Who is organising the back line? Who is communicating where to be? Solanke was the closest player to Hummels for the goal FFS. Our defenders were absolutely nowhere.
I think everyone except bissouma had stepped up. But yes, they should be communicating to go out together.
Couple of positives in that Forster actually had a good game and made a couple of world class saves. Also nice that Son got on the score sheet albeit from the spot. That was his first goal in over 5 weeks which is somewhat worrying. Four goals all season is a desperately poor rate of return by his standards.
Positives, another good performance from gray out of position. The centre back pairing again played pretty well and Forster made some excellent saves. Rare poor performances from Sarr and solanke in particular, possibly a sign of tiredness kicking in? especially with solanke running himself into the ground for 90 minutes every game.
The good Great game. Both teams did everything they could to score. They had 3 off sides and hit the woodwork and we hit the woodwork three times. The ref was decent. Davies, Dragusin in central defence did well. Forster was very very good with his distribution, and made 2 outstanding saves. Thought kuluchevski was brilliant in the first half. Bissouma was excellent and gray played well. The bad. Our second half. Ranieri changed it up at ht and they stop playing out so we couldn't press them so far up the pitch and we didn't quite find an answer to that. Solanke had a night to forget. The ugly Their equaliser Kuluchevski's second half. Werners crossing
For me it’s the biggest reason why Spurs won’t win anything. You need a solid defence to have any chance of a trophy. When everything clicks then Spurs look very good but you need to be able to grind out wins and be solid when the attacking side isn’t in full flow.
Agreed. People saying we had more than enough chances to win the game...so did Roma, and two of them were extremely tight VAR calls. What frustrates me is that we showed against City we can play a controlled and disciplined game when we want to. Are we too arrogant to do the same against anyone who isn't a 'top' team?
This is very much a result related analysis. City had as many good chances as Roma but failed to score any of them and we had fewer good chances against City than against Roma but had a very good conversion rate. I thought our overall standard was very similar in both matches. And offside goals don't count so conceding them isn't any sort of evidence that we don't defend well. Playing the high line well is bound to lead to the opposition being offside quite often isn't it?
For me the failure to win last night lies more on Solanke than any other player, group or tactic. The criticism of the defence is valid but ultimately 4 of that back 5 doesn’t start when everyone is fit so we have to accept that at times it’s simply gonna concede, both easy and tough goals. Not the first time Solanke’s ended up costing a win or a draw though. Hattrick of chances missed vs Leicester, golden chance vs Arsenal and two clear chances plus two counters wasted from him against Roma. That’s essentially cost us 5 points in the league and 2 in Europa, we’d be 2nd and 4th respectively if he converted those chances. He’s an extremely tough worker and his all round game has been decent at times but ultimately I want our striker being our primary goal threat and the one to get us over the line in tight games, or at least make sure he’s done all he can at his end. We’ve paid a club record fee for him, not his fault of course but that comes with expectations and we need him coming up trumps. GK has moved up in priorities but I think we really need a new ST in January too, get that useless pigeon out and have someone to compete with Solanke, ideally a goal getter this time, not some pressing/ ball winning striker. For now though I’d be tempted to try Johnson through the middle for a couple games, his all round game is **** but he has a knack of finding space and his finishing is so clean.
Welcome to the world of the Overwhelming Majority of Strikers. We were spoiled rotten for nearly a decade with an absolute goal machine. Solanke is good and a huge upgrade on the Crippled Pigeon (and as you say, it isn't his fault we paid an insane amount for him), but he is typical of most strikers we can afford/would come to Spurs. It's really difficult to see how we could have done much better, there's a real dearth of top quality strikers out there.
No doubt we're going to be hearing the usual think pieces about how we can't play under the press, yet the reality is that's not what hurt us - what hurt us is that Roma set up to pick up any out balls from the back, hence Sarr had a performance to forget as he was having to look for the ball rather than receive it Also sums up why Ange was blowing a gasket in first half stoppage time due to all the backwards passing
I’m not even judging him via Kane now though, I’m judging it based off of just general lack of clinical ability when it matters. It feels like he’s only capable scoring open goals or from 5 yards out so far - and even the latter hasn’t had a huge success rate as we’ve already seen. Maybe it’s nostalgic bias but I don’t remember the likes of Defoe, Keane, Pav etc missing these semi-regular chances where the probability of scoring is higher than missing, because a number of these aren’t 50-50s he’s fluffing. I had concerns over his conversion rate before joining and he’s not done much to ease those concerns, his general play is often decent (last night aside as it was terrible) and his work rate is great but we could’ve just signed another midfielder to essentially do what he’s been doing. Johnson’s finishing so far is of a far higher standard, it’s just a shame his all round game is non-existent, if he doesn’t score you wouldn’t know he was on the pitch.
Might be a bit of a Mandela Effect. IIRC Pav never broke double figures for us in a season. Maybe 10 was his best. A 'good' season for Defoe was a dozen PL goals. Keano generally played in a far worse team than them though, so comparing him isn't fair. I'm not blindly defending Solanke, he was awful last night. I'm just saying that as the years roll by and all we really have to remember those players by are highlight reels that will inevitably make them look more clinical than they were (and in the interim we've known nothing but Kane scoring in his sleep), their actual statistics weren't all that impressive.
When I saw he had done it twice, my immediate thought was : attempted WUMmery. FWIW, did anyone bite ... ??
It could well be, though those players also played in sides that weren’t as good as what we are now so their goal ratios may not have been as impressive due to lesser chances being created but I can’t help feeling that when chances did arise for them they’d often stick them away more often than not. I’d also say that goal scoring was their best trait, right now I’m not sure we could say the same for Solanke which maybe I’m just a bit old fashioned with my thinking but personally I want my striker to be the best finisher at the club.
Something I only realised post-match after looking at the EL group table : Roma were really in a bad way. If they had lost, their chances of even being in the KO play-offs was probably near zero. Even a draw might not be sufficient (depends on who their opponents are) . So to them for coming to WHL and actively trying to play to win (rather than hoping for a classic "smash and grab job" ) .
They’ve got 2 home games against Braga & Frankfurt and a trip to Holland against AZ as their final 3 games.
