Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v West Ham United

1. The problem any actual wantaways have is that they are not playing
anywhere near their best to tempt a suitor to buy them and then put
them in the starting XI.

2. If there was a player "work to rule" against Pochettino that the manager
could not defuse, Levy may well have told Jose he has licence to sort it.
And Jose has no problem whatsoever with letting "star" players rot.

 

Who is this wum?

Some of your comments since Mourinho has been appointed are ridiculous and that post above

 

Some of the goals on that clip looked very like our goals yesterday.

 

Even more so if Lucas buried his chance in the second half!

 

I am no wum.

I am The Special Wum.

 

Methinks he lost a bet

 

A spirit of generosity came over him as he looked for a team mate instead of an open goal before him. I'm sure Mourinho will knock that out him.

 

Son and Lucas have the capability to shred teams with their pace and direct play. Both are capable of scoring 15-20 goals a season, as well as creating goals for others and drawing yellow and red cards.

After Lucas' showing in the 3-0 win at OT in 2017/18, I was expecting Mauricio Pochettino to move to a more direct style with a top quality flyer on either side of Harry Kane. It never really happened and if anything, we got slower and slower. That was a terrible waste of a potent weapon.

I'm expecting Mourinho to have this attack as part of his preferred line-up and to try and destroy teams on the break. As you say, they're bugger all use in defending corners, so what's the point in drawing them back, rather than putting them on the halfway line?

 

WARNING: More tactics bollocks

Okay, bear with me here, but having seen some rando post this on Twitter I think I've twigged what Poch's tactics should have been this season

What sticks out about this is the system isn't too dissimilar to how we played 2-3 years ago, where we would transition from a 4231 when defending to a 4231 when on the attack, however there are key differences
i.) 2-3 years ago the transition would see Dier or Wanyama drop back into defence as we had both fullbacks pushing forward, whereas the 2019-20 version would have either Rose or Aurier pushing up while on the other side Foyth or Davies would tuck in to create a back three
ii.) 2-3 years ago we'd have both Eriksen and Lamela coming inside to give the fullbacks space to come forward, whereas the 2019-20 version would reflect the asymmetrical nature of our attack as the player on the side of the attacking fullback would tuck inside while on the opposite wing the player would stay on the touchline
iii.) 2-3 years ago Dembele would have pushed up while Dier/Wanyama dropped back, whereas the 2019-20 version had both of the pivot moving up with Ndombele in the Dembele role - and this would go some way to explaining why he insisted on either Winks or Sissoko being in the pivot instead of Dier, as they are both far more capable of doing something with the ball than Dier is

What's more this does mean THAT BASTARD DIAMOND makes a certain amount of sense for the first time this season, as it was intended as a transitional formation to give the defence and midfield time to adapt to what was needed while also (attempting...) to give the defence a little extra protection, but all it really did was expose weaknesses in certain players while also ask the obvious question: why didn't we just start the season with our usual 4231 and slowly introduce the new system throughout the first half of the season? After all, it was brutally effective against Southampton and Red Star, so why not take the time to implement it and actually have a Plan B for the business end of the season?

And that's what stands out about yesterday: we played pretty much the same system Poch was trying to implement, and for around 70 minutes it was wholly effective - and the only difference was that the passing was quick and direct while under Poch it was slow and cautious, which does suggest a certain lack of confidence on Poch's part in the players he was using in the system

 

Mourinho got the front four right. Spurs beat some of the best clubs in the world with Lucas-Dele-Son-Llorente. With Kane instead of Llorente, it should be even better.

He also did well to cut out the tippy tappy around the box, an unfortunate feature of both AVB and Pochettino teams. That front four works when it arrives in the box with a head of steam. Son is fast, Moura is very fast. When Dele drives at defenders, he gives them the bad choice of stopping him or leaving Son, Moura or Kane free, and Dele is so inventive with his short passes.

I'm not convinced by Dier-Winks, though I rate Winks. I'm not at all sure Dier-Ndombele will work either, nor do I think Mourinho will try Ndombele-lo Celso. I'm hoping for that, Sissoko-Ndombele or Winks-Ndombele. Mourinho is hoping for Makelele-Essien, so we may be looking for a DM in January.

