I don’t really think it’s just overplaying Son that’s the issue. His whole Spurs career has been based on either cutting inside and rifling pearlers or running onto through balls and slotting in one-on-ones. This system just doesn’t allow him to do either. He’s now always trying to run the line and cross and we rarely see him being able to run onto through balls because half our team are already trying to camp in forward positions where space becomes limited, especially the inverter FB bollocks that I really cannot stand. I would happily jump on the same bandwagon CK has been on in that ‘Son is declining’ if this system was perfect and he was sticking out like a sore thumb but the system is far from it and he’s one of many failing to his their best form because of it. As for Werner I personally think you’ve been extremely generous to say he was fine. I don’t think he’s fallen off a cliff, he was never on one to begin with. Chelsea knew it as do Leipzig and now we’re finding out too (though we should’ve already known). Johnson won’t develop the dribbling side of his game, I can guarantee you that with pretty much 100% certainty. That’s a side of the game you either have or you don’t, you don’t develop it. Look at all the tricky wingers about and none of them suddenly became as such after 23, they were playing as such in their teens and then just perfecting it with age, see Bale and Lennon for our examples or the more extreme ones like Messi and Ronaldo. What’s disappointed me most about Johnson though and maybe it’s my own fault because I’ve said a few times it could be the Mandela effect but I’m almost certain he was rapid at Forest, I had the same feeling about Sessegnon too and yet both players in their Spurs careers wouldn’t come in the top five if we asked our players to perform a 50m sprint. That raw pace alone can cause occasional issues but without that and the ability to beat a man, Johnson can only play well if other players are playing well as they need to find the right passes for him to slot-in, it’s almost making him like a very poor man’s Dele, Dele obviously had his own spark in the earlier part of his career but he was also an excellent system player that benefitted from the brilliance of Eriksen, Dembele etc. I’d seriously be looking at cashing in on Johnson in the summer before it becomes too late we end up with someone who won’t get on the pitch much and who teams only want to loan.
I’d disagree on Sonny. I think he lacks explosiveness in his movement and just his all round game and if he started a game a week he’d probably have a better time of it. He doesn’t suddenly turn into this 1v1 monster but the extra recovery just means there’s a little more juice there when he puts the burners on. But he’s played a lot of football and it shows. With Johnson it’s hard because he’s our top scorer in all comps while still being as you say a player who struggles to break the game open on their own. We need to sort the overall dynamic of the team out before we can truly dismiss his individual contribution IMO.
I don't think he has the chance to show his explosiveness because we're often so congested in areas. I no longer expect him to score goals like he done against Burnley for the Puskas award running the whole length of the pitch but he's shown in very rare chances he still has speed to get away from defenders, it's just never utilised enough because he often receives the ball where there's already one or two ready to challenge him. Everything about this system is seemingly reliant on scoring the perfect team goal despite the fact we don't have the perfect team, Son's a player who therefore brings you up a couple spaces in the league table when you allow him to but when you take away that ability for him to do as such, we now find ourselves languishing in 13th which is ironically where we would've likely been in the last 5 or so years without the brilliance of him and Kane's double act. Johnson's probably a rare example of proof that stats can be misleading to a player's quality. I think the Tamworth game summed his Spurs career to date - nothing for 99% of a game but will then find a goal. It's a trait I'd take as a striker, if a striker scores 25+ tap-ins a season that'd be a great, not everyone needs to be a superstar like Kane but as a winger/ wide forward, there's a strong argument to say Johnson's goals haven't covered enough of his lack of general impact in matches and I reckon it's a contributor to why we find ourselves in the position we're in.
I think that's exactly right, if Johnson has time to think in a build up his instinct is to pass back, to look for support. He has success when the team produces fast movement that he can run onto, not time to think, just positive forward movement. In his role as a goalscorer he is good at being in the right place and being calm in the finish. IMO he is what I would call an inside forward just as Son is and when our system is working this is what happens with Porro as the winger. It doesn't work as well for Son on the right (EDIT:Should be left, my mistake) because Udogie tends to cut in and fill what should be Son's position. Spence on the other hand does seem to play more like Porro which should benefit Son. If we were playing once a week all these things would be easier because we would have a more settled team but the modern squad play makes things more difficult from the point of view of consistency.
