The engraved watches aren't the problem there. It was the fact that Poch - and by transference, the players - thought the semi-final win WAS the final.... The hyperbolic overreaction to that (fortunate) victory set the scene and we were never in the 'jobs not done yet' mindset.
Bingo, I’ve said many a time the crying by Poch after that game was the moment he was finished. Cry after you win the trophy not just for getting to the final.
IMO. The players are good to very good...with exceptions. The manager is good. But the manager plays an almost uniquely high energy style which is perhaps the worst possible for a team suffering bad fixture congestion. Spurs didn't have Europe last year and still played kids in Cup games. This year they're trying to win everywhere. In retrospect I think Spurs needed to play all kids in the domestic cups and I believe also voluntarily limit their player's minutes to maybe 270/2 weeks. In any case, it's the lame, the halt and the exhausted at this point to me. Just in the back line, VDV is out for a while, Romero is limping, Porro looks completely shot and Udogie seems to be hovering on the cusp of injury. It's all very well to say they should be able to play twice a week, but I've watched an awful lot of Spurs wilt playing twice a week and so have concluded maybe it's not a good idea. Alternatively, I wonder if Ange has any provision to practice less in periods of greater fixture congestion. I know that worked for Mourinho at Chelsea. They could at least make sure they have Reguilon and Spence registered for the Europa next round. I can't help thinking of how most of the top female tennis players in the late seventies/early eighties had to retire at ages like 19 due to chronic injuries. It turns out running 15 year old girls on concrete 5 hours a day 7 days a week is bad for them. I wonder if we aren't used to seeing a less extreme example of the same thing, given the number of football players who have to retire very young due to chronic injury.
Great post. I was at the game and thought we looked a really tired team. Normally we press hard from the front but it was much more passive yesterday. The fact they scored from 2 of their 3 chances gave us a mountain to climb. More than ever we needed to score first in this game, and that second goal just before half time was a killer. All teams are struggling except Liverpool who are the exception to the rule. The saying there is no easy game in the premier league is truer than ever this season.
I think the idea that we work harder than other PL teams is a total myth. When you look at average or overall distance covered, the difference between teams is negligible and although the most recent data I could find was from a month ago, we aren't even in the top 3 of overall distance covered. That goes to B'mouth, Brighton and Brentford. However, the same data showed that we are top for overall sprints: This, I feel, is where the real fatigue problem lies. The system demands sprints, but only from specific players. Mostly the back line, but the forward line also takes a huge brunt of it as they are constantly sprinting to achieve the high press. The strain on those two areas is obvious. If you were to plot our injuries over time under Ange on a graph and categorise them by position, the overwhelming majority belong to our defenders or attackers. Even Bentancur and Bissouma who both had extensive injury issues before Ange joined and at previous clubs have been surprisingly injury free (notwithstanding contributions by Twatty Cash) since. Kulusevski hasn't had a single injury under Ange, despite missing a chunk of games under Conte/Mason. Sarr has had one minor knock and Maddison hasn't had one since the Chelsea game last year. The point isn't that the midfielders need to work harder to ease the strain on the other areas. The system is designed so that the entire back four is regularly 40 yards out of position and needing to sprint to get back. It is designed so that the 3 attackers need to tirelessly chase the ball across the final third. The system is similarly designed so that the midfielders aren't meant to spring much at all - that is the whole point of a high press, that the midfield's zone of operation shrinks from 100 yards to 50. What we need is more quality there. Players who lessen the workload on others by simply doing more to control possession and dictate the game. The level of quality in our passing that I am watching on a regular basis is poorer than anything I can recall in recent years. Even simple passes are going straight to opposition players or straight out of play. If the former happens and the opposition are useful with the ball, that triggers a need for multiple players to sprint back like mad to get back in the shape. All of Bissouma, Bentancur, Maddison and Kulusevski can be significantly upgraded imo. I've been banging on about it all summer and all season, but I was staggered that we prioritised spending money on more attacking players when last season showed that the midfield is a chronic problem. Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall are potential upgrades for years down the road. Here and now, the midfield is the team's weak link and it is killing the whole system as a result, leading not just to defeats but to injuries too.
I read an analogy today about this current Spurs team, the Robin Hoods of the PL...we take from the 'rich' (City etc) and give to the 'poor' (Ipswich, Palace, Wolves et al)...
More like Maid Marion if you ask me. Full of promise but not ready to commit. Exciting and frustrating at the same time.
But not the Squeeze version, which conflates William Tell and Robin Hood, presumably because it's a better rhyme: "And I feel like William Tell, Maid Marion on her tiptoed feet..."
We're more like most classic MV Agusta motorcycles... ...bought by people with no soul, as an investment, kept in luxury, money no object in shining the chrome and oiling the moving parts...but never to see the open road and experience the thrill of a wild ride.
Come on boy, I'm a Town fan so delighted with the result but it's just a game of football after all, every game is a roller-coaster of emotions and the high points are fantastic and the low points disappointing but that's all, hope you feel better soon.
Last night/ today has probably been the first time I’ve seen a sizeable amount of vitriol aimed at Ange on social media. There’s always been a shouty minority ever since he arrived but plenty of tweets flooding in now saying he ain’t the right guy and calling him for to go. Twitter obviously isn’t fully representative of the whole fanbase but it is quite significant. No one probably ever will be the right guy under ENIC as they continue to skimp on prime targets but I wonder if this was the game that we look back on as the beginning of the end. I hope it isn’t, despite his considerable flaws I’d still like to give him more time but I made a prediction of a possible Levy decision maker around February and I’m gonna stick to it. February gives an idea as to whether European qualification is likely or not.
The problem is the kneejerkoffs continually rush to their pre-prepared talking points and expose they know sod all Johnson failed to score? Clearly it's his fault, not the fault of the midfield that failed to get the ball to him for most of the game Romero's form dipped? Clearly thinking of Los Ladrones' and/or saving himself for the internationals, not the fact he's clearly burned out You get the feeling I've read those two in particular quite a bit in the last 24 hours...
I find the anti-Ange brigade absurd. He took over a club in a state of flux after failures by two very experienced managers and which had to sell one of it's best ever players. We nevertheless both improved our league position and goals scored in his first year. This year we've continued to score more than two goals per game in the PL, improved our goals conceded by about 0.5 per game, knocked Man City out of the League Cup and are doing fine in the Europa. The actual results in the PL are disappointing but to win 5 games easily while losing five by a single goal is more likely to be a statistical anomaly than anything else. Now is not the time to panic!
