Could loan him out to Sutton United to give him more experience! How much experience does he need?You may well ask!
Good night of football, I thought. Credit to Qarabag, I thought they played well and produced some really good moments of football. Their lack of quality showed at times too though and I wasn't impressed with our defending. Don't know what's wrong with Rose but that was the worst I've seen him, maybe he is struggling with an injury that's keeping him out. Poor debut from Trippier, the penalty was just so poor, he shouldn't have been trying to close down like that in the box, it's a basic mistake but hopefully it was just down to nerves, trying too hard to impress. Alderweireld looked a bit dodgy again and I still have concerns about him but Wimmer had a good debut alongside him. Surprised Lamela's getting the criticism on here as I thought it was Carroll that really struggled. He made a couple of decent challenges but he just looked so far off the level of player we need. On that display I'd rather we started Winks if Mason's out for Sunday. Glad Lamela got that goal, it was looking like another one of those nights where he's almost a great player but somehow falls well short. Still not brilliant but he was really lively and I thought he looked like he took on the responsibility of being one of the seniors in an inexperienced side. Alli was MOTM, excellent performance, works hard and comes up with moments of brilliance. Such a natural player on the ball. Good to see Son get a couple of goals, he and Townsend both put in good shifts. N'Jie is ****ing rapid, first time I've seen him play and I was impressed by his little cameo, tracked back well, kept wide when needed and always made himself available.
Only managed to watch the first half and glimpses of the second half. I missed Lamela's goal so for me he was absolutely awful all night. I remember from a very young age out in the local park for Sunday league kick around; the first thing you'd have bellowed at you would be 'Play with you f***ing head up!" "Let your feet do the playing and your eyes do the watching!". What frustrates me about Lamela is that apparently an Argentinian international once dubbed the new Messi was never taught that golden rule. In terms of ability, I don't think Alli is any better. But what I love about Alli is his calm composure on the ball. He receives the ball with his head up, controls it with his head up, passes it with his head up, sells his man a dummy with his head up. He plays with a certain air of confidence and finesse that you would see in players like Hoddle and Ginola and I truly believe we have unearthed an absolute gem of a player. I have to agree with YV with regards to Tom Carroll. I've felt for years that he'll never 'quite' make it to the level we need him to be. And whilst he's a neat, tidy player with two good feet and a good head, the fact that he looks 9 years old means that it's easy to forget that he's already 23 and still not really showing the signs of taking control of games from the centre of the park like Modric would. Townsend just looks so lost it's such a shame because there's a player somewhere in there and a lad who loves the club through and through; but he just isn't a top half of the table footballer. He's one of a number of 'young' players who really aren't that young anymore in today's terms and should really be doing much more to stake a claim for a starting place. When stacked up against the rapid development of Alli, Dier and Mason, the likes of Townsend and Carroll surely won't be around for much longer?
Qarabag are not that bad. They beat Dnipro, last year’s finalists. They would have made it past the group stage last year except they got robbed in Italy. I’ve watched us play any number of weaker teams in the Europa, and this was one of our better efforts. That’s about what I think, though you’re a bit more positive about Lamela (and everyone else is considerably more negative). I share the frustration about Lamela. Tonight he had any number of misplaced passes and terrible touches. The thing is none of them put us in any particular danger (it helps that he always chases his mistakes: having so much practice doing so, though...). On the other hand, his ability to put people through on goal (Alli tonight, and, I think, a couple of others), Mason on Sunday, and to get through on goal himself, do put the other team in danger and create danger. If you can have a player who wanders around one-footed making mistakes, but then tends to help us win, it’s Lamela. Finally, I like the way he took charge and tried to get himself and others running at the goal. The way Alli left three defenders for dead, then teed up Son for a shot I probably could have put in, was brilliant. I remember mentioning I know it was Qarabag, but I’ve seen him leave a number of PL players in his wake in similar ways, not to mention a couple of Realistas. Trippier’s pen was about as basic a mistake as a defender can make. Rose had a couple of shockers as well. He also had a couple of bursts that showed me how dangerous he can be. Alderweireld had another pretty good game, but can’t put an unmarked header on target to save his life, it seems. Wimmer was fine. I thought Carroll did pretty well. I liked the way he won the ball back a couple of times. Winks looked decent, and Clinton promising. I really liked the way Kane created a goal. He’s good even if he’s not scoring. I kept wondering who the big, shaggy guy was who was leading the way towards goal, until I remembered it was Son You have to say an energetic performance and two well-taken goals bode well for him leading the line, even if it was against a weaker team. Son and Lamela are off the mark. Townsend, Kane and Alli have their first assists. That can’t hurt. I thought it was a fun game to watch. Right now I’d play Kane, Son, Eriksen and Alli if everyone were healthy.
