I said before the game I had severe reservations about Forster...the guy couldn't get into an utterly crap Southampton side that conceded goals for fun for two years running. On what planet was he good enough to be a backup to Hugo? And now we're stuck with the lumbering oaf for the best part of two months.
No way. Playing Emerson was the safer bet. Trust me, I'm not a fan of his after one good game, but playing a week old signing, with no PL experience, from the start was mind-bogglingly stupid.
Tottenham assistant boss Cristian Stellini to BBC Sport: "Our approach to the game was not really bad. We scored. We had an advantage in that moment. Our game changed completely. "We struggled a lot, we suffered, we lost after the goal 10 or 12 tackles. We’re disappointed. We have to apologise because our performance wasn’t good enough. The last game was a great win. We have to be consistent in our performance. Our approach was not bad but we struggled too much. We’re disappointed. "If you look afterwards you find something bad in every goal [in general]. Their first goal was a great goal. The second ball in a set-piece was good. But you have to continue to play like we started the game. We have lost too many tackles, too many duels. This comes from strength inside of you. We have to apologise we didn’t show today. "It happened also last season after we beat Manchester City, we lost against Burnley. It’s not changing. We want to change. We have to work on this aspect. You have to change this. That has to come from inside of you, inside of the team. You have to show the desire. Today only in the start of the game we showed this. Maybe we thought it was an easy game but it's never an easy game." last paragraph sums the club up
It's as if signing Porro for exactly the same amount but a month earlier might have given him a head start to adapt to the league. Maybe. It's a radical idea, I know.
Have no idea how he considered Porro would be up to speed but Bissouma (signed from a good prem club where he played week in week out) still ain't ffs
I'm done with Conte's tactical decisions and selections. Wouldn't complain if the football were good or even the results were consistent but we are miles off either being satisfactory. It's just simple, bleedingly obvious things like not dropping a player who just put in his best performance for the club, replacing him with a new signing. Playing a 2 man midfield against a team who play on the front foot when you know that due to circumstances outside of your control, the defence and GK behind them is severely weakened...so maybe give them more protection by playing either a 3 man midfield or a flat back 4? There is clearly zero tactical dexterity whatsoever and when changes are made, they are too often counter-intuitive and have most fans thoroughly confused. He is a one trick pony whose trick worked in less competitive leagues but not any more. We are too easy to play against and lack the quality to override the disadvantage Conte's tactics put us in. Because that's by and large what I've seen since he joined apart from a few pockets of games here and there. We start every game tactically hamstrung and occasionally have the individual quality to overcome that handicap. But as soon as we have 2 or 3 players out, we revert to simply being handicapped and prone to suffer the humiliation of this afternoon. His contract expires in just over 4 months while his DoF and right hand man might soon be on gardening leave for 2 years. There is so much uncertainty hovering over the club, is it any wonder we are wildly uncertain on the pitch too?
Interesting reading ... if it's any consolation, I suspect we'll also give a good account against your top 4 rivals ... balance in the side is now right with the 3 new boys coming in and we are just about up to a fully fit complement with Pereira, Ndidi, Evans, Soumare and Bertrand all back in full training thus week ... 8 goals in 2 weeks ain't bad at all ... good luck for the rest of the season
Again, I missed today's match (instead spent it with the unironic living personification of a Fast Show character...) but I can't help but think what I said a couple of months ago about how Conte is giving me Villas-Boas vibes Last season there seemed to be a consensus between Conte and players about how we would play, so while the system was similar to his at Chelsea the players were playing the game how they tend to play - much like Villas-Boas' first season with us This season it feels like Conte is saying "I'm in charge now" and players are expected to play like cogs in Conte's system regardless of how they tend to play - much like Villas-Boas' second season with us It certainly can be said that there's been games this season where players honestly look like they're concentrating on what the tactics are and that's slowing them down because a small voice at the back of their mind that sounds uncannily like Conte yells "No, do this" so in the space of half a second the player's brain tells them one thing and then the interference from what Conte wants gives them mixed messages It's not the first time where we've seen tactics drown a player's thoughts, as similar could be seen under Santini, Ramos, Villas-Boas and the ubermensch - and the problem is that, if your management can be compared to theirs, you're on track to losing your job sooner rather than later Most damning is how Stellini & Mason seemed to get the players play Conte's system better than Conte does last week - and while that can be handwaved as a fluke given Nuno also pocketed them last season, but it does have to be said there seemed a better balance of pressing and sitting last week than at any point this season
Just watched Gil put in a MOTM performance for Sevilla and the other day a comp of Spence’s highlights on his debut showed his qualities. “Not ready” though Conte says. Get ****ed, pal.
As I said after the Preston game, the only players we had on the pitch who actually ran at defenders were Gil, Danjuma and Skipp - and since that match Gil's been loaned out, while time will tell if Conte's tactics will beat that out of Danjuma by the end of the season
For all the talk of 2016-17, I find myself pondering how much of it was due to Conte, and how much was due to Hazard deciding to actually be a professional and do his job all season rather than as the disgrace of 2015-15.
