My boss who is a Saints fan says the tippy tappy crap at the back is typical of his tactics. That got their defence into trouble last season because of the insistence of playing out from the back and until we have the players that suit that style we will continue to struggle.
"My boss who is a Saints fan says the tippy tappy crap at the back is typical of his tactics. That got their defence into trouble last season because of the insistence of playing out from the back and until we have the players that suit that style we will continue to struggle." The slow/sideways/sloppy passing was also a trait of AVBs' last season. Whatever system we believe AVB ultimately intended to play, or Pochettino likes to play, it may be that the current squad are not physically/mentally up to the task. Which is bad news indeed.
Jesus Christ..... Is it any wonder your disliked by so many? "Standard of the Tottenham job" No words.
183 posts since 2011 and a very strange reply. You probably have two accounts but I take it that's you attempting to say I'm disliked and hurt my feelings. Impressive!
I think he's talking about Spurs being disliked rather than you, Boss. That's coming from a West Ham fan. Everyone loves them, of course.
Cheers Pnp, I was worried there for a moment! At least we don't have to hear much from TJ after you saw him off.
Credit to West Brom. They got the tactics right and Lescott was MoM by a mile. I actually thought Pochettino did a good job of addressing two of the three main concerns I had with him. This was the first game where we got the ball wide and fired in crosses when it was obvious our opponents were clogging the middle. It was also the first time we used Soldado and Adebayor together in what I'd call a 4-4-2. Well, in any case, it wasn't good enough. West Brom did very well to try to press our CBs into mistakes and corners, knowing we would try to dribble it out. Ade had by far his worst game of the year. He did too little, and didn't get his head on a cross that should have been an easy goal. Soldado looked significantly better, but still not good enough. For the third straight game, a sub has cost us a goal (though you can argue in Kane's case it was dumb luck). Paulinho should never, ever play a deep lying role for us again. He's consistently been a disaster. (Though he got a goal and an assist in one full game as an attacking midfielder, and deserves more chances there). Fazio and Vertonghen looked like a better pair than Kaboul and Chiriches, albeit against weaker opposition. Dier is a CB, not a right back. We might have done better with Bentaleb than Dembele. If there is a bright side: we played reasonably good football for most of the game. Eriksen and Lamela both had good moments. Capoue had an excellent game. Kaboul and Rose weren't bad. I would argue that trying to play a possession-based, pressing style will not get you as many points as setting up to counter (my third concern about Pochettino). It's naive to say it's an advantage to keep the ball in their end. While it's true that it is if you keep it a sufficient period of time, the truth is that if you're superior enough to keep it that period of time, you'd win no matter what tactics you played. If, on the other hand, the other team isn't much worse than you are, they'll get the ball enough to spend more time attacking your lightly defended goal than you will attacking their lightly defended goal. Spurs had 63% possession and only one shot on goal to four for West Brom. I'd be surprised if Pochettino ditched the high line, though I wouldn't necessarily rule it out after a game where he tried more different things than he's tried in the past. The team's confidence will rebound at some point. But unless we do modify our tactics, I can see us continuing to be vulnerable to teams that are happy to let us get forward, that try to hit us on the counter, and that press our CBs. Finally, I think Pochettino does seem to recognize the most basic thing that was wrong, when he said we needed to play more quickly. Well, I don't see any alternative to patience.
Since SC mentioned it earlier I just want to reflect once more on the "move to the next level" that was supposed to have happened after 2012. Just to remind everyone the previous "level" had sellout crowds every time at the Lane, providing one of the best atmospheres in the Prem. This was due in large part to us having a team with some highly skilled individuals all being allowed to play fast, attacking football. Football that was universally praised as some of the most entertaining in the league. In playing this football we achieved (twice) our highest-ever league finishes in the Prem-era and beat some giants of Europe in the CL. Now. As I said at the time: if you change direction from that do you think the change is likely to be for the better? Many people seemed to think so two years ago. I hope they've all learned something.
Does anyone think we should have kept Redknapp as manager despite his making it clear he'd take the England job if it was available?
On talk of being able to switch to 4-4-2: Here's a list of players who would have no place in a 4-4-2: Paulinho, Lamela, Chadli, Eriksen. So that's two of our record-breaking signings from our "Sell Elvis, buy the Monkees" summer of fun, our best attacking player (our only good attacking midfielder basically) and our current goal machine. Though I'm sure it'd suit Soldado. Not to mention the plethora of defensish midfielders we have now. Though only one could play at a time. No - this squad is locked-in to playing 4-2-3-1. Which is why Pochettinho is something like the 6th or 7th Spurs manager in a row to try something EVERY Spurs fan knows doesn't work - Lennon on the left.
Yep. And said so at the time. Harry is old school and to him managing your country is THE top job. Sacking him cos he'd say yes to England is like sacking any player cos you know they'd say yes to Madrid or Barca.
Yep. And said so at the time. Harry is old school and to him managing your country is THE top job. Sacking him cos he'd say yes to England is like sacking any player cos you know they'd say yes to Madrid or Barca.
I did have a slight issue with some of Redknapps behaviour, especially the discussing of the England assistant manager job with Rodgers before the Swansea game, little things like that may not be a massive issue but it does show Redknapp did take his eye off the job in hand and that played some part in the terrible form, not all, as I've said we where due a poor run of results, but if Redknapp was fully focused on us and the players believed him, then he and the squad had the ability to churn out results to finish 3rd and Harry has to hold his hand up and admit he wasn't focused on getting us 3rd at the business end because of the England job and when our form started to pick back up, it was too late. However Levy had to make a choice, which he had every right to make, but if we look at Redknapps management , he deserved one more year and the chance to put things right, yet I'm sure Levy had been wanting to get rid of Redknapp because under the restrictions of ENIC, it wasn't possible to let Redknapp manage his way, even if it worked, and thats where the clash was. Levy had one vision. Redkknapp had another vision. Redknapp forced Levy to change his ways because of Redknapps success with the team but at the end Levy took the chance to move back to his ideal vision and a manager like Redknapp just doesn't fit in that type of thinking (long term), even if he done a superb job for us.