The first match in charge is important for everyone, but even more important for Mourinho at Spurs. Winning at the track does a bit to get the fans onside, especially when the football looked considerably improved overall. Spurs have enough talent to be one of the top teams, provided they have a manager who can get the tactics right, and Mourinho has a history of doing that. On the other hand, he also has a history of following a good start with a rapid decline.

Funny how both Portuguese speakers found their way into the lineup.

 

If rumours are to be believed he wanted both when he was at United

 

I think Dier will benefit massively from having him as manager

Sissoko (hopefully) will feature less now. I know he’s popular amongst a lot of fans but I’ve always thought he shouldn’t be near the team as he lacks technical skills and offers no goal scoring threat

 

Harry Kane believes new manager Jose Mourinho can end Tottenham's 11-year wait for a trophy.

Mourinho succeeded the sacked Mauricio Pochettino on Wednesday and won 3-2 at West Ham on Saturday in his first game.

The Portuguese has 20 major trophies to his name, but Tottenham are without one since winning the League Cup in 2008.

"The gaffer's won at every club he's gone to - there's no hiding away from that," said Kane, who went to see Pochettino at home after his sacking.

"He [Mourinho] wants to win. He's a proven winner. I've made it clear that I'm at the stage of my career where I want to win trophies.

"I've made it clear I want to win them here and it's a big year for us.

"Realistically we look at the Champions League and the FA Cup this season to try to do that, so we'll see how that goes and then from my point of view I'll keep doing what I'm doing, keep fighting for this club on the pitch.

"We all want to win. We wanted to win when Mauricio was here; we want to win the same now the gaffer's here.

"But of course when someone's got a reputation like he has, it gives you confidence, it gives you that belief in the team.

"It's almost a fresh slate for everyone now to show the manager what they can do and hopefully the players can thrive on that."

 

Agreed. I could never understand what Poch had against Lucas. He’s quick, direct, likes to take people on and invariably scores when he’s given a chance.

If there’s one thing all defenders hate it’s players with pace and skill who will run at them,

 

If Lucas has a good start then he has a good game..usually under Poch I found his starts to be a bit sub standard compared to his sub appearances...barring the odd exception

Suggests confidence to me...nothing to do with capability because he’s shown us what he can do on more than one occasion. Looks like the type of guy who needs an arm around the shoulder...didn’t think he got the love from Poch unfortunately.

 

I hope this gets going down the Lane and awaydays

 

Me and both the girls really liked that

 

I think this all ties in to the tactics Poch was trying to implement

* If we had Aurier starting at RB he wanted a wide player who would come inside while giving the full back space to maraud forward, with Lo Celso and Lamela the preferred personnel, while he wanted someone on the left to hug the wing which was presumably what Sessegnon was signed for
* If we had Rose starting at LB he wanted the left winger to cut in to give the full back space to maraud forward, with Son the preferred player for this role, while on the right he wanted someone to hug the line which would play to Lucas' strengths
* On top of that he wanted somebody at the tip of the trio to make late breaks into the box, which Dele and Lo Celso can both do but Lucas cannot as he's not as good at linking play

The issue in hand is that, with Rose starting at LB, that would mean Lucas would start - but instead we mainly played THE BASTARD DIAMOND so that Lucas was either deployed up front with Kane or not at all, and by the time we were reverting to a 4231 we were getting to the point of throwing whatever we could at opponents to see what would work

And before anyone suggests Poch's system is overly-complicated, we actually played the same tactics on Saturday, the only difference being the passing was quick and direct rather than overly conservative as it was under Poch, which implies either a lack of confidence from the players or the more likely scenario it was a tactical choice where we'd look to grind out results playing conservatively in the early season with the occasional blitz thrown in - the issue there being that it isn't the first time we've sought to implement new tactics by grinding out results (briefly...) in the league while blitzing teams in Europe when trying to implement a new system, as that's also a pretty accurate summary of the first three months of the 2013-14 season...