Looking at those chances PNP it's very bad luck that 1 of them didn't go in and of course Howard played a big part.
Lazy journalists will deduce that we are 'toothless' and Kane is out of form because we can't score from such chances. Actually it was a combination of bad luck and good goalkeeping. And I don't understand the 'lack of creativity' comments on here. Mason's pass to Kane was fantastic as was his running off the ball. Both Chadli and Dembele also created well. Given that all three of those will probably be replaced in the roles they played on Saturday by Son, N'jie and Eriksen and we still have Alli and Pritchard as further back up I'm not sure where there is a problem.
Just another frustrating game again, it's safe to say that luck hasn't been on our side so far this season. Should've won 3-0 in my opinion, possibly even more. We dominated Everton for about 80 of the 90 minutes and but for some Howard heroics mixed with poor composure in front of goal, we'd have picked up our first three points. A number of standouts, Rose looked good on his return, Jan and Toby showed signs of that successful title winning partnership at Ajax as they easily dealt with Lukaku, Bentaleb shrugged off the poor Utd performance and looked how he did last season, Mason ran himself into the ground, Alli again looked impressive when coming on but the biggest highlight was Dier. He was absolutely superb, literally didn't put a foot wrong all game from what I can remember, some of his tackles were world class and his composure on the ball when surrounded by Everton bodies was very impressive for a centre back turned defensive mid, also made one or two great long range passes out to a winger - one seen in the video PNP posted. A lot of us sang his praises last season for adapting so well to the Prem while showing the versatility to play CB and RB, he's now showing his potential at DM and he's without a doubt been our best player in the first four games in my opinion. More performances like this and I wouldn't be bothered one bit at missing out on any potential move for Wanyama. Like Toby said in the Spurs TV interview, continue playing and improving on this performance and the results will come.
What SoS said. It was an overall performance that deserved a comfortable 3 points but when you don't score the chances we had then you can't really bemoan luck, the players have to improve. I do think we have been marginally the better side in the first 3 games and were comfortably the best side yesterday so to come out of that with 3 points is unlucky, Liverpool, United and Arsenal all have 7 points and haven't been any better. What happened to N'Jie, is he injured already?! 4 games with 1 striker, Levy needs to get his chequebook out and start apologising to the fans and his manager by getting a couple of big signings in.
Considering the luck we had during previous seasons, many average performances with a positive result, we can't expect each season to have luck on our side. However I'm sure even Poch can manage a win against Sunderland away, unless our mate Defoe plays a blinder. To finish on a positive, I enjoyed watching Verts venture forward, reminded me of the Verts that arrived, composed and adventurous. His reputation was damaged due to poor performances and transfer speculation previously. Still, watching central defenders move out of defence with confidence is a great tactic to have, with them seeing play from deep.
I was thinking we did look creative, and the difference may frankly have been Mason as number 10. He had a good way of mixing in balls over the top and other unexpected passes that replaced a tendency to over-rely on playing one twos through congested areas. Chadli also had his most creative game. What did people think of Alli (other than the dive, which I can only hope he’ll never repeat)? I wonder how we’d do with Erikson paired with Dier, Mason staying where he was, and either Alli or Pritchard starting with him and Chadli. I’ve seen Eriksen be very effective playing deeper. He is the one player we have who can look a bit like Modric at times. A saying I’ve always liked is, "It’s a great time to panic!" but not in this case. The results should come, but If we do have a poor season in terms of points, as we:re on track to do, it will mean no Europa, which could help us next year.
Mason played largely as a 10 in the youth teams, although they did tend to prefer a 4-3-3 set up IIRC. Having said that, there's absolutely no way he can replace Eriksen (still zero word about his 'injury' ) I haven't heard many complain about a lack of creativity. The obvious lack is anything remotely resembling cover for Kane. With United bringing in Martial, we should be all over Hernandez as he'd cost half of what WBA want for Berahino, would be happy starting in cups and from the bench, and would score more than enough goals for our needs. He's also a great option to have when you're chasing a game and want to go 2 up top. As for Eriksen dropping deeper, I can't agree that he's looked very effective. It's an exceptionally difficult role to learn, which is why there are so few class deep lying creative midfielders out there. People constantly underestimated how tenacious and committed in the challenge Luka was for a player with his build. Eriksen just doesn't have that.
