In an ideal world, AVB would have the team grafting points and winning ugly early in the season, and smoothly transition into playing beautifully and blowing teams away later on. How part two goes remains to be seen, but part 1 has gone better than I would have hoped so far. I agree that a more varied tactical approach would appear to be in order. I also think this game was poor, and we looked poor, overall, in it. But it is very hard, as has been pointed out, to get a good performance miles from nowhere against a team that will do nothing but park the bus and try to counter. Oddly enough we may have been better served to have had a tougher group. However: we'll be out of the group soon, we're nearly as good as there already. As disappointing as our play has mostly been as a group, I'm very pleased about how good our players look as individuals: Soldado is all I'd hoped he'd be, Eriksen may be even more, Paulinho is more, as is Chiriches; and Capoue looked great in his cameo. That leaves Lamela and Chadli as disappointing so far, but they've been more than balanced by the emergence of Townsend and especially Holtby as apparent rising stars. Fair enough to say the AVB year and a quarter has never featured football of the quality we saw under Harry. But we ought to remember we never had a playmaker last year, which was Levy's fault, not AVBs. We've got two good ones now. I'm going to wait till at least the end of the year before I assume that AVB teams will always be duller than I like or is good for them. Anyone as good as Modric or VDV now? Probably not, no. But Paulinho is nearly as good a player, I would say quite close, though he's a box-to-box midfielder as opposed to a deep-lying playmaker. And both Holtby and Eriksen, while they may never match VDV's moments of brilliance, look to be nearly as good all around players already. Both have the potential to be as good or better, and both lack VDV's considerable downsides. They can run for ninety minutes and don't refuse to help out defensively on principal. That was still a yug of a game though. Credit to Omar Sharif for playing hard and getting the tactics right. Also, somebody please get Lamela a nice Argentinian or Italian foster family. It looks pretty plain to me that he needs more support than he's been getting.
Just want to say: Having reread my post I realise that I besmirched the good name of Martn Jol in dismissing all of Spurs teams from mid 90s to Ramos and thereby accidentally chucking him in with Francis, Gross, Gr***m, Pleat etc. This was an oversight. Shame he got boring and needed to be replaced by a snazzy new foreign manager and a big name DOF. Hey! Where have I heard of that before?
I've not seen anything to make me think that Paulinho is near the class of Modric or VDV. He's not even the best CM at Spurs right now IMO. And I'd swap him for either of the others in a heartbeat. Players who are honest, run around a bit, can have a crack at goal, and don't take silly chances aren't THAT hard to come by. What's Jaime O'Hara doing nowadays?
One thing I'd really like to see for the best part of 90 mins, is wingers playing as wingers. Townsend on the left, Lennon on the right and not cutting in! Lennon can't shoot anyway! If these guys can hug the touch line, it'll help us massively in the central areas where it's so narrow. The opposition is realizing that it's not that hard to stifle tottenham. We just need a bit of variety. Also, it could help soldado get into the game more. More central space will result in easier through balls from the creative boys, and the players out wide can play crosses/cut backs for him. It seems pretty obvious, so there must be a reason why AVB doesn't do it. Hmmm.
Thing is that it's narrow and there's no space cos that's how AVB wants it. Minimise the space, minimise the width, minimise the time, minimise the options. All that is to deal with the other team. Trouble is that it also minimises our space, our width, our time and our options. I've started to imagine training videos and stats in my head during AVB's time and this sort of scenario I could imagine: Say a winger gets to the byline and makes a cross. Statistically how many times does that lead to a) a goal, b) continued possession or c) giving possession away? Probably quite often it's c, rarely a and often not b. Then, once possession is lost (as it normally is) you've got some guy stuck out in the corner miles away from where he can help his team regain possession. Compare to wingers always heading inwards when their balls inside will be less likely to create goals perhaps (but a drop from 4% to say 2% is not much difference really*) but much more likely to retain possession and far less likely to give possession away. PLUS that winger who's towards the centre of the pitch is in a much better position to help win the ball back if he does lose possession. I dunno - thoughts like these are just my half-arsed, groping-in-the-dark attempts to explain it whilst knowing nothing formal about tactics and coaching. And it seems SO negative. Basing a team/formation/tactics all around being able to minimise mistakes (both how regular and how serious they are) because the team that will do that most effectively will have the best chance of winning seems plausible. Boring as hell though unless you have a Bale handy. *Obviously a highly made-up stat.
Tbf modric spent the year of 09 on the left doing a steed before Harry thought he was tough enough for the middle, and even then there were questions about his goals and assists ratios up until he left. Given a year I think paulinho could be close, he can spray a pass, tackle, keep the ball moving.... And he seems to have a goal in him which is something the other cms don't have.
