Conte has barely been here 12 months and has delivered CL football after being 9th in the league, the best ever start to a PL season and one of the highest goals scored at this stage of a season, and all while being lumbered with a defensive unit containing awful players such as Sanchez, Tanganga, Royal and Dier.
I'm not sure it was quite like that. IIRC he gave an interview where he essentially said that he felt he is still young and learning his trade, so while our interest flattered him and he obviously admires Conte, he felt it wasn't the right time to make a move. I respect that in a player. It shows a level-headedness and common sense not to rush into a move. He'd cost a fortune and 100% won't join in January, but £50m and a loan back until the summer could well do it. We should be pursuing this relentlessly rather than cheaper and older alternatives. Him and Skriniar in a January double deal (with the latter joining immediately), plus a randomly selected One Hotspur member to replace Emerson Royal on the right flank, would be a dream window tbh.
- Tanganga has hardly played and certainly isn't an "awful" player. He emerged with tremendous promise and impressed hugely in his breakthrough season. His development has been stunted by injury and lack of game time, the latter being firmly Conte's fault for refusing to play him and also refusing to let him go out on loan. - Sanchez has only started 6 games. Ironically we only lost one of them (although we were losing to B'mouth before he went off tbf). - Dier, agreed. - Lumbered with Royal? Pull the other one. He has two other superior options to utilise in that same position, yet he persists with Brazilian. If anyone has lumbered Conte with Royal, it is himself. His achievements last season can't be knocked, but we have regressed as this season has gone on.
And he could probably do with another year or so there too because he’s been pretty average for Inter this season and hasn’t always started games, as well as being subbed off in others, so him costing a fortune doesn’t sound the greatest of ideas at the moment, especially if we try securing Lenglet for considerably less. Skiriniar definitely though, we could do with a more experienced head in the back line who’s proven over multiple years their quality.
I'm not sure why you think this is about the manager getting more out of them like he's got a magic wand. Manager after manager but you still think it's not quite the players but the manager must get more. Just because the owners ambitions are limited doesn't make it right to expect the manager to turn these turds into gold . They were **** 4 years ago when Poch got booted and they are **** now so
I think all of BMJ, Harry and Poch got more than expected out of the cards they were dealt. I think Harry in his last season didn't as he was totally distracted by the England job and also spent too long telling everyone how he'd got us punching above our weight. Poch almost certainly did year on year. The fact he achieved top 4 and a CL final with the 18/19 group, a Winks/Sissoko midfield and all of its injuries was nothing short of miraculous. I think it was you yourself who gave the analogy of squeezing the last few drops out of an empty Fairy bottle. Maureen, considering what he had to work with, actually delivered on par. That group was EL/ECL level at best; throw in a Carabao final appearance on you're pretty much par for course. Our current group on paper is easily on par with Arsenal and United, better than Newcastle and only slightly behind Chelsea and Liverpool (in their current incarnations). City are the only team on paper who are genuinely miles better than us. By that token, based on current form and standard of football, Conte isn't far off from slipping into the Juande Ramos camp of delivering less than we have on paper.
Our strongest XI is considerably different to that of four years ago though. Since Poch left, Kulu, Bentancur, Hojbjerg, Romero and Perisic have come in as starters, arguably Lenglet too. Lloris, Son and Kane didn't need upgrading. So that's 9 or 10 of our strongest XI either being different or adequate. The club's had three RBs since Aurier left and Conte chooses to pick the worst one. It's only really Dier that's been a fixture in our XI that is a player we should/ could have upgraded on, one existing player shouldn't be holding back a side that almost all pundits (and I'd say us fans) predicted to finish third this season yet right now we can drop to 5th if Utd win their game in hand and we've been playing some of the worst football we've watched since the end of Pochettino too. Howe's currently getting far more out of a weaker Newcastle side than Conte is from a superior Spurs side, and they're quite enjoyable to watch too. There's also no way Arsenal are potentially a side 13 points better than us, Arteta is probably overachieving which may make it seem more extreme at the moment but Conte is absolutely underachieving with this group of players.
