Postecoglou & Lange (& Paratici) Watch

Bale?

 

Eriksen. Then he forgot how to do it, for some reason.

 

Robbo?

 

I think Eriksen when he first joined. Trained that **** out of him though.

 

For sure, for sure this aspect we have to work, to improve. It’s not easy,” he said.

“It’s not easy because you have to work every day and you have to breathe winning mentality every day and you don’t invent this, the winning mentality. It’s impossible to invent.

“It’s impossible to pay (for). Because it doesn’t cost. No money for winning mentality. But I think you have to take the right people, to bring this into the club.

“The winning mentality, you must breath every day. You have to start every day with this type of mentality.

“You have to start to think about football for many hours of your life to improve results, to win. To start to think that ‘OK, I want to win but I know that it means sacrifice, it means to suffer’.

“It means to work very hard. And if you start to think in this way, it means that you want to become a winner. Otherwise you continue to stay at your medium level.

Bye bye Dele for starters

 

An excerpt from a long but very interesting article on The Athletic site...

https://theathletic.com/2935946/202...-die-what-its-like-to-play-for-antonio-conte/

"... there are lots of sprinting and physical exercises under Conte. He does not put so much of an emphasis on gym work — he wants his players to be lean so his players can run more, rather than bulk up. He will try to slim them down and get them to peak fitness, similar to how Mauricio Pochettino used to."

That's another pet peeve going to be addressed. A number of our players look over developed across the shoulders and chests, like they've been overdoing the weights. This applies particularly to Eric Dier who moves like a heavy weight boxer in the latter rounds of a fight, but also to a number of the other English players like Dele and Winks (at times)

It really hasn't done Dier, Winks or Dele any favours. The latter 2 show very little by way of physical strength for the added weight and muscle mass and Eric Dier's lost a great deal of the athleticism he had when we signed him.

 

...at the end of a long and largely unsuccessful career....

 

It does have to be said that the likes of Dier and Winks clearly packed on muscle under Poch, for example you look at Dier in his first season with us and in 2018-19 and there's at least 1/3 more Dier, and similar can be said for Winks and Dele who were waiflike in their early appearances but a couple of years ago they were both ripped

It is worth asking if, as the team were being pushed further and further back on the pitch after Dembele's decline even towards the end of the 2017-18 season, if this was a decision by Poch to make players physically tougher or, and this is a hunch, if this is something coming from The FA about what they want England players to be like

 

I suspect this fitness thing is crucial. Spurs have looked below top fitness for some time now. I have noticed them blowing hard after a 20 yard run with the ball, Kane in particular. That cannot be right. I have read tales from the Jose camp that he was not hot on fitness training, that's very surprising if true. Upper body muscle building cannot be as important as agility and speed. Son and Reguilon are both examples of this kind of build, of course they are both wingers where that kind of build is essential. Lucas is classic inside forward , low centre of gravity and Kane is classic centre forward build. When we get to midfield it's more complex with perhaps only Skipp as the ideal.

This is an area that needs attention and Conte's attention to detail is no doubt why he is a top manager.

 

In that purple patch we had under Conte from September 2016 - December 2016 most of those games we won on fitness alone. The City (A) was probably the best example of that, we rode our luck for sure but had that match gone on another 5-10 minutes we'd have won 6-1.

Mourinho in our 2nd spell was the total opposite. We started games strong but faded. Even with 10 men PSG looked fitter and sharper than us in our CL tie and Bradford (albeit running on adrenaline) were the same.

I don't know how Conte will work out at THFC but one thing I'm certain of is you'll start to finish games strongly.

 

https://t.co/AfqAhcvQrk

Excellent stuff. ‘Time to stop being ****.’

 

We were similar under Poch. So many late goals during his era which more often than not were simply the reward for perserverence and a willingness to run until the bitter end.

One of the things that pissed me off no end under Maureen and Nuno was how we spent pretty much the whole game camped in our own half, playing sideways passes at walking pace, yet by the 75th minute looked totally fecked. It's a chicken/egg question but I struggle to believe some managers are purposefully negligent in training or under work the players. I think it's more a case of a player turning up to training every day thinking what's the point in killing myself if when it comes to match day I won't really leave the same patch of grass unless we have a corner? After a while, that adds up until a once elite athlete can barely climb the stairs leading up to the tunnel.

 

I hope Ndombele gets heavily fined for that booking today, it was just plain f***ing stupid

 

I feel like you are describing our 14/15 2nd leg against PSG.

 

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You can't say risking his serial winner record with Spurs isn't daring. So maybe Conte is at the right club.

 

I couldn't call him naive, he's nobody's fool and won't tolerate less than 100% commitment from everyone around him, owners included, yet he obviously sees something in us.

In the summer, it's said that Conte was Paratici's pick and you don't have to think for very long to see that Nuno was an appointment motivated by desperate need, lack of time and no viable, quality alternatives. Paratici knows Conte and what he brings is obvious but he also knows that his demands for financial commitment in the backing of HIS judgment is an essential.

Given our decline over the last 3 years across all fronts, especially in recruitment and squad building and the fact that we ****ed up appointing him before, one can only surmise that he's been sold a vision of a huge change in focus and commitment to the business of being a successful football team. So, what is that change, where's it come from and why now? The answers to those questions hold the answer as to whether Conte's completely lost his marbles or made a smart move.

ENIC haven't suddenly become committed to sporting excellence for its own sake. They're a business and they'll only be spending money, if they see a return. In the immediate future, sporting failure and a return to mid-table mediocrity will result in an emptier stadium, less sales of merch, etc. It will also result in sponsorships losing value, as we're currently out of the 2 major European competitions and the gravy train they represent...but so much more than that, a return to mediocrity will endanger the club's likelihood of inclusion in the European Super League, when it rears its ugly head again.

ENIC will be desperate to keep themselves inside the group of clubs plotting for a Super League. I think that desire also explains Arsenal's finding of a transfer budget of £150m this summer, when by all rights, their lack of European football should have seen them spend nothing like that. Additionally, a couple of people have suggested to me that increasingly Joe Lewis' daughter is picking up the reins of the Tavistock Group and Levy's days of having a free hand and running Spurs as his own personal fiefdom are coming to an end.

We can only hope that it's true and that means that Conte is right to commit to us.