I think the issues in attack are more important. I think with Ange's system it's important that we take our chances. Hopefully Solanki needs a goal or two to improve his confidence. That was evident with him taking a touch too many today I think.
1. Now is not the time to change manager IMHO. 2. We have the makings of a decent young team for the future, but at the moment they are struggling to adapt to the managers strategies. 3. We will hopefully improve and the youngsters will develop, but in the meantime the current 'first' team need to at least compete. 4. Unfortunately, we have a few experienced internationals who are not producing creatively or making unforced errors far too frequently. 5. We need leaders on the pitch - or at least 'A' leader and no-one is stepping up in that role. So I am hopeful for the future (1&2), but am struggling to see how we can even get to 3, all the while there's 4&5 in the picture...
Even worse. I must be thinking of Man City. I know there was a big team that we beat when Nuno started.
Attacking wise I just think the players aren’t that good. Take Son away and the others are quite average. Solanke, Johnson and Richarlison all cost huge money, not sure if that was down to managers or the DoF (or what they’re called these days). Under his system it does feel like Spurs need a lead early on or they go on to lose games. That needs to stop.
The formation is what it is because we still haven't worked out any effective midfield combination. I'd like us to push Maddison right up into the final third, but that would require us to have a really strong 2 in a pivot and we don't have that no matter who we play. So we default to a midfield 3 and Maddison ends up in a weird inside-left position and we are left with three forwards who can't be counted on to score with any resemblance of consistency. A number of us said that CM was the area that needed the most urgent investment in the summer. It got plenty but only for the future. Time will tell if one or both of Bergvall and Gray are the answer.
They aren't very good but is what's behind them any better? I think we saw the ceiling of the vast majority of our 'senior' players last season, if not before. Especially the midfielders. The hope is clearly that the crop of youngsters coming through will be the answer to lots of bang average questions in multiple positions.
I look forward to your posting the rebuttal. I you think 42 games is enough then Ange is our 8th best manager ever.
Scoring goals isn't our issue surely. Wasn't last season our second best ever for goals scored in the PL?
Probably not, ENIC have massively increased our income so we currently have the sixth most expensive squad which is higher than usual historically but Ange came fifth with it which doesn't seem like underperforming.
Now that the dust has settled after the emotion of the game, I am trying to look at the game more objectively. If you take that stupid defending from the corner away and the game had ended 0-0, there would be far less frustration on here. It would still be annoying that we couldn’t make the overall dominance count but it wouldn’t feel half as bad. Arsenal are the best in the league at set pieces so credit where it’s due. But we need to do better. It’s going to be the tactic that all teams use against us, and will undo all the good work and progress we are making if we aren’t able to sort it out.
We do have an issue less with scoring goals, but more with where those goals come from as we're reliant on our forward players to carry the goalscoring as the midfield doesn't chip in enough, which has been the case since the wheels started to wobble on Poch's team And that leads to the second issue: Maddison was brought in on the expectation of scoring double digits over a season - but none of Sarr, Bentancur and Bissouma have scored half a dozen league goals in a season ever, to my recollection
Do love committing to a 9 hour round trip (thankfully not in one day mind!) just to see us lose - again - another NLD at home and it now makes it an embarrassing hattrick of defeats at home to them, whilst it’s 4 out of 4 losses at home under Ange in London Derbies, completely unacceptable. Unfortunately I do think Ange has been found out, our football since December has largely been very, very boring and predictable. It’s a different kind of boring to Jose and Conte but boring nonetheless. Pass, pass, pass out wide, knock in a cross, see it cleared, repeat. But that said I have more sympathy than any anger/ disappointment towards Ange. I said it at the end of the window but the club left him high and dry massively. Our first XI is not one single bit better than what we had last season and that was a side that scraped 5th. It’s very easy to talk about the future potentially being bright but that future won’t come if we neglect the present - which is what we’ve done.
Hadn’t quite realised it was this bad but Twitter’s just shown me we’ve lost 7 of our last 11 league games. Not good to say the least.
I know I’m quick to be critical but I think im justified with my worries and criticism of Ange and the team this time. Take away the first ten league games from last season and Spurs are probably closer to relegation than champions league under Ange.