I missed the game last night as I bought tickets for a comedy show months ago. I saw the highlights when I got in and thought Lamela and Townsend were very good! Amazing how powerful editing is, eh? Good result though, and good to see that we can make a fair few changes and get the job done. How did Wimmer play? Rose looked awful, but trippier looked like he was good going forward and recovered well from his nightmare start. Alli really looks something special. That turn to set son up was incredibly selfless showed real maturity in his game. 95% of us would have smashed that. Roll on palace! Coys!
I thought Carroll had a very good game. He was always looking for space and looking to receive the ball. The game flowed forward when he was involved. After that sweet through ball, I'd like to see Winks again. Son. We've bagged a good'un there. Well happy with him.
Had a great night last night, saw an old friend who'd been recently struggling with illness and it was great to see him so sprightly and just enjoying the night out down Spurs and looking back to his best. For the game itself, I thought it was a fun match, it's the sort of games I enjoy - good fast attacks and dodgy defending. May leave for heart in mouth moments but this is football and I like being entertained, win, lose or draw. Qarabag impressed me with their work rate and willingness to attack us, they did also look a shocking side at times and the gulf in class was clear in moments. We probably went in over confident, which isn't really surprising. Trippier looked a bit shaky and the penalty was sloppy but overall he didn't do too bad and he got up well at times, nerves may have played a part, the same couldn't be said for Wimmer though, who slotted in superbly and looked like a player we've had for a while, was very impressed with his defending and showed some good composure, more performances like that and Poch has a central defensive headache selection on his hands. Rose doesn't look 100%, didn't seem as quick and he lost concentration at times too, not sure if he's carrying a knock or just physically he's not 100% yet, can definitely see why Davies has been starting as many as he has. I also thought Tommy Carroll done OK as well, seen one or two negative comments on here and twitter but I personally thought he had a decent all round performance, comfortable with the ball at his feet and was working hard to chase down the opposition and got stuck in once or twice. Son certainly done all the right things on his home debut, neat flicks, good runs and two goals, more of that and that's money well spent by Levy and co and we'll have a crowd favourite on our hands. N'Jie looked lively when he came on, despite looking rapid I think he's still missing a yard of pace as he's returning from injury so we can expect to see him really tear it up in a week or so I reckon. Winks really impressed me when he came on too, won a couple challenges and was always looking for the ball to get the moves going forward. Star of the show though was Alli, tired in the latter stages but his creativity was superb and he should've had more assists to his name but for some poor finishing, he has some very nifty footwork for a tall guy. The kid looks an incredible talent, £5m has already been well spent. Good night overall, we won, scored a few goals and it was quite an exciting game, happy days
Lamela was similar to Mason, I felt. They both give the ball away from time to time but they lose the ball trying to up the pace and open up the defence. I think that's just a necessary hazard of breaking down what was an organized defence(Son's first goal and the end when they were chasing an equaliser excepted). Carroll was more like Bentaleb's nightmare game against United, infact when he gave it away early on it was almost a carbon copy of the way Bentaleb did for the goal that lost us that match. As you say, defensively he was quite good but he just doesn't move it forward quickly enough, when the opposition defend in numbers it's difficult for attackers to find space but when they do you've got to get it to them quickly and I thought Carroll turned down a lot of those passes. Good to see the new signings though. I've been a bit sceptical about most of them and didn't really know much about them prior to signing for us but I thought it was a good start for them overall. The only poor performance came from Trippier, the only one that I've been really positive about us signing
Did basically look like a team who had never played together before, nor following some formation grand plan. But as I repeatedly say, I expect this at this time of the season and am glad of the cup fixtures up to Xmas in order to help iron out this stuff. Anderlecht and Monaco will be bigger asks, but there'll be a few more days of training done and PL starts/subs in the legs of most of them by then. A win is in the Europa bag, and a good number of the likely PL starting XI were spared this game.
The comparison of Lamela to Mason is fair, though Mason doesn’t miscontrol as often. If I complain about a slow buildup, which I do, I shouldn’t point fingers at Lamela and Mason who try to get the ball towards the goal quickly at the cost of fairly frequent turnovers. The balls which have a 50 50 chance or less of getting through lead to a lot of goals. Not playing them because they’re risky isn’t necessarily wise. In addition to miscontrolling less, Mason also has been misplaying fewer passes this year, especially against Sunderland, where he had an outstanding game. Despite the f up early on, I still like Trippier for getting dangerous balls into the box quickly. He creates more than Walker, though he’ll have to defend better to take his place. Clinton actually stayed on the left and provided width, which we can certainly use. We may need some combination of him and Rose on the left to stretch the field, and perhaps Trippier and maybe Townsend on the right for the same reason. If we do that, it should open up the middle for our other attacking players.
Playing an equally good team then in round numbers you have the ball about 100 times a match and so do the opponents so you have about a one in 65 chance of scoring every time you have the ball. Losing the ball gives your opponents about a one in 65 chance of scoring. So if a risky ball will lead to scoring a goal more than one in 65 times its a good trade. This suggests Lamela is a much better player than we think he is as he loses the ball a lot but gets a lot of assists.
