Yes unfortunately the injuries have made a big difference to Bentancur and he is not quite the same player he was. They never really return to their peak after those...
I'm business you typically have a lot longer to make decisions. Like work the work you are producing is not directly in competition with anyone else where there is a physical competition as to who is directly better.
As KH as already asked why? if I knew that performing badly may result in me being taken off, I would totally understand and I would try to not perform badly. After that it comes down to you the individual I guess? you can embrace it and use the manager’s words to bring out the best of yourself or you could sulk. one of us would be chased by Real Madrid, the other would be hoping for a January loan stint to Sheff Utd or sumt…I will let you decide which is which my brother Haslam
Sport is like gladiator world It becomes about honour, revenge, defeat, victory…you use these emotions to drive your team or individual to victory…when an individual or team wins…they hold their hands aloft, get a trophy, get adulation, get fame etc etc I’ve never in my working life felt the same drive…it’s about functioning with your staff, it’s about making the best of a 12 hour plod, it’s about thinking and overthinking about your finances and how you are feeding your family, managing your bills..going home knackered after a long day, all this is looked after in sport and isn’t really a Prem players concern. Us mere mortals are bogged down with these thoughts. The psychology is totally different
Professional footballers are conditioned from a young age to deal with pressure and disappointment. Aside from the absolute elite, the average player has probably lived through more professional setbacks by the age of 22 than most people deal with in a lifetime. They are raised to have a much thicker skin and almost certainly have above average mental strength. Those who don't are weeded out very early on in their careers and won't amount to more than a lower league player. That kind of pressure doesn't exist in normal jobs, except for the emergency services. An accountant doesn't file a tax return in front of 60,000 people. That's one difference. Another is in the sheer probability of dispensability. Whereas a player who is subbed off or even dropped knows that realistically the manager only has one or two options to replace him with, someone in corporate knows that dozens if not hundreds of similarly qualified people applied for the exact same job and could step in to do it without the company blinking. A footballer goes off knowing that in all likelihood, he will get another chance to prove himself, and that that chance will come pretty quickly. This just isn't the case in most professions, except for those that require very specific skills.
I sometimes wonder if you were in charge of Spurs, we'd still have Tim Sherwood as manager and Vlad Chiriches as captain, because even though he hasn't yet won a Balon d'Or, there isn't enough data to know for sure that he won't win one soon.
Brighton's second and third goals were a comedy of errors, but he is absolutely anonymous in both of them. Just jogging around aimlessly for the second and then weak as piss to block the cross for the third. I held off lavishing praise on him after recent performances because I knew full well that the real test would come against better opposition, and one again - he failed.
Udogie had a stinker of a second half but in his defence, watching the first goal back you can see it clips Micky on the way in, changing the flight of the ball a split second before Udogie goes to kick it. He's already set his body position and can't adjust in time.
Not sure my drugged up head is being very clear tbh! My point is that pochettino had them available and his style suited them....Ange inherited a squad where very few fitted his style of play so he's had to make massive changes. Kane was known about and had way more game experience than Mikey Moore and was 4 or 5 yrs older I think.
I know what you mean but that 3rd goal in particular made me wake up in a cold sweat during the night! I know I sometimes hark back to much to my son and his time playing, but I swear to God his team defended better than that at U12 level. It was simply horrific from start to finish...
Yep, agree with that and it was unfortunate. However, that's the time the alarm bells should have been clanging loudly but they simply never responded and Brighton smelt the blood in the water. Quite a few of them simply turned off. Berbatov called it at the end when he said that they believed they had won it at half time and Brighton would roll over. Anyway, let them have a couple of weeks to go away and let it fester until the next game. Oh wait, it's West Ham. At 12:30......
This is already a must win game. 10 points from 7 games is the worst start in 16 years. Anything less than 3 points next and already Spurs will be miles off where they need to be
Add in that we’ve lost every home derby under him so far and a total record of 5 losses and 2 draws, it’s something that absolutely needs to change. They’re the games we all most look forward to.
I think you are confusing two different points I bang on about. My post was about randomness. The number of mistakes a player makes will depend on how good he is but when they occur will be entirely random. If VdV had been in slightly different positions for the first two goals then Udogie clears the first cross easily because it doesn't get a deflection and his small touch of the ball on the second goal gets intercepted by VdV not the Brighton attacker. But somehow Udogie needs to be substituted if things play out as in the match but not if the other scenario happens. This seems bonkers to me. My point on data is simply that outcomes like win ratios are not very good for measuring performance. There are lots of other data which are probably better but which fans don't have access to. I wouldn't have sacked Sherwood because I would never have appointed him...he has none of the attributes I want in a coach. But you never get enough performance data to be sure that sacking a coach is the right decision so you need other criteria to make that decision. I think the sackings of Poch, Mourinho and Conte all happened because they started to do things which were entirely inconsistent with their own stated philosophy of how coaches should behave.
Wow, never realised that stat. The fact I have to leave at stupid c'clock for the kick off and its against them will only add to my incoming misery...
I don't think this loss is about individual players, it's about the whole team/squad. The very nature of a team, especially in football, is to get it working as one unit. That's the aim of the coaching staff. The downside, as we saw in this game, is when group think decides we have won this game already. We have completely outplayed Brighton in the first half, we are therefore far better than them, relax. We are probably a more skilled team than Brighton, but the gap is not a large one and if we don't concentrate and keep competing they will show us how good they are, as they did. Ange has said it's not about substitutes, IMO, it's not, because we simply don't have the older experienced, dominant player who could come on and wake the team up. Hopefully the team will learn from this, but I expect this to happen again before the team is fully developed. I hope this team and management get the time they need to complete the task.
Udogie shouldn't have been substituted for one mistake, I agree. In the first half when we were dominant he was able to maraud forward with abandon and was playing pretty well. But in that 2nd half, when his defensive responsibilities mounted, he was getting caught out frequently and was turned badly for their winner as well. He was looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights at times. The fact that we had a perfectly good - and seemingly in form if relatively inexperienced - replacement warming the bench in Spence, would have offered an option. There's a good player in there, no doubt, but there has to be a better balance between the attacking and defensive responsibilities and abilities. And that's not just him. Romero, an experience international CB, was caught out several times by an aging journeyman PL CF and on one of those occasions turned round waving his arms as if trying to blame his teammates for something he was solely at fault for. That's not the leadership you expect or require from an on-field leader. Another potentially excellent player who needs to become far more consistent at PL level. Hopefully, Ange's methods and principles will generate success long term, but performances like the last 45 yesterday, should never be acceptable. I know that the 9-man v Chelsea tactics polarises opinion, but for me, I'd rather see my team, be that 9, 10 or the full 11, show the bollocks to fight and take the opposition on, rather than the abject capitulation we witnessed yesterday.
I am actually disappointed that Tottenham can collapse like this after two goals lead. This is not good enough.