Tbf modric spent the year of 09 on the left doing a steed before Harry thought he was tough enough for the middle, and even then there were questions about his goals and assists ratios up until he left. Given a year I think paulinho could be close, he can spray a pass, tackle, keep the ball moving.... And he seems to have a goal in him which is something the other cms don't have.
another great post lenny, one which i completely agree with. - The first paragraph in particular is very well summed up. I'm not necessarily suggesting that townsend sticks to the left and lennon to the right. - jesus... why would we want to waste what looks like an amazing left foot shot that Andros possesses?! But going back to your point about getting down the wing and crossing it, to then lose possession. - it's true. Most crosses are wasteful and go across the other side of the pitch, only to be collected by an opposition full back, or go out for a throw. But at some point, you have to be prepared to lose possession and pull the ****ing trigger. You don't necessarily win games by keeping the ball. The possession has got to be useful. As it stands, we can't break through. we have 1 tactic and a fair few teams have sussed us out this year already. if we continue with it, every team will sit deep, parking the bus. As a result, Soldado is likely to have a poor season. What I'm getting at, isa bit of variety. Why can't our wingers use their pace to run at defenders and get in behind them, to then cut the ball back? When we've got the ball, why can't they hug the touchline to offer more space centrally? I understand it all from a defensive point of view, but when we attack, at some point we're going to give the ball away. whether that's a throughball which doesn't make it through a tight space, or a cross that's cut back and cut out by a defender. I just think that being a little less predictable over 90 mins by doing a couple of simple things, might help our creativity, thus making us a bit more interesting!
i can't be bothered to read everything i missed over the last few pages. I'm assuming there is a lot of moaning at another win? Read the last few. I think thats a good point Lenny, about keeping the ball and being able to get it back without having a player in a position where he is no help. I also don't think the cutting in winger formation necessarily means boring football, i still think it will come. We're still a gelling team and we are rotating too which won't help matters.
I think we used to be and have have been for years (with few notable exceptions,) a club who valued style over substance when setting up our sides. Don't get me wrong, I'm in the Bill Nick camp where style is concerned and glory, but it has to go hand in hand with steel, determination and an almost religious zeal for keeping the ball and regaining possession if we lose it, defending as a team and the ability to win ugly. Glorious defeat season after season, tends to get a bit stale. If Harry had this group of players, we would be easier on the eye. But this is our best PL start. Ever. So I don't sit in the doom mongers camp; I think we need a coach (under AVB) who can get a tune out of our offensive players. Defending as a team is going rather well (bar Wet Spam,) the transistion to attack is good too, but statistically the end result is not good enough and statistics are the currency AVB deals in. He is a man of details too, so I cannot see the situation continuing and not being dealt with. The players believe. We have a firm base to work from and we will find our style again. If we do it AND continue to win football matches as frequently as we have been, we will be in the shake up come May and should challenge for honours.
"I think we need a coach (under AVB) who can get a tune out of our offensive players." Funny I was thinking about what someone said about AVB preparing dossiers about stifling the opposition attack yesterday, and it reminded me of the American football specialist "defensive coach" role. Arry by contrast would definitely be the "offensive coach" role.
Good posts from all of you. The problems Spurs are facing now (if you can call them problems, you have started very well), is exactly the same problem AVB had at Chelsea. There is no creativity in the team and they are too easily stifled by a half decent defence. Your first two games were 1-0 wins with Penalties, which I think has glossed over the way you have been performing this season as it means you are still in the thick of it, when, with a little unluck in those first two fixtures, you could easily be 8-9 points off the pace already.] I was one of the people, if you can remember, who posted on here just before the season started saying I predicted a good season for Spurs, and I think that can still come to fruition, but AVB needs a little more creativity to your team really, someone like a Silva or VDV type player in your AM slot, sitting behind Soldado, would work a treat, a player who can make goals from nothing and distribute that through ball either to Soldado or one of your wingers. Your forward like is like a wedge at the moment and too easily cut out. AVB needs to adapt his game a little is all.
To say we have no creativity in the side is wrong, as we have Holtby who seems to have recently bedded in after joining us in January whilst Eriksen seems to have slotted in pretty quickly, the problem is the other players we around them haven't bedded in - Soldado shows what he can do but only when the ball gets to him, Paulinho shows glimpses one minute but can be anonymous the next, Lamela hasn't shown much, whilst Chadli seems to have taken up where the likes of Jenas and Dempsey left off when it comes to a player it is easy to mutter about when they do something wrong. It is telling that Holtby playing behind Defoe has been most productive for us this season, as both players are more settled (and, it has to be said, playing through the middle suits Defoe more than it does Soldado), just as it's telling that Soldado looked better when he had Townsend and Lennon feeding him from the wings against Villa than he did when the ball was played through the middle or the wide players like Sigurdsson were cutting in all the time.
I don't think it is the same. AVB started well enough with you and there wasn't a lack of goals but the wheels started to fall off in December. You can argue whether the players turned on him because the results didn't come or the results didn't come because the players turn on him, it was around the sametime when the rumours started anyway. It just seemed like AVB was at the wrong club, he didn't have as much freedom in transfers as he expected and the players and owner weren't prepared to give him the time to resolve mistakes. It's the opposite here with the important players speaking in glowing terms about him and the owner backing his decisions. The penalties weren't lucky that we got in the opening games, they came from long periods of pressure and against Swansea we had an even more blatant penalty turned down earlier. You're right that we lacked creativity though and AVB presumably saw this too which is why we signed Eriksen and switched from a 433 to a 4231. There are still significant problems that need resolving but you can say that about most sides. It's up to AVB to sort them out. At Chelsea he had a tough job made tougher by the players, last season he did a decent job but now he's got no excuses and we'll see just how good he is.
I dont think that Spurs have NO creative players, its not the players, its that AVB isnt playing them to their strengths. With us, we had some good creative players in the middle and players who can pick a great pass, ie Mata and Lampard but they were either stifled by AVB's tactics or just werent picked and some of our players had big egos and it didnt sit well with them because AVB wasnt a big enough name they felt, to do this. Managers like Fergie or Jose, players know they are the boss. Plus our board were cowardly and caved to player pressure. AVB just needs to adapt a little. Thing is, he has had long enough in the PL to know that dull route one football and a high defensive line does not make a great team either in results or entertainment.
