I think that the two first half injuries we picked up against Southampton were massive. We pressed from the front and were very aggressive against Forest. Richarlison was heavily involved in all of that. Then we lost Davies too and our defence went with him. Has the Brazilian contributed enough, either in terms of goals or play? Not even close. I think that it's largely down to poor management and injuries, though. I've not seen a single minute where I've questioned his application or attitude.
I don’t doubt Richarlison’s application, I don’t doubt most of our player’s application but I certainly doubt his quality and I did before he even joined. He’s managed to be even poorer than I thought he’d be too and whilst I’d definitely attribute some of that to tactics, his all round play is often extremely poor. He just works hard, that’s it, there’s no real technical niche to him that the likes of Kane, Son and Kulusevski all have. Realistically he should be sold in the summer in the hope we avoid another Ndombele/ Lo Celso situation but I doubt we’ll do so and therefore I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s back on loan at Everton within 18 months. Absolute disaster of a signing and many predicted it would be.
No, I'm saying "Look, we scored goals" a.) Doesn't work as an argument given how unlikely it is we'd average a 2-0 win in each of our last ten games, hence I tossed it aside the second you tried claiming it b.) Doesn't suggest we aren't playing turgid ****e on the pitch, as demonstrated by the fact we scored 68 league goals in 2020-1 yet if you ask anybody on here what our football was like to watch, the words "turgid" and "****e" will be used, often in that order
The issue was that, much like the game against West Scam a couple of seasons ago, we sat back and surrendered momentum far too soon and paid for it That's certainly not on the defence, that's on the coach for poor game management - and it has to be said that can be placed more on the midfield than the defence, because if we had the Parker/Modric pairing from 2011-12, Sandro/Dembele from 2012-13 or Wanyama/Dembele from 2016-17 we could sit on games, but every potential midfield combination we have at the moment has at least one fundamental flaw in it that prevents us from settling on games with fifteen minutes to go (Bentancur is too easily pressed, Hojbjerg gets caught out of position, Bissoumahasn't settled in at all) and makes dropped points either a possibility or an inevitability depending on how long we're sitting back for At the risk of consulting the Big Book of "What If...?", it certainly does bear asking if switching to 352 when we went 3-1 up could have changed things, as the extra man in midfield would have given us more control - but for whatever reason Conte abandoned playing 352 after the Man Utd match last October, and only remembered it was an option when Sarr came on for Deki with a handful of minutes to go when we'd long since lost all momentum and the tactical switch of bringing on Sarr and Emerson felt like it should've been made far sooner
But that wasn’t my point. I made a casual comment to your reply about Spurs not having players in the opponents half that’s all.
And that's the issue: because of how rigid our formation is this season, we don't see players breaking into the other half to bridge the gap between midfield and attack which we are clearly crying out for - or if we do see a player doing that, it's more likely to be Romero than Bentancur or Hojbjerg
Here's the thing with that: Conte's tactics work on the basis of creating less, but the chances you do create have a higher probability of being scored And that is the fundamental issue with how we're set up this season: on paper that approach works as long as you have a reliable goalscorer up front plus two or maybe three players who can chip in with their fair share of goals because then your only obstacles are the opposition keeper or the woodwork, which worked so well last season as H and Sonny were both reliably banging them in, plus Deki chipped in a good share after arriving in January - but when it doesn;t work the tactics begin to eat themselves And that has been on full display this season because, while H has remained a reliable goalscorer, the remainder of the structure hasn't worked as Sonny and Deki haven't been scoring as expected while Richarlison hasn't been scoring at all (and is 50/50 on not scoring this season if his injury is as bad as it looked) which puts more onus on the midfielders to get forward and contribute with goals - but given a few opponents have figured out that pressing our midfield not only stops our passes going forward but also exposes that Bentancur and Hojbjerg lack press resistance so can't reliably take the ball forward themselves - Bissouma can, and arguably Sarr too, but this is where Bissouma's poor form since arriving hits us because the one player we hoped would have the **** it, I'll do it myself" attitude that would bridge the gap hasn't done so
I’d disagree that Bentancur lacks press resistance. He’s technically sound, usually know what he wants to do with the ball before receiving it, and physically capable. The issue is that the structure isn’t always there to actually progress the ball. Too often it’s only the easy backwards/sideways passes that are available. To be fair I think part of what Conte tries to do is cycle the ball quickly from side to side to create an overload so the outside CBs and WBs can progress the ball but we don’t move the ball quickly enough to do it without the opposition settling their back line.
He definitely has issues when being pressed, as when he has that extra half second he'll try to chip balls through the centre - but when opponents press our midfield those balls dry up completely, which they wouldn't if Bentancur could beat his man and create the space to play that ball Thought it does have to be said that when we horseshoe the ball from the RWB through the midfielders to the LWB that is definitely tactical, because there's no reason why the CM who gets the ball from the RWB doesn't just chip the ball to the LWB instead of cycling it through the midfield other than being drilled into recycling above all else. The reason to bring this up is I honestly can't remember if, when Bissouma played, he was partaking in the exact same rolling the ball sideways that Hojbjerg, Skipp and Bentancur do or whether he tried to take on his man - because if it was the former that does point an accusing finger at the tactics as it's making very different players the same cog in the system
Football Italia and CalcioMercato are now running with the line that Paratici could be gone alongside Conte If there's anything to this (and guess which word is doing the most legwork in that sentence?) it's less likely a full decapitation of the sporting infrastructure like we had in 2008 and more that Levy can see Paratici's appeal going only one way
What happened to all that extra income from the new stadium (NFL, concerts, boxing etc plus the catering money) does it go to Spurs or ENIC ?
So not as skint as some of your supporters think then? Always easy to blame others for having more money when things aren't going well.
I don’t think anyone’s really pleading poverty anymore with Spurs. The biggest gripe for many, especially on here is what we’re doing with that money. Last 5 years we’ve had the 5th highest net spend in the Prem so there’s little to be annoyed about with regards to spending but when the likes of Sessegnon, Ndombele, Lo Celso and Richarlison are large contributors to that net spend, that’s where the issues lie. Then add in we’ve hired the wrong managers for where we’re at too and it’s been a bit of a mess. I’d actually say in recent years us and you lot have had similar problems, this year you’ve fixed a few errors with ten Hag plus the signings of Eriksen and Casemiro but when you factor in some of your previous managerial appointments plus signings like Maguire, Wan-Bissaka, Sancho and Antony etc, we’re just hoping for a summer where we finally get the right manager and a good big spend or two.
The relationshipn between manager and CEO is crucial,. Under Jose we got Pogba for a fortune, under Ole we got Ronald (same scenario). Were these manger choices/demands or Woodward foisting big names on the managers? Since Woodward had gone the new mans partnership with ETH seems to be working much better, Yen Hag gets the players he wants and knows how to use them..
Nobody's saying that we're skint and having more money doesn't mean that you won't get beaten 7-0 by Liverpool. The teams with the most money tend to win most of the trophies, though. The wage bills line up with league finishes over time, too.
How about just one trophy? or How about Arsenal's FA Cups? It's more than about money, it's about the whole system within the club.
