Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Burnley

We got lucky yesterday, that wasn’t anything to do with being a master. Burnley were the better team and we gave them far too much respect by trying too hard to counter them. Kane was the difference between a defeat and a win because without him at both ends we’d all be livid today.

 

I thought much the same, but I would also say that this was was a match for big strong centre halfs who had to go toe to toe with strong centre forwards in what was often a war of attrition, this is one of things Jose did get right last night two big experienced players who are good in a physical battle and they both won a fair share of their duels with their counterparts and they certainly still have a part to play in matches like this.

Burnley were unlikely to try and play a short passing fast paced match where our defenders lack of pace would be exposed, choosing Davies also fitted with the profile of defenders that we required.

On Doherty I am still underwhelmed, no greater quality in his crossing than Aurier really, and was caught in possession a few times last night and we could have been punished for those errors, in the long term we will need better.

 

Can’t expect to play any game without being under some sort of pressure for a certain period of time regardless of the opposition. Let’s see how many big teams smash Burnley at Turf Moor this season.

We looked more solid yesterday than the West Ham game...not perfect but then again we were playing Burnley away and since when was Burnley away a gimme?

You’d think after the 8 minute collapse against West Ham we would take the gritty performance last night and how we navigated the end of the game.

As for team selections...you’re never going to please everyone with team selections. I can see why the workman like team last night...should be obvious really.

It was a dirty fixture, away, Monday night, **** weather...the kind of fixture Messi has always had to justify his ability against if he is going to cut it in the PL...that kind of fixture.

I think we took away a lot of positives from that game personally

 

I wouldn’t put it in quite so stark terms. We weren’t great (perhaps due to team selection, we improved once more ball carriers came into the game) but Burnley came out to frustrate and hit us on the break or in the press so it was always going to be a difficult game. I think Tanguy pushed a little too high and there was too much of a gap between the front 4 and midfield 2 at times that Sissoko and Højbjerg couldn’t bridge. PEH is an adequate passer but neither carry the ball exceptionally in tight spaces like Tanguy or Gio, or even Lamela can, and Burnley are so good at getting into shape to block passes that it frustrated our midfield 2.

Ultimately they had 4 more shots than us, though we had the same amount on target, and I get the sense that most of theirs were out of the box or blocked. Their only real chance of note was the one Kane cleared off the line.

After what we did to teams like Southampton and United, this won’t be the only time we have to deal with teams set up to play like that against us this season. I thought we dealt with their threats well, all things considered, and though we weren’t set up quite right going forwards, and we didn’t always execute correctly when we got into promising positions, we deserved the 3 points.

 

Time to put this one to death ...

http://www.mehstg.com/burnleymatch.htm

Go and look at the results home and away during the Dyche era (2014 onwards) .
Most of the results (either way) are low-scoring and have a GD of at most 1.
Spurs have only properly destroyed them once result-wise at Turf Moor (0-3) .

The stats said it.. Jose said it. The result said it.
NOTHING UNUSUAL about this particular game whatsoever.


"It was a dirty fixture, away, Monday night, **** weather..
the kind of fixture Messi has always had to justify his ability against if he is going to cut it in the PL...
that kind of fixture."

Messi doesn't do wet mondays, only wednesdays.

 

The fullbacks may have been the wrong choice for a visit to Burnley, looking back at it.
Davies is a lot more conservative going forward than Reguilon and Doherty likes to come inside when he joins attacks.
That left us lacking width and Burnley packed the middle, which left us pissing about with the ball for large periods of the match.

 

Act in haste, repent at leisure.

Jose has a long time before the return fixture for pondering
how to emulate the 5-0 of last season rather than of yesterday.

 

Doherty and Davies are probably more naturally defensive minded. The others like to work the channels...it’s their game...but that game wasn’t going to be very affective against a team like Burnley who were all defending...no space to run behind.

it required a different mentality...it also required defenders who are good at heading and happy to stay back.

I get the logic

 

Burnley had a central midfield of Cork and Hendrick for that one, which is a lot more attacking than Westwood and Brownhill.
They left space in front of their back four, which left Kane open to fire one in from 30 yards and the early goal killed their game plan.
That forced them to come out more and a couple of quick breaks killed the game.

 

I can see why he picked Davies as he’s naturally a more defensive player. I think Jose was hoping Doherty would stretch the game more but he’s still adapting I guess. Aurier might have been the better choice in hindsight but we got over the line in the end.

 

Yes you can argue that Davies & Doherty are our conservative fullbacks with Reguilon & Aurier as more gung ho. I would love to be gung ho at Turf Moor and take them apart but Jose was right I think, that was not going to happen and they would not let Son run through them again.
One of the really pleasing aspects was how we played after our goal, it looked a lot more controlled, it seems the memory of West Ham was of some use.

 

I don’t think either side deserved three points to be honest.

We seemingly pondered our play to solely contain Burnley rather than to actually counter them and because of that we produced very, very little. Burnley didn’t have to defend superbly and Pope wasn’t ever really troubled.
Burnley weren’t creating major chances either but they did actually have more shots in total and more on target though.
I felt we set up to be too defensive and it meant we lacked ideas, that was pretty obvious to me after around 25-30 mins. We didn’t need Sissoko and the height factor of Davies wasn’t a necessity, Reguilon would’ve caused a lot more trouble down that left hand side too considering Davies was getting up there a lot.