It looks to me like Lamela keeps running into tons of traffic, as our play is so congested. We keep playing straight through the middle and have nobody stretching the play on the wings, so there are massed ranks in front of the box. The same thing happens to Dembele a lot and Townsend whenever he cuts in. Kane's looked massively crowded because of it.
Alli looks good value at £5M. He got plenty of goals in League One in an advanced midfield role. He should bring you goals if he's played in the right position. If Lamela was two-footed, he'd have cost £60M.
This seems to be pretty common with a lot of strong teams. I have a suspicion that there is some analysis that says wide play isn't as successful as playing through the middle and/or that stretching the play doesn't give any net benefit as it helps the opponents break too.
Wide play is effective if you have a winger who can be guaranteed to find a teammates' head with a cross, but with the exception of Trippier none of our wide players seem to be particularly good at that - and going a little bit further, this is why we've been so useless from corners since at least the Jol era, because with the exceptions of Ginola and Bentley we haven't had any players with a reputation for accurate crossing since the turn of the millennium.
Just want to nip this one in the bud: Lamela does not lose possession so much because he's trying positive but risky balls forward. He loses the ball when delivering seriously straight-forward ten yard passes on his strong foot; he loses the ball because he makes decisions, many times a match, to run into a couple of players seemingly with the expectation that they will just evaporate once he's nearby; he also loses the ball because he he in so incredibly one-footed that 50% of his options in any situation are not open to him. Seriously - any reliance on stats to demonstrate that Lamela played well last night is denying all the evidence of his actual performance which can be assessed perfectly well in the usual subjective ways.
I’m guessing I’m the only one who really likes kimchi on a bagel with cream cheese. You really ought to try it. You’re a genius, Power! A genius, I say! Or at least you may have firmed up my thinking. We tend to judge a player based on how good he looks, this depends in turn to a considerable degree on how few mistakes he makes. "Neat and tidy," if you are right, may reveal a player who is not ambitious enough. We’re ready to grant that’s true of Dembélé, but it may be true of a number of others. Of course, there’s a cost to failed (ambitious) passes. You lose possession more often, to begin with. But what seemed an endless quest for through balls with Lamela might well be a good strategy. I still don’t buy the width and crosses are bad argument, though. For one thing, crosses have not been a bad way of scoring for us this season. 2/7 goals have been from corners, and certainly Alli’s, and I believe Chadli’s goals were from crosses as well. So that’s 4/7. We might well have had a couple more if we didn’t take so many ***** short corners. It was funny how Son scored from a corner, and the next corner we took was a short one. For another, you can feel defenses open up when players get in behind them. It’s a bad situation for defenders to be in, and they will try and prevent it as well as possible, in so doing clogging the middle less. Even simply having players in wide positions tends to help. Fullbacks naturally will move farther from the center when facing players farther from the center, the other defenders will move out somewhat as well, and passing through the middle should become easier. What I am noticing is tempo. We do well when we attack the goal in rhythm, and vary the ways we do it. Our tempo bogs down when we start to push the ball around at the edge of the box. Once the ball gets to the box, it needs to go at the goal within a couple of seconds, or at least continue to move rapidly. Part of the advantage of that is that it creates more end to end games, which are to our advantage both because we have better finishers and a better keeper than most, and because we may be the fittest team. (We ran the farthest last week, at any rate.) The fact that Pochettino’s system emphasizes high pressing may be another factor that helps.
I think that football is such a dynamic game with so many hundreds of factors involved at any one moment that simply saying stuff like "out of thirty crosses only one will lead to a goal" tells only a tiny fraction of what's going on. There are so many effects of getting crosses in that are difficult to quantify or go below the radar of simple statistical analysis. For one a winger running at a full-back, beating him and the getting a cross in which is put behind for a corner does all sorts of positive things - not just win a corner. It gives the crowd a lift. This is important. It also makes the defender have to turn, make decisions, make a challenge. You give them something else to worry about. Ditto the central defence - they now have to deal with the game not all being in front of them and an air of danger and uncertainty is created in their mind. Crosses might win corners, penalties, create uncertainty and new challenges for your opponents, can expose lack of pace, lack of comfort or confidence on the part of the keeper. The mere *sense* of danger will have an effect, psychologically, on both teams and, more importantly perhaps, the crowd. Think of how a stadium will be lifted by a failed cross versus a sideways pass to a teammate or even, probably, a failed through-ball.
He certainly didn't play well, but there were some positives from it, despite his overall poor play. A lot of players would've gone missing in that situation, especially when the crowd (understandably) reacted badly to a couple of things that he did. He kept it up til the final whistle and could easily have had a hat-trick in the end, bizarrely. I'm not convinced that his chalked-off effort was offside and the one that he nicked from Alli that hit the post was very unlucky. I think he'd have been subbed off if it wasn't for Dier taking a knock, so perhaps some good can come from him scoring? He certainly took it well.
