Having an attacking manager is certainly a plus. My only hope for this year is entertainment, and it looks like this squad and this manager may just be able to manage that. A Skipp-Maddison-Sarr midfield makes 4-3 games a lot more likely. I'm all for that. Spurs don't have the quality of young players a club in their circumstances should, but they do have more than I knew about. Udogie, Sarr, Solomon and Scarlett should provide some interest. Nice, professional showing from Kane. I honestly think Spurs would be 10 points better this year simply by putting Richarlison on a plane to Pago Pago and keeping him there. Not only does he not produce, he's a ball hog who puts both Son and Kulusevski off their games.
I suspect Levy is on the WUM for any club that has had Pep the false messiah as manager, that dares to bid for Kane (a serious bid from Barca to confirm) .
Hello rwaeb. Is the list out yet (or are the BBC waiting for the charity shield game to finish before publishing it) ??
Agree with the rest, but not this. He had a really good first half I thought, particularly getting into the 6 yard box. He maybe tired 2nd half, but so did my stream, so I only saw 50% of it!
I think on reflection what I saw was the result of having two midfielders who are much of muchness in a system that, and I speak personally, I don't yet see what it wants from its CMs. Different to Conte and Maureen who used their CMs in clear roles but had players who weren't suited to them. I'm not sure what the roles are in the first place, and was especially confused in the first half due to the FBs continuously drifting infield to play on the CMs laps.
The last time we beat a European team scoring 5 in the process the week before a season started we ended up with 2 points from our first 8 games... just saying
This is what I meant about the FBs, its something I've never seen before to this extent. They are clearly being told to push up and central when we're in possession and the knock on effect is that things become very narrow but tbh the quicker pace and speed of passing meant it didn't seem as congested as such a system should. The other knock on effect was that the second nominal CM pushed forward, which is how Sarr had around 3 good chances to score - he was taking up positions within comfortable shooting distance. I have my reservations about this if we insist on it too stubbornly as whilst it compensates for a lack of proper DMs (and currently: CBs too) and makes us much harder to break down through the central channels, it does leave us short on width everywhere on the pitch and better teams will ignore the channels and look to get behind us from wide positions, which iirc is how we've conceded the majority of goals so far in pre season. One solution to this is to sign a CB who is commanding in the air - Davies and Romero are most certainly not - but that still leaves a lot to chance and still leaves us short of wider options in the final third - Kulu took a while to get into the game while Son, albeit busy, still looks like his version of last season.
More I watch that Scarlett goal the more I realise it’s a *chef’s kiss* finish, especially as it’s on his weaker foot. Mentioned it during the game too but the save from Vicario and then shortly after getting down to snatch the ball out of the Shakhtar player’s feet was really good keeping. He needed that, hadn’t looked too confident in his other two appearances and I’m hoping doing that in front of our fans will have been a nice confidence booster. Still not sure he’s a modern GK with regards to ball playing ability though.
Watched the game back, as I missed most of it yesterday. A few takeaways - we look more coherent down the left, particularly in the first half. Maddison and Destiny are proper players and Sonny makes for a nice trio down that side. Gio and Solomon look like capable understudies too - down the right it’s a little more of a work in progress. Kulu looked really menacing second half but is clearly still finding form. Sarr gets into all the right positions and works his arse off but his choice and execution of passes and shots needs some work. Emerson similar to Sarr. They’ll get there though and the return of Bentancur will help too on the right - Hojbjerg impressed me as a 6, aside from booting the ball before Shakhtar’s goal. Showed more discipline than I’ve come to expect from him, I always think he can be guilty of following the ball a bit too much. If he stays, he and Biss are going to be a nice choice for Ange to make - overall our play is quite varied. You get the Ange patterns between the FB, 8 and winger on each side, but we also saw Kane roam a bit, and Maddison drop for the ball and pop up on the right sometimes. I think it’s nice to have this variation within the structure - Davies will play valiantly at LCB but VdV’s integration can’t come soon enough. His pace and height are going to be a nice upgrade. It’s shaping up to be encouraging. The big body of work now needs to be on getting players out of the squad. The starting XI for now looks pretty set, with who plays 6 and the LCB (basically will VdV be ready in time for Brentford) the main questions at this point.
I'd keep Davies as a squad player, but I don't think he's suited to playing centre-half in a 2/4. He may have more joy playing left-back under Postecoglou, but Udogie should nail that place down.
Ange seems to be a big fan, as has pretty much every manager who has ever worked with him. I’d be very nervous about having him as a CB in a 2 so it makes sense that we’re looking at recruiting VdV and another who can play both sides. Hopefully we can ship Reggie out and I imagine Sess would be on the move if he hadn’t got injured again.
Phillips travelled to Spain with the squad. Be nice to see him get some minutes but it's doubtful, we'll probably allow the comedy double act the full 90. Watched a couple vids on Phillips though, so I'm obviously an expert now, a lot more technical than I was expecting and seems to have a solid burst of pace too which I think is a necessity for an Ange CB considering he tends to like them being near the halfway line when we're in possession.
Tonight's rather ****ty venue: Barca will be playing there for the foreseeable future while the Nou Camp is renovated. The other goal is down there... somewhere...
I’ll be interested to see Gio starting and whether Skipp gets a go at 6 with Biss as an 8. It’s curious that Hojbjerg seems to have jumped the pecking order at 6 despite Bissouma’s strong showings in early pre-season and the rumours about PEH’s future.