Just a thought: Mason, with Stellini as his assistant It's probably not a surprise that we've played our best football and punched above our weight when our coaching setup can roughly be described as Good Cop Bad Cop, for example Harry Redknapp had Joe Jordan while Poch had Jesus Perez, while since then we keep seeming to have Bad Cop Bad Cop with the ubermensch and Joao Sacramento as the most obvious example
That season, Chelsea lost more games than us, scored fewer and conceded more. We also played better football for much of the season. Tellingly, they had no European football and dropped out of the Carabao cup early on. He struggles with juggling multiple competitions due to a fixation on playing a narrow group of players. Their squad had a far better balance for the wing-back system than ours currently does. Adding Kante and Alonso the summer prior was critical to their success. In Luiz, Azpilicueta and Cahill, they had three CBs who were prone to errors but also very comfortable playing out from the back. We only really have Romero capable of that, Davies/Lenglet to a lesser extent. Alonso gave them a very strong option at LWB, while the Kante-Matic pivot was rock solid and in its absolute prime. Hazard gave them the stardust that compensated for the fact that Costa wasn't a prolific goalscorer, while Willian and Pedro chipped in with goals at a fair clip to do just enough to turn a bunch of draws into wins (something we failed to do that season). There is a certain irony in Chelsea's decision to sack him after 2017/18. Granted, they missed out on CL football, but Conte showed for perhaps the first time in his career that he was getting to grips with juggling multiple competitions. They of course won the FA cup, reached the semis of the Carabao and the last 16 of the CL, losing to Barca. Replacing him with Sarri and then Lampard was, with hindsight, an astoundingly dumb and short-sighted decision. Given another transfer window and more time, he might have built a legacy on par with Mourinho's first stint there.
With Sess out for at least six weeks with a hamstring injury, can Conte please consider switching to a 433 While it can be said that playing 433 would make our playing out of the back somewhat predictable as we'd have to play asymmetrical FBs with Porro at RB and Davies at LB, a midfield three of Skipp, Sarr and Hojbjerg* does have similarities to Napoli's trio of Anguissa, Lobotka and Zielinski as they're both rock solid at screening their back line and also more than capable of getting the ball out wide to Lozano and Kvaratskhelia to shred defences - and, if we actually have a sniff of this thing called "luck" we have bentancur to come in ...yes, you might have noticed I didn't suggest Alfie Devine coming in, we all know Conte can budge on one thing per season * Not for the next match, given he's suspended
This should be the crest of our club under Levy... please log in to view this image ...by the time we get the players to the club that the coach requested, the coach is long since gone... "Two centre halves please Daniel..."
To me, this is looking like the equivalent of Chelsky 2017-18. That did not end well for them that season regarding a PL top 4 slot.
Being a Spurs fan and having had to time to watch and assess various types of managers at the club, as well as analysing situations elsewhere, I think there's a fair assumption to say that different managers are just suited to different levels of management. Managers like Conte, Jose, Pep, Ancelotti etc are the types you bring in if your club is expected to win major honours either because they have a country's wealth or are already the best team in the land. They can handle the expectations and they know the one or two big money signings required to almost ensure success. Then you have managers like Poch, Klopp, Nagelsmann, Galtier, Emery etc who are the types to manage clubs who are hopeful but not expectant of any silverware whilst trying to achieve continental qualification and are therefore capable of improving multiple players to up their games (often younger ones with potential) to help the team go from pretenders to contenders, Klopp especially is a master of this, as he's achieved some of the very best silverware at both Pool and Dortmund. Arteta may fall into this too bracket too. Then you have managers that can help teams expected to do relatively little punch well above their weight and begin to dream of continental qualification; Potter, De Zerbi, Frank, Gasperini etc do just that by improving the style of play despite working with restricted budgets and often rely on great scouting to benefit from both stylistically and eventually financially to reinvest back into the club to maintain steady improvement. There are many more managers that fit into these categories and I'd say the large majority of them are unable to do what those in other brackets are capable of but it's why I don't think anyone in the top category is necessary better than those in the middle or bottom ones, they're just simply better at others things, they all are. We're seeing Potter struggle with the expectations at Chelsea, Poch never set the world alight with PSG, Conte and Jose both struggled with us and Nagelsmann has had his critics at Bayern. Whether it be before the season ends or once it has ended, Conte should leave and the club needs to start being more methodical with their choice of managerial appointments. A Poch return may or may not be the best thing depending on what side of the fence you sit but he probably makes more sense than many other candidates, one thing's for sure though, we need to steer clear from managers with primarily a defence-first outlook because unless you have the best defenders available (which we absolutely do not! ) the style of football won't work long term and we also need to steer clear from managers who are reluctant and even incapable of improving players, especially younger ones, because a club like us generally need to unearth or develop some gems in order to compete with bigger clubs.
The word is that we're appointing a Portuguese DoF, if/when Paratici leaves us. No doubt, he'll want a Portuguese coach... ...and we all know the rest.
It's hard to say how much of a say he's had at Benfica as it sounds like Rui Costa makes a lot of the decisions but he's classed as a director/ talent spotter I think and has likely been involved with the sales of Nunez and Fernandez which has netted Benfica over £200m over the last 7 or so months. They hired Roger Schmidt this season too, so he might be open to the non-Portuguese manager route, lol. Apparently Chelsea looked at him before signing the two they recently did, so he might know a thing or two, albeit he hasn't been in the game too long so doesn't have much of a lengthy track record to make too much of a judgement on. If Paratici's ban is extended world wide though, we'll need a new DoF and I'd rather take the punt on Rui Pedro Braz than let Levy back in charge of footballing matters.