Was at that match with my youngest. The best part was that I met Steve Perryman in the club shop before kick off (my boyhood hero). Was great. The worst part? Tripping over cos my sciatica was bad and ****ing my back up actually wasn't the worst bit. The match was bloody awful, we were outplayed and lucky to get a draw. Pretty certain it was Pochettino's last game as our manager...but if not, it was definitely the first time I thought he could be fired.
Ally Gold's done one of this transfer summaries heading into January. For those of us wanting a new CB, sounds like we'll have to wait at least until the summer as RWB and an attacker are the priorities, with Gold mentioning about Conte's post Brentford comments about not needing a new CB. Some of the names mentioned are either Conte/ Paratici targets or players we could possibly make a move for: RWB: Pedro Porro Vanderson Denzel Dumfries Malo Gusto Says Emerson more likely to leave than Doherty should a RWB come in (should be both!) and Spence may be given a loan (should be above the other two!). Attacker: Tete Ruslan Malinovskyi Martin Terrier Harvey Barnes Ismaila Sarr Wilfried Zaha He also says we'll monitor other positions, with Kessie at CM being someone Conte likes.
We've also been linked with Tete, a 22-year-old Brazilian forward. He's currently on loan at Lyon from Shakhtar and his contract expires in about 12 months. Plays mainly on the right wing and gets a good number of goals and assists. Presumably intended as a Moura replacement, if there's anything to the rumour. Edit: Posted this before I saw the above post.
I think there's truth in it. Not gonna get bags of game time with us any more and he heads back home before he's considered a has-been.
Most of those players don't really improve us although some could be decent squad options to have on the bench. I think Harvey Barnes is massively overrated while Sarr only excels in the Championship for a reason. Zaha is an interesting one but I doubt he'd be happy being an understudy to Son, unless we intend to move Richarlison to a more central position and create more competition for the Korean. Don't know too much about the rwb options other than Dumfries, who is another player I think is hugely overrated and the wc didn't help. The Kessie thing is baffling to me. If Conte wanted him and he was available, why didn't we nab him when he was free to negotiate a new contract? Why sign Bissouma instead? Benefit of the doubt would reason that the pull of Barca over us was too much for him to resist, but it does once again smack of a confused transfer strategy with Paratici/Levy clearly preferring young prospects along with developing existing young talent, whilst Conte would happily sell his grandmother to bring in a player already in their prime and never play a youngster again. It's a mess.
We can't really get worse at RWB so I'd imagine any of those targets would represent at least some degree of an upgrade on Emerson and Doherty. As for attackers, it's not really about improving/ upgrading but more reinforcing. Lucas might be off and Gil isn't favoured for stupid Conte-related reasons. Of the other four, only one has been good this season, one's been largely injured, one's been absolute dog **** and the other hasn't been great either, so I can see why another is wanted. I said back in the summer I wished we went for Zaha over Richarlison so I'd be all for him joining if he was up for the competition. I may be wrong but I'm sure we did try competing with Barca last January to land Kessie on that pre-contract for the summer, even offering a better financial package but he opted to join them regardless so nothing we could really do. We definitely don't need him now though and it'd feel like wasting money on a position we're already strong in whilst neglecting areas of weakness, namely CB.