Kane’s the sole reason we won that much, from two different moments too. If it weren’t for him we’d all be criticising the mentality/ tactics/ selection because that was a really poor performance by the team.

 

Disgraceful! Disgraceful I call it. We are not supposed to get last minute goals.....everyone else is!!!!

 

Well it just seemed like a last minute goal. I had my eyes closed!!!

 

I’m going off the Graun’s stats so may be wrong but I have Burnley at 10 off target/3 on vs our 6/3.

Regardless I agree that the setup wasn’t completely right, Davies perhaps got forward more than he thought he would so Regulion might have given better output. Burnley are superbly well drilled to get into shape and block passes so delivery from the wide positions and any action through the middle have to be on point and neither were for us. That’s partly player execution and partly setup. I’m not saying we we played great but it was a performance I was glad to see after some of our league games this season where we’ve blown wins.

Ultimately we deserved to win the game because in a match of few quality chances, we took our best one and they didn’t. Hopefully Jose has learned that he needs to tweak the setup against teams who will play like Burnley.

 

I'm not so concerned with the dropped points, since you can't win the league in the first six games. The question is whether Spurs will

Before the game I didn't like the choice of fullbacks. I get that Davies and Doherty are taller, and will help more with all the expected crosses. But not having to worry about pace on the edges makes parking the bus easier. I'd rather have at least one of Reguilon and Aurier play every PL game, and often two. In any case, it would be interesting to see how much of a difference Reguilon and Aurier make.

 

Stats on various sites seems to differ, I often use livescore on my phone and their stats seem different to the BBC but even going from memory, the only shot I can genuinely remember at Pope was a tame effort from Lamela (outside of Sonny's header obviously). Burnley weren't creating much but they did have 2 or 3 from outside the box in the first half, which was still more than what we could conjure.

I think if we fielded one or two different players - or made certain changes - we could have caused them a lot more problems because I don't think they defended well like they generally have a reputation of doing, we just gave them very little to do.

I'm still not sure we can say we deserved to win, for sure we took our main chance, they didn't but I think a draw would've been a fair result seeing as both sides contributed to a dreadful game of football in which neither side seemed too intent on actually grabbing a winning goal. Harry Kane literally was the difference, he prevented us from conceding and he done brilliant to assist the winner. For me that was a very AVB-esque type of win, where there's little game plan other than hoping/ relying on someone to produce magic. This one paid off because Harry's in unbelievable form but had he not cleared it off the line or produced that lovely header into Son, this board would be full of ranting today.

 

Yeah Harry was certainly the difference. Even in the tight games he’s a winner and with him and Son together anything can happen. His goal line clearance was more significant than the Burnley defender’s magnificent tackle on Sonny when he was through, though not by much as you’d back Son to score there the form he’s in.

Like I’ve said before, the way Jose set us up wasn’t perfect at all but we just shaded it by the finest margin and ultimately that’s enough to win or lose football matches. Kane is a player capable of match winning performances and sometimes that’s goals and assists and sometimes it’s having a the gut feeling to get back on the line. He’s a marvel and he bailed out the team yesterday which like you say is AVB-esque. Part of that’s luck, sure, but part of it’s also having world class players who can make the difference consistently.

Whether you call it luck or fine margins or whatever is semantics really I guess. Lanzini could hit that shot another 100 times and not get the goal he did against us and we’d all have celebrated a nervy win against West Ham, inquest about the collapse aside. The two goals previously were the annoying ones because that’s football - sometimes a player will bang in a worldie in the final minute against you. Winning consistently is about being systematically good enough to overcome mercurial genius/bad luck with officials/whatever you want to call it enough of the time to make it count.

 

Pass map time

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Oh boy, where to start

* The thick slugs between Hojbjerg/Davies and Hojbjerg/Dier tell the story more than anything else, as there were a lot of passes but no penetration at all, which begs the question about how different this would have looked if Ndombele was in the pivot and Lo Celso at the tip of midfield
* Kane playing not only deeper than Son but also as deep as Ndombele and Lucas is clearly not right
* Lucas receiving as many passes as Lloris also clearly doesn't look right
* Lucas is back to being a vortex where the ball goes in, but never comes back out
* On the flip side, Doherty linking up with Sissoko means that the right flank isn't the Bermuda Triangle it often was last season with the Lucas/Aurier pairing down that flank
* All the talk of our FBs not pushing high enough is short of the mark, given they tended to receive the ball in the opposition half. The issue is that so much of their passing was sideways
* This also shows an issue with Davies, however: his game is to bridge the gap between defence and midfield, which you can see here with the back-and-forth with Hojbjerg. The problem is that, in games where opponents sit back, bringing midfield into the game works if you have a CM who can unlock that defence - but a Hojbjerg/Sissoko pivot is going to lead to percentage plays, which takes us back to questions about Ndombele in the pivot and Lo Celso at the tip of midfield

On the other hand, Burnley's pass map says something...

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Nobody passing to Moura seems to be something of a theme, for some reason.