I don’t doubt Eriksen’s talents, but I’m not sure he’s ever quite suited being a number 10 in our system. He can score brilliant goals, and come up with outstanding passes at times, but other times he looks out of ideas in a way Mason didn’t. (Mason, on the other hand, hasn’t shown he can score or create goals in the PL at any rate other than quite rarely.) Playing Eriksen on the left may be the best fit. It seems to me he’s the kind of player who’s better when he doesn’t have the ball quite so often. As to Eriksen being sold: I also noted how his injury coincided with Juve’s expression of interest, but Rose’s injury coincided with Chelsea’s interest, and Rose is back. On balance, selling Eriksen doesn’t make sense to me in terms of ENIC’s long term goals. They’d be eating their cake when their stated goal is to have it. We’ve heard nothing about him trying to force a move, and even if he wanted one, the pattern would be to wait a year.
Trouble with Dier is that when he was forced to play RB he actually looked like the best RB at the club. Now he's playing midfield he looks like one of the best midfielders at the club. God forbid that we ever have to play him up front - Kane would never get back in the team. Dier was certainly the best signing we made last season and possibly one of the best we've made for a long while. Surprised that others here don't see the lack of creativity in the team. Perhaps I'm being overly harsh but I'd just ask you - who in the team do you see as being able to take on defenders? Beat their man with a bit of skill? make an outrageous pass? See possibilities in the blink of an eye and then make something happen out of it? I'm struggling a hell of a lot once I go past Kane and Eriksen. Chadli's okay for a few goals but doesn't have the spark I'm looking for and Dembele as a winger says a lot. Compare to the team where players like VDV, Modric, Lennon and Bale were all in the same team with players like Krancjar and Huddlestone on the bench. It's not just that the current team are not as skillful as the earlier lot - it's that we're not even trying to incorporate as many skillful, risk-taker players. We're playing a CB in midfield and a CM on the wing, an inverted winger on the other side...What's Dembele gonna do on the wing? Run his full back ragged, get crosses and shots in? Or is he gonna put his foot on the ball and pass it sideways/backwards? Of course it's as much what the players are being asked to do too, I guess. Well let's hope that, as I said before, the personnel problem has been addressed with the two recent purchases though if they're not given the opportunity to try to play football and instead play like they get fined for losing possession then it won't help all that much. We'll see. I can sort of imagine this system providing thrills and good football but frankly we had a lot of lucky wins last year (where we were lucky to score 2 goals) and this year looks quite similar. I wonder if this sort of congested system based entirely on possession actually works all that well when your players are not top, top quality.
Mason has sent both Chadli and Kane into one-on-ones with the 'keeper, Kane put Eriksen through one-on-one and someone even managed to send Dembele through against United, although he was wrongly called offside. Mason's range of passing is important to us and we missed him badly in the first match, where we generally lacked any tempo to our game. Eriksen and Mason are both great passers and others like Chadli can create chances too but we do lack depth in that area. I think we need to be exploiting this more often but we don't have the pace in attack at the moment, which makes getting a player in behind more difficult. Hopefully N'Jie, Son and NEW STRIKER can help with that but I do think we'll struggle without Mason in the side if we don't get someone else with a good range of passing in.
The biggest problem with playing Lamela, Dembele and Chadli alongside the more creative Eriksen or Mason is that they simply lack the pace to drag opposition defenders out of the pockets of space that a number 10 needs to truly flourish. I've seen it mentioned on here - can't remember who by - that Eriksen hasn't ever truly looked comfortable as a number 10 and maybe he should play deeper next to Dier. I'd argue that the reason he's never looked comfortable is because the two players next to him are extremely easy for defenders to track and never more than 10 yards away from him when he receives the ball. And 3 seconds later, they're still no more than 10 yards away from him because their marker has them goal side anyway and making a run won't help anymore because they're not fast enough to lose their marker, so we might as well lark about here to receive the safe pass with our backs to goal...hence lots of sideways and backwards passing hoping that at some point the opposition will lose concentration and allow us through. With the pace and trickery that Son and Njie will (hopefully) bring to the table, I'd like to think that we'll start seeing a lot more fluidity in the final third, with those two in particular making lots of fast, darting runs off the shoulder of their full back, forcing other opposition players to alter position in order to cover and compensate. This will in turn give Eriksen and Mason more time to pick out more truly 'killer' balls, or indeed to have a crack from a distance, and both players really can kick the ball when they want to.
