You're coming at this from the completely wrong angle, which can best be summed up when looking at what other teams paid for their backup keepers Arsenal: $6m Chelsea: £0 (Marcus Bettinelli igned on a free, although the fact they have both Kepa and Mendy kicking about fudges that slightly) Leicester: £150k (Smithies on a free, Iversen for £150k as he was signed from a Danish youth team) Saltypool: £0 (Adrian on a free, Kelleher from their academy) The Sheikh Mansour Team: £0 (Scott Carson and David Ortega both signed on frees) Man Utd: £0 (Tom Heaton signed on a free, Martin Dubravka loaned from Newcastle) Saudcastle: £5m (Karius on a free, Darlow a tribunal fee) Nobody buys quality as their backup keeper. Why? Because quality expects to start, backup keepers are merely competent for when they're needed
I've been saying for a while the way Conte has us set up would be brilliant if we were playing 3412, with somebody like (and this is for the sake of throwing a name in there) James Maddison bridging the gap between midfield and the front line However we're not set up in that formation, and worse the last couple of seasons have seen us thrive by Harry Kane dropping into that spot between midfield and attack and Son has been the main beneficiary of it - but with Conte pushing Kane upfront Kane isn't making those passes from the middle out wide and, if Bentancur isn't getting pockets of space to operate in (or, you know, isn't playing), then those passes aren't happening This goes into the wider issue of how our current system is set up The left wing is designed to send deep deliveries to the far post, with Perisic and Lenglet both looking for that sort of ball The right wing is designed to send short, low balls into the box, with Deki routinely looking for that ball and Emerson should go for those as his crossing is pants The centre is designed to recycle the ball and send it out to the flanks first and try to ping it over the top if they have time, with the WBs the main beneficiaries So in that setup, who is getting the ball to Son? Perisic is instructed to cross it, Deki is on the other flank, and the midfield is getting it to Perisic or Doherty/Emerson
Despite the commentator’s fawning over Brentford, thought it was a poor quality from both sides. Tough away game, 2-0 down though straight after a World Cup I’ll take that. They’ve had 5 weeks to get their ducks in a row for transfers so any chance of waiting till end of jan will be an embarrassement.
The slide out of the top 4 continues. The subs today were defensive ones, not offensive. Disappointing yet again.
Terrible boxing day for home teams so far... 3 getting battered and 2 draws with home team blowing leads
I felt this summer should have been the time to sign a replacement for Lloris though. Forster is an adequate backup as long as he’s not needed in big games or for an extended amount of time.
As long as them lot don't take to the field wearing white shirts + navy blue shorts, a win should be in the bag.
Think they only linked up once, twice at a push. I can’t even say that’s a micro positive as nothing came from it. Son just needs dropping. **** for us, **** for Korea, just don’t know what’s up with him and I’m genuinely concerned he could be on the turn now because good players don’t have bad patches for this long… and he’s had his fair share of bad patches for us to know. Conte’s then creating additional problems to what we’ve already got and for the money he’s being paid it’s not good enough. Gil played well in all mid-season friendlies but again doesn’t come on in a competitive game despite Kulu and especially Son being poor… it’s awful squad management and it’s just tiring now. A case of waiting for him to walk/ be sacked. Howe’s showing him up massively at the moment and I can’t help but feel a fair few would do better with this squad. The only downside to Conte leaving/ being sacked would be that Paratici might walk too and that’d be a damn shame.
That probably solves one problem but opens another though in one or two ways. Davies isn’t really a LWB and Sessegnon is barely a footballer so them replacing Perisic just makes our LWB position weaker than it is. Doherty would probably be the best option for LWB as he seems to play better there than he does on his natural side but then if he’s at LWB it’ll mean Emerson at RWB as Spence likely won’t get a look-in, and so one way or another we’ll have a weak point in our XI knowing how Conte works. Gil should just be given more chances, especially whilst Son’s playing as he is… but… Conte.
Apparently there were chants of "you let your country down" aimed at Kane today. Ironic coming from the same fans who loudly cheered a player who was in consideration for an England call-up but that was then shelved due to the slightly inconvenient revelation of 262 betting irregularities which are now under formal investigation.
Yeah could hear it on the TV. I’d be doing the same if he didn’t play for Spurs. I sang it to Saka during the NLD last season and I would to other players too, gotta try getting in their heads and putting them off, luckily for us it didn’t affect Kane today, might even work in our favour, pissed off players can raise their games.
While like everyone I find our slow starts both mystifying and disappointing, as it seems does Conti, I am not jumping to the conclusion that we should change our manager. This is not a new problem with Spurs, even at the height of Pochettino's tenure we suffered similar occurrences, which if my memory serves me was especially true when teams came at us in hard physical way. This has been a Spurs problem for at least 60 years so I don't think it's down to any particular manager or any type of tactical setup. I think it has to be the type of players we sign. We always look for skilled ball players, we occasionally sign a hard man in the middle, but by and large we don't frighten teams physically. I think this is Conte's point when he talks about Gil. A classic Spurs signing, full of skill and running but get's knocked down by the gorillas employed by many PL teams. In the present squad Hojbjerg stands out by NOT being intimidated by the type of tactics we have seen from a host of teams against us this season, including Brentford today, but most of our squad are visibly cowed IMO when the going gets tough. I think the second halves can be explained by the good spirit in the squad that Conte talks about. Getting angry because they know they are better footballers than the other lot and adrenalin moving them up a gear. Teams fear the reputation of Son & Kane so they gang up on both. Son rarely get's the ball delivered with space to move before 2 or 3 players squeeze him out. The answer IMO has to be speed. We have to use the skills of our players to move the ball faster, just as they did at the end of todays game. I just wish they would start like it.
This is the thing with GKs: if we are in the market for a starting keeper to take over from Hugo, we need to be in the market for one who will be in place for a good 5-6 years, and those are hard to find For example of how this is a difficult decision to get right, Jan Oblak's name came up a short while after the summer window closed, and on paper he sounds like a good shout (albeit with the sneaky suspicion that Atleti are trying to get him off the books PDQ due to their early CL exit after tying him down until 2028), but the issue there is that Oblak is 29 and, with a six year contract to buy out, that's where risk/reward creeps in In comparison, Unai Simon (who was linked as a potential summer target this time last year) does fit better, given he's 25 plus is contracted until 2025, so he does fit the profile of someone we can expect to commanding our area for a good 5-6 years while we build in front of him Of course the main worry is people overrating keepers based off the WC, for example there's been plenty talking up Emi Martinez or Diminik Livakovic as Hugo's successor after their respective World Cups, but realistically we need to be looking for a Peter Schmeichel rather than a Kasper Schmeichel
The Mee foul on Kane that wasn't called should've been a red, too. No attempt to play the ball and a clear goalscoring opportunity.