I'm pretty sure that I've said it before, but I am getting a 2013-14 Villas-Boas vibe from Conte at the moment In 2012-13, Villas-Boas was working with the squad to make them comfortable, most obviously ditching the 4231 formation and going 442 when the squad vocalised they would rather play in their more comfortable formation - but the following season he said he was in charge and players needed to fall in line, with form and results plummeting like Tesla stock Now look at Conte. In 2021-22 there was the sense that he and the squad were working together to point us in the right direction - but this season it does feel like Conte saying he's in charge, and not only have form and results nosedived, but certain players have regressed compared to even March/April of this year, for example Dier and Emerson looks significantly better in the run-in than they have this season
Tbh I do not see the point in letting Conte bring in more players if he isn't committed to staying. We will just end up with a new manager saying he doesn't want them in 6 months time. If Levy wants a manager to just buy ready made players then back him accordingly. If he wants a manager who will develop young players then WTF did he employ JM and Conte? I want conte to stay but it means buying players for now imho
You could be right and I've mentioned on another thread that given the chance to sit in the dug out with this same group of players to select from, I'd run a mile from the 343 wing back formation as we don't have the wing backs and our CBs aren't good enough for it either. I'd jump straight back to the 4231 formation we favoured under Poch and line them up as follows: Hugo Doherty Romero Lenglet Davies Hojbjerg Bentancur Kulu Kane Son Richarlison Turn Kane into a false 10 permanently, shift Richarlison into a position that is clearly better for him (cf. his performances for Brazil when not forced to play injured by their buffoon of manager), Davies/Doherty alternate pushing forward on the overlap and stack the bench with multiple game changing options in defense and attack: Forster Spence Dier Tanganga Bissouma Skipp Perisic Bryan Lucas I think that is by far and away our strongest set up. We are two WBs and CB short of being able to play Conte's preferred system. It's one of the reasons why we are struggling to control or even get into games at the moment. Last season we had the element of surprise but teams have now studied us and have easily identified our weak points and how to exploit them. Superior fitness and individual quality is keeping us treading water for now, but it cannot and will not last forever.
Honestly, I think our players are best setup for the asymmetrical FBs system that Poch tried to implement in 2019 (but with the wrong formation) and the ubermensch had us playing...only to have it entirely predictable, as it was always Davies sitting and Aurier running For those whose memories need refreshing, we were playing 4231 but the idea was that when we were on the front foot one of the FBs pushed right up as a winger while the other shifted over so we morphed into a back three. When looking at our current options, we obviously have the personnel at LB to do both (Davies pulling in, Sessegnon pushing up - I'll get to Perisic in a minute, though...) but, crucially, we can do that at RB as Tanganga and Emerson can both pull in while Doherty and Spence can push up. The only potential issue with this would be where Perisic fits in, because in a 4231 Son is obviously first-choice at LW, and it has to be said he'd probably be a better fit with Ben Davies behind him as that would make him an ersatz LWB Another alternative is to stick to last season's 3421 blueprint as that did seem to fit for the Kane/Son/Deki trio as H could drop deep as he, Son and Deki could rotate around in that system, which isn't happening in a straight 343
Doherty is bad enough as a WB, he was atrocious as a FB. Ben Davies is also a far better CB in a three than he is a FB. Both will offer almost nothing to our forwards in that system and role. Not sure about playing Kane as a direct number 10, he’s still the best finisher we have. His assists are important but his goals are vital. 343 is our best bet, we just need to either play Spence or get a new RWB in and also bring in a top CB to replace Dier and it’ll be pretty good so long as Conte sets us up to play correctly and not emulate an expensive Burnley.
There’s also the issue that Romero is easily exposed as a RCB in a 4 because he’s so aggressive, and that neither of our left footed CBs have a history of thriving in a 4 either. If we recruit players for Conte and then he leaves then we find another coach who plays 3atb and move on. That’s why we have a DoF, to provide that continuity. Very few of our current defenders suit a back 4. Maybe Romero if you can plan around him stepping out, Dier can do it. But not necessarily the other players.
Tanganga has been poor every time he has had a chance, if a replacement was brought in he would have been allowed out on loan. Sanchez will never be consistent, he shietes himself when he gets the ball and can fall over his own feet, he is simply not good enough. Dier is a utility defender who should not be first choice, I`d keep him for his versatility. Royal plays because the alternatives are not trusted or not up to it, he`ll probably be a steady RB but he does not fit as a RWB. Performances regressed due to fatigue, injuries and not having a deep enough squad to handle 3 games a week, that`s not the fault of the manager.
