently have a better overall squad than we did even in the peak Poch years. The two biggest differences are that the current starting XI is at least 3 upgrades away from where peak Poch XI was, while our inability to manage 3 games a week is more due to the fact that our manager simply doesn't utilise said squad efficiently.
