WARNING: I WILL BE DISCUSSING TACTICS The main thing I want to see is tactics that are a lot more straightforward than often needlessly complex ones AVB deployed. As I said a few weeks ago, while the tactics used by Jol or Harry were occasionally naive, the majority of the time you could introduce a new player to the team and they would slot into the team right away, and when a team clicks like that it is often all you need to start picking up wins.
Except under Harry changes rarely worked. We'd have VDV on the wing, Krancjar doing nothing, Modric on the left (which worked for a while). It seemed to me we had a good first 11 Lennon VDV Bale behind Crouch/Pav/JD but as soon as any changes were introduced it would all go wrong.
The Stevenage game is where it started to go wrong - rather than stick with the tried and tested system, he picked a 352 with various players out of position and we played like absolute ****e in that game. Yet rather than take the hint, he kept meddling and that's what torpedoed our season from then on. It also has to be said he stuck with the same team far too much, whilst in previous seasons we saw Kranjcar and Pav come into the team and get important goals.
Redknapp never had anyone to challenge his ideas when moving away from his team setup, tinkering is fine when you have assistants who will challenge and make you realise issues with the setup. Yet I got the impression bond and Jordan where there to assist Redknapp solely and offered little else. Compare that with Ferguson who has employed some of the games best coaches and assistant managers, who are often praised highly by Utd players for their impact and their ideas re tactics.
So anyone know enough about Sherwood to have a guess on our line-up tonight. I'd like to see Friedel Walker Chiriches Kaboul Rose Lamela Eriksen Capoue Townsend (on the left ) Defoe Adebayor Midfield could form a diamond? Obviously don't know what our new manager will do, but it is kind of exciting to see what someone else can do with the players we have?
An idea i had was to use Lamela in a free role. No wait, hear me out.... We struggle getting the ball through the middle of the park with any sort of speed or urgency. Previously we could negate this problem by breaking quickly down the wings or using Bale. I wonder whether Lamela could provide the same sort of thing through the middle. I don't think he's gonna dictate the play with clever forward passes but if he gets the ball in the middle i can see him turning towards the op goal and trying to go round people and forward.
There's full coverage from the normal internet streamers: http://www.wiziwig.tv/broadcast.php?matchid=235648&part=sports
Tonights line up is an interesting one. Obviously 4-4-2 but the midfield seems a bit light on defensive qualities. Thoughts?
Tottenham v West Ham (1945 GMT) Emmanuel Adebayor does indeed start up front for Tottenham alongside Jermain Defoe as Tim Sherwood makes six changes. West Ham make seven changes. Tottenham XI: Lloris; Walker, Chiriches, Capoue, Rose; Lennon, Dembele, Sigurdsson, Townsend; Adebayor, Defoe West Ham XI: Adrian, O'Brien, Rat, Collins, McCartney, Diarra, Taylor, Collison, J.Cole, Jarvis, C.Cole