At the risk of starting a post with the words "WELL AKSHUALLY...", Johnson is performing exactly as the stats-based scouting believed that he would because he wasn't signed to be a Gareth Bale or an Aaron Lennon, he was signed to be a Nacer Chadli or a Clint Dempsey To explain it via the medium of badly-Photoshopped films stills... please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image
I think son’s decline is in part that he doesn’t suit a team that likes to dominate possession. He plays best when we counter attack and he has the space to run with the ball. All this passing around in the final third doesn’t play to his strengths.
It also doesn't help when we often find ourselves playing three wingers up front, as you have three players effectively moving in the same way into similar spaces when we start with a front three made up of any combination of Son/Johnson/Werner/Moore/Odobert so there's little variety in our movement or positions they take up ...which was pretty bloody obvious on Sunday
But this is the problem with our current squad and Angeball. One of them, anyway. Our wingers are forced wide, the fullbacks come inside and there's no danger. All of our wide players are better when they're cutting in, whether it be Son, Kulusevski, Johnson or whoever.
A large part of the tactical plan seems to rest on using low, drilled crosses in the area, so if Solanke/Richy don't smash it in from the middle of the six yard box then we have Johnson appear on the far post to tap it in - which is now only where the Chadli/Dempsey comparisons are the most obvious, but was also our most obvious Plan B last season as we'd have Werner and Johnson drilling those balls across the area to varying effect That being said, there's two problems with that i.) Opponents have sussed this tactic so its effectiveness is reduced, and we aren't trying alternatives to get similar results, i.e. an angled through ball from the centre into the path of the wide player on the edge of the box ii.) While that tactical plan is ideal for Johnson (and, in theory, Werner) it's clearly not ideal for Sonny, while Deki is somewhere in the middle
Jonathan David turned 25 two days ago and his contract expires in the summer. I thought clubs would have been rushing in for him. He’d be a good signing for you. Phil Harres at Holstein Kiel is another to keep an eye on. I reckon there’s some good talent out there that’s available and within your reach. David’s stats.
Been saying David would be perfect for us since last season Reasonably sure I mentioned his contract is ticking down a week or two ago, since that sounds like something I'd do
Saf if you saw our track record from buying players from Ligue 1, you’d probably never buy from there again, even if the second coming of Messi was there. David on paper looks a decent striker. But we’re in need of players that can instantly elevate us, he’d only really be second fiddle to Solanke. Doubt he’d fancy that.
Here's one for your next office pub quiz: Which premier league club, currently one of the ten wealthiest clubs in the world, has a squad containing 5 goalkeepers and 3 centre backs? COYS, Daniel.
One thing of note about David, which I've probably mentioned 18 or 19 times, is he drops back into the spaces H used to operate in That would certainly reshape our attack, because if his passing is half as accurate as H's was then we have the means to bring the wingers into games from a different angle, which in turns makes us far less predictable to defend against
Of what I’ve seen - and it’s limited - his passing is nowhere near the level of Kane’s, nor would I expect it to be though. He’d be a signing to make in the summer too, ideally replacing Richarlison seeing as we’ve no hope of selling that dunse in January. Right now we’re in need of players to come straight into the XI and inject immediate quality, I’d say RW and DM are the two main areas for as such as I don’t see us signing another CB, that would’ve been done in the first week if we wanted one, knowing how we work the club’s just waiting on Romero and van de Ven to return. That said I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if no one came in.
This is the glaring issue with Lange's approach of radio silence until somebody suddenly appears at the training ground, as was the case with Kinsky and Odobert: it gives the impression the club aren't looking to make moves in the transfer market and also means people latch onto rumours that might actually be smokescreens by other clubs, such as Randal Kolo Muani given how much noise about us making an offer was being made It's especially jarring when, prior to Lange, it was abundantly clear that we were making moves as Paratici's approach not only had numerous plates spinning at once but we'd get regular updates via Romano about which plates were being spun
Kolo Muani Watch Talk about good timing... So it's now being reported that the deal to take RKM from PSG to Juve has hit a snag: PSG have reached the limit of the number of players they can have out on loan, meaning that PSG have to sell him - yet Juve can't afford him Time for a Levying!
