You have to assume in these games that the underdog is gonna play out of their skin... why take that chance, if Conte wants to win, then start taking these games bloody seriously.
Ah well lads, chin up. At least we can all watch some life size Scalextric under the stadium. Could be worse.
I can understand why people are criticising the players and they all deserve some of it. The problem is we look like this a lot of the time with our first XI. The tactics and system are ****, the coaching's virtually non-existent and we don't use our squad. We stick with players for every game, then chuck in people that haven't played for months. They're going to be rusty and devoid of confidence. They're going to be ****. We don't have a playmaker, we lack leaders and we basically set out to nullify the opposition. We don't have the defenders to play like that, so it doesn't work. We've also got nobody protecting them, as we don't have a holding midfielder. We're set up to fail.
Son needs a month off, he's had numerous chances to snap out of the poor form. I think he needs to rest and rebuild his game & confidence slowly but surely.
Agreed. I love Sonny but he’s had so many opportunities to start games and pull himself out of his rut, and it’s not working. Danjuma at the weekend please.
With Richarlison half this board knew that’d be the case before he kicked a ball. I’d say even some of those who’ve tried remaining impartial and positive about him secretly had their doubts. And I’ll even go on a whim and say that those who wanted him, liked him more for his antics than his actual footballing ability. He has no - and I stress no - enviable attributes that our other players don’t already possess. With Lucas I wouldn’t say he was a shadow of his former self, this has just generally been his level of performance for Spurs in his 5 years. Flashes of skill but almost no end product. He’s lived off of Amsterdam and some. Sonny I’m just genuinely gutted about. As everyone else does - I ****ing love the bloke - but something’s gone from him this season, confidence is clearly shot and that’s contributing but it’s more than that for me, it’s as if he aged a bit too much over the summer, the sharpness just isn’t there, I think he’s lost a yard of his usual blistering pace and his agility to weave in and out has also decreased. He has so much credit in the bank though that he’s owed it from other players to carry him for a spell, because I’m surprised that he and Kane’s backs aren’t broken from the amount they’ve carried us over the years.
Sanchez has hopefully played his last game for us. Forster is a poor back up keeper imho. Should never have been beaten with that shot. Son is so still out of form and should not of started ahead of Danjuma. Perisic was awful...I know the bloke could/should have been sent off for the tackle on him but after that it was like he had that tackle in his head...for such an experienced player that's poor. Hoejberg looked off the pace. Richarlison put in a car crash of a performance. That their keeper didn't have to make a save says a lot as does my lack of surprise that we performed this way. Away support was fantastic.
With Lucas I mean physically. Tonight he looked so far off the pace, quite literally, like he was slower. He’s always been so committed and I wonder if he’s played through some knocks in the past that have caught up with him after his long layoff. Sonny just looks a different player. Like you say, another that seems to be a hard slower, and his touch has largely disappeared. Along with his decision making. Just been awful all season. I don’t really understand what our tactics with the ball are. Off the ball it’s pretty easy to work out and often works when individual errors don’t happen. But with the ball, if we can’t score within the first 1 or 2 phases of play we just recycle the ball and are ****ed. I don’t understand it at all. There were a few games at the turn of the year (think Palace) where we saw the front 3 getting really near each other and the interchanges and combinations helping us once we’d had the ball for a while, but it’s not happening any more.
I’d seriously consider selling him in the summer. He’s not getting younger and has been at the club for so long that it’s probably time for a change.
Can't disagree with much of that, although I'd marginally defend Forster. after all, we've been quite happy to have a No 1 who gets regularly beaten at his near post! Must be trained that way!
I said on Sunday that we'd need battlers, not bottlers tonight. Unfortunately we got the latter. Dreadful, inept and frankly half-assed performance. They should donate their weeks wages to charity.
The obvious issue is nobody in midfield has the "**** it, I'll do it myself" attitude that we need, hence they're very good at moving the ball through the passing combinations but we lack somebody who will take on his man and drive up the pitch 15-20 yards to create some space (or, to look at it another way, reduce the space between our midfield and frontline) Bissouma could have been a player who would do this, if we didn't persist with him playing in the deepest role when we played 352 like an ersatz Kante, and we lack the midfield assassin necessary to make him this when we play 343
Other than perhaps tiring towards the end I didn’t really see anything lacking from the usual Lucas to be honest. He was committed as per, he just lacks quality. He’s lacked it for years but somehow our managers tend to class him as a key player yet will say Gil isn’t ready and seemingly brought in Danjuma just to wum Everton. I’m gonna give Son the benefit of the doubt that it’s just a bad season. We knew eventually his pace would decline anyway but all in all just about everything he’s done has been bad. Still though, as I’ve said, he has more than enough credit in the bank from me. In terms of tactics and management, now we’re out of the one cup we had a genuine chance of winning, I’m just wishing away the season and hope we make some wholesale changes in the summer, both management and players. The wins under Conte are rarely enjoyable and the losses are disastrous and I’m frankly sick of some players continuously donning our shirt.
I'm not blaming him, but.... Win percentage when Perisic starts this season: 44%. 40% loss rate. 11 wins, 4 draws, 10 losses. Win percentage when Perisic doesn't start this season: 73%. 18% loss. 8 wins, 1 draw, 2 losses.
As soon as I saw the team before the game, I knew spurs were complacent. At this stage we should have started with our strongest team. Not one single player excelled tonight. We deserved to lose. We were ponderous, laboured and simply shocking. Shame on them all.
Acually this might be a great result for Spurs... Now all we need to do is continue playing like we did tonight against Milan next week... get our asses handed back to us in a spliff and then we can concentrate on getting 5th spot in the league. Fantastic.
